Spooky Little Girl (8 page)

I
have
to remember that, Lucy stressed to herself. She could see Alice shooting coffee out of her nose over boobsicles. She hoped she could remember it all—waking up and thinking she was in a county hospital, trying to find her classroom, looking for a phone, thinking Bethanny was a mental patient, finding out she was a Surprise Demise, who lost a head, who got shot, or eaten by a shark, all of it. This dream had to be lasting for hours, she realized. This was the longest dream she’d ever had. This was incredible entertainment!

“Can I sleep now that I’m dead?” Lucy offered up sarcastically with a hearty laugh. She figured, hell, if this was her dream, she ought to get a couple of one-liners in. “Has it been half an hour yet? Does the devil know I’m here? Whoa, I feel drunk—that must be some powerful embalming solution! Can I have my next one on the rocks?”

“This is crazy! I don’t think you’re funny, Lucy!” Bethanny objected. “I am not dead. I’m talking; you can see me. Send me back! I want to go back!”

“Bethanny, dear,” Ruby said as she slightly raised her right hand, “the only part of you that hasn’t been completely digested yet in the GI tract of a sea monster is your right leg, and it’s stuck on a coral reef at the bottom of the ocean. Angelfish have already nibbled on it. An eel is flirting with it. No one simply wants to be a leg, do they? Do they? Just one nibbled-on leg?”

Bethanny returned Ruby’s soft look with an embittered pout that rendered her face a light shade of port wine.

“I can’t believe I’m not an angel!”
she finally erupted as she stomped
a flipper to the floor with a loud, rubbery snap. “
Why
am I not an angel? I bet Anna Nicole is an angel! This isn’t fair! I want to be sitting on a cloud, spying on people! I want to wear flowy robes and have a good singing voice! I want to hit Mariah Carey high notes!”

Ruby waited a moment before she said anything.

“True, you didn’t make it to a higher level, but that could be due to a variety of things—maybe you didn’t have enough time in the game to really complete all of the tasks you needed to before your leg drifted to the bottom of the ocean, or a three-ton city bus rendered you one-dimensional, or your head rolled into a pile of garbage,” she attempted to explain to her charges. “Maybe you were thinking about making a contribution to the humane society but bought yourself a frilly, fancy push-up bra instead. With insufficient insulation, I might add. Maybe you didn’t say you were sorry enough times when you knew you were wrong. Maybe you told a homeless vet to get a job instead of giving him a dollar to get some soup. Maybe you voted for George Bush one too many times. Maybe you put guns into the hands of children, who knows? I don’t know. I do know the reasons for every one of you are different, but this is your chance to make it up, to sort of fix things.”

“Am I really in Hell because I wanted to have a beer with George Bush?” Bethanny asked sadly.

“Oh, Bethanny,” Ruby said sympathetically. “Please don’t be sad. This is not Hell. Hell is in a different part of the building altogether. This is your chance to shine, so to speak. Because if there ever was an afterlife, this is it. Your same life, but after you’re dead. You’re all going back.

“My dears, you’re in ghost school.”

My subconscious is amazing
, Lucy thought after being told this latest information.
Now I’m a ghost? Classic. I’ve never been a ghost in my
dreams before. I’ve been chased, suddenly pregnant, lost, late for a plane, trying repeatedly to dial a phone, taking a test I never studied for, watching a tornado coming toward my house, flying over mountains, but I’ve never been a
ghost in ghost school
before. That is a first. It’s just like a little ghost classroom, too
, Lucy noted as she looked around.
Here I am, sitting at a desk with a bunch of people around me that I don’t particularly like, with a crazy old woman at the front of the classroom who’s our teacher. And now I have to find someone to have lunch with
.

But suddenly, Lucy got a feeling that something wasn’t quite right. A flush of alarm engulfed her and she immediately froze. Something was off. Something didn’t fit. If she was having a dream about school, she realized, there was always a constant. Always. Whether she was taking a test, trying out for cheerleading, being called on to make a presentation she hadn’t prepared for, there was always one common thread.

Always
.

Lucy hesitated before she looked down, but when she did and saw her jeans and her corduroy jacket and saw that they were indeed on her, she realized quickly that she could not be dreaming.

She was not naked.

And if she was in a classroom and was not naked, there was no way this could be a dream, and if this wasn’t a dream, that meant that she was, very much so, dead.

And not only dead, but a spook.

“Oh, my God, I’m dead,” Lucy suddenly gasped, and then emitted a stunned laugh. “So I didn’t make it. I didn’t make the cut. I didn’t make advanced choir in junior high because I had mono, I didn’t make it into college because I slept through my alarm and was too hungover to take the SATs, and now I even DIED and I haven’t made the cut to the afterlife. I’m just a ghost. I don’t even
get to be
all the way
dead. I was always picked last, and this is just like being an alternate. I always knew the white light was bullshit!”

“Now, now, now, there are some benefits to being at this level, you know,” Ruby quickly interjected, trying to calm Lucy. “You need to see this more positively. There is a white light, but it’s not one you want to go into, and I’ll explain that in more detail when we reach that section in your training.

“You are all dead, and rest assured you are
all the way
dead, Lucy. There’s no such thing as a dead alternate. You died. That means that aside from being born, you have completed the hardest thing in life. It’s something you never have to do again. What is the thing everyone is afraid of the most?
Death
. And guess what? You did it! It’s over for you! You never have to worry about dying again. All right, so maybe you didn’t get an A plus in life, maybe you’re a C lifer and so you ended up here, but hey, it’s a huge relief, right?”

No one could help but nod in agreement, including Lucy, who bobbed along with the crowd, desperately trying to keep her head from spinning off. She alternated every five seconds between being completely numb and wanting nothing more than to get up and run screaming out of the classroom, but she had no idea where she was or where she should go, and if Hell was indeed in a different part of the building, she was clearly better off staying put. She tried to calm herself down by reminding herself that getting hysterical wasn’t going to help matters any, plus the fact that none of the other newly dead were becoming unglued, so maybe there was no reason to panic. But as Lucy looked at each of them, she saw that they also had mixed flashes of disbelief and confusion on their faces. She found comfort in their apparent discomfort.

“You’re dead. Congratulations!” Ruby continued. “That means, as of today, you’re all retired. No more work. You never have to go
to work again. Rat race is over. You crossed the finish line. You never have to fill out another tax form, pay another bill, worry about getting audited.
You’re dead
. You’ll never get another cold, you’ll never wind up in the hospital, you’ll never break a bone. You’ll never have gas or pass a kidney stone. You never have to bathe again, shave again, or floss again. You’ll never have to go to a job you hate. You never have to wait in line. You never have to diet.”

Mr. Granger, the hunter who’d taken a rifle blast to his abdomen, raised his hand.

“I was planning on losing a couple of pounds before my son killed me,” he explained. “Can I work on that here? Do you guys have a gym, or even a treadmill? I think I’d do well on a Bowflex. But I think I’ll stay out of the sauna!”

The dead students chortled.

Ruby winced. “That’s a tough one,” she began. “But it brings us to a good point. Although you all have the image of your earthly form, physically things have changed for you. You are no longer flesh and bone in the traditional sense. Frankly, all that stuff does is eventually fail you and get in the way. Your form now is more adaptable, it’s portable and flexible. The energy of what made you alive is what you are now. That is what has survived. It’s what exists.”

“You mean our
spirit?”
Bethanny asked.

“Certainly, you can call it that,” the teacher confirmed. “Everything in the earthly form is energy, propelled by energy, composed of energy. It’s all energy, but in different forms, in different versions. Even your earthly bodies were composed of energy, but the strongest force of energy is what you are now. You are now the most powerful part of what you were. What I’m here to do is teach you how to work with your new form. I can see you here—we can all see each other—but back on the earthly level, our energy is transparent, unless you
want
it to be otherwise. But modifying your
energy takes practice and skill, as well as a couple of tricks. That is what we will be focusing on in your course work here. After which you’ll go on to your individual assignments. But I’m afraid losing weight isn’t an option. You have no weight to lose. The way you are at the moment of your death is the way you are for, well, forever.”

Bethanny’s face boiled back to red again. “I have to wear a wet suit for all of eternity?” she screeched. “I can’t walk around in these flippers! This is just asking too much. I’m in rubber here. I’m basically dressed in a
tire!
Had I known that this was going to be my eternal fashion projection, I would have worn my curvy jeans and strappy sandals to feed that stupid shark. I don’t see how this is fair. You need to start warning people before they get devoured.”

Ruby smiled. “Like I said, you were a surprise to us, dear, even though you were dressed like a walrus with press-on nails. I don’t think you’ll find anyone in here who believes a shark was not going to find you appetizing. You were like a floating pig in a blanket. But this brings us to one of the most exciting parts of Transition,” she said excitedly as she pulled out something that resembled a magazine from the bottom of her stack of folders and binders. “I agree that wearing a wet suit would not only be cumbersome for your assignment in the afterlife, but a little ineffective as well.”

Ruby stepped down off the stage and walked over to Bethanny as she flipped through the pages. “Here we go,” she said, and she laid it into the girl’s eagerly awaiting rubber arms. “Pages thirty through sixty are considered the women’s section, although we do have some crossover for our alternative lifestyle specters, in the ‘Ladies but Gents’ section. Now, don’t be hasty. Make sure you’ve looked at everything before you make your decision. This is for your entire assignment, remember. There are no returns once you’ve made your choice.”

Bethanny gasped, and a smile spread across her face as she went from page to page. Lucy couldn’t help but put her mania aside for
a moment and steal a peek at what Bethanny was flipping through. It looked like a catalog, filled with images of clothing and costuming for just about any era, style, or role.

“Oooooh,” Bethanny cooed as she pointed to a pretty woman in flowing robes, looking almost like a Greek goddess. “‘The Ethereal White Lady.’ Oh, I like that one a lot. It looks very comfortable and could be rather formfitting, too, if need be.”

“Very popular.” Ruby nodded at the selection. “We do a lot of White Ladies. It’s probably the closest to Angel Wear you’ll find of all the choices. And just think of how lovely that’s going to look underwater. I mean, I think we’re talking legendary.”

Lucy couldn’t peel her eyes away. There were grand Civil War-era ball gowns, several different Victorian dresses boasting bustles of black silk and long ebony veils of netting, several pages of wedding gowns for every century and decade, offerings made of basic fabrics for Viking maidens, a whole section for royal court wear from Elizabeth I to Victoria, waitress and nurse uniforms, what seemed like a whole section of the costuming from
Oliver Twist
, and even the most basic selection of simply a loincloth and a string of lumpy beads.

“Is this a catalog of morgue wear?” Lucy asked unbelievingly. “This whole thing is for ghost fashion?”

“Not everyone dies in the most appropriate outfit, Lucy,” Ruby reminded her. Then she slyly shot her eyes over to Mrs. Wootig, whose lips barely rested above the collar of her puffy ski jacket. “In fact, some would look completely ridiculous attempting to spirit in what they were wearing during expiration. Appearance is ninety percent of this job, and if you don’t look the part, you’re wasting everyone’s time. Don’t dress as the ghost you are; dress for the ghost
you want to be
.”

“I like this one, too,” Bethanny said, tapping another image with her finger. “‘The Titanic.’ The beading on it is fantastic, and it
looks like there’s a Wonderbra built right in. This is a knockoff of Kate Winslet’s dress, isn’t it?”

Ruby shrugged and gave a mischievous smile.

“Aha! I thought so. I could haunt in this. I could
really
haunt in this!” Bethanny said excitedly. “Does Celtic flute background music come with this dress? Please say yes.”

“May I—” Mr. Marks, the bicyclist, said quietly. “May I see that when you’re done?”

“Do we have to pick an outfit from the dead catalog?” Lucy asked as she raised her hand. “I’d really rather not spend my time as an apparition looking like I’m trick-or-treating.”

“Certainly not,” Ruby reassured Lucy. “It would be ridiculous to have an assignment, for example, in a Las Vegas casino and have an operative dressed like Scarlett O’Hara. It’s not realistic, and no one would believe it. The locale, purpose, and attire all need to go hand in hand. Otherwise, you should just throw a sheet over your head and rattle some chains. You can stay exactly as you are, Lucy—after all, you are haunting as yourself. None of you are going to be character ghosts. If you feel comfortable in what you are wearing, so be it. It’s completely up to you.”