DEAD GOOD (6 page)

‘Was that you?’ I say into the room. And then kick myself about a second after it’s left my stupid mouth.

‘Was what me?’ Amber squeaks. ‘What Maddie? What? Was what me? What do you think you heard?’ Amber is squeezing my hands so hard I think she’s cut off my circulation. I try to prise my fingers out from her grasp and she grabs them back as soon as they’re out.

‘Amber, bloody well let go, will you? You’re hurting me!’ I pull my hands away from hers and rub my fingers furiously. ‘Jeez! What is up with you?’ I frown angrily.

‘What’s up with me?’ she says a little bit quieter now. ‘What’s up with me? Maddie, don’t you see what’s happening? Can’t you see what’s going on? ‘

I shake my head. Nope. I can’t.

‘You have been chosen,’ she says. Seriously. She says I’ve been chosen. Like she’s some kind of Messenger from Other Parts and suddenly I’m wondering if I ever really knew this girl at all. She’s more of a nutter than I was worried I was earlier on. Chosen? Is she mad?

‘Not all mad.’ The boy says. ‘She’s got some redeeming qualities although common sense isn’t her greatest one I have to say.’ He even has the cheek to snort derisorily at the end of his declaration of my friend’s insanity.

‘Chosen.’ she repeats back at me and I think if I don’t soon change the word, then we’ll both be sitting here on her bed chanting like a couple of mad old mental patients in an asylum for … well, mad old mental patients.

‘Ok - Explain.’ I encourage her and she grips my hands back again deliriously.

An hour later Amber has just about rehashed all the maddest, most mental, most ridiculous cliché’s I’ve ever heard in every supernatural film I’ve ever seen. Not including The Exorcist – which I’m proud to report I still haven’t seen because it’s an Eighteen and mum and dad said it freaked them out when they saw it so I think I can wait for that one. Oh, and the original Nightmare on Elm Street. Mum reckons if I’m anything like her then I won’t sleep for a week if I watch that and it could have disastrous effects on my school work. Of course I’ve watched the other Nightmare’s but they’re just stupid. Not the least bit scary. I don’t know why they bother making sequels if they’re not going to be as good as the first one. Look at the ‘Final Destination’s. You have to admit the first one was the best and the rest just got stupider and stupider – surely?

‘More stupid, you mean.’ The voice corrects me.

I refuse to be picked up on my English by a ghost but feel I’m in no position to argue – especially with mad-Amber sitting right in front of me. If she knew I was having an -okay, one-sided, but hey - conversation with a ghost, she’d want to, I don’t know – posses my body or something. She’d want to experience what I’m experiencing. Don’t you think? I think so. Look at her – she’s cracked.

‘So you have to teach them not to be scared of the light…’ she’s saying now. ‘You have to connect with them and lead the way for them – they’re innocent in death – everyone is innocent in death….’ She’s rambling and I think I switched off ages ago. I’ve started to dwell on how lovely her curtains are and how I wish I still had a nice thick carpet like hers and how I long for double glazing and not those disgusting, draughty old windows which are going to be crap at keeping us warm in winter. We’ll freeze. And then Gordon effing Brown will have to do something about our plight – he’ll have to!

eight

Not punch him in the face. No, I mean I see him. Right here. Right now. And he’s still laughing at me. It’s weird. I know I’m here, in Amber’s pink and frilly and – if you ask me, although I’d never tell her to her face – completely over the top Barbie-eque bedroom… but…

‘Ve-ry Barbie, isn’t it?’ His grin broadens.

Hang on a minute – can he hear everything I’m bloody well thinking? Surely that’s not right? It’s not fair anyway – how dare he? Is nothing sacred? Does that mean I’m going to have to think of things like brick walls and empty rooms if I want some privacy from now on? Hmm?

Yeah right. Like that wouldn’t totally freak Amber out or make me look like an utter mental case in front of her. If I wanted a one-way ticket to idiot-land then that’s exactly what I should do. So I don’t. I won’t.

He laughs. He’s got a nice laugh actually, not thuggish and dense like some boys laugh, but kinda cute. I gulp and feel the beginnings of a flush. Oh crap, he heard that, right?

‘Right.’

‘Um… Amber…’ I start, wondering where I’m going to go with this. ‘I think I should probably be getting back home… I mean back to the new place... I mean place – it’s not new – it’s a total shit-hole of course, but I should probably be going. Mum wants me to start making the dinner. So I should…’

Now Amber’s laughing. ‘Since when have you ever made dinner?’ she shrieks. Okay, deep breath - let’s all gang up on Madeline Preston today then, shall we? ‘You wouldn’t know how to boil a kettle if it had a...a big luminous on-off switch that …played music when your hand went near it… or something.’ She trails off.

Bless her; Amber’s not great with analogies.

‘I promised,’ I lie, standing up. ‘We’ve all got to muck in and help each other get through this, Amber. These are very difficult times for our family… remember Pay-As-You-Go?’

Amber’s face falls and she nods sympathetically. I knew that would get her. She wouldn’t be able to survive a day, no, make that an hour, with only ten pounds’ worth of texts, let alone make them stretch a whole bloody month! She would probably rather poke her eyeballs out with a cricket bat than have to try and restrict herself to three point three texts per day.

‘What do you mean what do I mean?’ I echo back, frowning even harder than she is. Maybe if I try to confuse her she won’t think I’m going mad and talking nonsense. Her head jerks back in confusion.

‘Oh, doesn’t matter,’ she says, waving her hand dismissively. ‘Okay then go – hey, I know – why don’t I come with you and then you can show me your new place and your room and then perhaps I’ll get to see your ghost? I think I have the gift actually– my Nan always said there were Psychics in our family. I think my Great Aunt even got paid to do readings and stuff for her neighbours…’ she stares weirdly round the room and for a minute I do actually start thinking maybe she does have some kind of ability. But then she flaps her hand again. ‘Ah… the spirits are sleeping right now,’ she says expertly. ‘They only come out under cover of darkness you know.’

Yeah right.

‘They’re very susceptible to bright lights,’ she continues. ‘Very wary. You have to earn their trust before you can communicate on their level. They’re very sensitive beings.’

Sensitive. Yeah - you think?

‘She’s got me all worked out, hasn’t she?’ Pale boy laughs. ‘And the light thing? More movie rubbish. Daylight just makes us more transparent, that’s all.’

I’m standing right next to him now and he’s just a bit taller than me. And because I’ve been listening to what he just said, I am now embarrassingly aware that I’m standing in the middle of Amber’s bedroom with my head tilted up and my eyes focussed on… well, nothing that she can see anyway – and that I’m very probably displaying signs of abnormality. To Amber anyway.

‘Maddie?’ she tugs at my sleeve. I turn to look at her. ‘Are you okay? You’re acting really... weird if you ask me… is it the ghost thing? Only I didn’t mean to freak you out – I just know these things that’s all – it must be in the genes or something. I don’t have to come back with you if you’d rather be on your own. I do understand you know. Maddie?’

‘Y’know what, Amber?’ I sigh. ‘I think that would be a better idea. I do feel a little… weak…’ I pass a palm over my forehead for dramatic effect and peek out of the corner of one eye to see if it’s working on her.

‘Jesus, Maddie, what do you think I am? Some kind of idiot or something?!’ Amber squeaks, leaping from her bed to my side. I am suddenly scared and flinch slightly. What? What now?

‘You have to let me help you down the stairs,’ she says. Phew. ‘What sort of a friend would I be if I didn’t make sure you at least got down the stairs without crashing to probable near certain death?’

So while I’m being helped down the stairs like an invalid on one side, there’s a very annoying ghost on the other side of me who’s chortling over Amber’s near-certain death statement. Trust me to find a ghost who feels a need to explain why something “can only be either probable– or certain. Not both”. Sheesh. The sooner I show this guy The Light, the better.

‘Are you still here?’ I hiss as I round the corner of our road. I haven’t heard a peep from him since the English lesson on the stairs. Amber got her dad to drop us.. I mean me… of course I mean me; her dad didn’t exactly know he had a ghost in the back seat of his car, did he? Even I wasn’t sure. But I can’t bring myself to go in just yet. So after her dad’d gone, I hanged around outside for a bit.

‘Present.’ He says in my left ear. And strangely enough I think I felt a little warmth when he said it too. I start to walk on.

‘All in the mind,’ he says. ‘You’re used to being able to feel someone’s breath when they whisper in your ear, but it’s actually just a trick of the brain. Here…’ and he blows into my ear. Nothing happens. No warmth, no breeze. Nothing. Zero. Oh. Okay then. My mistake.

‘So…’ I start and then smile at mad old Mrs Hale who lives at number 13 – a few doors down from us in Juniper Gardens – well, when we lived there, obviously. ‘So.. Oh.. so… how are you?’ I try to turn my nonsensical mutterings into a general greeting. She stops and stares at me as if I really am a little mad and then nods and trucks on her way. Silly old baggage. I never liked her very much.

‘She sees me,’ Ghosty-boy says a bit smugly. ‘Only, she knows what everyone else thinks of her and she’d never admit it to anyone in case it makes her look mad. You know what I mean?’

I do. I’m slightly shocked. Has Mrs Hale always gone around being able to see ghosts and stuff then? Is that why I always thought she had a far-away distracted look about her and I always put that down to her being slightly old and crazy-looking?

‘Yup, I’d say so.’ He says. ‘Shame really, she’s got a good heart.’

I suddenly feel very sad and sorry for Mrs Hale and silently vow to be nicer to her next time I see her.

‘So what’s your story?’ I finally say. God, I’ve wanted to ask this ever since I realised this guy’s for real – well, in a real-but-ghostly, other-worldly-kinda-way I mean, and I’m not losing my mind.

‘How long have you got?’ He laughs back.

‘Oh, you know…’ I say, ‘long enough…’ then I stop abruptly and if ghosts could, then he should have walked straight into me. Instead he kind of walks inside me slightly and then retreats back out. And once again, I realise I didn’t actually feel anything. Not really. A twinge maybe but if he reckons it’s all in the mind then who am I to argue? He’s the expert anyhow.