"You want an email account? Ha– Who w-would you wr-write to?"

"My sister," she said, as if that were obvious. Then, grinning, she added, "You know, Mrs. Wix."

Now, Misty really had me frightened.

"You want an email account? Ha– Who w-would you wr-write to?"

"My sister," she said, as if that were obvious. Then, grinning, she added, "You know, Mrs. Wix."

"Oh, Misty, I don't know if that's a good idea. I think they could tell where the emails came from."

"So?"

"I mean, they could see that they came from this computer, and they would think that *I* sent them!"

"Oh," Misty said thoughtfully. "Well, what if I sent them while you were in school?"

I just wilted; I went limp. What was I supposed to do? If she really wanted to do it, I couldn't stop her. I could lock the computer, but she could easily get my login password just by watching me type it. I'd never even know she was there.

"Can't you write a letter?" I asked. "With a pen and paper? I can mail it for you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Pen and paper is so last century! Email is way cooler! I could even do that chat thing with her!"

I groaned.

"I could!"

Suze's jaw hung open. "And then what happened?"

"I made her promise not to do anything without me."

"Do you think she will? Not do anything?"

I bit my lip. "I hope so."

"Why didn't you bring the network cable with you to school? Then she couldn't send email no matter what."

"Ooh, that's a great idea!" Then I realized: "She could just take Dad's cable."

Suze grinned.

"Or she could even use Dad's computer. He doesn't use a password."

Suze chuckled. "Don't worry. Even if she does get an email account, or gets into yours, there's no way she can send email to Mrs. Wix. Mrs. Wix doesn't have an email account. She doesn't even have a computer at home."

"How do you know?"

"Wix said so. Every so often she makes a point of it." With a fair imitation of Mrs. Wix, Susan said, "I still prefer to write with pen and pay-pah."

"Oooh! Thank goodness!" I said, letting all my breath out in relief.

Miss Overmore happened to wander by our table and greeted us. "Hello, girls. I'm the cafeteria monitor today. What fun! Just think: all that schooling, all that work, for this." She laughed good naturedly.

"Miss Overmore?" I ventured. "You knew Misty Sabatino. Was she very smart?"

Her smile fell and her pretty eyes narrowed. "Why are you asking about Misty Sabatino?"

"I live in her house now," I said. "I mean, we just moved into Villa Sabatino, and I was curious about her."

"Hmm," she said. She repeated my question, "Was she smart?" and glanced at Susan. "Let's just say that she was not brilliant like our Susan here. She was... ah, she was more like you."

I didn't know whether that was an insult or a compliment, but I did see that Miss Overmore looked angry.

She continued, "Hers was a tragic story, and one that I don't like to revisit. If you have other questions, you could ask her sister." The last word was spoken with a sneer.

I decided to play dumb. "Her sister?"

"Your Mrs. Wix. She was Misty Sabatino's sister." She did a quick check in her memory and said, "I'm quite sure I told you that already." She fixed me with a suspicious look.

I was about to protest, because she hadn't exactly said that, but stopped short because of a weird change that came over Ms. Overmore.

Her face abruptly dropped its scowl. She smiled a beautiful, sunny smile, said, "Good day, girls!" and walked off with a swish, as though our conversation had never occurred.

A chill ran through me.

"Oooh, that was freaky," Susan commented under her breath.

When I got home, there were balled-up papers all over my desk. The trash can was full to overflowing, and there were wads of paper on the floor.

It looked like Misty had gone though an entire pack of paper or more, and crumpled it up, sheet by sheet.

"What the–" I began, and started to unfold one of the wrinkled balls.

"Don't look at it!" Misty said. "Writing with a pen sucks! It's way too hard! I need to use the computer!"

"Sorry," I told her. "I didn't know. But why would the keyboard be any easier?"

She huffed with impatience and irritation. "IF I write with a PEN, I have to concentrate on HOLDING the thing AND writing well AND what I'm trying to say all at the same time! If I forget about the pen, it falls out of my hand! If I concentrate too hard on holding the pen, I make mistakes in what I write! If I think too hard about what I'm saying, I write all messy, or I drop the pen!

"If I could just use the keyboard, all I'd have to do is hit one key at a time, and I'd be able to go back if I made mistakes. If I didn't pay attention, nothing would happen, so nothing would get messed up."

I looked at the sea of wasted paper. "Even if you're not good at writing, you're good at crumpling," I offered.

"Ha, ha," Misty said. "That's so funny, I forgot to laugh."

"Sorry." Then I thought about what she'd said. "I guess you're right about the keyboard." I sighed. "Okay, I can show you how to open a document and save it. After you finish the letter, we can print it out."

She nodded. "And then would you mail it for me?"

I nodded. "Yeah." As freaky as that could be... what the heck. "Yes, I will. Oh, hey, I found out that Mrs. Wix doesn't have email, by the way."

She shrugged, and absentmindedly blew a few stray hairs out of her face.

I froze. Ghosts don't breathe, right? So how did she... I was going to ask her, but it was clear from her face that she'd had a long, frustrating day, and somehow I knew she didn't feel like answering questions.

In fact, the news that her sister didn't have email, just seemed like one more thing gone wrong. Poor Misty!

By anyway... yay! One landmine avoided! Could you imagine if Mrs. Wix — or worse, Ms. Overmore — started getting emails from Misty? From their old friend or twin sister — who just happened to be dead?

Everyone would think I'd done it as a sick prank.

Still, I have to say, even with the danger of her going wild on the internet, it was great having Misty around. She was always ready to chat, and I could tell her anything.

Well, almost anything. I didn't tell her about my big I-used-to-be-a-boy secret, but I told her everything else: about Jerry and Eden, about Maisie and her mother, about Sister Honoraria and her policeman brother...

She, in her turn, told me about when she was at BYHS, and story after story about her Maisie (Mrs. Wix) and Yvette (Ms. Overmore) when they were teenagers. The three of them were great friends, and did all kinds of crazy things together.

Two things in particular astonished me to no end: that Misty and Mrs. Wix called Ms. Overmore "the third twin" and that Mrs. Wix was one of the most popular girls in school.

"...if not THE most popular!" Misty complained. "She used to sing and draw... people would go on and on about her lovely voice and her beautiful pictures... I was the quiet twin... all I could do was dance... and she was the one with all the boyfriends!"

"Really?" I asked in utter disbelief. It was hard to reconcile Misty's stories with the now-frumpy Mrs. Wix, but I had to believe her.

"Wow," I said without thinking. "What could have happened to her to make her the way she is now?"

"Uh," Misty replied, pointing out the obvious, "I died."

"Oh," I said, embarrassed beyond degree.

But Misty laughed, told me not to worry about it, and immediately launched into another long, breathless story.

It was like having an older sister. She was easier to be with than Maisie — a lot easier — and she could do such cool things. She showed me one now.

"Hey, watch this!" she said. "I did this by accident earlier, but now I can do it on purpose."

She stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth to help her concentrate, and then she picked up the pen. She held it and shook it slightly a couple of times.

"Uh... uh... oh...," she said, with apparent effort. Her eyes widened, then: "There! Okay!"

She extended her arm toward me, as if she was giving me the pen. "Here: try to take it."

I reached for the pen, but my hand went right through it. "Whoa! Cool!" I said, a bit louder than I intended.

"Isn't that cool?" she asked proudly.

"Very cool," I agreed, chuckling. I moved my hand through the pen several times. It looked solid, but it wasn't there. Misty giggled.

Then I remembered a question: "Hey, Misty, I wanted to ask you something. Do you ever sleep?"

She thought for a moment, as if the question had never occurred to her. "No," she said. "At least, I don't think so. I kind of go off sometimes... and then when I, uh... well, the next thing I know, it's tomorrow or the day after or whatever. I guess that's kinda like sleeping."

"Do you dream when that happens?"

"No, it's just... nothing."

Suddenly, my bedroom door flew open. Misty vanished immediately. Mom stood in the doorway, her face pale and full of concern. I was on my feet in the middle of the room with my hand up, reaching for the pen, which still hung in midair. I put my fingers in front of it, to make it look as though I was holding it. Silently I prayed that Misty didn't let go.

"Marcie, who were you talking to?" Mom asked. "Is someone else in this room?" She glanced at my arm, but didn't comment on my unnatural pose. I stuck my other arm under my elbow, to prop it up.

"Uh..." I began, but got distracted by the pen. It was halfway through my index finger, so I pulled back a little and cupped my palm underneath it. It must have looked strange. I hoped Misty would have the sense to let it fall into my hand.

"I was..." I ventured, and at that moment the pen tipped and hung for a moment, passing straight through my wrist. Full of alarm, I couldn't help but look at it. Most of the pen was above my hand, but about a third was sticking out though the back of my wrist, the part facing my mother.

There was no way she could miss it. In fact, she gaped and pointed. Then the pen fell with a loud clatter to the floor.

"Jeez Louise!" Mom shouted. "How the– what the– that–"

"Sorry," Misty whispered. "I dropped it."

© 2007 Kaleigh Way