‘There you go,’ said Mum, heading back upstairs. ‘That’ll be Em’s ghost.’
At school, Lyd and Cass agreed to help me follow up on Mum’s story. I was trembling with excitement: it was possible that my ghost had haunted here before! It was almost too much! I was very excited about going to see Mr Ludovico.
But how do you find out about a dead girl from the 1950s?
The internet was useless. Strange, how useless it is sometimes. And it gets so much acclaim.
Anyway, Cass suggested we try looking through old yearbooks. The librarian hunted them down for us.
It was genuine research! The three of us gathered around a table covered in piles of books, trying not to spend too much time saying ‘ohhh’ at the pictures of sweet historical people.
And then Lydia found it.
A two-page spread in a 1952 yearbook with the heading: A TRIBUTE TO OUR DARLING SANDY. There was a blurred photo of a girl with a cute smile, a long fringe, a ponytail and downcast eyes.
Cass started reading it out, and it was all about how much everyone adored Sandy, and how she herself adored vanilla ice cream and field hockey. (Hmm—selfish—she should have adored the others back.) And what a tragedy it was, the tragic accident in which she tragically fell from a tragically dangerous window and tragically died. (The editor of that yearbook was no Bindy Mackenzie.)
I had a sudden thought: This was a two-page spread about a girl who died—and Bindy was doing a two-page spread about the Art Rooms when the ghost got itself into a photograph!!!! Coincidence? Surely not! (And even if it was a coincidence, well, what is a coincidence if not a sign of something awry? That’s what my dad always says and it kind of makes sense.)
I felt chilled to the apple of my core.
And because I was busy chilling, I did not register at first that Cass had read out the girl’s name:
Sandra Wilkinson.
‘I’ve heard that name before,’ Lyd said.
And so had I.
It was the name in the old book I had found.
Presented to Sandra Wilkinson
for Excellence in Penmanship, 1952
When I said this to Lyd and Cass—when I got the book from my locker and showed them—their faces changed.
Years ago, a girl had fallen and died. This year, her book had appeared in a corridor.
For the first time, they believed in the ghost.
24.
It was 3.30 pm on Thursday afternoon.
My mother had promised to personally deliver the signed application form the next morning. All I had to do was get it.
I knocked on Mr Ludovico’s office door.
I had a manila folder in my hands. It was labelled, ‘The Ghost of Ashbury High—Evidence.’ Inside was: the photograph; twelve pages of notes recording ghostly encounters; and copies of the relevant pages from the old yearbook.
I smiled at Mr Ludovico, sat down opposite him, and placed the file on his desk.
He glanced at it then back down at his work. He continued scribbling.
‘Proof that the ghost exists,’ I said, in case the word ‘evidence’ wasn’t clear.
Mr Ludovico kept writing.
‘In the last few weeks,’ he said, still writing, ‘my school has been overrun with hysteria about your ghost. Students are refusing to enter the Art Rooms. Teachers can’t get their classes to concentrate.’ Now he looked up at me. ‘You have infected my entire student body with your childishness.’
He opened a drawer and took out my application form.
‘There is no ghost,’ he said firmly, ‘and yet,’—here, he laughed to himself—‘if I didn’t sign this form, your parents would be in my office in an instant. Taking some kind of legal action, no doubt. Not letting me get away with it! Protecting their precious little girl!’
He got out a pen, and scribbled his name on the blank line.
‘I always intended to sign it,’ he said, handing it over to me with another laugh. ‘Just thought I might try to teach you something about the real world first. Help you to grow up a little.’ He flicked the manila folder across the desk. ‘But it looks like you’re a lost cause.’
And he returned to his notes.
25.
The funny thing is that I’d gone into Mr Ludovico’s office expecting to walk out in tears. If he refused to sign the form, I thought, they would be tears of disappointment. If he signed the form, they would be tears of joy.
I did not walk out of his office in tears. I went straight to the bathrooms, locked the door, kept the form tightly folded in my pocket, and cried harder than I have in years.
26.
There was a party at Lyd’s place that night.
By then, Lyd and Cass had retrieved their faces. I mean, they had stopped believing in my ghost. A short-lived belief, no?
It was a trick, they said. Someone must have found Sandra’s book and thought it would be funny to leave it lying around to see if we’d track down the story of her death and get spooked.
‘Yeah, probably,’ I agreed.
Lyd and Cass looked surprised, and a little disappointed.
I did not tell them what had happened with Mr Ludovico. I just said he’d signed the form (which was true), and they were happy.
There was a bunch of people in Lyd’s living room including Lyd, Cass, Seb, Astrid, Amelia and Riley. (Not Toby though. He’d stopped coming to parties. His absence was a small black hole in our lives, but of course, there’s no such thing.)
So, it was around ten and we were lying around on the couches, eating nachos. Everyone was talking about the ghost, and about Sandra Wilkinson, and about whether the ghost was Sandra.
Imagine falling out of a window and dying, people were saying. How sad! But also how stupid.
That kind of thing.
Some people agreed with Lyd and Cass—that it must be a hoax.
But others were convinced of the ghostly connection.
‘It’s so obvious,’ Astrid said. ‘She died by falling out of a window?! Hello? How much more suss do you guys need? And now she’s trying to tell us she was murdered and we’re not going to hear her cries for help?’
‘There isn’t a ghost,’ I said.
Astrid ignored me. She said she thought we should have a seance. (Sometimes Astrid is very ‘hands-on’, as my mother would say. She’s a ‘go-getter’, as my father would say.)
We should sneak into the Art Rooms around midnight one day, she said, and bring a ouija board, and call on Sandra.
‘We’ll ask who pushed her out the window, get that person put away if they’re still even alive, which, who knows, they might be. And then poor Sandra can be at peace. It’s so, like, effin simple,’ Astrid said.
Then Seb said, surprisingly, ‘Let’s go now.’
People turned to him with slow why not? expressions building on their faces.
I didn’t think it was a good idea. ‘No,’ I said. ‘How could we even get in?’
Again Lyd and Cass looked at me with surprise. (We can get in anywhere.) (Cass has a talent with locks.)
So we tumbled into cars.
I was pleased to see that Lyd got into Seb’s car and off we went.
27.
And now, here, in the final twist of this tale—a twist of epic proportions—on the very day that I lost all belief in the ghost—and in myself—well, the most terrifying event of them all took place.
You will be paralysed with fear.
I suggest that you run to the bathroom now, before the paralysis sets in.
The hair will stand up on the back of your neck!
(But if you have hair on the back of your neck you should get dialysis. Is that the right word? Maybe not. Remove it anyway.)
Listen! Come closer! Closer!
Okay, not so close. Have a little respect for my personal space.
Close your eyes, picture a ghostly, shimmering effect, and then? Startle yourself with an image of me and my friends, filing into the Art Rooms auditorium late at n
ight!
(We drifted straight there as it’s where we usually go for rehearsals.)
At first there were a lot of joke-like calls for Sandra, Sandy, Santa, Willski and other terms of disrespect. Nobody had any candles to light, and not a ouija board in sight, so conversation and people scattered around the room. Some people leaned against the window ledges, breathing mist onto the glass. Others climbed over rows of seats, or searched for lost treasure underneath the seats.
I overheard Seb say he was going to his car to get something.
Seb left the room.
I saw Lydia, across the room, follow him with her eyes. I felt my hope grow bright. I am a very intuitive girl and that moment, as I stood and watched Lyd’s face, well, it became clear to me that she wanted Seb back. I also saw that she had decided to tell him this. (Do not doubt me. This is what I saw.)
I was feeling quietly pleased about this, and lost in my own thoughts, when I realised that Astrid was beside me.
I was surprised. It’s uncommon to stand beside Astrid and not know she’s there.
She breathed in slowly. It was clear she wanted to say something. I thought maybe she had another boy to talk about.
I was right.
She did.
I just didn’t know it would be this boy . . .
‘Em,’ she said in a very low voice. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’
Of course. I love secrets.
‘I just, kind of like, can’t stand keeping this a secret any more,’ she said, and then: ‘Well, you know, Seb? He and I are together. We hooked up at a party a while ago, and we’re kind of like secretly together now.’
[I leave you space to recover.]
[Maybe a bit more.]
I wished that I had some space like that of my own, actually, but Astrid was standing very close.
‘You probably guessed already,’ she added.
Well. As I said a moment ago, I am a very intuitive girl, but no, I had not guessed.
The idea of Astrid and Seb together was as distant from my mind—as unrealistic—as a moon that revolves around a nonexistent black hole.
It took all my strength of character not to take her by the shoulders, shake her like a ragdoll and scream, ‘ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!!’
‘Wow,’ I said instead. ‘Um . . .’
Which is unlike me. I usually have a lot to say.
‘But I can’t seem to get him to commit,’ she murmured, in a sighing breeze of a voice. ‘And it’s really ripping my heart apart.’ Then she looked around her.
‘He’s gone to his car, hasn’t he?’ she said. ‘You know what? I’m going to go find him now.’
Her determined, go-getter look appeared, and she left the room.
I stood in a state of horror.
I watched the door close behind her.
I continued staring at the door.
I was vaguely aware of Riley approaching the same door, opening it and leaving the room.
Still, I could not move my eyes. The sight of Astrid leaving to find Seb—to hook up with Seb—that image was still imprinted on the door. As if the door was now haunted by Astrid and her determined hair. It was too much for me. I considered hyperventilating.
But I was transfixed by the door.
Someone else approached, opened it and left.
It was Lydia.
I stood in my trance, still thinking: Astrid and Seb—
And then a cascade of horror crashed upon me:
I just saw Lydia leave the room—I know exactly why she did—she is going to track down Seb—she plans to tell him she wants him back—
She is going to find Seb with Astrid.
There was nothing I could do.
I screamed.
It was my biggest, most powerful and magnificent scream, and I apologise to all those whose eardrums I destroyed.
The fact is, there was nothing else to do.
I had to stop Lydia somehow.
The scream had to reach her wherever she was, and divert her from her anguished destiny.
Of course, it was not necessarily the best plan, because it meant that people came rushing to my side, wanting to know what had happened, looking around in horror and picking me up in protective bear hugs. I was trapped.
I could only hope that my scream had summonsed Lydia back, or at least stopped her in her tracks, because I couldn’t run after her now.
I needed an explanation for my scream. Luckily, I can be inventive at times, so I said that I had just seen a girl in a white tennis dress crossing the stage of the auditorium. I said I had seen her jump, as if to hit a ball, and then she had faded away.
Now, maybe I was strangely convincing, or maybe it was the fact that it was late and dark, or maybe the ghost of my powerful scream was still sounding in everybody’s ears—I don’t know what it was . . . but everyone believed me.
There was a moment of complete, blinking silence as everybody turned to the stage and stared.
They were all seeing it—my imaginary ghost in a tennis dress—
And then it happened.
The building screamed right back at me.
I cannot explain it any other way.
It was the most anguished, terrible, furious shrieking sound you have ever heard—and it was coming from just down the hall.
There was something human in its emotional depth but it was not human.
There is no doubt—it was a ghost.
As one, we ran from the auditorium and out into the carpark. We ran—we pounded—away from that place of evil.
But as we ran, even in my horror, I felt a flicker of hope. Because Mr Ludovico was wrong—there was a ghost in that building. And if he was wrong about that, then maybe he was wrong about me?
And here, I am sorry to say, my story ends.
We were safe—we all got home that night.
The next day was the last day of term, and we avoided the Art Rooms (including the exhibition) if we could, and I avoided Mr Ludovico’s eyes. We did not say a word about the ghost. Partly because we couldn’t admit to breaking into the Art Rooms, of course, but it also felt impossible to talk about. As if the anguish and anger of that scream was too much to contain in simple words.
Then it was holidays. Now I am writing this. And tomorrow Term 3 will begin.
I cannot promise that I will stay safe. I suppose, if you are reading this I was safe for long enough to hand it in. That is a relief.
I do not know for certain whether the ghost is Sandra Wilkinson—that sweet girl who fell from the window—but I am now certain that there is a ghost.
Maybe Sandra was a gentle ghost, scattering memories like books, feathers and handkerchiefs as she wandered the building. Maybe my scream has awoken something darker within her? Or awoken another ghost? Her murderer, perhaps?
Come closer—for I am whispering now:
I have awoken an angry ghost.
4.
Riley T Smith
THE STORY OF TERM 2 AS A GHOST STORY
In Term 2, this happens:
Three male residents of a local assisted-living facility for the mentally ill are out on a therapeutic exercise. One hacks another to pieces with an axe and heads home.
Blood and brain dripping from the axe. The resident is hungry. Puts the axe in the corner, asks for potatoes.
In Term 2, also, this happens:
A girl across the table says something like, ‘Colder than the Danish Alps!’
This is maybe the first day of the term. In a café, on the way to private school.
The girl across the table is named Astrid.
Funny thing is, the first time I saw Astrid she was hot. Clothes like clingwrap, eyes like lime zest.
There are no alps in Denmark. No mountains, no hills, no slopes, not even any angles. Just Danish children, sleds beneath their arms, looking sad.
The café is the Blue Danish. So that’s what’s happened—that word ‘Danish’, it edged its way sideways into Astrid’s brain.
The human brain is folded. Not so much folded. More like a towel that you’ve scrunched up to press into your backpack. If you pulled out your brain, shook it hard. If you spread it out to dry in the hot sun. It would be bigger than you realise. Look at me. I’m holding out my arms. I’m showing you the size of your brain.
That girl across the table named Astrid. I don’t know that her brain is folded up.
Amelia beside me in the rain.
This is also in Term 2. A week or so after the café.
It’s raining, but it’s not. The sky, trees, path, road, are slick and shocked with just-rain, edgy, strained with almost-rain — but this is the moment in between. We’re walking in the now.
Bright and suspenseful, the now.
We’re walking to her place. We’ll talk and while we talk she’ll stroke her long, fine hand along my inner thigh. We’ll take that stroking pace a while, the swimming, stroking pace. Rain will stroke the window. The words, our hands, the words, our hands, our legs entwine, our bodies. A braiding until words dissolve, and then I’ll take things faster.
She’ll cover her face with her hands.
Another day, early in Term 2: I’m waiting to pick something up from the office of our private school.
There’s a leather couch to wait on, studded with bronzed gold. Carpet quiet. Behind the desk, a woman with gold loops in her ears. Her fingers softly, softly on computer keys. A swoop of white camellias in a vase.
A flat-panel wall-mounted screen twists and turns discreetly between images of upcoming events: the Ashbury-Brookfield Art Exhibition; the athletics carnival.
Antique pieces whisper. Original artwork on the walls.
Two women float from behind glass and wood.
‘I’ve been burned a couple of times before, that’s all,’ murmurs one.
‘Mmm.’
‘Because the thing is,’ says the first, ‘people don’t think. They just forward things. Emails are so easy to forward.’
On the polished wood of the table before me, The Illustrated History of Ashbury High, two copies of the Financial Review, and the Ashbury Collected Recipes.
Smoked trout, strawberries, lemon meringue pie.
I laugh to myself, but silently.
Dreaming of Amelia Page 20