Ways to See a Ghost

me!” cried Angel.
    The boy was wearing school uniform, the same one as hers. She recognised his face as well, but she couldn’t remember his name, not with Angel pulling at her.
    “Who are you?” she asked.
    “My name’s Gray…”
    Angel climbed onto the bench, putting her cold little arms around Isis’s neck, shouting into her ear.
    “Hideyseek,
please
.”
    Isis missed the rest of what Gray said, but she could tell he’d asked a question by the look on his face.
    “Cally… my mum’s in there,” she said, hoping that would sound all right.
    Angel put her hands over Isis’s eyes, like frost on her eyelashes.
    “Hidey,” she said. “Seek. Hideyseek.
Hideyseek
!”
    Gray was answering her, but she couldn’t hear overAngel, could hardly see him through her sister’s hands. And she couldn’t slap them away, not in plain view.
    “Come!” shouted Angel. “Come now.”
    “No!” snapped Isis. Out loud, not just in her head.
    She clapped a hand over her mouth. What had Gray been saying? What had she yelled at?
    “So why then?” he asked, frowning.
    She’d have to guess, which never worked. It was guessing that got her into all the trouble at school, especially in the old Victorian buildings. The ghost children in their old-fashioned pinafores and knee breeches were always standing in front of the whiteboards, blocking Isis’s view while they traced the coloured lines with misty fingers.
    Keep quiet, and don’t say anything, she told herself. He’ll get bored and wander off.
    “Can’t you speak?” he asked, starting to sound annoyed.
    Angel drifted through the bench onto the path, went up to Gray and kicked him. He leaned down, rubbing at his leg without seeming to notice.
    “He a smelly,” Angel said, fading. “Isis, come.”
    SLAM
. The sound of a door, up at the house.
    Isis and Gray both turned to look. Cally was flinging herself down the front steps of the house, and SondraBorwan was behind her in the doorway, floaty and furious, one hand on the door frame.
    Cally stopped when she reached the gravel, turning back.
    “If you don’t believe,” she shouted, “why did you even ask me here?”
    “I believe genuine psychics, and you are clearly a
fraud
!” screamed Sondra, her whole body swinging forwards, only her hand on the door holding her back. “I can’t believe you’d even suggest he was seeing another woman! And there’s
nothing
he hasn’t told me!”
    “I can’t help what the spirits say!”
    “
They’d
never say such a thing!”
    Gray looked at Isis.
    “What’s going on?”
    “I don’t know,” she mumbled, a hideous blush crawling onto her face. She’d have to go to school tomorrow, and he’d be there. Pointing her out, telling everyone about this.
    “You should leave!” Sondra yelled at Cally.
    Cally swung round and stormed to the car, stopping when she realised Isis wasn’t in it. She glared around the garden, hand above her eyes, searching.
    “You might have fooled my cleaner,” shouted Sondra,“but I know the psychic world, I know real ability! Get out of here!”
    “I have to find my
daughter
!” Cally snapped back. Isis pulled further into the shadow of the tree. She was in trouble now. “Isis? Isis!”
    “Is that your name?” asked Gray. Isis nodded, miserable. He had that as well now.
    “Isis!”
    “Looks like you better go,” said Gray.
    Isis stood up from the bench. The drone of the lawnmower stopped.
    “Isis!”
    Why had she given in to Cally, back 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