Page 79 of Possibly Texas

“Right,” I said. “Because you know it’s a lie you just made up.”

“If I was lying about that, why would I say I haven’t done it?” he asked. “I would have said I’d done it and saw a ghost to make the lie more plausible.”

I thought about that.

“I wouldn’t have believed that either.”

“Because you don’t believe in anything.”

The gooseflesh on my neck proved that somewhere, deep down, I believed in…something. I didn’t tell Auggie that.

“Okay, ye of little faith,” Auggie stated haughtily. “Let’s do it.”

“Do what?”

He rolled his eyes playfully.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “After your sign language lesson. You. Me. We’re going to walk backwards around Possibly thirteen times. At midnight, we’ll go to the graveyard and watch.”

“Then what?”

“Either a ghost will show up and you can eat your words, or nothing will happen and I will have to concede that maybe it’s not true.”

“It’s a lie, you mean.”

“It may be a lie, but not mine,” Auggie said. “I’m just repeating what I’ve heard. So, if it’s a lie, it’s not my fault. I’m just a gossip, not a liar.”

I managed to laugh, forgetting, for a second, that we were considering looking for ghosts.

“Um…”

The thought of spending more time with Auggie after my sign language lesson was a pleasing thought. Doing something that might prove Possibly was an incredibly haunted town was not. What would I do if we proved the town was haunted now that I had mentally conceded that it was my new hometown? I couldn’t just run back out of town on Two-Mile Trail. What would I do then? Mom wouldn’t be waiting to whisk me away from the oogey-boogeys.

“Are you scared?” Auggie wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“Yes.”

Why I had chosen to tell the truth, I had no idea. It had simply slipped out.

“Oh,” Auggie winced and looked down. “Sorry, Jordan. I didn’t—”

“We’ll do it,” I said, stopping him. “I’m scared. But I’ll do it.”

Auggie looked up hesitantly, a small smile on his lips.

“You sure?”

“Yes,” I said. “And then we’ll see you are a gossip. And you will owe me two milkshakes from Samuel’s.”

“Two milkshakes?” Auggie gasped dramatically.

“Yep,” I said. “To make up for being a gossip. It’s your penance.”

“What do I get if we see ghosts?”

“Um,” my eyes darted around, “what do you want?”

Auggie grinned wickedly, which made my stomach do flip-flops.