#Wattys2015 The Ghost of James Fitzpatrick

Chapter 4

Sarah

I spotted Lucy's signature green army coat through the crowd of students in the main hall, where some kids moved at lightning speed trying to get to their first period class, and others traveled as slow as a bad internet connection. They were hamming it up and fist bumping each other like they hadn't seen one another in years, when it's only been since yesterday.

I earned a nasty glare from Taylor Smiley, when my shoulder hit hers. She thinks she's royalty because her dad owns Smiley Chevrolet in Arden. Big deal. They're mostly used cars.

"Lucy!" I yelled, ignoring Taylor.

Lucy turned toward her name, and smiled her beautiful, familiar smile my way. She was proud of her army coat. Her brother 's a Marine training Iraqi in al-Asad, while she and I enjoy the spoils of a typical day in a typical, American high school.

I reached Lucy and shoved my phone up to her face; she adjusted her vision to that of about an inch from her eyes.

"Look, look, look," I said, "look at this freaking text."

Lucy took my phone and read aloud: "'I can see you'...what the heck? What is that?"

"Someone texted me, at like 5 this morning," I told her, "and that was all it said. Don't you think that's weird?"

"You don't recognize the number?"

"I thought I did, but no, not really. No."

"Did you call it?" Lucy asked the obvious question.

"No. I was too scared. That's what you're for," I admitted. "I was hoping you would call it with me."

Lucy made an exaggerated scared face. The morning bell rang loudly above us in the emptying hall.

"Wouldn't miss it," said Lucy as she backed away from me down the main hall. "Let's try at lunch. Oh, by the way, did you get through all the problems last night?"

"Nope, and I woke up in the middle of the night with slobber all over my math book." I replied laughing.

Lucy made an idiotic face of me sleeping with my tongue hanging out of the side of my mouth, and I laughed. She could always make me laugh, even at myself.  I don't know what life would have been like without her. We met in first grade – me in my disgusting tutu I wouldn't wash, and Lucy in her Dora the Explorer tee shirt.

Lucy never turned her back on me when she grew into her  pretty face and accompanying popularity. Her hair was long and dark like a shampoo commercial, her eyes are blue like the Facebook logo, (that's our joke) and her smile is always genuine. She's a happy person, and it shows.

I, Sarah Netherby, remained beside her as the ever-present, goofy best friend with the glasses.

Honestly, they're not bad for glasses, in case you're picturing one of those awkward bespectacled girls you see on TV shows. I'm not the nerdy one always pushing her glasses back up on her nose,  and tripping over her own shoe laces.

What am I supposed to do? I can't see the white board in class without my glasses, I can't see my paper, or my computer, or my phone, or my dinner, or my hands.

Speaking of nerds in glasses, our principal, Mr. Zwicki, suddenly appeared around the corner and headed toward us like a guided missile. He looked our way over the top of his bi-focals and frowned, as if Lucy and I were committing  the ultimate in high school hallway crime, lingering and giggling after the first bell.

"Get a move on girls," he said flatly. "After the second bell  I'll see you in my office."

Mr. Zwicki intimidated even the football players, though it's hard to pinpoint why. Perhaps this is a necessary attribute to command the jungles of a large, crumbling, suburban high school, populated by two thousand feral teenagers.

Lucy and I cringed and tried not to make eye contact. She mimicked his stern face,  which I thought was hilarious. We stifled our giggles and headed off to our respective classes.

"See you at lunch." said Lucy.

**********

I watched the clock like a death row prisoner in my first period Psych class, and my second period calculus class. During my World Lit class, time moved at an even slower pace, as if that were possible.  It reminded me of that old saying: 'If I only had an hour to live I'd spend it in this class, 'cause it feels like an eternity'.

Finally, I hear the lunch bell. I threw my books into my backpack and zipped it closed as I walked out of the class, and headed out into the Student Square. I met Lucy in our regular spot, but we had to step away from our usual group of about six or eight kids, who met every day for lunch.

Our departure went relatively unnoticed, and we found a quiet corner over by the science labs and hunkered down on a step together. We looked at one another and smiled. Truth be known, it was fun to have a little mystery to solve.

"Ready?" I asked.

"I am, of course, are you?"

Lucy grabbed my phone and held it to my lips like a microphone.

"Sarah Netherby, are you ready to make this call?" I tried to grab it back from her, and just then Mr. Zwicki came in to view from around the science building. We weren't doing anything wrong, nonetheless, we sat up extra straight and very still as if trying to make ourselves invisible, like how a praying mantis turns pink on a red bench. I put my phone behind my back.

But his loafers just clicked by us. He glanced our way,  looked straight ahead, and kept walking.

Of course Lucy and I giggled and snorted once he had  passed, because everything makes us laugh, even when it's not funny. She started back up right where she left off, only this time she whispered and tried not to laugh.

"Sarah Netherby, are you ready to make this call?" she asked.

"Gimme that phone."

I looked at the text from this morning and began to dial the number in the gray bar at the top of the screen. It was a local number: 754-6099.

"Wouldn't it be funny if Mr. Zwicki's cell phone started ringing?" squealed Lucy, her eyes wide with delight.

"Shut up!" I shoved her shoulder. "That's not even funny."

The phone began to ring on the other end..

"Ssshh. It's ringing."

Ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing...no voicemail...it just kept ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing...then a breathless voice answered.

"Hello?" said a woman, not what I was expecting, then the phone on the other end dropped, and I heard a 'clunk', a 'woosh' of rustling fabric maybe, then the voice is back and chipper.

"Ooops, sorry about that, hello?"

I knew the voice. I looked at Lucy in disbelief.

"Mom?"

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