14 Secret Agent

TITLE: Ghost Boys Give Cold Kisses
GENRE: YA mystery, also, a ghost...


I would never be happy here. Never, never, never.

I ripped open the door, but that was just the screen door, so then I had to
rip open the actual front door. Once I'd made it into the hallway I had to
slam the screen door first, which didn't slam well because it had one of
those poxy self-closing hinges that closes at about zero miles an hour.
Slamming the real door rocked the house, though, as did my backpack crashing
on to the wooden floorboards.

The look on Mom's face as I flashed past the kitchen on my way to the garden
made it worth the effort. Steve's voice wafted out of the kitchen window:
'Give her a minute. A first day at a new school is always hard.'

He had no idea.

My insides writhed with resentment, as if a scabby beast were swelling up
inside me; yearning to throw itself down on the grass and scream like a
thwarted toddler. But Australian grass is so dried out and spiky it's liable
to poke your eye out, so instead, I peeled the sticker that said 'I'm India
and I'm new!' off my sack of a school dress, flung it on the grass and
ground it into the dirt with my foot. Grind, grind, grind. Slowly,
deliberately, mercilessly. From the branches of the tree above me a fat grey
bird with a long beak screeched in mockery.