Ways to See a Ghost

Gray?”
    I shrugged. “I was just wondering, that’s all.” Trying to keep it casual.
    But Dad wasn’t put off so easy.
    “It’s Cally and Isis, isn’t it? You’ve been listening to them.”
    I shook my head.
    Stu looked a question at Dad.
    “Cally’s my new girlfriend,” Dad said.
    Stu smirked. “How long has she been around then?”
    Dad went a bit red. “A couple of months.”
    “Five,” I said. “Five months.”
    Stu whistled. “Serious.”
    Dad went even redder. “She’s got something about her, you know?” He glared at me. “But she also believesin ghosts, fairies and any nonsense that comes her way.” He sighed. “She even joined some club, where they all get together and talk about contacting the spirits. A right bunch of nutters, if you ask me.”
    Stu rolled his eyes. “Women!” Like he knew anything about them. He turned to me. “So, that’s where you got this ghost stuff?”
    I hunched down in my chair. All I wanted by then was to get out of the kitchen.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It was just a question.”
    Stu studied me, pressing his finger onto one of the bits of chip he’d spat on the table. Popping the smear of chewed-up food into his mouth.
    “Ghosts aren’t real, Gray. All those ghosts hunters and mediums, they’re just spooking themselves in old houses. Bumps in the night, that’s all it is. They’re always going on about having evidence and taking pictures, but the best they get are those ‘orbs’. Circles of light, floating in shot, which anyone can tell are just camera glitches and reflections.”
    Stu ate another bit of sprayed chip.
    “Whereas what you and your dad filmed, now
that’s
real. And real film of it too, not just some wobbly little blob of light.”
    Dad nodded. “Don’t listen to all Cally’s stuff about ghosts.”
    It’s funny really, because Isis had said ghosts can look like balls of light, and Stu had just agreed with her even though he was saying they didn’t exist.
    Dad took the empty plates and dumped them in the sink. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Washing up?”
    I sighed and got up, while Dad went to the fridge and took out a couple of cans of beer, handing one to Stu, who pulled a fag out of nowhere and lit it up. They cracked the cans open, gurgling the beer into their mouths. I started running the water into the sink.
    “Ghosts and the afterlife,” sneered Stu. “It’s just fantasy. Wishful thinking.”
    Dad did a long burp. “People should focus on what’s real.”
    Stu burped back. “It doesn’t even make sense! If you can get ghosts of people, why not cats, dogs or whatever? Animals die too, but you never see those TV mediums contacting a dead orangutan. If there’s really ghosts, the spirit world ought to be crammed to bursting with the ghosts of all the pigs and chickens we’ve killed, and the trees we’ve chopped down!”
    They finished their cans – both of them could really pour it down – while I scrubbed the plates and stacked them on the draining rack. Because Dad doesn’t even have a dishwasher, if you can believe it.
    Stu put his empty can down on the table. “I mean, we’ve caused as many species to go extinct as an asteroid hitting the planet.”
    Dad got up and went to get two more beers from the fridge. “I wouldn’t blame them if the aliens didn’t want to come down and talk to us. Probably waiting to see if we wipe ourselves out too.”
    “They’ve
tried
talking to us,” said Stu, taking a can. “That’s the problem. America, Russia. Plenty of evidence they had secret alien contacts. But it all gets hushed up by the military.”
    “I’m going to try and start communications next time,” said Dad.
    “Good idea,” said Stu, nodding. “That’s what the lights in the sky are – they’ve got to be trying to tell us something.”
    I was standing there with the washing-up sponge in one hand, a ketchupy spoon in the other, and what Stu said just… slotted it all into place.
    He was right about the extinctions, I’d read loads about it in my wildlife magazines. We’re making hundredsof species go extinct, every year. Like that giant tortoise, Lonesome George, from the Galapagos Islands. He was the last one of his kind, living all alone. When he died, his species went extinct.
    They all died, that’s what Isis said.
    I mean, Lonesome George died in a zoo, but most wild animals get killed when a forest’s chopped down, or a river’s being polluted, or they’re