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“Okay. Box numero uno. Miss Serafina,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
Ah yes, Sera, I thought and smiled, remembering all over again that she was single. Until I realized that if Kimberlee had a bag for Sera, there was something in there she’d stolen. “What did you take from her?” I demanded.
She rolled her eyes. “Go look.”
I grumbled under my breath as I looked through the bags until I found the ones marked with Sera’s name. A cheer skirt and shoes. They looked brand-new, but Kimberlee had been dead for over a year. “When did you take these?”
Silence.
“Kimberlee?”
“The date’s on the bag, okay?”
Of course it was. How could I expect anything different from Miss OCD Klepto? “When she was a freshman?” I said, counting backward.
Kimberlee poked her head out from the boxes. The middle of the boxes. I was never going to get used to that. “She was the first freshman at Whitestone to make the varsity squad.”
“So you thought you’d take some of her excitement away? That’s real nice.”
“Shut up. I didn’t ask for commentary.” I couldn’t tell if she sounded angry or hurt.
“Well, she’s a really awesome girl.” And hot. So very, very hot.
“Says who? You’ve known her for what, a day?”
“Yeah, but she was nice to me without even knowing who I was. Nicer than anyone else I’ve met here so far,” I added in a grumble.
“Hey, I totally talked to you,” Kimberlee argued.
“I said nice.” I stuffed the cheer gear into my backpack. “I have room for some more; who else?”
I managed to gather bags for half a dozen of the kids Sera had introduced me to at lunch before my backpack started to look like that blueberry girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The pile of boxes didn’t look any smaller. If anything, it looked bigger.
“Day one,” I muttered.
My mom was constantly telling me that getting started on any project is the hardest part. I hoped she was right and that the worst was now behind me. On both the Kimberlee front and the Sera front.
When did my life become a soap opera?
I got the idea when I spotted a printing shop as I was driving home, trying to ignore Kimberlee belting rather off-tune to the radio beside me.
“What are you doing here?” Kimberlee asked, looking up at the nondescript shop.
“We.”
“Huh?”
“What are we doing here. You have to help.”
“Help what?”
“You’ll see.”
I pushed open the poster-laden front door and something chimed the first few notes of “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” A man in a button-up sweater poked his head out a doorway at the back of the store. “I’ll be right with you,” he chirped.
“No hurry,” I called as I turned to a display of stickers and labels.
Kimberlee huffed beside me—and not too quietly. “Shh,” I hissed at her.
“Why? It’s not like Mr. Rogers back there can hear me.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the stickers.
After I had browsed for a few minutes, the clerk took his place at the register. “What can I do for you?” he asked, sliding his order pad in front of him.
“You do all these custom, right?”
“Of course.”
“When could you have them ready for me?”
“If you use one of our designs and just add words, I can print them for you in about an hour. Send-out takes five business days.”
“Your designs’ll work. Can you just give me this white oval?” I pointed to a strip of plain white stickers.
The man scratched on his order pad. “What would you like them to say?”
“I’m sorry, comma, Kimberlee. That’s K-I—”
“Are you kidding me?” Kimberlee shrieked. “You can’t just blab to the world that I’m suddenly giving a bunch of stuff back a year after I’m dead!”
I shot her a nasty look, but she didn’t even notice.
“I forbid you to put my name on there! If you want to put someone’s name on there, put your own.” Her voice was grating on my eardrums and it seemed like it just got louder with each word.
I cringed as the salesman asked, “M next? Right?”
Kimberlee screamed again, a sound that probably would have shattered the windows if she’d been alive—and I forced myself not to cover my ears. “You know what? I have a better idea; give me these instead.” I pointed to the same round stickers, but just a little bit bigger with a pretty red flower and some decorative leaves printed along the bottom. “Leave off the name. Just print ‘I’m sorry’ on them with the flower.” I shot a very pointed glare at Kimberlee.
The sales guy glanced at me worriedly but said nothing as he scratched out the order and started writing again.
“This is ridiculous,” Kimberlee said. “But at least it’s better than the name thing.”
I rolled my eyes and turned back to the man. “How many?” he asked.
It was depressing to even think about. I looked up at the display. There was a bulk discount at a thousand. And that should definitely cover it.
I hoped.
“A thousand,” I said, digging into my back pocket for my wallet.
The guy looked over the rims of his glasses at me for an instant, probably wondering just how sorry I was for whatever I had done. “All right. About an hour.”
Kimberlee didn’t even bother waiting until we had left the store before starting up again. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s the principle,” I said as I slid into my car. “If you’re stuck here till you make amends, you should do more than just return the stuff. You should be sorry.”
“And if I’m not?” she huffed, with her arms folded over her chest.
“By the time we’re done, I bet you will be. But if you start trying to apologize then, it’ll be too late. Start now.” I slid into my seat and pulled on my seat belt. “If I have to do this, I’m going to make sure it gets done right. You don’t get a choice on this one.”
Kimberlee rolled her eyes. “You are the lamest thing that ever happened to me.” Then she turned and walked away.
(#ulink_c23371ed-2794-5e3e-bd79-6517fc04482f)
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT HAVING A fight with a ghost that makes you paranoid in the morning. I kept checking over my shoulder in the shower, and I peeked out of my bathroom door before darting to my closet for the shirt I’d forgotten to bring in with me.
But in the end Kimberlee popped up beside me at my locker, two minutes before the bell, acting as if we hadn’t argued at all.
I think that was the moment I understood how desperate she was. She could get mad and rage and ignore me all night, but in the end, she needed me. It made me feel really powerful for a few seconds before the guilt sank in. Of course I was powerful. She was a helpless ghost. Pain in the ass or not.
Okay, there was no reason to even end that sentence with “or not.”
Nonetheless, when we put our plan into action a few hours later, I was glad she was there.
“Is anyone coming?” I asked.
“No, but hurry.”
Kimberlee watched the doors as I ran across the cafeteria to the table where I saw Sera sitting yesterday and opened my backpack. I threw six gallon-sized plastic bags into a pile in the middle of the long rectangle and ran back as my heart sped up to about three hundred beats per minute.
“All clear,” Kimberlee said, her eyes still scanning the halls. “Just look cool and keep your bathroom pass where the teachers can see it.”
I haven’t used a bathroom pass since I was in, like, third grade—and never one the size of a dinner plate. But at Whitestone they insisted such a nonconcealable pass cut down on the number of students who wandered the halls. Personally, I thought it was a good reason to hold it until lunchtime.
“Why can’t we just look everyone up in the phone book and drop stuff off on their porch?” I muttered.
“Oh please,” Kimberlee said. “People who can afford to send their kids to Whitestone are not listed in the phone book. And even if they were, do you know all these kids’ parents’ names? I sure as hell don’t, and I’ve been going to school with them since kindergarten.”
I glanced back down at the pass. “Fine.”
It was ten minutes until lunch when I returned the enormous pass to its spot and started on the assignment that would now be homework, since I didn’t get to work on it the whole class period. Great.
Everything was quiet—so quiet that when the bell rang, I gasped and knocked my book on the floor. I should never apply for the FBI. For everyone’s sake.
I entered the cafeteria hesitantly, and not just because the stuff I’d returned was there. Sera hadn’t actually said that I was invited back, but the guys seemed to think I was cool enough, and she was coming to see me at the party. So . . . that meant I could sit with her again, right?
Sera was nowhere to be seen, but I wasn’t going to make the mistake of standing like a dork with a tray full of food again, so I headed toward the table and hoped my invitation didn’t have an expiration date.
“Ah, man,” Wilson said just as I came into earshot, “someone left a bunch of crap on our table.” He raised an arm to sweep it onto the floor.
Stop! Don’t! my mind screamed. If this stuff got trashed Kimberlee was going to haunt me forever.
“Wait a sec.” Hampton edged in and plucked one of the bags from the table. He pulled out a small day planner covered with Sharpie doodles. “This is mine.” He stared at the planner in confusion, then flipped through it, pausing at some of the pages. “I lost this when I was in seventh grade. It had a hundred bucks in it.” He dug into a small pocket on the back page and pulled out a Benjamin. “No way. Sweet!”
Brynley pulled a pink T-shirt from another bag. “This was my favorite shirt freshman year. Someone stole it out of my gym locker.”
I forced myself not to shoot Kimberlee a nasty look, but I heard her clear her throat behind me.
Brynley looked back at the bag. “What’s this?” she asked, poking at the sticker.
I proceeded to get very interested in the wall to my left.
“‘I’m sorry’? That’s weird.” But she tossed the empty bag into the garbage without another word and stowed her shirt in her backpack with a smile.
I caught sight of Sera making her way toward the table and subtly stepped back so I wasn’t blocking the seat beside my tray. Because I’m supersmooth like that . . .
A few other people pulled things from the pile as she walked up—one from two years ago and one from just a few weeks before Kimberlee drowned. It was exciting to watch all the happy faces around me, and I tried not to be too obvious as I turned to watch Sera find her bag.
She sat staring at her skirt and shoes for a long time with no expression on her face at all while everyone else started digging into their food. Finally, when the din at the table settled, Sera said, “This is too creepy.”
“Why?” I tried to ask casually. “Someone’s conscience got to ’em.”
Sera shook her head. “No. I know who stole these and she didn’t have a conscience at all.” She addressed the whole table again. “You all remember Kimberlee.” It wasn’t a question.
Wilson snorted. “Who could forget that beyotch?”
I stared straight ahead, not daring to look at Kimberlee. She told me she hadn’t gotten caught, so how did Sera know?
“She stole these,” Sera said. “I saw her do it. But she never would ’fess.”
I tried to look as clueless as possible. “Kimberlee who?”
“Schaffer,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Before your time.”
“So, she reformed and gave you your stuff back?” I hoped it sounded like a natural—and uninformed—theory.
“Dude, she’s dead,” Wilson said.
“And good riddance,” Sera muttered into her pasta.
I stared at Sera in shock. This was not the reaction I’d expected. Sure, she could be annoying as hell, but I figured it was just because I wasn’t one of her friends. Hadn’t Kimberlee told me how wonderful her life was? How popular she was? Open dislike was hardly the way someone as popular as Kimberlee claimed to be should be treated.
Especially a dead someone.
I chanced a look around. Kimberlee was nowhere to be seen.
She didn’t show up again until I got into my car after school. And even then she slid silently into her place.
