Being Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

footprints, she was probably substantial enough to knock that chair out of the way—if she wanted to. But at least it would delay her for a second or two, and that might give me enough time to get out.
    I stepped into the closet.
    Chair and door stayed where they were.
    Tentatively I reached out, then I pushed the clothes aside to reveal the back wall.
    If she was there, I didn't see her; if she wanted me to notice something, I didn't notice it.
    I felt the back and the sides and the floor of the closet. No secret panels. Then I silently berated myself because now I had gotten everything I had touched all wet. Had my things been wet before? Had she stepped into or through the closet? I looked at the suds still on my shoulder and couldn't be sure.

    I got dressed, cleaned up the bathroom, and put the wineglass back into the kitchen cabinet with the other glasses. I was lucky it had survived being dropped.
Sorry, Mom,
I would have had to explain,
I was sneaking a glass of wine, and it broke when I was startled by a ghost.
Then I would have to assure her,
No, no—I just drank half a glass before I saw her.
    Right.
    I stood in the kitchen, looking out the window at the pond. Should I
go
there? Had that been her I'd seen, trying to get my attention?
    No, I thought, not the pond.
    If she needed me, she was going to have to come to me in the house—the pond was just too creepy.
    The phone rang—the phone that hadn't been connected yet—and at the same time I heard from outside the ringing of that bicycle bell. I yanked open the back door.
    There was a girl standing there. But she wasn't the same girl I'd just seen. This one was about my age, and she was standing with her hand raised as though she was about to knock. She took a quick step backward.
    "Don't shoot!" she cried, pretending to be even more startled than she was. She held her hands up, even though in one hand she was balancing a foil-covered plate. "If you don't like zucchini brownies, I promise never to bring them again."
    "Sorry," I said. "I just..." I craned to look beyond her, but there was no sign of anybody on a bicycle, and I couldn't hear the bell anymore. For that matter, the phone had stopped ringing, too.
    The girl at the door was looking at me with raised eyebrows.
    "Sorry," I repeated lamely.
    She turned to see what I could have been looking at. Who knows what she thought. "Were you waiting for someone? Did I come at a bad time?"
    "No," I said.
    Not a friendly opening, but she said, "I'm Michelle Shumway, from next door." She held the plate out to me. "Do you like zucchini brownies?"
    "I don't know," I admitted doubtfully.
    "Well, zucchini brownies are like zucchini in the same sense carrot cake is like carrots," she told me.
    "I like carrot cake," I said. It seemed rude to just take the plateful of goodies and close the door on her. "Want to come in?" I offered. "My parents and brother aren't here." That made me sound like a little kid; I added, "So if we decide we really like the brownies, we can eat them all before they get home, and they'll never know what they missed."
Not likely,
I thought, not holding out much hope for a dessert made from vegetables.
    The girl—Michelle—grinned. I decided I liked her face. "Oh," she assured me, "there's
always
more zucchini."
    "I'm Brenda Keehn," I said as I went to get plates and milk.
    "And you just moved in yesterday," she said. There were lots of ways she could have known that, but she added, "My brother Alec was spying on you with his binoculars while you were unloading the truck. Mom caught him at it and took the binoculars away, but he says there's a boy here about his age."
    "My brother, Danny, is eleven," I said.
    "Alec is twelve. I'm hoping somebody will invent suspended animation soon so that I can freeze him until I'm old enough to move out. Twelve to eighteen is absolutely unbearable in little boys, take my word for it. I have three brothers, and I'd like to donate all their bodies to science."
    "Oh