“They just gave you a mouse? Alicia asked incredulously. “What’d you do with it?”

  “I set it free in my front yard,” Jesse revealed. “I didn’t want to do it so close to Gravewood, but I also didn’t want my mom asking why I had a live mouse in my pocket.”

  “She’s a vet, I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded.”

  The two of them were currently in chemistry class, in the middle of an experiment that involved heating up various solutions on a Bunsen burner. Science wasn’t exactly Jesse’s forte, so he was lucky he had Alicia as a lab partner.

  It was funny; before Halloween, he never really noticed her, preferring to do the assignments by himself as he didn’t know anyone else in the class. Now, whenever the teacher tells them they’re allowed to partner up, they immediately set to work together. The first few times they paired up, they drew the stares of their confused classmates, as Alicia was a popular choice to try to work with, and from their perspective she hardly knew him. Plus it wasn’t like he stood out; he was just an average nobody.

  But ever since November, word had gotten around school that they, along with Siobhan and Noah, were now this super tight-knit group of friends. Jesse normally didn’t care about the social structure of their middle school, but he did have to wonder what sort of odd group they made; one of the most popular girls hanging out with one of the scariest boys, complete with a couple of relative no-names.

  It didn’t matter much anyway. He liked being friends with her, and Noah as well. He’d never thought he needed anyone other than Siobhan, but now he couldn’t imagine life without the two of them.

  “Jesse, wait!” Alicia’s hand shot out, wrapping around his wrist and stopping him from turning up the burner any higher than he already had. He had gotten lost in his train of thought and had almost ruined their experiment.

  “Sorry.”

  She turned the burner down. “It’s fine. We just need to adjust the calculations on our worksheets for the spike in temperature.” She quickly started scribbling down numbers on her paper, seemingly doing the equations in her head.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d noticed her knack for science. Over the past few months, she’s saved their experiments more times than he could count and he was convinced she was the only reason he didn’t have a failing grade at the moment.

  “Okay, I just have to ask. Why are you not in a more advanced class? You’re clearly a genius at this stuff.”

  She shrugged, but smiled at the compliment. “When I was picking my classes last summer, I was comparing my schedule with my friends. Well-” she made a face, glancing over at some popular girls on the other side of the room. “Then friends. None of them qualified for the advanced courses and we wanted to stick together. Guess it didn’t really work out, anyway.”

  Jesse recognized the girls from Adrienne’s posse. Whenever he and Alicia first started working together, they would cast him some dirty looks, as if wondering why he dared associate with someone on their level.

  “I’d say it worked out for me pretty well,” Jesse told her. “But seriously, you should sign up for an advanced course next year. We’ll still have lunch and other classes together.”

  “But then how would your grade survive without me?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  The teacher announced five minutes until the bell rang and they cleaned up their experiment and packed their stuff, following the throng of people out the door once class officially ended.

  “Hey, Alicia, wait up,” an unfortunately familiar voice called. Kevin Campbell-Qie was waiting for her right outside in the hallway.

  “Oh, hey, Kevin.”

  “I was thinking, how about I walk you to your next class? You know, just for the company. We haven’t caught up in a while, and I wanted to hear what you think about this haunted house business. It’s crazy, right?” Again with this haunted house stuff?

  His smile was bright and all of his attention was focused on Alicia. He didn’t even bat an eye as the popular girls from earlier passed by them, sending glares their way.

  Alicia winced. “That’s so nice of you, but Jesse’s already walking me.”

  “I am?”

  “Sorry, maybe next time?” She looped her arm around Jesse’s. Having grown up with just his mom as well as Siobhan, Jesse knew a little bit about the language of girls, so it was obvious to him that “next time” was never going to happen, and she was just trying to let the guy down gently.

  Kevin, however, didn’t get the hint.

  “Yeah, next time,” he told her with a genuine grin.

  As soon as he left, she immediately let go of his arm. “Sorry about that. He’s just so persistent.”

  “It’s cool. I just figured you would have turned him down more bluntly.”

  “Give him the ice queen treatment? Smash his heart into a million pieces?”

  “Yeah.”

  She let out a conflicted sigh. “If it were any other guy, I would, but Kevin is... He’s like a golden retriever, you know? Breaking his heart would be like kicking a puppy.”

  Jesse remembered the way he’d threatened him when he thought he was putting a love letter in her locker back in November. “That’s not exactly how I would describe him.” Though granted, he had left him alone since realizing the two of them were friends.

  “He means well,” she insisted. “He’s just way too eager to prove himself.”

  “If you say so. But he’ll never leave you alone unless you tell him straight up you’re not interested.”

  “I know, but I just keep hoping he’ll lose interest eventually. Especially after...” She trailed off.

  “After?” he prompted.

  “Okay so, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Siobhan, but things between me and her sister have been... tense. I think she considers me becoming friends with you guys a betrayal, and well, she’s started turning people against me.”

  He thought back to how Adrienne looked when Alicia started blowing her off to hang out with them, and seeing as Adrienne was basically the top of the food chain at Oak Hollow Middle School, he could only imagine how that effected Alicia’s standing in the social hierarchy.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Why don’t you want Siobhan to know? She’s not exactly the biggest fan of her sister.” For reasons he never fully understood, the two girls hated each other. He supposed it was a sibling thing, and while he tried to stay out of it for the most part, it did make him glad he was an only child himself.

  “That’s the point,” Alicia said. “I don’t want her doing anything on my behalf and getting herself in trouble too. Especially since she has to live with her. It’s all just petty popularity stuff anyway. Ever since we dealt with the imp queen, a lot of that just feels pointless now.”

  “I hear you.” It’s hard to focus on tween angst when you’ve recently met with a bunch of vampires and werewolves.

  She blew her hair out of face. “Thanks for listening. You don’t actually have to walk me to my next class, by the way, I just said that to get rid of Kevin.”

  “Okay, cool, ‘cause my next period is in the opposite direction.”

  They parted ways, heading towards their respective classes.

  At lunchtime, Jesse joined Siobhan in the line to get food, sliding their trays along and grabbing whatever looked good that day, which truthfully wasn’t much.

  “I swear, regular food has been ruined for me forever now because of Hank,” she lamented, scooping a serving of mashed potatoes onto her tray.

  Jesse agreed. “If we crave monster food so much now, does that mean we’re turning into monsters?”

  “Huh.” She considered it. “I don’t think so? I mean, Bella’s still human and she probably eats Hank’s cooking all the time. Lucky.”

  As they reached the end of the buffet, she suddenly patted his arm to get his attention. “Hey, see that kid?”

  She pointed out a red-haired boy who looked like he was about to leave the cafeteria. He was short, about as tall as Siobhan, and had a pair of thick round glasses and wore a sweater over a button-up shirt. He might as well have also been wearing a sign that said, “Please bully me, I’m a nerd.”

  “Who is that?” Jesse was fairly certain he’d never seen the kid before.

  “His name’s Reginald. I think he transferred here last month, and he was homeschooled before that. We have P.E. together, but he’s specially exempt like me because he also has asthma.”

  “And what about him?”

  “Come here and watch this.” She started walking towards him, a confused Jesse trailing behind.

  “Hey, Reginald,” she greeted.

  The boy’s expression didn’t change, remaining impassive. “Siobhan Anderson. Is there something I can assist you with?”

  “I know you’re new around here, so I was just wondering if you wanted to join us for lunch today?” She gestured to herself and Jesse.

  Reginald adjusted his glasses. “As much as I appreciate your attempt to extend an olive branch to your fellow classmate, I must decline as I feel my time would be better spent studying than fraternizing with you.”

  Did he just... insult them? It kind of sounded like it.

  “If that’s all you required of me, then I’ll be on my way.” He tried to push past them, but Siobhan threw out a hand to stop him.

  “Wait, what book is that you’re studying?” She pointed at the thick book he had tucked under one arm.

  “Advanced Theoretical Physics and Practical Applications.”

  “Oh, are you... taking a physics class?”

  “No.”

  He started to walk away.

  “My name’s Jesse,” Jesse called after him. “Just... by the way.”

  He paused only for a brief second to glance back at them. “A pleasure.”

  As soon as Reginald was out of earshot, he turned to Siobhan. “Okay, he is weird.”

  “Right?” she said. “It’s not just me. I tried talking to him during P.E. the other day and he completely shut me down, just like that.”

  “Guess he doesn’t want to make friends.”

  They made their way over to their table, taking their usual seats across from one another.

  “It’d be one thing if he rejected me like a normal person, though. He has to talk like a walking thesaurus while he does it.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “What if he’s secretly like the ghost of a Victorian era child or something?”

  He shook his head. “You can’t just think that everyone’s a monster now. We can see through the veil, remember? We’d be able to tell if he was a monster.”

  “Fair point.”

  “By the way, I needed to ask you something,” he started. “How do feel about going to Gravewood this weekend to babysit?”

  “Ooh, we’re going to Gravewood?” Alicia asked excitedly.

  “Count us in,” Noah said.

  The two plopped their trays down next to them, sliding into their own seats.

  “We’re babysitting Cynthia’s kids,” he explained.

  Noah scowled. “Never mind, I’m out.”

  “Can I pass too?” Siobhan asked.

  “No, she asked for you and me specifically by name.” He turned to the other girl. “Alicia, how about-”

  “Hard no. Cynthia and I don’t exactly get along, remember?”

  He did. “Guess it’ll just be me and you this weekend.”

  “We’re getting paid, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine then. We’ll watch over her weird spider babies. For the money.”

  Just then, Alicia got a notification on her phone. She looked at it and groaned. “Ugh, this whole haunted house rumor is getting out of hand. Now people are posting on Instagram about it and- no way.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Adrienne. She posted a video of herself last night at the house. Look.” She positioned her phone on the table so that they could all see it.

  Adrienne Anderson stood in front of a three-story house that had clearly seen better days. She was dressed in her usual trendy clothes and had on a full face of makeup.

  “Hey everyone,” she started, holding her camera out to capture both herself and the house. “I just wanted to come on here real quick ‘cause there’s been a lot of talk around my school about ‘haunted mansions’ and stuff, and I just wanted to add my two cents. I think that if you are over the age of ten and genuinely believe in that stuff, you need to grow up. Look at this place. It’s not haunted, it’s just old and ugly.”

  Siobhan’s expression soured and Jesse winced in sympathy. It felt like that grow up barb was specifically aimed at her. She stabbed her fork into her food. “So what? She’s entitled to her opinion. Even though it’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t have to be a total jerk about it,” Alicia argued.

  “Can you rewind that video?” Noah asked.

  She did so.

  “Pause it there. Let me see that.” He took the phone from her and zoomed in on one of the windows of the house. “Does that look like a face to you guys?”

  Peeking through the curtains of one of the upstairs windows was indeed what looked to be a pale white face, though its features were too blurred to make out. Jesse suddenly lost his appetite. “That could be anything,” he tried weakly, but even he thought that excuse was lame.

  “No, that’s a face.”

  “Ha!” Alicia took her phone back and looked at it smugly. “She couldn’t even see a real ghost right in front of her.”

  “Maybe it’s some sort of joke she’s pulling?” he suggested. “Like she edited it in herself.”

  Siobhan shook her head. “No way, she’s not clever or funny enough to think of that.”

  “Besides, nobody else in the comments is mentioning it. It must be something only we can see ‘cause of the veil.”

  A sinister smile crept across Siobhan face. “If we have a real ghost on our hands, are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Time to do some ghost hunting?” Noah asked, apparently operating on the same wavelength as her.

  “You know it.”

  “And why would we do that?” Jesse asked. “May I remind you that some of our friends are ghosts.”

  Siobhan rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re not going to hurt them or anything. I just think we should get to the bottom of this whole haunted house business before someone from our school does something stupid. Well, stupider.”

  Alicia nodded, like what she was saying made sense. “She’s right. People are daring each other to spend the night at the place already. If there really is a ghost there, what do you think will happen if someone witnesses something that makes them break through the veil? Gravewood could be in trouble if word starts getting around that ghosts and other monsters are real. We should head over to the house and see if we can convince whoever’s haunting it to stop.”

  Jesse buried his head in his hands. “Every day we’re becoming more and more like the Scooby-Doo gang.”

  “There are worse things to be.”

  “I guess this means I’m Scooby.”

  “No, man,” Noah assured him. “You’re at least Shaggy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If we’re really going to hunt some ghosts,” Siobhan said. “Then it’s a good thing we know a couple of friendly ones who can give us some advice.”