PROLOGUE
-1-The Puppy Eyes
My life was perfect. I had the perfect shoes and the perfect friends and I lived in the perfect house.
My nails were perfect and my hair was perfect (except on Sundays, it was always windy on Sundays) and I had the perfect clothes. My lips were a perfect red and my hair perfectly straight. My eyeshadow was perfect, my hips were...okay, and my waist...well...also okay. Nothing was wrong in my life.
But then there was Jack. Jack was a problem. He needed to go. I mean, when you’re dead, you’re dead! I had told him this endlessly. Somehow, Jack didn’t get it. I mean, I felt sorry for the guy. Sure. Being stuck between this life and the next. But just because I found him, does that mean I needed to keep him?
I think not!
Sadly, when Jack got that look in his eyes, that weary, almost teary (if his tearducts worked) look, I melted. I just couldn’t send him away. Not even Jack knew where he would go after he died.
Would he, like, die? As in — dead, nada, kaput, finito, gone, no more? Bye bye, sayonara, ciao, hasta la vista baby and all that? I couldn’t have that on my conscience. No way. I lay on my bed, wondering what to do about him. “Jaaaaaaack,” I hollered. “Jaaaaaaack!”
Still no answer.
“Jack!”
Jack...materialized.
His eyes rolled down to the ground. He was making those puppy eyes again. “Jack, I told you not to do that. I told you not to play on my sympathies.”
His puppy eyes became worse. His skin was gray and, well, dead.
“Oh, brother,” I said. “I have to do something about you. If mom finds out I have another ‘imaginary friend’ — at my age — well, I’d die of embarrassment. But, like,really die. Not like you.” I wondered about this. Would I die? Was Jack a freakaccident, or did all people live on like him? Think of the cemeteries...
The idea excited me somewhat.
“What would you have me do, Miss Kira?”
“Knock off the Miss Kira crap. I told you it’s just Kira.”
“Yes, Miss Kira.”
The dead. There’s just no reasoning. “Fine, Miss Kira it is then.” Rover barked like a lunatic in the garden. No one else might be able to see Jack, but I was sure my dog could.
“I have to do something about this,” I mumbled.
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