HE LEFT AT LAST IT HADN'T BEEN AS HORRIBLE AS I'D feared.
The Monster was charming and, I hoped, unaware that I was anything except a not-very-interesting VW mechanic.
Except for that one moment, I'd mostly avoided notice.
Almost euphoric at my near escape, I didn't worry about ghosts at all while I changed.
Then I went back downstairs to help Amber with the cleanup.
She must have been worried or something, too, because she was nearly as giddy as I was.
We had an impromptu water fight in the kitchen that ended in a draw when her husband stuck his head in the doorway to see what the noise was all about, and nearly got a sponge in the face for his trouble.
Discretion suggested that having escaped detection once, I should head home in the morning.
But Amber was a little drunk, so I decided that conversation could wait until later.
Dishes clean, clothes wet and soapy, I left Amber necking with her husband in the kitchen.
I opened the bedroom door to find Chad in the middle of my bed, his arms crossed over his chest.
I could smell his fear from the doorway.
I closed the door behind me and took a good look around the room.
"Ghost?" I mouthed.
He glanced around the room, too, then shook his head.
"Not here? In your room?" He gave me a cautious nod.
"How about we go in your room, then." Terror breathing out of every pore, he slipped off the bed and followed me to his room: brave kid.
He opened his bedroom door cautiously--and then pushed it open, being very careful to keep his feet in the hallway.
"I assume you don't usually keep that bookcase facedown on the floor," I told him.
He gave me a dirty look, but he lost some of his fear.
I shrugged.
"Hey, my boyfriend has a daughter"--boyfriend was such an inadequate word--"and I had a pair of little sisters.
None of them keeps a clean room.
I had to ask." Except for the bookcase, it was hard to tell what part of the mess was a normal boy's habitat and how much the ghost had caused.
But the bookcase, one of those half-sized things people put in kids' rooms, was easy to fix.
I squeezed past Chad and into the room.
The bookcase was even lighter than I'd thought.
When I started reshelving his books, he knelt beside me and helped.
He read a little of everything--and not entirely limited to things I'd think a kid would read: Jurassic Park, Interview with the Vampire, and H.
P.