I’m not sure what I was expecting. I suppose the ‘Smelliot’ thing still had me wondering if he lived in a horrible house, but …
Boydy’s house is totally normal. Much smaller than I expected, what with his dad being a lawyer, but normal. With a very distinctive smell of scented candles.
‘Sorry about the smell,’ he says, completely unself-consciously. ‘Mum’s got a client in.’
He says that his mum is a reflexologist and reiki therapist, neither of which I have a clue about, except that they clearly involve scented candles and whale-song set to music, which you can hear everywhere in the house.
Boydy’s dad isn’t around much. I’ve never seen him. I ask Boydy where he is and he answers quickly.
‘He’s away. He works away a lot. Will you pass me that knife, Eff?’
Boydy cooking is pretty impressive to watch, and I sit at his kitchen counter while he chops and fries. Because his mum is a vegan, Boydy’s learned to cook stuff for himself, otherwise, he reckons, he would ‘starve’.
She draws the line at having meat in the house, but doesn’t mind fish so that’s what we’re having. Personally, I don’t see the difference between meat and fish. I mean, if you don’t want to kill something, fair enough, but what about the poor fish, gasping for life in the hold of a fishing trawler? I don’t say this, obviously.
Anyway, Boydy’s chopping up veggies for a prawn stir-fry and his hands are swift and deft, just like Jamie Oliver on telly.
‘You should have seen it!’ he gushes, when we get to talking about that afternoon’s Whitley’s Got Talent, which takes about two seconds.
‘I did. I was there!’
In case you were wondering, Boydy didn’t win. I know: it seems crazy. The best illusion ever and he didn’t win.
‘I think it’s because I told them it wasn’t me playing the guitar.’
‘You what?’
I’m dreading what he’s going to say: has he spilt our secret?
‘Everyone was raving. People were talking about ghosts. Mr Parker was in a right old state – it was nearly a riot. Honestly, Eff, I thought I was going to be burned at the stake.’
I thought back to the bunch of people who were advancing on me, and the chaos in the hall. It certainly wasn’t an orderly performance, if that was what they had wanted.
‘Mr Parker took me to one side and said, “Mr Boyd. While I appreciate the theatricality of your rrrecital and the preparation that went into its execution …”’
I start to laugh because it’s a brilliant impression.
Encouraged, Boydy goes on: ‘“The invisible fishing line that you undoubtedly utilised to effect the levitation of the guitar was indeed wily, but as said instrument was out of your hands, I can only assume that the music was generated with more than a degree of artifice. Am I right?”’
‘He reckoned you faked the music?’
‘Right. But what could I say? “No, Mr Parker. It was Ethel Leatherhead except she was invisible”? I said I had a recording on my phone and it was stuck with Blu Tack inside the hole of the guitar.’
‘And he believed you?’
‘Occam’s razor, Effel, Occam’s razor.’
I give him a blank look.
He’s buoyed with confidence now, and he dumps the veggies and prawns in the wok.
‘Occam’s razor. It’s philosophy, innit? “Once you eliminate the impossible, what remains – however improbable – must be the truth.”’
‘What’s that got to do with a razor?’
‘Dunno,’ he says, expertly shaking and tossing the stuff in the pan without a spoon. ‘And he didn’t say it anyway. It was Spock in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, quoting Sherlock Holmes.’
‘So who’s this Occam?’
‘Doesn’t matter. The point is, so far as Mr Parker’s concerned, the only way it could have happened is with some sort of ultra-fine thread and a recorded track inside the guitar. And thus, as I was supposed to be a musical act, I was disqualified from winning.’
‘That totally sucks.’
I feel angry that Boydy was denied his rightful prize, but he doesn’t seem to care.
He shrugs. ‘Big deal. It was worth every second to see the look on Jesmond Knight’s face when he fired that water at me and it hit you instead. It was like I had an invisible force field around me! Now, I hope you’re hungry.’
I’ve got to hand it to Boydy. His stir-fry smells delicious, and I am super-hungry.
Between mouthfuls, I ask him, ‘So what about the other stuff? You said the school was in a frenzy.’
It turns out that there are three versions of the ghost story, all witnessed by different people, but none of the versions are quite consistent enough to make a solid, believable story.
The people who saw me get soaked in the hall are all arguing about what they saw, and Riley Colman the physics geek has convinced half of them that it was another part of Boydy’s grand illusion – which Boydy isn’t exactly denying.
The girls in the toilet who saw me spraying blood are not what are known as ‘reliable witnesses’. When someone tells you that a pool of blood just appeared on the floor, people won’t believe you – as Katie Pelling discovered. Someone had a nosebleed. So what?
Aramynta Fell seems to have said nothing about my encounter with her outside the Performing Arts Block.
Which leaves me running through the rain from reception, which was seen by, I don’t know, dozens of people?
Boydy waves his fork dismissively and swallows a big mouthful.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah – but what did they actually see? I mean, really? A shape? A squall of rain created by a gust of wind? One story I heard is that it’s the ghost of some kid who drowned in Culvercot Bay, like, thirty years ago.’
‘Really? That happened?’
‘Appaz. According to Dalton MacFadyen, whose dad was at the school then. The point, my friend, is that nobody knows. Not for sure. And that means any of it could be true – or none of it. And my prediction is that, given a little time, it’ll all die down and go away, and your secret will be safe.’
Next to him on the table, Boydy’s phone pings and he looks at it, scrolling through a message quickly.
His face falls.
‘Ah. Or not so safe.’
Boydy and I look at each other. Jarrow and Jesmond. Who else?
Then we look at the clock on the wall.
It’s 7.45.