Ways to See a Ghost

a tunnel, after a few metres it opened out onto the lawn below the house. “There’s steps up.”
    “Thanks.” Isis could hardly look at him. Tomorrow he’d ask his friends if they knew a girl called Isis, and they’d say, “That freak job?” Then he’d tell them all about this, and it’d get added to the other stories, the ones already going around.
    She started for the gap in the hedge, heading to her mum, but she glanced back as she ran, trying to read Gray’s face. Was he the type to join in with the others, with the taunts in the corridor?
    Her left foot caught on something. She stumbled,pitching down onto the muddy grass, her fingers dragging through the scratching leaves of the bushes. She lay for a moment, hands stinging, and felt wet grass against her cheek.
    “You all right?” Gray called.
    If only the ground were softer, if only it could swallow her away.
    She pushed to her feet, muddy and crumpled. When was he going to start laughing?
    “Stupid,” she muttered, at herself, at whatever she’d tripped over. She looked down, and saw what had caught her. Not a stone, or a fallen branch, even though it felt as hard. A large, bare foot was sticking out from the bushes, dirty heel against the grass. An ankle, then a yellow-corduroy-covered leg headed off under the leaves. Further in, against the dark earth, Isis could see a man’s hand. Still and unmoving, pale blue and glassy.
    She gasped in a hiccup, staring.
    A thump of running feet, and Gray was next to her.
    “That’s
Norman Welkin,
” he whispered. “Is he… is he dead?”
    Isis leaned down and pushed at the man’s calloused foot. The leg didn’t move, it was stiff and rigid. As unyielding as a lump of rock.

It was really horrible. And it was sort of exciting, you know?
    Sondra rushed down and started screaming. Dad tried to hold her back, shouting at me and Isis to get away from the body. Isis’s mum rang the police, and they turned up in about five minutes, sirens on and blue lights flashing! Five cars and a police van. Then there were coppers everywhere, shooing us away, taking charge of Sondra. Some of them had those white disposable overalls on, and they started poking around and taking tons of pictures. An ambulance came too, not that there was much point.
    Me and Isis got taken into Sondra’s house, into her hallway, and this policewoman kept asking us if we were okay. Then this other one came and asked us loadsof questions, I mean, really loads, and he wrote everything down.
    I thought it was going to be like on the telly, a real mystery, but the police seemed sort of bored.
    “He probably had a heart attack,” one of them said to us. “I’ve seen it a few times with pensioners. They can go just like that.” He clicked his fingers. “He probably didn’t even have time to cry out.”
    Still, they put up one of those tents around the body, like you see on the news when there’s been a murder.
    Sondra carried on crying and screaming. You could hear her further inside the house. And I felt sort of shaky – I kept seeing Norman Welkin’s foot all blue against the grass. I’d only seen him the week before, you know? Eaten his biscuits.
    Then the police said we could go if we wanted, and me and Isis went back outside. Dad was on the steps, waiting for me, talking quietly to Cally. Isis’s mum, I mean. As soon as she saw us, she rushed over and grabbed hold of Isis, hugging her. Even Dad put his hand on my shoulder, asked if I was okay.
    And that’s when Dad said his thing to Cally. I should’ve guessed it really, Dad’ll try it on with anyone nearly.
    “Um, maybe we could all go for a drink?” he said, staring at Cally. “You know, calm our nerves.”
    Cally looked surprised, and then she blushed.
    “Yes. That’s a good idea,” she said, smiling at him like she couldn’t help it, the way women do.
    “Cally, no!” cried Isis. But it didn’t make any difference.
    Which is how me and Isis ended up sat on one side of a pub table, with Dad and Cally on the other. It was noisy and chip-smelling, a bit too warm from the fire, and all around us people were eating, talking and drinking.
    It was really weird, when Norman was lying cold in his garden.
    You’d have thought Dad and Cally would have been worried. After all, one of Dad’s customers had just died on him, and me and Isis had found his dead body. But they completely ignored us, like they’d got stuck, staring at each other. Dad started telling Cally