Page 32 of School Spirits
As I stared up at him, I realized something. I wasn’t irritated that Adam had interrupted Romy and screwed up my chances at getting more info. I was irritated because Dex was right. Hewasa jackass.
“No,” I told him, curling my hands around the bleacher. “I think I’ll stay here.”
Adam hadn’t been expecting that, I could tell. For a second he looked confused and then, I thought, hurt. But just as quickly, he gave me the same look he’d given Romy. “Okay, fine,” he said, walking down a row. “The girl who’s never seen TV before probably belongs with these freaks anyway.”
With that, he turned and left. The four of us watched him go. Only when he was at the very bottom did Dex say, “Izzy, I don’t think your new boyfriend is very nice.”
I didn’t bother to correct him about Adam being my “boyfriend.” So my first date was a total bust, then. But why, watching him walk away, did I feel so…I don’t know, relieved?
And then something else occurred to me. “Oh, crap. He was supposed to drive me home.”
Dex slid his sunglasses down his nose, but before he could say anything, Romy leaned over. “My mom is coming to get me in like an hour. We can drive you home.”
“Great,” I told her, ignoring the tiny flicker of disappointment. I needed more of a chance to talk to Romy anyway.
There was a sudden shout from the crowd as—I guess—our team scored points. Everyone around us shot to their feet, clapping, but the four of us stayed in our seats.
“Well, Isolde,” Dex said over the noise, “how does it feel to have declared for Team Outcast?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Good,” I told him, and I was surprised to discover I meant it.
CHAPTER 15
By the time the game was nearly over, I still didn’t really understand basketball, but I did learn that Dex’s Nana texted him about every ten minutes any time he was away from the house, that Romy twisted one strand of hair around her finger every time Anderson said something to her, and that Anderson had, up until junior high, actually been a pretty decent basketball player himself.
“Busted my knee waterskiing,” he told me, tapping the kneecap in question. “But it was all good. Led to me looking for other ways to spend my time, and then I found Ro—uh, found the club. Ghost hunting seemed like a lot more fun than throwing a stupid ball into a basket, anyway.”
“Anderson here is a reformed jock,” Dex said. “Which he didn’t bother to tell me until we’d already been friends for a month. By then it was too late to shun him, as I should have.”
Grinning, Anderson reached over me and thwacked Dex’s head, sending his sunglasses tumbling.
Dex gave an outraged cry. “I am affronted! That’s it, friendship rescinded.”
Anderson just leaned back against the wall and laughed. “Like you said, bro, too late.” He turned his gaze down to me. “Of course, if you want to escape this madness while you still can, I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Hey!” Romy leaned over, laying a proprietary hand on my arm. “We finally have another girl in the group. Please don’t run her off just yet.”
It was weird watching their easiness with each other, and then seeing them treatmelike that, too. I’d never really missed having friends—you can’t miss something you’ve never had—but I hadn’t realized how, well, awesome they could be, either.
I stood up. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom. Be right back.”
Romy looked like she was about to get up, too. “Do you want me to come with you?”
I hesitated, one foot awkwardly lifted over the bleacher below me. “I know where it is,” I told her, remembering that I’d seen a girls’ room in the gym lobby.
But that must’ve been the wrong answer, because Romy seemed puzzled. “Oh, okay.”
I made my way back down the bleachers, and when I got to the front of the gym, I suddenly saw why Romy had offered to come with me. There were…groups of girls huddled outside the bathroom, talking, laughing, some sharing lip gloss. Crap, was that a thing girls who were friends were supposed to do with one another?
Sighing, I turned to the gym doors, noticing that just up the hill there were lights on in the school. There were bathrooms up there, and maybe they wouldn’t be so crowded.
It had gotten colder, and I shivered a little as I jogged up toward the school. Luckily, the main breezeway door was unlocked, and I knew the bathroom was just inside, past the lockers.
Flyers pinned to a bulletin board ruffled in the breeze as I yanked open the door. The hall was dark, although there were two rectangles of light from the bathroom doors. I was headed for them when a glow suddenly filled the hall.
For one second I thought someone had just flipped on another light, but no. This wasn’t the harsh fluorescent of the hallway lighting, or the dull amber of the bathroom. This was slightly bluish and very, very familiar.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled my nerves and turned around.
