Life After Theft

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“UMMM,” I SAID SLOWLY AS I stared at the screen.

“What?” Kimberlee said, tension spiking her voice about two octaves. “It didn’t work? You typed it wrong, then—do it again!”

“You have over three thousand new messages.”

“Oh,” Kimberlee said. Then she straightened casually, as though she hadn’t been on the verge of hysteria an instant ago. “Well, dying makes you popular.”

I stared at Kimberlee as if seeing her for the first time. All the ghosts in movies were see-through and white and did that glowing thing. And they floated. Kimberlee looked solid and walked right on the ground like anyone else. The lights made her hair shine a little, but she definitely wasn’t glowing. “Can I touch you?” I asked curiously.

She put her hands on her hips and pushed her chest out. “I admit, I haven’t gotten any action in a while.”

“Not like that,” I protested, mortified. “I mean in terms of, uh, physics. Can I touch your arm, or will I go right through?”

Kimberlee studied her arm quizzically. “Everyone else goes right through. Course, none of them can see or hear me either. You can try.” She held out her arm.

I lifted my hand for a second before wussing out and turning back to my computer. “I don’t want to.”

“Come on,” she said. “If you don’t, I will.”

I felt something cold pass through my shoulder and a massive chill shot down my spine. “Okay,” I said when I could talk again. “That was the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to me. And after today, that’s really saying something.”

But when I turned to her, she looked disappointed.

“What?”

She gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “I—I hoped you’d be different, that’s all.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. Not that I could help it. “So,” I said, feeling suddenly very awkward. “You’re a ghost, huh?”

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” she said, rolling her eyes. “Are you going to help me now, or what?”

“Uh . . .”

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed. “Look,” she began hesitantly, “you can see me. And hear me. So you’re the only one who can help me. You have to say yes.”

I sighed. “What do you need help with?”

“My unfinished business.”

“Your what?”

“In books and movies people become ghosts when they have unfinished business. That must be why I’m still here.”

“Did someone tell you that? Did you have some, I don’t know, angel, I guess, tell you what you need to do?”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. I just woke up in the middle of the school and I was dead. I’m guessing on the rest.”

“What’s your unfinished business?”

She twisted a ring around on her finger. “I kind of stole some stuff when I was alive and I think I need to return it.”

“That’s it? No unrequited love? Revenge unrealized?”

“Nope.”

“And you want me to return it so you can be on your merry way?”

“That’s the plan. It’s the only thing I can think of. I had a great life. Pretty much everyone loved me—except the people who wanted to be me—and I had everything I ever wanted.”

“Which forced you into a life of crime?” I have never under- stood rich people stealing.

“Whatever. Will you help me?”

I laid my arms on the desk and let my head rest against them. “I return a couple a things for you and you leave me alone?” I asked, more to the carpet than her.

“Yes.”

“Forever?”

“I promise.” She laughed. “I’d pinky swear, but, you know.”

I did know—and I didn’t want to do that again.

I was kinda starting to miss just being crazy.

“Jeff?”

I looked over at her. Her smirk was gone. So was her pout.

“Please?” she asked, her tone completely genuine.

I’m such a pushover. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

She squealed and clasped her hands together. “Thank you thank you thank you!” and then in the same breath, “We gotta go to the cave.”

“The cave?”

“It’s where the stuff is.”

“You’re in Santa Monica and you hid stuff in a cave?”

“It’s on my parents’ private beach. I found it when I was, like, ten. It’s been my secret place ever since.”

“Okay,” I said. “We can go tomorrow.”

“Why can’t we go today?”