Chapter Two: Of Chessboards and Compact Disks

-------------

"You know what, David? I think we better leave the chessboard *in* the closet," I informed him. My brother Doc and I were in the kitchen, and he was clutching a well-worn set of chess in his skinny arms. He looked at me, perplexed, as though he couldn't understand *why* anybody wouldn't want to play chess, because after all, it was the greatest game in the world.

I hung up the phone I had in my hand. Cee-Cee and Adam and a bunch of other sophomores I knew were going to be coming for the "bitchin' rave" later on tonight. But for now, I had my step-brother with whom I had to reason.

He sighed.

"You're probably right. Chess isn't so easy to play with so many people coming. But I called Danny and Blake, and they're coming over..."

Danny and Blake are two of Doc's friends, both of them very intelligent for their age but very clueless on the ways of a high school party. As was Doc, who frequently researched the subject but had never gotten the chance to attend anything but a study party.

"Well, that's good," I said. "Then feel free to give their cute little checkered selves some air, in your own room, probably."

He looked at me, a confused expression on his face. "I think that was a joke, but I don't think I got it."

I patted my younger step-brother on the shoulder, sadly. "That's all right." As all my humor is lost on ghosts, it is also lost with poor Doc. And probably all my brothers, really.

He left the kitchen, where we had been sipping non-alcoholic (as to not damage our young livers) drinks on the marble counter that had the little seats you could sit on and pretend you were at some rustic country bar. Which we weren't, being in an old-new Victorian house in Carmel, California.

I took a long sip of my Diet Lemon Coke, my feet dangling carelessly from the chair, before I was rudely interrupted by Dopey. He came in the kitchen, his big feet stomping loudly on the wood floor, brandishing several CDs in one of those soft CD cases in his hand.

"You're from New York, right?" he asked, a little breathlessly as though he had been running around for hours to collect all of his stupid boy CDs and stick them in their appropriate plastic coverings.

"No, I'm from Swahili," I replied sarcastically.

He looked at me blankly. I swear to God, my step-brothers are all just clueless.

"No, I know you're from New York, but that's not the point. Which one is better, in your opinion?"

"Sound-wise, or impress-your-friends wise, or dance-wise?"

"Um... I guess all of those?"

"Right. Lemme see."

I held out one hand expectantly, and he walked around the counter to give the CD case to me. Plopping it down on the counter, I leafed through his selection, which seemed to involve mostly rap and angry metal music. If Beethoven were a ghost, and he were here, he would have exploded our entire house.

"Well, what a culturally refined boy you are," I pinched his cheek.

He slapped it away and his cheeks flushed.

"You don't think any of them are good? Really? I kind of thought girls... went for the bad-boy thing."

I practically choked on my drink, I was laughing so hard.

"You're joking, right?"

Dopey didn't seem to appreciate being called a non-magnetic girl magnet. I knew this because he slammed his CD foam case shut, and glared at me.

"So what do you suggest, Madame I'm-The-Life-Of-The-Party?"

"Geez. Calm down, would you? For one, I would ditch the M.C. Hammer."

"But they're old school!" he complained.

"Yeah, Brad, they're *old.* Not old school," I corrected him.

He had a look on his face as though he thought that I had said that he had been living his life the wrong way his entire life.

"I am not ditching M.C. Hammer," he said with as much courage as he could under the situation.

"Let me just go and get Sl-Jake, would you?"

As expected, I didn't get up from my seat to go walk upstairs and knock on his door, like an athletically fit person would, although I definitely needed it.

"JAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" I yelled, using that New York lung power that came in handy when living in a four-men household.

"COME DOWN HERE AND TELL YOUR BROTHER THAT MC HAMMER IS NOT ACCEPTABLE IN A PUBLIC LOCATION, SUCH AS THIS PARTY WE'RE HAVING TWO HOURS WHICH I BELIEVE KELLY PRESCOTT AND DEBBIE MANCUSO WILL BE ATTENDING? AND SINCE EVERYBODY ALREADY KNOWS THAT BRAD IS SO STUCK ON THAT-"

Brad gave me what he believed to be a withering glare, and I gave him my index finger back in reply.

Four hours later, Jake came down to sleepily rub his eyes and mumble, "Brad. Put down the M.C. Hammer. You're embarrassing to the family."

All right, it had been more like four minutes. But in Jake-time, it's very, very, very slow. It's like watching Baywatch in really slow motion, so they're just stuck up in the air after each running step they take.

"See?" I said triumphantly. "Even Jake thinks it's stupid, and he's..."

Dopey looked at me, expecting a finish to my sentence.

"Very cool," I finished. *Smooth,* Gidget.

"Fine," said Dopey simply. "You get your CDs, if yours are so great."

"I never said they were."

"Apparently, they must be if you're dissin' mine."

Dopey used the word "apparently." That was weird. And "dissing." Like, "Apparantly, you be dissin' mine so yos disks ain't all good."

Sometimes Dopey likes to think he's ghetto, and it just comes out really nerdy.

There's always an akward silence after he says something like that, and he has to cough and change the subject, because it's a great mental shame for such a small ego like his. Of course, I've never said that to him, just like they don't publicly say that I'm in a gang.

Because I'm not, of course, but Dopey and Sleepy don't know that.

"All right."

I shrugged and got up off the comfort of my chair, and while I went up the stairs to rummage through my extensive collection, Dopey had taken the liberty of sitting down on the object of furniture and drinking the rest of my coke.

I shook my head as I reached the landing, and I walked down the hallway that lead to my room.

Yeah, I know! My own hallway, and my own bathroom. It was great, except for the fact that my mom thought I would be getting more privacy because of it... it really was ironic, with all the ghosts walking in on me without going down the hallway or knocking.

Walking in my room, I noticed it was free of ghosts. And cats.

"Yes," I thought.

Then I remembered not to jinx myself, and so I just stopped at that. At my bookcase, there were four shelves of books (contrary to popular belief, I am a fan of them), and about two shelves of CD cases... and plush toys that I can't bear to give away. They're my babies, after all.

I had to yell back down to Brad. "WHICH CD CASES?"

"WHAT?" he screamed from the kitchen.

"WHICH COMPACT DISC CASES WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO BRING?" I enunciated more clearly. It wasn't even straining my voice to do this, and I'd been a little out of practice. After all, it wasn't as though Carmel were full of taxis, waiting to be yelled at.

"YOU HAVE MORE THAN ONE?"

"YES, DUMBASS," I swore. I usually don't swear, but sometimes I just get a little fed up.

"BRING THE GOOD ONES, THEN!"

"ALL OF THEM ARE GOOD! I HAVE SIX CASES, EACH WITH 24 IN THEM EXCEPT FOR THE LAST ONE WHICH HAS 12! DO THE MATH!"

"JUST BRING THEM ALL DOWN!"

I sighed. "GIVE ME A MINUTE!"

A certain ghost took this time to appear in my bedroom, giving off that shimmery full-body halo that declared themselves there.

"You have hundred and thirty-two of those shiny circles?" asked Jesse.

I had already known it would be Jesse, which was eerily creepie and very cool all at the same time. Mostly creepy, though.

"They're CDs, Jesse," I demonstrated, pulling one out of the plastic sheath and showing it to him.

He looked at it, perplexed, while that one eyebrow with the scar in it lifted up. "Why would you need so many of them?"

Oh, Jesus. This was going to take more than a minute.

"Well, each one has a certain number of songs on them, you know what songs are, right?"

Ugh, I didn't mean to be sarcastic.

"I have," he said, with that little knowing smile of his. "You do know what horses are, don't you?"

"I do," I replied just as easily. "But anyway, you put them in the player and there's like this laser thing that scans them, and then, instant music."

"Brilliant," he murmured. I almost smiled.

Note: almost.

I was used to this sort of talk by ghosts; ghosts who had been stuck in their death place for years and years, who would ask me wonderingly, "what in the world are you *wearing?*" And then they would ask what year it was, and I would tell them. With a shaky hand, the ghost would push their hair back, or take off their tri corner hat and tell me that it wasn't possible, because that would mean that they had been in this place for the past 124 years.

Then it was a very long process of telling them that they were dead, and I would help them. Sometimes the ghosts would need a little ass kicking, and tell me they wanted to see Paris when they were small in 1955, and then when they died in 1975, they never got to see the damn Eiffel Tower and they weren't going to give that up just to go to their afterlife, which in their eyes was always heaven, and always would wait for them.

It's altogether different with Jesse, because he's my friend, and also very good-looking. Of course, I never mind explaining. I have to remind myself that this is kind of cool, that I get to talk to dead people. Also, very insane.

"Why were you yelling at your brother?"

"He's not my brother."

"Your step-brother, then. Why were you yelling?"

"Why were you listening?"

"I just happened to overhear, as would anyone in China would have."

Ooh, sarcasm from Jesse. Had to say I was pleased that I was rubbing off on him, although not in the literal rubbing sense. I had to give myself a mental smack. "He's *dead,* you freak!" I thought.

"Oh, well, in that case, I better explain the yelling to the people in China, too."

I opened up my mouth to yell again, but Jesse took this chance to clamp one of those strong warm hands over my mouth. My eyes shot wide open angrily, and I bit him on the palm. He did not taste like chicken, or dead people. Just a little salty, really.

"Nombre de *Dios,* Susannah," he winced and held his hand, and stepped back. I was a force to be reckoned with. "Would you like your brother to know that you are speaking to invisible people?"

"Oh, sorry," I said, truthfully. "I forgot."

"I think I'm bleeding," he muttered, and checked his hand. He seemed a little disappointed when he wasn't. I sighed.

"Really, I am sorry."

"So why were you yelling- at your step-brother?" Jesse made sure to say "step-brother" with extra-clear enunciation.

"Oh, he just wanted to see some of my CDs... because all he has are really dumb rap albums."

"Rap?"

"Horrible music," I defined.

"Oh. But I have heard your music, Susannah. Isn't it a little loud for Bradley?"

"Not really," I lied through my teeth.

I was going to avoid at all costs the topic that there was going to be some sort of a party tonight at the Simon-Ackerman household. Not only would Jesse attempt to stop it (he knew my parents too well, and I had an idea that they did have parties back in the 1850s, albeit not as loud), he probably would scare everybody and nobody would ever come to our house again.

"How so?" he asked.

"It's just that I make it louder. The volume button can work wonders on a stressed mind."

I pushed the bangs out of my eyesight (I'm trying to grow them out), and I stared up at his rugged manly-man face. (I swear, it is such a rugged manly-man face... still pretty, though).

"What are you looking at?" I asked him, because I knew he was trying to pull something out of me.

He could sense that something was up. And I was not going to tell him what that up was.

"Nothing," he said. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," I replied.

"Right," he said, as though he didn't believe me.

"You aren't looking at nothing."

"You aren't either."

"I was looking at Spike," I said pointedly, and gestured towards the large and menacing cat who had just walked through my porch window with amble of a scheming gangster.

He hissed at me.

"Y'see, if I don't look out for myself, that cat will rip me to shreds and then all you will see is one shredded pile of kick-ass."

"A lady shouldn't use that language," Jesse warned me, smiling subtly. Because he definitely knew there was something planned for tonight that he wasn't invited to. He loves to show up for things he isn't invited to.

"Not a lady."

"You could be if you closed your eyes and concentrated really hard, Susannah."

"Was that sarcasm? From the 150-year-old cowboy? Gasp. No. I believe that has now been two sarcastic sentences from you. Impressive."

"Not a cowboy," he reminded me.

"You could be if you closed your eyes and concentrated really hard, Jesse."

Too bad Jesse wasn't short for anything that I knew of.

"Don't you have, uh, a netherworld to be in?"

"No, happy hour doesn't start for another hour," he informed me.

All right. That was it. He's not allowed to read my books anymore. He's *stealing* my jokes.

"Well, then, would you mind leaving now?" Usually I'd be begging for him to stay here forever, but when there was a party to be had... it's best that ghosts *aren't* going around the neighborhood to alert the neighbors.

"You would like me to leave, Susannah?"

I instantly feld bad for telling him to leave. After all, I've told him to leave before, but that was when he first came here and I didn't know him. But, hey! He wasn't supposed to making me feel guilty! This is *my* room, I reminded myself.

"You can come back!" I said, cheerfully slapping the open CD case shut and picking it up, indicating my about-to-leave-ness. "But I'm having some friends over and so I'd rather not be 'overheard.'"

"I do not eavesdrop," said Jesse, crossing his arms over that slightly open white shirt.

"You do so," I teased.

"I do not."

"Do so."

"Do not."

"Do so."

"This is ridiculous. I only overhear certain words, Susannah, and then I make my own educated conclusions."

"Uh, yeah, if overhear meant eavesdropping."

"Ay, you're beginning to frustrate me just the littlest bit, querida. I'm leaving. Don't get into trouble." He raised his eyebrows at me irritatedly, and shimmered off.

"Me? Trouble? Hah!" I swore I could hear a laugh going off as loud as a cannon in the distance.

-----------------------------

Two hours later, the trouble I swore I wouldn't get into arrived.