The Ghostly Grammar Boy

by Sandra Thompson

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  My thoughts hammered relentlessly around in my head as I lay in the dusty bunk bed that night. The events of the day had been so shocking and confusing that I didn't even know where to begin. I tried to ignore the chatter of the other girls and recap the facts.

  Shane was having an affair with Sharelle.

  Not to mention with every other mother in town as well. Shane's family had been bankrupted when Chris' dad sold them the failing family business, and now Shane used women to maintain his pseudo-wealthy lifestyle. Was that why Shane seemed to hate Chris so much? Was Shane trying to get revenge on Chris' dad by drugging Alan?

  Sharelle and Shane were drugging Alan together.

  Perhaps I could understand Shane's weak motive for drugging Alan, but why did Sharelle want to kill Alan? What was in it for her? Had Alan threatened to reveal their affair like Chris had?

  Shane was going out with Carly.

  As if I cared … but what did he want from her? Shane was always using women. He was taking money and gifts from his mother-lovers, and he'd wanted me only so I could help him manipulate ghosts. What did he need from Carly? Sure, Carly worked at an ice cream shop, but after she's paid for her own exclusive designer wardrobe, I doubt she'd have any cash left over for Shane.

  Shane could see ghosts.

  This was the most earth-shattering of all. For all these years, I'd known no one else in the world who was burdened with the curse of being able to see ghosts. I'd thought it was because of my connection to Ella. But if that was the case, how could Shane see ghosts? As far as I knew, he didn't have a twin who'd died. I must have been wrong all this time about the reason I could see ghosts. How many other people could see them? And what gave them this ability?

  Shane was abusing his power to take advantage of ghosts.

  Jerk. (Resourceful jerk.)

  Shane knew I can see ghosts.

  Which apparently meant that now he wanted to go out with me. Or at least he did until he decided to hate my guts. That was the other thing… Did that mean Shane wasn't gay after all? In which case, why had Megan and Jason lied about it?

  It was with these panicked thoughts buzzing around my head that I finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  The next morning, my mood hadn't improved. Waking up in a strange bed, surrounded by my friends, it should have been easy to forget my worries from the night before. But it wasn't. I couldn't get my mind away from my conversation with Shane last night. His words kept echoing in my mind's ear.

  'You all right, Fiona?' Dad asked me. Keeping his eyes on the road, he reached over and patted me on the shoulder. 'You seem pretty quiet.'

  'I'm fine,' I responded, preoccupied. I'd been so distracted I couldn't even remember eating breakfast and getting in the car.

  'Are you sure, Fiona?' Jason asked, concerned, from the seat behind. 'You don't seem yourself.'

  'Yeah,' Matt agreed. 'We've been talking teacher battles for half an hour and you haven't said a word!'

  Was it true? Had I really not noticed?

  'Uh …I guess I do feel a bit out of it,' I offered them an excuse. 'I'm probably just dehydrated.'

  'Okay, well, good timing. You can get a drink here,' Dad replied as he pulled the car into a roadside service station. I jumped out of the car in relief. It felt stifling in there. And not because of the heat.

  As I walked towards the store, I was still so distracted by my conversation with Shane, that I didn't notice the car that had pulled up nearby. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a door swing open violently and a blonde blur run towards me.

  Whump!

  I was knocked to the ground by an angry shove from behind.

  'What the…' I gasped in surprise.

  It was Carly. And she looked livid.

  'What did you say to him, you skank!' she screamed at me.

  'What are you talking about?' I replied in annoyance as I started to brush myself off and get up off the ground.

  Carly wasn't having any of it.

  'Aaargh!' She screamed in frustration. She shook her head violently. Her face was screwed up like a dried sultana, and her fists were clenched in anger. She was having a full-blown, hissy-fit tantrum! I'd never seen her lose control like this before. It would have been funny if I wasn't in serious danger of having my eyes scratched out.

  'Aaargh!' Carly screamed again, but this time she dived down towards my face and started slapping me. I covered my head. Surprisingly, her pathetic slaps bounced off my arms, barely causing a sting. Wow, she was surprisingly bad at cat fights. Didn't she have any siblings? Even my dead sister could hit harder than her. Then again, Ella does possess supernatural strength.

  I grabbed Carly's wrists to restrain her slaps.

  'Aaa—,' Carly started screeching again, but the booming voice of Dad cut her off.

  'Fiona! Let go of her,' Dad instructed firmly. Obediently, I let go of Carly. She stepped away from me, glowering. Dad grabbed me by the hands and pulled me to my feet. Carly was still breathing heavily and sending a withering scowl in my direction. I noticed Megan, Lara and the others approaching, looking amused. Car doors opened, and I saw Hannah and Georgia stalk angrily towards us.

  'What's going on here?' Dad asked us.

  'Looks like PMS to me,' Megan commented. Unfortunately her comment set Carly off again.

  'Your stupid daughter is a nasty troublemaker! She's a sad, miserable loner who takes pleasure in ruining other people's relationships! I want to know what nasty lies she told Shane to make him leave!' Carly spat.

  By this stage, Megan, Brooke and Lara were breaking out into giggles. Carly had completely lost her composure. Her hair was falling messily over her face as her head shook in emphasis of her furious words. I wiped Carly's spittle from my face.

  'Shane's gone?' I asked, confused. I assumed he would have travelled with his friends. My stomach dropped with fear. That could not be good.

  Hannah and Georgia sidled up to the group that was forming around us.

  'As if you don't know,' Hannah answered nastily. She turned to Dad. 'Last night, after Fiona had her way with Shane outside the restaurant…' She turned to me with a side remark: 'Yeah, that's right Fiona. You think you're so subtle and clever but we all saw you sneak outside with Carly's boyfriend, you nasty little troublemaker.' She turned back to Dad with a cold smile. 'Anyway, after they'd had their little make-out session or whatever they did outside, Shane disappeared. He was supposed to drive Carly home this morning, but no one's seen him, and his car is gone.'

  'And there's no spare seats in our car!' Georgia spat, her pierced nostrils flaring angrily.

  It wasn't the lack of vacant seats that had Carly so upset. 'What did you say to him!' she squealed again in an uncontrolled outburst.

  Dad looked shell-shocked. He was totally out of his depth here, dealing with the likes of Carly and Hannah. He looked extremely unimpressed with their behaviour. Ha! Maybe he would take my side the next time I came home from school in a rage about Carly and her cronies.

  'Okay, girls,' he said firmly. 'Let's all just talk to each other like adults. There's no need for name-calling.' He turned to me. 'Fiona, do you know anything about Shane's disappearance?'

  'No,' I replied calmly. 'I had no idea. I don't know why he left. Maybe he needed some space from Carly?'

  Carly took a deep breath. Her glare was withering, but she was starting to gain control of herself. It wasn't like her not to have the upper hand. There would be no more embarrassing outbursts from her. If I wasn't careful, Carly would have Dad and all my friends turned against me within minutes. Luckily, Dad wrapped things up quickly before she had the chance to unleash her incredible powers of manipulation.

  Dad made sure that neither of us had a chance to take it farther.

  'Okay, well, I'm sorry, Carly, that Fiona can't shed any light on why Shane left. Perhaps it would be better if you talked with him about it.' He turned to Lara and Megan. 'Now, my lot, quickly get your drinks and get back in the car. We ne
ed to head off.'

  I felt relieved that Dad wasn't going to ask me any embarrassing questions about my 'make-out' with Shane last night.

  Hannah and Georgia, however, glared viciously at me as they wrapped their arms around Carly's shoulders and led her away towards their car, whispering angrily. They weren't game enough to challenge Dad.

  Jason was looking strangely pale and withdrawn. I wondered what was bothering him. He'd spent all these years imagining teacher battles, but at the first sight of a real cat fight, he got all clammy?

  I bought a bottle of soft drink, and got back into the car, ignoring Megan and Lara's giggles about Carly's tantrum. This whole Shane business had really got to Carly. She was so obsessed with securing a Grammar guy for the formal that she was becoming unhinged. The ironic thing was, Shane hated my guts, and the feeling was mutual, so her whole tantrum was a big waste of mascara anyway.

  Dad started the car. Matt was making wild meowing noises in the back, re-enacting the best cat fight he'd ever seen. For once Jason wasn't interested in joining in. He turned his curly head to stare silently out the window.

  Then it hit me. If Shane wasn't with Carly, then what was he up to? His parting words last night echoed in my head.

  You know too much. It's time to finish him off.

  Suddenly the whole thing didn't seem quite so funny anymore. A chill spread through my body as I realised what this meant.

  Shane was going to kill Alan. If he left for Canberra last night, then he could have already done it. Or he could be doing it right now, while I sat, helpless, in the car. We'd only left Batemans Bay half an hour ago, so we still had a good two and a half hours of driving ahead of us. I shivered as I imaged how much hacking and mutilating he could do in that time.

  Ugh. I didn't want to think about it. My thoughts returned to my conversation with Shane last night.

  It's almost a shame that you passed my little test today.

  That was it! Shane had been testing me to see if I could summon Ella—and I'd done it. Maybe I could summon Ella now and she could stall Shane until I got back to Canberra. Normally, Ella would have difficulty interfering with a live person, since her touch would pass right through them, but since Shane could see ghosts like I can, Ella could cause him some physical damage.

  The problem was, I didn't know how to summon Ella. Apart from the drowning test, I'd never been able to do it before. She always seemed to just show up, whenever I didn't want to see her. Closing my eyes, I willed her to come.

  Nothing. No annoying hand ruffling my hair. No disgusting displays of public affection with her boyfriend. Nothing.

  I gave up. All this mental summoning was giving me a headache. There was nothing I could do except wait and try not to panic.

  'Are you sure you're all right, Fiona?' Jason asked, leaning forward to pat me tentatively on the shoulder.

  'I'm fine!' I replied, perhaps a little too harshly. Jason looked taken aback and slunk back into his previous position.

  'Sorry,' he said sheepishly. I turned around and tried to give him an apologetic smile in response, but somehow the smile died before it could even form on my lips. Jason was always so nice to me, but I was too upset to make it up to him. This was hopeless. I turned around to face the front again and stared out the window. I was glad I was sitting in the front seat beside Dad so I didn't have to make conversation while I was having my quiet panic attack.

  I shouldn't have gone away this weekend and left Alan alone. I knew Shane and Sharelle were trying to get rid of him; I'd seen it in their text conversation on Shane's phone. If something happened to him, I would never forgive myself. I stared out the window and counted fence posts to distract myself.

  Hundreds of fence posts later, we finally arrived back in Canberra. Frustratingly, we passed our house without stopping. I tried to stay calm while Dad began the excruciatingly slow process of dropping off each of my friends. Luckily, Brooke's parents were the only ones who rushed outside for a chat when they heard our car pull up.

  We'd finally managed to lose Brooke's parents and were driving down our street when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. I didn't have time for social calls right now. I had to get to Alan's place. But this was a call that I had to take.

  It was Alan.

  'Hello?' I answered shrilly. An hour and a half of stressing had done nothing for my vocal quality. Dad pulled into the driveway. I jumped out of the car and ran out of earshot, ignoring Dad's quizzical look.

  'Has something happened? Are you okay?' I babbled.

  There was silence on the other end of the phone. I could hear shallow breathing.

  'Alan? Are you okay?' I repeated desperately.

  'I … don't … feel good. … Please help.' I could just make out Alan's words through his shallow gasps.

  'Where are you?' I asked.

  'Home. I di … an … ea … bu … so … ry,' The rest of Alan's answer was incomprehensible as the phone reception cut in and out. Startled, I looked around to see if there was a ghost present.

  There wasn't.

  The interference must be at Alan's end. I breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully that meant that Chris or Ella, or both, were already with Alan. I could find out from them what was going on.

  'Hold on, I'm coming to get you,' I instructed, although I wasn't sure if the message got through with all the interference. I quickly hung up. I ran over to Dad, who was unloading the car. I didn't have time to think of a good excuse.

  'Thanks for a great weekend, Dad. I'm really sorry, I have to run. One of my friends is having an emotional crisis, and I need to go see him … er, I mean her.' Dad eyed me suspiciously.

  'You know if you need help, or if there's anything you want to talk about, I'm always here for you,' Dad offered, staring into my eyes, as if he was trying to read my thoughts.

  I felt a pang of guilt. If only he could help. If only this was something that he could understand. But I doubted very much that he would. Besides which, I didn't have time.

  I grabbed my bike from the open garage and answered Dad as I started pedalling away.

  'Thanks, Dad, but don't worry. I've got it covered.'

  With that, I started pedalling furiously.