"Ah," Father Dominic said. "The RLS Angels."
"I hate these time skips," Brad grumbled. "They're so confusing."
"Only to someone with a small IQ," Jake teased.
"DAD!"
"Oh right go crying to Dad."
"Boys," Andy said tiredly, "please."
They both mumbled apologies as David rolled his eyes. He barely got to read a sentence and already his brother's stupidity interrupted him.
I didn't even glance at him. I was slumped in one of the chairs he keeps in front of his desk, playing with a Game Boy
"Susannah Simon!" Helen snapped. "You put that stupid toy down and pay attention to Father Dominic!"
"Anyone want to tell her she's talking to a book?" Brad whispered.
"Nope," Jake and David whispered back quickly.
One of the teachers had confiscated from a student, and which had eventually found its way into the bottom drawer of the principal's desk. I was going to keep Father Dom's bottom desk drawer in mind when Christmas rolled around. I had a good idea where Sleepy and Dopey's presents were going to come from.
"I was wondering how she could afford that Nintendo DS," Jake muttered.
"Susannah, that's stealing," Andy moaned before adding that to the list of things he needed to tell Suze off for.
"Angels?" I grunted, and not just because I was losing badly at Tetris. "There wasn't anything too angelic about them, if you ask me."
"Yes but there's nothing angelic about you either," Brad muttered.
"You could talk," Jake muttered as he gave Brad a swift kick in the shin.
"Ow!"
"Boys, don't make me put both of you in the corner!"
"Yes, Dad."
"They were very attractive young people, from what I understand." Father Dom started shifting around the piles of paper he had all over his desk. "Class leaders. Very bright young things. I believe it was their principal who dubbed them the RLS Angels in his statement to the press concerning the tragedy."
"Thank God, Father D is too religious to claim his students are angels," Jake mumbled thinking how sick he would have been if the principal of his school had dubbed Heather as an angel in the news.
"Huh." I tried to angle an oddly shaped object into the small space allotted for it. "Angels who were trying to lift a twelve-pack of Bud."
Jake and Brad snickered while Andy had difficulty to keep a smile off his face.
"Here." Father Dom found a copy of the paper I'd looked at the day before, only he, unlike me, had taken the trouble to open it. He turned to the obituaries where there were photos of the deceased. "Take a look and see if they are the young people you saw."
I passed him the Game Boy. "Finish this game for me," I said, taking the paper from him.
The boys were all having difficulty to not laugh at the idea of their monk of a principal trying to play a Game Boy.
Father Dominic looked down at the Game Boy in dismay. "Oh, my," he said. "I'm afraid I don't"
"Just rotate the shapes to make them fit in the spaces at the bottom. The more rows you complete, the better."
"Who would have ever thought Suze would teach Father D something," Brad muttered.
"Oh," Father Dominic said. The Game Boy binged and bonged as he frantically pushed buttons. "Oh, dear. Anything more complicated than computer solitaire, and I'm afraid..."
His voice trailed off as he became absorbed in the game. Even though I was supposed to be reading the paper, I looked at him instead.
"Susie," Helen murmured half exasperated, half amused.
He's a sweet old guy, Father Dominic.
Everyone nodded or muttered an agreement. They all loved Father Dominic.
He's usually mad at me, of course, but that doesn't mean I don't like him. I was, in fact, growing surprisingly attached to him.
Helen cooed while the boys rolled their eyes.
I'd found that I couldn't wait, for instance, to come rushing in and tell him all about those kids I'd seen at the Quick Mart. I guess that's because, after sixteen years of not being able to tell anybody about my "special" ability, I finally had someone to unload on, Father Dom having that same "special" ability, something I'd discovered my first day at the Junipero Serra Mission Academy.
Helen beamed with sheer happiness with the knowledge her daughter had someone to talk to. There was a small sad desperate part of herself that hated the fact her own child couldn't talk to her or her husband, who she knew loved her daughter as if she was his own child, but she couldn't help but be glad that her daughter had an adult to confide in, to take care of her in times like this.
Father Dominic, however, is a way better mediator than I am. Well, maybe not better. But different, certainly. See, he really feels that ghosts are best handled with gentle guidance and earnest advice same as the living. I'm more in favour of a sort of get-to-the-point approach that tends to involve my fists.
Helen and Andy shook their heads while the boys exchanged grins.
Well, sometimes these dead folks just won't listen.
"Susie," Helen said completely exasperated now.
Not all of them, of course. Some of them are extremely good listeners. Like the one who lives in my bedroom, for instance.
The men in the room grimaced as Helen smiled.
But lately, I've been doing my best not to think about him any more than I have to.
Helen's smile disappeared quite quickly after that.
I turned my attention to the paper Father Dom had passed me. Yep, there they were, the RLS Angels. The same kids I'd seen the day before in Jimmy's, only in their school photos they weren't dressed in their formal wear.
Father Dom was right. They were attractive. And bright. And leaders. Felicia, the youngest, had been head of the varsity cheerleading team. Mark Pulsford had been captain of the football team. Josh Saunders had been senior class president. Carrie Whitman had been last season's homecoming queen, not exactly a leadership position, but one that was elected democratically enough. Four bright, attractive kids, all dead as doornails.
And up, I happened to know, to no good.
The obituaries were sad and all, but I hadn't known these people. They attended Robert Louis Stevenson High School, our school's bitterest rival. The Junipero Serra Mission Academy, which my stepbrothers and I attend, and of which Father Dom is principal, is always getting its academic and athletic butt kicked by RLS. And while I don't possess much school spirit, I've always had a thing for underdogs, which the Mission Academy, in comparison with RLS, clearly is.
"And so are those lame-ass friends of yours," Brad muttered quietly enough to avoid his father's detection. He didn't need to be sent to the corner. Again.
So I wasn't about to get all choked up about the loss of a few RLS students. Especially not knowing what I knew.
"Susannah!" Helen cried out in shock.
Not that I knew so much. In fact, I didn't really know anything at all. But the night before, after coming home from "'za" with Sleepy and Dopey, Gina had succumbed to jet lag, we're three hours behind New York, so around nine o'clock, she more or less passed out on the daybed my mother had purchased for her to sleep on in my room during her stay.
Jake couldn't help but grin, Gina was adorable when she was sleepy. She got all cranky and snappy before cuddling up to something. She spent some time resting her head on his shoulder before moving onto a more 'cuddly' pillow called Suze's chest. It was odd to see Suze being cuddly since she looked like she'd punch David first before hugging him.
I didn't exactly mind. The sun had pretty much wiped me out, so I was perfectly content to sit on my own bed, across the room from hers, and do the geometry homework I'd assured my mother I'd finished well before Gina's arrival.
Helen grumbled and got Andy to add 'lecture Suze about putting her school work first' on the list.
It was around this time that Jesse suddenly materialized next to my bed.
"Shh," I said to him when he started to speak, and pointed toward Gina. I'd explained to him, well in advance of her arrival, that Gina was coming all the way from New York to stay for a week, and that I'd appreciate it if he laid low during her visit.
It's not exactly a joke, having to share your room with its previous tenant, the ghost of its previous tenant, I should say, since Jesse has been dead for a century and a half or so.
"Oh god not another Jesse explanation," Brad whined. "Why do we have to have all these explanations again and again in each diary?"
"Suze probably knew you were going to read them and thought to break it down simply so your slow mind can understand everything," David said coolly getting rather fed up with his older brother's attitude.
"David!" Andy shouted, shocked at his youngest son's behaviour. "Apologies to your brother and if you say something like that again I'll have to put you in the corner."
"Yes Dad," David mumbled, feeling rather ashamed of himself for stooping down to his brother's level, "Sorry Brad."
"Whatever," Brad shrugged, not going to admit his feeling were hurt. After all it's not like he was a girl or something.
On the one hand, I can totally see Jesse's side of it. It isn't his fault someone murdered him; at least, that's how I suspect he died. He, understandably, I guess,isn't too anxious to talk about it.
And I guess it also isn't his fault that, after death, instead of going off to heaven, or hell, or on to another life, or wherever it is people go after they die, he ended up sticking around in the room in which he was killed. Because in spite of what you might think, most people do not end up as ghosts. God forbid. If that were true, my social life would be so over ... not that it's so great to begin with. The only people who end up being ghosts are the ones who've left behind some kind of unfinished business.
I have no idea what business it is that Jesse left unfinished, and the truth is, I'm not so sure he knows, either. But it doesn't seem fair that if I'm destined to share my bedroom with the ghost of a dead guy, the dead guy has to be so cute.
"Urgh," the boys groaned.
I mean it. Jesse is way too good looking for my peace of mind. I may be a mediator, but I'm still human, for crying out loud.
"Very true," Helen nodded.
But anyway, there he was, after I'd told him very politely not to come around for a while, looking all manly and hot and everything in the nineteenth-century outlaw outfit he always wears. You know the kind: with those tight black pants and the white shirt open down to there ...
Brad gagged, David and Jake looked sick, and Andy shifted uncomfortably while Helen was torn between glee that her daughter was in love or worry that her daughter might be tempted to commit under-age sex.
"When is she leaving?" Jesse wanted to know, bringing my attention away from the place where his shirt opened, revealing an extremely muscular set of abs, up to his face , which, I probably don't have to point out, is totally perfect, except for this small white scar in one of his dark eyebrows.
Jake was torn between disgust of Suze eyeing Jesse up and annoyance at Jesse's dismissal of Gina.
He didn't bother whispering. Gina couldn't hear him.
"I told you," I said. I, on the other hand, had to whisper since there was every likelihood I might be overheard. "Next Sunday."
"That long?"
Jesse looked irritated. I would like to say that he looked irritated because he considered every moment I spent with Gina a moment stolen from him, and deeply resented her because of that.
The boys snorted while Helen had a dreamy look on her face.
But to be honest, I highly doubt that was the case. I'm pretty sure Jesse likes me, and everything...
"I bet a week's wages that he loves her," Helen said determinedly.
"Sweetie, I'd rather you didn't simply because the money is needed for the bills," Andy said amusedly. He loved his wife for all of her quirks.
But only as a friend. Not in any special kind of way. Why should he? He's one hundred and fifty years old, a hundred and seventy if you count the fact that he'd been twenty or so when he died. What could a guy who'd lived through a hundred and seventy years of stuff possibly see in a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore who's never had a boyfriend and can't even pass her driving exam?
"Nothing," Brad grumbled.
David glared at him. "Suze is a highly intelligent, sensitive, good-humoured woman. Any man would be lucky to have her and Jesse knows it."
"All right, all right, jeez!"
Not a whole heck of a lot.
"See she agrees with me!" Brad protested.
"I wonder sometimes how she got such a low self-esteem considering how confident she can be," David said sadly, ignoring Brad.
Let's face it; I knew perfectly well why Jesse wanted Gina gone.
Jake raised an eyebrow, it better be a good reason.
Because of Spike.
Jake couldn't help but chuckle at that. David was almost the same with Max before Gina arrived because he was worried Gina would hate him and have him locked out while she was visiting. People and their pets, funny lot.
Brad muttered something along the lines of 'demon cat' making Jake laugh even louder.
Spike is our cat. I say "our" cat, because even though ordinarily animals can't stand ghosts, Spike has developed this strange affinity for Jesse. His affection for Jesse balances out, in a way, his total lack of regard for me, even though I'm the one who feeds him, and cleans out his litter box, and, oh, yes, rescued him from a life of squalor on the mean streets of Carmel.
Everyone snorted. Mean streets, yeah right.
Does the stupid thing show me one iota of gratitude? No way. But Jesse, he adores. In fact,
Spike spends most of his time outdoors, and only bothers coming around whenever he senses Jesse might have materialized.
"See! Demon cat!" Brad cried out.
They all just rolled their eyes in reply. They were used to this there was no need to argue it out for what felt like the five hundredth time.
Like now, for instance. I heard a familiar thump on the porch roof, Spike landing there from the pine tree he always climbs to reach it, and then the big orange nightmare was scrambling through the window I'd left open for him, mewing piteously, like he hadn't been fed in ages.
"Sounds like my sons," Andy muttered.
When Jesse saw Spike, he went over to him and started scratching him under the ears, causing the cat to purr so loudly I thought he might wake Gina up. "Look," I said. "It's just for a week. Spike will survive."
Jesse looked up at me with an expression that seemed to suggest that he thought I'd slipped down a few notches on the IQ scale.
David and Jake tried not to laugh, that was the exact same look Suze had when she was talking to Brad. Occasionally Jesse had that look when he was talking to Brad as well.
"It's not Spike I'm worried about," he said.
"I doubt Gina is going to attack Suze in her sleep," Andy said dryly.
This only served to confuse me. I knew it couldn't be me Jesse was worrying about. I mean, I guess I'd gotten into a few scrapes since I'd met him, scrapes that, more often than not, Jesse had to bail me out of.
"I hardly call almost being murdered a scrape," Helen muttered darkly.
But nothing was going on just then. Well, aside from the four dead kids I'd seen that afternoon in Jimmy's.
"Yeah?" I watched as Spike threw his head back in obvious ecstasy as Jesse scratched him underneath the chin. "What is it, then? Gina's very cool, you know. Even if she found out about you, I doubt she'd run screaming from the room, or anything. She'd probably just want to borrow your shirt sometime, or something."
Everyone let out a loud laugh. The idea of Gina asking Jesse for his shirt appeared to be highly amusing, especially since Jesse would act rather scandalised with all those nineteenth century manners.
A small blush appeared on Jake's cheeks as the stray thought of how cute Gina would look in that shirt wandered in his amused mind.
Jesse glanced over at my houseguest. All you could really see of Gina was a couple of lumps beneath the comforter, and a lot of bright copper curls spread out across the pillows beneath her head.
"I'm certain that she's very ... cool," Jesse said, a little hesitantly.
There were a couple more stray snickers.
Sometimes my twenty-first- century vernacular throws him. But that's okay. His frequent employment of Spanish, of which I don't speak a word, throws me. "It's just that something's happened?"
"The Angels," David observed. "Ghosts must be able to feel each other somehow. Could it be a psychic connection? Hmm..."
"David, son, could you leave your hypotheses alone for now and focus on reading?" Andy asked.
"Oh! Right, erm I'll start reading again," David blushed.
This perked me right up. He looked pretty serious about it, too. Like maybe what had happened was that he'd finally realized that I was the perfect woman for him, and that all this time he'd been fighting an overwhelming attraction for me, and that he'd finally had to give up the fight in the light of my incredible irresistibility.
Brad snorted, Jake rolled his eyes, and David wondered how Suze could be so...silly.
But then he had to go and say, "I've been hearing some things."
I sank back against my pillows, disappointed.
"Oh," I said. "So you've sensed a disturbance in the Force, have you, Luke?"
Everyone sniggered again as Helen rolled her eyes. She didn't mind Star Wars but she didn't think it was that great or significant in the conversation.
Jesse knit his eyebrows in bewilderment. He had no idea, of course, what I was talking about. My rare flashes of wit are, for the most part, sadly wasted on him.
"What wit?" Brad asked.
"The wit you could never dream of let alone possess," Jake teased.
"Oi!"
It's really no wonder he isn't even the tiniest bit in love with me.
"Oh don't worry Susie," Helen cooed to the book, "He's most definitely in love with you. I can tell."
I sighed and said, "So you heard something on the ghost grapevine. What?"
Jesse often picked up on things that were happening on what I like to call the spectral plane, things that often don't have anything to do with him, but which usually end up involving me, most often in a highly life-threatening, or at least horribly messy, way. The last time he'd "heard some things," I'd ended up nearly being killed by a psychotic real estate developer.
"Actually Jesse didn't really 'hear' anything," Andy corrected the book, "Suze heard a lot and didn't listen to anything and that's why she almost got killed by a psychotic real estate developer."
Helen just moaned at the reminder.
So I guess you can see why my heart doesn't exactly go pitter-pat whenever Jesse mentions he's heard something.
"There are some newcomers," he said, as he continued to pet Spike. "Young ones."
"The RLS Angels," Andy muttered.
I raised my eyebrows, remembering the kids in the prom wear at Jimmy's. "Yes?"
"They're looking for something," Jesse said.
"Yeah," I said. "I know. Beer."
Everyone snorted at that.
Jesse shook his head. He had a sort of distant expression on his face, and he wasn't looking at me, but sort of past me, as if there were something very far away just beyond my right shoulder.
"No," he said. "Not beer. They're looking for someone. And they're angry." His dark eyes came sharply into focus and bored into my face. "They're very angry, Susannah."
Helen shuddered. She really didn't like the sound of that.
His gaze was so intense; I had to drop my own. Jesse's eyes are such a deep brown, a lot of the time I can't tell where his pupils end and irises begin. It's a little unnerving. Almost as unnerving as the way he always calls me by my full name, Susannah. No one except Father Dominic ever calls me that.
"Angry?" I looked down at my geometry book. The kids I saw hadn't looked a bit angry. Scared, maybe, after they'd realized I could see them. But not angry. He must, I thought, have been talking about someone else.
"God I hope not, one set of ghostly teenagers is more than enough to deal with," Andy said.
"Well," I said. "Okay. I'll keep my eyes open. Thanks."
Jesse looked like he'd wanted to say more, but all of a sudden, Gina rolled over, lifted up her head, and squinted in my direction.
"Suze?" she said sleepily. "Who you talking to?"
"Ah," Andy said with a small smile, "Awkward."
I said, "Nobody." I hoped she couldn't read the guilt in my expression. I hate lying to her. She is, after all, my best friend. "Why?"
Gina hoisted herself up onto her elbows and gaped at Spike. "So that's the famous Spike I've been hearing so much about from your brothers? Damn, he is ugly."
"Hear, hear," Brad cheered.
Jesse, who'd stayed where he was, looked defensive. Spike was his baby, and you just don't go around calling Jesse's baby ugly.
There was another round of laughter at that.
"He's not so bad," I said, hoping Gina would get the message and shut up.
"Are you on crack?" Gina wanted to know. "Simon, the thing's only got one ear."
"So?" David said crossly. "You shouldn't judge someone based on appearances."
Suddenly, the large, gilt-framed mirror above the dressing table started to shake. It had a tendency to do this whenever Jesse got annoyed...really annoyed.
"Uh-oh."
Gina, not knowing this, stared at the mirror with growing excitement. "Hey!" she cried. "All right! Another one!"
"Really?"
"Urgh, New Yorkers."
"Hey!"
"Sorry Mom."
She meant an earthquake, of course, but this, like the one before, was no earthquake. It was just Jesse letting off steam.
Then the next thing I knew, a bottle of fingernail polish Gina had left on the dressing table went flying, and, defying all gravitational law, landed upside down in the suitcase she had placed on the floor at the end of the daybed, around seven or eight feet away.
"I never thought Jesse had such a temper on him," David mused, "he seems so calm."
I probably don't need to add that the bottle of polish, it was emerald green, was uncapped. And that it ended up on top of the clothes Gina hadn't unpacked yet.
"All that laundry I had to do!" Helen groaned remembering that evening well. Gina had been in a terrible mood as she sulked in her night clothes in the kitchen.
Gina let out a terrific shriek, threw back the comforter, and dove to the floor, trying to salvage what she could. I, meanwhile, threw Jesse a very dirty look.
"Good," Helen muttered.
The Ackerman men were feeling rather sorry for Jesse right now.
But all he said was, "Don't look at me like that, Susannah. You heard what she said about him." He sounded wounded. "She called him ugly."
"And?" Brad asked. "He is! He's a demonic cat!"
"I despair sharing DNA with you," David muttered.
I growled, "I say he's ugly all the time, and you don't ever do that to me ."
Helen brightened up at that.
He lifted the eyebrow with the scar in it, and then said, "Well, it's different when you say it."
"How?" Brad asked.
"Because he likes Suze," Jake said with a smirk knowing he literally took the words out of his mother's mouth. She drooped a little bit on the sofa, disappointed that she couldn't say them before he did. "He might be in love with her at this point. So when she insults Spike he puts up with it for the sake of being around her for longer."
"Or, you know, it could be because Suze is the one feeding Spike," David said giving the logical explanation a try.
And then, as if he couldn't stand it a minute longer, Jesse abruptly disappeared, leaving a very disgruntled-looking Spike, and a confused Gina, behind.
"I don't understand this," Gina said as she held up a one-piece leopard print bathing suit that was now hopelessly stained. "I don't understand how that happened. First the beer, in that store today, and now this. I tell you, California is weird ."
"No it's not!" the boys protested.
Reflecting on all this in Father Dominic's office the next morning, I supposed I could see how Gina must have felt. I mean, it probably seemed to her like things had gone flying around an awful lot lately. The common denominator, which Gina still hadn't noticed, was that they only went flying around when I was present.
The boys couldn't help but snicker at that.
I had a feeling that, if she stuck it out for the whole week, she'd catch on. And fast.
"Most likely, Gina isn't an idiot," Helen said fondly thinking of the girl who was practically her second daughter.
Father Dominic was engrossed in the Game Boy I'd given him. I put down the obituary page and said, "Father Dom."
His fingers flew frantically over the buttons that manipulated the game pieces. "One minute, please, Susannah," he said.
The boys laughed. "Suze corrupted Father D!" Brad shouted gleefully.
"Uh, Father Dom?" I waved the paper in his general direction. "This is them. The kids I saw yesterday."
"Um-hmmm," Father Dominic said. The Game Boy beeped.
"He's addicted," Jake snickered.
"So, I guess we should keep an eye out for them. Jesse told me," Father Dominic knew about Jesse, although their relationship was not, shall we say, the closest: Father D had a real big problem with the fact that there was, basically, a boy living in my bedroom.
"So he should," Andy muttered. He too couldn't get over that little fact.
He'd had a private chat with Jesse, but although he had come away from it somewhat reassured, doubtless about the fact that Jesse obviously hadn't the slightest interest in me, amorously speaking, he still grew noticeably uncomfortable whenever Jesse's name came up, so I tried to mention it only when I absolutely had to. Now, I figured, was one of those times.
"Jesse told me he felt a great, um, stirring out there." I put down the paper and pointed up, for want of a better direction. "An angry one. Apparently, we have some unhappy campers somewhere. He said they're looking for someone. At first I figured he couldn't mean these guys," I tapped the paper ,"because all they seemed to be looking for was beer. But it's possible they have another agenda." A more murderous one, I thought, but didn't say out loud.
But Father Dom, as he often did, seemed to read my thoughts.
"Father D is like Dumbledore or something," Brad said.
"I suppose that makes you Goyle or Crabbe then," David said with a straight face, "You know if we're going by IQ."
"Oh shut up, Hermione," Brad snapped.
"Good heavens, Susannah," he said, looking up from the Game Boy screen. "You can't be thinking that these young people you saw and the stirring Jesse felt have anything to do with one another, can you? Because I must say, I find that highly unlikely. From what I understand, the Angels were just that ... true beacons in their community."
Brad snorted. He didn't know the Angels well but from what he did know they were likely to be beacons as he was.
Jeez. Beacons. I wondered if there was anybody who'd ever refer to me as a beacon after I was dead. I highly doubted it. Not even my mother would go that far.
"Actually I often felt Suze was the hope and joy of my world," Helen said serenely, either ignorant or ignoring the snickers from Brad and Jake.
I kept my feelings to myself, however. I knew from experience that Father D wasn't going to like what I was thinking, let alone believe it. Instead, I said, "Well, just keep your eyes open, will you? Let me know if you see them around. The, err, Angels, I mean."
"Of course." Father Dom shook his head. "What a tragedy. Poor souls. So innocent. So young. Oh. Oh, my." He sheepishly held up the Game Boy. "High score."
The boys laughed again. "Only Father D," Jake said shaking his head.
That's when I decided I'd spent quite enough time in the principal's office for one day. Gina, who attended my old school back in Brooklyn, had a different spring break from the Mission Academy's, so while she was getting to spend her vacation in California, she had to endure a few days following me around from class to class, at least until I could figure out a way for us to ditch without getting caught.
"She better not have," Helen muttered furiously.
Gina was back in world civ with Mr. Walden, and I hadn't any doubt that she was getting into all sorts of trouble while I was gone.
"All righty then," I said, getting up. "Let me know if you hear anything more about those kids."
"Yes, yes," Father Dominic said, his attention riveted to the Game Boy once again. "Bye for now."
The boys couldn't help but laugh again. "I wonder whoever that kid was got his Game Boy back," David said.
"Probably," Jake said, "Poor Father D must miss playing it."
"We should get him one for Christmas," Brad grinned.
As I left his office, I could have sworn I heard him say a bad word after the Game Boy let out a warning beep. But that would have been so unlike him, I must have heard wrong.
Everyone snorted. "Yeah right," Brad muttered sarcastically, "if he can get addicted to the Game Boy he can easily start swearing."
Yeah. Right.
"And that's the end," David said holding the book out to Andy, "It's your turn Dad."
