DEAD GOOD by D A Cooper

Families!’
     

 
     
    fourteen
     
     
     
    Nothing has happened for about fifty nine minutes. Unless you count the fact that Leo has stood up, walked about, walked through my bed, out of the room to see what’s happening downstairs because I heard raised voices coming from mum and dad and he must have heard the concerns I was thinking. He’s also popped in to check that Mia’s doing okay with Davey as it’s raining and he’s therefore housebound. They’re fine apparently. They’re playing “tag” which must make Davey look like a total idiot because how must it look if mum and dad see him chasing after nothing all over the place and then running away as if escaping an equally absolute nothing?
     
    Ah well, what can I do?
     
    ‘…anything… any noise at all… or just move the glass…’ Amber is repeating for the millionth time.
     
    ‘Seriously, Amber, perhaps it’s because it’s not a glass?’ I try. ‘Maybe the spirits can’t move plastic beakers – maybe it’s, I don’t know, beneath them or something… shall I go and get a proper “glass”… glass?’
     
    Amber brushes my comments away with a sharp flick of her hand and does a “zip” across her mouth. Bloody cheek! Who the hell does she think she is anyway? Coming in here with all her stupid limbo-mumbo-jumbo and making out she knows so much about contacting spirits from the Other Side. Jeez.
     
    ‘Your mum and dad aren’t talking to each other now,’ Leo reports as he glides back through my bedroom door and rests on the end of my bed again.
     
    I sigh. ‘Oh… great…’ And Amber glares at me angrily.
     
    I scowl and mouth an equally angry ‘what?!’ back at her. God, it’s very difficult trying to be in two places at once. I’m up here trying to maintain an air of interest whilst my deluded friend is doing her best to converse with the dead and meanwhile downstairs it sounds as if my parents have done ripping each other to bits and are now visiting Coventry. Brilliant. I can’t wait to get back to school actually. Away from all this crap. And I don’t often say that on a Sunday evening. To be honest I don’t often say that at all. Things must be bad.
     
    ‘I think the ley-lines must be wrong here,’ Amber finally surrenders, sitting back and taking her fingers off the beaker. ‘ I think perhaps because it’s Sunday they’re out of alignment. That’s probably it. Maybe we should try something else… perhaps during the week – d’you think?’ She looks a little downhearted. Even Leo looks sorry for her. Suddenly he bounces up from the bed and disappears out of the room as if he either got a spring up his bum or he’s had an idea. I want to ask but I can’t and the suspense is killing.
     
    Then there’s a loud knock at the door. Amber spins to face me and my first reaction is to leap on and bundle all the letter-cards together, or at least turn them over so that mum or dad – whoever it is – think that at worst we’ve been shirking homework and instead playing 21 card brag (whatever that is). Amber’s eyes are on stalks, though. She creeps s-l-o-w-l-y to the door and opens it a crack, peering round. Then she flings the door wide open and gasps really loudly, as if she’s seen something positively unbelievable.
     
    There’s nothing there. Well, that’s not strictly true – Leo is there, well, he was there, but when Amber threw the door wide open, he stepped in – through her I must add – and now he’s standing here giggling like a girl with one hand across his mouth. His shoulders are shaking with uncontrollable hilarity. He’s such a prat. But Amber’s face is a picture. In fact I’m trying very hard to stifle a grin myself. And – alright then, so if I could I’d definitely be laughing alongside my stupid ghost guest here, but I can’t can I? Amber is totally gobsmacked. That’s two gobsmackings in one day – it must be a Preston first.
     
    Ever so slowly, Amber begins to regroup