Page 45 of Hot Ghost Summer

I take another sip of hot brew.

A bit too much quiet. Reminds me of how my mum always used to know I was up to mischief whenever I would go quiet.

I face the cupboard where I shut Hollis away in his jar. Is he like her? Will he grow suspicious if I’m quiet for too long? And if he suspects me, will that make it harder to get him to materialise?

Because I do need him out of that phone. Whether it stops him from being so angry all the time, or forces him to talk to me and teach me about this ghost stuff, or it just makes it easier to help him move on, it doesn’t really matter. The result is the same.

So, what can I do that’s noisy in the meantime to distract him? Annoyingly noisy, preferably. Something so uniquely designed to piss someone off that they Hulk out over it.

I drop the chair back onto all four legs, slam my cup down so hard on the table that tea sloshes up and over the rim, and stand with a wide smile. Bloody brilliant!

Rushing to the bathroom, I fish my phone from the pocket of my shorts where I left it last night, then race back to the kitchen to snatch Hollis’s jar from the cupboard.

“Hi. Good morning. Sleep well?” I garble.

I don’t know if he can hear me and I don’t care. Keeping my phone down low by my thigh, I hurriedly connect to the music store and select play “Crazy Frog” on repeat.

Turning the volume up, I lock my phone, then drop it in the jar of salt alongside Hollis’s, and screw the lid back on tightly.

Vrm, vrm, vrrrrm, goes the little motorbike intro. I bite my lip to stop from laughing, set the jar that now contains both our phones on the shelf, and close the cupboard door.

D-D-Ding, ding, ding, ding, blasts the opening few bars. Muffled, but only just.

Cackling to myself, I skip off to the bedroom to get dressed.

Choosing clothes that haven’t been shrunk by a haunted washing machine, I pull on a pair of well-worn grey trackies and a white gym vest. Today is all about quality bonding time with my colleague, so I need to be comfortable. When I go back through there, it’s game on.

I glance up at the lightbulb, roll my shoulders away from my ears, and nod.

Hollis’s laptop is visible through the open bedroom door, the ExorSquad handbook still propped against the screen, but where earlier it had been dark, now it’s lit up.

My heart rate kicks up a notch.

If Hollis is in there, it means he was never in the phone… or worse, that he can get out despite all the salt. If he can get out, then why hasn’t he taken revenge?

Maybe the salt wasn’t irritating enough to earn a punishment, but surely the “Crazy Frog” stunt was? But there hasn’t been a single flicker of a bulb.

He’s still ignoring me.

I narrow my eyes at his laptop screen. But he’s not ignoring whatever it is he’s doing in there, is he?

I saunter closer. Casual. Innocent.

Reaching out, I remove the handbook to reveal the screen. Cells in a spreadsheet are highlighted, copied, then pasted to what I guess is the prototype of an app. The Nachtmann Field Guide to Ghosts and Ghouls. He’d called this his life’s work, and I watch as he diligently transfers information on all kinds of supernatural creatures.

It’s actually pretty cool. I get why he’s obsessed with it. It looks to be a thousand times better than the ExorSquad handbook—if only the guy who made it wasn’t such a jerk. Probably, I’d even find the solution to him in there. Wait.

“Do you know what I have t’ do t’ help you move on?” I ask, bracing the flats of my palms either side of the laptop.

No answer.

My fingertips on the table turn white. So, he does know.

Is this funny to him? Does he get a kick out of tormenting me?

The high-pitched ding ding da da from that stupid song that still plays in the cupboard sets my teeth on edge. Pissed off, I storm over, unscrew the lid, tip out both phones, and all that useless bloody salt. I silence the song.

Days. Days, I’ve been reading that pointless handbook to try to find a solution to his problem, and I’m done. Done with that and done with Hollis. If he wants to haunt someone, then he can go do it somewhere else. I won’t be a plaything for an angry ghost.