‘OK, I will.’
‘I want to go and show off the bracelet to my friends,’ she said, and turned to go back to the house.
‘Lucy, wait!’
She turned back. ‘What?’
‘Um, listen, you can’t tell anyone how I knew about the bracelet. How Jack’s been talking to me. Everyone will think I’m nuts.’
Lucy nodded. ‘You’re probably right. I mean, people just aren’t very open-minded about this kind of thing. Don’t worry, I’ll say Jack mailed it to me from California and it just arrived today.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Ken said fervently.
She smiled, cocked her head to one side and gazed at him oddly, like she was scrutinizing him or judging him. Which wasn’t surprising, Ken thought, considering what she’d just learned about him. Then, without saying anything else, she ran back into the house.
When Ken went back inside, he was grateful to find his parents ready to leave. He said his goodbyes to the Farrells, and once he was in the car he told his parents he was really tired so they wouldn’t talk to him.
What a relief to have that over with! Now he could give Jack an honest report. He’d given Lucy the bracelet, apologized on Jack’s behalf, and Lucy had seemed pleased with the gift. Maybe. maybe this would put an end to Jack’s communication.
And then he felt terrible. Jack was dead. The least Ken could do for him was listen. Maybe he’d get used to it. He’d have to get used to it. He could never tell his best friend to stop talking to him.
He really was tired, he realized when he got home. Once in bed he considered taking a sleeping pill, but he figured he was so wiped out he’d fall asleep without one.
Ken?
Oh, no. Jack wasn’t supposed to contact him till tomorrow.
I’m kind of tired right now, Jack.
What did you call me? My name isn’t Jack.
Ken frowned.
Who is this?
I’m Arthur. Arthur Penfield. I’m dead. And I was wondering if you could get a message to my brother.
Ken sat up, his heart pounding furiously.
Wait a minute — you’ve got the wrong guy. I don’t know anyone named Arthur Penfield.
No, we’ve never met. I died before you were born.
Then — why are you contacting me? Talk to one of your own friends!
None of my friends have your gift. You’re one in a million, son. You’re going to be hearing from a lot of us.
Suddenly, Ken didn’t feel very well. What was this Arthur guy talking about? What gift?
‘Leave me alone!’
He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud until his door opened.
‘What’s wrong, Ken?’ his mother asked. ‘Darling, you’re sweating! We shouldn’t have let you come with us tonight. It was too soon for you to be out and about.’ Worriedly, she put a hand on his forehead.
Oh, if only he could blame this on a fever! If only he could tell her what was happening. Yeah, right. He’d be back in a hospital before dawn. And possibly in a straitjacket.
‘I’m not feeling so great, Mom,’ was all he could say. ‘Could I have one of those pills now?’
He wasn’t actually in any pain. He was just hoping the pill might put him to sleep immediately. Because he didn’t really want to hear from any more dead people tonight. Or ever again.
But he had a very, very bad feeling about this. He didn’t think there was any kind of pill that was going to put an end to these strange communications.
CHAPTER FIVE
IN THE MONTHS THAT followed the accident and Jack’s death, Ken didn’t see much of Lucy. She was a year younger, in the eighth grade, so they didn’t have any classes together. And fortunately, since Meadowbrook was a pretty big school, you didn’t run into the same people every day in the hallways. If he did run into her and they made eye contact, they just mumbled vague greetings. She never asked him any more questions about Jack, and he suspected that she didn’t think much about her late boyfriend.
But she was the only one, outside of his gifted classmates, who had been told about his ‘gift’. And so, after getting his thoughts together, he went in search of her.
He remembered that Lucy was a cheerleader and he knew that the cheerleaders practised almost every day after classes were finished, so he headed to the gym. When he got there, the cheerleaders had just started to gather. He spotted Lucy outside the gym entrance, talking to Simon Dowell. Simon was on the soccer team, but Ken had never known him very well.
He ambled towards them. ‘Hi, guys.’
‘Yo, Preston,’ Simon muttered. He didn’t look too thrilled to see Ken. But Lucy didn’t seem to mind the interruption.
‘Hi, Ken!’
He tried to sound casual. ‘Lucy, can I talk to you for a second?’
‘Sure!’
Ken glanced at Simon. ‘Um, it’s kind of personal.’ He hated saying that — he knew it made him sound secretive and mysterious — but he couldn’t talk about Jack in front of Simon.
Lucy looked surprised and Simon was clearly annoyed. Ken realized Simon must have been flirting with Lucy, and he groaned inwardly. Now Simon would think Ken was trying to make a play for her.
‘It’s about a class,’ he added quickly, which was another stupid thing to say since he had no classes with Lucy. But Lucy actually smiled.
‘Excuse me, Simon,’ she said, and moved away. Ken followed her to a relatively private corner of the gym.
Lucy smiled prettily. ‘What’s up, Ken?’
Ken took the crumpled paper from his pocket, and unfolded it. ‘I was wondering if you know anything about this.’
Lucy took the paper. ‘Seance,’ she read out loud.
‘Shh!’ Ken hissed. He glanced around nervously. ‘Just read it to yourself, OK?’
She did. From the way her brow furrowed as she read, Ken knew this was the first time she’d seen the announcement.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘Why are you showing me this?’
‘Well, you’re the only one I ever told about Jack talking to me. So I thought, maybe, well. you might have put this in my locker. Because you thought I’d be interested.’
She looked at him blankly for a second, and then her expression cleared. ‘Oh, right. You told me Jack talked to you after he died, didn’t you?’
‘He told me to give you the bracelet, remember?’
‘I remember. Do you still talk to Jack?’
‘Once in a while.’
‘How’ she doing?’
‘He’s all right. I mean, considering the fact that he’s dead.’
Lucy nodded. ‘It’s funny — back when you first told me about that, I thought you’d just imagined Jack talking to you. I mean, you’d had a concussion, hadn’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But it’s for real,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘What do you and Jack talk about?’
He was beginning to feel even more uncomfortable. ‘Stuff. So, you didn’t give me this announcement about the seance?’
She shook her head. ‘Sounds cool though. Can I come?’
‘Um, I don’t even know if I’m going.’ He crumpled the paper and stuck it back in his pocket. ‘See ya, Lucy.’
‘Wait!’ Lucy called.
‘What?’
‘Tell Jack I said “hi”, OK?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
Ken hurried off, feeling frustrated. So Lucy hadn’t slipped this note in his locker. Then who? At home in his room, he put the crumpled paper on his desk and smoothed it out.
SEANCE.
Could someone from his gifted class have put it in his locker? But why wouldn’t that person just tell him?