My thoughts went to the five-mile walk home. "Protecting me from what?" I snapped. "Me being thought of as anything other than a dweeb?" Ticked, I pushed my bike across the hot pavement toward the distant exit. Stupid guardian angel. What the devil was wrong with it?
I spun around at the sound of the metal school door crashing open, and saw a guy wearing running shorts come out. Two more people followed him. Track practice in August? "There once was a girl with blond hair, whose tresses were short like a mare," G.R.A.C.E.S. one-seventy-six sang, hovering by my ear. "She brushed and she preened, like she was a queen, till I laced her shampoo with some Nair."
"Charming. It sings," I muttered, and the angel giggled, seeming to send a wash of cool air over me. Behind me, voices rang out amid the thumping of car doors and starting engines. The first truck roared by me, and I turned to the right to avoid the exhaust, pulling my bike past the end of the wall and dragging it up the hill to the main road.
Someone blew their horn, and I ignored it. The hill was steep, and when a line of erosion bushes appeared in front of me, I angled into the water runoff ditch full of rocks the size of my head. But the moment I found the ditch, my front tire got stuck and the handlebar jammed into my gut. My breath came out in a pained huff, and I looked up to find a truck stopped at the top of the hill. Great. I had a freaking audience.
"There once was a girl with a bike, who thought she'd go off on a hike."
"Shut up!" I shouted, then looked up to the sound of a door slamming. My shoulders slumped and I felt weary. It was Josh. Prom-date Josh. The same guy who'd only gone out with me because my dad and his dad worked together and had set it up. I'd been a "favor." And when Josh accidentally let this slip at the prom, I'd left in a huff - with Seth/Kairos. Swell. I hadn't seen much of Josh since I'd died except for passing him in the hall. Now, leaning against my bike, I watched him recline against his truck door with his ankles crossed, smiling at me.
Oh, for cripe's sake. Looking back down, I laboriously unstuck the wheel and pushed forward, but the memory of the night I died filled my thoughts. Josh had followed me to make sure I got home okay even after I'd ditched him. He'd seen the car crash, had slid down the embankment to try to save me. I think he'd even held my hand as I died. Barnabas assured me he didn't remember a thing. Except perhaps that I'd been a bitch to him at prom and left with someone else.
"You need some help?"
I looked up to find Josh still leaning against his truck. He looked good, his wet blond hair dark from a shower, blue eyes squinting in the sun as he pushed a new pair of trendy glasses back up his narrow nose. I'd seen him talking with the drama club geeks at school and sticking up for the smart kids in the hall, but he usually hung with the jocks. Not quite the popular crowd, but close enough not to matter in a town this size. He was nice to everyone, which was not the norm for what I'd call a very dateable guy.
"I said, do you need some help!" he said louder as he waved at a girl driving by. It was Amy. I didn't like her. She was too full of herself to have room for a real thought in her head.
Blowing the hair out of my eyes, I wished I was still at the lake, dark reaper and all. "No," I called back. "But thanks." Head down, I shoved the bike over a rock and moved up a foot.
"Are you sure?"
Why is he being nice to me?
From above and a little behind me came a high voice saying, "Listen, I just thought up the end of it. There once was a girl with a bike, who thought she'd go off on a hike. She headed off west, 'cause she thought it was best, but ran into someone she liked."
My foot slipped. Habit pulled my breath in fast when my ankle gave a twinge and the bike fell down the six inches I had managed. "I'm going south, not west," I grumbled, then looked up at Josh as the angel laughed at me. It was too hot to feel guilty for past bitchiness. "I changed my mind," I said loudly. "I could use some help."
Josh pushed himself away from his truck and started down, sliding until he found the rocks and began to pick his way. I waited, then backed up when he gave me a smile and took the handlebars from me.
"How did you get a flat tire?" he asked as he snuck glances at my purple hair.
"There once was a girl from the shire, who constantly got a flat tire."
"Shut up!" I yelled, then cringed when Josh turned to me, shocked.
"Uh, not you," I amended, just about dying on the spot. Not that I could, but I felt like it. "I, um, wasn't talking to you."
Josh's eyebrows went up. "Who were you talking to? Dead people?"
He meant it as a joke, but I felt myself pale. From behind me came a chiming, "You have to be alive first, short stuff, to be dead."
The silence stretched, and Josh's expression went from amused to bothered. "It was a joke, Madison."
Miserable, I tried to find a spin on this that wouldn't make me look like Mad Madison. Stupid guardian angel. This was all its fault. "I'm sorry," I said, tucking my hair back. "It was nice of you to stop and help me. I really appreciate it. I'm just hot." My tension eased when his jaw unclenched. "It hasn't been a good day," I added.
Josh was silent, and I glanced at him. We were almost to the top, and I didn't want him to leave thinking I'd yelled at him for no reason. "You're, uh, on the track team, right?" I said.
"Yup. We're doing a charity relay tomorrow at the school carnival," he said, slowing to work the front tire between two rocks. "Dollars per time around the track, that kind of thing. Coach thinks it's a great way to keep us from going soft over the summer. What are you doing to help?"
"Me?" I stammered. "Uh..."
Josh looked askance at me. "That's why you were at the school, right?"
"Not really," I said. "I was meeting someone. They left. My tire went flat." The angel edged into my vision, and I slapped at it. "Wow, big mosquito," I said, and it hummed in indignation, the light shifting brighter.
"And you came here because you didn't want your dad to find out you were meeting someone?" Josh said. "Gotcha." Sighing, he looked to the top of the hill as if he was distancing himself from me already.
I was screwing this up royally. "It's not my dad; it's my neighbor," I said.
"Mrs. Walsh?" Josh asked, startling me.
"You've heard of her?" I said, finding myself grinning at his understanding smile.
He nodded. "My friend Parker lives on your street. That woman goes through his garbage to pull out the recyclables. Creepy old bat."