Joyce & Jim Lavene - Taxi for the Dead 02 - Dead Girl Blues by Joyce Lavene, Jim Lavene Page A

mother is a lawyer, and she’ll have our nanny do it for me .”
    I laughed at her high-pitched, snotty-girl voice. “Did you tell the teacher she plans to cheat?”
    “The teacher won’t listen to me. Everyone knows about Suzy. It’s just the way it is.” Kate threw her pajamas on the bed and took out the shorts and T-shirt she’d chosen to wear to school.
    “That’s the time you should say something,” I encouraged her. “Nothing should just be the way it is.”
    “Everything is like that, isn’t it? You’re dead and still walking around. Grandma is a ghost. Daddy is dead. I can’t do anything about those things. They are the way they are.”
    I sat on the bed as she brushed her teeth and combed her hair, her earnest little face breaking my heart. “That’s not the same. Some things you can change. They don’t have to be the way they are.”
    “How do you know the difference?”
    “You have to look at each situation and ask yourself if you can change it. I can’t change that I’m dead. I can change what I do with my time while I’m here.”
    “So like I can’t change that I have to go to school, but I can keep Suzy from cheating.”
    “Sure.” I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but I didn’t want her to give up on her life already without trying to make things right.
    Addie appeared near the window. “Lucas is making fruit and bagels for breakfast. You should both get down there. You’re running late.”
    Kate laughed. “Oh Grandma. Lucas can’t make fruit, even if he really is a sorcerer. Fruit grows on trees.” She looked at me. “Can he make bagels, or can you only get those in the store?”
    “You can make them, smarty pants,” Addie replied. “But I think these are from the store. Are you ready to go?”
    “No. Not really,” Kate replied. “I don’t want to go to school today. I’d rather stay home.”
    “You only have a few days left before summer vacation,” I reminded her. “Besides, you love school.”
    “It’s so close to summer.” Kate stared out the window. “And something feels funny.”
    We talked about her funny feeling all the way downstairs. Coffee was brewing, and Lucas had already toasted bagels and sliced strawberries.
    “Good morning.” He put a cup of Kate’s favorite tea in front of her. “What’s all this about funny feelings?”
    Addie stood at the table as we ate. I didn’t need to, but it made Kate feel better when I ate with her.
    “I don’t know.” Kate shrugged as she crammed strawberries into her mouth, her lips red with them. “It’s like something is coming. Something bad.”
    “Don’t be silly, chicken feet,” Addie chided, using her pet name for Kate who always walked on her toes. “Nothing bad is coming. You’re going to finish school and have a wonderful summer.”
    Lucas shoveled a mound of sugar into his coffee and topped it off with heavy cream. “You shouldn’t ignore her. Children have a sense of the world that adults have lost. Something bad might indeed be coming.”
    “I think it may be that she’s about to finally lose that tooth.” I frowned at Lucas, hoping he’d get the idea that we didn’t want to talk about something bad coming. “If that doesn’t come out soon, something bad will be me wiggling it until it falls out.”
    Lucas didn’t say anything else about Kate’s random musings until we had dropped her off at school for the day. The Festiva had died out twice while we waited in the school drop-off line. I held my tongue until we were alone.
    “You can’t encourage her to get morbid about her life,” I told him as we started toward Nashville. “She lives with a zombie, a sorcerer, and a ghost. Her life will never be normal. The least she can have is a happy childhood.”
    “Even children can be unhappy,” he said. “And they frequently recognize trouble when we are too busy to notice. There is magic in her, as there is in you. I can sense it. Don’t ignore her prophecy, Skye. It may