Seeing Ghosts
Maggie

Thefigure in the shadows was still bothering me later that evening. It haddistracted me so much that doing homework seemed out of the question. I cannever focus on important things while my mind is running away with me. Luckily,my mind was drawn back to the present when the door to my room opened and mylittle sister, Maggie, hurried into my room, jumped on my bed, and gave me oneof her great big hugs.

“Maggie!”I cried, squeezing her back.

“Imissed you at school today,” Maggie told me, pulling away to beam at me. Mylittle sister is the sweetest. She had the biggest blue eyes on her tiny faceand brown hair only a bit longer than mine.

“Howwas school?” I asked, grinning at her. “What did you learn?”

“Nothing,”Maggie replied.

“Nothing!”I pretended to be shocked. “Then what are you in school for!? Don’t you go toschool to learn new things?”

“No,”Maggie said, shaking her head.

“No!”I said then moved in and started tickling her. “No! No!”

“Noooooo!”Maggie wailed, trying to escape from my tickling clutches.

“Comeon, Gina, leave her alone or she’ll never settle down,” said a voice from thehall.

“HiJohn,” I called as my stepfather came into the room.

Mystepfather, John McNamara, was one of the coolest and nicest of guys. Hemarried my mom when I was nine and they had Maggie when I was twelve. He hadred hair and freckles and looked a bit geeky. Truth be told, he kinda was. Helikes computers and is pretty good at managing them.

“Hey,”he said, smiling. “How did the talent show go?”

“Great,”I told him. “It went really well.”

“Oh,good,” John said. “I’m glad. Sorry none of us could make it to the show. Soundslike it would have been great.”

“Iwanna see Gina sing!” Maggie protested, pouting her thin lips. “You always gosing after Mommy says that it’s bedtime. It’s not fair!”

“Sorry,”I said. “Next time there’s a talent show, you can come.”

“That’snot soon enough,” Maggie complained.

Johnlaughed. “Come on, Mags, let’s have dinner ready for when Mommy comes home andlet Gina do her homework.”

“Iwanna help Gina!” Maggie said and squatted down on my bed and folded her armsto show her determination.

“Oh,”I said, slyly. “Okay, Missy Miss. Can you tell me what thesquare root of 1296 is?”

Maggiestared at me for a few seconds, her eyes blank. Then she opened her mouth,closed it, opened it again, closed it, then hopped off my bed and ran from theroom. John laughed and followed her out, but before he rounded the corner, heturned back to me and mouthed “36!”

Iwinked at him to show my appreciation. The story of how Mom and John met isactually pretty romantic and it involves me. When I was six, Mom went to adepartment store to shop for clothes. When she went into the changing rooms, Iwandered off by myself. Needless to say, I got lost. It was a big mall and Ithought it would be fun to ride up and down the escalators and wander intoother stores. By the time I wanted to go back to Mom, I was completely turnedaround and had no idea where to go. It just so happened that John was workingin the store that I’d wandered into and he heard me crying. He was the one whohelped me replace Mom again. He brought me back to the store where Mom was. Now, Idon’t know if I believe in love at first sight, but Mom and John had something pretty close to it when she thanked himfor bringing me back. They started talking for a bit and when we left Momalmost forgot to berate me for wandering off (but, then again, I must stressthe word almost).

Theystarted dating awhile after that and got married shortly after I turned nine. He's a really good stepfather, though I don’t think he’s said two words to myreal dad and they’ve never met in person, and he was a nice dad to Maggie. So, yeah. Life is good.

I’djust finished my math problems when I could smell dinner cooking in the kitchenand, a few minutes later, the sound of the front door opening and closing. Momwas home. I left my room to greet her and join my family for dinner.

“HiMom,” I called as I entered.

“Helloeveryone,” said Mom, beaming around.

“Mooooooooommyyyyyyyyy!”shrieked Maggie, throwing herself into Mom’s arms.

“Hellobaby,” Mom said, hugging Maggie tightly. Mom and John both work, but John hasfewer hours than Mom, so she’s usually the one home last. When Mom had finishedhugging Maggie, she put her down and came over, hugged me, and kissed John onthe cheek. “It’s so nice to be home! And something smells good in here. What’sfor dinner?”

“Chickornchowder!” Maggie replied brightly, running her words together.

“Soundsgood,” Mom replied. “Alright, let’s eat.”

Thisis what most nights are like at my house. Mom’s really strict about eating atleast one meal together as a family every day. Until we’d eaten a meal as thefour of us, John wasn’t allow to make important telephone calls, I wasn’tallowed to go out and hang with Ria, and Maggie wasn’t allowed to watchcartoons. We talk about random things, like how everybody’s day went, etc.John’s cooking was something for the books, I can tell you right now. You see,he doesn’t believe in the cheap “Heat it up, instant dinner” stuff. What hemakes he makes from scratch and it is good!I never have a problem with family meals.

Whenwe had enough, it was my job to do the dishes. I had to have begged my mom athousand times to buy a dishwasher like everybody else in the whole world has,but for some reason, she refused to do it. “You’re my dishwasher, Gina,” shewould say, much to my irritation. She believes that chores build character, butreally I just think she’s trying to annoy me.

Iwas rinsing out the last of the plates and grabbed the towel to dry my handsbefore I finished with the plate. I hated the feeling of dish-pan hands. Iremembered that, tomorrow night at least, I wouldn’t have to do this. Mom hadgiven me permission to leave right after dinner to go to a local pizza placewith Ria. It was karaoke night and Ria and I were going as the Twisted Witches.Ria’s parents wouldn’t set foot in a pizza parlor, so it was safe for her to goand Mom said it was alright as long as I stayed and had a little dinner withthe family.

Ipicked up the damp plate and started wiping it off, thinking about what songswe were going to sing tomorrow when I suddenly felt really, really cold. Itwasn’t another one of my chills…it was suddenly just…really cold in thekitchen. I made to turn my head but I suddenly started shivering so bad that Icould barely move.

Whatwas going on? My insides suddenly got cold too, and felt tight, like they wereshriveling up into themselves against the cold that had take over me. My heartstarted to beat uncomfortably inside me and my nerves were starting to getworked up. I fought of my shivers and turned my head to look out the window tomy left, leading outside.

Therewas a face staring into the black kitchen window. A pale white, young-lookingface with two gaping black holes where eyes should have been. I heard thebreaking glass first and my scream second. I glanced down and saw that theplate I’d been drying was now in shards at my feet.

“Gina?Gina!”

Iheard hurried footsteps and my mom and John came into the room, quickly. “Gina?Are you alright?” Mom cried. “Did you hurt yourself? Oh! The glass! Gina, becareful.”

“M-Mom,”I stammered as I tried to replace my voice. “Mom, there’s…there…”

Iturned back to the window to show them what I had seen, but there was nothingthere. The face was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. “Mom…there was…therewas a…”

“Becareful, Gina,” said John, coming over and moving me carefully away from thebroken glass. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I…Iwas…I…could have sworn I…” There was no way I could string two words together.It just didn’t make sense.

“Didyou see something in the window?” John offered helpfully, looking to where Iwas pointing.

“Y-yeah,”I said. “I saw…I saw something and it…it scared me.”

“Whatwas it?” Mom asked. “Was it like a cat or something?”

“I…don’tknow,” I said, now starting to feel lame.

“Don’tworry about it,” said John, kindly. “We’ll clean up in here.”

“Th-thanks,”I said, dully. I got carefully out of the kitchen as Mom and John started topick up the pieces of the broken plate. Outside the door, Maggie was waiting.

“Iheard glass,” she said, looking concerned. “Were you not careful with theglass, Gina? Did you get cut?”

“I’mnot cut,” I told her, putting on a smile to comfort her…and myself. “It wasnothing. Something went by the window and scared me and I dropped the plate Iwas holding.”

“Oh,”said Maggie, wisely. “Okay.”

Laterthat night, as I got ready for bed, I tried to think of just what I had seen inthe window. There was no way it had been a cat. That had totally been a face.I’d stake my life on it being a human face. But who would press their nose upagainst our kitchen window?

Ishivered as I slid under my covers. Whoever it was, if I knew them, I’d givethem a piece of my mind the moment I got the chance. I hate scary pranks. I hate, hate, hate them. Ever since I was littleand a couple of friends convinced me to go into one of those fake, Halloweenhaunted house when I was six. The costumed people inside jumped out and grabbedme several times and one guy even sprayed fake blood on me. Ever since, I neverwanted anything to do with scary pranks again. I don’t even like scary moviesor anything like that. The fear just makes me ill.

Theshock of the face in the kitchen would, I knew, hinder my ability to sleep. Inever could just fall asleep when I’d been scared recently. My whole body wason high alert and calming down would take awhile. I listened to my iPod forawhile and then read a book to make my eyes tired. At eleven-thirty, I decidedit was time to give sleep a try. I turned off my lamp, yawned, and lay down onmy pillows and thought only happy thoughts go lull myself to sleep. It wasstarting to work too. I felt myself relaxing into my bed, my thoughts blurringinto oblivion. I may have even started dreaming because I could have sworn thatI heard a voice I didn’t recognize, far away but clearly audible…

“I knew you could see me.”