How Not to Spend Your Senior Year (10 page)

It took me most of the period to work my way through the stack. The piece at the bottom of the pile was the most impressive. No corrections at all.

“How's it going?” a voice above my head asked. A guy's voice.
Not Rob,
I thought. Probably one of the writers, wondering how his article had faced up to the red pen.

“Fine, thank you,” I said, putting the pen cap back on.

“All done?”

It looks that way, doesn't it?
I thought.

“That would be correct,” I said aloud.

“Fast work,” the guy commented. “Shawna never got done in just a single period.”

At that, I finally looked up and met his eyes. They were dark, just like his hair, both brown but darker than mine. He was tall and lean. Something about the way he was holding himself made me think he might be a runner.

Tall, dark, and artistic,
I thought. I wondered if Royer assigned
Wuthering Heights
. If so, all the girls probably had a Heathcliff complex about this guy. The thought made me smile.

Just great,
I thought.
Now he'll think that's for him.

“I'm not Shawna,” I pronounced with a scowl.

“I can see that,” he answered. “You said Claire, right? Where'd you say you were from?”

“I didn't,” I said. “But it's Buzzard's Bay, Mass. And you are?”

“Mark London.”

I should have known,
I thought. His was the article that hadn't needed a single correction, a thing he no doubt knew quite well. Right after whiners on my list of pet peeves come people who constantly need to have their egos stroked.

By which you'll gather that, like Alex, Mark London made a big first impression. Unlike Alex, however, my first impression of Mark wasn't all that positive.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said as I got to my feet, even though I wasn't. “If you'll excuse me, I'd better get these to Rob.”

“Okay,” Mark said. He let me step around him, then trailed along behind.

“Hey, Lois Lane,” Rob said when I placed the papers on his desk. “You're done. Way to go.” His eyes flicked behind me to where I could feel Mark London hovering just beyond my shoulder, then back to my face. “How many corrections
for the article on the bottom of the stack?”

“You mean the one with Mark's name on it?” I asked. A hush fell across the room, as if some cosmic deity had just turned the volume down. “None.”

“You're sure,” Rob urged. “No chance you could be wrong.”

Part of me was hating being in the spotlight. Another part decided it was a fine moment to establish Claire Calloway's personality once and for all.

“Of course there's that chance,” I said, my tone priggish, as if he'd offended me. “I'm human. I make mistakes, just like
everybody else
does.”

I heard a quickly hushed snicker whip around the room.
Good,
I thought. Everyone was getting the fact that Claire Calloway was smart and not a pushover. Also, she was not intimidated by the likes of one Mark London.

“In the case of the article in question, however, I honestly don't think I've made an error. Why? Is there a problem?”

“The article in question,” Rob echoed, his face suffused with delight. “Lois, I think I love you.”

“I'd appreciate it if you'd call me by my name,” I said.

“Hey, Rob, the other editions are in,” a voice suddenly called out.

“Great,” Rob said. “Didn't that girl who just died go to Beacon? Let me see that one first.”

I felt as if I'd taken a rabbit punch right in the head.
That girl who just died. That's me,
I thought.

“Wait a minute,” I said, actually turning to Mark London in desperation as Rob sputtered off. “What one from Beacon? What's he talking about?”

“We read all the other school papers every week,” Mark said simply. “Rob thinks it helps us stay competitive. It's no big deal. Actually, it's usually pretty boring.”

Bet that won't be a problem today,
I thought. As it turned out, I had no idea how right I was.

“You guys are not going to believe this,” Rob's voice said. He held the
Beacon Banner
up over his head. I could read the headline clear across the room.

DEAD STUDENT WALKING?

“Well, that's tacky,” a girl standing close to Rob said.

Without warning, I felt my legs give out. I sat down at Rob's desk, abruptly.

“Hey,” Mark said. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I managed. “Fear of being unable to stay competitive or something.”

“Listen to this,” Rob said. “‘I saw Jo O'Connor's ghost,' claims student body president, Alex Crawford.”

There was a moment's startled silence.

“The student body president,” Mark commented over the sudden outburst of excited talking. “Pretty reputable source.” With a last glance at me, he moved to Rob's side.

Rob set the paper down on the nearest desk. Although most of the rest of the class crowded around him, he continued to read aloud.

“‘Reeling from the shock of popular student Jo O'Connor's death in a traffic accident just a little over twenty-four hours ago . . .'”

Popular student?
I thought. Not the way I would have described myself. Maybe they were just saying nice things
about me because I was dead.

“‘. . . students at a grief-counseling session were treated to a second shock when student body president Alex Crawford revealed he had received a visit from Jo's ghost,'” Rob read on.

Guess Alex went in for counseling after all,
I thought.

Rob read on:

“I was sitting in the Little Theater, trying to, you know, come to terms with what had happened,” Crawford claims, “when suddenly I heard a voice. It called my name. When I asked who was there, the voice said,
‘Alex, it's me. It's Jo.'
”

Crawford admits events are a little hazy after that, as it appears he literally passed out from the shock. He was discovered by Jo O'Connor's closest friend and next-door neighbor, fellow senior Elaine Golden. When asked by this reporter whether or not she'd seen anything, Ms. Golden provided a prompt and emphatic denial.

“‘I didn't see Jo O'Connor's ghost,'” she said. “When asked her opinion on Alex Crawford's experience, Ms. Golden's
only comment was, ‘No comment.'”

Way to go, Elaine,
I thought. She'd found the way to tell the truth and hide it, all at the same time.

The article went on to indicate that full details of the fatal crash, which had also claimed the life of the driver of the vehicle, Jo O'Connor's father, could be found on page five. Related articles on the potential veracity of spirit manifestations could be found on page four. Information regarding various memorial activities being contemplated in honor of Jo O'Connor was on the back page. For a collection of photos commemorating Jo's all-too-brief life at Beacon High, readers were instructed to turn to page two.

In other words, you could pretty much say the entire edition of the paper was about me, in one way or another.

“Let's see the photographs,” Mark suggested as he peered over Rob's shoulder.

Uh-oh,
I thought.

Obligingly, Rob turned the page.
I should go over there,
I thought, if only for purposes of camouflage. The trouble was, my
legs still didn't seem to want to function. I couldn't decide if this was a good thing or a bad one. If my legs had worked, chances were excellent I'd have given myself away by running.

I slid my glasses off, set them on the desk, and massaged my temples. All of a sudden, my head was pounding.

“She looks nice,” I heard a voice say. I lifted my head to find Mark London's eyes on me.

“Omigod,” Mark suddenly exclaimed.

“What?” Rob asked.

“Look at the pictures,”

“I'm looking at them,” Rob said. “So?”

“Now look up,” he instructed, pointing. At that moment, I felt a sudden kinship with a rabbit caught in the glare of headlights. For a second or two I wondered if maybe I
had
died, after all.

If this wasn't hell, I sure didn't know what was.

Mark was pointing, and the entire room was looking, right at me.

“Holy cow,” Rob said.

Do something!
my mind was screaming.
Don't just sit there!

I snatched my glasses back up, cramming them onto my face. “What?”

“I don't know how to tell you this, Claire,” Mark London said. “But you're an absolute dead ringer for Jo O'Connor.”

At his words, I'm pretty sure every ounce of blood drained right out of my face.

Great,
I thought.
Now I
look
like a ghost.

“Dead ringer,” I said. “Ha ha. Very funny. Too bad there isn't a Pulitzer for humor. You could be the youngest person ever to win the prize.”

“Actually he does have a point,” the girl standing beside him suddenly spoke up. “You have the same shaped face. Same color eyes.”

“Has everybody just gone insane?” I inquired. “My eyes are
brown
. That's only the most common color there is. Remember Genetics 101?”

“Okay, well what about this?” Mark challenged, really getting into the comparison thing now.

“According to the article, Jo O'Connor was killed on . . . ” Quickly Mark flipped back to the front page. “. . . Wednesday the eleventh,” he read aloud. “Your first day here is Friday the thirteenth. That's an interesting coincidence, don't you think?”

“Fascinating,” I replied.
What on earth am I going to do?
I wondered. Then I remembered that old saying. You know the one. The best way to defend yourself is to come out swinging. Something along those lines.

“So, let me see if I've got this straight,” I said as I forced myself to my feet, relieved that my lower body had decided to help out and hold me up. “What's your name?” I asked, focusing on the girl who'd pointed out the shape of my face.

“Diane,” she said.

“Okay, Diane. You think I look just like this girl who died. Would that be before or after the accident?”

Rob gave an explosive snort of laughter.

“Well, before, of course,” Diane answered, her tone sulky.

“Great. Now we're really getting somewhere,” I went on. “I'm a dead ringer for a dead girl. Not only that, Mark's just pointed out the remarkable coincidence that I started here a mere two days after she died. This seems highly suspicious, I agree. So what if the truth is that this girl—what's her name again?”

“Jo,” Rob said. “Jo O'Connor.” I could tell by the look on his face that he was really enjoying himself.

“What if this girl named Jo O'Connor didn't really die? What if I'm her, only I don't know it? I call myself Claire Calloway because I've sustained major head injuries and don't know who I am anymore. Never mind that I came complete with transcripts. Those can be faked, as we all know.

“Of course, it
is
harder to overlook the fact that I walked away from an accident that killed one other person without a single scratch on me. But I'll bet if we give Mark enough time, he can come up with a conspiracy theory to cover that pesky little anomaly, thereby clinching his spot on the staff of the
National Enquirer
.”

“Well you don't have to get all bent about it,” Diane said.

A spontaneous round of laughter erupted, effectively putting an end to the discussion. Even Mark joined in, though I noticed he kept his eyes on me, their expression somehow managing to be both thoughtful and sharp all at the same time.

“Wait a minute. I am just about to be brilliant!” Rob suddenly exclaimed.

Great. So precisely what I do not need,
I thought.

“I don't suppose I could talk you out of it,” I said aloud.

“The exchange starts next week, doesn't it?” Rob said, completely ignoring me and turning to Mark.

Mark's eyebrows shot up. He nodded. “On Monday.”

“The what?” I asked. Not that I was really all that sure I wanted to know.

“The
exchange
,” Rob said once more. “The inter–high school journalism exchange. It's happening with all the high schools in town. One staff member from each paper is trading places with their counterpart at another, then writing about what
it's like to be a senior somewhere else.

“It's sort of a citywide special interest story: ‘How the Other School Lives.' Kind of a cool idea, if I do say so myself.”

“That's because you thought of it,” somebody commented.

Rob grinned. “Hey, can I help it if I know a good idea when I think of one? My point is this: Beacon is our partner in the exchange! We're about to become the envy of every other high school paper in town. I say we send Claire to do the exchange and report on the ghost sightings at the same time!”

“Now wait just a minute,” I began.

But by now Rob was off and running. He began to sputter around the room like a general planning an elaborate campaign.

“I should send a photographer along too,” he said. “Just for a couple of days or so. It will be important to capture all those initial candid encounters.”

“I thought Mark was going to do the exchange,” Diane spoke up.

Rob's sputtering stopped abruptly.

Saved,
I thought.

He couldn't send me instead of Mark.
My guess was he was their star reporter.

“Mark should definitely be the one to go,” I said.

“I agree with Rob. Claire should go,” Mark said at the same time.