“That’s right,” she says.
“So you’ve known people who graduated then?”
She nods.
“What happens to them? Mr Burgrove was utterly cryptic about it.”
“No one knows,” she says. “But I guess they go out into Death World and get jobs.”
“That’s what it’s called?” I ask. “Death World?”
“No one’s ever told me what it’s called,” she says. “Maybe it doesn’t have a name. My friend and I just made up calling it Death World. We think it fits, though.”
I nod. It does.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask as I walk over to the wardrobe with a pile of clothes in my arms.
Caydi nods.
“What’s with the pumpkin? It’s April.”
“Oh, that’s Charlie,” she says. “He’s my pet.”
Charlie. Charlie the pet pumpkin. Right.
“He’s kind of… lively, isn’t he?”
“Oh no, he didn’t bite you, did he?”
“Bite me? Er, no.” He bites? Wonderful. “But he did growl a bit. Does he, er, make a habit of biting people?”
“Only if they’re dumb enough to put their fingers in his mouth,” she says.
Right. At least my hunch on avoiding the mouth was right. “I’ve never heard of a pumpkin that bites people.”
“Charlie’s a vampire pumpkin,” Caydi says.
A vampire pumpkin? Right. And she thinks I need therapy. “By vampire you mean…”
“He drinks blood.” She says it like it is nothing out of the ordinary. “Occasionally he eats a bit of flesh too. But don’t worry, he won’t hurt you. He can’t move from the table, so don’t go putting your fingers in his gob and you’ll be fine.”
“Do you feed him often?”
“About once a month. More often if someone pisses me off.”
I stare at her.
She laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m only joking.”
“Oh,” I say with a sigh of relief.
“You’ll grow to like him. Everybody likes Charlie.”
“Does he speak?”
“No,” she says in disbelief. “Whoever heard of a talking pumpkin?”
Whoever heard of a blood-drinking pumpkin either, I think in response, but I don’t say it. “You know, in my school they had hamsters as pets,” I say instead.
“Yeah, well, Death World is far more interesting.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
She smiles and gives Charlie the flesh-devouring pumpkin a stroke.
I could be wrong, but I think he purred.
CHAPTER 7
Sleep last night was sporadic at best. Especially after Caydi noticed something else different about me. I’ve been wearing a pink rose necklace for the past year. I never take it off. Wade gave it to me on our second date and it’s been around my neck since then. I hold it in my hand when we’re apart and it makes me feel better. And it’s still pink. Like my hair is still brown and my skin is still skin coloured, the rose around my neck is still pink. Caydi thinks I should go and ask Mrs Carbonell about it.
This morning I am on my own for breakfast. Caydi “doesn’t do breakfast”, so I’ve wandered down to the canteen on my own. I don’t like being by myself. Back at home, I’m never alone. On the rare occasion Sophie isn’t in school, there are plenty of girls who would love to get close to me. They think if they sit by me once, they will automatically be a part of the popular crowd.
But here I don’t know anybody. Hopefully that will change because it’s still only my second day, but it’s disconcerting to walk into the canteen that I know so well and be all alone. I don’t do going solo. Back at home I know everyone.
Here I try to smile at people as I pass them, but they either ignore me or look me over with distaste and disinterested eyes. It sucks to be the new girl. I’ve never been the new girl before, although I’ve given plenty of them that same look myself. I’ve never stopped to consider what it might be like on the other side of that look.
It sucks. Big time.
I join the queue at the food counter. I’m in line behind a tall girl who is completely grey. I try to say hello to her but she looks at me angrily and hunches her shoulders in a way that clearly says leave me alone.
Someone else joins the queue behind me. I turn around to smile but she just stares at me.
Fine, I think.
Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s not even half past seven in the morning yet. Way too early. Back at home, school doesn’t start until nine. Still early, but slightly more humane than this.
Maybe people will be friendlier later.
Even I don’t feel my usual self at this time of day.
“How come you look so weird?” the girl behind me asks abruptly.
Could she be more blunt?
“I don’t look weird, I look alive,” I snap.
“You aren’t. So to me you just look weird.”
“Yeah, well, grey isn’t exactly your colour, so why don’t you take a look in the mirror before insulting other people?” I ask.
The tall girl in front of me turns around at the sound of our exchange and stares.
God, people here are so rude.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” I snap. I’m already pissed off beyond belief and I’ve only been here five minutes.
“Let me guess.” The tall girl snorts. “You were a prom queen.”
“No,” I say angrily. “Why does everybody keep saying that?”
“How’d you die?” she asks brusquely.
“Car accident,” I mutter. I guess this is the favoured topic of conversation around here. “And you?”
“Bus accident,” she says.
“How do you die from a bus accident?” the girl behind me asks like it’s the strangest thing she’s ever heard.
“I got hit by one,” the tall girl says. “Why don’t you talk to Little Miss Cheerleader and leave me alone?”
“Why don’t you keep your voice down?” the other girl responds.
“Hey, why don’t you both shut the hell up?” I say loudly. Loudly enough to attract a few glances from nearby kids. “It’s seven in the morning, have a little consideration.”
“How come you’re so blond anyway, Blondie?” the tall girl asks me.
“They’re called highlights,” I snap. “And don’t call me that.”
I should have known that the last thing you want to say to anyone is not to call you something because then they’ll just do it even more. I should know. Sophie and I are the ones who call people names in the canteen in the mornings. And it’s fun. Unless you’re the one being called names, I guess.
“That doesn’t answer my question, Blondie.”
“How am I supposed to know?” I growl. “I just got here yesterday. This is all new to me. I have no idea how or why I’m not grey yet, but I’m not. I thought you weren’t supposed to discriminate against people here. Pot, kettle, black and everything. Or should that be pot, kettle, grey?”
“Orders,” someone says loudly and I realise that we’ve made our way to the front of the line.
The woman with horns is standing behind the counter, glaring at the tall girl and looking utterly displeased.
The girl regards her with a disgusted look on her face.
“Toast,” she orders without any manners. “And don’t go breathing on it, it might catch light. And don’t bloody touch it, either. Don’t know what I could catch from you.”
I feel sorry for the dinner lady. Okay, she looks a little different, but so do I compared to these people and I could really do without the hassle.
The dinner lady reaches down under the counter and pulls out a plate of toast. Which is weird because either the toast is really cold by now or there’s a toaster down there. Which is an odd place to keep a toaster. But then again, what isn’t odd about this place?
The tall girl takes her toast and a cup of coffee without so much as a thank you and goes to si
t at a table with some other girls and a couple of boys. That should be me, I think. I’m the girl who is never without a table to sit at. I’m the girl with people beckoning me over and looking disappointed when Sophie and I sit by ourselves or with Wade’s crowd.
“Newbie, huh?” The woman with horns smiles at me.
“Is she always that rude?” I ask in disbelief. I mean, I may be popular but I do not treat people the way that girl just treated this woman. Especially people who serve me food.
“I’m used to it,” the woman says. “People don’t like those who look different, even in a place like this.”
I nod.
“So, what can I get you for breakfast?”
I shrug. “Er, I don’t know. What’s good?”
“What did you used to have in your old life?”
“Not much,” I admit. “It takes work to stop bursting out of my clothes.”
She laughs. “You certainly won’t have to worry about that here. There’s no aging and there’s certainly no expanding waistlines.”
“Seriously?” I look at her in shock. “You’re telling me I can eat whatever I want to and not get fat?”
She nods and watches me with a smile as this news sinks in.
I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face.
“So, what’ll it be, my love?” she asks kindly.
“I can’t think of anything,” I say. “What do you recommend?”
“Do you like croissants?”
“Ooh, not half,” I say. I haven’t eaten one since I started high school, but that’s not the point.
She reaches down behind the counter and comes up with a plate of two large, warm, buttery croissants and a cup of tea.
“Here you go.” She smiles. “That should hold you over until lunch.”
I grin at the sight of them. My mouth is watering just thinking about all that butter. I go to dig my purse out of my school bag but she stops me.
“You don’t pay here.”
“Where do I pay then?” I ask as I look around for a kiosk or something.
“No, I mean, you don’t pay here at all. Money isn’t of any use in Afterlife Academy.”
“For anything?” I ask in shock again.
“No,” she says. “Unsurprisingly, dead people don’t need money.”
“Can I ask you something?” I say before I leave the counter.
“Sure.” She smiles at me.
“Can you really breathe fire?”
She laughs at that. A loud peal of laughter that makes several students look up from their food.
“Only if people piss me off enough.”
I laugh. I don’t think she’s serious. Probably not, anyway.
“And don’t be put off by the horns,” she says, pointing to her forehead as if it was possible for me to have missed them. “I’m harmless, really.”
Usually I would be put off by someone telling me they were harmless. If someone is harmless, they probably shouldn’t have to tell you, but for some reason I believe her.
“Actually, I kind of like the horns. They add character. And colour.”
She smiles at that. “Come back at lunchtime,” she says. “I’ll have something nice for you.”
“Thanks,” I say. Then the girl behind me coughs, so I have to go because chit-chatting with the cook is holding up the queue.
I stand with my tray and look around. I almost expect to see Sophie beckoning me over or a bunch of girls I barely know begging me to sit with them. But there is nothing. I find an empty table in a dark corner and sit down.
I hate being alone.
I look over at the kitchen and see that there’s no one else there. The horned lady is at the counter by herself. I half expected to see a bunch of dinner ladies flapping around like headless chickens like they do in my old school. I can’t believe she could run this on her own. But then again, who knows, maybe she can breathe fire. The other horrible girl who was behind me in the queue is also being rude to her now.
I can’t believe the nerve of some people. Especially dead ones.
No one even so much as glances in my direction as I sit and eat my wonderful and horrifically fattening breakfast.
I wish Sophie was here. I just want someone to talk to. I don’t deal well with sitting on my own.
My first class starts in approximately thirty minutes and I’m terrified. It’s on the schedule that Mr Burgrove gave us yesterday. Ghost Laws. Whatever that might be. I didn’t even know that ghosts could have laws. It doesn’t sound exactly riveting. But at least Anthony will be there. Not that he’s exactly riveting either, but at least he’s a familiar face.
CHAPTER 8
Ghost Laws is in the classroom where English should be. While English usually bores the very soul out of me, today I would give anything to be back at home with boring Miss Jones blathering on about William Shakespeare or someone equally dead. Instead I am here, with people who are dead.
I guess I’m lucky to know my way to the classrooms. Getting lost here would just be another thing that these people would probably laugh at me for.
I walk into the classroom and am quite surprised to see the layout of desks is the same as in my usual school. Immediately I go for the desk I usually share with Sophie, but it’s occupied by two grey-looking boys who glare in my direction. I spot Caydi near the back of the room and walk over to her instead. There’s an empty seat so I sit down next to her.
“Hi.” She smiles at me. “Did you enjoy your breakfast?”
Before I have a chance to respond, a voice behind me snarls, “You’re in my seat.”
I turn around to find another Goth girl staring at me angrily.
“Oh, Riley, this is my friend, Clare,” Caydi says. “Clare, this is the roommate I was telling you about.”
Clare continues to stare at me.
“Clare usually sits there,” Caydi says. “But you can squash on the end, if you like.”
So I do. Me. People are usually begging me to sit by them. If I was somehow without a seat in English class there would be five people standing up to offer me theirs.
I stalk to the back of the room and grab an extra chair, then I squish onto the end of Caydi’s desk while Clare glares at me.
This is not fun.
I see Anthony come in with another boy. They are chatting away. It must be his roommate. He couldn’t have made friends this quickly. He didn’t have any friends at our old school and he’d been there for nearly five years.
He looks over and waves at me. I wave back and then look around to check no one has seen me. Back in our school, I would have been ridiculed for waving to the maths geek.
“Welcome, class,” the teacher shouts. I’ve been so preoccupied that I hadn’t even noticed he was there. The desk at the front where Miss Jones would normally be sitting is now occupied by a fifty-something man. He has dark, charcoal-coloured hair, and everything else about him is grey.
“For the benefit of our new arrivals, welcome to Ghost Laws class. This is where we learn about the parameters of being a ghost. I am Mr Bosenak, I will be your teacher. Any questions, ask me. If you cast your eyes downwards towards your desk, you will both find a textbook with your names on it. Keep it safe, study it, and don’t fail this class. To the rest of you, sorry you have to hear this speech so often.”
I do as he says and look downwards. To my surprise, there actually is a textbook with Riley Richardson printed on the front of it in the upper right-hand corner. I’m so surprised I nearly fall out of my chair. I swear it wasn’t there a minute ago.
Ugh, this place is so weird.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Caydi whispers. “This lesson sucks anyway.”
“Yeah, all he does is tell us all the things we can’t do,” Clare adds. She’s still frowning at me, but that remark wasn’t completely unfriendly.
They’re right, of course.
Mr Bosenak drones on at the front of the room. Caydi doodles something in her book while Clare stares out
the window.
I open the first page of my textbook and read it.
Being a ghost might sound like fun at first, but like everything else in this world, there are rules. Nothing can exist without law. Without law, there would be anarchy. Rules must be followed.
You must NOT:
- Interact with the living.
This includes:
- Attempting to talk to them via a medium.
- Attempting to talk to them via some other method.
- Attempting to talk to them via Visualisation.
- Attempting to send messages to them via technological means.
- Attempting to send messages to them via physical means.
When you return to Earth, you must NOT:
- Attempt to contact the living. This includes but is not limited to contact via letter, email, text message, the Internet, medium, or otherwise.
- Attempt to visit your loved ones.
- Attempt to touch them.
- Attempt to alert anyone of your presence.
“Wait a minute,” I say suddenly.
“Yes, Miss Richardson?”
Oops, I didn’t mean to say that aloud.
“Um…” I stutter. “It says here that we go back to Earth. Is that true?”
“I’m afraid that’s not my area of teaching. If you would kindly keep your mind in this class, Miss Richardson.”
“Is that true?” I whisper to Caydi when Mr Bosenak has gone back to droning on.
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
I think about that for a moment. So maybe we get to return to Earth? That would be brilliant. I could go and see Wade. He would be so shocked. But thrilled, obviously. And Sophie. Sophie would just die to see me again, I know she would. And my parents. Mum and Dad. Poor things, they must be devastated. I have to find out about this. I have to know if it is possible to go home. I have to go home. I’m sure this has all been some kind of huge mistake. Girls like me don’t die. And I don’t fit in here, so obviously I don’t belong.
Who cares about some stupid Ghost Law textbook? I have to get back to Earth, and when I do, there is nothing that will stop me communicating with Wade. Certainly not some stupid ghost law.
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