Graffiti Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Images in this book used with the permission of: © A_Lesik/Shutterstock.com (letter graffiti); © Pabkov/Shutterstock.com (heart); © xdrew/Shutterstock.com (spray paint graffiti); © Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock.com (alley); © iStockphoto.com/AnnaElizabethPhotography (silhouette); backgrounds: © iStockphoto.com/AF-studio, © iStockphoto.com/blackred, © iStockphoto.com/Adam Smigielski.

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Fallenstein, J., author.

  Title: Graffiti / J. Fallenstein.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2017] | Series: Midnight | Summary: As Lucia Klug tries to make peace with a local bridge where her father died in a truck accident, couples are being harrassed on the bridge and a ghost may be responsible.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016023646 (print) | LCCN 2016037895 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512427677 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512430974 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512427875 (eb pdf)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Bridges—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Ghosts—Fiction. | Haunted places—Fiction. | Horror stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F353 Gr 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.F353 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023646

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-41492-23353-8/16/2016

  9781512434880 ePub

  9781512434897 ePub

  9781512434903 mobi

  To Carla Ruth Ahlquist Ketter Heldt, who told me the story of the woman with the long, long fingernails who could scratch her way through solid wood doors was true

  chapter 1

  Sunday

  I stare out into the mist from my place in the old rocker on the porch of the duplex, rubbing my thumb and pointer finger over the eagle pendant on the chain at my neck. Just across the highway, the brick frame of the old railroad bridge looks kind of artsy against the white, overcast sky. I should know: I’ve been staring at it for two weeks now, ever since Mom and I moved here to Middleton. Middle-of-Nowhereton is more like it.

  The thing is, I hate bridges. When your dad is driving his truck across a freeway bridge and it collapses below him, you tend to not trust them. And now there’s one right in my front yard. Good thing it’s shut down. I let the eagle pendant, the only real thing I have left of Dad, drop to my chest.

  He’s been gone for almost a year now, and I’ve done everything I can to try and move on. But to be honest, I think I’m getting more and more nervous—more obsessive—as the time passes. Everything at home reminded me and my mom of Dad: our house, the front garden that he landscaped so perfectly, and, worst of all, the construction of the new bridge. Needless to say, we needed a change, so two weeks ago, Mom transferred airline hubs and here we are. Aunt Jane owns this duplex, so now it’s Mom and me on one side and Aunt Jane on the other. Kasey, my cousin, also moved in with our aunt a few years ago, after her mom died and her dad kind of checked out of being a parent. Then Kasey’s friend Patricia moved in too. Kasey told me Patricia got kicked out of her house and had no place to go, so it was nice of Aunt Jane to take her in as well.

  I rock back and forth and sip my chai. Even though I only saw Kasey two or three times a year before we moved here, we have a lot in common. Given everything she’s been through, Kasey is one of the few people who, when she says to me, “I know how you feel,” really does understand.

  Unlike, say, my old school counselor, who categorized me as “lacking emotional wholeness” in the file I probably wasn’t supposed to read. Or as “obsessive,” though that may be somewhat true because after Dad’s accident all I drew or wrote about was bridges. So I know that the bridge in my front yard, for instance, is an old-fashioned arch bridge constructed primarily from large, square bricks. There are iron rails on the top for the safety of pedestrians as well as three massive arches. The bridge that killed Dad was an eight-lane steel-truss arch bridge. Of course, there aren’t many people who want to talk for more than, oh, a nanosecond about bridges, so I tend to keep that information to myself.

  Now that I live here, it’s too bad Kasey is so focused on working and saving money so she can start taking business classes. She went to summer school and got her GED, and now she works at the coffee shop in the mornings and delivers pizzas at night. So at Middleton High I’m Lucia Klug, Six-Foot-Tall Friendless Freak. (I’m actually only five-eleven and three-quarters, but people tend to round up.)

  I would hang out with Patricia at school, but she and her boyfriend, Tony, are practically inseparable. Anyway, Patricia’s nice enough, but she and connected-at-the-hip Tony are both seniors, two grades above me, and have their own group of friends.

  “Lucia!” Mom calls from inside the duplex.

  I pull myself out of the rocking chair and go inside.

  “I’m doing a three-day to Tokyo. I’ll be back Thursday.” She’s got her flight-attendant suit on. She wipes down the counter, the fridge, and then the sink before adding, “Aunt Jane will be back from her trip tomorrow night. You’ll be okay alone? You can see if Kasey will be around tonight.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I say and give her a hug. “Be safe up in that metal tube hurtling through the air.”

  From the porch I watch her drive past the old railroad bridge. Fighting the urge to shiver, I sit back down in the rocking chair. A cool fall breeze blusters across the porch, and dark clouds hover at the horizon. There will be a storm, but the plane will still take off. The most harmful thing to a plane in the sky is not rain or lightning—it’s flocks of birds that get sucked into the engine upon takeoff, disabling the plane and sometimes forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing . . . or worse. Close to five hundred planes have hit bird flocks over my lifetime—or at least since I stopped checking this month, when I made a deal with Kasey that she would get me a job at the Pizza Pit if I stopped researching every fact I came across.

  Though the thought of making pizzas doesn’t exactly thrill me, having a job would be nice, especially if it was with Kasey. Then we could hang out more, and I’d have spending money, as well as something to do when Mom’s flying. I might even make some new friends. Tonight Kasey’s early shift should end at eight, and hopefully she will bring home a mistake pizza.

  Something sweet wafts out of the open window on the other side of the duplex. I peer in and see Kasey flip her long, black ponytail before taking a cherry pie out of the oven. When she stands up again, I wave at her and walk inside.

  “Hey, Lu!” she says with a smile. “Just doing a little baking before my shift. It’s the late one tonight.”

  Working the late shift means she won’t be home until after midnight. I’ll be home alone again. Dang. “Okay,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed.

  “You all right?” she asks.

  I nod, but it feels like there is a five-hundred-pound elephant sitting on my chest.

  “Missing your dad?” she asks. “Obsessing?”

  “No. Yes. Okay, looking at that weird bridge makes me think of Dad. I keep thinki
ng that if only there was something I could have done—”

  “Hey.” Kasey points her finger at me. “There is no use going there. I know because I’ve done it a million times. What if I’d insisted that Mom go to the doctor the first time she told me she was having heartburn? Maybe then they would have caught the cancer earlier. But you know what? It is what it is—nothing will change it—and we just have to stop with the what-ifs. Besides, we can’t waste our energy looking back; we’ve got a coffee shop to plan!” She steps back, gesturing to the pie on the counter. “And we are going to serve some awesome pies.”

  I laugh, glad that we’re done talking about this heavy stuff. “Where’s Drew?” I ask, just now noticing that he’s not here.

  She shrugs. “Somewhere. I’m not worried about him.”

  “You don’t keep track of his every movement?” I feign surprise.

  She smiles. “He’s not going anywhere. I’ve got him hook, line, and sinker.” Looking over my shoulder, she says, “Speaking of boyfriends.” She frowns and motions to the drive. “Here comes Creepy now.”

  We watch through the front window as Tony’s green truck rumbles up. Patricia is in the front seat, laughing. Then he and Patricia kiss for practically eternity, like they don’t even see us standing here, until Patricia finally gets out.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Patricia says as she walks through the front door.

  “Hey,” I reply.

  Tony waves from the truck, but Patricia doesn’t see him so he beeps and waves again.

  “Bye!” Patricia blows him a kiss and smiles as if she’s just won the lottery. I take a sip of my now-cold chai. Tony revs the engine and backs out, making loose gravel fly.

  “What’s his rush?” I say.

  Patricia shrugs and says, “He’s just a goofball,” then vanishes into her bedroom.

  Tony fishtails as he zooms past the old bridge. He’s so reckless, even when he’s so close to that bridge. Something about it gives me the creeps.

  I need to get over this fear because I can’t live always afraid of bridges—how will I get anywhere? Like, literally? I’m certainly not staying here in Middle-of-Nowhereton forever. I’m moving with Kasey to Portland or Seattle to start that coffee shop right after I graduate.

  I set my empty cup on the porch ledge and walk down the old road, stopping at the bank of the river. The bridge looms a few feet ahead. Tall grass and weeds have grown over the train tracks, and new three-foot-tall wood barriers stand on both ends of the bridge. There must have been an accident recently.

  Still, it’s not reasonable to be afraid of bridges—of this bridge. There’s no construction equipment, like there had been on Dad’s bridge; heck, there aren’t ever any cars or trains on it either. I step up to the bridge and lift my leg over the barrier.

  chapter 2

  Sunday

  The bridge looks at least a hundred years old, probably more. Does the Department of Transportation even inspect unused bridges? I wonder. I probably should have checked that before climbing out onto the crumbling old death trap. But I want to walk across it. I want to conquer my fear. I stand at the edge of the bridge. The wood planks of the tracks and the bricks beneath them appear solid. And the iron handrails seem sturdy. But, as always, my radar is up and running, looking for faults.

  The river rushes below, green and frothing and murky, but not as deep as the mighty Mississippi, the river Dad’s bridge collapsed into on that horrible day. I have to remind myself that this is not that river. The periphery of my vision closes in until it’s all a blur and little dots appear. I grasp the iron bar with my slick palm and close my eyes.

  I can do this, I say to myself. I can just hurry across and back and then I’ll have conquered my fear. Kasey will be so proud of me.

  The tracks run down the middle of the bridge. I take one tentative step on the worn, gray planks, then another.

  A bird squawks from its perch in a tree on the river bank. My legs ignore my brain’s directions and go limp; I collapse into a squat. “Go away, bird!” I say into my palms.

  I practice my box breathing: four counts in, hold for four, four counts out, hold for four. The problem is that I know too much. This railroad bridge could have a design flaw similar to the one that led to Dad’s bridge collapse. The bricks could be too old or so worn that they might crumble when too much weight is on the bridge and drop everything above it into the river. When Dad died, the reports said the additional weight of construction vehicles on the bridge “contributed to the collapse, creating a catastrophic failure.” Catastrophic was right, but why did it have to be Dad? It was my fault after all: I could have asked for a ride home from practice from someone else, and then he wouldn’t have been on the bridge when it collapsed.

  Lucia, don’t go there. Stop thinking about that, I chide myself. Refocusing my attention to this bridge, I let out a long breath. Can I do this? Almost immediately, my mind circles back to Dad’s bridge, with its piers and longitudinal deck stringers and reinforced concrete pavement and transverse expansion joints. I put my hands over my ears. After the collapse the city brought in Navy divers and used sonar to find the submerged cars. The governor showed up, and it took thirteen hours to find the thirteen people who died. One was Dad.

  That bridge is gone, just like Dad.

  I need to move on because the rest of my life is not in the past, it is ahead of me. I take a breath and slowly stand. The hazy sky, riverbanks, and iron supports whirl around me. A whimper makes its way up my throat, and tears well up in my eyes.

  Not today, bridge, not today.

  Carefully I put my hand on the bridge’s iron handrail. Mist rises from the river. If my legs would just stop shaking I could get back over the barrier, back to solid land and safety. A creak sounds behind me and a chill passes like a cold hand on my neck. I sense something behind me.

  My heart pounds. It’s only the mist, I remind myself. I’ve been on this bridge more than long enough. My feet stumble on top of each other as I race back to the edge of the bridge. Before I know it I’m back to the barrier. I throw myself over it onto solid ground.

  I need to sit somewhere and chill before I head home. I walk around the barrier and down the grassy embankment to a large stone a few feet from the water. The river’s not scary when you’re just next to it, on solid land.

  The stone is still warm from the sun. Under the bridge, someone has written something on a faded patch of bricks.

  Annie + Alex 2gether 4ever.

  How cute. I roll my eyes and lean forward. There are more names.

  Isobel & Henry = love is written in red.

  And there, to the right, in white spray paint: Kasey-n-Drew r tru.

  Kasey! I picture her coming here with Drew, spraying their names on the bridge.

  My eyes lose focus as I stare at each of the names. I shift my gaze to the river, hoping to steady my vision. All of a sudden the water seems to reflect something—a face. A skull.

  I pull my glasses off my face and try to rub the image of the skull out of my eyes. Wow, I have really freaked myself out this time.

  Above me, someone is climbing over the barrier. I slide my glasses back on.

  “Hey!” I call. “Patricia!”

  “Lucia?” she says. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me?” I say as I scramble up the grassy slope. “Just checking out this cool old bridge.” I try to sound upbeat, like it doesn’t scare the color right out of my face.

  “Some say it’s haunted,” Patricia says.

  “Haunted?” I keep my voice level.

  “By Billy Jones.”

  “Billy Joel, the singer?”

  Patricia sighs. “Funny. Obviously not, as it happened in 1880. His girlfriend dumped him, so he jumped, and now his ghost haunts the bridge.”

  My slippery hand rests casually on the barrier. “There’s an actual ghost?”

  Patricia nods.

  “You really believe that?” Should I tell her about the skull?
/>   “Yeah, people have seen it. Not only that, but Billy also supposedly cursed the place when he jumped. Don’t ever come out here at night.”

  “And here I was planning a midnight picnic.” We turn to head back to the house together. “Wait, I thought you were going to work.”

  “The store was dead, no big coupons this week, so I left a little early and had Tony pick me up.”

  “Is something wrong with your car?”

  “Yeah, but it’s just the fuel pump. Tony will fix it; he’s good with cars.”

  Walking alongside her down the road, I think of the names under the bridge. Annie + Alex 2gether 4ever. I picture the tall girl with the turquoise hair from my art class, a junior who did a watercolor of a bunch of hearts. “Is Annie still dating Alex?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Patricia says. “They say they’ll be together forever, even though they’ve only been together for two months.” When we get to the porch she says, “See on you on the flip flop,” and goes into her side of the duplex.

  It isn’t until I am boiling water for another chai that it occurs to me: if the bridge is so creepy and haunted, what was Patricia doing there?

  chapter 3

  Monday

  I barely get up in time to walk the six blocks to Middleton High. It’s a good thing my first period is working as an assistant for the school counselor, Mrs. Whyse, and I can sleepwalk through my next couple of classes after that.

  At lunch, just as I step out of the line with my tray of food, I hear an argument. It’s Annie, the turquoise-haired junior from art class. She flips a guy’s tray over, and peas and carrots fly everywhere.

  “Annie!” the guy says, holding up his hands. “Nothing happened!”

  “You said you were just giving her a ride home!” Annie screams. “It doesn’t take two hours to drive across town!” The whole lunchroom watches the drama. Annie pulls a silver necklace from around her neck and hurls it at him. “We are done.”