Crushed

  For my dad, who has been my guide, my champion, and my Giving Tree

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: I Cheer, You Cheer

  Chapter Two: Three’s a Crowd

  Chapter Three: Strike Three

  Chapter Four: Word on the Street

  Chapter Five: Georgia 2.0

  Chapter Six: Brrr, It’s Cold in Here

  Chapter Seven: She Said, She Said

  Chapter Eight: Limbo Fever

  Chapter Nine: Team Lucily

  Chapter Ten: The Georgia Rule

  Chapter Eleven: Red Is a Color

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Lucy Chadwick … Ghostcoming Queen. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? To be fair, technically I could be the Ghostcoming King, since I entered Limbo Central Middle School’s dance-a-thon with my best friend, Cecily Vanderberg, and we won the title of King and Queen together.

  Either way? I’m ghost royalty.

  (FYI … I’m not joking—I’m actually a ghost. How, you ask? Because I’m kind of, sort of, completely … well, dead. But it’s all good, I promise!)

  Anyway, becoming Limbo Central royalty isn’t a bad way to end your first two weeks in the afterlife—especially when your first day started with you developing a giant crush on Colin Reed, your older ghost tutor, which caused some ugly beef with his mean-girl girlfriend. Or should I say EX-GIRLFRIEND.

  Smiley face.

  Okay, okay, I know that sounds harsh, but this girl—Georgia Sinclaire—makes normal mean girls look like UNICEF volunteers! For example, on my first day as a ghost at Limbo she literally threw a ball through my head. I was pretty see-through because I was newly dead, so thankfully it didn’t hurt. But it felt super weird, and, honestly, that’s just rude. Then, last week, when I finally had enough energy to become solid, she threw another one at my head—and that one hit me! I had to go to the nurse and everything. So, yeah, she’s definitely getting what’s coming to her.

  “Are you ready to go?” Cecily calls to me from inside our bathroom.

  We’re not only best friends, we’re also roommates. I crossed over, like, a day before she did, so we’ve been learning everything together. Cool, right? And the best part is that we were friends even before we got to the afterlife, so we know each other super well.

  T.G.

  (Thank ghostliness. Get it?!)

  Because leaving everything behind and trying to figure out your new way of afterlife all by yourself is crazy hard—not to mention lonely. Having each other here is THE BEST.

  Afterlife friends forever.

  “One sec,” I answer, getting my books together. I can finally carry my own backpack now, which is one of those things that you don’t normally care about until you’re suddenly unable to do it. Then you’re all like, what?! See, when you first become a ghost you need to figure out how to harness and use energy in a different way so you can interact with stuff. It’s super complicated and totally not worth getting into. The point? I can now carry things like a normal ghostly type person.

  Yay!

  “It’s seven forty-five,” she warns gently.

  It’s Monday morning, and if we don’t get moving we’re going to be late for school. That’s when I notice something appear on the Tabulator screen.

  “Oh goody, we got a message from Georgia,” I inform Cecily as she exits the bathroom.

  “We did? Just us? What does it say?”

  “No, not just us. The whole school. It’s about Cheerleading tryouts—on Wednesday evening.”

  “Oh.”

  Cecily falls silent after that.

  For a while last week she was thinking about joining the squad as her required club, but I thought I had talked her out of it.

  As we walk over to school, I feel her out on the subject again.

  “You still want to start our own dance club, don’t you?” I ask, reminding her of our significantly more-awesome-than-cheerleading idea.

  “Sure,” Cecily replies.

  Cecily and I were both ballerinas. Well, are both ballerinas, I guess I should say. When we crossed over, we were both stuck in our dance costumes from rehearsal. Another one of the Limbo Rules is that you have to stay in the clothes you came over in until you can harness enough energy to change them yourself. No one else can change them for you. So … there we were, waddling around school in our pointe shoes and tutus for, like, two weeks!

  So mortifying.

  Thankfully we’re finally learning enough ghost skills and gaining enough strength to change our clothes—at least minimally. I seriously couldn’t take another week of walking around in those torture devices!

  “But,” she continues, “it could take a really long time to make the club happen. Who knows how many hoops we’ll have to jump through to get it off the ground. Cheerleading might be fun, you know, in the meantime.”

  I don’t like where this is heading.

  Hmph.

  “How can anything involving Georgia Sinclaire be remotely fun?”

  “I know she’s the captain, but she’s not the only girl on the squad. Chloe is on it, and so are a lot of other girls we don’t even know yet.”

  “The jury’s still out on Chloe,” I remind her.

  Chloe McAvoy spent the last two weeks (and probably most of her afterlife before that) being Georgia’s mostly mute, wicked sidekick, until the Ghostcoming dance, when she seemed to realize that Georgia doesn’t really care about her and only likes her because she does everything Georgia tells her to do.

  “You’re the one who welcomed Chloe into our group at the dance,” Cecily reminds me. “You convinced her she could find new friends who would be nicer to her than Georgia and actually listen to what she has to say.”

  “I know, I know. But, maybe Georgia got her hooks back into her by now? She’s quick, that one.”

  “Even so, after what Georgia did at Ghostcoming? I’m pretty sure we can take her if she does anything sneaky.”

  “If? Uhm, hello! Sneaky is, like, her middle name. It’s either that or Completely Evil. I can’t quite remember which,” I joke.

  “Those aren’t middle names, those are nicknames,” she corrects me.

  “When did you become Cecily ‘Literal Girl’ Vanderberg?”

  “Ha-ha. Look, I never got to be on the squad at my old school because of ballet. I just think it will be fun. Being cheerful’s my thing! Plus, it’ll be a great way to meet cute boys.”

  “I thought you liked Marcus?” I ask, confused. Marcus Riley is a guy in our new circle of friends. He plays guitar in a band called Figure of Speech (which yours truly helped name!) with four other guys.

  “He’s cute, but I’m not carving our initials into desks just yet—not like you and Colin …” she teases.

  Ahhh … Colin. My heart quickens at the sound of his name, and I’ve already had at least ten Lady-and-the-Tramp-style daydreams since I woke up this morning! Me and Colin sharing an ice-cream cone; me and Colin sharing a breadstick; me and Colin sharing a piece of licorice (FYI, the licorice fantasy turned accidentally violent, given the candy’s tough and inflexible nature, so do not try this at home!). All these daydreams despite the fact that the death of his relationship with Georgia is so new it hasn’t even crossed over yet.

  Ha-ha, get it?

  “Right …” I say. “Well, exactly nothing has happened with me and Colin since the dance on Saturday night. He’s officially broken up with Georgia, but that’s about all the progress we’ve made.”

  “I’m sure he’ll notice your lovely new ensemble today and say something super sweet to you,” Cecily says, all perky-like.

  I’ve changed my tights into sl
ightly heavier leggings, ditched the tutu (hurrah!), put on a long cardigan over my leotard, and traded in my pointe shoes for Converse.

  Sweet relief!

  “Unless he’s changed his mind and decided he’s over me and just wants to be friends,” I say, unsure.

  The truth is, when he broke up with Georgia at the dance, I was certain he was going to ask me out right then and there. And he kind of did, I suppose, at the end, when he made me promise to watch Star Wars with him. But then he never specified a time or place. Who does that?! Hello, boys? If you’re going to make a date with a girl, you have to actually pick a date! Even though yesterday was Sunday, and would have been perfect for our first date, the day came and went without a word from him.

  Sad face.

  “Don’t be crazy!” Cecily says. “That won’t happen. He’s cuckoo for you.”

  We get to school a few minutes before the first bell rings, and walking down the hallway feels like that moment when you realize the weird thing you thought only happened in your dream actually happened in real life, except you can’t decide if that’s good or bad.

  Spotlight much?

  I immediately spy Colin across the hallway, and it takes all of my energy (which is considerable when you realize that I need it to do a lot of other more important things like, say, touch the ground when I walk) to refrain from running over to him and throwing myself into his arms like he’s a soldier who’s just returned home from battle. Luckily the bell rings and I snap out of my crazy.

  First period on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I have Famous Apparitions. Thankfully Mia Bennett—another member of our inner crew—is in my class. Last class we learned about the Brown Lady of Raynham, who likes to hang around a famous mansion called Raynham Hall in England. Apparently she’s been seen by a lot of people. I bet that’s totally against ghost rules. Ms. Roslyn said the Brown Lady—her real name is Lady Townshend—was actually going to come in and tell us the story herself, but she had a last-minute change of plans …

  I wonder if those plans included haunting Raynham Hall, by any chance?!

  Weirdo.

  “Hey, Lucy!” Mia says happily, sitting down at the desk next to mine. “How was the rest of your weekend? Did you and Cecily celebrate your victory in style?”

  “Being the Queen is hard work,” I joke. “Actually we pretty much did nothing yesterday. How about you and Trey?”

  Trey Abbot is Mia’s boyfriend. They’re ridiculously adorable.

  “Same,” she replies, taking out her textbook and notepad. “That’s what Sundays are for, isn’t it?”

  “Totally,” I reply. “Hey, do you know anyone who would want to join a new dance club Cecily and I are starting? We only have two weeks before we need to officially join something, so I want to get this thing up and running.”

  “Well, not that you need any more drama with Georgia, but pretty much everyone on the Cheerleading team is a good bet.”

  “Right … Any other ideas?”

  “Uhm, last year we had a Winter Wonderland talent show, and I’m pretty sure I remember there being at least two, maybe three, dance routines. You could ask Ms. Keaner for the list of acts and participants and go talk to them?”

  “That’s a great idea, thanks! Cecily is about ten seconds away from joining the Cheerleading team ‘in the meantime.’ If she joins, it would be the worst.”

  “Because of Georgia?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “She can’t be that bad. I mean, it’s a school activity, so Georgia has a whole team to answer to, plus the coach. Hopefully she’s on better behavior as captain than she is as just a normal person.”

  “I’d rather not find out …”

  “I hear you. It was pretty cruel what she did to you guys at the dance.”

  Long story short? Basically the Ghostcoming dance was themed, and when Georgia saw that Cecily and I had managed to alter our ballet outfits to fit the theme, she told the principal we disobeyed the Limbo Rules! It was a mess. But in the end, we totally bested her.

  In your face (mean girl).

  “Yeah, well, I’m hoping the next two weeks of my afterlife won’t be all about Georgia like the first two weeks were,” I reply. “ ’Cause boy, is that getting boring!”

  “So,” Mia says, “you know that the clubs at Limbo are a bit different from the clubs at your old middle school down in the World of the Living, right? I mean, Ms. Keaner probably told you that already, didn’t she?”

  “Uh, no, she didn’t tell me. What does that mean?”

  “Oh. Well, it means that they all have to utilize some ghost skill or power. Remember how the Ghostcoming football game wasn’t just ordinary football?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s like that with every club. At the newspaper, the Limbolater, we have to use our powers to report on things that happen down in the World of the Living as well as up here in Limbo. The Chess Club plays by moving the pieces with energy. On Track, we have to build our own hurdles as we run. We have a certain number we need to jump over and they need to be a specific height, and so on. Cheerleading is the same—it’s not just regular cheerleading, it’s flying and floating and lifting other people up with your energy, writing the cheers above your head in the air, stuff like that.”

  “Oh.”

  Just when I thought I was getting the hang of this ghost thing.

  “But you’re catching on to everything so quickly,” Mia says, encouragingly. “I’m sure this will be the same way.”

  “Okay, but that means we need to come up with a way for our dance club to be … supernaturally inclined, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Nope.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Off topic? Figure of Speech is playing at the Clairvoyance Café on Wednesday night. You and Cecily have to come!”

  “Cool! Oh—no, wait. That’s the same night as the Cheerleading tryouts, isn’t it?”

  I wonder if Georgia did that on purpose, but I don’t say that out loud.

  “Well, the band doesn’t go on until six o’clock.”

  “Okay, we’ll be there. I’m sure Cecily will be excited to see Marcus in action. Ooh, maybe he’ll invite her himself?? That would be soooo cute!”

  Just then the second bell rings. “Okay, please take your seats and settle down,” Ms. Roslyn says. “Let’s begin with chapter five, ‘Apparitions of the Twentieth Century’.”

  * * *

  The first two periods crawl by, and eventually it’s time to face the music: my Psychic Education class with Georgia and Chloe. The class during which I refuse to let Georgia throw any more balls at my head. Now that I dethroned her at the dance, she should be feeling relatively on guard.

  But you never know what to expect with this girl.

  “Okay, ladies,” Coach Trellis says, “today we’re going to start our gymnastics rotation. We’ll be working on floor routines first. Here’s how it will go: We teach you a routine, and then you will perform it in groups. Everyone come into the center of the room and spread out.”

  We all do as we’re told, and when I look to my right I notice Chloe is standing next to me.

  “Hey,” she says, quietly.

  “Hey.”

  “How was the rest of your weekend?” she asks.

  She’s being friendly, and I can tell she’s trying to show me whose side she’s on after the whole dance disaster. I get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It’s nice to know that something you’ve said has made a big difference. I mean, Georgia is the worst friend to Chloe. She never listens to her or asks her opinion about anything. It’s always all about Georgia. I’m really happy Chloe knows it doesn’t have to be like that anymore. I even feel a little bit bad about having doubted her before.

  Whoops.

  “It was pretty low-key,” I reply. “How about yours?”

  “I went shopping with Briana.”

  “Who’s Briana?”

  “Briana Clark? Sh
e’s a second year. She’s on the Cheerleading squad with me, I’ll introduce you sometime. Anyway, the new fall fashion ideas are out, so we wanted to see what’s in this season.”

  Another thing about Limbo? You don’t actually buy clothes. You pay for outfit ideas. Because ghosts use energy to change their outfits and appearance, stores don’t need to sell actual clothing. They just sell the idea of new fashions—and the instructions on how to make them, if you need them. Weird, huh? Don’t get me wrong, it’s heaven not having to spend crazy amounts of money on new clothes, but heaven still doesn’t come cheap. It’s SUPER time- and energy-consuming to make your own clothes out of THIN AIR! The job of a fashion designer is way more intense than I imagined.

  Respect.

  “That sounds fun. Find anything you like?”

  “I saw an awesome plaid shirt dress with this chunky belt that I’m gonna try to re-create. Georgia never would have let me do it, you know, before. She says plaid is for the ‘fashionably challenged.’”

  “I love plaid,” I say, with a smile. “I think it’s very retro chic.”

  “Okay, settle down,” Coach Trellis says, and when I look up I notice that the whole class is spread out as we were told, except for Georgia, who’s standing up in front of all of us next to Coach.

  Coach Trellis continues speaking. “I’ve asked Georgia to help me teach the routine, since she has the most gymnastics experience from her cheerleading.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  Grrr.

  I wish Coach had asked me to help. I mean, I did just win a dance-a-thon. Besides, everyone knows that ballet dancers are way more graceful than cheerleaders. I’m not trying to be snobby, or anything, it’s just, well, we’re essentially more graceful than everyone—it’s, like, our job.

  Whatever.

  I don’t know why this is bothering me so much, anyway. It’s just a gym class. Besides, maybe this is a good thing? This way I can see what Georgia is like as a teacher, and what she’ll be like as a captain. If she’s as bad as I think she’ll be, I can take that back to Cecily and use it to convince her to not join the Cheerleading squad. And if she’s good? Well, then maybe I’ll have less to worry about.

  But probably not.