Remember Me by Christopher Pike Read Free Book Online

cigarette to his mouth and sticking it in the corner in such a way that I thought it would fall out any second. It was too dark for me to read his expression clearly, and I was glad.

    "He used to tell me stuff about you," Jeff said. "He thought you were all right.

    But I always thought you didn't know what was going on. I just had to look at the way you strolled along with your head up your ass." He pulled out his cigarette and dropped it, crushing it beneath his black boot. Then he cleared his throat. "Yeah, and he died, Shari, and you haven't changed. Not in my book."

    He went inside but didn't leave. Jo met him in the kitchen, and I saw the two of them sit down on the living-room sofa together and talk. Maybe they talked about me. I never did know.

    Neither did I know that I had less than two hours to live.

    I turned back to the ocean. It was black. Then I looked straight down. A concrete sidewalk ran just below, alongside a plot of green grass lit by a hard white globe on top of a shrunken lamppost. It was a long way down.

    CHAPTER

    IV

    JL COULD TELL YOU how I died. How my skull cracked open and the blood gushed out. All the gory details. But gore is for the living. Fading mortals don't always close their eyes when becoming naked spirits, but they seldom watch.

    At least, I didn't.

    Jo played a strange part before the fun started—and ended. But before even that, Bliss told me all about Big Beth and Spam. I think I understand now why Jo was always giving people nicknames. The living really have only one point of view—their own. Oh, there are wise men here and there on earth who can see things as others do, but they are rare. Most people can't see other people as quite as real as themselves. It is forgivable when you realize they have to see everyone from inside a body that can be in only one place at one time. When I was alive, some people at school seemed to me like little more than mannequins in a store window.

    They were simply there for my greater shopping enjoyment.

    Jo must have had the same problem. For her, Daniel was easier to relate to as Spam because Spam was a thing, and she could always return a thing to the store if she didn't like it.

    And Big Beth was like a cartoon character; Jo could change the channel on the set and watch another cartoon if she was no longer amused. Or she could pull the plug, and they would all be gone. All of them.

    I believe her nicknaming people gave Jo the feeling that she had control over her environment.

    But I'm digressing. While Jo and Jeff sat in the living room, I went back into Beth's bedroom and lay down on her bed. I figured if she could swim with my boyfriend, I could wrinkle her sheets. I didn't go straight from the balcony to the bedroom. I discovered that the sliding glass door I had used a few minutes earlier automatically locked when I closed it. I had to reenter the condo through the kitchen and return to the bedroom. Jeff and Jo didn't even look up as I went by. God knows what they were talking about.

    I had a headache. I was tired. When I lay down, I had no intention of sleeping, but I must have. I didn't dream, however. My omens were over for the night.

    Except for one last big one. Before my headache blossomed into a skull-shattering mess, the gang rehearsed my funeral.

    Amanda awakened me. She was sitting on the bed by my side when I opened my eyes.
    Her black hair looked so long and lovely to me right then, I remember thinking how awful it would be if she were to go prematurely gray. I knew from a picture album Mrs. Parish had shown me that her mother had. Amanda must have blow-dried it after swimming.

    "What time is it?" I muttered. My headache was worse than when I had lain down.

    "After twelve."

    I sat up. "Is the swimming over?" Amanda had changed back into her clothes.

    She stared at me for a moment with her gray eyes before answering.

    "Most of the kids have left," she said.

    The condo did seem unusually quiet. "Where's Dan? Is