It was dawn when I climbed through my bedroom window, exhausted and scared. I had intended to sneak into Dad’s office and search the web to find out anything about Mister Lewis, but I crashed into bed and slept until I heard Mum shouting at me to get up. I wished I could tell her what was going on in the life of her only son, but where would you begin to tell your mum that you’d been hanging out with a dead person all night? So, looking normal on the outside and jittery as a green jelly on the inside, I sloped off to school.
Miss Lee tut-tutted when she saw Shane’s empty desk.
‘Anyone know if Shane is coming to school today?’ she asked.
‘I bet him and his gran are off mucking about with paint,’ someone laughed.
Miss Lee smiled and shook her head as she marked Shane absent. Absent means ‘not here’, I thought. And, unless I put things right, not here ever again. I shut my eyes and wished him back here right now. But that was just being nerdy. So I opened my eyes again and thought about what I had to do.
I got through that day somehow. Even Mum was worried when I passed up on the ice-cream dessert and yummy sponge cake. And she reached for the thermometer when I said that I was taking an early night in bed.
‘Just call me if you’re feeling sick,’ she said as she felt my forehead and tucked me in.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.’
How could I tell my mum that, if things didn’t go right during the full moon, she’d never see me again? I’d be wafting about with Shane and Big Ella, looking in through windows, and longing for a spoonful of stew or a pancake.
I watched that moon cross my window. I could hear the comforting sound of the telly downstairs. Then the sounds of Dad locking up and Mum going to the bathroom. Then Dad singing off-key in the shower. Then silence.
The clock downstairs chimed ten forty-five. I had just fifteen minutes to meet spooky Mister Lewis in Shane’s garden. I wanted to just curl up and hide. But my best friend and his gran were depending on me. With a sharp bite on my lip to get me going, I got up and put on my comforting old Bart Simpson leather (well, fake leather) jacket for good luck. Then I took my torch and the back-door key and crept out into the night.
‘OK, Mister Lewis,’ I whispered. ‘Here I come.’