Free DEAD GOOD by D A Cooper Page B

nearly eleven o’clock. There’s nowhere for you to sleep and we’ve only been here a day – give us time to find our feet, will you?’
     
    The line is quiet for a while and I wonder if I’ve hurt her feelings.
     
    ‘Come round tomorrow,’ I placate.
     
    ‘Tomorrow?’
     
    ‘Yes. Tomorrow. After church.’
     
    The line is silent again.
     
    ‘Jo-oke,’ I say heavily. ‘Du-ur!’
     
    ‘Oh… okay – only you seriously could have been going to church y’know – to see a Priest about your ghosts and stuff – they probably get a lot of that lately, now there’s so many scary movies around… so…?
     
    ‘Come round after lunch,’ I tell her.
     
    Mum walks past me rubbing her neck and I’m guessing there’s either nothing interesting left to watch on the telly or she wants to see what dad’s up to. Probably both. She jerks her head towards my phone and mouths who’s that?
     
    ‘Amber,’ I tell her.
     
    ‘Yeah?’ Amber says.
     
    ‘Nothing. Come round after lunch, and then we can…’
     
    ‘Amber?’ Mum says. I nod. ‘Ask her round for lunch, Madeline, I think we can still stretch to one more at the table, go on…’
     
    ‘Did you hear that?’ I ask Amber. ‘Mum said you can come…’
     
    ‘Oooh! How exciting,’ she squeals, and not just from the idea of sharing a plate of lunch with us, that’s for sure. ‘D’you think I can stay ‘til after dark? So I can at least get to see your ghost? What shall I bring with me?’ She’s almost breathless by now. ‘ Oh! I know – we could make up a Ouija board by writing letters on bits of card and putting them in a circle on the floor – have you got some card we could use? Oh don’t worry I’ll find something… and candles – we’ll need a load of candles, to create the right atmosphere… oh and we mustn’t forget to…’
     
    ‘Just bring your history notes from Friday, Amber – I need to write them up, yeah?’ I know I sound less than enthusiastic but the truth is… well, I just really am. And if she had a ghost who pissed her off the way Leo seems to be pissing me off right now, then she’d understand why.
     
    ‘Kay then. See you tomorrow, yeah?’
     
    ‘Kay. Bye.’
     
     
     
    As I’m brushing my teeth in the bathroom, I hear a delighted giggle come from Davey’s room and I suspect that either he’s managed to work out how to tune in his clock/radio in to a children’s station - not a huge possibility at nearly eleven o’clock at night. Or he’s started laughing in his sleep, which would be a predictably embarrassing addition to the ‘invisible friend’ hobby he’s taken up recently – or – and this is the more likely reason – he actually IS playing with his (not so) invisible friend, Leo’s sister Mia.
     
    I am torn. And it’s because I’ve being irritated by a dead guy. If I was Amber, I’d be in his bedroom faster than she wanted to come round just now and hoping to see his little friendly ghost. But I’m not Amber. This is not a thrill. I’m me. I know they’re here; I know how they came to be here – I still don’t know what they’re doing hanging around like this but I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason.
     
    Although there is that little niggling question that’s still right at the forefront of my mind. What was Leo doing in Amber’s bedroom when he was alive? I don’t ever remember her telling me she’d had a boy round before? In fact if he’s been dead for nearly three years that would have made her only twelve or thirteen and I’m sure she wasn’t into dating boys who were three years above her – not then. Well, not now even. I don’t quite know how to ask her. Maybe this is why she’s so keen to come round – so she can tell me this long-buried secret she has kept to herself all these years and only now feels able to reveal everything to me because of… well because he’s popped back into her life via me. Maybe Amber is the reason he’s here.