by Sant, Sharon
He’s got his arms folded tight around her neck, trying to suck her face off by the looks of things. I get up right close to them and try to be menacing, or at least give them a cold shiver that they can’t quite explain, but… nothing. I step back and watch as they mash and sigh, wishing I could throw something. Eventually, he lets her breathe. She throws her hair back and bats her lashes at him.
‘The funeral was the worst,’ he says quietly, glancing at her with that shifty look that I’ve seen him use on girls before. He knows that she’s soaking up every line and he’s loving it. Before, I would have thought it was funny. But this is Ingrid… my Ingrid.
‘It was a horrible day,’ she says. ‘I cried for ages and my face was a right mess.’
‘You still looked amazing,’ he says.
She smiles and her face just lights up. Score one to Matt.
‘Do you miss him?’ she asks.
He nods, all serious. ‘It’s a weird thing, losing your best friend. It makes you feel sort of… disconnected. You realise that life is short and you have to grab every precious moment.’
‘Like this one?’ she says, walking her fingers up his arm.
He pulls her closer. ‘Like this one…’ He doesn’t look very disconnected as he tries to eat her tonsils again.
‘You shit!’ I snarl. ‘I can’t believe you’d use my death to pull Ingrid!’
‘I had no idea of what you’d gone through,’ she says to Matt in a voice that sounds like melted chocolate. ‘I feel like I want to make it all better for you.’
‘You are,’ he says as he snogs her again and his hand slips under her shirt to find her bra strap. She grabs it and moves it back to her waist but she doesn’t seem too worried about where his other hand is going.
If I had anything in my stomach I’d throw up over the pair of them. I’m totally stalking him from now on and if there are any ghost powers I will learn to use them on him.
I think about watching them some more but then realise that it’s actually a bit creepy. The rules are different now, I suppose, but I don’t really know what they are anymore. Just suppose I followed Ingrid home now and watched her take a shower, would that be wrong? After all, she wouldn’t have a clue I was there and it’s not like I could jump on her, so would it matter? But now I think about it, I realise that those are exactly the reasons why there’s no point in following her home. I start to wonder about Bethany Willis again. If she can see me and hear me, can she touch me too? It would be nice, to feel someone’s skin on mine again. Not in a pervy way… definitely not with Bethany Willis anyway, but some contact with someone would help to fight this feeling that everything that once made me is slowly drifting apart.
The school bell rings and Ingrid jumps away from Matt.
‘We should go in,’ she says, tucking her blouse back into her skirt.
‘Meet me later?’ he asks.
She chews on her lip and looks at him thoughtfully, her eyes wide. Oh God, she looks so good when she does that it almost kills me again.
‘Don’t go!’ I shout. I know she can’t hear me but I can’t help it.
‘Ok,’ she says finally. ‘What time?’
‘Are you completely stupid?’ I stamp my foot at her.
As I do this, she looks in my direction. My heart skips. She’s heard me? Is that all it takes, for me to really need something to make it happen? But her eyes are blank and they’re not seeing me at all. My stomach lurches at the realisation.
‘About seven?’ he says. ‘I’ll call for you.’
‘Where are we going?’ she says as she swings her bag onto her shoulder.
Matt shrugs. ‘I’ll think of somewhere,’ he grins.
They both go in separate directions for their next lesson and I just stand there in the rain on my own.
School is empty now. In a way, it feels dead too with none of the kids here, like the blood that moves it has drained away. I’m sitting at my old desk thinking about Ingrid and Matt. Maybe sitting isn’t the right word. My form is sort of folded as if I’m sitting but I don’t think I’m actually on the chair, rather, around it. The classroom is in darkness now already, even though it’s only just after five. Through the huge window I can see the endless stream of blurred headlights on the main road that runs past the village as people make their way back from work. Most of the people on that road don’t live in our village, they just drive on past to places that are far more exciting. I suppose they’ll be home soon in their warm, orange living rooms with steaming mugs of tea and telly. They’ll be able to hug and laugh and argue and eat beans on toast and won’t give any of it a second thought. Right now, Matt’s mum will be rushing about for him, making him something nice for tea, and he’ll sit there eating it, thinking about what he’s going to do with Ingrid later, like it’s really ok. I still can’t believe he’d do that to me; I thought we were best mates.
Suddenly, a shadow moves across the window. Quick and quiet like a wraith. I’m thinking maybe the caretaker, but even though I only saw it for a second, it seemed too small and thin to be Mr Allen. I get up and go to look out of the window. It looks like a kid – I can’t see who but they have a short jacket showing their skinny legs and a too-big rucksack slung across a shoulder. Still hanging around school after five? No after-school clubs here; a rural school is too badly staffed for that sort of torture so the kids go home at three. That makes the person still wandering around a saddo or a ghost. I’m going with saddo. I can’t pop from place to place like ghosts do on the telly, but I can push myself through the wall and I do.
As the figure passes under a security lamp I can see that the rucksack has flowers on it so I must be following a girl. I might be dead, but why change the habit of a lifetime? Her breath unfurls in a white plume as her figure is briefly lit. She has the tiniest shoulders and an odd, awkward stride, like her boots don’t fit properly. There’s only one set of footsteps clicking on the concrete path and the distorted whoosh of the traffic from the road in the distance, otherwise, there’s cold silence.
Round by the back of the kitchens there are huge metal bins next to the fence. Once, Matt and Paulie chucked a year seven in one of them. We couldn’t stop laughing because every time the kid tried to get out, he just slid right back down again. The girl ducks behind one of them and I follow to see there’s a gap in the wire. She squeezes through it and onto the playing fields.
I keep a good distance but I carry on following. I’m not sure why, but it suddenly feels like I’m intruding on her privacy. She’s walking slowly. She either doesn’t really know where to go, or she does, and really doesn’t want to get there. I sort of know how she feels. But then the fields are black as anything the further you get from the lights of the school, so maybe she’s only walking slowly because she can’t see where she’s going properly.
At the far end of the playing fields is another fence. She walks the line of it and I follow. After a while, she stops and pulls apart another bit of loose wire, then she ducks through it and out onto the road. What the hell does Mr Allen do all day? Not fix fencing, that’s for sure. Under the yellow glow of the streetlamps now she turns suddenly and freezes. It’s Bethany Willis. I shrink back into the shadows and she faces forwards again, picking up her pace. I’m not sure if she knows I’m here but I think she does. She glances back and this time I don’t hide. She walks even faster, and then starts a panicked half-run, her backpack slapping against her as she goes. I run too. I could shout, tell her that she doesn’t have to be scared of me, but I don’t think it would make any difference. So I stop running and let her go. I watch her rush down the lane that leads to the small cluster of council houses on the outskirts of the village, until she becomes a speck to be swallowed by the dark.
Do I follow her? I’m guessing that she lives in one of those houses but I don’t know which one. And I feel pretty bad now for freaking her out so much in assembly. Even if she talks to me, how do I explain that? But she can see me. For a few minutes, I don’t do
anything; I just stand there looking into the darkness. I know she won’t talk to me, but I can’t seem to stop my feet from starting out on the road after her.
There are only ten houses on this stretch, overlooking a road and a scrubby field. There’s a lone, skinny horse standing on the field eyeing me warily. Animals seem to be able to see me, or if they don’t, somehow they know I’m there. Which makes me even more confused about Bethany. Not that I think she’s a horse or anything. But out of all the people who are important to me, none of them see me, and this one girl who means nothing can. The houses are all painted white - at least, they probably used to be white, though not one of them is any longer. Now, in the gloom, they look grey with the feeling of army barracks rather than homes. They’re grouped in twos that mirror each other. I could easily get through each front door and see who lives there but it suddenly seems like a boundary that I shouldn’t cross so I sit on a wall and stare up at the curtain covered lights at the windows. She won’t come out again tonight, I suppose. It’s probably cold out here, though I can’t feel it. I don’t even see my breath in the air. But if I was cosy in one of those houses I wouldn’t come out, not for anything. And certainly not if I thought a dead kid was stalking me.
I gave up waiting for Bethany and came to look at my grave instead. I wish I could remember how long I’ve been dead, but it’s hard to keep track of time when the days all feel the same. There’s nothing here yet to mark me, so maybe it’s not all that long. Though, I suppose Mum hasn’t got enough money; I remember when Dad died it took her ages to get the money together for a gravestone. She told Roger about it once too and he just tutted and looked like he cared but I know he didn’t. The graveyard looks different tonight than it did on the day of my funeral, somehow barren and deserted, like all the people buried here have been forgotten. In the summer it looks nicer, a warm green canopy overhanging the crooked rows of stones and the lazy buzzing of insects filling the air. I’ve even hung out here from time to time with Matt, sitting on the ancient fallen stones by the wall and laughing at stupid jokes. Tonight the bare branches look sort of mournful, at least they do to me. Mum has put some new stuff on the mound of earth where I am, things that had been in my bedroom, so I know it’s mine. I think some kids from school have been here too, there are teddies and flowers and messages from them. I wonder who left them, because I’m pretty sure nobody liked me enough to buy teddies for me. I bend down to have a look at a white fluffy bear. There’s a card attached to it and I reach for it but my hand goes through, of course. Sometimes, I still forget that I’m made of nothing now. I try to read the card, but in the dim light from the road, I can’t make out the letters. Sitting on the ground, I huddle into my shirt and stare at the pile of stuff. I’m not cold, just my soul is, I think. It’s funny to think that underneath that plot is a pile of mashed up old meat that used to be me. I wouldn’t want to see it, though, I think it would be gross.
It’s so quiet here that I start to hum, just to break it. The words of Lucky pop into my head and I sing them.
I’m on a roll,
I’m on a roll, this time,
I feel my luck could change…
It doesn’t matter, after all, nobody can hear me. It starts off sad, but then I sort of like it.
Pull me out of the air crash
Pull me out of the lake
‘Cause I’m your superhero…
I don’t know how long has passed in the graveyard. I don’t feel like singing any more so I curl up and lie next to the toys and gifts and things from my room and watch the thinnest clouds race across the sky, flitting over the stars, swallowing the moon and then spitting it out, over and over.
Now I’m sitting next to Dad. Or rather, what’s left of Dad. His stone has been here for three years. It’s not like the really old ones further over near the church, where the letters have worn away, but moss is already growing around the base. His name still stands out in gold lettering on the black stone – Sean David Cottle – I can see it plainly in the moonlight. I came to look at it on the day of my funeral, but I hadn’t been for a long time before then. Mum came down a lot, before Roger. I sort of thought that if I didn’t see the gravestone, then it wouldn’t be true and my dad wouldn’t be dead. I suppose that’s pretty stupid.
‘Hey, Dad.’
I listen to the silence that echoes back at me. I wonder where he is now. I wonder if he can hear me and see me like I can hear and see everyone else. Why can’t I hear and see him if he’s dead too? What happened to make me different?
‘I’m fed up, Dad. I’m sick of wandering around this village all the time like a shadow. I don’t want to be here anymore. Please talk to me; please say that I get to go where you are soon.’
I close my eyes tight and wait for him to reply.
But nothing comes.
I’m outside Bethany’s again this morning, waiting for her to come out for school. I figured I might try to apologise, if she stops long enough to let me, and then maybe she’ll talk to my mum for me. Maybe she even knows about my dad, or she can at least tell me what’s going on. I’m not sure what she is or why she can see me, but it has to mean something. I’m sitting on the same wall as I did last night. I tried to talk to the horse earlier but it just looked at me, blew a great smelly plume from its nose and walked off. Does that mean it’s scared of me or just bored?
After the graveyard last night, I wandered over to Ingrid’s house for a while. I thought about going in, but I knew that Matt was there and I wasn’t sure if I’d like what I found. It’d drive me mental, seeing him all over her again. Instead, I went home to see what Mum and Roger were doing.
Roger had bought mum takeout curry. I suppose he was trying to cheer her up. It smelt good to me, even though I wasn’t hungry. She didn’t eat much, she just pushed it around her plate and said sorry but she was feeling a bit sick. He looked annoyed but he didn’t say anything, he just took her plate away and chucked it all in the bin. Then he went to bed and she started crying again. I sat next to her for a while and told her that she would feel better soon, but I don’t know if that’s true.
Later, when Mum had fallen asleep on the sofa, I checked out my room. It was a lot cleaner and emptier than last time I saw it. A lot of my stuff was stacked in bin bags piled against the wall, the bed had been stripped and the curtains had been taken down. I suppose Mum wanted to wash them. I suppose she’ll want to redecorate it soon. I sat in there for a while, but even that doesn’t feel like home now that it’s all cleared out.
When I’d had enough of that I walked the streets and then out to the fields at the edge of the village. All the while I was alive I never noticed the amazing stuff just beyond the tiny circle of my existence. Like the rabbits I saw playing, and the badger, and the slug dragging a sparkling trail across a dock leaf. Even the streets of the village have their own sort of beauty at night, still and silent, as if they’re holding their breath for the new day. And then the dawn. The last sunrise I watched was the one just after I’d died. It wasn’t the best, to be honest. This morning, the clouds tore open and the sun set them on fire in pink and orange and this time I wasn’t staring down at my mangled body while all that drama was going on in the sky, I just stood and watched. It’s funny how it takes death to make you appreciate things like that.
The row of houses where Bethany lives looks even worse in the grey daylight than it did last night – you can see just how dirty the paintwork is and how overgrown the gardens are. A couple of them at the end look ok. I hope Bethany lives in one of them or my mum might not take too kindly to her.
A cracked yellow door, the paintwork coming away in strips, opens at one of the middle houses. It’s probably the scruffiest one of the lot. Bethany looks straight at me and freezes. I try to smile, but maybe it looks a bit sinister because she doesn’t smile back, and she seems absolutely terrified now. She races down the steps, so fast she almost trips, and then turns and starts to walk really quickly towards school.
; ‘Bethany…’ I start to follow her but she doesn’t look round. ‘Bethany, wait!’ I jog to catch up. My footsteps make no noise but she walks faster anyway, even though she hasn’t looked back, like she somehow knows I’m running after her.
‘Bethany, I don’t want to scare you, I just want to talk to you.’
She stops, turns around and glances up and down the deserted lane, biting her lip and fiddling with the strap of her rucksack. Then she looks at me and opens her mouth like she might say something but quickly turns around and carries on walking, only slower now. I catch up and walk at her side. She keeps staring straight ahead as she goes.
‘I know you can hear me,’ I say. I try to grab her arm but my hand goes clean through. She doesn’t even shiver and she carries on walking without looking at me, so I suppose she didn’t feel a thing. My heart feels like someone just ripped it from my dead chest. No touching, not even Bethany Willis.
‘Please… Bethany… just tell me that I’m right, that you can see me…’
She doesn’t look at me and doesn’t reply.
‘Come on, Bethany. Tell me you can see me and I’ll get off your case. I just want to know, that’s all.’
She finally stops and looks me straight in the eye. ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’ Her eyes are shining, like she has tears in them.
‘I… I’m sorry…’ I stammer. ‘I’m lonely.’ This admission surprises even me. Bored, I thought, but I never realised that maybe I was confusing boredom with loneliness. Now that I’ve said it, I know it’s true. Seeing everyone else getting on with their normal everyday lives – curry and snogging and messing around in assembly – and me on the outside, no one even knowing I’m there; it hurts more than anything ever hurt when I was alive. If there is a hell, I think maybe this is it. ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ I say.