The Haunted - Jessica Verday [61]
I woke up on Thursday morning from dreams of white dresses and picket fences—the same dream I’d had about Caspian during school last year—and stretched lazily in bed, grinning at the ceiling. Life was grand.
But a ringing doorbell broke through my happy thoughts and echoed throughout the house. I counted the chimes going off six times before I finally rolled out of bed, calling for Mom to answer it.
There was no response, and as I stumbled down the stairs, I realized that the house must be empty. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” I grumbled, hurrying toward the incessant ringing. “Give it a rest.”
I threw open the door and was shocked to find Ben standing there.
“Crap,” I muttered. “I completely forgot about our class today, Ben.” He looked at me with hesitancy. “Does that mean you want me to leave?”
“No, no. Come drop your stuff off on the table.” Suddenly aware of the fact that I was still wearing the ratty T-shirt and gym shorts I’d thrown on last night, I glanced down at my bare feet. “I’m going to get changed. Be back down in ten.” He followed me in and disappeared into the kitchen. I ran upstairs and quickly put on some capris and a tank top, then brushed my teeth. My hair was a wild mess, but I didn’t feel like fighting with my curls, so I just spritzed them with some water and threw one last hopeless look over my shoulder.
Tangled hair it was, then.
When I made it back downstairs, Ben had several papers spread out on the table in front of him and was making this weird humming noise in the back of his throat. “Stop that,” I ordered, coming to take a seat beside him.
He looked up at me. “Stop what?”
“That humming thing. It’s annoying.”
“Oh, sorry. I do that sometimes when I’m reading. Ready to get started?” I rested my chin on my fists. “I guess. What’s on the schedule for today?”
“Reports. It’ll help with the memorization process. I’ve brought several books for you to use as reference material. So… go.”
“‘Go?’ What is this, a race or something?”
Ben tapped his fingers on the table. “You can either keep stalling, or get cracking.” I groaned. “Can you help me with them? At least one of them?” He shook his head. “This is where my tutorship ends. Do you have any more Funyuns?
I’m going to need a snack to keep myself awake just sitting here.” I got up and dragged myself over to the Ben Cabinet. It was in bad need of replenishment, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt. I moved a couple of bags of chips around, but I didn’t see any Funyuns. “Nope. Your choices are Doritos, cheese puffs, or pretzels.” His tone was mournful. “I guess I’ll take Doritos.”
“Next time I’ll have some Funyuns,” I promised, grabbing the bag of Doritos. He had no problem digging into them, and I sat back down to get started on my report.
“If your crunching gets too loud, I’m banishing you to the living room,” I warned.
“Okay,” he said, through a mouthful of chips.
I picked up the nearest science book and cracked it open, groaning internally at the moun-tain of homework lying in front of me. Why couldn’t this be over already?
Ben just gave me a goofy smile and continued crunching.
Two hours later I snapped my book shut and gave in. “This is torture,” I said. Ben had a science book in his hands, and it looked like he was reading it. For fun.
“Enjoying that?” I asked.
He looked up and wiggled in his seat like a crazed monkey. “There’s a fascinating section here on storm-cloud formations.”
“Are you kidding me? You actually are enjoying that?” Ben nodded.
“Kristen used to be like that too,” I said. “But her subject was math. I always told her that there had to be something wrong with her brain to get so much pleasure out of reading a math book for fun.”
“She was going to get her degree in accounting, right? Become a CPA?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But how did you know that?”
“We shared a study hall once, and I saw her looking at college brochures. She wanted to go to DeVry or Northern Illinois. I told her to go to Cornell. Great science program there.” I sat back and studied him. “I didn’t know that. Kristen never told me.”
“It was