Freaks Out! (8 page)

Whatever that is.

“Someone who imagines they've got things wrong with them when they haven't,” said Mum. “The only thing wrong with you, my girl, is that you don't seem to have any sort of control over your movements!”

I felt like pointing out that that in itself could be a symptom of some kind of fatal disease, and that any normal mother would take it seriously, but I thought perhaps I'd better not.

“I wiped the floor for you,” I said. “It's dry as can be!”

She didn't even praise me for making such a good job of it. I really do wonder, sometimes, if it's worth bothering.

 

Jem called me later, wanting to know how I'd got on.

“Did you discover anything?”

I told her no, Tom had come barging in making stupid noises and upset me.

“It's a very delicate operation,” I said. “You need absolute peace and quiet.”

“So are you going to try again?”

I'd thought about that, but the only other mixing bowl Mum had was a tiny one. Plus I didn't fancy my chances a second time, creeping into Angel's room and helping myself to her things.

“I reckon I'm going to try something else,” I said.

“What? What are you going to try?”

“I'm going to try a pendulum.”

It was something I'd read on the Internet, when I was researching about crystal balls.

“A pendulum like on a necklace?” said Jem.

“That's a
pendant
,” I said. “Pendulum's what you get on a clock. Thing that swings to and fro.”

“Oh.”

There was a silence.

“It's dead easy,” I said. “Anybody can make one. Though not everybody, of course, has the power
to make them work.” I added this just in case she was getting any ideas in her head. “You have to be a bit psychic. I'll probably try it out tonight, see what answers I get.”

 

Making a pendulum was ever so much simpler than making a crystal ball. All you needed was a key, preferably an ancient one, and a piece of cord eighteen centimetres long. What you did, you attached the key to one end of the cord, then held the other end so that the key could dangle to and fro. Easy peasy! If you were psychic. It wasn't any use Jem thinking she could do it.

The oldest key I could find was the tiny little one belonging to the corner cabinet that stands in my bedroom and used to belong to one of my grans. I reckoned that would be plenty old enough. I didn't have any cord, and didn't quite like to go and root about among Mum's sewing stuff, but there was a ball of string in one of the kitchen drawers, so I carefully measured off eighteen centimetres on
my ruler and went upstairs to shut myself away where I wouldn't be disturbed.

Now all I had to do was ask questions, but they had to be questions that could be answered with a simple yes or no. If the key swung in a north to south direction, it was giving the answer
yes.
If it swung east to west, that meant
no.
And if it went round in circles it was probably better for you not to know. I did hope it didn't go in circles!

I only had one small problem: I had no idea which was north and which was south! I bucketed downstairs to ask Dad. He was watching football on television and pointed silently towards the windows. Right! Now I could get going.

I held my end of the cord and waited till the key had settled down. OK! I took a breath.

“Do you know where Skye's silver pencil is?”

Yikes! It did! North to south: that meant
yes.
This was very encouraging! I asked another question.

“Is it in Skye's back garden?”

To my disappointment, the key immediately set off in a circle.
Better not to know.
But why?

I tried again.

“Should we look in Skye's back garden?”

This time, the key swung north to south. That was better! But I had to be sure.

“Is that where the pencil is? In the back garden?”

East to west:
no.
This wasn't making any sense! What was the point of looking in the garden if the pencil wasn't there?

“Please concentrate,” I said. “
Is the pencil in Skye's back garden?
”

Yes.

“So is that where we should look?”

No.

Excuse me???

“You just said that that's where it was!”

The key looped about, irritably. I waited for it to calm down.

“Sorry,” I said. “Sorry! I just wanted to make sure…
is the pencil in the back garden
?”

I waited. The key hung sullenly. I'd obviously upset it.

“
Or is it somewhere else?
”

No response.

“
Please
,” I begged, “
speak to me!
”

Still nothing. Bother. Bother, bother,
bother
! I tossed the key across the room. I knew there wasn't any point in carrying on. Spirits are extremely sensitive and can also be rather prickly. I had read this somewhere. It is essential to treat them with respect. Once they are displeased with you they won't communicate no matter how hard you try. You can plead as much as you like.

I would have to find another way. A new set of spirits. And this time I would take care not to say anything that might cause offence.

I was still trying to think what I might do when my phone rang and it was Jem, calling to inform me – what utter cheek! – that she had just tried “the pendulum thing” for herself. I was distinctly annoyed. What right had she to go trying it? I
was the one that had discovered it; I was the one that was psychic. Probably. Maybe. Jem certainly wasn't!

She told me that it was all a load of rubbish. “I asked it if it knew where the pencil was and it said at the North Pole!”

I was glad it hadn't worked for her any more than it had worked for me, but the
North Pole
?

“Dunno how that happened,” I said. “You're only s'posed to ask it things it can answer yes or no to.”

“I know
that
,” said Jem. “I read all about it.”

“So how come it said the North Pole?”

“Cos I asked it! I got sick of it just swinging about, not making any sense, so I said, ‘Is it at the North Pole?' Like testing it, you know? See if it knew what it was doing. And it obviously didn't, cos it said yes. Which, I mean, is just stupid!”

I said, “Like I told you, you have to be psychic.”

“You think you are?” said Jem.

Omigod, she was so jealous!

“I must be a bit,” I said.

“Why? Did yours work?”

“Sort of.”

“What's that mean?”

“I asked if it knew where the pencil was and it said yes, but it refused to tell me where.”

Jem said, “Huh!”

“It's my fault, I upset it. I got impatient.”

“Like you did with Saint Anthony, keeping on nagging at him.”

“
I
didn't nag him! I told you to ask him nicely and promise you'd go to church every Sunday and you didn't, you were
grudging.
I'm not surprised he didn't help us!”

“He still could,” said Jem.

I said, “Yeah, and pigs could fly!”

We didn't exactly quarrel, but we both rang off in something of a huff. I thought it was really sad that Jem should be so envious of my psychic powers that she resented my little bit of success. I had, after all, proved that the spirits knew where
the pencil was. It was just a question of getting them to tell me.

Oh, and I nearly forgot. Later that evening Angel came roaring downstairs like one demented, wanting to know if I had been in her room.

I said, “
Me?
”

She screamed, “Who else?”

She really is quite unbalanced. I asked her what made her think anyone in their right mind would
want
to go in her room, at which she turned bright purple and screeched, “Did you or didn't you?”

Fortunately at that point Mum stepped in to say that
she
had gone in to check the central heating, which calmed the mad woman down a bit, though she still regarded me with suspicion. Mum seemed to think it was funny.

“Are you checking up on us?” she said.

Darkly, Angel muttered that she'd found a bit of mud on one of her rugs. “Like someone had come in from the garden.”

Oops! That would have been me. I'd been out
there, playing with Rags. Tom mouthed at me across the room: “Told you so!”

It was a nasty moment.

Although I say it myself, I am not the sort of person that is easily put off. Some people, when there are setbacks, will say, “Oh, I have had enough of this, I cannot be bothered,” but with me it is just the opposite. With me it is more like,
No way am I going to give up!
I don't mean to boast; it is just how I am. I cannot rest until I have done what I set out to do, which in this case was find Skye's pencil for her. There had to be other ways of using my psychic ability!

Sunday morning, I found Angel in the bathroom doing things with her hair. She is always doing things with her hair.

“What do you want?” she said.

I told her I didn't want anything. “I just happened to be passing.”

“Well, I just happen to be in here!”

And Mum just happened to be downstairs in the kitchen. I seized the opportunity.

“I s'pose you don't happen to know what it's called when people sit around a table and conjure up spirits?”

I was proud of that phrase,
conjure up spirits.
I wasn't totally absolutely certain what it meant, but I knew it was the right one to use. Angel gave this sharp bark of laughter.

“You mean spirits like whisky and gin, and they all get drunk?”

Honestly, Angel has even less sense of humour than Skye. That is why it is so pathetic when she tries making a joke. It is simply not funny.

I said, “
No.
When they sit in the dark and hold hands and someone goes into a trance and a spirit comes down and they ask it questions and it gives them the answers.”

Angel said, “Oh, you mean
that
sort of spirit. I thought you meant the sort Dad likes to drink at Christmas!”

Ha ha ha. I almost began to wish I'd never asked her. She is
such
hard work.

“So what's it called?” I said. “It's called something!”

Angel threw her hair back over her shoulders, splattering me with water.

“Seance?” she said.

Say-onss.
“How d'you spell it?”

“S.e.a.n.c.e. Don't they teach you people
anything
?”

I said, “Mostly just useless stuff. What's that other one, where you all put your fingers on a glass and the glass moves round the table spelling things out?”

“How should I know?” said Angel. And then
rather grudgingly, “I suppose you're talking about a Ouija board?”

“Yes!” I pounced eagerly. I'd heard of Ouija boards. “How d'you spell that one?”

“I haven't the faintest idea! Why ask me? Go and look it up.”

I said, “How can I do that if I don't know how to spell it?”

“Use your brain for once! If you've got one. I don't see why you should keep picking mine all the time. Why are you asking about all this weird stuff?”

“It's for homework,” I said.

She probably didn't believe me, but so what? Wasn't any business of hers, anyway.

I went back to my room and opened up my laptop to find out about seances and Ouija boards. Seance was easy. There's oceans and oceans about seances. I wrote down all that I needed to know, then tried “Weeja”. I didn't think anything would come up, but computers can be really clever at
times, guessing what you want even when you can't spell it right. Other times I find they can be completely maddening, like if you run two words together by mistake and they say they don't know what you're talking about. I mean, that is just
stupid
. But I put in “Weeja” and it came right back at me:
Ouija.
That is so neat!

I didn't bother taking any more notes cos a) I was tired of writing things down and b) I really actually did have homework to do. In any case, I was hoping if we had a seance, I would find a spirit that was willing to help.

 

The biggest difficulty, I thought, would be convincing Skye. I reckoned she'd say it was all rubbish and a waste of time, but when I put it to her next morning on the way to school, she didn't raise any objections. She wasn't exactly what I'd call eager, but she agreed we might as well give it a go.

“I s'pose it can't hurt.”

“Might be fun,” urged Jem. “When shall we do it?”

I'd have liked to get going that same day, but I felt we really needed a whole evening.

“We shouldn't rush things. Not if we want the spirits to speak to us.”

“So when, then?”

We decided that Friday after school Jem and Skye would come back with me for a sleepover.

“That way we can wait till it's properly dark.”

Jem said, “Yes, cos that's when the spirits are most likely to come.”

“You know it's all rubbish,” said Skye.

But I had this feeling she was only saying it cos she felt she had to. She wanted so much to find her gran's pencil that she was willing to try anything. I said later to Jem, “I do hope it works! But even if it doesn't, I'm not going to give up.”

 

My bedroom is about the size of a broom cupboard, so when Jem and Skye stay over, it is a bit of a crush, but we don't mind. Skye always brings her sleeping bag, while Jem and me cram together in my bed.
Rags usually crams with us, flolloping about on top of the duvet and making Jem squeal when she wakes up in the middle of the night to find his big furry head right next to her on the pillow.

So, on Friday evening, we all rushed upstairs as soon as we'd finished tea. It wasn't yet properly dark, not inky black dark, but as I said, we had to prepare. I'd made a list of all the stuff we'd need. I was getting quite good at lists!

“Number one,” I said, “a table and chairs.”

Skye gazed round. “Where d'you think we're going to put them?”

I had to admit that was a bit of a problem.

“Maybe we should have done it at my place?”

I said, “No, it's got to be here.” It was just this feeling I had. Skye's bedroom might be bigger, but it is not what I would call spirit-friendly. It is too clean and tidy. “I'll ask Mum if we can bring her little table up from the front room. That'll fit in. Then we can all sit round it on the floor. OK! Number two: food.”

“
Food?
How long are we going to be here?”

“It's not for us,” I said. “It's for the spirits.”

Somewhat surprised, Jem said, “Do spirits get hungry?”

I wasn't sure about this. I just knew that that's what it had said. You had to put something out for them, like a bowl of soup or a slice of bread.

“Maybe it depends how long they've been dead,” said Jem. “Prob'ly takes a while before they realise they don't have to keep eating all the time.”

I glanced rather anxiously at Skye. Trust Jem to go talking about dead people!

“I think it's more just good manners,” I said. “Like when someone calls round you offer them a cup of tea? So you offer the spirits a bit of bread.”

“But how can they eat?” said Jem. “If they're spirits? They don't have any mouths!”

“Does it really matter?” said Skye. She sounded like she was growing restive, like she was impatient to get started. “What else do we need?”

I consulted my list. “Three candles.”

“Why three?” said Jem.

“
I
don't know! Cos that's what it said.”

“Why couldn't we just have the light on?”

“Cos they prefer candles! We have to make them feel welcome. 'Sides, candles are warm. It's prob'ly cold where they are.”

“What, out in space?”

“Out there.” I waved a hand. “Drifting about. They see a bit of candlelight, they're going to think,
Oh, these people have made an effort, I'll go down and find out what they want
.”

Jem said, “Mm.” She seemed suddenly doubtful. “Do we
really
expect them to come?”

“Not much point doing it if we don't,” said Skye. “I mean, it's all a load of rubbish, but – well!” She gave a little laugh, like she'd embarrassed herself. “We don't necessarily understand everything that goes on.”

“This is it,” I said. “Life is full of mysteries. Let's go and get all the stuff!”

I asked Mum if we could borrow her small table, and she not only said yes, but actually got Tom to
carry it upstairs for us. I didn't ask if I could have some of her candles cos I reckoned she'd only get in a flap and think we were going to burn the house down, so I secretly helped myself to three of the little stinky ones from the kitchen cupboard. I also took a slice of bread out of the bread bin. I'd have liked to put some peanut butter on it, cos I mean dry bread is hardly very enticing, but just as I was about to open the fridge, Angel came in.

She screeched, “Omigod, you're eating again!” in tones of complete hysteria. “You've only just had tea!”

I didn't feel inclined to get into conversation with Angel right at that moment, plus Jem was standing there in full view, clutching candles, so I said grandly that the bread wasn't for me, it was for the birds, and I was going to scatter it out of my bedroom window. As we scuttled back upstairs Jem hissed, “Bread is bad for birds!”

I said, “Yes, I know. You're supposed to give them seeds.”

“So why are you—” She stopped. “Oh! That was just an excuse for Angel.”

I looked at her. Rather hard.

“I can't help it,” whined Jem. “I'm tired! I've been up all day.”

“Maybe,” I said kindly, “you should go to bed and we'll wake you up when we're ready to start. After all, it's nearly seven o'clock…
way
past your little kiddy bedtime!”

“I didn't hardly sleep last night,” said Jem. “I kept having these nightmares.”

“How d'you have nightmares when you're not asleep?”

“I said I didn't
hardly
sleep. I kept being woken up. It's scary,” said Jem, “messing with dead people.”

“We're not messing with them,” I said. “We're just inviting them –
politely
– to come and talk to us. They don't have to if they don't want to.”

“But what happens –” Jem lowered her voice to a whisper as we approached the bedroom, where we had left Skye – “what happens if one of them is
Skye's gran?”

“That's what we're hoping for,” I said. “That's what we
want.
Then we can ask her questions about the pencil, like ‘Do you remember where you put it?' kind of thing. There wouldn't be anything scary about it!”

Jem seemed unconvinced. I did hope she wasn't going to develop cold feet at the last moment.

Skye and I agreed that although by now it was quite dark we ought to wait until it was really
dark
dark, so for a couple of hours we listened to music and played games on the computer. By nine o'clock we couldn't wait any longer.

“If we're going to do it, let's do it!” said Skye.

Suddenly, she was really keen. Jem was the one who was dithering. She said she'd been thinking about things and she wasn't sure it was right to try and speak to dead people, she wasn't sure the Church would approve.

I said, “Church? What church? You never go to church!” Which pretty well killed
that
argument.

So then she starts wittering about evil spirits. How did we know evil spirits weren't going to come swarming down? I couldn't immediately think of an answer to that one. It was Skye, in her best no-nonsense voice, who briskly informed Jem there were no such things as evil spirits, it was just superstition.

“It's all rubbish, anyway.”

“So why are we doing it?” wailed Jem.

“Cos it wouldn't be fair on Frankie if we didn't. She's gone to a lot of trouble setting it all up.”

“Just wants to prove she's psychic,” muttered Jem.

I ignored this. “I'm going downstairs,” I said, “to tell Mum we don't want to be disturbed. You get the candles lit – and don't let Rags eat the bread!” He'd been greedily eyeing it for some time. Dad says he's like a walking dustbin.

“He shouldn't really be in here,” said Skye. “Not if we're having a proper seance.”

What did she know? She thought it was all
rubbish, anyway.

“He'll be OK,” I said. “Spirits like animals.”

I wasn't turning the poor boy out! It was his bedroom as much as mine.

I couldn't find Mum or Dad. I found Tom instead, watching some dreary documentary sort of thing on the television. I said, “Where's Mum and Dad?”

Tom said, “Gone to a meeting.”

“When are they coming back?”

“Dunno. Didn't say. 'Bout 'leven o'clock? I've been left here to look after you,” said Tom.

“Well, just to let you know,” I said, “we're rehearsing something
very important
for school and we don't want to be disturbed. OK?”

He raised a hand. “'Kay.”

 

Jubilantly, I hammered back upstairs.

“Mum and Dad have gone out! There's only Tom.”

Not even Angel. We were safe!

I switched off the light and we all sat cross-legged on the floor, holding hands, round Mum's
little low table. It was cosy in the flickering glow of the candles.

“OK! So what do we do?” said Skye.

I said, to begin with we all had to chant.

“Like what? What do we chant?”

I put on my chanting voice that I'd been practising. “
Alakazam, alakazoo…
”

“Which means what?”

“Doesn't mean anything. They're just magic words, like
abracadabra
. It's what's called
creating an atmosphere.
You have to have an atmosphere. Soon as it seems right, I'll call on the spirits. What I'll do, I'll ask if there's anyone there, and if there is they'll rap, like this –” I tapped my fingers on the table – “or make some sort of noise, so that we'll know. Then we can start asking questions, like ‘Are you Skye's gran?' and ‘Are you happy?' and ‘Can you tell us where your pencil is?' sort of thing.”