Ghost Time by Courtney Eldridge

the fist in my chest, come back. I think I even said it out loud. Come back, please come back, but he didn’t come back just because I was thinking of him. So I got in the car, and turned the engine over. Now all I had to do was find my way home. Seemed like I should just be able to head back the same way I came, right? But it never works that way, does it?

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011
    (TWENTY-FIVE DAYS EARLIER)
    5:32 PM
    We went to Silver Top after school,
Fort Marshall’s oldest diner
, just like the sign said over the cash register. We go there all the time, and believe it or not, I actually get homework done there now. Doesn’t hurt any that I’ve got my very own tutor, 24/7, but Cam doesn’t do my homework for me. Honestly, he’s such a smart-ass, he always says doing my homework for me would be cheating me of an education, and he’d never cheat me. Anyhow, Sharon came over to check on us, ask if we needed refills—I love Sharon, she’s like our diner mom.
    Sharon must have been a bombshell thirty years ago. She has that about her, the way she carries herself, holds her head. But there’s something a little hard-living about her, too. Like those sixties country-music women, so brilliant and beautiful, but always hooking up with the worst possible men. I don’t know anything about Sharon, really, but it’s just a vibe you get, lookingat her. I mean, even though she’s gray and nicotined, the woman’s got chutzpah—isn’t that what you call it when you meet a woman who has balls?
    Anyhow, I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but when I looked over, at the Elders, this group of old men who practically live at Silver Top, the way their heads were turned, it reminded me of the painting
The Last Supper
. So I decided to draw a picture and call it
The Last Cupper
, and right away, I started drawing the long table and Jesus, and then I started filling in each Elder in place of the apostles or whoever it was that showed up for the Last Supper.
    It was just a sketch, but I turned the notebook to show Cam, and he ducked his head down, so the Elders wouldn’t see him laughing. I didn’t put them in white robes, I put them in their usual duds, their jeans and plaid and madras shirts. I let a couple of them wear their hats, too. Come here, Cam said, leaning forward, curling his finger at me, so I did. What? I said, and Cam kissed me, grinning, and I leaned back.
    You know what I want to draw next? I said, and Cam smiled this big smile, so proud. Cam always encourages me—he encourages me more than anyone, really, even my mom, because he’s always telling me not to be afraid. No, what he says is not to be so afraid that I don’t let myself follow the pictures in my head, draw the things I see. Never censor my imagination, because it’s the cardinal sin of creativity, and of course I know that, but when someone’s behind you, 100 percent, and they tell you that, it means so much more than you can mean, alone. So I startedgiving myself permission to draw anything at all, and I never really let myself do that before. Letting someone else really see me—the things you create, like your art—it’s just like being naked, only with a different skin.

TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2011
    (FIFTEEN DAYS LATER)
    7:46 AM
    When we got to school, everyone was standing around the flagpole, out front. Bus after bus of kids were getting off, and without even thinking about it, we all head straight for the flagpole, looking up, because everyone was standing there, looking up, and for a second, you know something’s wrong without knowing what. Like one of those things you feel in your gut. And then you saw it, just a glimmer of too much sky, too much blue, and then, piece by piece, we all saw it: someone had cut every single star out of the American flag, flying in front of our school.
    One by one, everyone’s jaw dropped, speechless—everyone was speechless. Looking at each other like, How could it be? Who did it, and how?