Getting rid of a cat sounds like the kind of job Grandma would take. Shelly takes a sip of her milkshake. “Did you meet a cat ghost?”

Shelly’s mom laughs. “Shelly, sweetheart, by the time I was your age I’d met so many cat ghosts.”

In the car on the drive home from the restaurant, her mom slides Joseph’s cassette into the tape deck and fast-forwards through the first song straight to the second.

The music is all jangly guitar, electric piano, and echoing, sorrowful voices. The singer only has pictures left to remember the person he loved and lost. The song sounds like a sad dance party. It’s hard to imagine her mom listening to this kind of music, but Shelly likes it. It’s . . . haunting.

Shelly’s mom might not approve of ghosts or Shelly making friends with Joseph, but she turns the music up, singing slightly off-key. When the song finishes, she rewinds it and starts teaching Shelly the words so she can sing along, too.

6

Two cops knock on their door while Shelly’s mom is at work. One of the cops is a stranger—a white guy with close-cropped blond hair—and the other is Jenny, Mrs. Potts’s daughter.

“We could use your help down by the river, Louisa,” Jenny says. “It’d make this whole thing go a lot faster.” The police come to ask Grandma for help sometimes, off the books. Not often, and always with their hats in hand. Jenny’s partner looks like he can’t quite believe what they’re asking.

Grandma looks Jenny and her partner over then nods. “Okay,” she says. “Shelly, get my coat and our bus passes.”

“Should she be coming with us?” the other officer asks, looking uncomfortable as Shelly helps Grandma into her raincoat.

“She helps me with the ghosts,” Grandma says, which doesn’t seem to reassure him.

Shelly knows her mom wouldn’t let her go if she was home, but she keeps her mouth shut. Going to graveyards and fancy apartments is interesting, but sometimes the only reason Shelly goes with Grandma to deal with the ghosts of people’s pets is because it’s better than doing homework. This is a different sort of ghost work—this is exciting in a way that catching other ghosts isn’t. It’s more interesting. It means Grandma trusts Shelly to handle more difficult jobs.

Shelly’s supposed to go watch a movie at Isabel’s today. This is better.

“We can give you a ride,” says Jenny. “It’ll take a while to get to the river on the bus.”

“In the back of your car?”

Jenny pauses. “Well,” she says. “Yes.”

“No thank you. We’ll meet you at the water,” Grandma says, her voice so firm that Jenny and her partner have no choice but to leave and drive away as Grandma and Shelly begin walking to the bus.