Misguided Ghosts

Chapter Thirty-One

Thirty-One – Tay

Beep beep. Beep beep.

I rolled over, squinting through my fringe. It couldn’t be morning already, could it? I hadn’t even had dinner. Had I really just gone straight to sleep? I sat up, scratching the back of my head with one hand and reaching out to turn the alarm on my phone off. But there was one slight problem: I couldn’t find my phone. The longer I listened, the more I realised that it wasn’t even my alarm tune. While the alarm that I’d set on my phone sounded like a klaxon going off, this one was more the annoying digital beep that people over the age of forty favoured.

Turning to face my bedside table, I realised just what was wrong. My phone, which I’d definitely chucked on my bedside table in the moments before I fell asleep, was gone. It had been replaced by a small boxy alarm clock.

Heaving myself off my bed, I saw that my laptop had gone, along with my iPod. Slowly walking back to my bed, I crouched beside it and checked under it, where all of the boxes were. They were all gone. Every single box that contained my CD collection was gone. Everything that kept me sane had gone. The posters were still on my walls, but the smiles of the people in them seemed almost mocking now, as if they knew just how much I needed them but couldn’t have them.

I changed my clothes quickly, going for the first items of clothing that I could find: black skinny jeans; my white Pure Love vest that was actually a shirt but I’d cut the sleeves off; a black leather jacket with a dark blue hoodie underneath it and I found my dark blue Vans hiding at the bottom of my wardrobe. Slipping my black beanie over my curly hair, I  decided I’d sort my make-up out after breakfast, when I came back upstairs to clean my teeth.  

Emptying my bag, I tossed the books that I didn’t need on my bed and grabbed the ones that I did need from my desk. By the looks of it, today was going to be a hard day, one of the ones that never seemed to end.

When I got downstairs, I had an unpleasant surprise in the form of my parents, sitting at the kitchen table. A bowl of cereal was already set out, presumably for me, and I noticed that it was bran flakes, which I hated and that my parents blatantly knew this.  I slid into my seat in front of them and silently began to eat.

“What time are you leaving?” My father asked.

I glanced at the clock. It was half seven. “In about half an hour. I normally go by Char’s and meet her, and we meet Jared at quarter past eight,”

“And you will go straight to school?”

“Of course I will. I’ve never skipped school, and I’m not about to start now,”

“And you’ll come straight home?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I guess it depends on what Jared and Char are doing,” My parents had never taken this much interest in my routine before. The moment I hit about fourteen, they figured I could look after myself. “Why, do I need to be home?”

“Actually, you do,” Mum said, clearing her throat. “Your father has a work dinner tonight and they have requested the company of the whole family. And they would like it if you brought a date.”

My heart leapt. “Can I take Ed?”

“No,”

My heart sank. “So who would you like me to bring?”

“We’re sat with the chairman of the company, Mr McDougall, so we need someone who will make a good impression. There could be a promotion in this,” Dad mused.

Mum frowned at me. “Jared is far too tall, and he tends to say all the wrong things to the wrong people. What about this Caleb boy? What does he look like?”