Being Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

"Not the same students for the whole twenty years," she clarified.
    "And before that?" I asked, but already I was thinking,
Kids didn't wear bicycle helmets like that twenty years ago, did they?
    "Before that," Michelle said, "old Mr. Reinhardt was alive."
    "They have any kids?"
    "About a zillion years ago."
    So who was that little girl I had seen? And why was she haunting
this
house?
    Having finished her second brownie, Michelle said, "A bunch of us were going to go to the community pool. Want to come?"
    "There's a community pool?" I asked.
    "Sure. We don't spend
every
afternoon riding around in the back of our pickups shooting woodchucks."
    I laughed, though that was pretty close to the picture I had of how teenagers in the sticks would pass the time.
    The ghost had contacted me once by phone, once by the pond, once in my water bed, and once in the bathtub. Three out of four times near water. Much as I thought Michelle and I might well eventually become friends, it was too early for me to tell her why I didn't dare go to a public pool—not till I found out what was going on, and why.
    "I'd really, really, really like to go," I told her. "I am
not
brushing you off—please, please, please ask me again some other time."
    "Humph!" she snorted, tossing her head as though insulted. But then she grinned and said, "Sure. Send your little brother over to meet my little brother. If they have each other to play with, maybe they'll spend less time tormenting us."
    After she left I went upstairs to check on the progress of my water bed, and that was when I remembered that I was wrong: I hadn't had
four
encounters with the ghost—I'd had five. For there were my clothes, once more lying on the floor. This time there were muddy footprints where she had stomped on them.
    The ghost said she wanted help, but she also seemed to have a temper.

    Despite the effort my father had put into preparing the water bed for me—twice now—I slept in the extra bed in the computer room. Dad rolled his eyes and said, "Fine"; Danny asked if
he
could have the water bed, and I was tempted to inflict it on him; and Mom said, "Good night."
    I woke up to the sound of a bell ringing—a bicycle bell. I opened my eyes and saw that there was an odd light in the room. Not the light of dawn coming through the window, or the light from the hallway coming underneath the door. I could make out the numbers on my wristwatch, which I'd put on the nightstand before climbing into bed: 1:23. That would be A.M.
    I turned my head slowly.
    The light was coming from the computer monitor screens. Both of them were on. Do I need to mention I hadn't turned them on before going to bed? What was this ghosfs thing about one o'clock in the morning?
    I got up and looked. The little girl's face stared back at me from both screens. She was still dripping water. But she
had
changed. I quickly averted my eyes. She was more obviously dead than before: Bits of her skin were missing; she was decomposing.
    "What do you want?" I asked.
    When she didn't answer, I stole a quick glance at her. She was just looking at me, swaying slightly as little kids do—the kind who can't hold still for a moment.
Not fair,
I told myself as I caught myself in that thought.
She IS still, wherever her body is. She's still and she will be from now on, until her body
...Well, that wasn't a good thought, because her body evidently already
was
starting to...
    "If you aren't going to be more helpful at this hour of the night..." I whispered to her.
    I would have turned off the computers, but they weren't turned on. So I tossed my blanket over the monitors, the way people do to get their pet birds to sleep.
    Eventually the bicycle-bell ringing stopped.
    The good country-air smell did not.

    The next morning I was vaguely aware of my parents getting up and going out. I knew they had meetings with the department heads at the college to talk about their upcoming classes, but that was no reason
I
had to get up.
    I heard