So how had Paul Slater gotten permission to tear down my old house?
I didn’t know, but he had it, all right. I’d seen the forms attached to his e-mail, since the ghost girl’s paraspectacular aftershocks hadn’t scrambled them from my computer (Sean Park, one of Becca’s classmates, had managed to rescue my hard drive, though not in time for me to keep Maximillian28 from winning my boots, and for well under what I’d have been willing to pay. I hoped he or she enjoyed them . . . in hell).
Not only were all of Paul’s plans for the destruction of 99 Pine Crest Road—and most of the homes on the rest of my old block—in order, but he hadn’t been lying about the Curse of the Dead. With the help of the Internet, I’d been able to find a translation of it posted on the blog of some Egyptology student specializing in the study of ancient languages.
What the blog didn’t tell me—either because it wasn’t part of the student’s assignment or because it wasn’t written on the papyrus—was whether or not there was a way to break the curse.
I’d fired off an e-mail to the blog’s owner—Shahbaz Effendi—and crossed my fingers that he’d believe my little white lie that I was a fellow Egyptology enthusiast.
I know how pesky those papyruses (papyri?) can be. Sometimes they break off midsentence. (Did they? I wasn’t even sure what papyrus was.)
Really, though, if there’s any chance at all that there’s more to the curse, I’d love to know. It would be very helpful to my current research.
God, this guy was going to think I was insane. Or twelve. But until I heard back from him, Jesse and I were screwed.
“Well,” CeeCee was saying, “after she graduated from the Mission Academy, Kelly went on to get a degree in fashion merchandising.”
I looked up from the cup of coffee I’d been scowling into. “Wait, are you shitting me? Fashion merchandising? Like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde?”
“I heard that,” called my other best friend (and current roommate), Gina, from behind the counter. CeeCee’s aunt had hired her to work the four-to-midnight shift, Monday through Friday. Gina ominously tapped a large glass jar with a pen. “Dollar to the swear jar. Two dollars, actually, because I overheard you call Kelly a ho earlier.”
“That’s a tip jar, not a swear jar,” I said, but reached into my messenger bag for my wallet anyway. I didn’t want to be a bad sport. “And I said pro, not ho. You guys are oppressing my right to free speech.”
“You should be thanking us,” Gina said as I approached the counter. “A future doctor should be classy, not trashy. Not to mention a future doctor’s wife.”
“Jesse says he loves me the way I am.” I shoved two dollars into the already stuffed tip jar. “And shouldn’t you be working instead of eavesdropping on my private conversation?”
“Yeah,” Gina said, waving a hand at the whimsically painted café tables. Aunt Pru was big on whimsy. “Because it’s so packed in here.”
“It’ll pick up after six,” CeeCee said. “The after-work caffeine hounds.”
“Getting back to Kelly?” I nudged.
“Oh,” CeeCee said. “Right.” She glanced back down at the laptop screen. “Apparently things didn’t work out with the degree, since she moved home with Mom last year.”
“Whoa. Debbie never mentioned that.” I slid back into my seat. “Probably Kelly never posted about it on Instagram.”
“You guys suck,” Gina said. “What’s wrong with fashion merchandising? And do I need to point out that both of you are college graduates who moved back to your hometown? You shouldn’t be making fun of this poor Kelly girl for doing the same thing.”
“Um, first of all,” I said, “if I were to make fun of her, it wouldn’t be for her choice of degree or for moving back home, it would be because Kelly is a really mean, terrible person. Did you know she used to refer to CeeCee as ‘the freak’? To her face.”
Gina threw CeeCee a quick glance—quick enough to catch the way CeeCee’s scalp, plainly visible beneath the white strands of her hair, turned a deeper shade of pink with embarrassment at the reminder.
“Oh, CeeCee,” Gina said, laying a brown-skinned hand across CeeCee’s almost translucently pale one. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay.” CeeCee reached for her latte and took a big gulp. “It’s cool to be a freak now. Even if I do still live at home.”
Gina bit her lip. “I’m sorry I said that, too. And you’re not a freak. It’s just . . . I can relate to Kelly’s not being able to hack it in the big city. That’s why I’m here, sleeping on Suze’s couch.”