DEAD GOOD (7 page)

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.’

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 this 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.

‘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.

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.

And anyway, now I come to think of it, surely I’m the one with the gift or ‘vision’ or whatever the heck it’s called; well aren’t I? If I can see and hold a conversation with a dead person, then I must have this spiritual talent of Amber’s Aunt. Ha! I always wanted to be on the Gifted and Talented register. Okay, so maybe ‘talented’ is stretching it a bit. But gifted? Yeah – why not?

It also must prove that some people – normal, ordinary people like us – the Prestons, can have weird stuff happen to them as much as the next family. Well, doesn’t it? I try to remember what it was that the family did in the spooky film. They’d moved into a new house too, hadn’t they? And strange things started to happen to them. What did they do? They didn’t just freak out and move out straight away, did they? They must have done some research or something into the history of the house, surely? Isn’t that what always happens in new people-move-to-scary old house films? Oooh, I do believe I’m onto an idea.

I have a need.

A need to Google.

ten

Two hours later I am exhausted. It’s a good job dad’s agreed we can still use broadband until the contract runs out in the New Year. If I was having to use dial-up, this would have taken me a week at least to get precisely where I am right now - and that’s exactly nowhere.

I have, of course, been persuaded to shed unwanted excess kilos by rubbing some kind of newly discovered bean into my thighs and belly and if I’d agreed to every one that popped up, then I calculate my penis would be at least two and a half metres long by now. They’re a waste of web-space, those adverts. Like they expect people will believe them. Who are they trying to kid!?