Voices in Stone - Emily Diamand Page 0,51

get higher. “There’s two Victorian girls in the playground who play a skipping game, and this shouty teacher with a moustache who’s always in the main hall. The ghost in the girls’ loos was Summer Bailey’s great aunt, but she went back to the other realm and anyway she wouldn’t hurt a fly, mostly she talked about knitting.”

“See?” cried Chloe. “She’s the one, not us!”

Isis didn’t even look at Chloe.

“I’m sorry if people got scared, Mr Gerard. But if anyone else says they’re seeing ghosts, they’re just…” Making it up? She couldn’t bring herself to say it, not facing the same accusation. She focused on the deputy head, hoping he’d somehow understand. “Psychics are really rare, there can’t be loads in school.”

Mr Gerard was silent, then he said “Are you admitting to holding a seance in the girls’ toilet?”

Isis opened her mouth, about to answer with a bold yes, when she saw the other girls’ faces. They were desperate, frightened of what she’d say next, that she’d drag them all down with her. Well, they’d wanted her to be psychic.

“I’m not lying,” she said, hearing the shake in her own voice. “But none of them are able to see ghosts.” She nodded towards the other girls.

Mr Gerard tightened his jaw, the muscles of his face shifting.

“All right.” He pointed at Jess, Chloe, Hayley and Nafira. “You will each have lunchtime detention for five days and be on report for two weeks. If I hear one word from any of your teachers, then the consequences will be far more severe.” He turned his gaze to Isis. “As ringleader, and for showing no remorse at all for what you’ve done, I have no choice but to remove you from school until this can be sorted out. You will leave immediately.”

Chapter Twenty

Isis

Cally crunched through the gears, muttering under her breath as she stopped and started through the traffic. Isis sat silently next to her, listening to the rise and fall of the engine, the sounds of other cars. And the singing.

Isis had been marched by Cally from the school to their car, and Angel had been waiting inside it, her head poking out through the shut window, waving happily. Now she was dancing on the back seat, singing the little song she seemed hooked on at the moment.

“The little fish, the little fish, he swimming round and round. He swimming up and down and up with Mummy.”

“I’m sorry,” Isis said, at last.

Cally didn’t answer.

She’s too angry to speak to me. That was Cally’s way.

“I don’t know why I did it,” Isis said, although she did, she knew exactly why.

Still Cally didn’t answer.

Isis fiddled with the thick fabric of her seat belt. “I just wanted Jess to be friends with me,” she said.

It sounded so pathetic. And Jess hadn’t even been her friend, that was clear now.

Cally didn’t speak; her mouth was set in a line. Only when they’d reached their street and Cally had parked the car in front of the flats did she finally say anything. Not looking at Isis, staring through the front windscreen.

“I just don’t understand why you’d do this,” she said. “It’s like you wanted to make fun of me in front of everyone at your school.”

Isis turned in her seat. It had never even occurred to her Cally might view things that way. “No. That wasn’t it.”

“Then why hold seances?” asked Cally.

Isis started to think of an explanation, but she stopped herself. She’d decided to tell the truth in school. She had to keep to it.

“Do you remember out in the field, with Gil and Gray? The time we saw the UFO?”

Cally shuddered. “How can I forget?”

Isis shook her head. “No, not when I…” Died. “I mean before. When I said I saw something, and you said I must be psychic like you.” Isis looked at her mum. “Do you remember?”

Cally nodded, slow and reluctant. “But I was very… enthusiastic about the spirits then. I’ve thought a lot about it since, what with everything that happened, and you getting so badly hurt, and Philip Syndal turning out to be… not quite normal. I think perhaps I went too far.”

“I can see ghosts,” said Isis.

Cally held still, before suddenly turning around and taking hold of Isis’s hands, gripping too tightly.

“This isn’t something to play with, Isis.” Cally leaned forwards a little. “I know it must have seemed glamorous, seeing Philip at the theatre with all his fans. I’m sure it looked like fun, but look at what’s already happened