‘There,’ he said when he was finished. ‘Does that hurt?’

‘No,’ I said, since it didn’t. It wouldn’t start hurting, I knew from experience, for a few hours. I cleared my throat. ‘Thanks.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. Suddenly, ridiculously, I felt like crying. Really. And I never cry. ‘I mean it. Thanks. Thanks for coming out here to help me. You shouldn’t have done it. I mean, I’m glad you did. And . . . well, thanks. That’s all.’

He looked embarrassed. Well, I suppose that was natural, me going all mushy on him the way I had just then. But I couldn’t help it. I mean, I still couldn’t really believe it. No ghost had ever been so nice to me. Oh, my dad tried, I guess. But he wasn’t exactly what you’d call reliable about it. I could never really count on him, especially in a crisis.

But Jesse. Jesse had come through for me. And I hadn’t even asked him to. In fact, I’d been pretty unpleasant to him, overall.

‘Never mind,’ was all he said, though. And then he added, ‘Let’s go home.’

Twelve

Let’s go home.

It had a very cosy feel to it, that ‘Let’s go home.’

Except, of course, that the house we shared didn’t quite feel like home to me yet. How could it? I’d only lived there a few days.

And, of course, he shouldn’t have been living there at all.

Still, ghost or not, he’d saved my life. There was no denying that. He’d probably only done it to get on my good side so I wouldn’t kick him out of the house entirely.

But regardless of why he’d done it, it had still been pretty nice of him. Nobody had ever volunteered to help me before – mostly because, of course, nobody knew I needed help. Even Gina, who’d been there when Madame Zara had first pronounced me a mediator, never knew why it was I would show up to school so groggy-eyed, or where it was I went when I cut class – which I did all too frequently. And I couldn’t exactly explain. Not that Gina would have thought I was crazy or anything, but she’d have told someone – you can’t keep something like this secret unless it’s happening to you – who’d have told someone else, and eventually, somewhere along the line, I knew someone would have told my mother.

And my mother would have freaked. That is, naturally, what mothers do, and mine is no exception. She’d already stuck me in therapy where I was forced to sit and invent elaborate lies in the hopes of explaining my anti-social behaviour. I did not need to spend any time in a mental institution, which was undoubtedly where I’d have ended up if my mother had ever found out the truth.

So, yeah, I was grateful to have Jesse along, even though he sort of made me nervous. After the debacle at the Mission, he walked me home, which was gentlemanly and all. He even, in deference to my injury, insisted on pushing the bike. I suppose if anybody had looked out the window of any of the houses we were passing, they would have thought their eyes were playing tricks on them: they’d have seen me plodding along with this bike rolling effortlessly beside me – only my hands weren’t touching the bike.