Girl Meets Ghost by Lauren Barnholdt

Author:Lauren Barnholdt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin

Chapter

9

Okay, so this is awkward.

Here are the seating arrangements:

Ellie in the front seat with her mom.

Me in the middle section with Brandon.

Kyle in the backseat of the van, his legs stretched out in front of him, and Mrs. Dunham sitting on his legs.

She’s a lot fainter than she usually is, which makes me think that she’s having to put forth a tremendous amount of effort to even be here. It makes a chill slide down my spine, and I have that same thought again, that maybe she has something really important that she’s trying to take care of. Is Brandon in some kind of danger? Is Grace? Why was she talking about a green paper? Would Brandon know what that meant? Maybe I should ask him.

“How was the movie?” Mrs. Wilimena asks.

“Fine,” Ellie says. She’s staring out the window. Kyle coughs. What the heck is going on with those two?

“The green paper,” Mrs. Dunham stage-whispers from the backseat. I force myself not to look at her. But it doesn’t seem to make any difference. She just keeps whispering in this very creepy way.

After a few more minutes Mrs. Wilimena and Ellie start getting into a conversation about her cousin’s wedding that’s coming up, and Kyle pulls his iPod out of his pocket and sticks the buds into his ears. Mrs. Dunham is still whispering, but I’m starting to get a little more used to it. I’m able to tune her out, kind of like when you’re trying to talk to someone on the phone and you can hear their TV in the background.

“So,” I say to Brandon, trying to sound nonchalant, “what’s your favorite color?”

“My favorite color?”

“Yeah,” I say. That’s one of the things you ask someone when you’re trying to get to know them better, isn’t it? “Mine’s aqua. Or maybe purple.”

“I guess mine would be orange,” he says, like he’s never thought of it.

“Really?” I ask. “Not green?”

“No,” he says.

“Are you sure? Green is very pretty. Frogs are green.”

“You like frogs?”

“No. I mean . . . Yeah, I guess . . . I don’t know.” This isn’t going exactly according to plan. “I just meant that a lot of good things are green.”

“Like frogs.”

“Exactly.”

“I like frogs,” he says, “but my favorite animal is probably the jaguar.”

Great. By the time we pull up in front of my house, I’m no closer to getting anything out of him than I was when we started.

“Well, bye,” I say. “Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Wilimena. Ellie, text me later.”

“I will,” she says, and gives me a pointed look, like she can’t wait to tell me what went down with her and Kyle.

I walk into my house, and Mrs. Dunham follows behind me.

• • •

But she must have expended too much energy while she was doing all that whispering, because even though she follows me up the stairs, by the time I get to my room, she’s gone. I don’t even have time to enjoy any of my ghost-free time, though, because Daniella takes over immediately.

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