CHAPTER THREE
No one gets homework on the first day back at school, right?
At least that's what I told myself as I crawled into bed, exhausted. Who does Mrs Murphy think she is, with her big sweat patches and her unreasonable homework assignments? I forcibly pushed the memory of Mrs Murphy's lecture about 'staying on top of your maths homework' to the back of my mind. In its place I tried to visualise the body of the lifeguard from the pool today. It was difficult without remembering the little boy drowning. That was something I didn't want to think about for a very long time. Preferably never. On the other hand, I was willing to use the topic as an ice-breaker to start a conversation with that lifeguard. My head was still throbbing. Surely I deserved something good to come out of the afternoon.
He'd be sitting watching the pool. Then he'd notice me in the water teaching my class. He'd rush over, full of admiration and praise for how I'd helped to save a young boy's life. He'd jump in the water and wrap his arms around me. Then he'd lean in and—
I almost jumped out of my skin.
'Ella!' I cried. 'Why did you do that?'
Ella, in typical younger-sibling-brat style, had woken me by clapping her hands in my ear.
It was unreasonably late for a social visit. I glanced at my phone on the bedside table to check the time, but the screen was fuzzy. That wasn't surprising. The spectral emissions from ghosts tend to mess up electronic devices like mobile phones and computers. Considering how often Ella is hanging around, it was amazing that any of my phone calls and text messages came through at all.
Ella laughed. 'You look so funny when you're angry!' She playfully threw a pillow at me which I not-so-playfully returned. Her dark eyes and eyebrows stood out against her pale white skin as she laughed. Ella had wide brown eyes that were almost circular when she was thinking but crinkled into a long, flat squint when she smiled. Her small, pointed nose turned up slightly so that she always looked a bit mischievous. Being my twin, she was an identical, ghostly version of me.
'You shouldn't be asleep anyway, Fiona. You said we'd talk tonight.' Ella stuck out her lip in what she probably thought was a cute look of pseudo-sadness. She should have saved it for her boyfriend, because it just infuriated me more.
I rolled onto my stomach, covered my head with my pillow and groaned. I allowed myself five seconds to feel sorry for myself. It was nice that I could still talk to Ella fourteen years after she'd died, but did we have to talk when I was trying to sleep?
I sighed and rolled back over. 'You're right. I should have waited up for you. Tell me about your new boyfriend.'
Hopefully, he was better than some of her past horrors. I felt a bit sorry for her. I mean, it's slim pickings out there as a young ghost. Few people our age tend to die, and the ones who do usually go straight to wherever they're supposed to go. They don't usually hang around Canberra as ghosts. If they do, it's for a reason—some sort of unfinished business. Unfortunately, their unfinished business is rarely pleasant. The type of guys who hang around earth after they're dead to get revenge on their grandma or to make sure their girlfriend stays faithful to them forever are not usually the greatest boyfriend material.
So I wasn't expecting much of this new boy.
As if to confirm my thoughts, suddenly a boy materialised beside my bed. Instantly I scooped up my bed covers to hide my pyjamas. Even if he was a ghost, I didn't want him to see my love-heart-patterned pyjama suit.
'Hey! Don't you know it's rude to materialise in girls' bedrooms without knocking!' I said angrily.
The boy looked embarrassed and blushed.
'Sorry, I didn't realise you were here. Ella called me, so I came.'
'It's okay,' I muttered and glared at Ella. 'Have a seat,' I grudgingly offered him a place at the end of my bed, on top of the messy folds of my bedspread. He sat down appreciatively. Ella sat uninvited at the head of my bed.
I quickly checked the boy out. He wasn't bad looking. He had dark brown hair, intelligent-looking hazel eyes, and a spatter of freckles on his slightly large nose. His square face, solid jaw, and height gave him a sporty look.
'Fiona, I want you to meet my new man,' Ella giggled. 'This is Chris.'
'Hi, Chris. I'm Fiona. Have you been dead long?' I asked abruptly.
Chris looked taken aback and grief flashed across his face.
'Fiona!' whispered Ella angrily, 'Don't upset him. He only passed over a few weeks ago. He's still coming to terms with it.'
I felt a bit guilty. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I wondered how he'd died. Most ghosts are a little sensitive about their deaths. Ella was an exception to the rule, having hardly known life before she died. If I'd taken a second to think about it, I would have known he was a newbie.
He was wearing the official tour t-shirt of a band that had performed in Australia this summer, so he must have died this season. He must also be quite well off, I thought dryly. Brett had desperately wanted to go to that show, but even the nose-bleed seats had been well outside my brother's budget.
And, yes, the fact that Chris was wearing that t-shirt now meant it was what he'd been wearing when he'd died. Ghosts appear wearing the same clothes and the same hair style they had the moment they passed over. Bad luck if you drowned at the beach when you were having a fat day. You'd be stuck in your bikini for all of eternity. Thankfully, ghosts don't keep their fatal wounds when they enter the spiritual plane, sparing me some gory sights.
This also means that ghosts don't age once they're dead. Once again, Ella is a special case. Maybe due to her connection with me, Ella's soul has aged at the same rate as I have. When I was a toddler, Ella was a toddler. Now that I'm sixteen, Ella appears as a sixteen-year-old. A side effect of this is that she can let her clothes take whatever form she wants. Naturally, this means she chooses to wear the coolest brands, whilst I have to scrape my pocket money together to get anything half decent.
However, it wasn't just Ella's reprimand or Chris' brand new clothes that made clear his relatively recent departure. Chris lacked the supernatural skills of more experienced ghosts. Newly arrived, inexperienced ghosts can't touch anything in the physical world. No locking doors, rattling window panes, or pushing over china cabinets for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't take young ghosts long to figure out that, with a bit of focus and practice, they can master this, along with various other ghostly skills, like making things levitate and creating whirlwinds. So it's the more experienced ghosts that you really have to worry about. On a bad day, they can cause a lot of damage.
At first glance, it looked like Chris was sitting on my bed. However, his translucent, glistening form was actually levitating over it and, in some parts, through it. The folds of my bedspread protruded into Chris' transparent buttocks and thighs. In contrast, the pillow under Ella, was depressed slightly where her shimmering form touched it and, whilst Chris was completely see-through, Ella was a more opaque, glistening mass.
Like other ghosts, Ella had developed the ability to touch physical objects early into her ghostly career. How she touched them, I didn't know, since ghosts were pretty exclusive about the secrets of their world, but it was almost like they could, with concentration, push themselves closer towards our realm of existence to interact with matter.
Perhaps for this reason, ghosts seemed to become less translucent and more opaque and solid-looking when they touched things. Conversely, when a ghost wanted to walk through a wall, levitate in the air, or descend into the earth, it would become more transparent again. Experienced ghosts were always switching between the various states, depending on what they wanted to do, whereas newbies tended to float transparently through things, confused by and unable to control their new state of being.
Of course I was the only one who could see their different forms. Even in their opaque state, ghosts were still invisible to other people and could not touch them. Although, whilst in their opaque state, ghosts often left traces of evidence, like a book that seemed to be reading itself, or a light going on or off o
f its own accord.
Despite my lack of insight into their other-worldly secrets, I had noticed one thing about ghosts. There was a definite coolness about becoming opaque. It was a demonstration of their supernatural powers and control. Wandering around translucent all the time, like Chris was doing, was like wearing a giant nappy, highlighting your immaturity. So most ghosts liked to stay in their opaque states, unless they had a need to become transparent. Chris was obviously very freshly dead, and I had been pretty tactless to remind him about his passing.
'Sorry Chris,' I apologised. 'How long have you guys been going out?' I tried to change the subject.
'Two weeks,' Ella replied proudly as she stroked Chris on the arm. This seemed to perk him up again. Guys are so predictable, even when they're dead. But I was jealous that I didn't have a guy to perk up when I touched him. The last guy I'd touched had splashed me in the face when I'd tried to correct his kicking technique this afternoon.
'Actually, there's a special reason I wanted you to meet Chris,' Ella continued.
No surprise there. I haven't yet met a ghost who isn't needy.
'Okay, name it, but make it quick. I'm tired.' I tried to roll over, but Ella had read my mind and materialised on the other side of me, blocking my way. Defeated, I sat up.
'What do you want? Revenge? A message sent beyond the grave? You want something hidden? If you want me to kiss your grandma, it'll cost extra,' I joked sarcastically.
Chris smiled. 'Thanks, but Nan's already dead, so I can handle that one.'
When he smiled, his right eyebrow lifted just slightly. He had a really wide smile that showed off his straight teeth. He was definitely cute. I could see why Ella liked him.
Apart from the unfinished business that he was clearly harbouring, that is.
'Oh, good. I'm not a fan of dentures,' I replied. 'So what's up?'
Chris and Ella exchanged glances. Ella answered.
'Chris doesn't know why he died. They say that he drove his car into a tree, possibly on purpose, but he doesn't have any memory of doing it. We think there's more to the story.'
'Oh.' I tried to look sympathetic. 'And were you contemplating committing suicide before you died? Were you feeling sad?'
Ella looked annoyed. 'Why would he! He was good at school, he was popular, he was a rep player for the ACT rugby union team.'
Chris placed his hand gently on Ella's thigh. 'It's okay, Ella.' He turned to me, 'I swear, I really was happy with my life. I mean, apart from having to put up with my psycho stepmum, life was great.'
'That's why we think he was drugged!' Ella wailed.
I sighed. I didn't know any of the details of Chris' death, but it wasn't the first time that I'd had to deal with a ghost who considered himself prematurely robbed of life. Whether he'd been drugged (which I highly doubted) or not, the fact remained that Chris was dead and no amount of investigation into the circumstances could change that. He needed to accept his death and move on.
'Chris, I know it must be a shock to you,' I began in the most sympathetic voice that I could muster in the middle of the night, 'but everyone's life ends eventually in some way. The way in which you died—'
'…is not important,' Chris interrupted me. 'I know, I know, I have to accept it and move on … blah blah blah. That's not what I'm here for.'
'Oh,' I said sheepishly, feeling stupid for jumping to conclusions.
'Let us finish, Fiona!' Ella exclaimed in annoyance. 'Chris believes that his little brother may be in danger.'
This caught my attention. If there was even a small chance that I could prevent another death, I was willing to help. At the very least it would mean one less ghost hanging around bugging me.
'Hang on a second,' I said as I crawled out of bed and grabbed a notebook from my desk. I sat back on my bed, opened the notebook and poised with my pen above the page.
'Start from the very beginning.'
'Well since I, you know … hrumph…' Chris coughed uncomfortably, unable to speak of his own death. 'I've been watching over my little brother, Alan.' Ella patted his leg consolingly. 'He's only twelve, but he's awesome on a mountain bike. He can do all sorts of crazy stuff—ride on one wheel, jump off boulders, cycle up stairs…' Chris' eyes glazed over with pride as he spoke of his younger sibling. 'But recently Alan has been messing up. The other day, he was riding to school and fell over because he couldn't even control his bike enough to stop at the intersection.'
Note to self: don't ever let Chris see me on a bike. Whilst I'm not totally uncoordinated, I definitely have my moments. I've been known to throw myself and the bike onto the ground, as a braking technique. I couldn't believe that Chris was still hanging around earth because his brother was having trouble doing wheelies. Talk about paranoid. Maybe I'd have to have a quiet word to Ella about him. I looked at him incredulously.
'I know it sounds lame,' Chris defended himself, 'but Alan never falls off his bike, even when he learns new tricks.'
I continued staring disbelievingly at Chris. I was not convinced.
'Maybe he can't focus on his bike riding because he's grieving for his big brother,' I suggested. 'People handle their grief in different ways. He's not going to get over your death overnight.'
Chris shook his head. 'No way. There's definitely something up. When Mum died, Alan became totally absorbed in his bike riding. Besides, it's not just his bike riding. He's lost weight, he's always tripping over, he doesn't sound like himself when he talks … and then there was what happened today.'
Ella reached over and hugged me. 'Thank goodness you were there, Fiona!' she wailed, melodramatically.
Trapped under Ella's tight hug, I felt confused. I didn't even know any Alans. She released me and continued.
'The boy you saved at the pool today is Chris' brother!'