When it comes to imagination, I’ve been told I have a lot of it. Too much, according to my best friend. She doesn’t mean it. Sometimes she just says stuff like that. Anyway, I don’t mind because imagination is exactly what it takes to picture how Elston-Fright’s town hall must have looked before it sank into disrepair. From where I’m standing at the side of its stage, tucked behind a curtain and peeking out, I decide the hall is the kind of place that must have been grand and impressive once.

Not anymore.

The town hall’s lemon-coloured paint is peeling in some places and bubbling in others. There’s a creeping stain in the centre of the ceiling, and the floorboards are scuff ed. Everything smells musty, but then again that could just be the curtain. I lean closer to check—

—then pull away again.

Yep. It’s definitely the curtain.

‘You’re at it again, Girl,’ Flip whispers.

I stop humming. ‘Accident. Didn’t even realise I was doing it.’

‘Are you nervous? Lately you’ve been humming when you’re Worried.’

Flip Little is a friend of mine, and he talks like that sometimes, as if certain words have Extra Importance. Since it began a few days ago, that’s what he’s called it – my Worry. Like it’s a living, breathing thing.

‘Yes,’ I admit.

Truth is, I hum when I’m all kinds of things. I hum when I’m dancing. When I’m exploring. When I’m daydreaming. Flip’s right, though – this time, I was doing it because I’m Worried. Right at this very moment, people are trickling through the doorway, chattering among themselves and eyeing the stage as they take their seats in long rows of fold-out chairs. It’s enough to make any kid ghost a bit nervous – especially when their best friend, who should be here by now, isn’t.

‘Where is she?’ I mutter.

‘Corpse still has a few minutes before the meeting starts,’ Flip’s nan tells me.

To be honest she seems a bit nervous herself, which makes sense given that what we’re about to do is something Nan Little has been waiting to do for her entire life. Anticipation dances behind her eyes: silver, like her grandson’s, and framed by pale skin that reminds me of crepe paper. She’s wearing an emerald-coloured jacket, complete with a starfish-shaped brooch, and a matching skirt that reaches to her ankles, with brown shoes, polished until shiny, poking from beneath it. Her outfit is the type of thing a person wears when they have something important to say, when they’re demanding to be taken seriously. It’s a big change from the fluff y robe she normally wears at the lighthouse where she lives with Flip, and which Corpse and I have been haunting since the Littles invited us to move in with them.

Oh – Corpse is a ghost, too. I don’t think I mentioned that bit…

Continue reading the extract here.

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