Haunted by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

who’d come into the room and stood there during the entire course of our meal, right behind Neil’s chair, watching him in complete silence, with a baleful look on his face.
    This guy, unlike Neil, was good-looking. Dark-haired and cleft-chinned, you could tell that, beneath his Dockers and black Polo, he was cut…he’d worked long and hard, I hadn’t any doubt, to cultivate those triceps, not to mention what I guessed would be a killer set of washboard abs.
    That wasn’t the only difference between this guy and Jake’s friend Neil, though. There was also the little fact that Neil, to the best of my knowledge, was noticeably alive, while the guy standing behind him was, well…
    Dead.

chapter

five
     
     

    It was so like Jake to bring home a haunted guest.
    Not that Neil appeared to know he was being haunted. He seemed perfectly oblivious to the ghostly presence behind him—as was the rest of my family, with the exception of Max. The minute Neil sat down, Max took off for the living room with a whine that caused Andy to shake his head and say, “That dog gets more neurotic every day.”
    Poor Max. I so know how he felt.
    Except that unlike the dog, I couldn’t slink from the dining room and go cower in another part of the house, the way I wanted to. I mean, doing so would only engender unnecessary questions.
    Besides, I’m a mediator. Dealing with the undead is kind of unavoidable for me.
    Though there are definitely times when I wished I could get out of it. Now was one of those times.
    Not that I could do anything about it. No, I was stuck at the table, trying to choke down steak fajitas while being stared at by a dead guy, a great end to my already way-less-than-perfect day.
    The dead guy, for his part, looked pretty peeved. Well, and why not? I mean, he was dead . I had no idea how he’d come to be parted with his soul, but it must have been sudden, because he didn’t seem very accustomed to the whole thing yet. Whenever anybody asked to be passed something that was near him, he reached for it…only to have it swept out from underneath his ghostly fingers by one of the living at the table. This caused him to look annoyed. But most of his animosity, I noticed, seemed reserved for Neil. Every bite of fajita Jake’s new friend took, every chip he dipped into his guacamole, seemed to enrage the dead guy more. His jaw muscles twitched, and his fists tightened convulsively each time Neil replied in his quiet voice, “Yes, ma’am” or “No, ma’am,” to any of the many questions my mom put to him.
    Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore—it was creepy , sitting there at the table with this enraged ghost that only I could see…and I’m used to being stared at by ghosts—so I got up and started clearing everybody’s empty plates, even though it was Brad’s turn to do it. He gaped at me—providing us all with a very lovely view of some chewed-up steak he still had in his mouth—but didn’t say anything about it. I think he was afraid that if he did, it might snap me out of whatever delusion I was under that it was my night to do the dishes. Either that or he figured I was trying to stay in his good graces so he wouldn’t tell on me about the “guy” I was entertaining nightly in my room.
    Anyway, my getting a move on with the dishes seemed to act as a signal that the meal was over, since everyone else got up and went out onto the deck to look at the new hot tub, which Andy was still showing proudly to every single person who walked through the front door, whether they asked to see it or not. It was while I was in the kitchen rinsing the plates before placing them in the dishwasher that Neil’s walking shadow and I ended up alone together. He stood near enough to me—gazing through the sliding glass doors at everybody out on the deck—that I was able to reach out with a sudsy hand and tug on his shirt without anybody noticing.
    I startled him pretty badly. He swung around, his gaze furious and