The Ghostly Grammar Boy

by Sandra Thompson

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I was stressed. I had so much work to do that I was pretty sure I was going to go grey soon. The worst part was that it was only the second week of school. Already I had: one chapter of maths homework, a history assignment on medieval castles (maybe I could go to Brooke's house and watch the History Channel instead?), and a home economics assignment on synthetic fabrics (boring). Now I could feel the sadistic excitement bubbling up inside Mrs Weaver as she geared up to give us an essay.

  As if she could read my thoughts, Mrs Weaver's gaze shifted in my direction.

  'Fiona.'

  She grinned evilly. This could not be good. The spider veins on her cheekbones glowed bright red with the devilish thrill she felt at singling me out.

  'You can read the part of Romeo.'

  I rolled my eyes. Brooke giggled.

  I hated Shakespeare. I'd rather do any other topic, in any other subject, than have to suffer through another Shakespeare play. Every year of high school, they inflicted the same merciless punishment on us. They pulled out some gibberish play and forced us to endure weeks of painful readings in class. The torture climaxed by the setting of a nasty homework essay. The only good thing about Shakespeare was that he seemed to be universally inflicted upon students around the world. In other words, there were plenty of study guides on the internet to use as 'references'.

  Lured by the sound of Brooke's giggle, Mrs Weaver's gaze slithered away from me and onto Brooke, who was sitting next to me.

  'Brooke. Since you find that so funny, you can read the part of Juliet,' she ordered.

  Brooke and I began clumsily ploughing our way through the scene. I didn't have a clue what I was saying. I doubted it was even written in English.

  After a few minutes, Mrs Weaver interrupted us.

  'Can anyone describe what's happening in the play?' she asked.

  Esther, one of the girls in our class, enthusiastically put up her hand. Esther was nice, but kind of strange. She always spoke in a fake British accent. It was part of her Englishy persona. English and history were the only classes she ever participated in.

  Surprisingly, Hannah also put up her hand.

  Mrs Weaver looked delighted that someone other than Esther was answering her questions for once.

  'Yes, Hannah?'

  Hannah smirked at me.

  'Fiona and Brooke are trying to plan when they can have sex,' she said.

  The classroom erupted into laughter, punctuated by rude noises and gestures as the boys tried to piggyback on Hannah's joke.

  I laughed in surprise. I had no idea that's what we'd been reading about. Hannah would have to try a bit harder than that if she wanted to embarrass me.

  Unfortunately, Brooke wasn't taking it so well. She looked completely mortified. Her face was starting to go bright red.

  'Thank you!' Mrs Weaver raised her voice, and the classroom noise reluctantly diminished. 'Romeo and Juliet are planning when to consummate their marriage, thank you, Hannah,' she scolded, 'and since you all seem to be so energetic today, perhaps it would be a good time to give you your next assignment.'

  A collective groan carried around the classroom.

  'In a week's time, you will each be required to perform a monologue from the play.'

  This was greeted with another, louder, collective groan.

  'Can Fiona and Brooke do theirs together, please miss?' one of the boys called out. He was really testing his luck.

  'Quiet!' Mrs Weaver barked. She glared around the classroom until absolute silence prevailed. Over the next ten minutes, the feverish silence collapsed into an empty slumber as Mrs Weaver droned on about our homework task. Like everyone else, I had tuned out. I wondered if Shane would arrange another rendezvous, like he'd promised. I didn't really want to see that creep again, but I had to find out what he was up to with Chris' stepmum.

  '… Now move!' Mrs Weaver finished.

  The scraping of chairs and flurry of pencil cases being packed up brought me swiftly back to the present. I had no idea what we were doing, but I quickly packed my bag and followed the rest of the class outside to the oval.

  'What are we supposed to be doing?' I whispered to Brooke. She looked distracted. I could tell she was still agonising over Hannah's comment. 'Don't worry about it, Brooke,' I tried unsuccessfully to comfort her. Brooke was oblivious to me.

  'Spread out and practise reading your monologues,' Mrs Weaver instructed. 'I want to hear twenty-eight voices reciting Shakespeare.'

  Reluctantly, we spread out on the oval and muttered our lines. Esther, of course, was belting out her lines as if she wanted to be heard all the way over at the food tech labs. I should have been paying more attention. I wasn't even sure what monologue we were supposed to be practising. Luckily, Mrs Weaver had started patrolling the far corner of the oval and hadn't noticed my confusion. I looked at Brooke and waved. She was staring sightlessly into her book, and didn't notice me. I wanted to go over and initiate a hearty Hannah-backstabbing session, but Mrs Weaver would kill me if she saw us together.

  Sighing, I started flicking through the pages of my play. This was so boring. I hoped the bell would ring soon. How were we ever supposed to memorise this gibberish? It didn't even make sense! I decided to google the play and see which scene had the best monologue. My smartphone browsing was hampered by a strange garbling of my phone screen. That could mean only one thing.

  'Wow, things are done really differently in public schools,' said a male voice. My would-be brother-in-law Chris had materialised, confirming my suspicion that my phone was being corrupted by the presence of a spirit being. He gazed in fascination around the oval.

  'Oh, hi, Chris! How are things on the other side?' I said quietly. I was pleased for the distraction. It was, for once, the perfect time for a ghostly interruption. I could chat whilst looking like I was reciting my boring lines.

  'Fiona, listen,' Chris ignored my greeting. He seemed agitated. 'How's it going with Alan? I'm really worried about him.' He stared at me pleadingly.

  My stomach knotted with guilt. I was no closer to working out what was going on in Chris' screwed-up family than I had been when I'd first met him a week ago—apart from the fact that I now actually believed Chris' claim that Alan was being drugged by his stepmum. Chris looked so distressed. I wished I had better news for him.

  'Look, I'm really sorry Chris…' I began. Unable to face him, I stared determinedly down at the grass, while I told Chris about my suspicions that Alan was being poisoned by his stepmum. At the end of my story, I dared a glance into Chris' face, bracing myself for a breakdown. It wouldn't be the first time I'd had to comfort a teary ghost. Strangely, though, Chris seemed almost excited by the news that his brother was in imminent danger.

  'I knew it!' he exclaimed. 'I always knew she was manipulative, awful, murderous… I knew it!'

  'I just wanted to help him, but I couldn't!' I cut in. 'I didn't know what to do!'

  As if remembering I was there, Chris suddenly turned to me and grabbed my shoulders.

  'You have to go to the police. She takes sleeping tablets, you know. She's probably crushing them up and putting them in his food!' He was actually starting to hurt me now, his fingers were squeezing into my arms so tightly.

  'I can't! No one would believe me.' I tried to prise his fingers off. 'I don't have any evidence.'

  Chris stared at me intensely for moment while he thought about what I'd said. After a few seconds, he sighed and released me. I rubbed my shoulders where his fingers had dug into me.

  'You're right. You need evidence.' He was staring off into the distance now, deep in thought. 'Keep looking, all right?' He was starting to fade away. A part of me felt disappointed. This hadn't exactly been the fun conversation I'd hoped would distract me from English class. Then I remembered there was something I wanted to ask him.

  'Chris!' I called out.

  The fading figure of Chris reformed itself.

  'Yes?' he looked at me quizzically.

  'How
do you know Carly Taylor?'

  Chris' eyebrows jerked upwards in surprise before he quickly composed himself.

  'Carly Taylor …? Carly Taylor … Hmmmmm,' he made an unconvincing show of pretending to wrack his brains. 'Oh, yeah, that's right. Blonde girl. She went out with a friend of mine from school. Why?'

  I wanted to roll my eyes. It sounded to me like Chris Reynolds was just like every other guy who'd ever met Carly. He obviously had a mega-, and inappropriate, crush on his friend's ex-girlfriend. It was so typical that Carly managed to get into guys' heads, even when they were dead.

  I decided not to humiliate Chris by pointing out to him that his little display of fake brain-wracking did not have me convinced, but only because the poor guy's brother was being slowly murdered by his evil stepmother. Otherwise I would have let him have it. Ignoring his question, I replied,

  'What was your friend's name?'

  'Derrick Paine.'

  So Chris was friends with Derrick Paine, Carly's ex. It still didn't explain why Chris' face had been mutilated by black felt-tip in Carly's photo. I told Chris about the photo.

  Chris' face blanched, as if I'd just punched him in the stomach. A look of hurt indignation, flashed briefly across his face. I decided I'd better change the subject before I opened too many old wounds. I hoped Ella realised her boyfriend came with baggage. Then again, her ghost boyfriends always do.

  'So what's with your dad being business partners with Shane Harris's dad?' I blurted out to change the subject.

  Chris' head jerked in surprise.

  'How do you know about that? That was years ago!'

  Uh oh, now I'd done it. I didn't want Chris to know I'd been checking up on the details of his death. It was standard routine whenever I helped out ghosts—like how the police always suspect the spouse in a murder case. I could understand, though, that it might come across as a little offensive to the recently departed.

  'I'm kind of doing a bit of research on Shane because, well, I think he's having an affair with your stepmum.'

  Phew. Nice cover-up by me. Nothing like throwing a juicy scandal at someone to distract them.

  Chris looked repulsed by this news. He was silent as he processed this information.

  'It's really important that you tell me everything about your connection to Shane. He could have something to do with Alan being drugged.'

  Chris continued to stare at me, speechless. It was starting to remind me of having a conversation with Alan. Finally, Chris answered.

  'Shane's dad and my dad were in business together before we were born, but dad sold the company to Shane's dad when we were babies. Our families haven't had much contact since. I used to see Shane at rugby and at school. He's an all right guy, but we were never really that close.'

  Ha! Chris obviously didn't realise that Shane had been running around backstabbing Chris' rugby skills now that he was dead. However, there was probably nothing to be gained by informing him that Shane wasn't really an 'all right guy'.

  Not that I had the chance to explain anyway. The bell had just rung for the end of the period, and my class was starting to leave the oval. I was going to look like a fool if I continued 'rehearsing my monologue' after the bell. Besides which, if Chris didn't dematerialise soon, Brooke was going to plough right through him.

  Too late. I winced. Chris winked at me and disappeared.

  'There's a bit of a cold breeze on the oval today,' Brooke commented as we walked off the field together.