Ways to See a Ghost Read Online Free PDF

in their flat? Why hadn’t she just refused and stayed at home?
    Sondra Borwan was still at her doorway. “I’m calling the police!”
    “Sondra’s pretty angry,” said Gray, sounding impressed. “I’ve never seen her like that before.”
    Isis stared at him. “You know her?”
    Gray nodded.
    Which meant Sondra would tell him all about Cally, and he’d tell everyone at school!
    A man came round the side of the house, took a fewsteps towards the two women, then stopped, uncertain.
    “Is everything all right?” he asked.
    “No, Gil, it’s not!” Sondra pointed at Cally. “I want you to show this
fake
off my property!”
    “As soon as I find my
child
!” yelled Cally. “You know, the aura around this house is really dark. Suffocating even.”
    “Thirty seconds!” shrieked Sondra. “You’ve got thirty seconds!”
    “Oh no,” groaned Isis.
    “That’s the quickest way to the house,” said Gray, pointing at a narrow, shadowy gap between tall, evergreen shrubs. Almost 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