I Spy Dead People Read Free

work?
    "Do cats like milk? Wait. Scratch that. Aunt Frannie's brown cat hated milk, but the gray one loved it and would get diarrhea."
    Dad sighs. "I just love our dinner conversations."
    I flash him my ever annoying braces and take our plates to the sink.
    "I'll get my keys and wallet, and we can leave." He rises and heads toward the front of the house.
    While I scrape off the food remains then rinse the plates before stacking them in the dishwasher, I imagine our kitchen with hanging chili peppers and colors so bright Dad would never enter the room again. Okay, so that's not our style but maybe pastels. Something to entice him to stay longer than a year.
    In middle school, long after Mom ran off, I promised to get good grades, to eat my veggies, or at least the ones covered in cheese, and to brush my teeth every night. The last due to my questionable hygiene at age ten. And for this I made him promise to stay in one town long enough for me to finish that grade. Being the new kid sucks, but being the new kid in the middle of the year sucks hard. So he agreed. But it's not enough anymore.
    I wouldn't mind if we laid down roots, spread our branches, dropped our leaves…okay, so I can't think of any more appropriate metaphors. I'd just like to finish high school in one school, go to the next grade knowing my classmates from the year before. Is that too much to ask? I don't want to sound ungrateful. Dad's raised me alone, and I know it's hard for him. I'm not a stoner or partier, nor do I stay out past curfew or flunk my classes, but he's had to endure cramp complaints, helping me pick out my first bra, and having the luxury of buying me pads and tampons every month. He should win a father-of-the-century award.
    I run into the hall and up the stairs, calling out, "I gotta pee. Be right back."
    After doing my business and washing my hands, I run into my badly-in-need-of-decorating bedroom to get my roller blades and knee pads. Dad hates when I wear them to the store, all because I crashed into a display of canned corn last year at a Piggly Wiggly, but I was learning then. Now I'm nearly an expert and am certain I won't have any embarrassing moments.
    As I'm about to turn, I catch a flash of pink outside my window.
    Fascinated with the idea of a fourteen-year-old actress across the street, I peer out. I mean, what if she knows Shia LaBeouf or Taylor Lautner? Meeting either of them would be the pinnacle of my fifteen years and totally worth moving again.
    But the pink isn't on the petite brunette from earlier. Instead it's a pink leotard on a willowy girl with blonde, waist-length hair. She twirls along the driveway, arms raised above her head, like the ballerina inside a jewelry box—perfect and poised.
    The front door opens, and Linzy steps out with an older woman, probably her mom. She says something to the blonde, who drops her arms and sulks. Darn, I wish I was closer to overhear.
    Linzy laughs and climbs into the back seat of a black, four-door car, parked along the curb.
    "Piper, let's go," Dad shouts.
    "Coming."
    Linzy and I could become friends. We're practically the same age, and we're bound to have something in common. I love pretty clothes, and she clearly has some. That's a start. Kinley must know her, so I'll ask for an invite later.
    Score two for Hollow Ridge.
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    The lay of the land, as Dad put it, looks like every other suburban land we've encountered in the last eight years. We've been moving around since I was four, when Dad decided it would be easier to research his books up close and personal rather than cross-country via Internet and phone calls. I often wonder if part of the reason was because my older brother, Vincent Jr., had died, and Dad just wanted out of our house and hometown. At first Dad went after murders from anywhere, but he didn't like city life, and the country was too quiet, so he devoted his last eight books to the 'burbs. Just as well, too. Those became