My House is NOT Haunted

My family’s house is haunted.

I didn’t know it when we moved in, but I figured it out pretty quickly. You know, if the moaning noises in the middle of the night or the randomly slamming doors were any indication. And I have my parents to thank for this creepy house.

This is because they actually hunt ghosts. No, they’re not crazy. They actually believe in ghosts. And try to capture them. Ok, maybe they are crazy.

As the story goes, they were looking for a house in Southern California and stumbled upon an old abandoned mansion. It had nothing to do with ghosts. Yeah, right.

My sister, Whitney, and I were dragged from our house in New York to live in a house in Southern California that was built at the turn of the century. The nineteenth century that is.

“Oh my God,” I said when I first saw it. I honestly couldn’t believe my parents were making us live in such a dilapidated old house. I couldn’t even imagine the cobwebs that would be in there.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the realtor chimed as we got out of our car.

“Not the word I would have used,” I muttered under my breath. That earned me a hard jab in the side from my sister. Well, we were all thinking it.

“It’s…. it’s just… a fixer-upper!” my dad said cheerfully.

So that’s just me, Kelly Queen. A normal, sixteen-year-old geek that lives in a haunted house in Southern California and has never been kissed. Yep, totally normal.

I wish.

----

As I walked in the door, the first thing I noticed was the smell. It was kind of a mixture of mothballs and old socks. So you can see how I loved it right away.

I dropped my bags at my side and got a good look around. There were two staircases that curved up from the side and to the center. You know, like the ones that you always see in the movies. There was a huge chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. Oh, and there were cobwebs everywhere. Obviously, no one had been stupid enough to buy this house for at least fifty years.

“Well, I’ll let you folks get settled…” the realtor said.

“That’ll be great,” my dad smiled.

My mom was silent. She’s been pretty quiet ever since my brother was killed.

About nine months ago, we got a call from the hospital. My brother, Jeff, had gone out like he usually did on a Friday night. As it turned out, three hours after he left, he was shot multiple times in the head because he was mistaken for a member of a rival gang. Or something.

My family was devastated. My mother and father because they had lost their oldest son, my sister because she had lost her brother, and me, because I had lost my best friend. Back in New York, I was the class geek and had no friends. At all. But Jeff always seemed to understand what I felt, even though he was the most popular senior in the school himself.

“Don’t worry,” he would always say, “People are all idiots at your age. They just haven’t realized how popular you could be. I guarantee you, by your senior year you’ll be the most popular in school. If anyone says anything different, I’ll beat ‘em up.”

Then I’d elbow him and laugh. He always knew how to make me feel better.

But now, I’d always start crying when I thought of him. Or of his empty room in the house, or his empty dorm at Harvard, which he was supposed to be attending this year. Well, the dorm’s not empty; they already have someone else living there, but you get the point.

“Well, let’s get a look around….” Whitney said from the top of the staircase, “I want to pick out my new room.”

I let her get a room first. First, because she was seventeen and a year older than me, and second, because she pretty much would have kicked me out of any room she wanted, anyway.

I casually walked up the stairs and turn down the hall. I saw a door at the end of it and opened it. I walked into a huge bedroom.

It had a king size canopy bed that must have been a hundred years old, but looked brand new. There was other furniture in there, too. I noticed a vanity, wardrobe, and a chest at the end of the bed.

I walked over to the window and looked out. The window itself was large and had a few different panes. Out of it, all I could see was the house next door. And there was a boy staring out his window right at me.

I screamed. I hadn’t noticed him there before!

He looked about seventeen, Whitney’s age, and had light brown hair and bright green eyes.

That’s when I noticed that there was also a balcony on the room. The windows were actually a door. I cautiously walked over and opened it even though my heart was pounding.

I walked out and realized the boy’s house had a balcony across from mine.

“Oh my God,” he said when I walked out, “I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t realize someone had moved in there. It’s been empty for as long as I can remember.”

“That’s fine,” I said with a smile. He was really cute. “I didn’t know we had neighbors.”

He laughed and stuck out his hand. “I’m Jason. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Kelly. You, too.”

“So… who else should I look out for? You know, that live here.”

“Well, there are my parents. Oh and my sister, Whitney.”

As if to illustrate this sentence, Whitney appeared in the doorway. She got one look at Jason and her eyes lit up. Well, I’m not getting this room, I thought.

“Oh my god!” she said really loudly, “There you are Kel!”

She ran over to where Jason and I were standing. Jason looked surprised by her sudden appearance, but looked disinterested.

“So… who’s your friend?” she asked as she batted her eyelashes at him.

“Uh...I’m Jason…” he said uncertainly. I noticed he wasn’t acting like most guys do when they meet my sister. She was obviously flirting, but instead of flirting back, he just stood there looking at me.

“Jason…” Whitney said dreamily, “I’m Whitney. I’m Kelly’s older, more mature sister. It’s so nice to meet you.” She giggled. She is such a show-off.

At this point, Jason leapt the grand distance of five feet to our balcony. Whitney looked like she was about to faint.

“Cool. So…are you guys going to Roosevelt High this fall?” he wanted to know.

“Yes, actually, we are.” I responded, since Whitney couldn’t form words when Jason was within two feet of her. Have I mentioned that the balcony is small?

“What grades?”

“We’re both seniors… I skipped seventh grade.”

“Oh, so you’re smart?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Oh, yes. And it runs in the family.” Whitney cooed. Apparently, she found her voice.

“Awesome. I’ll be a senior, too. Maybe I can show you around sometime.”

There was an awkward pause. Whitney stood there, horrified. I’d gotten a boy to talk to me, and it just so happened to be the first one in California she liked. I was so dead.

“Well… I’ll let you guys get settled. Talk to you later.” He nodded at Whitney and leapt back to his balcony.

Whitney sighed when he entered his house. “I’ll be taking this room.” she stated.

“What? I got here first!”

“What’s going on?” My dad asked as he entered the room with my mother behind him.

“Kelly won’t let me have this room! And I really want it!” Whitney whined.

“Oh, Whitney. Let your sister have something for a change. What’s wrong with the room you picked out down the hall?” Thank God for Dad.

“But…but…” Whitney looked like she was about to cry. She probably was.

“That look won’t work on me, Whit. Now out!” My dad boomed.

Whitney slunk out looking defeated. It didn’t matter. I’d gotten what I’d wanted for once.

----

I was unpacking my bags the next night when I heard a soft thunk on the balcony. It was Jason.

“Hi,” he said, “Can I come in?”

“You know, most people would use the front door,” I said as I opened it.

He laughed. “Well, I’m not like most people. So… is this your room?”

“Yeah. Is that OK? ‘Cause Whitney wanted it, and if you wanted her here…”

“No way. I mean… she’s just not my type.”

That was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. An extremely hot guy didn’t like Whitney? That hadn’t happened before. California was a strange place.

“Oh.”

“So anyway, I just thought you might like to come over to my house and I could tell you about the school, or the neighborhood, and stuff…” He ran his hand through his hair.

“Um… sure. That sounds great.”

“Cool. My bedroom’s at the balcony. I’ll show you how to hop over.” And with that, he leapt on to the railing and over to the balcony across from me. I started to do the same until I realized how high up I was.

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” He stuck his arm out. I grabbed it and jumped over the gap. And I landed on top of him. We stayed where we were for a second, neither of us willing to move.

Reluctantly, I got up. “I’m so sorry. I’m such a klutz…”

“It’s fine. I’m not that graceful, either. I’ve just had a lot of practice.”

I felt myself blush. “Yeah…”

He led me inside to his room. Surprisingly, it looked like a normal teenage boy’s room. Well, at least like Jeff’s room.

“You like?” He said with a funny French accent.

“Wi wi” I said and giggled.

“OK I don’t know any French, so stop that.”

“Then how did you know that was French?”

“Ha. Very funny. So…”

There was an awkward pause. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairway. The door opened, and a woman, probably Jason’s mom, walked in.

“Um… Jason, who’s your friend?” she asked when she saw me.

She said it so calmly, though. Like her totally hot son always had girls in his room that she’d never seen come through the door. Who knows? Maybe he did.

“Relax, Mom. This is Kelly. Her family just moved next door.”

His mom nodded. “And I suppose you leapt between the balconies to get here?”

“Don’t worry, I showed her how to do it!”

“Jason, you know how dangerous that is. One of these days you’re going to get hurt.” And with that, she left the room.

“Maybe I should go…” I said.

“Well, if you want to… but maybe you should use the door so my Mom doesn’t get too pissed off.” He said. But he said it with a smile.

He led me down a huge staircase and through what I presumed was the living room. When we got to the front door, instead of just leaving me to walk to my house by myself, he walked out and closed the door behind him.

I guess he saw me looking at him funny, because he looked at me and said, “What, did you think I was going to make you go all the way back to your house unaccompanied?” He smiled.

“Well, I guess… well…no one ever did that back in Brooklyn…” I managed to stammer.

“Well, in California, everyone acts like perfect gentlemen.” He said sarcastically.

We walked up to my door and said good-bye. I walked inside to find my parents on the stairs looking frantically for something. What, I knew not.

“What…what are you guys doing?” I wanted to know.

“Well… we…we didn’t want to tell you and Whitney… but we…we found…”

My dad’s voice trailed off. I should have known that they’d found something bad. But even with my four-point-oh, I wouldn’t have seen it coming.

“We found a corpse.”