The Ghost and the Goth Read Online Free PDF Page B

talking about, kid.” Grandpa B. sounded alarmed.
    I ignored him and pushed past Brewster to collect my pass, detention slip, and a sympathetic smile from Mrs. Piaget in the outer office.
    I was opening the door to the main hall before Brewster recovered enough to emerge from his office, eyes wild, hands clenched at his sides.
    “Let’s see how you survive the rest of the year without your special privileges, you little freak,” he spat at me, but he didn’t come any closer. Good enough for me.
    “Bob!” Mrs. Piaget turned to stare at him.
    Ha. It would be a miracle if I could make it an hour. But at least, when they carried me out, he wouldn’t be calling me sport. I nodded. “You’re on.”

T he surface beneath me felt way harder than my bed and nowhere near soft enough to be a cloud. I reached out a hand without opening my eyes, and my fingers brushed over … was that gravel?
    Opening my eyes, I found myself—where else?—just to the left of the yellow line on Henderson. Not a dream, not heaven, just right back where I’d started from. Dead in the middle of the road.
    I sat up, swallowing the urge to start crying again. I mean, clearly I was trapped in hell, right? Doomed to live on, unseen and unheard, while my best friend makes out, goes to college with, and eventually marries my boyfriend. Just the thought of it made me want to curl up in a ball right there in the road.
    So I did, resting my cheek against the warming asphalt. What, like I had somewhere else to be? Like someone would see me? Then I remembered how many times I’d seen hick guys spitting tobacco out the car window on their way to school—gross!—and I moved to the curb.
    Behind me, the tennis courts filled with the sounds of life, people laughing, tennis balls bouncing, and the chain-link fence clanking. I turned around, startled. It was Mrs. Higgins’s first-hour gym class—I used to see them trooping across the softball field to the courts when I was in government and staring out the window in utter boredom, wishing I was anywhere but there.
    It was halfway through first hour, already? This was not the way things usually worked. For the last three days, whenever I’d gotten tired—yeah, that still happened—I’d made my way home, curled up on the couch in my dad’s study, and closed my eyes. Then, presto. When I’d opened my eyes it was 7:00 a.m. again—I could tell by the buses going by—and I was on the road. Literally. It was like some giant reset button got pressed every day.
    But this time … I didn’t know what to think. I’d never been “reset” in the middle of the morning before. Of course, I’d never disappeared before, either. I shivered. Where exactly had I gone? I couldn’t remember. Did it matter? Not really. I was still stuck here, that much was clear. Stuck here and helpless.
    I stared past the tennis courts to the window where my government class went on without me. Now I would have killed for the chance to be bored by Mr. Klopinski. To be alive. To take Misty down in front of the entire caf. Then we’d see who laughs at Alona Dare. Nobody, that’s who.
    Except for maybe Will Killian.
    Frowning, I stood up and started pacing, just in time for Jesse McGovern’s green and nasty hooptie to pass right through me as he sped from the parking lot to his loser classes at the trade school in town. I ignored the cold shuddery sensation, trying to focus on a vague memory struggling to come to the surface. I remembered hearing Leanne and Miles bitch about me and seeing Misty kissing Chris, that was clear enough. After that, though, everything started to get a little fuzzy. The bell had rung, and people had started walking into the building, and then …
    Will Killian’s mocking smile and pale blue eyes appeared in my head. He’d laughed at me. He’d looked right at me and grinned, delighting in my misery. Any other day I would have been worried that someone like him was making fun of me , but today, all I