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 seasonâs homecoming queenânot 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 hadnât known these people. They attended Robert Louis Stevenson School, our schoolâs 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 donât possess much school spirit, Iâve always had a thing for underdogsâwhich theMission Academy, in comparison with RLS, clearly is.
So I wasnât about to get all choked up about the loss of a few RLS students. Especially not knowing what I knew.
Not that I knew so much. In fact, I didnât really know anything at all. But the night before, after coming home from â âzaâ with Sleepy and Dopey, Gina had succumbed to jet lagâweâre three hours behind New York, so around nine oâclock, she more or less passed out on the daybed my mother had purchased for her to sleep on in my room during her stay.
I didnât 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 Iâd assured my mother Iâd finished well before Ginaâs arrival.
It was around this time that Jesse suddenly materialized next to my bed.
âShhh,â I said to him when he started to speak, and pointed toward Gina. Iâd 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 Iâd appreciate it if he laid low during her visit.
Itâs not exactly a joke, having to share yourroom with a previous tenantâthe ghost of a previous tenant, I should say, since Jesse has been dead for a century and a half or so.
On the one hand, I can totally see Jesseâs side of it. It isnât his fault someone murdered himâat least, thatâs how I suspect he died. Heâunderstandably, I guessâisnât too anxious to talk about it.
And I guess it also isnât 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 overâ¦not that itâs so great to begin with. The only people who end up being ghosts are the ones whoâve left behind some kind of unfinished business.
I have no idea what business it is that Jesse left unfinishedâand the truth is, Iâm not so sure he knows, either. But it doesnât seem fair that if Iâm destined to share my bedroom with the ghost of a dead guy, the dead guy has to be so cute.
I mean it. Jesse is way too good-looking for my peace of mind. I may be a mediator, but Iâm still human, for crying out loud.
But anyway, there he was, after Iâd 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. â¦
âWhen is she leaving?â 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 faceâwhich, I probably donât have to point out, is totally perfect, except for this small white scar in one of his dark eyebrows.
He didnât bother whispering. Gina