Spectre

“Come back to pull another vanishing act on me?” I snapped.

“No. Sorry I left before. I just didn’t want your father to see me.”

He didn’t look sorry enough to me. In fact, I was willing to bet he knew the difference between a femur and a tibia. I grumbled under my breath.

“Sorry,” he repeated.

I decided I may as well talk to him. I, firstly, wanted to know who he thought pushed him. Secondly, I realized he may or may not have had nothing to do with my failure on the test. Very likely “may not.” “Okay. Tell me what you started to this morning.”

“Ah,” he said, “yes. It was Vanna.”

I looked at him hard, already regretting the decision to have forgiven him (without having verbally done anything of the sort) for something he hadn’t even done. Vanna was my best friend. “Why would Vanna push you?” She didn’t even know him.

In fact, I didn’t even know him. We had math together, which I knew because he was forever sitting in the front to avoid wearing his glasses. I had heard he was somewhat clumsy because of this perpetual refusal. 

There was a theory. He tripped and accidentally fell off the roof. 

“She’s,” he made circular motions around his ear with a finger, “crazy.”

I wanted to smack some sense into him. When I did so, however, my hand passed right through his chest. Tingles spread up my arm and I yanked it back.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Never mind.” This time, I was the one to leave without a warning.

                                                     ✘  ✘  ✘

“Sorry.” Christopher popped into my line of vision, completely out of the blue. I almost tripped, trying to avoid crashing into him. I would probably pass right through and hit the ground.

“You say that a lot,” I pointed out. “I just never seem to know why.”

He plopped onto a bench. It was a few days since I had last seen him, and I was at school. Christopher’s fall—accident or by design—had only happened last week, and everyone was talking about in class. When I realized I had forgotten a book in my locker, I had seen it as a way to escape. I already had enough Christopher on my mind.

“I didn’t know Vanna was your friend. But she’s still crazy.”

I looked at him hard. For someone who was racking up the apologies, he was quite horrible at them. “She isn’t. I’ve known her for ages. Well, two years. Which is still pretty long. Anyway, I’m probably the crazy one. I’m talking to a ghost.”

“I’m not a ghost,” Christopher replied. “Ghosts are dead people. I’m not dead.”

“You sure about that?” That was the downside to gossip: it was dated. And there was the tact thing again, showing up to heavily hint to a fellow classmate (ex-classmate?) that he was possibly dead.

“Positive. I checked on it. You know who came to visit me in the hospital? Vanna.” He emphasized her name, and looked at me pointedly.

“So?” It was unusual, but I didn’t want him to think he was right. First, he had no proof that she was odd (and I wasn’t going to give him any, although granted she had her moments), and second, I was certain many people had gone to see him in the hospital.  

“So when she came, she started to ask the nurse a lot of questions about how I was injured. And to list all my injuries. Then she took notes on some stuff.” Christopher leaned forwards on the bench and widened his eyes in emphasis.