Girl Meets Ghost (14 page)

Great. Now I'm getting a reputation. A reputation as a scary stalker girl.

“It's okay,” Daniella says when she sees them staring at me. “I'll be gone in a couple hours, and then you won't even have to deal with this anymore.”

“Thanks,” I say. I don't think this is going to be as easy as she thinks, but I'm surprised to realize that I actually
will
miss her when she's gone. Yeah, she's been annoying, but
she hasn't been that bad—as far as ghosts go, anyway. And she did give me some very fab ideas for how to do my hair. And besides, once she's gone, who knows who's going to show up? It might be Brandon's mom.

“Hey, Kendall!” Someone calls my name, and I look up to see Jen standing at the bottom of the bleachers, waving up at me.

“Yay!” Daniella says. “Look, she likes you now! Now let's get this over with.” She cartwheels down the bleachers and onto the gym floor.

“Hi,” I say, looking at Jen and pretending like I'm not there to stalk her. “You looked really great out there. Your back somersaults were amazing.” This, at least, is true. I've totally been reading up on gymnastics and working on getting the lingo down.

“Thanks.” She looks down and pushes the toe of her sneaker into the gym floor. “Listen, can I talk to you for a second?”

I'm surprised. And a little nervous. Is she going to threaten to get a restraining order or something? My dad would so not like that. I'd definitely be grounded. How would I explain that one to Brandon? “Sorry, Brandon. I can't hang out for a while. I'm grounded for stalking that girl from the gymnastics meet.”

“Sure,” I tell Jen. I take a deep breath, then get up and follow her out into the hall, around the corner, and into
the locker room. It's empty, I guess because the gymnastics team has their own separate sports locker room. This one must just be used for gym class. And it smells like it too. Eww.

“So listen,” Jen says, sighing and pushing her hair back from her face. “I don't want to be rude or anything, because I'm sure you're a very nice girl. But you're starting to freak me out a little bit.”

“What do you mean?” I wrinkle up my forehead and cock my head to the side, like I'm confused. I'm trying to look innocent, but of course I know what she means. That I'm, like, her stalker. No, not
like
her stalker. I pretty much
am
her stalker.

“I mean you keep showing up at all my gymnastics stuff. And I did some research on you, and I found out that you don't even
do
gymnastics.”

“You checked up on me?” I exclaim.

“Yeah.” She plops her bag down onto one of the benches, and then pulls out a hoodie. She slides her arms into it and then zips it up. “You're not the only one that can find out things about people, you know. Google and Facebook are available to everyone.”

Crap. I knew I should have set my Facebook page to private.

Daniella, who is now apparently starting to realize that things aren't going to go as smoothly as she hoped, starts
to have a meltdown. “Tell her you
are
into gymnastics!” she says. “I'll help you! Go on, tell her you like to vault. I'll feed you the information!”

But I know this won't help. It's time to come clean.

“Jen,” I say, “I'm sorry if I've freaked you out in any way. The thing is, you're right. I'm not a gymnast.”

“What are you
doing
?” Daniella yells. She tries to slap me on the back, but of course her arm just goes floating right through me. “Don't tell her that! She's not going to believe anything you say now.”

“Then what are you doing?” Jen asks, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Her eyes dart to the door, like she's making sure she has a clear path in case she needs to escape. “Why are you obsessed with Daniella?”

“I'm not.” I take a deep breath. “Daniella and I were friends.”

Jen looks at me incredulously. “You were friends?”

“Yes,” I say, “and I . . . I wanted to come and tell you something that I thought Daniella would want you to know.”

“You're lying!” Daniella shrieks. “We weren't friends. God, if you were going to just lie anyway, you should have kept going with the thing about you being a gymnast.” She thinks about it. “Although, this could work.” She nods. “Go on.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

“Like what?” Jen asks. Her face is kind of turning now
from being scared to being a little . . . nervous. Almost like she knows what's coming.

“Like she wanted you to know that she's sorry for stealing Travis from you.”

Jen's face goes white, and she drops her bag onto the floor. “How did you know about that?”

“I told you,” I say, “we were friends.”

“And she
told
you that?”

“Yes,” I say. “She was really upset about it. She, um, wished it had never happened.” This, at least, isn't a lie.

“It's true,” Daniella says to Jen. “I shouldn't have done that. I'm so, so, so sorry.” Her voice, just a second ago screechy and annoying, is now soft and apologetic.

“She didn't really steal him,” Jen says, chewing on her lip. “She . . . I mean, she . . .” She sighs, then shakes her head and starts over. “She didn't really take him. We had broken up.” She looks down at her hands. “It was kind of a gray area, I guess.”

“Not really,” Daniella whispers, even though she told me before that it
was
a gray area. “I knew she still liked him.”

“Well, she felt really bad,” I say.

“Why did she tell you about it?” Jen asks. She's looking at me, her green eyes serious.

“Why did she tell me about it?” Good question.

“Yeah. I mean, no offense, but you're in middle school. I doubt you would have a ton of advice for her about boys.”

At first I'm kind of insulted, because hello, I have a kind of, sort of boyfriend. I wonder if I should tell her this. But then I realize she's obviously right, and that I'd be totally out of my element when it comes to this stuff. Not to mention that my kind of, sort of boyfriend's mom keeps showing up and, like, haunting me, and I'm so nervous he's going to think I'm a crazy person that I can never relax. I'm definitely not really on the right track when it comes to dating.

I look at Daniella for help, but she just shrugs her shoulders. Great.

“I don't know why she told me,” I say. “Um, maybe she figured it was safe? She knew that I didn't know anyone she knew, so it wasn't like I could tell anyone, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jen says. For a second I think she's going to believe me. She looks down at the floor, thinking. But then she looks back up and says, “How did you know Daniella?”

“How did I know her?”

“Yeah, like how did you guys meet?”

“Umm . . .” I try to remember if I ever told her how I knew Daniella, but then I realize that of course I didn't, since up until a few minutes ago, I was still pretending Daniella and I were strangers. “Our families were really close,” I decide.

“Funny,” Jen says. “We were best friends for a long time, and she never mentioned you. And I don't remember seeing you at the funeral.”

Uh-oh. “I didn't go to the funeral,” I say. “My, uh, parents thought I was too young to see something so traumatic.” Totally plausible!

“Right.” She picks her bag up and hefts it over her shoulder. “Look, whatever happened between me and Daniella, it . . . it doesn't matter anymore. And honestly, it's really upsetting to talk about it. So I'd appreciate it if you just left me alone.” She starts walking toward the door. She's leaving!

“Wait!” I yell desperately. “Daniella was always talking to me about some kind of digging. Do you know anything about that?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she yells over her shoulder. “But I'm going to tell my mom about you. And if you show up here again, I'm going to call the police.” And then she walks out.

“Why am I still here?” Daniella demands, looking down at herself. “You told her I was sorry, so WHY. AM. I. STILL. HERE?”

I sigh. “Either she didn't believe me,” I say, sitting down on the bench and putting my head in my hands, “or there's a lot more to the story.”

Well. I guess that
didn't go very well. I mean, anytime someone threatens to call law enforcement on you, it's definitely not good. Not to mention that I thought I had the mystery all figured out, only to find out I have more work to do. I'm so upset that when I get home, I take a shower and then spend two hours putting my hair into a million little braids. It takes forever, but with my hands occupied, my mind has a chance to calm down.

“Let's eat out tonight,” I say to my dad at dinnertime. “I feel like getting out of the house.” The weather has been getting a little colder lately, and before we know it, it's going to be winter, and then I'll never get out of here. My dad, even though he's this big, burly guy, likes to hibernate in
the winter, spending most of his time reading books in front of the fireplace or playing games on his iPad. He hates the snow.

“Sounds good,” he says.

So we go to the Château, my fave Italian restaurant, which has the yummiest chicken Alfredo. We order cheesy garlic bread and talk about my dad's work and how I'm doing better in math, and it's actually a really nice time, just what I need to distract myself from all the ghost and boy drama that's been going on.

We even get tiramisu for dessert, but then, just as I'm thinking of ordering another Shirley Temple, a voice rings out over the dining room.

“Bob! And Kennnddalll! What a surprise!” I turn around to see Cindy Pollack barreling toward us. And okay, she's not really barreling, because hello, she's tiny. But anytime I see Cindy, it really does look like she's barreling, because I don't want her anywhere near me.

“Hi, Cindy,” my dad says. He shoots me a look over the table. A look that says to be nice.

“Hi, Cindy,” I say politely. I wonder if she's now switched over to full-blown stalker mode. I mean, there's no way she could have known we were here, since it was a totally last-minute thing. But maybe she was waiting outside our house, just sitting there in her car, waiting to follow us if we went somewhere. Things like that really do happen. Ellie's
dad is a psychiatrist, and one time one of his patients totally started stalking him and would even go through his trash when they put it out on the curb. My dad should really stop leading Cindy on. She's so obviously in love with him. “We were just finishing up,” I say pointedly, but she doesn't get the hint.

“Oooh, tiramisu,” she says. “I love tiramisu.”

“Me too,” I say. “I always eat the whole piece. By myself.”

“Would you like to join us?” my dad asks.

“I don't want to intrude,” Cindy says as she sits down. Which is ridiculous, because if she didn't want to intrude, she could have just left. Which means that she
did
want to intrude and was just saying that she didn't.

She reaches over and grabs a fork off the table (why didn't the waitress clear those extra place settings when we sat down? Her tip is so going down) and then takes a bite of our dessert.

“Yum,” Cindy says. I sigh. “So, Kendall,” she continues, “how was your date the other night?”

“It was good,” I say, thawing a little bit because it was nice of her to remember. And also because it was her idea to let me go, and if she'd said no, who knows what my dad would have said?

“So who is this boy?”

“His name's Brandon,” I say, my face getting all red.

“Is it serious?”

On the other side of the booth, my dad shifts and looks uncomfortable. “It's not serious,” he says. “They're only in seventh grade.”

What's that supposed to mean? That just because I'm young, I can't be in love? I mean, I'm not in love with Brandon, but still. I don't want to think that the thing with Brandon doesn't mean anything.

“Things are going great,” I say. It's a halfway lie, of course. Things are going sort of great. Besides the fact that his mom keeps showing up. And that I spotted that green paper in his backpack. And that even though Ellie and Kyle are boyfriend-girlfriend, Brandon and I are nowhere near being official.

“They are?” My dad seems surprised.

“Yeah,” I say, taking some more tiramisu. “Why do you seem surprised?” Aren't your parents supposed to think that every boy should be in love with you? My dad should be thinking I'm so fabulous that of course Brandon would fall in love with me, not questioning the validity of my relationship. Although, obviously it's not really a relationship. It's just . . . I don't know what it is.

“I'm not surprised,” he says. “Any boy would be lucky to have you.” That's more like it.

“Well, I think it's wonderful,” Cindy says. She reaches over and forks up the last piece of tiramisu. “Is he cute?”

“He's very cute,” I say. “He has floppy hair and a perfect smile. Do you remember him from the mall?”

“Sort of,” she says.

My dad shifts in the booth again. “Well,” he says, “I think it's time I met this Brandon.”

“What?” I almost shriek. Is he crazy? I can't have my dad meeting Brandon. Talk about a disaster waiting to happen. “No! And besides, you already met him, remember?”

“When?” My dad shifts in his seat and looks suspicious, like I'm trying to get one over on him by making him think he met Brandon when he didn't.

“At the mall that day.” I decide it's time to change the subject. “Cindy, I really like your sweater. Where did you get it?”