The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

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Chapter One

It was three minutes past midnight, and the dead wouldn't leave me alone. I pulled my pillow over my head to shut out the voices floating up from downstairs, but it didn't help. Tonight it was Grandma Bee, my mother, and my sister Oriole who were channeling messages from the Other Side.

First I heard Grandma Bee. "I see an older woman. She's short, a little pudgy, her dentures don't fit well, and she's squinting. Looks like she has a migraine. Hmm. And maybe a touch of indigestion."

Then the voice of my grandmother's visitor: "That's my great-aunt Agatha! That's her to a tee!"

"Hmmph." Grandma Bee loathes being interrupted. I can just imagine the irate glare she's leveling at her visitor. It's been months since we've had enough money to get my grandmother's glasses fixed, so they sit askew on her nose, one side held together with a large safety pin. The thick lenses magnify her eyes and make them look rather wild. The crooked tilt of the frames make her look slightly mad. The combination—plus Grandma Bee's death-ray stare—usually silences . . . well, everybody.

This woman, however, kept gushing. "I can't get over it! It's absolutely uncanny! You've described her perfectly!"

I knew what Grandma Bee would like to say: Of course I've described her perfectly. I am after all a professional medium. And your great-aunt is standing right here in front of me.

But it's not good business to snap at paying customers, so she contented herself with a louder hmmph and an irritable clack of her dentures before continuing. "Now I'm getting something else. . . . Oh, she says you're not using enough salt when you make her potato soup." A note of boredom entered Grandma Bee's voice. She hates it when ghosts talk about recipes; she only deigns to turn on the stove when she wants to brew some of her homemade weed killer. "And she says to add some bacon grease, for heaven's sake. A little fat won't kill you."

"Oh, thank you!" The visitor sighed happily at this seasoning tip from beyond the grave. "Would it be all right if I asked just one more little question? It's about the number of onions she said to use. . . ."

I threw my pillow on the floor and gave a huge, irritable yawn. Earlier in the evening I had sat at my bedroom window and peered down at tonight's visitors as they walked up our cracked front sidewalk. I counted five people, meaning that the reading should have lasted about two hours, but the spirits were very chatty tonight. We were closing in on three hours with no end in sight.

Unfortunately, I have always found it impossible to fall asleep until every stranger, living or dead, has left our house. This has led to many late nights and cranky mornings because my grandmother and mother have been hosting psychic readings—or, as spiritualists say, serving Spirit—in our front parlor since before I was born.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but it wasn't just the ghosts that were keeping me awake. Tomorrow was my fifteenth birthday—undoubtedly the begining of a new and brilliant future!—and right after that was the first day of school. And this year the start of school was even scarier (and more thrilling) than usual.

The reason was simple: I had always assumed that I would go to Jamestown High School, just as my six (yes, count them, six) older sisters had. But some sort of redistricting plan was put into place last year. After all the lines had been redrawn, it turned out that I lived in a borderline area, so I could choose to attend either Jamestown High or a huge, recently consolidated high school thirty miles away.

Hmm, let's see . . . I could go to the school where my sisters had spent years making a, shall we say, vivid impression, and where I would attend classes with people I had known since kindergarten. Or I could go to a brand-new school and meet brand-new people and make a brand-new start on my life. What to do, what to do?

We had three months to decide. It took me about three seconds.

I was the only person in my town who chose the new school, mainly because nobody else wanted a forty-five-minute bus ride each morning and afternoon. I didn't care. I would have traveled twice as far to end up in a place where I didn't know anyone and, most crucially, no one knew me.

Because when you have a deep, dark secret to hide, a new beginning is a very good thing.

12:15 A.M.

I stared at the ceiling. Through a quirk in our old house's heating system, the hushed voices on the first floor floated up into my attic bedroom with perfect clarity.

"May I come to you?" Oriole asked another visitor. (There are several ways that mediums can ask if a person would like to hear a message from beyond the grave. Some people say, "May I share your energy, my friend?" while others say, "May I enter your vibration?" The important thing, my mother says, is to ask. "It's only polite, my darlings," she always adds.)

The sound of my sister's voice brought her image in front of me as clearly as if I were sitting opposite her in the dimly lit parlor: She sits on a faded green couch, the perfect backdrop for her long silver blond hair. Candlelight flickers over her pale, luminous skin. She is gazing into the distance, an otherworldly look on her face. (She spent months practicing that expression and then ended up looking like Joan of Arc's less stable sister.)

"You have suffered a disappointment in love recently," Oriole said.

The visitor caught her breath with amazement. Visitors always do, even though just about everyone has suffered a disappointment in love recently, depending . . .

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Excerpted from The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper
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