Meg Cabot: Haunted

"Brr," she said, as she pulled the door shut behind her. "It gets cold out there when the sun starts to go down. How are you doing with those dishes, Susie? Do you need any help?"

"Nope," I said cheerfully. "It's all good."

"Are you sure? I thought it was Brad's turn to clear the table."

"I don't mind," I said with a smile I hoped she didn't notice was completely forced.

It didn't work.

"Susie, honey," she said. "You aren't upset, are you? Over what Brad was saying about this other boy being nominated for vice president in your place?"

"Uh," I said, with a glance at Ghost Boy, who looked pretty annoyed at the interruption. I couldn't really blame him. I guess it was kind of unprofessional of me to have a mother-daughter bonding session in the middle of a mediation. "No, not really, Mom. I'm fine with it, actually."

I wasn't lying, either. Not being in the student government this year was going to free up a lot of time for me. Time I had no idea what I was going to do with, of course, since it didn't look as if I'd be spending any of it being lifted to any romantic heights by Jesse. Still, hope springs eternal.

My mom continued to hover in the doorway, looking concerned.

"Well, Susie, honey," she said, "you're going to have to replace it with some other extracurricular, you know. Colleges look for that sort of thing in their applicants. You're less than two years away from graduation. You'll be leaving us soon."

Geez! My mom didn't even know about Jesse, and she was still doing all she could to keep the two of us apart, unaware that Jesse himself was taking care of that all on his own.

"Fine, Mom," I said, eyeing Ghost Guy uncomfortably. I mean, I wasn't exactly thrilled that he was privy to all this. "I'll join the swim team. Will that make you happy? Having to drive me to five a.m. practices every day?"

"That wasn't even very convincing, Susie," my mom said in a dry voice. "I know perfectly well you'd never join the swim team. You're too obsessed with your hair and what all those pool chemicals might do to it."

And then she drifted off into the living room, leaving Ghost Guy and me alone in the kitchen.

"All right," I said quietly. "Where were we?"

The guy just shook his head. "I still can't believe you can see me," he said in a shocked voice. "I mean, you don't know ... you can't know what it's been like. It's like everywhere I go, people just look through me."

"Yes," I said, tossing aside the dish towel I'd been using to dry my hands. "That's because you're dead. The question is, what made you that way?"

Ghost Guy seemed taken aback by my tone. I guess it was a little curt. But then, I wasn't having the best day.

"Are you . . ." He eyed me sort of warily. " Who did you say you were again?"

"My name's Suze," I told him. "I'm a mediator."

"A what ?"

"Mediator," I repeated. "It's my job to help the dead pass on to the other side . . . their next life, or whatever. What's your name, anyway?"

Ghost Boy blinked again. "Craig," he said.

"Okay. Well, listen, Craig. Somethings screwy, because I highly doubt the cosmos intended for you to be hanging around my kitchen as part of your whole afterlife experience. You have got to move on."

Craig knit his dark brows, "Move on where?"

"Well, that's for you to find out when you get there," I said. "Anyway, the big question isn't where you're going but why you haven't gotten there already."

"You mean . . ." Craig's hazel eyes were wide. "You mean this isn't. . . it?"

"Of course this isn't it," I said, a little amused. "You think after they die, everybody ends up at ninety-nine Pine Crest Road?"

Craig hitched his broad shoulders. "No. I guess not. It's just that . . . when I woke up, you know, I didn't know where to go. Nobody could . . . you know. See me. I mean, I went out into the living room, and my mom was crying like she couldn't stop. It was kind of spooky."

He wasn't kidding.

"That's okay," I said, more gently than before. "That's how it happens, sometimes. It's just not normal. Most people do go straight to the next.... well, phase of their consciousness. You know, to their next life, or to eternal damnation if they screwed up during their last one. That kind of thing." His eyes kind of widened at the words eternal damnation , but since I wasn't even sure there was such a thing, I hurried on. "What we've got to figure out now is why you didn't. Move on right away, I mean. Something is obviously holding you back. We need to - "

But at that point, the examination of the hot tub - Andy's precious hot tub, which would, in less than a week from now, be filled with vomit and beer, if Brad's party went on according to plan - ended, and everyone came back inside. I gestured for Craig to follow me, and started up the stairs, where, I felt, we could continue talking uninterrupted.

At least by the living. Jesse, on the other hand, was another story.

" Nombre de dios ," he said, startled from the pages of Critical Theory Since Plato when I came banging back into my bedroom, Craig close at my heels. Spike, Jesse's cat, arched his back before seeing it was only me - with another of my pesky ghost friends - and settled back up against Jesse.

"Sorry about that," I said. Seeing Jesses gaze move past me and fasten onto the ghost boy, I made introductions: "Jesse, this is Craig. Craig, Jesse. You two should get along. Jesses dead, too."

Craig, however, seemed to find the sight of Jesse - who, as usual, was dressed in what had been the height of fashion in the last year he'd been alive, 1850 or so, including knee-high black leather boots, somewhat tight-fitting black trousers, and a big billowy white shirt open at the collar - a bit much. So much, in fact, that Craig had to sit down heavily - or as heavily as someone without any real matter could sit, anyway - on the edge of my bed.

"Are you a pirate?" Craig asked Jesse.

Jesse, unlike me, did not find this very amusing. I guess I can't really blame him.

"No," he said tonelessly. "I'm not."

"Craig," I said, trying to keep a straight face, and failing despite the look Jesse shot me. "Really, you've got to think. There's got to be a reason why you are still hanging around here instead of off where you're supposed to be. What do you think that reason could be? What's holding you back?"

Craig finally dragged his gaze away from Jesse. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe the fact that I'm not supposed to be dead?"

"Okay," I said, trying to be patient. Because the thing is, of course, everybody thinks this. That they died too young. I've had folks who croaked at age 104 complain to me about the injustice of it all.

But I try to be professional about the whole thing. I mean, mediation is, after all, my job. Not that I get paid for doing it or anything, unless you count, you know, karma-wise. I hope.

"I can certainly see why you might feel that way," I went on. "Was it sudden? I mean, you weren't sick or anything, were you?"

Craig looked indignant. "Sick? Are you kidding me? I can bench two forty, and I run five miles every single day. Not to mention, I was on the NoCal crew team. And I won the Pebble Beach Yacht Club's catamaran race three years in a row."

"Oh," I said. No wonder the guy seemed to have such a wicked build beneath his Polo. "So your death was accidental, then, I take it?"

"Damn straight it was accidental," Craig said, stabbing a finger into my mattress for emphasis. "That storm came out of nowhere. Flipped us right over before I had a chance to adjust the sail. Pinned me under."

"So ..." I said hesitantly. "You drowned?"

Craig shook his head . . . not in answer to my question but out of frustration.

"It shouldn't have happened," he said, staring unseeingly at his shoes . . . deck shoes, the kind guys like him - boaters - wear without socks. "It wasn't supposed to have been me. I was on my high school swim team. I was first in the district one year in freestyle."