A Guide to the Other Side

by Robert Imfeld

  The woman’s jaw dropped dramatically, and Kristina, giggling, let me see her red, embarrassed aura.

  “How dare you!” she said, looking around at the other moms, who were staring at her awkwardly, her blond hair smacking her face. “I should sue you for slander.”

  “Ask her to let you sniff her ‘water bottle,’” her dad said, making air quotations with his fingers.

  “Tammie, your dad thinks you should let me smell your water bottle,” I said quietly. “Any reason why?”

  The muscles in her neck flared, and she got up, grabbed her purse, and stomped away as the football players ran back onto the field to start the third quarter.

  “Well,” my dad said, a little smile on his face, “that was embarrassing.”

  * * *

  After the game ended, I was holding Ella and walking next to Aunt Hilda, who was hobbling along with her walker. The only sound was Ella’s gurgling.

  “Did you have fun, Aunt Hilda?” I finally asked.

  “Sure,” she scoffed. “I especially enjoyed the halftime entertainment.”

  My cheeks flushed, and I was fed up. “Is there a reason you don’t like me, Aunt Hilda?”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and almost as soon as I finished speaking, she blurted out, “Why haven’t you ever delivered a message from Marvy?” She nervously caressed her half-heart necklace, and for the first time I noticed the letters MAR lightly etched onto the pendant.

  “Her husband, Uncle Marvin,” Kristina said, wafting back from eavesdropping on a conversation Jack was having with my dad. Her voice was ominous. “I’ve never seen him before. I don’t think he’s in the Beyond, Baylor. . . .”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, Aunt Hilda, but he’s never appeared to me,” I said. “I can’t make him deliver a message if he doesn’t want to.” I paused. “Or maybe he can’t deliver one.”

  She stopped walking and reached into her pocket for her handkerchief. “I wish he would.”

  She blew her nose while Kristina and I exchanged awkward glances. If Uncle Marvin wasn’t in the Beyond, then he was somewhere else . . . somewhere bad. Maybe even with Rosalie.

  “Sorry,” I said quietly.

  Then we kept walking like nothing had happened.

  * * *

  The Fall Ball was less than a week away, and Aiden and J had successfully avoided talking to each other for several days. But no longer could they avoid the subject.

  As far as I knew, J had said no to Andrew but still hadn’t said yes to Aiden. Aiden had gotten out of his mess by telling Cassie he could never be with someone who would attack one of his friends.

  But even though they had no attachments precluding them from getting together, they still weren’t together.

  “This is getting pathetic,” Kristina said as she sat with us at lunch and watched Aiden eat his pepperoni sandwich in sad silence. “It’s even worse than listening to Napoléon perform his speeches over and over again.” She shook her head. “And nothing has ever been worse than that.”

  “Well, what are we going to do?” I muttered. She did a double take. She wasn’t used to me responding to her questions at school.

  “We’ve got to make him man up, like you said J wanted.”

  We watched him use a pepperoni to wipe mustard off his lip and then eat it.

  I tried to hide my disgust. Kristina didn’t have to worry about that and looked at him as though he’d just sneezed in her face.

  “You’re going to have to help him again,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it’s just the way it is. Remember last year’s jazz concert, when you all performed with that soloist?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, you should perform it, and Aiden can be the soloist,” she said with a devilish grin.

  And the image bloomed so clearly in my mind that I thought it just might work. I ran to the band room, grabbed my tuba, and brought it back to the table.

  “What are you doing with that?” Aiden asked.

  “Aiden, I’m helping you redeem yourself with J,” I said.

  “What’s going on? What are you talking about?” he asked, panicked.

  “Remember that jazz concert from last year? That funny love song we did?”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly, “we had that pretty singer from the high school perform with us.”

  “Well, you get to be a pretty singer for a few minutes.”

  “What?” he squeaked, and I thought I saw tears spring to his eyes. “Baylor, no, you can’t do this to me!”

  But the bell rang, and I already had my tuba, and Kristina was goading me on, and J was walking in our direction.

  “Sorry, buddy!” I said sincerely. “In three, two, one.”

  And I began playing the notes, while a couple of our band friends pushed him to stand on the table.

  “Oh my God,” he said, his legs suffering from an earthquake only he could feel.

  J was looking at Aiden with alarmed intrigue, which I took as a good sign.

  “Now!” I said to Aiden between breaths.

  “I’m wise to you baby,” Aiden croaked, completely out of tune and speaking instead of singing, his arms stiff at his sides. “Think that I’m going away.”

  J walked slowly our way, and I played my tuba with gusto. Bobby ran over, laughing, and starting drumming the beat on a textbook.

  “People call me craaazy, at least for today.”

  She smiled, and miraculously Aiden smiled and started singing with an air of confidence, looking only at J while everyone around us snickered.

  “When you say you don’t waaaant me, it makes me feel bluuuue.”

  Kristina jumped up as J stopped a few feet from us. “It’s working!”

  “If you don’t believe I looooove you, look what a fool I’ve beeeen! If you don’t think I’m siiiiinking, look whaaat a hole I’m in!”

  Aiden climbed down from the table and grabbed her hands.

  “Before I met you, I had a good pair of shooooes, but take a look at me now!” He let go of J, stepped back, and kicked off his shoes, falling to his knees dramatically. “I’ve got the barefooted bluuuues!”

  Everyone around us was cheering and whooping, and Aiden reached up for J’s hands again and pulled her down to the ground with him. Kristina touched my shoulder and told me to stop playing, and I motioned for Bobby to stop too.

  Looking her right in the eyes, a small smile on his face, Aiden sang the last line: “If you don’t believe I love you . . .”—he swallowed, trying to keep his voice from cracking—“look what a fool I’ve been.”

  There was a moment of silence where J and Aiden stared at each other, and everyone else stared at them in jealousy, and everyone was wondering what was going to happen next. Then J smiled, leaned in, and kissed Aiden on the cheek, and the crowd exploded.

  A bunch of girls came up and started gushing to me.

  “That was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “You’re so talented, Baylor!”

  “You’re just so blessed!”

  “Do you have a date for the dance this weekend?”

  I looked at Kristina, who was grimacing next to me, grossed out I was getting attention from girls. She nodded at me to talk to them, so I smiled, embarrassed, and tried to answer them politely. Bobby sauntered over and said, “This fine gentleman is up for grabs, and Baylor is too. Any takers?” The girls giggled, and I blushed almost as bad as Aiden.

  The truth was, I didn’t have a date. I’d been so distracted by the Sheet Man escapades that I was planning on going alone, or possibly with Aiden if he and J hadn’t made up by then. But really, I wasn’t going alone. I’d be going with Kristina.

  Except . . . she was my sister, and dead or alive, that was still weird.

  “Don’t feel bad for me,” she said, as though she could read my mind. “I can ask Colonel Fleetwood to accompany me that night.”

  I smiled at her and turned back to the girls.

  If I could get a date out of it, why not?

/>   * * *

  The night of the dance, before my mom took me to J’s house, where a bunch of us were meeting to take pictures, I gathered my family in our backyard, much to their chagrin. It hadn’t snowed yet, but the temperature was so low that we were one spilled cup of water away from having snow.

  We huddled together by one of the bushes, and for once Kristina had no idea what I was about to do. I had secretly recruited Madame Nadirah to help me.

  “What’s this about, Baylor?” my mom asked as she clung on to my dad for warmth.

  “So, family, as you all know, I can see and speak to Kristina,” I said, holding something heavy and wrapped in a towel, “and even though you can’t see or hear her, she’s constantly around and very much a part of our lives.”

  “Baylor, what are you doing?” Kristina asked, sounding embarrassed.

  “And I thought it was sad that there wasn’t a tangible reminder of her in our house, so I decided to change that.”

  I put the object down on some mulch and took the towel off to reveal a flat rock with an inscription: FOR KRISTINA, OUR BELOVED DAUGHTER AND SISTER, WHOSE LOVE LIVES ON IN OUR HEARTS.

  “There,” I said. “Now no one can ever forget you.”

  Kristina, looking grateful that ghosts can’t cry, walked over and melted into me, sending chills all throughout my body.

  “I hate when you do that!” I said, backing away.

  Ella laughed. “Kristi hug!” she screamed in my brother’s arms, and I ran my fingers through her curly hair.

  “That’s right!” I said. “Kristina gave me a hug.”

  I looked over at my mom, who was breathing deeply and nodding.

  “That was so nice, Baylor,” she said softly as we walked back inside. “After all she’s done for us, I can’t believe we didn’t have anything like it before.”

  “I sort of can,” my dad said, wrapping his arm around her waist, “if only because we were too sad to create one.”

  “Well, this surprise was mainly for her,” I said, my voice barely containing my excitement. “I’ve got one more for you two.”

  My parents glanced at each other, worried, as I opened the hall closet and handed them a wrapped box. “Open it!”

  My mom tore off the wrapping paper slowly, my dad at her side. The paper floated to the ground as they stared in shock at the framed portrait of Kristina.

  I had made some friends at the police station, which is to say I charmed them by delivering endless messages from their loved ones, and one of them knew a sketch artist, who agreed to help me draw Kristina. However, it turned out that I wasn’t very good at describing Kristina’s features, so the frustrated artist left me alone in a back room to search through a database to find the facial features that looked most like Kristina’s. It was boring at first, but as I scrolled through pages and pages of noses, I got to ask Kristina over and over about a lot of the things that’d been bugging me about her world.

  “But what can you do? Tommy specifically said you weren’t an average ghost,” I said, flipping through nose after nose on the computer, trying to find one that matched hers. “It’s not fair. You know I can talk to ghosts, so I should get to know whatever makes you special in the Beyond.”

  “Tommy needs to learn to keep his mouth shut,” Kristina snapped. She still hadn’t gotten over him advising me to venture into that weird limbo by myself. “All I can say is that I get to learn lessons in the Beyond.”

  “But everyone learns lessons in the Beyond. You say that all the time.”

  She shrugged.

  “Do you go into a classroom and listen to someone talk and take notes? Who’s the teacher? Is it Gandhi? It’s totally Gandhi, isn’t it?”

  “Baylor, stop.”

  “And Grandpa Bosco said that being ghostnapped by the Sheet Man was part of your journey. What does that mean? How was being trapped in a bunch of sheets for a week beneficial to you at all?”

  “Baylor,” she finally said after the fiftieth time I’d asked, “listen to me.”

  I looked up from all the noses and smiled politely as she walked over and crouched down next to me. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I truly don’t know that much more than you, but I promise we’ll both find out more as we walk through this life together,” she said, smiling widely, like she was looking forward to it or something. “We’re a duo, Baylor. The undead duo! And this really is just the beginning. We have so, so much more to learn.”

  In the end the sketch artist and I had finally come up with a pretty accurate depiction of Kristina. The long hair, the skinny face that matched my mother’s, the kind eyes that so resembled Ella’s, Jack’s funny nose, the flat mouth of my father, and my round chin.

  “This . . . this can’t be . . . ,” my mom said, shaking her head, tears streaming freely down her face. It’s a good thing we weren’t outside, or else they’d have turned into icicles. “Kristina?”

  I nodded. The cold weather must have really dried my eyes out, because they were suddenly flooded with water too.

  My dad studied the portrait in silence, his eyes moving rapidly, his head nodding to a fast beat only he could hear.

  Kristina stood off to the side, staring happily. She had been embarrassed at first about the idea, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted them to have it. In fact, it was supposed to be their Christmas present, but she was so pleased with how it turned out and so eager for them to finally see her, she said she’d help me find something even better. Watching my parents’ reactions, I realized I’d been duped.

  “She’s beautiful,” my mom whispered.

  We stared at the picture for a few more minutes, until my mom shook her head fast and said, “It’s time to go, Baylor! You’re going to be late for pictures!” She sounded giddy and ran to clean up her mascara so she could look nice for all the other parents. “We still have to pick up the corsage, too!”

  At the florist’s shop my mom and I watched as the woman behind the counter bounced with excitement.

  “I just love all these dances the school puts on!” she said as she wrapped up the corsage. “It’s so cute to see the kids get all dressed up and pick up flowers and act all nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous!” I said, and my voice picked that exact moment to crack. She winked me, and I blushed.

  Just as we were leaving, a nice grandma ghost tapped my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, young man, I know you’re busy,” she said, smiling in a sheepish way. “But I was hoping you might tell my daughter how proud I am of her for chasing her dreams and owning her own flower shop.” She looked down at some lush yellow roses and smiled sadly. “I so wish I could smell these. They’ve always been my favorite.”

  I looked at my watch, and Kristina smiled and said, “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Hold on, Mom,” I said. “Duty calls.”

  I turned back to the counter and smiled at the florist. “One more thing, ma’am,” I said. “My name is Baylor Bosco, and I can communicate with people who have crossed over.”

  Acknowledgments

  TO MY WONDERFUL PARENTS—I already dedicated this book to you. What more do you want?! I’m kidding. Thanks for your endless love and support. I’m not sure how I got so lucky to deserve such a great mom and dad, but I’m not going to question it. Ben and Jenny, my dear siblings, thank you for the many years of fighting and yelling and emotional scarring from when we were growing up. You’ve provided plenty of material for future books. (Just kidding again! I’m on a roll. Love ya.)

  All my thanks and gratitude to my agent, Dan Lazar—the best in the biz—for being generally awesome, relentlessly tenacious, and totally game to answer my e-mails at all times of day. Thanks to everyone else at Writers House, especially Torie Doherty-Munro, Cecilia de la Campa, and Angharad Kowal.

  To my editor, Michael Strother—thanks so much for all your hard work. Where would I be without your fantastic, insightful notes? Well, we’re about to find out, since your talent
s have taken you elsewhere! However, I’m thrilled Amy Cloud has taken over editorial duties and I look forward to working with someone so delightfully warmhearted and smart. Thanks to everyone else at S&S/Aladdin, especially Mara Anastas, Audrey Gibbons, Jodie Hockensmith, Mary Marotta, and Carolyn Swerdloff. Oh, and of course, thanks to Hugh D’Andrade, for creating a cover that perfectly captures the spirit of the book.

  Thanks to my family, friends, teachers, coworkers, and countless other people for all your support and kind words of encouragement. Huge thanks to Sue Davis, Seema Mahanian, and Lauren Vallario for your invaluable input and guidance.

  I’d be remiss not to acknowledge anything and everything that’s helped me along from, well, the other side. My long-lost twin, wherever you are, thanks for the inspiration. Theresa Caputo, my other vital source of inspiration—you are a gem. And, finally, a special shout-out to Grandpa Erv, Uncle Moose, and Mr. Senior—thanks for keeping watch over me.

  ROBERT IMFELD grew up in Orlando, Florida, and like any self-respecting Floridian, evenly split his free time between the beach and Disney World. After graduating from the University of Florida, he put his journalism degree to good use by saving lives at a luxury resort (some call this “lifeguarding”) in Orlando, interning/brewing coffee at a production company in L.A., and managing finances for country songwriters in Nashville. He now lives in New York City, where he works on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid marketing team by day and writes kids’ books by night.

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  Simon & Schuster, New York

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  authors.simonandschuster.com/Robert-Imfeld

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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