Shelly finds Terry tucked away in a rack of warm coats. He’s an old man who wears a fleece vest and squints at Shelly like he can’t quite make her out. The air around him crackles with static electricity and he keeps reaching up to play with his hearing aid.

“Young lady,” he says, when he notices her looking at him. “I don’t believe I know how I got here. Where am I? You know, I thought being dead would be more exciting. The movies make it look fun.”

Shelly knows he’s perfect right away. “My friend Estelle thinks being dead is boring, too,” she says. “Do you want to come meet her?”

Terry tilts his head and looks around the store. “Why not? It’s got to be more interesting than this.”

Shelly takes Terry home with her. When she opens the door, she freezes in place, her heart hammering. Grandma is right there, wrist deep in a chicken. She glances over her shoulder at Shelly then returns her full attention to making dinner. “Welcome home,” she says. “We’re having chicken for dinner.”

Shelly takes a breath. “Okay,” she says, trying to sound normal as she edges toward the hallway and her room. “I like chicken.”

“We can make sandwiches with the leftovers,” Grandma adds. “I might invite Edna over.”

Shelly doesn’t want to get stuck in a conversation. Any second, Grandma could stop stuffing the chicken long enough to notice Terry. “Okay,” she says again, shuffling sideways to hide Terry behind her back. “I’m going to work on my homework!”

When she reaches the hall, Shelly turns and speed-walks to her room, so she can let Terry out of her hair.

“Oh, hello,” says Diya. “It’s been . . . Hello.”

“Do I know you?” asks Gavin. “I’m not sure where I am.”

Estelle rolls her eyes. “Not another one.”

Terry looks down at Shelly. “Which one is Estelle, the rude one or the vague one?”

Estelle looks shocked. Shelly grins. “Estelle, this is Terry,” she says. “I thought maybe the two of you could talk. He thinks death is boring, too.”

“It is,” Estelle says, her voice firm. “There’s nothing to do and hardly anyone can hear you speak.”

“Tell me about it,” says Terry. “I’ve been stuck in a store for two weeks.”

“I was in a graveyard.” Estelle smiles at Terry. “Let me tell you about my angel.”

Shelly’s room is crowded with all her ghosts and sometimes it’s hard to sleep, but Grandma is always working or tired from working. Shelly likes having the company, even if more and more it seems like the ghosts are concerned with each other and not with her. Even if sometimes, in the middle of Estelle and Terry chatting and Gavin and Diya interrupting with their half-formed thoughts, Shelly still feels lonely.