Megan Crewe - Give Up the Ghost

GIVE UP
the
GHOST

GIVE UP
the
GHOST

MEGAN CREWE

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
New York

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since 1866

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10010

www.HenryHoltKids.com

Henry Holt is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
Copyright 2009 by Megan Crewe
All rights reserved.
Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crewe, Megan.
Give up the ghost / Megan Crewe.1st ed.
p. cm.

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Casss only friends are her dead sister and
the school ghosts who feed her gossip that she uses to make students
face up to their bad behavior, until a popular boy asks for her help
and leads her to reach out to the living again.

ISBN 978-0-8050-8930-1

[1. Interpersonal relationsFiction. 2. GhostsFiction. 3. High
schoolsFiction. 4. SchoolsFiction. 5. SistersFiction.
6. GriefFiction. 7. Family problemsFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C86818Giv 2009 [Fic]dc22 2008050274

First Edition2009 / Designed by April Ward
Printed in the United States of America.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Mom and Dad, who gave me a love for
stories before I could write a single word

GIVE UP
the
GHOST

You would think itd be easy to get along with a person after shes dead. Not Paige. She took her big sister duties very seriously. Itd been four years since she drowned, and she still got on my case.

Youre not really wearing those to school, she said, perched in the air just above the wrought-iron headboard of my bed, her ankles crossed and tipped to the side. It was the way she used to sit at the dinner table, way back whenpretending to be hooked on Dads every word while her mind wandered off to choicer topics. Except these days she did it without a chair.

Whats wrong with them? I asked, zipping up my jeans. She was wearing jeans, too. Of course, her jeans were tight, low-cut capris. Mine were big and baggy. Id stepped on the hems so many times they were as thready as my violet carpet, but hey, they were comfortable.

Paige wrinkled her pert nose and shook her head. Very few things got her as worked up as my untapped fashion potential. Most of the time she had this faded tissue-paper look, so filmy I could see right through her. Get her interested, though, and she brightened up like a Chinese lantern. Right then, she was beaming from her bleached-blond hair to her strappy sandals.

A few years ago, it would have pissed me off. These days, I was used to it. It was like a game: how bossy could she get, how bratty could I get. Playing at being normal.

Dont you ever look at yourself, Cassie? Paige said. Youve got nicer stuff in your closet. Its like you want to be a slob.

There are more important things than clothes, you know.

You could at least brush your hair. Please.

I stuck out my lip to blow my bangs away from my eyes, and grinned. All right, if its so important to you.

I found my brush in the heap of comic books, dirty dishes, and loose change on top of my dresser and tugged it through the mud-brown mess of my hair. Paige drifted over, her hand grazing my head with a faint tingle. The smell of candied apples and cinnamon wisped from her fingers.

You could be pretty, Cassie, she murmured. Youve got an okay figure, if you dressed to show it off.... A little makeupI bet your eyes could look really green if you did it rightand a new haircut....

Why bother?

Paige groaned. You want to have friends, dont you? People care about that stuff. You look nice, theyre nice to you. You look like a mess, theyre laughing about it behind your back.

My smile died. I yanked the brush through a knot, wincing. From what Id seen, looking nice didnt stop people from making fun of you. Id dressed pretty decent back in junior high, and it sure as hell hadnt helped me.

But that was ancient history. The kids at Frazer Collegiate werent laughing at me now. And I had enough dirt on all of them to make sure it stayed that way.

Not that I could tell that to Paige. If she knew what went on at school, shed be ten times more freaked out than she was about my jeans.

Do you laugh behind my back? I asked instead.

Paige gave me her best big-sister look: eyebrows arched and lips pursed. Considering she was the same sweet-sixteen as when shed died and Id be seventeen in a few months, it was getting harder to take that look seriously.

Of course not, she said. Youre my sister. I have to look out for you.

Gee, thanks. Anyway, no ones making fun of me.

But

I arched my eyebrows right back at her. Trust me, theyre not.

Okay, okay. Her lower lip curled into a pout. Im just concerned. You should look after yourself. You used to... I think you used to make yourself up, get dressed up. Didnt you?

I looked away. Paige hardly ever talked about things that far back. But she was rightif this had been at the beginning of seventh grade, Id have been trying on half a dozen outfits, dabbing lipstick light enough that Mom wouldnt notice it, getting ready for another day of giggling with my friends and blushing around the boys. A lot had changed since then. A lot that Paige hadnt wanted to see when she was alive, and now would probably never understand.

Im surviving just fine like this, I said, pulling my hair into an elastic. Can we talk about something else? Besides, you should be glad. I could have a billion friends and go out every night, and then youd be bored out of your mind.

Paige hovered over me as I stuffed last nights homework into my backpack. She didnt say anything, just watched me with her eyes all worried and her forehead crinkled. It was making me feel twisted up inside. Even after four years, it seemed weird sometimes that she paid so much attention to me.

Right before she died, Paige and I had a pretty defective relationship. Mostly it consisted of me trying to stick myself in her way and Paige doing her best to avoid me. Shed turned into a teen princess in high school, and I was a gawky tween who cramped her style. I didnt get why she didnt want me hanging out with her anymore. She didnt get why I couldnt leave her alone.

I guess I was lucky it hadnt stayed that way. Death had left Paiges fashion sense intact, but it screwed majorly with her memory. Here and there, time got stuck. Some things she talked about as if four years ago were yesterday. When Dad turned her old bedroom into a workshop, it took a month before the change worked its way into her head. Until then, shed come bolting into my room once or twice a day, wailing about how someone had stolen all her stuff. Id tell her what was up, shed calm down, and then eight hours later shed have forgotten and would freak out all over again.

But eventually Paige caught on to the things that stayed different, like the room, and like me getting older, and the now wrote over the then. In her mind, now, weve been best buds forever. And really, despite her nagging, Id had friends a lot worse than her. At least she said what she was thinking instead of hiding it under smiles and sweet talk. The dead, maybe because they have nothing to lose, are always honest.