Top-Secret Grandad and Me

by David MacPhail

  “Yup, right there,” said Davie.

  “You still can’t see it?” I said to Grandad.

  Davie traced his finger along the screen in a tiny curve.

  “Yes, of course I can!” Only now did Grandad see it. Or rather – them.

  A pair of feet, wearing brown brogues, jutting out the end of the carpet.

  “Yup, we’ve got a corpse,” I said.

  Chapter 8

  The Unwanted Guest

  We sat gazing in shock at the school’s CCTV screen as the van drew away.

  “I am back one hour,” said Grandad. “First I find that my son is missing and now someone is dead. What is the world coming to?”

  Davie’s face was chalk white. “What if it’s contagious?”

  “We’d better phone the police,” I said.

  Davie shook his head. “Not you, son, I’ll do it.”

  “He is right Jayesh,” said Grandad. “Let an adult do it.”

  I nodded, thinking about what that DI Graves said to me. She made it pretty clear she didn’t want to hear from my family again.

  “Well,” Davie looked at his watch, “after I’ve finished shifting that grand piano, I’ll phone from the school office.”

  I was fine with that. I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. I could prove that my mum was right, but the police would never know the evidence had come from me.

  Davie flapped his hands. “Now, you skidaddle! You’re filling up my office with germs.”

  “Ha!” said Grandad. “If only he knew there was a ghost in here as well.”

  “You can take the credit for it, Davie,” I said as we pushed the door open. “Don’t mention I was here.”

  “Are you going to tell your mother?” asked Grandad as we made our way back to the library.

  “No, let her find out from the police.” One thing I’d noticed from reading detective stories was that the best detectives were invisible. No one paid them any attention. No one accounted for them. And quite often nobody knew it was them who was sniffing around, about to crack the case. Most importantly, the person who had committed the crime never knew.

  “Jayesh, the boy detective,” chuckled Grandad.

  I shrugged, but it was kind of true. I was a detective. I had to be. How else was I going to track down my Dad?

  ***

  When we got back to the library Mum and Granny were just finishing their cups of tea.

  “Where have you been?” croaked Granny.

  I shrugged. “Toilet.”

  The four of us – me, Mum, Granny and the ghost of my dead grandad – got into the campervan. Grandad floated into the back with me. Mum drove this time. Unfortunately a car journey with her was no less relaxing than a car journey with Granny. She spent half of it practising her ‘mindfulness’ deep-breathing exercises and the other half snarling at other drivers. A man in a black taxi cut her up at a junction. As she opened her mouth and shouted, all her floaty mindfulness melted away and out came the rabid Glaswegian underneath. “What do you think you’re doing, you bleeping muppet!?” Although she didn’t really say ‘bleeping’.

  Then Granny made us stop by B&Q so she could buy a new hammer drill. She was so eager she unboxed it before we even got through the checkout. Her eyes lit up with delight and her tongue poked out the side of her mouth as she gazed it over.

  Grandad clasped his hands together and stared at her wistfully. “Ah, I love it when she gets that determined look.”

  She walked out with it slung over her shoulder like a heavy machine gun. With her hood up, she looked like a gangland assassin. I’ve never seen people scatter so fast.

  ***

  Back home at last, Mum set about making dinner. Granny couldn’t wait to put her drill to use. She started drilling holes in the wall before she’d even taken her coat off. As for me, I went to the loo, or at least I tried to, but Grandad followed me in.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  He glanced around as if he didn’t quite know what I was bothered about. “Haunting you?” he said.

  “I’m going to the toilet.”

  He stared at me for a second, as if he’d forgotten that going to the toilet was a private thing. Then he nodded and turned away.

  Finally we sat down to dinner. It had been a long day, and only now did I realise how hungry I was.

  “What’s for tea?” asked Grandad, rubbing his hands.

  “What do you care? You can’t eat,” I replied.

  “WHIT?” said Granny.

  “Oh, I forgot.” Grandad looked sadly down at his see-through stomach.

  Mum whipped her latest culinary creation out of the oven. “Ta-daaaa!” She hoofed the oven door shut behind her. “Seaweed and quinoa pie.”

  To say I was disappointed was an understatement. It looked and smelt like something a mermaid had vomited onto the rocks.

  “It’s organic,” she declared, as if that was an excuse.

  Grandad sighed and shook his head. “Hayyy! I am so sorry, boy.” It was like he was telling me someone had died. “To think of all the lovely food your father and I used to cook for you.”

  But all was not lost. Granny snuck her hand under the table and pulled out a chip. Somehow, she’d managed to sneak out the flat and down to Luigi’s to pick up a fish supper.

  She winked at me and passed me a chip.

  Grandad tried to snatch one too, but he passed right through it. “Ach!” he wailed. “I hate being a ghost.”

  ***

  All evening, I kept waiting for the phone to go, or the doorbell to ring, and for those two grumpy police officers to appear looking sheepish and apologetic, but they never did.

  “Maybe they’ll call your mum in for questioning tomorrow,” said Grandad.

  This was serious business. Someone had died at our school – probably been murdered. Would the police really just leave it until tomorrow? The more time passed, the more it bothered me.

  And Grandad bothered me too. Surely, if seeing him was down to some weird food poisoning, the effects would have worn off by now. But as the night drew on he was still there, hogging the sofa and shouting at the television.

  Just supposing, I thought, he really was my grandad returned from the grave. Did I really want him to go away?

  “Why?” I asked him, as I was in my room getting ready for bed. “Why are you here?”

  “I don’t really know, Jayesh. Maybe there is no reason. Can you not just accept that your old grandfather is back?”

  I sighed. “I give up. I’m going to bed.” I turned down my bed covers.

  “And what am I supposed to do while you are asleep?” he asked indignantly.

  “I don’t know. Can’t you go and haunt someone else?”

  “I am serious. Ghosts cannot sleep. I also cannot pick things up or touch anything. Which means I cannot flick through a magazine or a book, and I cannot change the channels on the television.”

  I groaned. “I don’t suppose I’m ever going to get any sleep with you mooching about.” I took him back into the lounge. Mum and Granny had already gone to bed. I stuck the TV on for him. “There you go.”

  “Wait, what is this?” It was some home DIY show, presented by a pair of grinning men wearing utility belts.

  “It’s the only thing on,” I said. “Unless you want to watch a programme about badgers?”

  “No, no, that won’t do. There must be something else to watch. What about Miami Vice? Or The Bill, do you still get that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Never heard of it.”

  “It was the best TV programme ever made. This is rubbish.”

  “I’m sorry, this really is the best thing on.” I made to go, but he called me back.

  “Wait, wait, wait. It’s so quiet, I can’t hear it. Put the subtitles on for me, will you?”

  I groaned, and snatched the remote. I couldn’t quite believe I was putting on subtitles for my hard-of-hearing ghost grandad. “Right, I’m off, goodnight.”
>
  I switched the light out. Even though he was my grandad, I half-hoped that by tomorrow he’d be gone.

  ***

  He wasn’t.

  In fact, I came into the living room to find him inspecting our artex ceiling. “Who did you get to do the roof, boy? It is a disgrace. Cowboy builders, I bet.” He’d been watching back-to-back DIY shows all night and now all of a sudden he was an expert.

  Just then, Mum came hurtling into the room, holding her phone. “Oh, Jay, Jay! Did you hear what happened to Big Davie?”

  That hit me like a brick wall. Alarm bells rang and hairs stood on the back of my neck. “What?”

  “Big Davie, the caretaker from the school.”

  I don’t know whether it was a good guess, or whether seeing ghosts had given me the power of second sight, but I couldn’t help blurting out, “He’s dead.”

  And I was right.

  Chapter 9

  The Squashed Jannie

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, before the shock had even set in. “He was squashed to death by a grand piano.” My stomach churned at the thought.

  Mum gave me a funny look. “How did you know?”

  “Yes,” said Grandad. “How did you know?”

  I shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  Davie had said he was on his way to shift the piano before going to the office to call the police, so it was the first thing that entered my mind. I could just imagine it: a giant crane winching the grand piano out of the window, him standing underneath motioning it forward, and…

  Then another thought struck me. What if someone found out he knew something? What if that someone didn’t want the police to know? What if – SNAP – someone with the means and the motive to cause an accident sent the piano crashing down on top of him? Maybe I had a suspicious mind. Or maybe I was onto something. “Poor Davie,” I said.

  I was so stunned I could have fallen over, except I was already sitting down. Mum rushed towards me, tears in her eyes, and wrapped her arms around me. Unfortunately, she had to go through Grandad on the way.

  “OUCH!” he cried.

  “I’ll light a candle for him in my shrine of remembrance,” she said. This might sound quite touching, but bear in mind her ‘shrine of remembrance’ was the top of the toilet cistern.

  Granny wandered in, dressed in a kind of brown tunic, which was covered in dust and plaster. I soon realised it was her old Brownies uniform. It fit her again after all these years. No wonder; she seemed to be shrinking. She was muttering under her breath, “A pian-a! A pian-a! People should be more careful!”

  “That’s one missing son and TWO people dead, and I’ve not even been here twenty-four hours,” said Grandad, as Mum wandered out of the living room. “At least this one was an accident.”

  “Accident? ACCIDENT?” I said.

  “You think it was not an accident?” Grandad echoed. “PAH!” spat Granny, wielding her new hammer drill like a heavy machine gun. “Accidents! Health and safety is for wimps!” She stormed out like a character from a war film, charging straight through Grandad in the process.

  “Ow-eeeee!”

  I told Grandad about my theory: that if someone found out what Davie knew, they might have wanted to stop him telling the police. Grandad rubbed his non-existent chin, while I grabbed my schoolbag. “I’m going to check it out.”

  I passed Mum and Granny on the way out the door. They were both in the loo. Mum was kneeling in front of the shrine on top of the toilet, raising her hands in the air, shaking them about and chanting. Granny, meanwhile, was struggling to control a giant spurt from one of the taps.

  “A leak! I’ve got a leak!”

  “Have a nice day!” I grabbed my parka and left the chaos behind me.

  “Hey!” Grandad called out, as I vaulted down the stairs and into the street. “Hey! Wait! Wait on me!”

  I stopped. “Grandad, I’m going to school.”

  “You said you were going to check out what happened to your jannie. I want to come too,” he said.

  “You can’t come to school with me.”

  “Why not?”

  I argued with him for a while, but it was no use. He was determined to come. Besides, the people at the bus stop were starting to give me weird looks.

  “Does this mean you go everywhere with me now?” I asked as I hurried along.

  “Well, I am haunting you, you know,” he replied. “Now slow down a bit. I am not as fit as I once was.”

  “You’re not even remotely fit,” I said. “You’re dead!”

  “Oh, rub it in, why don’t you?” He patted his breast pocket, which was empty, not to mention being transparent, and sighed. “Wish I had my sunglasses.”

  Grandad acted very strangely as we were walking up the street. He kept shifting from my left side to my right, then back again, and shielding his eyes, muttering “Haay! Haaaayy!” I couldn’t work out what he was doing. I thought he was having some kind of spectral breakdown. But I was more concerned with getting to school in good time, so that I could snoop around. Unfortunately, Grandad’s ghost was barely faster now than when he was alive and geriatric.

  “Surely a ghost can move quicker than that?” I said.

  “Do not disrespect me, boy!” he replied. “I am just getting used to floating, that is all.”

  So, by the time we got to school the bell was about to go. Which meant I had barely enough time to check anything out. All I could do was pay a quick visit to the scene of the ‘accident’.

  The car park behind the music department was sealed off. An area was surrounded by tape and a blue police tent had been set up around the remains of the grand piano. The crane was still there.

  “To think he was worried about germs,” said Grandad.

  The bell rang, but I could barely think about my lessons. I had bigger things on my mind, like who was the killer in my school?

  Chapter 10

  The Invisible Sidekick

  “I’ve got to get to class,” I told Grandad.

  “I will come with you,” he said.

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I sighed. I always imagined being haunted would be quite scary, or at least interesting, but actually I was finding it really annoying. “Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

  He looked down at himself and opened out his arms. “As it happens, no.”

  “Why don’t you go home?” I said. “Have a nice sit down on the settee and wait for me to come back from school.”

  “There is nothing to do at home except yell at your granny, and she cannot even hear me.”

  “Go for a walk, then,” I said. “Oh, sorry, I mean a float. You could do with the practice.”

  He looked offended, and then a bit frightened. “On my own? It is scary out there.”

  “You’re a flippin’ ghost, Grandad. What have you got to be scared of?”

  “Other ghosts,” he replied. “And some of them are real belters. They are everywhere. On the streets, peering out of windows. And they look how they did when they died, so some have big gashes in their heads, some have limbs hanging off. You can’t see them, but I can.”

  Only now did I remember the strange way he’d been acting on the way to school. Now I realised, he was shying away from his fellow spooks.

  “So,” I summarised, “the main reason you want to follow me around is you’re scared of ghosts, even though you’re one yourself?”

  “That is about the long and the short of it,” he replied. “So let us go to class.”

  In spite of my best efforts, Grandad trailed after me into my classroom. I sat down at my desk, while Grandad propped himself up against the doorframe watching the teacher, Mrs Murray.

  “We’re going to start with geography,” she said. She yanked down a large world map from the blackboard, then stuck her pointer at South America. “Now, Argentina…”

  Grandad gave a huge theatrical yawn. “Ugh… geography. Yawnamundo.”

  I glared
at him. “Shhh!” This got me funny looks, not only from my classmates, but also from Mrs Murray. I had to think fast to cover my tracks. “Shhh… shhh… shhilver. Eh, the name Argentina comes from the Latin word for silver: argentum.”

  “Very good, Jayesh,” said the teacher.

  Grandad grinned and pointed his two forefingers at me. “NIIICE!”

  “Swot!” sniped Anton, the boy who sat in front of me and was probably my worst enemy in the world – apart from my Mum’s cooking.

  I sunk my head into my hands. The school day was going to be torture.

  ***

  At breaktime, I decided to hang out with Pyotr. He was one of my best pals. At least, I think he was. Pyotr didn’t talk much. Mainly because he had only just moved here from Poland and was still learning English. We hung out a lot, usually watching Epic Fail videos on YouTube. He also had this crazy, infectious laugh, like a braying donkey, but not quite as annoying as an actual braying donkey might be.

  The great thing about hanging out with Pyotr was that it meant I could speak to Grandad. Pyotr couldn’t understand what I was saying, so he had no idea I was talking to a ghost. Meanwhile everyone else thought I was just talking to Pyotr, so it didn’t look like I’d lost my mind and was talking to someone who wasn’t there.

  We leant over Pyotr’s tablet, watching videos, with Grandad at my shoulder.

  “We need to check out the jannie’s office,” I said to Grandad out the side of my mouth.

  “What for?” he asked.

  “The CCTV recording. That’s our evidence. We need it.”

  Pyotr helpfully nodded along, until some kid on YouTube fell off a rope swing and plunged into a river, at which point he erupted into one of his crazy laughs.

  Mwa-hawhaw-heehe!!

  I joined in, just for appearances’ sake, then I turned back to Grandad. “Not now, though. We’ll go at lunchtime.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Grandad. “Why not now?”

  “Because the jannie’s office will be quiet at lunchtime.” I’d heard there was a stand-in janitor. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know when he was likely not to be there. But I did know that lunch was peak time for cleaning up vomit, breaking up fights and responding to hoax fire alarms.