Free Lullaby for the Rain Girl by Christopher Conlon Page B

somehow. That was why she was disturbing, even though there was nothing even vaguely threatening about her.
    “Hi.”
    “Did you get my e-mail?”
    “Yes. I got it. I…”
    “What?” She cocked her head, studying me.
    “How…how did you know?”
    “About…?”
    “The name. How did you know about the name?”
    “Oh, that.” She stood up suddenly, wandered over to the bookshelves and tilted her head to look at the titles on the spines. “I just made it up, that’s all. I hope you don’t mind. You don’t, do you? Hey, are any of these books any good? I need a good book to read.”
    “Who are you?”
    She looked at me again. “What do you mean?”
    “Your name. I want to know your name.”
    She shrugged, continued studying the books.
    “You’re…” I hesitated. “Your name is Rachel, isn’t it?”
    “No.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “No, it’s not.” Her eyes met mine. “Do you want to know the truth? The truth is I don’t have a name. So there.” She stuck out her tongue at me.
    “How can you not have a name?”
    “I just don’t.” She was near the back of the room now.
    “I think I know what you are.”
    “Do you?” she asked casually, pulling a paperback from the shelf and opening it.
    “Yes.”
    “And what am I?”
    “You’re a ghost.”
    The room was half-dark in the rainy afternoon. She seemed far away.
    “I’m a what?”
    “A ghost,” I said, standing and moving slowly forward. “It explains everything. Everything that’s so mysterious about you.”
    “What’s so mysterious about me?”
    I thought about it. “The fact that no one has ever seen you except me.”
    She looked at me with her dark eyes. She put the book back on the shelf.
    Then, to my amazement, she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard and so long that she had to lean against the bookshelf for support. I began to chuckle too, though I didn’t know why.
    “What—what’s so funny?” I asked.
    Her laughter subsided to giggles. “You think I’m a ghost?”
    “Yes.”
    “Because no one else can see me?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re sure about that?”
    “I’ve never seen you with anyone else. No one else has ever spoken to you in my presence.”
    Still giggling, she pushed away from the bookshelf, glanced mischievously at me, and skipped quickly to the classroom door. She opened it and stuck her head out.
    “Excuse me!” she called to someone. In a moment Mr. Avery, one of the custodians, came into view in his gray coveralls. He held a mop in his hand. “Excuse me, sir?”
    “Yes?” he answered.
    “Do you have the time, sir?”
    Mr. Avery checked his wrist watch. “Four thirty-five,” he said.
    “Thank you very much.” She closed the door again and looked at me.
    “A ghost, he says,” she stage-muttered. “Holy cow, Ben, this isn’t The Sixth Sense, you know. ‘I see dead people!’ Ooooh!” She bugged out her eyes and wiggled her fingers at me.
    Her laughter had completely changed the atmosphere in the room. I suddenly felt relaxed, free, as if some enormous burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I dropped down into my teacher’s chair again. She picked up a piece of the chalk Barb had given me and started to doodle on the board.
    “I feel kind of stupid now,” I admitted.
    “Well, I think that’s appropriate.” She smiled.
    “Still—I don’t understand…”
    “What don’t you understand?” She drew a female form with short hair jutting out this way and that. She drew the choppy waves-tops of an ocean.
    “When I saw you—that first day—afterward—I was coming out of the café across the street and you were standing there in the rain.”
    “Yeah?”
    “There—there was no rain on you. On your hair. It was dry. You were standing there without an umbrella and the rain was pouring down and your hair was dry. I saw that.”
    She shook her head, mock-exasperated. She put down the chalk and reached into her coat pocket, drew forth some kind of crumpled thing, unfolded it and