The Prankster and the Ghost

by R. L. Stedman

  ‘People laugh at your accent?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Jamie reached the top of the hill and turned, staring at the group below. ‘Mostly they just tell me not to talk. So I have to write stuff down a lot.’

  ‘That sucks,’ said Tayla.

  ‘It’s easier if I don’t speak.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I can understand you.’

  ‘Aye. But you’re …’ What do you call an almost-ghost?

  The ghosts were just like little wisps of cloud, hard to see in the sunshine. Milly seemed to be punching someone. And Becky looked like she’d had enough. She picked up her bag and knife and stared up at Jamie. Maybe ghosts weren’t so bad. Maybe they were normal, just a part of the environment that you didn’t normally see, like air and molecules and stuff.

  ‘Don’t come this way. It’s really steep,’ he waved his arm at her. ‘Go around. Around.’

  She nodded, gave him a thumbs-up and set off, pushing through the bushes towards the old school house.

  School was emptying now, the school buses pulling away from the gate. Mrs Hays and Mrs Flowers were talking together by their cars. Amazing how quiet the place was without children.

  ‘Maybe we should wait until the teachers have all gone.’ Jamie sat on a swing and pushed himself into the air, trying to imagine what it would be like to float above the ground. ‘What’s it like being a ghost?’

  ‘I’m not a ghost. Not really.’

  ‘So you say. But either you’re alive or you’re dead. You can’t be both.’

  Tayla told him about the accident, about Dad, about Mum, lying so still in hospital.

  Wow, thought Jamie. One moment, everything’s normal, then bang! Everything's changed. ‘Do you think your Mum will die too?’

  Tayla’s face turned pale, which was kind of weird because he was already rather pasty-looking. ‘I hope not.’

  Jamie slapped his forehead. Good one! Always the right word for the right moment, that’s Jamie McCready. ‘Well, what did the doctor say?’

  ‘That she’ll be okay,’ said Tayla, slowly, ‘when she wakes up.’

  ‘There you go then. She’ll be fine.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Aye. My mum’s a doctor. She always knows when I’m going to get better. It’s like a sixth sense.’ That’s because, Jamie, you’re mostly faking it. But he didn’t say that; best keep the wee lad’s confidence up.

  It seemed to work. Tayla looked more solid now, less like a pale cloud and more like an actual kid. ‘I’ve got to get to her, then. Imagine if she woke up, and I was … well, here.’

  ‘She’d think you were dead.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  How would Tayla get to the hospital? Maybe Mum could take him?

  Aye, I'm sure that would work. ‘Mum can you just drive to this hospital, and by the way, can you take this boy with us.’

  He knew what Mum would ask: ‘What boy?’

  ‘Um, the invisible one?’

  Tayla stared at the big tree. ‘Cool playground.’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘It’s okay, I guess. I’m not into playgrounds much.’

  ‘What do you do, then?’

  ‘I like practical jokes,’ Jamie remembered the stink bomb. ‘But no one here appreciates them.’

  ‘No way!’ Tayla stared. ‘Me and my dad, we love practical jokes. What’s your favourite?’

  Jamie told him about the cling film across the toilet (Hayley hadn’t been amused), the broomstick across the bedroom door handle so you couldn’t open the door (that was Bernice). ‘I swapped all the keys on the computer around once. Mum couldn’t type for a week.’ He shook his head. ‘They didn’t think it was very funny.’

  ‘They never do,’ agreed Tayla.

  12

  Superpowers

  The school was totally empty now; no cars parked outside, no teachers gossiping in the staff room. The place had that feeling of being put on hold, as though hibernation set in once the people left. Except the people hadn’t left, thought Jamie. Not all of them, anyway.

  Dragging the sack, Becky came up the path. She put it carefully against the verandah, angling it so it didn’t spill. Jamie peered into it.

  ‘Careful,’ Becky said.

  ‘Why?’ The bag was full of grey-green leaves covered with spiky bits, like supercharged Velcro. ‘Is that… isn’t that stinging nettles?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Becky. ‘The others helped me find it.’

  ‘The others?’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘The ghosts.’

  Maybe he could take some of these leaves home. Bernice would never notice them in her sock drawer.

  Becky shook her head. ‘Oh no you don’t, Jamie McCready.’

  Jamie sighed. Caretakers! They can always tell when you’re planning something. It’s as though they have superpowers.

  The ghosts trailed up the hill towards the school. Milly kept close to Mr Anderson, as if seeking protection from the living. Kicking at the bark with transparent feet, Kahu drifted beside them. Little Song had tucked her hands into her wide sleeves. She didn’t move her body, but floated like a cloud towards the school. All of the ghosts seemed nervous.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Becky waved at them. ‘You can come up. Everyone’s gone home.’

  ‘No stinky boys?’ said Milly.

  ‘Only Jamie,’ said Becky.

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Jamie.

  Becky unlocked the door and the ghosts glided into the classroom. They were like children in a party shop – poking into cupboards, flying up to the rafters.

  ‘Wow!’ Kahu stared at the dye paintings. ‘It’s so …colourful!’

  The bright artworks on the walls seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. As usual, the room was super-tidy, because of Mr Pressick’s army neatness.

  It is bonny enough, I guess, thought Jamie.

  ‘My!’ Mr Anderson sat at Mr Pressick’s ultra-clean desk. ‘Teaching has certainly changed. Where’s your chalkboard?’

  ‘No one uses chalk any more, Mr Anderson,’ said Tayla. ‘It’s whiteboards now.’

  ‘No chalk!’ Mr Anderson looked amazed. ‘How can you teach without chalk?’

  Jamie switched on the computer, hoping the internet would work. Downloading was so slow that sometimes everything just froze. Not helped by Mrs Hays, who seemed to think the Wi-Fi was like a light switch. She kept turning it off to save power.

  Tayla stood behind him, anxiously staring at the screen as the machine hummed into life.

  Crash! Both boys spun around. Rummaging along the shelves, Milly had knocked over the art materials. Sprinting across the room, Jamie grabbed the paint jars just before they fell. Crayons clattered to the floor.

  The little girl looked cross. ‘Ain’t hardly no books. Ought to be books in a classroom.’

  Jamie pushed the paints to the back of the shelf, where they wouldn’t be knocked over easily. ‘We don’t have books. We’ve got iPads.’

  ‘What’s an Eye Pad? Is it for a pirate?’ Milly asked.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ Jamie took one down from the shelf, opened an e-book. ‘You can make it move. Look.’ He stroked his finger down a picture of a dog. It sat up and panted.

  ‘Hey!’ Milly goggled at the screen. ‘Is it magic?’

  Jamie held the tablet out to her. ‘See?’

  Milly stroked her fingertip down the screen. ‘It tingles!’

  ‘It does?’ Jamie tried. ‘No it doesn’t.’ Shame, that would have been cool.

  Tayla looked up. ‘It does to us. It’s like we connect with the current or something.’

  Jamie sat next to Tayla as the virus protection did its snail crawl through the computer systems. While they waited, Tayla told Jamie about the computers in the hospital, how he’d tried leaving messages for his dad on Facebook, even though Dad was rubbish with computers.

  Jamie liked the way Tayla had hacked the nurse’s accounts; an advantage of being invisible, he supposed, was being able to spy on people. But he felt so
rry for Tayla, trying to contact his dad. If it was him, what would he do? No, he hated that. Even imagining Dad being dead made him feel really sad.

  Finally, Google opened. Tayla stopped talking. He had to concentrate, he said, or his fingers would go right through the keys.

  The other ghosts were amazed by the classroom.

  Wide eyed, Little Song stood in the middle of the floor. ‘This place. Very strange. You have, carpet.’ She rubbed the tip of her shoe along the floor. ‘Carpet! In school!’

  ‘Everyone has carpet,’ said Jamie. ‘Unless you’re really rich. Then you take it off, for some reason.’ Rob’s parents had done that, polished the floorboards so they shone. Great for skidding on, but a bit on the cold side.

  Tayla stepped away from the computer, his face worried.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Jamie.

  ‘There’s so many Intensive Cares. I don’t know which one Mum’s in. I thought the computer could tell me, but it can’t.’

  ‘Do you have their numbers?’ Becky pulled her phone from her jeans pocket. ‘We can call them.’

  But Tayla still looked worried. ‘I can’t call. They won’t hear me.’

  ‘They’ll hear your heavy breathing, though,’ Jamie said, trying to cheer him up. ‘You could be a phantom caller. Get it? Get it?’ He tried to push Tayla on the shoulder, but the lad was too transparent.

  Tayla tried to smile, a sickly, weak grin. ‘Ha ha.’ He pulled up Google maps.

  As usual the map loaded slowly, one pixel at a time. Mr Pressick had banned them from downloading images; he said it was like watching paint dry.

  You’d have thought the ghosts would be more interested in the computer, thought Jamie. After all, they can’t have seen one before.

  But Little Song was interested in Becky’s phone. ‘What is that?’

  ‘It’s a cellphone.’ Becky dialled a number off the computer screen. ‘Hello? Hello? Is that the hospital? I’m looking for a Mrs Johnson. She’s in Intensive Care.’

  Tayla watched Becky anxiously. ‘Is she there?’

  Becky shook her head.

  Mr Anderson came over. ‘A cell? As in biology? Is that … that thing alive?’

  Becky dialled the next number. ‘It’s not a cell. It’s a cellphone.’

  ‘What’s a cellphone?’ asked Mr Anderson and Little Song together.

  Becky looked at Jamie. ‘Can you explain?’

  ‘I’ll try.’ Taking Mr Anderson and Little Song to the whiteboard, Jamie drew cellphone towers and lightning-shaped electricity, but he got confused about the difference between telephones and cellphones, and the ghosts stopped listening. Anyway, they seemed more interested in the whiteboard markers. Concentrating hard, Little Song pinched her finger and thumb together, as if using chopsticks, and picked up a black pen.

  She drew a Chinese character on the whiteboard. ‘My name,’ she said proudly.

  All this technology is new to them, thought Jamie. It must seem like magic when you see it for the first time. What would it be like for him, if he was a ghost, and he was in a classroom a hundred years from now? Would there even be a classroom? Maybe they could all just take pills, and know everything, straightaway. Then there’d be no more need for schools at all. Which might be good, but then, what about friends, and annoying the teacher and playing on playgrounds and stuff?

  Kahu and Mr Anderson tried drawing with the markers. It took them ages to pick up the pens, but finally they managed. Mr Anderson drew a horse, Kahu a complicated pattern that looked like a celtic knot.

  ‘Wow,’ said Jamie, staring at it.

  Milly wrote an M across the iPad screen with her finger. ‘M for Milly,’ she said proudly.

  The on-screen dog followed her finger, trying to lick it.

  ‘How did you do that?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘There’s a long down, then you take your finger off, see.’ The dog whined and tried to follow Milly’s finger. ‘He likes me.’

  ‘I know how to write an M,’ said Jamie. ‘I mean, how do you do that with the dog?’

  Milly shrugged. ‘I dunno.’ She scratched the dog, and he rolled over, patting her fingers with his feet.

  ‘I didn’t know it could do that. Let me.’ The dog went stiff as soon as Jamie touched the screen.

  ‘He doesn’t like you,’ said Milly. ‘He likes me.’ She pulled the iPad back.

  Amazing! He didn’t know the e-book was that interactive; it had seemed a bit lame, although Mrs Flowers had acted like it was so incredible. But he’d only got the dog to sit up and lie down. It would roll over, too, when you shook the iPad. Maybe that’s what Milly had done.

  ‘Can I try?’

  The little girl held tight to the tablet and glared at him. ‘No. Go away.’

  Typical! thought Jamie. You loan a girl something for a moment, and they think they own it.

  ‘When I was alive, before I got drownded,’ said Milly, talking to the dog in the iPad, ‘I had a dog. He was called Rex. He was my friend. I’ll call you Rex. It’s a nice name. Hey! Hey!’

  Jamie tried to grab the iPad. But he was too slow – the tablet clattered to the floor.

  Oh no. She’s broken it. ‘Milly! I told you to be careful!’ But the little girl had disappeared. Jamie looked around. ‘Milly?’ He picked up the iPad, and stared. He couldn’t believe it. ‘How …? Who …?’

  ‘What is it?’ said Mr Anderson.

  Carefully, Jamie laid the tablet on a desk. ‘Look.’

  Everyone crowded around the small screen.

  ‘Wow!’ said Kahu.

  There in the iPad stood Milly, petting a large, hairy dog. She waved at them, said something. Jamie turned the volume up.

  ‘… likes me. I tole you he likes me,’ said the little girl. Her face was pink, and she looked very happy.

  Jamie picked up the tablet. ‘How did you get in there?’

  Tayla looked over Jamie’s shoulder. ‘I think I know.’

  Becky was talking quietly and smiling. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’ She hung up. ‘I’ve found her! She’s at Dunsford Hospital.’

  ‘How is she?’ Tayla asked anxiously

  ‘She’s stable.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It’s good.’ Becky shoved her phone back into her pocket. ‘They sounded pleased.’

  Tayla still looked worried. ‘Will she wake up soon?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Becky. ‘The nurses seemed to think so, anyway.’

  Tayla smiled and Little Song drew a happy face on the whiteboard. Mr Anderson thumped Tayla on the back. Tayla didn’t seem to mind the attention; his face was pink, almost as though he was alive, and his eyes shone.

  ‘Can you be quiet?’ asked a tinny voice from the iPad. ‘You’re annoying Rex.’

  Even inside a computer, Milly was a pain.

  Some girls are like that, thought Jamie. Hayley made him cross just by breathing. His parents never understood this – they thought that children should get along just because they were related.

  Thoughtfully, Tayla stared down at the iPad.

  Milly glared back at him. ‘What do you want?’ Like it was her personal possession.

  ‘Just thinking about something,’ Tayla replied.

  * * *

  Tayla pressed his fingers to the screen, reaching for the fizz, the feeling of the battery against his skin. It was the circuit again. The electricity tickled, the current pushing him like water. He wanted to swim in it. Closing his eyes, Tayla stepped into the stream, floated with the energy, into the iPad.

  His eyes opened. Beside him was the dog, and Milly, scowling. ‘He’s my dog. Not yours. Go away.’

  ‘Awesome!’ said Tayla. Turning his head, he stared at this strange, flat world. Nearby stood squashed trees that looked like folds of origami, and a house with flat purple smoke puffing from its chimney. Behind, layers of numbers streamed through a blue-white sky. In front, spookiest of all, was a window, as big as the world. Through the window, five giants with
enormous noses and googly eyes stared at him. Three of them looked wobbly, transparent.

  He reached out to the window, feeling the glass seeping, cool, through his fingers …

  And then he was back in the everyday world. The three-dimensional world.

  ‘That,’ said Jamie, ‘was amazing.’

  Tayla grinned at him. ‘I have superpowers.’

  * * *

  It’s like magic! Jamie couldn’t believe it, but Mr Anderson and Kahu didn’t seem that overwhelmed. They probably thought disappearing into an iPad was just another new technology.

  Tayla seemed excited though, smiling broadly at Jamie. ‘Hey! I think I know how to get back to Mum. We are connected to the Net, aren’t we?’

  ‘Aye, but the connection’s rubbish,’ said Jamie. ‘What did you just do? Is it something to do with the internet?’

  ‘Yes. I think so,’ said Tayla. ‘I think ghosts can travel on the net.’

  ‘Ghosts can web surf? For real? Are you going to try it?’ Jamie would, if it was him. What fun you could have, zooming around the world. Imagine the stunts you could pull!

  * * *

  The circuit buzzed at Tayla’s fingers, teased at his mind. Energy hummed in his brain. He felt like a rock star listening to the call of the crowd. As it had been in the Zephyr, before the accident.

  I don’t need to be a rock star, thought Tayla. Just being normal is okay.

  Could he email himself to the Intensive Care Unit? He’d been in Angela’s office; hadn’t he seen the email address? Tayla pinched the top of his nose, closed his eyes. If he could only remember.

  ‘Tayla? Are you all right?’ Becky asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’ He smiled at her, at all of them. ‘Well, I’m not fine. Not yet. But I will be, I think.’

  The ghosts looked confused, but Becky and Jamie smiled. ‘You’re going to your mum, aren’t you?’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Wish me luck.’

  Tayla crossed to the computer, pulled up webmail, typed in the email for Intensive Care. Holding his breath, he pushed his fingers into the keyboard, feeling for that fizz, that tingle that told him “here is a battery, here is electricity.”