“I do.” I squirmed as the chair’s metal slats stuck to my jeans. The temperature had climbed to the nineties even though it was mid-September. An unexpected heat wave. Stale, moist air clung to everything in her office, despite the open window behind her desk.
“What changed your mind?” She pushed her damp hair back from her face. Small curls remained plastered to her full cheeks.
“I didn’t change my mind.” I explained again how I hadn’t signed up. That someone was playing a joke on me.
“A mighty elaborate joke.” She squinted her eyes behind the lenses, trying to figure me out.
“Can you take my name off the list? Please?” It didn’t seem like a lot to ask. “All those other girls want it. You don’t need me.”
“I could, but—” She paused, folding a piece of paper into accordion pleats. “I think that you should stay in the race.”
“What?” I blurted.
“You’re new. It’s not easy to meet people. Think of this as an opportunity. A happy accident.” She fanned herself with her pleated paper fan. “You can get involved in the school and make friends at the same time.”
For real? When was the last time she was in middle school? Had things really changed that much in thirty years? Didn’t she know that no one would vote for me?
I would be a joke. A huge joke.
One of the secretaries pushed opened the office door before I could protest. “You’re backing up out here. Two parents, three disciplinaries, and the computers in the eighth-grade wing are off-line again.”
“We’re almost done, Esther.” With a sigh, the principal placed her fan down on the dark-wood credenza behind her, next to a ceramic vase filled with orange marigolds. She turned to me. “Are we good?”
Stand up for yourself, I silently commanded. Do something. “I don’t want to do it, and I don’t think I should be forced to.”
“No one’s forcing anything, Sara.” She sighed again, gazing out the door at the crowd of overheated disgruntled parents and belligerent students. “Look, if you really don’t want—”
My left foot began to tingle. Pinpricks ran along the sole and up to my ankle.
At that moment, a breeze materialized for the first time all day. Air swept through the office from the open window.
And in the breeze, the outline of hands.
Faint, shimmery hands.
Reaching out.
The prickling climbed my legs. The signal I knew all too well.
The hands. The cool air. They swirled into one, knocking the vase of flowers over with unexpected force. Petals and stems scattered on the floor. Water flooded over the wooden credenza, soaking papers and files.
“Oh, my!” Principal Bowman leaped to her feet and frantically gathered the paper in the path of the water. “This is the strangest weather. I wonder if a storm is coming.”
Tingling coursed through my entire body. I sat frozen, unable to get up to help. I could only stare at the vase, lying on its side. A sudden breeze hadn’t blown it over. There had been hands. Hands pushing it.
“Esther? Can you get me some paper towels?” Principal Bowman bellowed. “Oh no, the school board minutes are soaked. Look, uh . . .” For a moment she seemed to forget who I was. “Sara. Sleep on it tonight. Think about it. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”
“But—”
Esther hurried in with a handful of towels, and together they squatted below the desk to repair the damage.
“You can take a pass from the office counter,” Esther called up to me. “Seventh-grade lunch is about to start.”
“Tomorrow,” Principal Bowman instructed. “Think about it.”
I left with the events playing over and over like a YouTube video in my mind.
That wasn’t a weird act of Mother Nature.
A spirit had knocked over the vase.
On purpose.
To cause a distraction.
To make me run for Harvest Queen.
A huge, glittery poster with my name on it hung behind me. I couldn’t see it, but I knew with every bite of my turkey sandwich that it was there. Avery had been hard at work. I was surprised she hadn’t erected a billboard on the boardwalk.
Maybe tomorrow.
“Avery, it’s really nice of you. Really nice, but—” She’d left before I could talk to her yesterday. “I told you I’m getting out of it.”
“But everyone thinks it’s so cool that you’re doing it,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s cool,” Miranda muttered. I heard, but didn’t say anything. Miranda was the only one of the group who didn’t like me. I didn’t think she hated me, though. I didn’t know. I couldn’t figure her out.
“Sara’s being in the race has really shaken things up.” Avery grinned in high-def color. Totally excited.
She reminded me of Stewy, my aunt Charlotte’s beagle. Every day, Stewy chases the squirrels in their yard. He never catches them. He never has the slightest chance of catching them. But he keeps at it, completely oblivious that all his effort is completely wasted.
“Aves, what kind of paint did you use?” Tamara asked.
Avery shrugged. “The normal kind. Why?”
Tamara cocked her head, examining the posters throughout the cafeteria. “I don’t know. There’s something about your posters. Makes you want to look at them. A lot.”
“I see it too!” Lily nodded. “They kind of sparkle, like they’re lit up from behind.”
I noticed it too. A shimmer. A special gleam. Avery’s posters popped. They pulled you in.
I ran my top teeth over the chapped skin on my lip. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Avery wasn’t behind all this. I thought about the hands. The aura coming off the posters . . . maybe it was supernatural.
A spirit.
I watched the gym teacher. His body was so faint today. He blew a whistle at a table of boys throwing pretzel sticks. But they didn’t stop. Why would they? They couldn’t hear him.
Was he the one?
“Sara, scoot down,” Lily whispered. She sat to my right. “Quickly!”
I scooted. “Why?”
“Jack, Luke, Jayden, Garrett, and the other Jack are coming over.” She straightened the three tank tops she wore layered.
Tamara, Avery, Miranda, and Lily joked and talked with the boys as if they’d all known one another forever.
I reached into my brown paper bag and pulled out a chocolate pudding cup and a plastic spoon. Lady Azura had a thing for pudding cups. Our fridge was stocked with them. As I rolled back the foil top, my eyes drifted to the gym teacher patrolling the aisles. Kids threw things. They shoved one another. He tried to control them, stop them, but couldn’t.
As his anger mounted, his body grew fainter.
In and out, his image flickered. A thermometer of his emotions.
“Hey. Pudding cup, huh?” Jayden was suddenly sitting to my right. How did that happen? Lily was now across the table. Lily and Avery talked to the boys about the Harvest Festival, making plans for us all to meet up at the parade.
“Have you ever had chocomole?” Jayden asked.
“Chocomole? What’s that?”
He leaned across me, the sleeve of his white T-shirt brushing the underside of my chin. I breathed in the familiar smell of him. “Aves, are you done with those?” he asked.
“Sure.” Avery pushed her half-eaten bag of potato chips toward him.
“Excellent.” The bag crinkled as Jayden pulled back. He produced a chip and plunged it into the pudding. “You’ve had guacamole, right? Well, this is chocomole. It works better with tortilla chips. These are a little flimsy.” He held out the pudding-covered chip.
“That looks gross!”
“Come on . . . try it. Or do Harvest Queens only eat healthy foods?”
“I’m not a Harvest Queen!”
“That’s what you say. But I don’t believe you. I see posters.” He waved the chip, and splotches of pudding dripped onto the table. Then, grinning, he popped it into his mo
uth.
“Not my doing,” I insisted.
“It’s all a mistake.”
“Interesting.” He pretended to think about it.
We were still sitting at a table filled with kids in an enormous room filled with even more kids, yet in an odd way it seemed like we were alone. I felt bolder with Jayden. Funnier. Relaxed.
“Okay, here’s the test, Your Highness—”
“Don’t call me that,” I warned. I gave him a playful shove.
Darkness descended.
“Your Royal Harvest? Queen of the Farm Where There Is No Farm?” Jayden strung together a stream of silly titles.
I caught sight of Spirit Boy from the corner of my eye. He’d appeared alongside us. Anger pulsed around him, sending out sparks.
Ignore him. Ignore him.
“What’s my test?” Through the dimming light, I focused my attention on Jayden.
He placed the pudding cup in my right hand, then reached for Tamara’s half-eaten cheese stick, which he placed into my left. “Dunk and down. That’s the test.”
“Go for it, Sara!” Lily cheered loudly. I had an audience.
“No problem.” Cheddar cheese and chocolate were gross together, but it wasn’t the worst possible combination.
As I lifted the cheese stick toward the cup, the large room grew even darker. A hum, faint at first, then louder, filled my ears. The noise drowned out the banging of trays.
Before I could react, the spirit rushed toward me with incredible speed. He bumped me hard with his shoulder.
My arm flew forward, and the dark-brown pudding rocketed out of the cup, landing with a loud splat across my cheek and in my hair. Thick globs slid down my face and onto my collar. The creamy substance lodged inside my ear. I wiped frantically at my hair, but that only made it worse.
Everyone laughed. The noise echoed in the packed room, bouncing off the walls and reverberating in my clogged ear. I felt my eyes fill with tears and I willed myself not to cry.
The entire cafeteria had witnessed me throw a cup of pudding at myself. Now they were all laughing.
All except Jayden’s bodyguard. Arms crossed and brow furrowed, he stared at me with angry eyes, letting me know that he was in charge.
CHAPTER 10
I left.
No explanation. No laughing at myself. No asking a teacher for a pass. I just stood and speed-walked to the girls’ bathroom.
No one would understand what had happened. Ever.
The large bathroom was empty. The combined odor of bleach, urine, and fruity lip gloss clung to the peach-tiled walls. I shivered. The temperature felt twenty degrees colder in here than in the hall. I leaned both hands on the chipped white sink and stared at my pudding makeover in the scratched mirror.
Gross!
Of course there were no paper towels. Just those stupid hand dryers. Grabbing a roll of toilet paper, I mopped the chocolate from my face and scooped it from my ear. I stuck half my head under the sink faucet, desperate to return my sticky hair back to blond.
The noise took a moment to work its way into my brain.
Crying. Muffled sobs.
I hesitated, the icy water washing the pudding down the drain, and strained my ears.
Was someone here?
I shut off the faucet. Combing my fingers through my hair, I stood and listened. Water dripped onto my shoulder.
A faint sob. A choked sniffle.
I whirled around and scanned the bathroom. No feet peeked out from any of the four stalls. “Hello?” I called. “Who’s here?”
No answer.
More sniffles.
Every nerve in my body tingled. High alert.
I wasn’t alone. I could feel it. Bits of wet, disintegrating toilet paper dropped from my dripping hair to the floor, but I didn’t move.
Another sniffle.
“I know you’re here!” I had wanted to shout it, but my voice came out in a forced whisper.
And then she appeared.
A girl. She shimmered into view in the far corner. She wore a short-sleeved white blouse, a tan calf-length skirt, white ankle socks, and loafers. A pale-pink cardigan sweater hung over her shoulders, fastened by only the top button. Her figure vibrated as if she was standing under a strobe light.
My fingers wrapped around the porcelain sink for support.
I stared at her. She stared at me.
Water soaking through my shirt shook me out of my daze. Get away, I thought. Just get away.
With a gasping breath, I pried my fingers from the sink and forced my feet toward the door.
“No . . . please . . . don’t go . . .” Low, grief-stricken sobs echoed off the tiles. “Please . . .”
I stopped. Get away, the voice screamed in my head.
“Please . . .”
“Why?” Was I an idiot? Why was I talking to this girl . . . this spirit?
“I need you. I need your help.”
“Me? You don’t need me.”
“I’m Alice. We’re the same age, you know.” Her voice was soft.
“How do you know my age?” I still hadn’t moved. Neither had she. A standoff in the girls’ bathroom.
“I know all about you, Sara.” She dabbed her eyes with a white cotton handkerchief. Her eyelashes were unusually long. “I’ve been waiting for someone like you. I’ve been waiting . . . so long.”
Enough, the voice inside me cried. Stop talking. Leave.
“Waiting for what?” My mouth wasn’t listening to the voice.
Alice moved slowly toward me. Chestnut hair in stiff waves, as if set in large curlers overnight, framed her narrow face. Pink lipstick stained her lips. She stopped several feet away. “I went to Stellamar Middle School too. Like you.” Her voice was steady, more controlled now. “And like you, I was running for Harvest Queen. Of course, that was back in 1952—”
“1952?” I blurted. Suddenly pieces fit together. “Did you—were you the one who put that flyer thing in my locker? And the other stuff?”
Alice gave me a tight-lipped smile. “They were supposed to be hints.”
“Hints for what?” I found myself closing the gap between us. “How was I supposed to know they were hints? From you?”
She raised her arm, as if to stop me. “I really wanted to be Harvest Queen. But look at me. I was too plain. I’m not beautiful like you.”
She stopped in front of the mirror. I gazed into the glass. At the doors of the toilet stalls behind me. Alice had no reflection. As if she didn’t exist.
“My parents both worked at the college. Professors. Higher learning was their dream. I got good grades and studied hard for them. But that’s not what I wanted.” She pulled a tube of lipstick from the pocket of her skirt. Removing the cap, she carefully applied the pink color to her already made-up mouth. “My parents hated makeup. They threw away the movie magazines I bought. They called them frivolous.”
A fat tear formed in the corner of her eye. “It was all I dreamed of. Hollywood. Beauty pageants. The glamour.” She pushed the tear away. “I had a plan, you know. A plan to change everything. I was going to be glamorous and beautiful when I grew up.”
I didn’t say anything. But I didn’t leave, either. I listened to Alice’s story.
“I signed up to run for Harvest Queen. I made posters. I gave kids little gifts to vote for me. I convinced them that I would be the perfect Harvest Queen.” She raised her hands to her head, as if indicating a crown. “My parents didn’t even know I was running. I planned to surprise them at the parade when my name was called. With that crown on my head, doors would open. I would enter beauty pageants. I would go to Hollywood, and my parents would understand that this was my true destiny.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then it all got ruined.” Alice sighed. “I woke one morning with a sore throat. Nothing horrible. I went to school. I had a test that day I didn’t want to miss because I had studied so hard for it. I swear, I wasn’t that sick, Sara! But I got worse so quickly.
Soon I had a high fever and was having trouble breathing. The next day I was rushed to the hospital. I don’t remember much of that day. I was burning with fever. Then it was over.”
“Over?” I didn’t understand.
“My dreams . . . my plans . . . my life was over. I died in that hospital. I died alone. My family couldn’t come into the room to see me. I had a disease . . . a deadly, contagious disease. Polio.” Tears streamed down her translucent cheeks.
“That’s so horrible.” I reached for the roll of toilet paper perched on the edge of the sink, but she shook her head. Her handkerchief materialized, and she wiped her eyes.
“It gets worse. The next day five more kids were brought to the hospital with polio. The day after, another seven. Many died. Others were paralyzed. The newspapers called it an epidemic.” She sniffed, then swallowed hard. “The mayor canceled the Harvest Parade and Dance. There were to be no public gatherings. Everyone hid in their homes, petrified of catching polio. No girl was crowned that year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But I’m still here. I’m still in middle school,” Alice said. She leveled her gaze against mine. “I’m stuck here.”
I gave her a questioning look. I was new to this. I didn’t understand.
“I wanted to be Harvest Queen. It’s my destiny,” she said simply. “I need to be Harvest Queen.”
“But how—?”
“You. You, Sara. Don’t you see?” She moved forward until we were only inches apart. The icy air that had flowed from my locker now projected from her. “When you arrived, I could feel it. Your energy. Our connection. You’re my answer. With you, I can finally wear that crown.”
“But I don’t want to be Harvest Queen!” How many times would I have to say this?
“It’s not for you, Sara. It’s for me. That’s why I signed you up.”
“I should have been given a choice—”
Someone coughed. A forced, fake cough.
I whirled around, toward the door. Lily stared wide-eyed at me.
How long had she been there?
“Hi,” I said meekly. “I—uh—think I got all the pudding out. Right?” I tried to act natural.
Lily took a tentative step toward me. “Yeah, it’s gone.” She seemed unsure, which was so not like her. “I’m sorry we all laughed. It wasn’t funny.”
Haunted Memories Page 6