Girl Meets Ghost by Lauren Barnholdt Read Free Book Online

live?”
    â€œIn Briarwood,” I say, turning around.
    â€œWell, you’d be on my late bus,” she says. She bites herlip and thinks about it. “I could probably get you on. The driver doesn’t even know who’s coming or going half the time.”
    I think about it. It’s a risk, because if for some reason the driver doesn’t let me on, I’ll miss my middle school late bus, and then I’ll be stranded. Of course, I guess I could always just walk back to the middle school and then call my dad and tell him I missed the bus. But I don’t know if he’d believe that after the whole fiasco in the mall yesterday.
    I hesitate, but then Daniella comes back. “Oh my God,” she says, her voice full of sadness. “It’s Jen.”
    And her face looks so sad and her eyes fill with tears. And so when Jen says, “What’s it going to be?” I follow her out the door and toward the bus.

Chapter
5
    Wow. The high school late bus is kind of crazy. I cannot believe that this is what I’m going to be dealing with in a couple of years. No one’s even pretending to sit in their seats, they’re talking super-loud, and there are three kids in the back that are bopping a soccer ball around with their heads . I’m really not surprised that Daniella’s bus driver got into an accident if this is how the kids were behaving. Talk about distracting.
    â€œSo,” Jen says once we’re settled into a seat in the middle of the bus. Someone’s iPod goes flying over my head, followed by the sound of a kid yelling, “RYYYAAAN! THAT WAS MY IPOD, AND IF YOU BROKE IT, YOU’RE GOING TO PAY!” I clutch my bag a little tighter againstmy chest. “What do you want to know about gymnastics?”
    Right. Gymnastics. Crap. How am I going to figure out what the heck happened between her and Daniella if we’re talking about gymnastics ? More importantly, how am I going to talk about gymnastics when I hardly know anything about it?
    â€œWell,” I say slowly, “I used to come to your meets and watch Daniella. She was my favorite gymnast.” I pull out of my bag the picture of their team that I printed off the internet. “I wanted to have her sign this, but I always chickened out before I could ask her. She was so good that it was just . . . It was intimidating.”
    God, Daniella would love this if she were here. Even though I’ve never actually even seen her do any gymnastics (except for the splits and stuff she does to show off), she seems like the type that would eat up every compliment. But she left again when we got on the bus. I think she was afraid to hear what Jen would say. I don’t blame her. I’m kind of afraid of what Jen might say too, especially if it’s going to be “You’re a liar, and you don’t know anything about gymnastics, so leave me alone, you psycho.”
    Jen takes the picture and runs her hand over the printed faces. “You shouldn’t have been intimidated,” she says. “Daniella would have signed it. She loved her fans.”
    â€œYeah, I’ll bet she did,” I say without thinking. Jen looks at me funny, so I quickly add, “She just seemed likeshe would be really nice, you know? I looked up to her so much.” Wow, I’m really laying it on thick. So thick that for a second I wonder if I’ve gone too far.
    But Jen just nods and hands the picture back to me. “A lot of people did. Daniella was amazing. Did you see her at the Central Square meet?”
    â€œYes,” I lie. “She was awesome.”
    Jen looks at me and frowns. “That was the meet where she fell off the beam and had to be taken to the hospital.”
    â€œOh,” I say, smacking my forehead like I just got confused for a second. “That’s right! I’m always getting her meets mixed up, since I went to so many.”
    â€œAnyway,” she