Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ My Ghost ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

My Ghost

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Chapter Six

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© 2008 Ohne Sie

 

 

 

Callie went to bed relatively early that night, after doing her homework and playing around on the computer for a few more minutes. She said good night to her parents, her sister, and finally, Will, and fell asleep almost immediately upon hitting her mattress.

 

She awoke before her alarm went off the next morning, which was always a good thing, because it meant that she would be more awake for the rest of the day. She looked at the clock, which read 6:30. Her alarm wouldn't go off for another fifteen minutes.

 

Callie climbed out of bed and walked over to her dresser, stumbling a little in the darkness. Just before she reached the dresser, however, she tripped over something on the floor and fell. Rubbing her knee, which was probably a little scraped from the fall, she felt around with her other hand, searching for whatever had caused her fall. A floorboard was loose, so she pried it up and discovered what seemed to be an old leather-bound book. She opened it up…

 

And her alarm went off. Callie's eyes opened and she sat up in bed. “It was a dream?” She frowned. Climbing out of bed, for what seemed to be the second time, Callie once again walked over to her dresser. This time, she made it without falling. She got dressed and went to the bathroom, as usual. When she came out, Will was standing outside the door.

 

“Hey,” Callie said, yawning.

 

“Good morning,” Will said. “Did you sleep well?”

 

“I guess,” Callie said. “Why?”

 

“Your sister was crying all night. Your parents got almost no sleep at all. I'm surprised she didn't wake you.”

 

Callie shrugged. “I've always been kind of immune to her crying. I did have a weird dream, though.”

 

“Oh?” Will asked. “What happened?”

 

“I dunno, it was just a weird dream.” Callie shrugged. She wasn't sure why she was hesitant to tell Will the truth. She shook her head. “I'm going to go eat breakfast, now. So I'll talk to you later. I'll be home after I go to the library.” She ran down the stairs to the kitchen, where her mother was already sitting.

 

Callie grabbed a bowl and poured some cereal and milk in it, sitting down across from her mother. “Where's Dad?” she asked.

 

“He had to go to work early. The bus driver knows about you, so you should be able to catch the bus today.”

 

“Oh…I was planning on going to the library after school. Do you think Dad could pick me up?”

 

“I'll do it if he can't,” her mother said. “Carrie has a checkup anyway.”

 

“Cool,” Callie said. They finished their breakfast in silence. Callie always had a harder time talking to her mother than to her father. She set her bowl in the dish washer, grabbed her bookbag, and sat on the front porch, waiting for the school bus.

 

It came two minutes later than the school had told her it would come. Callie walked onto the bus, and seeing only two empty seats, sat in the closest one to the front. She stared out the window as the bus pulled away. She hated school buses. The kids were always so loud, screaming across the bus at each other. This bus was no different. Callie was relieved that the bus trip would only take about fifteen minutes, because she was one of the last stops on the route.

 

Callie walked into the school and was immediately greeted by Ashley and Aaron, who waved her over to where they were standing, by a stairwell. She walked over and frowned.

 

“Were you really waiting here for me?” she asked them.

 

“Well, no, we always stand here in the mornings. We just happened to see you so we waved you over. Anyway,” Ashley said, pointing to the girl standing next to her, “This is my friend, Jenna.” The other girl, who was short, with black hair, waved.

 

“I'm Callie,” Callie said.

 

“And this is my friend, Nick,” Aaron said. Callie nodded toward the boy standing next to Aaron. He was blonde, and a little bit taller than Aaron.

 

“Hey,” Nick said.

 

“Hi,” Callie said. “So,” she said, turning to Aaron. “You guys just hang out here in the mornings before you head to class…or the office, in your case?”

 

“Yeah. This is the cool people stairwell. There's another stairwell, too, but that's for losers. Don't go there.”

 

“Ever,” Ashley added. “Even to get to classes. Seriously.”

 

“Why not?” Callie asked.

 

“Because there are always really sketchy people there,” Nick said. “There's always something really weird going on.”

 

Callie nodded uneasily.

 

“No, you'll be fine,” Aaron said. “Really, it's not too bad. They're just really weird. Still, it's better to just use this one. It's the way I showed you yesterday, anyway.”

 

“That reminds me,” Ashley said, turning to Callie. “Why didn't you eat lunch with us yesterday?”

 

“I was talking to my English teacher,” Callie said.

 

“Well, you'd better eat with us today,” Ashley said as the bell ring. “And we'd better hurry up and get to chem. Come on!”

 

Eventually, it was time for lunch. Callie pulled her lunch out of her bookbag and walked down to the cafeteria, where Ashley was waiting for her.

 

“Hey!” Ashley said. “Our table is over here.” She led Callie to a table not far from the cafeteria doors, where Aaron and the kids from earlier were sitting.

 

“So, I was wondering, you moved here a few days ago, right?” Aaron asked as Callie sat down.

 

“Yeah,” she said.

 

“Where did you move?”

 

“An old house on Iris Street,” Callie said.

 

“The haunted one?” Jenna asked excitedly.

 

Ashley frowned. “There's no haunted house on Iris Street, Jenna.”

 

“Yeah, there is! It's the one where that kid died like a hundred years ago or whatever.”

 

“Eighty years ago, and he disappeared,” Callie said. “And yeah, I live there.”

 

“Wow. Did you actually research the house?” Ashley asked.

 

“Before we moved, yeah.”

 

“You did say you are interested in ghosts…”

 

“I was hoping it would be haunted,” Callie said.

 

“Yeah, that would be cool. I guess it's not?”

 

Callie shrugged. “Of course not,” Aaron said, laughing. “There's no such thing.”

 

“You don't know that,” Ashley said. “There could be ghosts, somewhere.”

 

Callie frowned. They seem to know about the house, but do they know that it was Will who disappeared from there? Maybe they're not related to him…I would think that if they were, they'd know the history better. While Callie was lost in thought, Aaron was watching her.

 

“Do you always do that?” he asked.

 

“Huh?” Callie asked, snapping out of her thoughts.

 

“You know, stare off into space. Do you do that a lot?”

 

“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about something.”

 

Aaron smiled. “No need to apologize, I was just wondering. It's kind of cute.”

 

Callie looked down at her food, trying very hard to keep from blushing. Fortunately, the conversation had turned away from ghosts and had become one about how disgusting the cafeteria food was.

 

“Seriously, are these mashed potatoes?” Nick asked.

 

“They're…remarkably solid,” Jenna said, poking at hers with a fork.

 

“Callie's smart,” Ashley said, pointing to Callie's lunch box. “She packs her lunch.”

 

“Well, my mom does. She likes to do it, so I don't really stop her.”

 

“That's cool. Our mom's too lazy to pack ours,” Aaron said.

 

“Our mom isn't lazy!” Ashley protested. “She works really hard.”

 

“It was a joke, Ash,” Aaron said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, I kind of like how these taste.” He shoveled a spoonful of potatoes in his mouth. Ashley winced.

 

“Gross,” she said. “The chicken nuggets are pretty good, though.”

 

The children finished their lunches just before the bell rang. Callie shuffled out of the cafeteria with the rest of the students, heading back to her English class. She found herself, once again, lost in thought.

 

I really wonder about that book from my dream…