Ghost Whisperer

Chapter TWO

I guess I should explain. I'm not exactly your typical sixteen year old girl
Oh, I seem normal enough, I guess. I don't do drugs, or drink, or smoke well, okay except for that one time when sleepy caught me. I don't have anything pierced, except my ears, and only once on each earlobe. I don't have any tattoos. I've never used my hair.

All in all, I'm a pretty normal, everyday, American teenage girl.
Except, of course, for the fact that I can talk to the dead, I probably shouldn't out it that way. I should probably say that the dead talk to me. I mean, I don't go around initiating these conversations. In fact, I try to avoid the whole things as much as possible.
It's just sometimes they won't let me.
The ghost, I mean
I don't think I'm crazy. I guess I might seem crazy to some people. Certainly the majority of kids in my old neighborhood. Thought I was. Nuts, I mean. I've had the school counselors successful in me more than once. Sometimes I even think it might be simpler just to let them lock me up

I probably wouldn't be safe from the ghosts. They'd find me.
They always do
I remember my first. I remember it so clearly as any of my other memories of that time, which is to say, not very well, since I was about two years old. I guess I remember it about as well as I remember taking a mouse away from our cat and cradling it in my arms until my horrified mother took it away
The ghost, like the mouse, was little, grey and helpless. To this day I don't know who she was, I spoke to her.

That was when I learned my first lesson concerning ghosts:only I can see them
Well, obviously, other people can see them. How else would we have haunted house and ghost stories and unsolved mysteries and all of that?? But there's a difference
most people who see ghosts only see one. I see ALL ghosts.
ALL OF THEM. Anybody. Anybody who has died and for whatever reason is hanging around in earth instead of going wherever it is he or she is supposed to go, I can see.
And let me tell you, that is a lot of ghosts.
I found out the same day that I saw my first ghost that most people -even my own mother can see them at all.
Neither can anyone else I have ever met. At least, no one who'll admit it.
Which brings us to the second thing I learned about ghosts that day fourteen years ago : it's really better, in the long run, not to mention that you've seen one. Or, as in my case, any.

And even though I was only two years old. I understood that the little grey thing at the top of the stairs was not something to be discussed. Not with anybody. Not even. And I never did. I never told anyone about my first ghost, nor did I ever discuss, really?I saw them. They spoke to me. For the most part, I didn't understand what they were saying, what they wanted, and they usually went away. End of story.
It probably would have gone on like that indefinitely if my father hadn't suddenly up and died.
Really. Just like that. One minute he was there, cooking and making jokes in the kitchen like he'd always done, and the next day he was gone. And, people kept assuring me all through the week following his death -which I spent in the porch in front of our building, waiting for myndad to come home -he was never coming back.

I, ofcourse, didn't believe their assurance. Why should I?
My dad, not coming back? We're they nuts? Sure, he might have been dead. I got that part. But was definitely coming back.
My dad might have been dead, but I was definitely going to see him again. I saw lots of dead people on a daily basis. why shouldn't I see my dad? I turned out right .
He was dead ,yeah. But I did see him again. In fact, I probably see him more now than I did when he was alive. When he was alive, he had to go to work most days. Now that he's dead, he doesn't have all that much to do.So I see him a lot. Almost too much, in fact. His favorite thing to do is suddenly materialize when I least expect it. It's kind of annoying.
My dad was the one who finally explained it to me. So I guess, in a way, it's a good thing he did die, since I might never have known, otherwise.
That I was a MEDIATOR
But I got the gist of it, anyway:i am pretty much the contact person for just about anybody who croaks leaving things.... Well untidy. Then, if I can, I clean up the mess
That's the only way I can think to explain it. I don't know how I got so lucky -i mean, I am normal in every other respect. Well, almost, anyway. I just have this unfortunate ability to communicate with my the dead.
Not any dead, either. Only the unhappy dead.

So you can see that my life has really been just a bowl of cherries there past sixteen years
Imagine, being haunted -literally haunted -by the dead every single minute if everything single day of your life. It is not pleasant. You go down to the deli to get a soda-oops dead guy in the corner. Somebody shot him,. And if you could just make sure the cops get the guy who did it, he can finally rest in peace
And all u wanted was a soda
And those are just the folks who know why they're still sticking around. Half of them DJ t have any idea why they haven't slipped off into the afterlife like they're supposed to.
Which is irritating because, of course, I'm the schmuck who's supposed to help them get there.
I'm the mediator
I tell you, it's not fate I would wish on anybody
There's the fact that a lot of ghost are really rude. I mean it. They are Royal pains to deal with. Theses are generally the ones who actually want to hang around in this world instead of taking off for the next one.

Sometimes, though, they get rough. I mean, they try and hurt people. On purpose. That's when I usually get mad. That's when I usually feel compelled to kick a little ghost butt.
Which was what my mom meant when she said, 'Oh. Suze. Not again. ' When I kick ghost butt, things have a tendency to get a little... Messy.
not that I had any intention of messing up my new room. which is why I turned my back on the ghost sitting on my window seat and said, ' Never mind, mom. Everythings fine. The room is great. Thanks so much.'
I could tell she didn't believe me. It's hard to fake out my mom. I know she suspects there's something up with me. She just can't figure out what it is. Which is probably a good thing because it would shake up the world as she knows it.
I mean, she's a television news reporter. She only believes what she can see. And she can't see ghosts
'Well, 'She said. 'well, I'm glad you like it. I was sort of worried, I mean, I know how you get about... Well, old places. '
Old places are the worst for me because the older a building is, the more chance there is that someone has died in It, and that he or she is still hanging around there looking for justice or waiting to deliver sine final message to someone.
'Really, mom, 'I said. It's great. I love it.'
Andy, hearing this hustled around the room all excitedly, showing me the clap-on, clap-off lights(oh,boy) and various other gadgets he'd installed, I followed him around, expressing my delight, being careful not to look in the ghosts direction, it really was sweet, how much Andy wanted me to be happy.
After a while, Andy ran out of stuff to show me, and went away to start the barbecue, since in honour of my arrival, we having surf and turf for dinner and that leaves me alone with my mother.... Well, sort of
'Is it really all right, Suze? 'my mom asked. I know it's a big change. I knowbits asking a lot of you.
'It's fine mom, ' I said.

I know things haven't been....well, easy for you. Especially since Dad died.
My mother likes to think that the reason I'm not like a traditional teenage girl is that iboost my father at such and early age. She blames his death for everything, And I suppose some if the stuff I've done in the past would seem pretty weird to someone who didn't know why I was doing it, or couldn't see who I was doing it for. I have certainly been caught many number of times in places I wasn't supposed to be. I've been brought home by police a few times, accused of trespassing or vadalism or breaking and entering
And while I've never actually been convicted if anything
I've spent many number of hours in my mother's therapist's office, being assured that this tendency I have to talk to myself is perfectly normal, but that my propensity to talk to people WHO AREN'T there probably isn't.
My dislike of any building not constructed in the past five years.
So maybe it wasn't so unusual for my Mother to be sitting there in my bed, talking about 'fresh starts'and and all of that. It was kind of weird that she was doing it while this ghost was sitting a few feet away, watching us.
And if that's what she wanted, I was going to do my best to make it happen. But had already resolved not to do anything out here that was going to end up getting me arrested, so that was a start anyway.
'Well, ' my mom said, running out of steam after her you-won't-make-friends-unless-you-project-a-friendly-demeanour speech. ' I guess if you don't want help unpacking, I'll go help Andy with dinner.

I said, ' Yeah, Mom, you go do that, I'll just go wet settled in here, and I'll be down in a minute.'
My mom nodded and got up-but she wasn't about to let me escape that easily. Just as she was about to go out the door, she turned around and said her blue eyes all filled with tears, 'I just want you to be happy, Suzie. That's all I've ever wanted. Do you think you can be happy here? '
I gave her a hug. I'm as tall as she is, In my ankle boots
'Sure, mom, ' I said, 'sure, I'll be happy here. I feel at home already.'
'Really ?' my mom was sniffing. 'You swear?'
' I do. ' And I wasn't lying, either. I mean, there'd been ghosts in my room back in Brooklyn all the time, too. She went away, and I shut the door quietly behind her. I waited until I couldn't hear her heals on the Stairs any more , and then I turned around.
' ALL RIGHT, 'I SAID, TO THE PRESENCE IN THE WINDOW SEAT.
'WHO THE HELL ARE YOU? '