Ways to See a Ghost

too.”
    “My dad’s not…” I stopped. Who was I kidding? “It’s all right.” I shrugged. “Mum laughs about it all the time.”
    Isis looked up.
    “Is your mum nice?” she asked.
    I shrugged, then I smiled. “Yeah. She’s not bad.”
    “Do you think she minds?” Isis nodded her head towards the camper van. Dad and Cally were lit greeny-white from all the monitor screens. They were both squeezed into one chair.
    “About them two?” I nearly laughed. “I don’t think Mum even keeps track any more.”
    Isis winced at that, turning away.
    “But,” I said, “I think it’s different this time. With Cally. I think it’s serious.”
    I wanted her to feel better, you know? Only Isis said, “Oh,” and I couldn’t tell if she thought it was good or bad. She moved in her chair, creaking it.
    “Can your mum really see them?” I asked. “Ghosts, I mean.”
    Isis creaked her chair again.
    “I… don’t know. She says she can hear them.” She looked at me again, like she was studying me.
    “Have you seen any UFOs?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I have actually! It was amazing, and I filmed it. You can watch it on YouTube if you want.”
    “Do you just tell people? Don’t they think you’re… mad or anything?”
    I shrugged. “I filmed it, didn’t I? People can see for themselves.”
    “Oh, yes. You have proof.” Isis went silent for a bit. “What if you didn’t, would you still tell?”
    I shrugged again. “It depends who.”
    “Would you tell me?”
    I thought about her mum, and how Isis keeps herself to herself. How she’d said sorry for laughing at my dad.
    “Maybe. Probably.”
    Isis was quiet for a long time after that.
    “
I
can see them,” she whispered, at last.
    “You can see what?”
    “Ghosts.” She looked down at her lap. “I see them all the time.”
    WHAT?
    Oh, I shouldn’t have raised my voice. I was surprised, that’s all. No, don’t struggle, don’t try to get up. You are feeling relaxed, feeling safe. Lie back, that’s right. You trust me, you want to tell me all about her.

Her heart was beating a frenzy, the aftershock of telling him. Gray was staring at her, eyebrows drawn together, like she was a puzzle he had to untangle.
    But he wasn’t laughing.
    “You serious?” he asked. She nodded. “Are you sure it’s not like…” he waved a hand “… seeing shadows from the corner of your eye and not really knowing what they are?”
    Isis glanced at her lap. Angel was snuggled into the sleeping bag, her blurry little head poking straight out through the fabric. She wasn’t a shadow at the edge of Isis’s vision; she always made sure she was the centre of attention.
    “I can see them.” Isis looked at Gray. “Like I can see you.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not crazy or anything.We went to see this therapist, me and Mum, and she said I was really normal.” She was talking fast, trying to convince him.
    Gray blinked. In his sleeping bag he looked like a caterpillar. “A therapist? Was that cos of your dad leaving?”
    “Not just my dad. It was Angel too. My little sister. She was run over. Killed…”
    Gray nodded. “Dad said, but not anything else…” His eyes were wide, his face a question.
    Isis took a deep breath. She’d gone too far to stop now. And she’d had to tell the tale before, anyway. To teachers, to the school counsellor. She’d found a way of telling it, so it didn’t hurt too badly.
    “Mum took us out to the countryside, she wanted to show us this standing stone, I think. I can’t really remember now. But we had to walk along the road for a bit, to reach the start of the footpath. And Angel…” A small, nearly see-through face looked up at Isis – Angel, round-eyed, listening to the tale about herself. “She ran on ahead, wouldn’t stop when Mum shouted. I tried to catch her, but this car…”
    Isis had been complaining, that was the part she didn’t tell. How she’d been moaning about having to walk, about having to go out. She’d wanted to go home; she saidit over and over, watching her mum get crosser and crosser.
    Why had she made such a fuss? Why couldn’t she have just been good that day? Isis couldn’t remember, maybe it didn’t matter anyhow? Except it did, more than anything.
    She’d stepped in a puddle when they’d been about halfway between the lay-by and the start of the footpath. The mud and water had slopped cold inside her sandal.
    “I can’t even walk now!” she remembered crying,