The Matchmaker's Medium

push-mower like my next door neighbor used.

“Just some crappy tools and yard stuff,” Chris said, “gimme the lighter.” I handed it to him, and he walked further into the shed. That’s when the kid’s face popped right in front of mine, nearly scaring me to death.

“Aaah!” I scream-whispered.

“What?” Chris asked, turning around.

“Nothing,” I answered. The kid pointed to the back corner of the shed, where it was super dark. “Look over there.” I pointed the same place the kid was pointing.

Chris walked to the back corner of the shed, shoving stuff with his foot, “Better not step on any rusty nails, or we’ll get test-nuss and Doctor Lindworth will give me a shot. I hate getting—holy crap.”

“What? What is it?” I asked.

“Don’t come over here, Amber.”

“What? Why?”

“Just don’t.” I never heard him sound so grown up and serious before. My arms got a little goose bumpy from it.

I heard scraping and rustling, like he was moving something. “Here, hold the Zippo. But don’t look,” he said, handing the lighter to me. I took it from him, held it out, and glanced at the kid. He was really sad, now, looking down at the ground, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.

That’s when I knew.

I turned away from the kid, really slow, pushed the lighter down toward Chris’s feet, and looked.

There he was. The kid who brought me here, who was just standing there crying a second ago, was crumpled on the ground. His newspaper bag was on the floor next to him, his eyes staring at nothing, his mouth hanging open a little bit. I dropped the lighter, and the shed went dark. The rest happened really fast.

I screamed, and Chris fell backward into me. Scrambling around for the lighter, he yelled some cuss words, both of us tangled arms and legs on the floor. Then a man’s voice yelled something from somewhere by the house, and Chris grabbed my arm like he was either really mad or really scared.

“We gotta get outta here!” he whispered. I couldn’t really see him, since the light coming in through the window and shed door was almost gone, the sun finally setting.

“How?”

“Come on!” he said, grabbing my hand, and dragging me toward the shed door. He crawled with me, then poked his head out. “Hurry!”

He sprung out of the shed like one of those guys in the Olympics, yanking my hand so hard I felt my shoulder pop. Then we were running like crazy, crashing through thick weeds and tall grass, crunching through big piles of leaves. A branch smacked me in the face as we smashed through some bushes, but I kept running, hearing the man’s voice getting closer. We ran and ran, Chris right in front of me, the man’s voice muffled but yelling when he got to the shed and saw the door.

We got to our bikes, snatched them off the ground, flipped around and ran, pushing them for a few feet then swinging our legs over them like a cowboy jumping on a horse that’s galloping away. I pedaled faster than I ever had before, wind flying into my face and eyes, tears streaming down my cheeks, not daring to look back. Chris weaved through the streets, curving and turning, jumping the curb and taking a few shortcuts. Finally, we zoomed up the driveway to our house, both of us throwing our bikes to the ground so hard it sounded like a car wreck, racing up the stairs and rushing to Chris’s room. He slammed the door and locked it, and we both crammed into the tent-fort he built for practicing his Army stuff, as mom called up the stairs, “What in the blue blazes are you two up to? I told you not to throw those bikes! If you break them, I’m not buying you a new one, y’hear?”

We just huddled in the fort, me with knees to my chin and my arms wrapped around my legs, Chris sitting there staring at nothing. Sitting like that for a few minutes, we listened to mom go back in the kitchen, banging and clanging dishes and cupboard doors, mumbling to herself about what awful kids we were.

“What do we do now, Chris?” I asked him.

He looked over at me like I was just invented. “Huh?”

“We have to tell somebody,” I said.

“Okay. Who?” he asked, looking at me with dead eyes. “Who’s gonna believe we just saw a dead kid in my scout leader’s shed?”

“I—I dunno, Chris, but we have to tell somebody. We can’t just let the kid stay there.”

“Was that—did the dead kid look like your invisible kid?”

I didn’t answer. Just nodded my head.

He thought about that for a second, then tilted his head down, chin touching his chest.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s call Chief Bennett.”

My eyes got really big, when I thought about the last time I saw Chief Bennett. “No way, Chris! He’ll never believe me! Mom told him I was a liar back in Kindergarten when I saw Isabella in the bathroom!”

“Crap, I forgot all about that,” he said. Then he lifted his head and looked at me really funny, like he just saw me for the first time in his life. “Can you see ghosts, Stinky?”

I lowered my head and nodded, tears filling my eyes.

“No way,” he whispered, shocked. We sat like that for a while, him quiet, me crying. Then, “Okay, we’ll call Chief Bennett, but we won’t say who it is.”

He reached his hand out to me, tilted his head a little, and cracked a half-smile. “C’mon, Stinky, stop bein’ such a cry baby.”

I took his hand and he pulled me to my feet, real quick, like he always did. He pulled the door open, and led me down the stairs, out the front door, and into the garage, where dad’s “private line” was.

He pulled the grease-stained phone off its wall cradle, pushed “0” for operator, and waited.

“Don’t worry, Amber, I’ll keep your secret,” he said, then asked the operator for the number to the police station.

Chapter Eight

“Wow, that’s some story, Amber,” Esteban said.

“I know, it’s insane, right?” I asked, feeling more self-conscious than I wanted to admit.

“No, not insane, just—unreal, I guess. I mean, you really must have some kind of serious connection with ghosts, to keep seeing all these dead kids.”

“Well, I think I saw them because they were around my age. I don’t know for sure, but now that I’m a grown woman, I get the sense that older ghosts wouldn’t come to me when I was that young because there wasn’t really much I could do for them. You know, to fix whatever situation they had going on at the time.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, rising slowly from the couch. I was still sitting in the recliner, tilted back a ways, trying to look comfortable but not quite pulling it off, somehow.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, standing just in front of my feet, kicked up on the foot rest.

“Um, I guess some sweet tea, if you have any.”

He laughed, “We’re in the south; of course I have sweet tea. That’s like being in Puerto Rico and asking if someone has rum in the cupboard.” He laughed again, a rich, full-sounding ha-ha-ha! She hated to admit it, but she was really starting to like the sound of his laugh.

I decided to sit up, instead of half-laying there on the recliner like some awkward couch potato in the middle of his living room. Hearing him clink, clank and bang in the kitchen, I figured it was safe to move. Struggling to sit up, I flopped and squirmed, but ended up doing nothing more than flailing my arms and legs, trying to grab for the handle at the side of the chair, finding nothing.

“It’s on the inside,” he said, his deep voice rumbling just behind me, as he slid his hand down the outside of