Ways to See a Ghost

go and meet a girlfriend. And the times you told Mum you were helping me with my homework, when really I was helping you on a gardening job.” It hung there in the air. Mum’d flip – Dad would be back to Sunday afternoon visits, like when I was little.
    Dad folded his arms.
    “What are you up to?” he said, and his voice was as cold as the Arctic. “First you try and split me up from Cally, and now you want to ruin our time together? For what? Spite?” He was holding himself really still; I could see how angry he was. “If that’s how you want things, fine. Do
it!
” He slammed off into the kitchen, bashing and crashing as he packed up the last of his gear, marching to the front door.
    “There is no way you are blackmailing me into anything, Gray!” he shouted, yanking the door open. “Me and Cally are for keeps, so you’d better get used to it! Phone your mum. Tell her I’m irresponsible, tell her what a useless dad I am! If you want to stop our visits, that’s up to you, but you’re NOT coming out tonight!”
    And he stormed out of the house, driving off without me.
    I sat on his sofa. I might’ve cried for a bit.
    I thought about phoning Mum, but I didn’t want to tell her that stuff, not really. Like Dad said, she’d stop me staying with him.
    I got up, and went into the kitchen. Dad never gets in any food on UFO-chasing nights, because we’re alwaysout in the countryside somewhere, eating Super Noodles. So there was only breakfast cereal, and some milk in the fridge, which nearly made me cry again. But instead I sat down with a big bowl of cornflakes, and thought about stuff.
    Like, how my dad is.
    Like, how other kids have dads who stay with their mums, and do stuff like swimming and football at weekends. Dads who don’t introduce a new girlfriend every few weeks, and expect their kids to be fine with it. Dads who aren’t obsessed with UFOs and think that’s more important than anything.
    By the time I’d got down to the mushy-sweet milk at the bottom of the bowl, I was back to thinking about everyone else being out there on Dad’s UFO-chasing trip, without me. The sick feeling inside me actually hurt.
    “I wish it was last year!” I said, out loud. “I wish Dad never met Cally!” Except, then I wouldn’t know Isis, and she’s one of the best people I’ve ever met.
    Was. Was one of the best.
    I drank the milk out of the bowl, then what was left in the carton. Dad was probably there by now, setting up his gear. Over by the phone, the coordinates of the fieldwere written on a bit of paper. Every time he goes on a chasing trip it’s somewhere different. He used to just think of places, like where the fields are really big and flat, or where there’d been crop circles before, but now he’s got this computer program he worked out. He puts in things like weather, sunspots, geology and UFO sightings. He says it can predict where the next sighting is going to be, so now if we see a UFO, Dad says it’s because of his computer program. Even though we’ve been out loads of times, and only seen stars.
    I cheered up a bit. Probably none of them would see anything, even with their seances or whatever.
    But it was still bad. Weird, when I thought about it. Cally had said Philip Syndal was desperate to go on Dad’s UFO hunt, once she’d told him about it. Why would he care about UFOs?
    Except they weren’t UFOs, were they?
    And he couldn’t know that –
I’d
only just worked it out and I hadn’t even told Isis.
    I banged my head with my hand, trying to think, but everything kept rushing around. I tried to remember what I knew about Philip Syndal.
    He was a real psychic, but Isis said he used tricks andlies in his shows. He’d pretended not to see Angel, so Isis would think he was a fake. He had a ghost-eating monster living inside his head, and now he wanted it to go into Isis.
    My brain went crazy in panic for a moment then, thinking what would happen to Isis if that thing got inside her. It was so massive, like frozen darkness. If it got in her head… she’d be a puppet, or a zombie or something.
    I flapped about in my mind for a few minutes, then I got a grip.
    Philip Syndal couldn’t do much with everyone there, could he? I mean, it wasn’t just him and Isis. Dad and Cally would be on the UFO hunt, plus all the nuts from the Welkin Society. They’d see him if he tried anything.
    The Welkin Society.
    It seemed ages ago, I’d almost forgotten about it, but the Welkin