Free Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik Page A

creepy ghost one.
    “You really are bad at this,” he said, after I hit the ball so hard in a downward motion that it bounced straight up, almost to the ceiling, then back down again—still on my side. But his tone was teasing, not critical.
    “Told you.” I tossed the ball to him and he served it gently, right down the middle. I easily hit it back. “Now you’re just patronizing me,” I said.
    “Do you prefer this?” He slammed the ball at me as hard as he could, and I shrieked and curled my body up, hands instinctively rising to protect my face.
    “Patronize me!” I said, peeking through my fingers. “Patronize me, please!”
    “If you say so . . .”
    I retrieved the ball from the floor. “No wonder people play Ping-Pong,” I said as I stood back up. “It’s like doing squats.”
    “Yeah, that’s usually not such a big part of the game.” He served gently, but I still missed the return. “Hey, I have a question for you,” he said when I had retrieved the ball and tossed it back to him.
    “What’s that?”
    He held the ball and raised his paddle but halted in that position. “Do you smoke?”
    “Smoke? Cigarettes, you mean?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Never,” I said. “Why do you ask?”
    “It’s just . . . I saw you giving one to your little sister. I’ve been wondering.”
    I suddenly realized what he was talking about. “Oh, you mean in the parking lot the first day of school! That was her pack—it had fallen out of her pocket. And I wasn’t giving it to her; I was reaming her out for having it in the first place.” I laughed. “You should have seen the expression on your face as you drove by us.”
    “I was a little shocked,” he admitted.
    “Yeah, I can see why. But I swear I was confiscating it.”
    “I believe you. You don’t smell like an ashtray.”
    “Cool,” I said. “I passed the sniff test without even knowing I was taking it.”
    “So Layla smokes? A little young, isn’t she?”
    “She claimed she was holding the pack for a friend.”
    “Hmm,” he said.
    “Exactly.” I turned the paddle around in my hands, gently stroking my fingers over the pebbled surface of its face, and then glanced up at him. “Every big family has to have a problem child, right?”
    “She’s the one in yours?”
    “Well, it’s certainly not Juliana,” I said. “And Kaitlyn’s pretty normal.”
    “I nominate you for the position. You seem like a troublemaker to me.”
    “Me?” I said. “I’m a saint.”
    “Saint Elise, huh?”
    “Yes, and don’t you forget it. Are you ever going to serve, or are you just going to stand there posing?”
    He served, but he continued to go so easy on me that I caught up to him.
    “Okay,” he said when the score was nineteen to nineteen. “I’m facing a bit of a dilemma here. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let you win. But we’re playing for high stakes. I’m not sure I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”
    “Ah, you see?” I said. “I’ve lulled you into a false sense of security. This is when I put the blitz on and destroy you.”
    “Really?” he said, and slammed the ball hard at me.
    “No!” I said, cowering again. “I can’t blitz! I don’t even know what a blitz is!”
    Five seconds later, he’d beaten me. We met halfway around the table and shook hands. “I’m not trying to get out of the bet or anything,” I said, “but there is a slight logistical problem I should point out.”
    “What’s that?”
    He was still holding my hand. I had to clear my throat. “I’ll try my best to sit next to Chelsea, but we both know she’s going to be trying even harder to sit next to you—and I think her will may be stronger than mine.”
    He gave my hand a squeeze that could have been a reprimand or something else entirely. “Deal with it, Saint Elise. You made a promise.”
    “You’re just hoping to see a catfight.”
    He shook his head. “Oh, please. Just because I’m a guy, you think I like