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him. At least I thought I did. And I wasn’t nervous. Time. Not nervous at all. I made myself quit rocking on the bed.
    The phone rang three times before a guy answered with, “Loooo-ooove shack, may I take a reservation?”
    “Time!” I blurted. Coughed really fast. Shook my head. “I mean, hello. Kerry?”
    Silence. A lot of silence. Then, “Hatch. Is that you?”
    Surprised, but mean-sounding, too. Not friendly.
    I coughed again. “Yeah. I just—”
    “What are you doing calling me?” A snort, kind of like a laugh. “Don’t waste my time.”
    I just sat there holding the phone. I didn’t have a clue what to say, but I didn’t have to say anything, because Kerry hung up.
    Okay.
    I took a deep breath.
    So guys from school didn’t visit me, and now one of them didn’t want to talk to me. But that was just one person. I looked up another name. Just one person. A guy I knew from football. I punched the number, got it wrong. Stopped. Took another deep breath and punched it again. Just one person. Just one.
    This time, a woman answered. “Hello?”
    “Person. One. Hello.” Another breath, but a fast one. Focus. “Mrs. Janson? May I speak to Alan?”
    The woman took a few breaths, too. “May I ask who’s calling?”
    “Jersey Hatch.”
    “Oh.” More breathing from Mrs. Janson. “Jersey, I—I don’t think this is a good idea. I don’t want to upset you, but I’d rather you didn’t call here.”
    This time, it was me who hung up. I don’t know why I did it, really. It was rude not to say good-bye. But for a second, I felt rude.
    “Good-bye.” I slammed the school directory. “Rude.”
    More deep breaths. My heart thumped faster and my jaws hurt. I realized I was grinding my teeth, so I stopped. Then I opened the book again and looked up Arroyo, Elana .I squinted my good eye at the printed name like it might make a picture pop into my brain, but it didn’t. I couldn’t see her in my head. Maybe if I heard her voice, I’d remember something.
    “Rude.” I dialed the phone. “Rude. Good-bye.”
    One ring.
    Two.
    A click. Recorded voice. “The number you have reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service …”
    I hung up. Started to throw the phone. Stopped.
    “Rude.”
    Pictures. I wanted to see her. Talk to her. Remember something—anything. So I put the phone down and got busy digging out my yearbooks and stacking them on my bed. One at a time, I went through them. I found Arroyo, Elana in the last three, but I couldn’t tell much. Dark hair, dark eyes, a dimple on her right cheek. She looked Spanish or Egyptian or something exotic. I remembered her a little from when she started at our school, but after that, nothing.
    By the time I found Elana’s picture, J.B. and I were on conversational terms up in that room on that bed where I shot myself—if I shot myself instead of having a car wreck.
    “I lost my best friend over her?” Shaking my head, I closed the book. “Time.”
    Maybe she was Todd’s girl and you took her away , J.B. suggested. I wasn’t as scared of him as I should have been, being that he was probably ectoplasm or whatever, and could have killed me if he wanted to. Maybe.
    “Yeah, right. Time. Stronger. Even without the Frankenstein scars, Todd’s always been the movie star, not me. Ectoplasm.”
    You’re talking worse. Those calls made you upset and you’re not focusing, so you’re worse .
    “Am not. Ectoplasm.”
    Don’t say ectoplasm .
    “Ectoplasm.”
    See? Getting worse .
    “It’s harder in the real world. Time. They said it would be. Therapists, I mean. More pressure. Time.” I didn’t say ectoplasm. It wasn’t easy.
    J.B. made a snort-noise in my head. Maybe you went out with Elana and ignored Todd, and he got mad about it .
    Todd, jealous. Ectoplasm. Ectoplasm, ectoplasm. I traced the raised cover of the yearbook. Green to gold, gold to green. The Green Rangers. Todd, jealous. That just didn’t make sense no matter which way I traced