Shelly frowns at him. “It’s not made up just because you don’t know about it and nobody wrote about it in a book. You don’t know everything.”

“Lucas. Shelly.” Mrs. Hogan stops beside their table. “Do I need to tell Ms. Flores you were arguing in class?”

Lucas sits up straighter in his chair. “No, Mrs. Hogan.”

Shelly wants to say Lucas started it, but Mrs. Hogan already pulled her aside once today. “Sorry,” she says. “We’ll stop.”

Shelly knows she’s right and that will have to be enough.

• • •

Shelly’s mother picks her up from school in her old, beat-up car. Its windshield is cracked and the radio always sounds staticky because the antenna is broken. The rearview mirror is held in place with glue and hope. Her mom’s hair is up in a messy ponytail and she’s dressed for work, shirt rumpled after her shift. She looks tired. “How was school?” she asks, smiling. “Learn anything exciting?”

“We’re doing a project on what we want to be when we grow up,” Shelly says, climbing into the car and dropping her red backpack on the floor. It’s about as shabby as the car because she got it secondhand. Most of her clothes come from the thrift store, another thing that makes Shelly different from other kids. “Nobody believes in ghosts.”

“Oh no, Shelly—you told your teachers you wanted to be like Grandma?” Her mom looks both exasperated and amused. “Shell, you know people don’t like thinking about ghosts. I don’t like thinking about ghosts and I grew up with your grandma.”

“Why not?” Shelly asks. “There’s nothing wrong with ghosts.”

“They’re dead,” her mom says. “They’re dead and we’re alive. Those are two very different things. To everyone else it sounds like superstition.”

“Mrs. Hogan said I shouldn’t talk about ghosts in class or I’d scare the other kids.” Shelly doesn’t think that’s true. Isabel and Lucas didn’t believe her, but they weren’t afraid. Besides, what Shelly’s learning from her Grandma is more important than making friends at school. The dead don’t care how new your shoes are or what kind of job your parents have.

“Mrs. Hogan isn’t wrong. I had bad dreams about ghosts all the time when I was a kid.” Her mom turns the car on and pulls away from the curb. “I knew they were real. I think not knowing for certain would be even scarier.”

“Why were you scared?” Shelly asks because it baffles her—ghosts are just a part of life. “Ghosts are just people.”