“Yeah. I should have studied more.” I make a face because I’m still mad about it. “How did you do?”
“I aced it.” He shrugs. “But I always do. It’s an easy class.”
“Thanks.” I give him a dirty look.
“It would have been easy if you’d studied,” he chides. “What’s up with you?”
“What are you? The nerd police?”
He raises his hands defensively. “Just being a friend. Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. That was bitchy.”
“Yep.”
I give him a sideways glare as we walk down the hall. “I need to get my mind off things. My mom just bought that new space movie—the one with the airborne mutant virus and the scientists who get trapped on that planet.”
“Eosphere?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. We could watch it after school. Can we do it at your house, though?” I don’t want Ben at my house, because I don’t want to take a chance on Finn showing up to the party.
He looks uncomfortable for a moment. “I can’t. I’ve got a date.”
I stop in my tracks. “Really?”
“You don’t have to sound so disbelieving, you know,” he grumbles.
“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just … it’s Monday,” I finish lamely.
“It’s just a first-time get-to-know-you-over-coffee kinda thing after school. She lives in Manortown.”
“Didn’t they just beat your team in soccer?”
“Yup. Whupped our butts. She was there supporting her brother and came over to comfort me.”
I raise a brow and make a tsk-ing sound. “Fraternizing with the enemy. What has our school come to?”
“I consider it good sportsmanship.”
“I’ll bet.”
I try not to be disappointed, but I am. I’m just so used to having him as a fallback plan. I don’t know who this girl is, but I instantly don’t like her. And I also realize how completely petty that is, but I can’t help it.
“Sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay.” I wave him off. “I should be studying anyway, and Eversor wants me writing something about local ghost stories for the next installment of The Articulator. Maybe I’ll go to the local historical society after school to research.”
“Ghosts? In Ardenville?”
“They don’t have ghosts in New Mexico?”
“Some. Mostly the things that go bump in the night are coyotes.” He says it like a true westerner.
“Out here, that word has three syllables,” I say primly. “You’d better learn that before they kick you out of the great state of New York.”
“Kigh-oats,” he repeats. “You’re the one saying it wrong.”
“At least I’m not a total suck-up,” I say. “It must be nice to have a dad who’s a history professor.”
“Come on. I just asked about the Prussian helmet design and von Steuben’s contributions to sanitation and their effect on lowering the rate of dysentery.”
“Keep talking just like that. It’s sure to get your new girl interested.”
His eyes slide sideways to meet mine. “You jealous, St. Clair?”
“Of course I am. If you’re out with someone else, who’s going to discuss dysentery with me?”
I bump his shoulder with mine and head into creative writing class, uncomfortably aware that I am jealous. If Ben gets a girlfriend, he won’t be hanging out with me anymore. That also leaves a lot more of my time free for Finn, and traveling, and all that comes with it.
I’m still not sure I’m ready for all that comes with it.
14
Unexpected
The Ardenville Historical Society is housed in an unassuming old stone farmhouse, on half an acre of what used to be a sprawling farm, before it got sold and developed into a community of town houses.
There’s a woeful lack of ghost stories centered in or around Ardenville on the Internet, which is not surprising in the least, since there’s a woeful lack of anything about Ardenville on the Internet. We’re just not that exciting.
But since the local historical society is offering a ghost tour on Halloween night, I figure that’s a good place to start with the research on my article. I push the door open, listening to it creak loudly. The wooden floorboards aren’t any more forgiving, and I wince as I try to make my way silently into the room.
“Hello?” I look around, but there’s nobody in sight. There’s a light on in the next room, and the door is partially open. I make my way back to it.
“Hello?” I call again. “Are you open?”
The door swings open wider, and an older woman with a mop of unruly gray hair stuffed under a kerchief peeks her head out.
“Hello!” she calls out cheerfully. “Yes, yes, we’re open. All the way to six. Sorry I didn’t hear you. I’m trying to get this room sorted out. We’ve got a ghost tour coming up, you know.”
“So I’ve heard,” I remark, looking around. “I’m actually here to research that very subject.”
“Oh, well, then,” she says, brushing dust and cobwebs off her shirt and pants. “This is your lucky day! One of our volunteers organized it all into a collection, over there.”