by Cooper, D A
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.
‘That’s good maths.’ The pale boy says grinning.
I sniff and tilt my head smugly. ‘What can I say? I work stuff out.’ I tell him.
‘You what?’ Amber frowns. ‘What do you mean you work stuff out?’
‘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.
‘It is. You’ve got the part!’ the boy sniggers.
‘Um… I’ll text you then, yeah?’ Amber suggests worriedly. ‘Later?’
I nod, still in my role. ‘Don’t worry about coming downstairs with me, Amber, I’ll be okay…’
‘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.
I stand at a white painted gate with roses running over an arch-shaped high hedge and stare at the lovely path that curves up to a shiny red front door with a gleaming polished door knocker and letterbox that says “letters” on it. My heart leaps and my stomach flips and I have the urge to run up that path and beat the door down and wail loudly that I want to come home – please? My subconscious must’ve brought me here.
‘So this is where you lived? Before?’
I nod. I shut my eyes and breathe in the heady smell of the roses that twist above our heads and then let it out slowly. How come they smell so good now? How come I never stood here before and realised how lovely these roses smelled?
‘Ah, you never appreciate something until it’s gone,’ he says wisely. ‘But at least you can still come back and experience it – some of us aren’t lucky enough to have the means no matter how strong the desire may be.’
I smile up at his pale, sad-looking face and decide to breathe in more roses in future.
And be nice next time I see mad old Mrs Hale.
I mean Mrs Hale.
nine
When I get back home, the (chocolate-flavoured) dust seems to have settled. Mum and dad are in a corner of the living room bent over a computer – my computer which seems to have been designated the back of the room next to the bookcase. It is obviously going to be on clear and total view to anyone who wishes to stand behind the person sitting at the - at my computer desk. The one that used to live with me in my beautiful shiny bedroom at Juniper Gardens and not here in t
his shitty sucky shit-hole of a toilet of a house and was mine – and mine only for my personal and very private use. To say I am furious doesn’t even begin to go a zillionth of the way.
‘Hey – watch what you’re saying about this place, will you?’ Pale boy sidles up beside me as I stand watching my parents plug and unplug the last of any kind of normality that was left in my life. How dare he tell me what I can and can’t bloody well do – don’t I get enough of that already?! My brain goes into anger overload and I see red.
‘I can’t watch what I think dumbass!’ I spit back, not even thinking that I said it out loud – for all to hear. He doesn’t say anything back. But he looks like he may laugh pretty soon. He doesn’t speak and both parents round on me in an instant.
‘What did you say?’ My mum’s face is the picture of anger. I don’t know what to say. Or to do. Or how to fudge my way out of this one at all. I turn to see if ghosty-boy has any ideas. Unsurprisingly he’s disappeared. Of course he has. What did I expect?
‘What did you just say, Madeline?’ My dad asks, joining my mum. Predictably even Davey coasts up to join them and now the three of them are standing in front of me in a line looking like they’re going to hang, draw and quarter me unless I can think of something fast.
‘You’re pre-menstrual.’ A voice whispers (helpfully?) in one ear. And even before I’ve had time to realise how personal his comment is and how potentially embarrassing and how dare he even suggest I could use such a feeble argument….I think again…Hmmm. Oh…kay. Hadn’t thought of that one. But it’s good. And they owe me, don’t they? After all this stress and torment and upheaval and unhappiness they’ve put me through and after all the finger-pointing and blame they’ve thrown at me, I think I’ve earned this, don’t you?
So I try it. ‘I’m pre-menstrual.’
Silence.
Then Mum sighs exasperatedly and rolls her eyes. ‘Madeline, you may well be,’ she says. ‘But I don’t think that gives you the right to go round saying things like…’ ‘You-big-dumb-arse!’ Davey chips in, waving his Thomas the Tank Engine slippers in the air. He throws them both at me and I flinch as I see mum also recoil at her baby’s words.
As I stand with Davey’s slippers at my feet, it’s my turn to frown. Actually, this is turning into a bit of a frown-fest. And although I can’t be certain, I do think they’re thinking they may have misheard what I originally said. Okay let’s pick up this ball and run with it and see how far I get…
‘I mean… it is isn’t it?’ I turn round, sticking my bum out as far as I can. To make it look especially believable I even slap each butt cheek to get my point across. ‘I’m so unhappy with it – I really think I have a big, dumb arse!’ I raise my eyebrows in mock unhappiness, lift up my arms in uselessness and wait.
I’m sure I can hear a small chuckle from somewhere behind me but I refuse to acknowledge it.
‘Now…Maddie,’ My mum looks more than a little confused but I think she’s coming round. ‘I think you need to get some rest, I really do.’ She frowns over at my rear and smiles stupidly. ‘And there’s nothing wrong with your big dumb arse! You’re the big dumb arse for thinking things like that – it’s just your hormones talking – you’ll be alright after a decent meal and some sleep. Come here.’
And then she hugs me.
Yes!
Two helpings of spaghetti Bolognese and a chocolate fromage frais later, I am sitting in my bedroom on my bed, staring at a wall which is crying out for a bookcase and/or a couple of shelves and trying to plan out how I can fit the rest of my furniture inside and still have room enough to turn round in. Dad’s left a load of stuff in the garage (in a block round the corner – the shame of it) which he says we can bring in once we’ve worked out where it should go. Of course my double bed’s gone. That’s been sold. Now I’ve got Davey’s old single bed - which used to be mine so I could actually say that I’ve got my ‘old bed’ back again - and he’s got some second hand divan thing that only just about fits into his even smaller bedroom. So I shouldn’t complain really. He’s in a broom cupboard and so relatively speaking I’m in luxury.
‘That’s a better way of looking at it,’ I hear a familiar voice say.
I lift my eyes and there, standing in the corner of my room is Ghostboy. He looks taller than he did earlier – and strangely enough he doesn’t look quite so pale, he looks more… solid I guess. I can even make out some colour in his face and he’s got this funky t-shirt on and a cool pair of jeans. Mmm. A boy in my room. Who’d have thought?!
He’s grinning and starts to walk over to the bed. As he sits down beside me and shifts his ‘weight’, I am drawn to his eyes. They’ve got this kind of ‘look’ about them. A sot of ‘knowing’ look. My Nan would have said he has hearing eyes, you know, like they’re taking in everything around them, and listening – really listening. He has hearing eyes. I smile at him as he sits propped up against the foot board of the bed. He doesn’t seem to have made much of a dent in the covers. I don’t suppose a ghost weighs much anyhow. It’s weird. I know he doesn’t exist but I also know he’s here. And I’m not scared.
Suddenly the door flies wide open and I leap to my feet, my hand instinctively clamping my mouth.
‘For…fu…f’flip’s sake!’ I scream as Davey stands there all innocently, waving his box of crayons and smiling at me.
‘Frighten Maddie?’ he says and I wonder if there’s a record for heartbeats per second because I think I just broke it.
‘No. I’m not frightened, Davey, now can you go away please?’ I try to sound as nice and calm as I can.
‘S’that?’ he says, pointing straight at my Ghost. Then I realise that, of course, Davey’s got Amber’s so-called Gift too. He’s seen him before. He was in here this morning – the figure that walked through the wall.
‘What’s what?’ I try for time, bending down to his height and smiling at him like he’s a fool.
‘That?’ he says again, still pointing. Then he drops his pointing finger and shrugs. ‘Ah.. ‘s gone now.’
I turn back to the end of my bed and see that he’s right. He has gone. Good. I don’t have to fudge anymore.
‘Play with me?’ Davey says - more of an order than a request.
My heart sinks.
‘Play with Daddy,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not feeling well.’
‘Daddy’s doing washing,’ he says. Literally translated probably means Daddy’s having a sneaky smoke again.
‘Haven’t you got a book you can colour?’ I suggest.
Davey nods, turns and disappears. Not quite as brilliantly as Ghostboy but he leaves my room for which I’m very pleased.
I turn back to the foot of my bed and watch.
Then I wait.
And wait a bit more.
But nothing materialises.
Not that I want it to, you understand. I just thought that… oh well. Whatever. I’ve got other things I can be getting on with. I’m not just going to sit about here all night waiting for a stupid ghost to appear. There’s stuff I need to sort out anyway. There’re boxes with my name on it in the corner of the room and I need to get them unpacked and sorted out. It will take my mind off of things. I need to make a list. Probably.
I scramble over to my bedside table and take out my diary and pull the pencil out from the spine. Of course when I say ‘Diary’ I don’t mean those stupid girlie ones where I write about everything that’s happened during every second of every day and then dissect it with a pair of metaphorical tweezers until I find hidden meanings behind every single word spoken between me and every single person I speak to every day, especially at school and especially during double History and English. Of course not. I’m not frilly and pink and fluffy and lacy. That’s Amber’s job. She does enough analysing of situations and conversations for the both of us. Most of the time I just sit back and let it blow over me like a warm breeze. It can be quite soothing at times. At others, though, I have to admit, she can get silly. Especially when she�
��s going off on one of her rants. Like this afternoon for instance.
I mean, who in their right mind would believe that they have Second Sight. Is it second? Oh well then, a Sixth Sense. Who? Who but Amber, that’s who. She’s always saying dumb things like that. Her Great Aunt was a psychic! Where’d she get that idea from? And that thing about ghosts stuck in limbo trying to find their way into the Light – I know where she got that one from – ‘Poltergeist’. I’ve seen that one a few times. And okay, yes, it did spook me a bit the first time – especially as it’s supposed to be based on a true story. Do you think it really was, or did they make up a load of stuff – make small events bigger and better for the sake of the film? I don’t know.