Meg Cabot - Darkest Hour

The three of them - Paul, Maria, and Diego - had formed an unholy trinity, bound, apparently by a common hatred of one person: Jesse.

But what possible reason could Paul, who'd never even met Jesse until that moment in purgatory, have to hate him? Now, of course, his dislike was understandable: Jesse had done him a very great bodily injury, something for which Paul has sworn to repay him next time he saw him. I'm sure Jesse wasn't taking it too seriously, but I was worried. I mean, I'd just gone to a lot of trouble to get Jesse out of one sticky situation. I wasn't too enthused about seeing him plunge straight into another one.

But it was no good. Jack wouldn't talk. The kid was traumatized. Well, sort of. He actually seemed like he'd had a pretty good time. He just didn't want to talk about his brother.

Which bummed me out. Because I had a lot of questions. For instance, if Paul was a mediator - and he had to be; how else could he have been walking around up there? - why hadn't he helped his little brother out with the whole I see dead people thing, said a few words of encouragement, assured the poor kid he wasn't crazy?

But if I'd hoped to get any answers out of Jack on that account, I was sadly disappointed.

I guess if I'd had a brother like Paul, I probably wouldn't have wanted to talk about it, either.

Once Jack had been safely dropped off at the hotel, Jesse and I began the long walk home (I didn't have enough money on me for a ride from the hotel back to my house).

You might wonder what we talked about during that two-mile trek. A lot, surely, might have been discussed.

And yet, to tell you the truth, I can't remember. I don't think we really talked about anything important. What was there to say, really?

I snuck in as successfully as I'd snuck out. No one woke up, except the dog, and once he saw it was me, he went right back to sleep. No one had noticed that I'd been gone.

No one ever does.

Spike was the only one besides me who'd noticed Jesse was gone, and his joy at seeing him again was an embarrassment to felines everywhere. I could hear the stupid cat purring all the way across the room....

Although I didn't listen for long. That's because what happened was, I walked in, pulled down the bedclothes, slipped off my slides, and climbed into bed. I didn't even wash my face. I climbed into bed, looked one last time at Jesse as if to reassure myself he was really back, and then I went to sleep.

And I stayed asleep until Sunday.

My mother became convinced I was coming down with mono. At least until she saw the bruise on my forehead. Then she decided I was suffering from an aneurysm. Much as I tried to convince her that neither of these things was true - that I was just really, really tired - she didn't believe me, and would, I'm convinced, have dragged me to the hospital Sunday morning for an MRI - hey, I had been asleep for almost two days - except that she and Andy had to drive up to Doc's camp to bring him home.

The thing is, I guess dying - even for just half an hour - can be very exhausting.

I woke ravenous with hunger. After my mom and Andy left - having extracted from me a promise that I would not leave the house all day, but would instead wait meekly for them to return, so that they could reassess my state of health at that time - I downed two bagels and a bowl of Special K before Sleepy and Dopey even showed up at the table, looking all tussle-headed and unkempt. I, on the other hand, had already showered and dressed, and was ready to face the day ... or at least unemployment, since I wasn't certain the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort was going to extend my contract with them, due to my having missed two days of work in a row.

Sleepy, however, reassured me on that account.

"Naw, it's cool," he said as he shoveled Cheerios into his mouth. "I talked to Caitlin. I told her you were going through, you know, a thing. On account of the dead dude in the backyard. She was okay with it."

"Really?" I wasn't actually listening to Sleepy. Instead, I was watching Dopey eat, always an awe-inspiring sight. He stuffed one entire half of a bagel into his mouth and seemed to swallow it whole. I wished I had a camera so I could record the event for posterity. Or at least prove to the next girl who declared my stepbrother a babe how wrong she was. I watched as, without lifting his gaze from the newspaper spread out before him, Dopey stuffed the other half of the bagel into his mouth and, again without chewing, ingested it, the way snakes devour rats.

It was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. Well, apart from the beetles in the orange juice container.

"Oh." Sleepy leaned back in his chair and plucked something from the counter behind him. "And Caitlin said to give this to you. It's from the Slaters. They checked out yesterday."

I caught the envelope he tossed. It was lumpy. There was something hard in it. Susan , it said, on the outside.

"They weren't supposed to check out until today," I said, ripping the envelope apart.

"Well." Sleepy shrugged. "They left early. What can I tell you?"

I read the first letter enclosed in the envelope. It was from Mrs. Slater. It said,

Dear Susan,

What can I say? You did such wonders for our Jack. He is like a different boy. Things have always been much harder for Jack than for Paul. Jack just isn’t as bright as Paul, I suppose. In any case, we were very sorry not to be able to say good-bye, but we did have to leave earlier than expected. Please accept this small token of our appreciation, and know that Rick and I are eternally in your debt .

Nancy Slater

Folded into this note was a check for two hundred dollars. I'm not kidding. That wasn't my pay for the week, either. That was my tip .

I laid the check and the letter down beside my cereal bowl and took the next note out of the envelope. It was from Jack.

Dear Suze,

You saved my life. I know you don’t believe it, but you did. If you hadn’t done what you did for me, I would still be afraid. I don’t think I will ever be afraid again. Thank you, and I hope your head feels better. Write to me if you ever get a chance .

Love, Jack

P.S. Please don't ask me anymore about Paul. I'm sorry about what he did. I'm sure he didn't mean it. He is not so bad. J

Oh, right, I thought, cynically. Not so bad? The guy was a creep! He could walk freely within the land of the dead, and yet when his own brother was being terrified out of his wits by the fact that he could see dead people, the guy didn't lift a finger to explain. Not so bad. The guy was very bad. I sincerely hoped I never saw him again.

There was a second postscript to Jack's letter.

P.P.S. I thought you might want to have this. I don't know what else to do with it. J

I tilted the envelope, and to my great surprise, out popped the miniature of Jesse I'd seen on Clive Clemmings's desk, back at the historical society. I looked down at it, stunned.

I would have to give it back. That was my first thought. I had to give it back. I mean, wouldn't I? You can't just keep things like that. That would be like stealing.

Except that somehow, I didn't think Clive would mind. Especially after Dopey looked up from the paper and went, "Yo, we're in here."

Sleepy glanced up from the automobile section he'd been scanning, as usual, for a '67 black Camaro with less than fifty thousand miles.

"Get out," he said, in a bored voice.

"No, seriously," Dopey said. "Look."

He turned the paper around, and there was a picture of our house. Alongside it was a photo of Clive Clemmings and a reproduction of Maria's portrait.

I snatched the paper away from Dopey.

"Hey," he yelled. "I was reading that!"