Free Spirits by Julia Watts Page B

I pick up the papers and stuff them in my backpack. “I’ll read through the rest of this in study hall.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “You know we’ve got to go out to the house at Strawberry Fields, right? I haven’t been able to get what Dr. Branch said about that ghost out of my head.”
    “You wanna go tonight?”
    “Yeah, I want to, but I don’t see how we can. Mom’s already told me to stay out of this and your mom’s warned you, too.”
    Walking down the hall to our lockers, Adam points to a poster board sign that says “END-OF-SCHOOL DANCE/ TONIGHT/8:00 P.M.-10:00 P.M.” “That’s it!” he says.
    “You have a sudden urge to go to the dance?” I say.
    “You know I’d rather be dipped in honey and tied to an anthill than go to a school dance,” he says. “But if we let our moms drop us off here tonight to go to the dance, then we could sneak off to Possum Creek Road and be back in time to get picked up at ten.”
    “And you think our moms will actually believe that we want to go to the dance?”
    “Sure they will. Moms never want to believe their kids are misfits, so they’ll be thrilled that we’re taking a ‘social interest.’”
    I laugh and shake my head, amazed at how right he is. “You really are an evil genius, you know that?”

    In my room after supper, I put on my silver-flecked sky blue skirt, a white gauze blouse, and my silver moon pendant. I have to look like I’m going to a dance even if I’m really going on a ghost hunt.
    Speaking of ghosts, I’m trying my best to send mental signals to Abigail so she’ll know to show up soon. But the world of the dead is huge, much larger than ours, and sometimes she’s too far away for me to reach her.
    Mom calls up the stairs, “Miranda? Are you about ready?” And at that same moment, I hear Abigail’s telltale scratch on the closet door.
    “Just a minute, Mom!” I yell.
    Abigail steps out of the closet. “My, don’t you look pretty! Where are you going?”
    “We,” I say, picking up the hand mirror, “are going to a house that’s supposed to be haunted by Rick Boshears’ grandmother. She’ll be more likely to come out if you’re with us.” I set the hand mirror on the floor so she can step into it. “But—and this is important—Mom is dropping us off at school. She thinks we’re going to the end-of-school dance.”
    “Oh, I wish we were,” Abigail says. “I get to talk to ghosts all the time, but I’ve never been to a dance.” She points her toe and dips it into the mirror, then sets her other foot on the glass surface, and whoosh, she’s inside.
    I stuff the mirror in my oversized purse. “I’ll get you out just as soon as Mom drops us,” I say. “Sorry to leave you in the dark.”
    “If there’s anything I’m used to, it’s dark,” Abigail says, her voice muffled.
    Adam is already waiting outside the school when Mom drops us. She tells us to have a good time, and I smile and wave, feeling guilty. If Mom looked into my head she’d know everything, but just like regular people do, right now she’s seeing what she wants to see: her shy, misfit little girl blossoming into a young lady with enough social skills to go to a middle school dance.
    “It’ll take us about half an hour to walk to Possum Creek Road,” I say, looking at Adam. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to be back here by ten.”
    I take the mirror out of my purse, and Adam says, “Hi, Abigail.”
    “Oh, I also brought these.” I take out two small flashlights. “These country roads are gonna be awfully dark before long.”
    We walk away from the school, away from the streetlights and car sounds until all we can hear are the chirping crickets and bellowing bullfrogs and the rustling of little creatures in the brush. We’ve been walking for around twenty minutes when my flashlight spots the sign reading Possum Creek Road.
    The dirt road opens up into a clearing, and even by flashlight I can tell it used to be a