I swallowed. Hard.

‘Glitch,’ I said. ‘Problem. Why are you still here?’ He looked at me, his expression blank, but interested. I elaborated. ‘Why haven’t you gone to the other side?’

He shook his head. Have I mentioned that his hair was short and dark and sort of crisp-looking, like if you touched it, it would be really, really thick? ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

I was getting sort of warm, but I had already taken off my leather jacket, so I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t very well take off anything else with him sitting there watching me. This realization might have contributed to my suddenly very foul mood.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know what I mean?’ I snapped, pushing some hair away from my eyes. ‘You’re dead. You don’t belong here. You’re supposed to be off doing whatever it is that happens to people after they’re dead. Rejoicing in heaven, or burning in hell, or being reincarnated, or ascending another plane of consciousness, or whatever. You’re not supposed to be just . . . well, just hanging around.’

He looked at me thoughtfully, balancing his elbow on his uplifted knee, his arm sort of dangling. ‘And what if I happen to like just hanging around?’ he wanted to know.

I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling he was making fun of me. And I don’t like being made fun of. I really don’t. People back in Brooklyn used to do it all the time – well, until I learned how effectively a fist connecting with their nose could shut them up.

I wasn’t ready to hit this guy – not yet. But I was close. I mean, I’d just travelled a gazillion miles for what seemed like days in order to live with a bunch of stupid boys; I still had to unpack; I had already practically made my mother cry; and then I find a ghost in my bedroom. Can you blame me for being . . . well, short with him?

‘Look,’ I said, standing up fast, and swinging my leg around the back of the chair. ‘You can do all the hanging around you want, amigo. Slack away. I don’t really care. But you can’t do it here.’

‘Jesse,’ he said, not moving.

‘What?’

‘You called me amigo. I thought you might like to know I have a name. It’s Jesse.’

I nodded. ‘Right. That figures. Well, fine. Jesse, then. You can’t stay here, Jesse.’

‘And you?’ Jesse was smiling at me now. He had a nice face. A good face. The kind of face that, back in my old high school, would have gotten him elected prom king in no time flat. The kind of face Gina would have cut out of a magazine and taped to her bedroom wall.

Not that he was pretty. Not at all. Dangerous was how he looked. Mighty dangerous.

‘And me, what?’ I knew I was being rude. I didn’t care.