I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan

Author:Judy Sheehan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2016-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

chapter twenty-two

a girl with a plan

I wasn’t exactly sure how we would do it, but I was sure that Nick was sure. It took him a whole two minutes to put the plan together, step by step. It sounded solid, and I felt aglow with hope.

We waited until the stores were closed. And if we hadn’t encountered mall-walking Declan, Alice might have come with us. We all stood still and offered a respectful moment of silence as he trudged past us, unseeing and unhearing but handsome as ever. I silently apologized for all the times I’d laughed at him, even though he didn’t know I was doing it. I knew. But the sight of him must have brought up horrible memories for Alice.

“That way lies madness,” Alice pleaded with me. “Please don’t try this insane plan. Don’t interfere with the living. The Boy will be furious. Not to mention Bertha.”

“Oh, Alice. If I don’t try, if I don’t do absolutely everything in my power to save my dad, then I’ll end up like Declan. How can I move on if I know I’ve left him in danger?”

She looked at her feet.

“You don’t have to come with us,” Nick conceded. “But please don’t tell Bertha, okay?”

Alice nodded, and the three of us descended to the lowest level of the mall, the land of the living. We slipped through the walls of the first store we saw—the Apple Store, which was staring down the Microsoft Store right across from it. We were stepping into the middle of a feud, I thought.

The store was bright and shiny, even in the dark. I liked it better without the Geniuses. I scanned the merchandise, all of which was useless to us dead people.

“First order of business: we need a land line,” Nick said, and we all began to search in silence among the shiny toys in the store. “Found it!” Nick shouted so loudly, I sort of jumped. He found a big, fancy phone with a mass of buttons and lights right behind the sales counter. Perfect.

“We can call your dad first, because he might die and all”—Lacey pointed a finger right in my face—“but then we call Jorge and scare the shit out of him.” She held a script she had scrawled for me to shout into the phone at her murderer. Okay. This was the price I had to pay, and I would gladly pay it.

“I’ll say whatever you want me to say to him,” I assured her. From her grin, I knew that the message on that paper must be pretty awful. Lacey turned her attention to Nick.

“It’s your plan. You should get a call too,” she declared. “It just seems fair.”

“I want to know that my mom is okay,” he began. But Lacey cut him off.

“So we’ll call her and see how she’s doing. Like we’re taking a survey or something.” Nick looked pretty uneasy with that idea. Would she really feel better after a call from a dead stranger?

“Okay. Here we go.

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