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but not what they’re actually saying. In our old house, if someone was fighting you could hear every word. Up here it’s like the room has wrapped me in a strange fog and I’m hidden away from the rest of the house.

6
    a haunting
    Parents like to think just because you’re not ranting about something, that you’ve accepted it. Dinner went badly. Mum and I had a fight. Actually it wasn’t really dinner: it was chips and potato cakes, because no one ate the fish, except Mum, who refused to admit it was disgusting. It’s right what they say about buying fish hours away from the sea: it’s never going to be good. Mum tried to make me admit how much I was enjoying myself. Dad even warned her to stop but she kept going. Why do parents want you to pretend their bad decisions are awesome when they are clearly not? Luckily, Ruby texted me before I completely lost it with Mum, so I had an excuse to bolt.
    I can’t be bothered texting Ruby back. I just want a real conversation. I want to pretend she’s hanging in my room with me. So I ring her and she answers in a second. There’s that heartbeat of hers.
    â€˜They showed heaps of people through your house today.’
    â€˜Really?’ I don’t want to know.
    â€˜Yeah, but Mum and I weren’t impressed with any of them.’
    â€˜I can’t believe our house is going to be sold.’
    â€˜I know. I can’t believe you’re not next door.’
    â€˜Nope. Here I am. In Freaksville.’
    â€˜It isn’t that bad.’
    â€˜It is. Weird stuff happened today. Something grabbed my ankle and left my skin wet. Then I found letters on the floor that spelt my name.’
    â€˜Really? Take a photo and text me.’ Ruby sounds a bit more intrigued than she’s letting on. ‘Maybe it was just Max.’
    â€˜No. He hasn’t been in my room.’
    â€˜You sure?’
    â€˜Yeah. Pretty sure. Anyway,’ I say, ‘he can’t spell.’
    â€˜That’s true.’
    â€˜I think the house is haunted.’ As I say it, I know it sounds ridiculous, but something has to explain all the bizarre stuff that’s been going on.
    â€˜You’re just bored.’
    â€˜But does boredom cause strange things to happen?’
    â€˜Maybe. Remember when you were sure that your parents were getting a divorce?’
    I smile at the memory.
    â€˜And actually your dad was organising a surprise party for your mum’s fortieth?’
    â€˜That was different.’
    â€˜It wasn’t. You and I spent hours listening against the doors with glasses pressed up to our ears, or trying to read his scribbly notes, or listening in to his phone conversations on the other line. And you would’ve told your mum about it except then you found a list of invited guests and you realised you were wrong.’
    â€˜In my defence, I was only ten.’
    â€˜Well, you’re only fifteen now. And you don’t want to be in Gideon, so you’ll invent anything you can to get out of there.’
    I hate it when Ruby outmanoeuvres me. I want her to just agree with me, let me go on a crazy rant about ghosts and haunted houses if that’s what’s going to make it bearable to live here, but she likes nailing the truth and she’s not interested in my mad fantasies.
    â€˜Okay, Rubes, well how else would my name come to be written on the floor?’
    â€˜I don’t know, but a ghost isn’t going to do that. Don’t ghosts just make houses cold and move things so you can’t find them. They don’t carve letters into the floor. They can’t hold anything.’
    â€˜Well, explain the watery grip on my ankle.’
    â€˜Lil—’
    â€˜Come on! If you think it’s all in my head—’
    â€˜I don’t. I think it’s an old house and old houses can seem spooky, especially when you can’t wait to leave,’ she says.
    â€˜So you explain it