“Who lives here with you?” Another uniformed man stood before her, holding a small notepad. “Mother? Father? Both?”

“Both,” Karina said, then in a whisper, “Mom will be home soon.”

6 | Prem

People want someone to blame after a person dies, especially when that person is a child. I was eight years old when I died, but I don’t blame anyone, especially not Karina, even though she was the only other person there with me. She’s the one people blame most, and they also say things like, “She was only a child herself, poor girl, so you can’t really blame her”—but they still do. And I know Karina blames herself. Although she’s never said this out loud to anyone, I know it’s true.

Even when I was alive, I always knew what Kiki was thinking in her head, like I bet if I give Prem four chocolate chip cookies after school, I can talk on the phone with my door closed for ten minutes before he comes to bug me. Or I really wish Space Rangers came on for a full hour, so this kid would leave me alone while I do my Important Things in the bathroom. Kiki’s Important Things were trying on makeup she wasn’t allowed to wear to school, putting funny-smelling lotions on her arms and legs, and burning her ears with Mom’s curling iron.

We spent a lot of time together, Kiki and I: every day after school until Mom came home from work. Mom always rushed in like she was late. She took off her work shoes and dropped her purse right at the door, then started racing around the kitchen, switching on lights, pulling things out of the fridge, turning on the stove. When I was little, I thought this was a game she was playing, to turn on everything super-fast, like in the Space Rangers’ ship when they’re trying to get liftoff, and I tried to help her by spinning the knobs for the oven and turning on the water faucet, until she got mad and told me to go to the TV room.

Mom is the other person people blame a lot for my death, right after they say it couldn’t have been Kiki’s fault because she was just a child. (By the way, when I was still alive, Kiki would have been really mad if someone called her just-a-child.) People blame Mom for leaving us alone together, but Kiki was already thirteen when I died.

Thirteen years old!

She was babysitting Mrs. Mandell’s boys (who were younger than me) and helping old Mrs. Gustafson down the street by walking her dogs and watering her plants. Kiki was helping to keep alive six plants, two dogs and three little boys, not including me. She was practically the oxygen of our block. So, you really can’t blame her, and not because she was “just a child herself, poor girl.” She was NOT a child. She was my big sister, and even though she always hogged the TV remote and never wanted to play Space Rangers, I still love her the best of any person in the world.