Coma Girl: part 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

aunt, I played along as Faridee instructed my aunt to rub her amulet and recited a chant to help our minds find each other. Just in case her brain stumbled upon mine, I settled on an empirical plea to get someone to stroke my response center: Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
    “There she is,” Faridee announced.
    “Oh, how amazing,” Winnie said.
    Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
    “Hello, Marigold… thank you, it’s good to see you again, too.”
    Oh, brother, here we go.
    “I’m here with your Aunt Winnie. She wants me to help you come back to your family.”
    “Tell her she’s a celebrity,” Aunt Winnie said. “I always knew she was the special one.”
    Aw, Aunt Winnie.
    “You are a celebrity, Marigold. The entire world is calling you Comma Girl.”
    “That’s ‘Coma Girl’,” my aunt corrected. “You know, because of the coma?”
    “Oh, right.”
    Really, just… really?
    “The entire world is calling you Coma Girl,” she said. “I can see you are still enjoying the spirit world.”
    Lady, would you shut up and listen? Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
    “Is she closer to coming back through the tunnel?” my aunt asked, her voice hushed. “I have a blister on my thumb from rubbing the amulet.”
    “Marigold,” Faridee asked, “are you ready to come back to this world?”
    Polish my nails… Polish my nails… Polish my nails…
    “Wait—she’s speaking to me. She says to thank you, Winnie, for believing in the power of the scroll amulet to escort her home.”
    Argh!
    “What else can I do?” Winnie asked.
    “She says… she says she’d like to talk to you directly.”
    “How can she do that?”
    “If you take my upcoming seminar on communicating in the next dimension, you can learn.”
    Oh, for Pete’s sake.
    “Of course I’ll take it,” my aunt said. “How do I sign up?”
    “I can take your reservation now. It’s only four hundred dollars.”
    “Will you accept a credit card?”
    “Yes, but I offer a ten percent discount if you pay with cash.”
    “I’ll stop by the ATM on the way out.”
    Are you hearing this?
    “Wait,” Faridee said, her voice low and dramatic. “I’m getting something else from Marigold.”
    “What?” my aunt asked.
    The finger, if I could lift my hand.
    “This is strange. Is your family… Polish?”
    “No, neither her mother or father.”
    “She keeps saying the word ‘Polish.’”
    Holy crap, the kook could hear me, but she couldn’t get the word right? It’s “polish,” you thief, not “Polish.”
    “Hm… I wonder what she could mean?” my aunt mused.
    “There’s Polish sausage,” Faridee suggested.
    “And Polish rye bread. Maybe she’s hungry.”
    “Does she like Polish dancing?”
    “The polka? Not to my knowledge.”
    “Wait—there was a Polish pope, wasn’t there?”
    “John Paul, I think, the Second. And he died.”
    Faridee snapped her fingers. “That’s it—she’s with Pope John Paul II in the spirit world.”
    Wow… what a whopper.
    Winnie inhaled sharply. “She’s with a Pope? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I have to get back to church.”
    I give up. Things had gone completely off the rails.
    “She said to come back soon,” Faridee said. “And she will have more to tell. Marigold’s story is far from over.”
    I hope that much is true.
     
     
     
     
     
     

August 12, Friday
     
     
    “I HAVE BAD NEWS,” my dad said.
    He sounds so anguished, I’m worried something has happened to Mom or Sid or Alex.
    “The Escort is in worse shape than I thought.”
    Ah… of course—my car.
    “I was sure the guy at the shop I use could fix it, but he said he can’t.”
    Hm, well it has a hundred fifty thousand miles on it, so it’s probably time for a new car anyway.
    “But I’m not giving up. I called around and found another mechanic who’s supposed to be great and he agreed to take a look at it. I’m going to have it towed there in