31

“Bad guys,” enthused Kelli, wide awake and smiling to herself as she hovered at my bedside.

I wasn’t surprised to see her, exactly — I’d suspected Kelli might have trouble sleeping after all the excitement of her day at Gorsebrook. But Gorsebrook wasn’t what was on my sister’s mind this night. Kelli, it seemed, wanted to talk about Arun Gill. She was practically bouncing from foot to foot. It felt almost as if she’d been lying awake obsessing on the man.

“Bad guys Misser Gill’s garage,” she said.

Kelli brought up Mr. Gill a lot these days. She’d been excited by all the neighbourhood action the night the Gill garage was vandalized, and lately she often asked me about “bad guys” — specifically “bad guys in Misser Gill’s garage” — because that was how I’d explained the incident to her. It wasn’t so much that Kelli was afraid of these bad guys as that every time she thought she heard a noise now, she believed she knew the cause and, furthermore, she hoped that she was right because it had been so much fun seeing all the cop cars on the street, not to mention the neighbours in their housecoats out in the middle of the night. In short, Kelli was hoping for a replay of poor Arun Gill’s misfortune.

“Mr. Gill’s probably asleep now, Kell,” I said. “He got rid of all the bad guys. Did you hear a noise?”

“Noise,” agreed Kelli.

Maybe the ghost is back, I thought, still half asleep. Which was a funny thing to be thinking, because I hadn’t thought about the ghost for weeks. Yes, Kelli still got up from time to time, but she always woke me when she did — just as she was doing now. But there’d been no nocturnally rearranged furniture or messed-up closets since I’d joked about it on the phone to Jessica. I had put the ghost out of my mind — at least, I thought I had.

“Bad guys Misser Gill,” insisted Kelli, becoming impatient with me because I had closed my eyes again.

“I don’t think so,” I told her, sitting up. “But go take a look if you want.”

Kelli darted back to her room to peer out the window. I could hear her murmuring to herself as she surveyed the street.

“See anything, Kell?”

Kelli lumbered out of the room, whispering. She stood in the hall for a moment or two, rocking slightly, meditative.

“Where those bad guys, Karie?” she asked at last.

“I don’t think the bad guys are out tonight.”

“No bad guys, no,” Kelli allowed, disgruntled.

“Which means maybe it’s time to head back to bed, what do you say? Wanna be rested to see your friends at Gorsebrook tomorrow, right?”

I thought the mention of Gorsebrook would light up her eyes but Kelli just paced and rocked some more, preoccupied. I pulled my covers up to my chin. My goal — as it always was during these episodes of wakefulness on Kelli’s part — was to get through this bout without having to get out of bed myself.