"I was wrong about you," Eleanor pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and tossing her blond curls. "I thought that, finally, someone interesting moved in, but all you do is mope around your room."

Her companion gave her no response.

"Maaaaaaarcus," she called to the young man.

Again, no response.

"Marcus," she snapped.

Still no response.

Eleanor floated over to the teen and stuck her semi-translucent head between his face the desk.

Marcus jumped and yanked his earbuds from his ears. "Jesus Christ, Ell," he yelled. "What the Hell are you doing?"

"Finally getting your attention, which I've been trying to do for the last ten minutes, but you have been ignoring me," she replied haughtily.

"Yeah, 'cause I've been doing this thing called 'homework'," Marcus hissed.

"Well that is dumb. At least do something entertaining if you insist on lazing about your room," Eleanor commanded with as much authority as a twelve year old could muster.

The teen's eye twitched. "If I bore you so much, go haunt someone else," he sneered.

"You know that I cannot do that," Eleanor said. "No one else is home and I cannot leave the house-"

"Yes, I know," Marcus interrupted. "You can't leave the house because you died here and unless you find a way to attach your soul to a object or you body is moved you can't move beyond these walls." He sighed and dropped his head onto the table. "Can't you at least get your incorporeal ass out of my room until I'm done?"

"No," the ghost stated. "And this language you are using is highly inappropriate. I wish you would modify it."

"You've been haunting me since we moved in five years ago. How are you not used to it by now?"

"I was born in the eighteenth century as a noble. I do not like the way you teenagers speak these days," Eleanor informed him. "I mean, you should, really, be addressing me as 'my lady' and doing anything I say."

Marcus snorted. "Well, you're not a lady anymore. You're the ghost of twelve-year-old brat Hell bent on being more annoying than my own little sister." He groaned lifting his head from the desk. "Just leave alone for a few minutes, please."

"No," Eleanor cried. "I am stuck in this house with no entertainment besides you and your family, and believe it or not, watching you performing mundane tasks is not exciting. At least play a game with me."

"What game could we possibly play? You can't touch anything," Marcus pointed out.

"Hide and seek?" the young girl asked timidly.

Marcus made a small sobbing sound falling back into the desk. He hated when Ell did this. His week had been terrible and he just wanted some ghost-free down time to finish his work and then play video games. Suddenly he got an idea, and he only felt a little bit guilty for it. He tilted his head up so that his chin was resting the desk. "Fine," he conceded. "I'll play hide and seek with you, but at the end of the game you have to leave me alone. The kitchen will be the starting place. I'll hide first."

Eleanor's face lit up with childish glee.

Marcus stood up and trudged after the girl. "Okay stand here, close your eyes, and count to thirty," he told her when they got to the kitchen.

Eleanor nodded and closed her eyes. "One, two, three," she started counting.

Marcus carefully grabbed the salt container intending to trap Ell in a salt circle (a trick he'd read on the Internet for keeping ghosts at bay), but when he turned back around, he saw the ghost of a young girl with a joyful smile on her face. He paused. What kind of an asshole would he be if he ruined that joy? "Damn," he thought. Marcus sighed and carefully placed the salt back on the counter. Smiling once at Eleanor he rushed to find a hiding place.

"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!" Eleanor opened her eyes. "Ready or not, here I come!" she called.