School Spirits - By Rachel Hawkins Page 0,14
said amiably, leading me up a staircase. “But hey, at least you know if you get a sudden urge to be part of a chess club, or a lacrosse team, or a ghost-hunting society, you’ll have the option.”
I froze on the fifth step. “A what?”
Adam turned, shoving a handful of hair out of his eyes. “Lacrosse? It’s this sport with sticks, and—”
“Not that,” I said, scanning the list. “Do you have a ghost-hunting group?” And sure enough, there it was on the list, the Paranormal Management Society. Trying to hide my glee, I folded the paper up and shoved it into my back pocket with a nonchalant shrug. “I mean…that’s just weird.”
Adam snorted and started climbing the stairs again. “That’s one word for it. The chick that runs it, Romy Hayden, is a total wack job. Which you’ll see since she’s in English with us. And speaking of”—he stopped in front of a door and gave a bow—“here we are.”
CHAPTER 7
By the time we walked into class, everyone was already in their desks, and I felt thirty pairs of eyes suddenly land on me.
It was not the best feeling.
“This is Izzy,” Adam announced to the teacher. According to my schedule, she was Mrs. Steele, and Adam was right; she didn’t seem put out by our lateness.
“Welcome to Mary Evans High, Izzy,” she said to me. “Why don’t you take a seat near the front for today. Romy, can you move over one desk?”
I spun around, wanting to catch sight of this girl. It wasn’t like I thought her little ghost-hunters club would actually be that useful. Every once and a while, groups like that spring up somewhere in the country, and they have a really bad tendency to result in a high body count. Nothing more dangerous than civilians who think they can track Prodigium, Mom had said a few years ago after she’d had to go clean up after one of those groups. “Kids read a few books, watch a couple of stupid TV shows, and get in over their heads before they know what’s happened.”
But still, if I was looking for a vengeful ghost, this was a start, and a heck of a lot better one than I’d thought I’d get.
A tall Asian girl got out of one of the desks in the first row, and I realized I’d seen her on the bus. It would’ve been hard to miss her. Next to my all-black ensemble she was a riot of color. Her jeans were bright red, and her white T-shirt had two rainbows splashed across it, with the words DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY written in electric-blue bubble letters. A hat that same vivid blue was yanked low on her head, and the frames of her glasses were neon purple. When got up, I noticed she was wearing red Converse sneakers.
As she sagged into the other desk, she flipped up the dark lenses of her sunglasses, revealing regular glass underneath. “Enjoy that desk. It’s one of my favorites.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Mom said to get close to people, find stuff out. Investigate. What she’d neglected to mention was how. Should I introduce myself to Romy now? Use the cover story? Or was that too much too soon?
Luckily, I was literally saved by the bell. It trilled, and Mrs. Steele started handing out work sheets. I spent the next fifty minutes using words like “inscrutable” in a sentence. When class ended, Romy bolted for the door, so I didn’t have to practice my cover story after all.
Next up was P.E., the one class I wasn’t that worried about. Mom had had me and Finn running at least six miles a day basically since we could walk. Besides, in all the TV shows Mom had gotten me, people usually just spent P.E. talking under the bleachers, or meeting up with their secret boyfriends. Since I didn’t have anyone to talk to, or a boyfriend, secret or otherwise, I figured I had this.
Or I would have if I’d been able to find the gym. It took me a while to figure out that the gym was actually an entirely separate building, slightly downhill from the school itself. And once I finally got there, I realized there was one thing I didn’t have: a uniform. Everyone else was coming out of the locker rooms in these awful gray shirt/shorts combos with MEHS scrawled across the chest.
The coach, a tubby guy who was about my mom’s age, looked