Ways to See a Ghost

thing for a moment, her eyes struggling to adjust. She could hear Gray’s feet on the track, running away from her.
    “It’s happening!” Gray called back. “Come on, Isis!”
    “Oh!” she gasped, her heart flinging into fast-drumming excitement. Stray blobs of colour floated in her vision as she ran after Gray. Ahead of her, Gil was a tall shape, moving quickly between the lights of his equipment, and Gray was already helping, confident and sure. Cally stood awkwardly by herself, forgotten.
    “Look at these readings!” shouted Gil. “There were spikes twenty minutes ago. It must’ve started but we didn’tsee it!” He put a pair of binoculars up to his eyes, surveying the night-time field. A new breeze rustled through the wheat. “We should have been paying more attention.”
    Gray was bending over a laptop screen, his finger pressed on the return key as he scrolled through some kind of graph. “The readings aren’t very strong. Not like last time.”
    More lights blazed into the sky, flickering above the field. Isis squinted, trying to judge where they were, but it was hard even to focus on them, as if they were moving, or she was seeing them through a filter.
    Gil dropped his binoculars. “The readings are weaker because it isn’t centred here!” He ran for the camper van, yanking open the door and jumping in the driver’s seat. He started the engine, then looked back at the others. “Come on!”
    “What about the gear?” Gray yelled, following.
    “Leave it! We’ll come back for it after.”
    Gray pulled open the side door and scrambled inside the camper.
    “Come on, girls!” shouted Gil. “Don’t you want to see a UFO up close?”
    Isis and her mum shared a glance, then they dashed forthe camper, laughing as they tumbled in. Gil wrenched at the gearstick, and the van’s tyres spun over dirt.
    There were no seats in the back. Isis had to cling to a rope dangling down from the roof, and Gray hung onto a cupboard handle. They crashed into boxes and each other, as the camper bumped and jolted along the bridleway. In the passenger seat, Cally peered at the track ahead, lit by the van’s jittering headlamps.
    “Don’t you think you should go slower?” she said to Gil. “The children aren’t strapped in!”
    “If I slow down we’ll miss it!” he shouted, hurtling the camper over another pothole, sending Isis and Gray flying upwards.
    They rattled on, driving for where the sky was brightest, where the strange lights were most densely packed in the sky. Light poured in through every window of the van; they were being surrounded.
    With a screeching crunch, Gil slammed the van’s brakes on.
    “It’s too narrow to drive further,” he yelled, opening his door and jumping out. “We’re running from here.”
    “Are you all right?” Cally leaned over her seat, stretching her arm down to Gray.
    “Yeah!” He jumped up from where he’d fallen, leaping out the door after his dad.
    Cally climbed through to Isis, helping her out of a squashed cardboard box and looking happy, excited.
    When had Cally last been like that?
    Isis took her mum’s hand and they scrambled from the camper, running along the dusty gravel path. Lights blazed and danced around them, throwing criss-crossing shadows. Ahead, Gray and Gil squeezed between the strands of the barbed-wire fence, pushing out into the silvery, shivering wheat.
    “I didn’t think it would be so bright!” cried Cally.
    “Me neither,” laughed Isis. It was nothing like watching Gray’s film on the computer.
    They reached the fence. Gil and Gray were wading dark trails into the crop. Gil had some kind of flashing box up over his head and Gray was holding a camera.
    Cally put her feet onto the bottom strand of the fence, wobbling on the wire as she tried to climb over. She fell backwards, laughing.
    “How do we get over this?” she shouted.
    Lights flashed everywhere. The wheat flamed in gold, the metal fence glittered.
    “Not over,” called Gil from the field. “Climb through it!”
    Cally tried again, this time bending down and squeezing between two strands, trying not to get caught by the barbs. Isis pulled the top strand up, making a wider gap for her mum.
    “Look at that!” yelled Gray, just as Cally climbed into the field.
    Isis looked up.
    The lights were drifting upwards, just as she’d seen on Gray’s film from the time he saw a UFO with his dad. She’d watched it half a dozen times on the computer, she knew what to