Deal with a Ghost

Sixteen-year-old Delia McCarthy, known as Deal, has been sent to live with a cold, disapproving grandmother and to start over at a new school. Deal copes the only way she knows, by playing a ruthless version of the dating game: winning other girls' boyfriends and then dropping them. But the school is said to be haunted, and one evening Deal hears weeping and halting piano music coming from the empty music room, where she glimpses a pale figure that vanishes into the dark. As she learns more about the ghost, she uncovers a personal connection to it and to long-buried family secrets. Meanwhile a boy named Laurie Lorber refuses to let her keep everyone at arm's length. Marilyn Singer's suspenseful ghost story explores guilt, family history and the chance to change, and suits teen readers who like quieter supernatural mysteries.