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Description
Sutton

When the school bell rang, it was like a bomb going off; kids shot up from their seats, running out of the classroom like a stampede of rhinos, the teacher yelling over their heads.
"Remember your spelling homework!" she screamed.
I took my time gathering up my books and pencils. Miss Lanagan tossed me a grateful smile and I returned it with a stiff nod.
After shoving my books into my backpack and slamming my locker shut, the impact making the long row of lockers shudder, I walked outside into the crisp wind.
I started the long walk to my foster parents' house, turning down several back alleys, trying, yet again, to find a short cut to the house, even though I'd rather not be at the house. My "mother" Miranda was kind of a bitch. There really was no other way to describe her. If we were so much as ten minutes late for supper, we had to sit in our room until everyone else was done eating. Even then, we were usually too pissed off to eat anything anyway. It may not sound like enough to call the woman a bitch, but when I hear my classmates talking about their parents taking them to Disney Land or to Jamaica, I can't help but think that Ben and Miranda would never do something like that for my sister and I. Miranda refuses to help Sutton and I with homework, either. She spends all her time with her biological kids, David and Denis. I always wonder why she adopted us if she was just going to ignore us anyway. I found that it was best to keep quiet and just roll with the punches when it came to my foster mother.
Ben was much kinder than Miranda. How could such a nice man could be married to such a horrid woman? Though, sometimes when we're all seated around the table for supper, or watching TV on the couch, I see him sneak suspicious glances my way. It was like he thought I was the reincarnation of Esther from The Orphan.
As I walked through one of the many parks surrounding the school, I saw many children playing on the lush grass. When I got closer to the kids, though, I saw that most of them were kind of transparent, like they were holograms. The girl closest to me had long blonde corkscrew curls in pink ribbons. Her pink dress waved like a flag in the breeze and her cheeks and eyes were bright. Suddenly, like the girl had felt my gaze on her, she swung her blue eyes to me. I quickly looked away and walked faster. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. The girl had already seen me staring at her, and now I was in trouble.
"Hey! You can see me?" the little girl bounced over to me. "How?"
I walked on, staring straight ahead. The girl yanked my black sweater sleeve and I nearly turned to look at her. I caught myself at the last minute and broke into a slow jog.
"My name's Lily! How come you can see me? I went to see Mommy and Daddy and they didn't see me. I yelled and screamed and cried, but they ignored me." Lily sniffled. Oh, no. I really needed to be more careful. Whenever I came across the sprits that were little ones, confused and scared, I never held out. I felt way too sorry for them. It was easier when the kids were brats.
"Hey! Come back here! I need to know why you can see me! I want to talk to Mommy again! I want to go fishing with Daddy!" Lily broke out in tears. I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no. Sutton, don't do it! If you talk to her, the other ones in the area will hear, and you'll be sunk! I gritted my teeth together and jogged faster. Lily, being a ghost, easily floated alongside me, tears running down her chubby face.
"Please. Help me." She managed to whisper. I was nearly out of the park, standing in a circle of dense trees.
Shit.
"You're… dead." I said, my voice hoarse. I could've slapped myself. I was going to regret this.
Lily immediately stopped crying. For a spirit, just having a live person to talk to was a relief. The other ghosts were good company apparently, but having someone alive gave the dead the feeling they were alive.
"Dead?" she asked, her sweet face crumpling. Suddenly she looked up, rage displayed on her face. "You're lying!"
"I know it's hard, and very confusing, but you have to understand that—"
"Lying! I can't be dead! I didn't die! I'm not… I'm… I can't…" Lily screeched, tears falling to the grass below as she looked down. I felt like crying myself. I couldn't imagine being only 6 or 7 years old, dead, not being able communicate with my parents.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around the girl's small form. It may be weird, but I'd gotten used to being able to touch ghosts as well as communicate with them. I've been able to communicate with the dead since I was ten years old. I've just never told anyone. "I know. I know it's hard, but you need to move on. Your parents wouldn't want you to be stuck here, sad and miserable." I gave Lily a sad smile.
"They still love me?" Lily asked, her voice full of hope.
"Of course they do. They miss you very much, but you'll be together with them again." I patted her head. Lily's chin wobbled and she clung to me.
"I miss them." I felt more tears leaking onto my shirt. I sighed. I knew how she felt. I missed my parents too, even if I'd never known them.
"Your parents are gone, aren't they?" Lily asked, pulling away to see my face. I felt my mouth fall slightly open. Lily smiled at me through her tears. "I can tell."
I nodded. "I never knew my parents. I was put in an orphanage. I don't know what happened to them." And, despite the walls I put up around myself, trying to protect myself from caving in, I started to cry.
Lily's hand wrapped around mine. "I'm sure they miss you very much. You'll be together again." She recited the words I'd spoken not a minute ago. I smiled at her.
"Thank you."
Lily leaned forward and kissed my forehead. It amazed me that she could only be 6 or 7; she was so mature. "No. Thank you." Lily gave me one last bright smile before she faded away. I knew she'd moved on and was now playing in God's garden. I brushed myself off and ran from the trees, hoping Lily was happy.

"I'm home!" I called, dumping my backpack on the floor, not caring if Miranda freaked out about it. Denis and David sat on the couch, playing on the PS3. Ben was in the kitchen with Miranda. The air smelled like pasta. Hopefully Ben was the chef tonight; Miranda's cooking was horrible.
"Hey, Sutton! Wanna play Call of Duty with us?" Denis asked. He and David looked so much alike, with their shaggy brown hair and blue eyes. The two boys were 14 and 16, the same age as me and Peyton. They were actually really nice to me. I think they were a little scared of Peyton because she was always mouthing off to Miranda.
"No, thank you." I replied, sitting on the floor beside David. "Can I just watch?"
Denis nodded without taking his eyes off the screen. "Sure."
"What exactly is the point of this game?" I asked, disgusted by the amount of gore on the screen. David turned his controller to the side, as if it might help him shoot better. Denis poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
"You get to shoot things!" David replied, tapping a button repeatedly. An explosion came from the screen, making me start. Blood spurted from corpses on the dirt ground as David panned across the game arena.
"Join the archery team," I said. David and Denis continued to shoot and blow things up, so I took the opportunity to sneak off into the bedroom I shared with my sister.
I shut the door behind me and slid down along the door until I was on the floor. What an exhausting day. Communicating with ghosts always wore me out.
It's a well-known fact that ghosts need a lot of extra energy and motivation to show themselves to the living. That's why people usually only get glimpses of them. Ghosts use large amounts of energy all the time, which is why it's cold when a spirit is present. Since I can see them no matter what, they use my own energy without knowing it. After talking to ghost for a short period of time, I usually need to rest or else I become anemic. It's rather annoying.
"Something tells me now is not a good time to chat." A voice came from the window. I slowly opened one eyelid to see a shadowy figure sitting on the window sill casually, like he was always there and it was perfectly normal to be in someone else's room uninvited. Which, for him, it was.
"Blade, what do you want?" I snapped, too tired to deal with this persistent ghost. He jumped off the window and stood before me. His dark hair looked like it hadn't been cut in months. His bright eyes shone with mischief and he wore dark jeans and a T-shirt with some band logo splashed across it. Blade was probably about fifteen years old. Though, he sometimes acted like he was five.
"My, someone's pissed off. What's the matter? Woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning?" He grinned.
I rolled my eyes and stood up. Blade was about three inches taller than me, but I still met his eyes. "I could ask you the same thing."
"Miranda was talking about you today." Blade clucked his tongue and followed me to the other side of the room. "Said some very rude things. I was disappointed. I thought mothers were supposed to be kind. Miranda milks the evil stepmother thing for all it's worth. Very cliché, if you ask me."
"She's not my stepmother. She's my adoptive mother." I corrected tiredly, sitting at the small oak desk in the corner of the room.
"That's what I said." The ghost paused to stare at the bed, concentrating, before sitting down. I was too tired to laugh when he sunk through the comforter instead of staying solid on top.
"Why are you so talkative today? Usually you just diss things."
"Yes, well, I wanted to tell you about what I did to Miranda. Anyway, she was bitchin' about you, right? So I grabbed a pillow and tossed it at her head. I opened up a Word document on her laptop that was on the kitchen table and wrote 'KISS MY ASS' in really huge letters so when she turned around, she had this mental breakdown." Blade laughed and fist-pumped the air. "She ran out of the room faster than I thought was possible."
"Blade, it's real great that you stood up for me like that, but think about how pissed she's gonna be today." I wrinkled my nose. Dinner was gonna be fun.
"If she's a beeyotch, I'll just do something worse tomorrow." Blade shrugged. I yawned and shook my head disapprovingly.
"If you used so much energy today, how are you able to even walk around right now?" I asked, leaning back in the chair. I'd learned that one of Blade's favourite pastimes was scaring the crap out of Miranda in weird and creative ways.
"I went to the power plant and sat on a wire for a few hours. Then I came back here and stole some of Miranda's energy." Blade made a weird face, like he hated having anything from Miranda in his possession.
I snickered. "Resourceful."
There was a sudden knock at the door that made me jump at least two feet in the air. I ignored Blade's cackling and opened the door a crack.
Miranda's chubby face pressed against the door frame. "Who the hell are you talking to, Sutton? You'd better not be using the phone in here. You're grounded!"
I rolled my eyes. Give me a break. "I'm not using the phone, Miranda. I'm practicing lines for a play."
I got a suspicious look. Good Lord, couldn't she just leave me alone? "I don't remember seeing anything about your school putting on a play."
"It's not for a school. My friends and I are doing a short play for fun."
Miranda snorted, her nose wrinkling. "Friends. Fun. Like you know what either of those are." She strode away back down the hall, muttering to herself. I gave her the finger behind her back before slamming the door again.
"Hippo bimbo-ass bitch." Blade called, though he knew very well that she wouldn't hear. I gave him a small smile before flopping on the bed.
"Blade, if I ran away, would you come with me?" I asked, staring at the large water stain on the ceiling that was shaped like a bird.
"Hell yeah! I'm sick of haunting that bitch, believe it or not. Besides," Blade smiled a genuine smile that was quite rare, "I'd go anywhere with you, girlie."
I smiled back and tugged the warm covers up to my nose. "I'm gonna have a nap before dinner. I'll need all my energy if I'm going to be forced to consume Miranda's nasty cooking."
"Ben's cooking today." Blade informed me quietly.
"Excellent," I said. I heard the window squeak open as Blade sat on the edge. Even though he could just walk through the wall and go venture the town, Blade preferred to open doors and windows to get out of buildings. I wasn't sure if he did it because he wanted to scare people or because he missed little things like that. Being dead was a lot different than being alive.
"See you later, Sutton." Blade whispered before jumping the two stories down to the driveway and running out into the street.

Description
Sutton

When the school bell rang, it was like a bomb going off; kids shot up from their seats, running out of the classroom like a stampede of rhinos, the teacher yelling over their heads.
"Remember your spelling homework!" she screamed.
I took my time gathering up my books and pencils. Miss Lanagan tossed me a grateful smile and I returned it with a stiff nod.
After shoving my books into my backpack and slamming my locker shut, the impact making the long row of lockers shudder, I walked outside into the crisp wind.
I started the long walk to my foster parents' house, turning down several back alleys, trying, yet again, to find a short cut to the house, even though I'd rather not be at the house. My "mother" Miranda was kind of a bitch. There really was no other way to describe her. If we were so much as ten minutes late for supper, we had to sit in our room until everyone else was done eating. Even then, we were usually too pissed off to eat anything anyway. It may not sound like enough to call the woman a bitch, but when I hear my classmates talking about their parents taking them to Disney Land or to Jamaica, I can't help but think that Ben and Miranda would never do something like that for my sister and I. Miranda refuses to help Sutton and I with homework, either. She spends all her time with her biological kids, David and Denis. I always wonder why she adopted us if she was just going to ignore us anyway. I found that it was best to keep quiet and just roll with the punches when it came to my foster mother.
Ben was much kinder than Miranda. How could such a nice man could be married to such a horrid woman? Though, sometimes when we're all seated around the table for supper, or watching TV on the couch, I see him sneak suspicious glances my way. It was like he thought I was the reincarnation of Esther from The Orphan.
As I walked through one of the many parks surrounding the school, I saw many children playing on the lush grass. When I got closer to the kids, though, I saw that most of them were kind of transparent, like they were holograms. The girl closest to me had long blonde corkscrew curls in pink ribbons. Her pink dress waved like a flag in the breeze and her cheeks and eyes were bright. Suddenly, like the girl had felt my gaze on her, she swung her blue eyes to me. I quickly looked away and walked faster. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough. The girl had already seen me staring at her, and now I was in trouble.
"Hey! You can see me?" the little girl bounced over to me. "How?"
I walked on, staring straight ahead. The girl yanked my black sweater sleeve and I nearly turned to look at her. I caught myself at the last minute and broke into a slow jog.
"My name's Lily! How come you can see me? I went to see Mommy and Daddy and they didn't see me. I yelled and screamed and cried, but they ignored me." Lily sniffled. Oh, no. I really needed to be more careful. Whenever I came across the sprits that were little ones, confused and scared, I never held out. I felt way too sorry for them. It was easier when the kids were brats.
"Hey! Come back here! I need to know why you can see me! I want to talk to Mommy again! I want to go fishing with Daddy!" Lily broke out in tears. I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no. Sutton, don't do it! If you talk to her, the other ones in the area will hear, and you'll be sunk! I gritted my teeth together and jogged faster. Lily, being a ghost, easily floated alongside me, tears running down her chubby face.
"Please. Help me." She managed to whisper. I was nearly out of the park, standing in a circle of dense trees.
Shit.
"You're… dead." I said, my voice hoarse. I could've slapped myself. I was going to regret this.
Lily immediately stopped crying. For a spirit, just having a live person to talk to was a relief. The other ghosts were good company apparently, but having someone alive gave the dead the feeling they were alive.
"Dead?" she asked, her sweet face crumpling. Suddenly she looked up, rage displayed on her face. "You're lying!"
"I know it's hard, and very confusing, but you have to understand that—"
"Lying! I can't be dead! I didn't die! I'm not… I'm… I can't…" Lily screeched, tears falling to the grass below as she looked down. I felt like crying myself. I couldn't imagine being only 6 or 7 years old, dead, not being able communicate with my parents.
I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around the girl's small form. It may be weird, but I'd gotten used to being able to touch ghosts as well as communicate with them. I've been able to communicate with the dead since I was ten years old. I've just never told anyone. "I know. I know it's hard, but you need to move on. Your parents wouldn't want you to be stuck here, sad and miserable." I gave Lily a sad smile.
"They still love me?" Lily asked, her voice full of hope.
"Of course they do. They miss you very much, but you'll be together with them again." I patted her head. Lily's chin wobbled and she clung to me.
"I miss them." I felt more tears leaking onto my shirt. I sighed. I knew how she felt. I missed my parents too, even if I'd never known them.
"Your parents are gone, aren't they?" Lily asked, pulling away to see my face. I felt my mouth fall slightly open. Lily smiled at me through her tears. "I can tell."
I nodded. "I never knew my parents. I was put in an orphanage. I don't know what happened to them." And, despite the walls I put up around myself, trying to protect myself from caving in, I started to cry.
Lily's hand wrapped around mine. "I'm sure they miss you very much. You'll be together again." She recited the words I'd spoken not a minute ago. I smiled at her.
"Thank you."
Lily leaned forward and kissed my forehead. It amazed me that she could only be 6 or 7; she was so mature. "No. Thank you." Lily gave me one last bright smile before she faded away. I knew she'd moved on and was now playing in God's garden. I brushed myself off and ran from the trees, hoping Lily was happy.

"I'm home!" I called, dumping my backpack on the floor, not caring if Miranda freaked out about it. Denis and David sat on the couch, playing on the PS3. Ben was in the kitchen with Miranda. The air smelled like pasta. Hopefully Ben was the chef tonight; Miranda's cooking was horrible.
"Hey, Sutton! Wanna play Call of Duty with us?" Denis asked. He and David looked so much alike, with their shaggy brown hair and blue eyes. The two boys were 14 and 16, the same age as me and Peyton. They were actually really nice to me. I think they were a little scared of Peyton because she was always mouthing off to Miranda.
"No, thank you." I replied, sitting on the floor beside David. "Can I just watch?"
Denis nodded without taking his eyes off the screen. "Sure."
"What exactly is the point of this game?" I asked, disgusted by the amount of gore on the screen. David turned his controller to the side, as if it might help him shoot better. Denis poked his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.
"You get to shoot things!" David replied, tapping a button repeatedly. An explosion came from the screen, making me start. Blood spurted from corpses on the dirt ground as David panned across the game arena.
"Join the archery team," I said. David and Denis continued to shoot and blow things up, so I took the opportunity to sneak off into the bedroom I shared with my sister.
I shut the door behind me and slid down along the door until I was on the floor. What an exhausting day. Communicating with ghosts always wore me out.
It's a well-known fact that ghosts need a lot of extra energy and motivation to show themselves to the living. That's why people usually only get glimpses of them. Ghosts use large amounts of energy all the time, which is why it's cold when a spirit is present. Since I can see them no matter what, they use my own energy without knowing it. After talking to ghost for a short period of time, I usually need to rest or else I become anemic. It's rather annoying.
"Something tells me now is not a good time to chat." A voice came from the window. I slowly opened one eyelid to see a shadowy figure sitting on the window sill casually, like he was always there and it was perfectly normal to be in someone else's room uninvited. Which, for him, it was.
"Blade, what do you want?" I snapped, too tired to deal with this persistent ghost. He jumped off the window and stood before me. His dark hair looked like it hadn't been cut in months. His bright eyes shone with mischief and he wore dark jeans and a T-shirt with some band logo splashed across it. Blade was probably about fifteen years old. Though, he sometimes acted like he was five.
"My, someone's pissed off. What's the matter? Woke up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning?" He grinned.
I rolled my eyes and stood up. Blade was about three inches taller than me, but I still met his eyes. "I could ask you the same thing."
"Miranda was talking about you today." Blade clucked his tongue and followed me to the other side of the room. "Said some very rude things. I was disappointed. I thought mothers were supposed to be kind. Miranda milks the evil stepmother thing for all it's worth. Very cliché, if you ask me."
"She's not my stepmother. She's my adoptive mother." I corrected tiredly, sitting at the small oak desk in the corner of the room.
"That's what I said." The ghost paused to stare at the bed, concentrating, before sitting down. I was too tired to laugh when he sunk through the comforter instead of staying solid on top.
"Why are you so talkative today? Usually you just diss things."
"Yes, well, I wanted to tell you about what I did to Miranda. Anyway, she was bitchin' about you, right? So I grabbed a pillow and tossed it at her head. I opened up a Word document on her laptop that was on the kitchen table and wrote 'KISS MY ASS' in really huge letters so when she turned around, she had this mental breakdown." Blade laughed and fist-pumped the air. "She ran out of the room faster than I thought was possible."
"Blade, it's real great that you stood up for me like that, but think about how pissed she's gonna be today." I wrinkled my nose. Dinner was gonna be fun.
"If she's a beeyotch, I'll just do something worse tomorrow." Blade shrugged. I yawned and shook my head disapprovingly.
"If you used so much energy today, how are you able to even walk around right now?" I asked, leaning back in the chair. I'd learned that one of Blade's favourite pastimes was scaring the crap out of Miranda in weird and creative ways.
"I went to the power plant and sat on a wire for a few hours. Then I came back here and stole some of Miranda's energy." Blade made a weird face, like he hated having anything from Miranda in his possession.
I snickered. "Resourceful."
There was a sudden knock at the door that made me jump at least two feet in the air. I ignored Blade's cackling and opened the door a crack.
Miranda's chubby face pressed against the door frame. "Who the hell are you talking to, Sutton? You'd better not be using the phone in here. You're grounded!"
I rolled my eyes. Give me a break. "I'm not using the phone, Miranda. I'm practicing lines for a play."
I got a suspicious look. Good Lord, couldn't she just leave me alone? "I don't remember seeing anything about your school putting on a play."
"It's not for a school. My friends and I are doing a short play for fun."
Miranda snorted, her nose wrinkling. "Friends. Fun. Like you know what either of those are." She strode away back down the hall, muttering to herself. I gave her the finger behind her back before slamming the door again.
"Hippo bimbo-ass bitch." Blade called, though he knew very well that she wouldn't hear. I gave him a small smile before flopping on the bed.
"Blade, if I ran away, would you come with me?" I asked, staring at the large water stain on the ceiling that was shaped like a bird.
"Hell yeah! I'm sick of haunting that bitch, believe it or not. Besides," Blade smiled a genuine smile that was quite rare, "I'd go anywhere with you, girlie."
I smiled back and tugged the warm covers up to my nose. "I'm gonna have a nap before dinner. I'll need all my energy if I'm going to be forced to consume Miranda's nasty cooking."
"Ben's cooking today." Blade informed me quietly.
"Excellent," I said. I heard the window squeak open as Blade sat on the edge. Even though he could just walk through the wall and go venture the town, Blade preferred to open doors and windows to get out of buildings. I wasn't sure if he did it because he wanted to scare people or because he missed little things like that. Being dead was a lot different than being alive.
"See you later, Sutton." Blade whispered before jumping the two stories down to the driveway and running out into the street.