DEAD GOOD (9 page)

eleven

Predictably he disappears the minute he hears me think that – and I haven’t even got to ask the question can you hear everything everybody thinks? And the question after that one would have been how do I stop you doing it to me? Because frankly I think it’s an invasion of my privacy. No, I do.

Alright, so he’s not exactly going to be able to turn in an expose or anything to the local newspapers, and even if he did I doubt it would make particularly interesting reading – it wouldn’t get on the front page that’s for sure. In fact the only slightly interesting secret he’s likely to be able to uncover would be my enduring daydreams, and night dreams if I’m lucky, of Ed Loake. And just having a crush on someone at school isn’t exactly Headline News, is it? I mean Amber’s just as likely to hand over a full news report on that if she wanted to – it just wouldn’t make much money for her, that’s why she hasn’t. And won’t. And she’s rubbish at taking photographs so the story would be doubly boring with just a sentence saying ‘Madeline Preston fancies Ed Loake.’ My heart does its usual triple flip and speeds up at the mere thought of Ed Loake. Ed Loake. Ed Loake. He has the name of a Knight. The name of a warrior. The name of a…

‘Loser - if you ask me.’

I spin in anger just in time to see Leo disappear backwards through the wall. He’s grinning and waving farewell and my god – if I had one wish right now it would be to die instantly so I could kick his smug arse right out of the land of limbo and into the depths of total hell. The utter, utter shit-for-brains! How dare he! I am going to have to find out how to stop him from listening in on my thoughts. There must be a law against it – I could probably take out some kind of restraining order to prevent him from coming within a certain radius of my brain or something. Maybe all I need to do is repeat crap in my head. Do a constant “la-la-la” over and over again when I think he might be around – or just plug myself into the… wait a minute. My trusty iPod Nano. Now why didn’t I think of that before? That’ll teach him a lesson – and I bet he’ll hate all the music I’ve got on there – hell, he probably hasn’t even heard of half the bands that are huge these days. Ha!

Through the silence in my room I hear my phone beep and realise it’s still downstairs by the computer. And even though I know he’s gone, I still turn round before I close my bedroom door to check if Leo’s come back or not. And annoyingly I even find myself more disappointed than pleased that he hasn’t.

My phone is buzzing by the keyboard in the living room.

Can come over?

the text message from Amber says. Which thoroughly irritates and annoys me and confuses me. What does it mean? Is she trying to say can she come over? Is she saying can I come over? See – this is what infuriates me about text letterage misuse. I am going to have to try and put this right – I’ll need to print leaflets, hold meetings, form some kind of Group like a political party but without the boring politics and start some sort of movement against the misuse of characters in a text message. Every character in every text should be used fully and specifically whilst making absolute sense to the recipient. In fact that could be our slogan. Well, I’ll work on it to make it snappier, obviously.

So now I have to send her a text back to ask her what she means – whereas all she had to do was be specific in her original one and then I wouldn’t have to. And then after she’s answered my query I’ll have to respond with my answer, won’t I? And that’s almost my quota for the day used up already. Although it is nearly ten thirty now and another quota of three point three begins in two hours time – if I want this to be an exact science. Which of course it’s not.

‘Can I come round? I thought seeing as it’s dark and seeing as you’re living in a haunted house that maybe I could bring my extra-sensory skills into action for the good of mankind… well, the Preston family anyway. And I’ve been reading up about the fire in Ferndale Way. Hey! That is a great title for the film, don’tya think? Who’d you want to play you? Lindsay Lohan perhaps… oh no, I forgot, she’s a Lesbian now… okay how about one of the twins…maybe the one that…’

‘Amber!’ I have to hiss loudly to shut her up. ‘It’s late. It’s nearly eleven o’clock. There’s nowhere for you to sleep and we’ve only been here a day – give us time to find our feet, will you?’

‘Oh… okay – only you seriously could have been going to church y’know – to see a Priest about your ghosts and stuff – they probably get a lot of that lately, now there’s so many scary movies around… so…?

‘Come round after lunch,’ I tell her.

Mum walks past me rubbing her neck and I’m guessing there’s either nothing interesting left to watch on the telly or she wants to see what dad’s up to. Probably both. She jerks her head towards my phone and mouths who’s that?

‘Oooh! How exciting,’ she squeals, and not just from the idea of sharing a plate of lunch with us, that’s for sure. ‘D’you think I can stay ‘til after dark? So I can at least get to see your ghost? What shall I bring with me?’ She’s almost breathless by now. ‘ Oh! I know – we could make up a Ouija board by writing letters on bits of card and putting them in a circle on the floor – have you got some card we could use? Oh don’t worry I’ll find something… and candles – we’ll need a load of candles, to create the right atmosphere… oh and we mustn’t forget to…’

‘Just bring your history notes from Friday, Amber – I need to write them up, yeah?’ I know I sound less than enthusiastic but the truth is… well, I just really am. And if she had a ghost who pissed her off the way Leo seems to be pissing me off right now, then she’d understand why.

‘Kay then. See you tomorrow, yeah?’

‘Kay. Bye.’

As I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I hear a delighted giggle come from Davey’s room and I suspect that either he’s managed to work out how to tune in his clock/radio in to a children’s station - not a huge possibility at nearly eleven o’clock at night. Or he’s started laughing in his sleep, which would be a predictably embarrassing addition to the ‘invisible friend’ hobby he’s taken up recently – or – and this is the more likely reason – he actually IS playing with his (not so) invisible friend, Leo’s sister Mia.

I am torn. And it’s because I’ve being irritated by a dead guy. If I was Amber, I’d be in his bedroom faster than she wanted to come round just now and hoping to see his little friendly ghost. But I’m not Amber. This is not a thrill. I’m me. I know they’re here; I know how they came to be here – I still don’t know what they’re doing hanging around like this but I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason.

Although there is that little niggling question that’s still right at the forefront of my mind. What was Leo doing in Amber’s bedroom when he was alive? I don’t ever remember her telling me she’d had a boy round before? In fact if he’s been dead for nearly three years that would have made her only twelve or thirteen and I’m sure she wasn’t into dating boys who were three years above her – not then. Well, not now even. I don’t quite know how to ask her. Maybe this is why she’s so keen to come round – so she can tell me this long-buried secret she has kept to herself all these years and only now feels able to reveal everything to me because of… well because he’s popped back into her life via me. Maybe Amber is the reason he’s here. Perhaps he has unfinished business with her…I tap my brush against the sink and sigh, staring at my reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet.

I hear another happy squeak from Davey’s room. It’s no good. I’m rubbish at being indifferent. I pad across the landing and push Davey’s door open ever so slightly. He is lying down in bed, but leaning over the side and pointing to the floor of his room, his shoulders moving up and down like he’s trying to move something or hold onto something. I can’t see what he’s looking at though. I make a quick inspection to see if mum and dad are anywhere around then hear a door shut downstairs and their voices getting louder and louder but not in a coming closer type of way – more an angrier and angrier way which makes my stomach twist.

I turn back to Davey and edge silently into his room. I round the base of his bed and a floorboard creaks under my foot. As I stand on the other side of his bed I am aware that my mouth is falling open a bit. I take in the sight of a girl wearing – okay, maybe a bit misty and fuzzy, but visible enough, bright pink leggings and a sparkling lime green top, hunched over an equally fuzzy board game on the floor. She has just counted to nine and when she notices Davey looking over at me, she turns and gives me a huge beaming smile, holding the blurry cup and dice out towards me.

‘You want to play too?’ she says, through gappy teeth.

twelve

Needless to say I sleep with my iPod firmly plugged into my ears.

And actually I slept very well apart from realising I needed a pee at about four o’clock in the morning and, not wanting to bump into any ghosts on the landing or anywhere else, had to lie half-awake holding it in until it was light enough to run across to the bathroom. Okay, so I know there are ghosts in the house and they don’t appear to be that scary, but I still don’t fancy one just popping up from nowhere – which is what Leo seems to be able to do. And now I’ve seen his kid sister, I don’t know what she’s capable of yet. Probably nothing more sinister than beating Davey at Snakes and Ladders – but I can’t be too careful, can I? Although Davey did seem to be quite happy playing with her.

He doesn’t seem to be freaked-out in the slightest by the presence of a ghost in his room. In fact, I do wonder if he knows Mia is a ghost? If, he even understands the concept of what a ghost actually is? I’m not going to be the one to tell him, though. He’d only tell mum and dad and then they’d blame me for inflicting my craziness on him or something.

Oh god, this is complicated. I’m just contemplating the prospect of trying to explain the existence of ghosts to Davey when I hear him pad across the landing and over to mum and dad’s room. He taps and opens the door simultaneously – which I’ve always found to be contradictory. Either he should wait for a reply or he should barge in – doing both surely cancels out the other?

I hear muffled words and then he is back on the landing again, swinging his beaker-with-a-straw thing. I try to kick my door shut with one foot from my bed (that’s how sadly small this room is – I could do a starfish by the side of my bed and reach the door easily). But it’s no good, he’s seen me. God, now I’ll have to entertain him or make his breakfast or something else equally boring. What am I - his mother?

And as we enter, I really wish we hadn’t and that I was back in bed with my iPod jammed into my ears. Because right there in front of us is the back of a wide-ish woman wearing black, who’s hunched over a cooker that doesn’t look much like ours and she’s stirring a pot of something. The weird thing is, the whole of the kitchen seems somehow…and this is going to sound even weirder…hazy. Like our actual kitchen is there, right there in front of us, but there’s another, slightly fuzzier kitchen thing going on around it. It doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t. And the only reason I think my eyes can adjust to this peculiar-looking scene is because I realise that this is probably Leo’s old kitchen. The one that died along with him and his sister and their grandparents in the fire. A ghost kitchen. So how come I didn’t see this before? It sure as heck wasn’t here last night. I’d have noticed. Well, wouldn’t I?