Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online Page A

you stay at Tina's?" Dad asked.
    "No," I admitted. "We went to the park." This was all so confusing. What had Leah-Ann done to me?
    For the first time Dad glanced at the ID in Mom's hand. Apparently he saw the resemblance right away. Very quietly he asked, "Were you drinking?"
    "A little bit," I said, figuring I was in enough trouble, I'd better be honest. "But I didn't have an accident."
    Dad looked gray. Not as gray as Leah-Ann but definitely not well. Mom was crying, soundlessly, the tears pouring down her cheeks, as Dad said, "The people at the car shop are going to be reporting this to the police in Buffalo. The police in Buffalo will have to take a look at all the hit-and-run accidents—"
    "I didn't hit anyone!" I cried. The police in Buffalo had enough to worry about with trying to find Leah-Ann. "We only bought a couple six-packs. Well, three. But I drove very, very carefully."
    I
had.
We were just driving around, listening to tapes and feeling sorry because it was the last time we were all going to be together.
    I remember fighting, playfully, with Tina, who wasn't as crazy about hearing "Margaritaville" over and over again as I was. I kept rewinding the tape because it seemed the perfect song for a summer night of good-byes, and after a while she got sick of it and she hit FAST FORWARD , and then I hit REWIND , and she hit the button to play the other side, and while I was trying to find "Mar-garitaville" again I accidentally turned the volume up so loud it hurt our ears, so Jennie and Traci both scrambled up from the backseat to lean over to adjust the volume, and we swerved off the road—we were on Hopkins, where it follows Ransom Creek, and there aren't any lights and there isn't any shoulder—so it was like hitting a speed bump when the car went off the road, just for an instant, then another bump and we were back on again, so that Traci and Jennie put their hands up like you do when you're riding a roller coaster, and Tina smacked her head against the dashboard, because she was leaning forward to mess with the buttons some more, and she said if she had any short-term memory loss she was going to have to sue me, but she didn't get hurt, and we didn't hit anything. Or run over anything. Not that I knew of.
    Wouldn't you know if you had done something like run over someone?
    Wouldn't you know if you had killed somebody?

    I still don't remember seeing her. I don't remember being aware of hitting her. I would have stopped if I had known.
    I didn't look in the rearview mirror and see her try to get back up on the bike the way the police say she must have done. I didn't see her wobble and fall into the bushes and into the creek beyond.
    The only reason I knew to tell you to look in the creek where it comes right up to Hopkins at that last curve is because when I saw Leah-Ann—when she came to me after she was dead—she was always wet. She was dead and she was wet and she kept coming to me because I was the only one who could help her.
    I didn't know.
    END OF RECORDING

    transcript signed by Brenda Keehn

    in the presence ot Eugene Randolph, Attorney-at-Law

Dancing with Marjorie's Ghost
    Nobody was surprised when Conrad Sharpe's wife, Marjorie, died.
    Conrad Sharpe was a mean man—a bully and a bragger. He was too lazy and too stingy to fix die roof that leaked in the spring or die door and window frames that let in the howling winter wind, but he expected his wife to keep the house warm and comfortable. Her hands were rough and red from working in the house and working in the yard. All day long she worked, and late into the night. The neighbors always said that for each year Marjorie spent married to Conrad, she seemed to age two.
    So no one was surprised when—one cold gray day as autumn turned to winter—Marjorie Sharpe died. The neighbors said it was the only way Marjorie could get any rest.
    But, oh, how Conrad wept at Marjorie's funeral.
    Conrad Sharpe always liked to be the best at everything—the