Ways to See a Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page B

hear her further inside the house. And I felt sort of shaky – I kept seeing Norman Welkin’s foot all blue against the grass. I’d only seen him the week before, you know? Eaten his biscuits.
    Then the police said we could go if we wanted, and me and Isis went back outside. Dad was on the steps, waiting for me, talking quietly to Cally. Isis’s mum, I mean. As soon as she saw us, she rushed over and grabbed hold of Isis, hugging her. Even Dad put his hand on my shoulder, asked if I was okay.
    And that’s when Dad said his thing to Cally. I should’ve guessed it really, Dad’ll try it on with anyone nearly.
    “Um, maybe we could all go for a drink?” he said, staring at Cally. “You know, calm our nerves.”
    Cally looked surprised, and then she blushed.
    “Yes. That’s a good idea,” she said, smiling at him like she couldn’t help it, the way women do.
    “Cally, no!” cried Isis. But it didn’t make any difference.
    Which is how me and Isis ended up sat on one side of a pub table, with Dad and Cally on the other. It was noisy and chip-smelling, a bit too warm from the fire, and all around us people were eating, talking and drinking.
    It was really weird, when Norman was lying cold in his garden.
    You’d have thought Dad and Cally would have been worried. After all, one of Dad’s customers had just died on him, and me and Isis had found his dead body. But they completely ignored us, like they’d got stuck, staring at each other. Dad started telling Cally about his chasing trips, and she even sounded interested.
    Actually, I’d never seen him like that with anyone, even Mum when they were still together. Mind you, I can hardly remember that, it was such a long time ago. Mostly I remember the after bits. Like, me sitting on Mum’s lap and crying, “I want Daddy, I want Daddy!” I don’t even knowwhy I wanted him, but I can remember Mum crying too.
    Anyway, Isis didn’t say a thing for ages. She was drinking this bottle of juice, looking like the pub was the last place she wanted to be. I ate a packet of cheese and onion crisps, then a packet of smoky bacon. Because I was in shock – I needed the salt. I thought Isis was too, or maybe she was just stuck up. Some girls are, specially the ones who’re really into clothes. But she didn’t look the type – her uniform was a bit too big for her, her shoes were scuffed.
    She picked up one of the empty crisp packets, smoothed it out and folded it over and over into this little wrapped-up triangle. When she’d finished, she put it down on the table, and looked at me.
    “He was really cold,” she said.
    “What?”
    “The man in the garden. Mr Welkin. He was really cold.”
    “He was
dead
,” I said.
    She twizzled the crisp packet triangle on the tabletop.
    “Yes, but then why couldn’t I…” she paused, then said, “I saw his hand.” She turned hers over, palm up, palm down. “It was all glittery.”
    There isn’t another girl in our whole school whowould’ve touched a dead body. Only a few boys, probably. I picked up the last packet of crisps. Barbecue chilli.
    “I saw this thing on telly,” I said, crunching. “All the blood sinks down, because your heart’s not pumping any more, and your hands and feet go black. Then you start drying out, so you shrink a bit and it makes your hair and nails look like they’re getting longer. That’s why people used to think they keep growing after you’re dead, but they don’t really…”
    Isis made a yuk-face at me, shaking her head. “Not like that. I couldn’t work out what it was for a second, and there wasn’t even any frost on the grass. But he wasn’t just cold, he was covered in ice. It was starting to melt, but he was definitely frozen all over.”
    “He had been out there all day,” I said, “and he was in a shady place.”
    She sort of rolled her eyes then. And she was right, because the days were getting warmer by then, like I said. Not cold enough to freeze in the daytime,