Lona slipped into a closet and snatched a door shut.
“Lona?” a voice said. “Have you arrived home?”
Lona kneeled and peaked through a keyhole.
Aunt Izzie shuffled to a bed, looked around, and shrugged. “Guess not.” She hobbled out the bedroom, and a door clanked shut.
“Why are you hiding in a closet?” a voice said.
Lona toppled into the closet door and into the bedroom. She sat-up and watched a girl step out the closet, gnawing on a liquorish rope.
“Gabby?” Lona said. “What are you doing here?”
Gabby chuckled. “I’m dead—where else would I be besides watching the living make a fool of themselves.” She ambled to the bed, sat beside a nightstand, and flipped through a teen magazine. She glanced at a wristwatch. “Dismissal bell is in three hours. What are you doing home?”
“Minding my business, thank you.”
Gabby shook her head. “My dear Lona.” She closed the magazine atop the nightstand. “Let me get this straight: I died on flight to Bora Bora Island, and you thought you could just start cutting school?”
“Really?” Lona sprang on her feet. “First of all, Bora Bora’s not an island—well, I don’t think it is—and second, you died chasing a dog into rush hour traffic.”
“But Scruffy survived, didn’t he?”
“Scruffy was a stray you never owned, so his name wasn’t really Scruffy.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t like the name ‘Scruffy’.”
“Good grief.” Lona dashed to a dresser and, drawer by drawer, threw clothes about. “Come on, come on…” She slapped a drawer closed, panned the room, and raced to a trunk, snatched its lid open, and dug through fabric.
TICK, TICK, TICK…
Lona whirled around.
Laying on the bed, Gabby dangled, before her own eyes, by a chain, a brass trinket. She then chomped into the liquorish and chewed and then looked at Lona. “What? Are you thinking of new ways to insult Scruffy and I?”
Lona dropped her faced in her hands, sighed, stroked her temples. “If you keep bailing me out like this, I’ll have to track-down Scruffy and adopt him.”
Gabby giggled.