Free The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke

similar ones in Hamlet . She said it’s important for us to tell our own jokes because comedy is actually a way of working out stuff that bothers us. I told her I didn’t like ham, cheese or even tuna, so I don’t think I’m really working through anything.
    Though tonight something weird happened and it wasn’t just because Anya was there or because Katie McInerny kissed me.
    Tonight was a full run-through of Hamlet and I was very surprised and pleased but also nervous, because when I arrived I saw Jojo talking to Anya. Anya looked very happy when she saw me walk in and her eyes went big and her smile was huge and red because she was wearing lipstick. She looked pretty. I could see her silver necklace – the one that tells people she’ll fall asleep if she eats peanuts – flashing in the spotlight as the technician Terry is rubbish and is always pointing the lights the wrong way.
    ‘Hello, Alex,’ Anya said to me, and Jojo said, ‘Aren’t you lucky to have a groupie, Alex? A sign of things to come.’
    ‘Anya is a psychiatrist, not a groupie,’ I said, and Jojo didn’t seem to know what to say, which I thought was interesting because Jojo always knows what to say. Jojo is tall and thin and she always wears a bright pink leotard and leggings with black legwarmers and an army jacket big enough for three people to fit inside. She sounds like she’s reading the ten o’clock news on television even though she’s from north Belfast and is really superstitious about things like saying the word ‘Macbeth’ on stage and putting our shoes on the dressing room table and forgetting lines during rehearsals. If any of us forget our lines we are to improvise , she says, not just stand there in the spotlight with our mouths open like dumb twits. I gave a thumbs-up to Jojo and Anya and they smiled back.
    I dumped my rucksack in the cloakroom and saw that Katie McInerny was in the male dressing room again, which she says is important because she is playing a boy, which is weird. Katie is two years and one month older than me but about seven and a half inches taller. A little bit taller would be OK but seven and a half inches is like she’s half giant or something. What’s really wick is that she never brings her script and always asks to share mine, and I can’t even open a can of Coke without her wanting some, and I bet you like a million quid she’s forgotten her locker key tonight and wants to share mine.
    ‘Hiya, Horatio,’ she said as I walked into the dressing room.
    ‘Hiya, Hamlet,’ I said, and I noticed she was wearing a white bandage around her right wrist. ‘Did you get that from fencing?’ I asked.
    She looked down at it as if she had forgotten she was wearing it. How stupid.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get it from fencing.’ Her eyes were sad and had that look in them that I used to see Mum give my dad, as if there was something she wanted to say but wanted me to guess it instead of just coming out with it. I hate games like that.
    Just then, Ruen appeared. He was his Old Man self, short and baldy and his face all twisty and scrunched up like scrunched-up paper. I could even smell his disgusting tweed jacket. It smells like a wet dog that’s been dead for about ten years.
    ‘Are you OK?’ Katie said.
    ‘Do you want to share my locker?’ I said. I needed to get rid of her and find out why Ruen was here. Her face glowed like a Christmas tree.
    ‘Yes, that would be lovely …’ And she leaned over and made to kiss me but I moved my face so instead of hitting my cheek she kissed my ear. No one’s ever kissed my ear.
    I took the key out of my pocket and pressed it into her sore hand and she yelped but I didn’t say sorry because Ruen was walking away. I ran after him. He walked on to the stage and looked up.
    ‘What is it?’ I asked.
    ‘Look, you silly boy. Use your God-given eyes,’ he sneered. And so I looked up and I saw Terry the technician unscrewing the old loose screws from the