Bang Bang You're Dead (12 page)

Monday 10 March, 2.10 p.m.

I can see stars.

I am floating through darkness. Every so often a silver star shimmers in the gloom. But when I put out my hand to touch it, it always eludes me, shooting away and leaving a trail of flame in its wake.

I feel weightless and relaxed.

I am happy.

But now I am being pulled roughly in the opposite direction. I try to fight it, but the force is too strong for me.

'
No!
' I shout.

I am hurtling through time and space towards a light so bright it is burning me up. I don't want to go there, but I have no choice. The lovely feeling of weightlessness vanishes, and now my body becomes heavy and bruised and battered.

I try to speak, but I can't. My eyelids flutter and open very slowly.

At first I see only pure, clean white, and I think I'm lying on a cloud. Then I realize that I am in a small white-painted room, in a bed covered with snowy linen. The light is even brighter now, and my eyes begin to water painfully. A sob rises in my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut.

'Mia?'

I recognize the soft voice at my ear. It's Mum. With an effort, I open my eyes a little again and turn my head. But Mum is just an outline, a misty blur.

'Oh, thank God,' Mum murmurs, and starts to cry.

I see more outlines in the room, outlines that gradually begin to take shape. I make out a woman in uniform and a man in a white coat. I am so disorientated, it takes me a little while to work out that I am in hospital.

Why?

I struggle to remember what happened. My brain seems to be working at a much slower rate than the rest of me, and I cannot make any logical sense of the dark, senseless, tangled mess that is my mind.

But I know there is something I need to ask.

I try to swallow, but it takes ages.

'Jamie?' I whisper.

I speak so low, no one can hear me. My voice isn't right. It's cracked and harsh and it sounds like someone else speaking.

'What did you say, darling?'

Mum leans over me and her face swims into focus a little more. She takes my hand. The doctor comes closer too, and so does the nurse.

I lick my dry lips, wishing I did not feel as if a vat of thick treacle had been poured into my brain, slowing down every thought process.

'Jamie.' This time I manage to raise my voice just a little. 'Jamie. Where is he? I couldn't find him.'

Mum gasps. She looks uncertainly at me, and then at the doctor. Tears begin to roll down her face, although she does not make a sound.

'Has something happened to Jamie?' I am desperate to make them understand my need for answers. 'I have to know!'

The doctor leans over me. He is middle-aged and grey-haired.

'How are you feeling, Mia?' he asks.

I ignore him. 'Where's Jamie?' I repeat.

And then, too late, I realize what I'm saying.

Even in my confused and dazed state, I know that I have made a huge mistake.

The doctor frowns. 'Mia,' he says gently. 'Tell me. Who is Jamie?'

'I have told you something about the people who mean a lot to me – my teacher Ms Kennedy, my best friend Bree and my grandfather,'
Dr Macdonald reads aloud in an expressionless voice.
'But no one is more important in my life than my twin brother Jamie, who died when I was born.'

Dr Macdonald lays the pages of my prize-winning essay on her desk and looks at me. She is petite and her black hair is as shiny as a TV shampoo ad. She wears it in a French pleat to show off her long neck. Her knee-length shift dress is fitted and chic and navy blue in colour; her court shoes match exactly. She's a psychologist or a psychiatrist, I can never remember the difference. A head doctor, anyway.

I'm still in hospital although physically I am well again. For the past few weeks I've been having sessions with Dr Macdonald; eventually, to my surprise, I want to talk. At first I was suspicious of her, but now my emotional dam has cracked open and words pour out of me like a waterfall. I am the human equivalent of Niagara Falls. I don't care what anyone thinks of me any more. I seem to have grown a tougher, harder shell around my previously touch-sensitive skin. I tell Dr Macdonald about Mum and Grandpa, about Michael Riley and Caroline Zeelander and Leo Jackson and all the others.

I tell her everything and hold back nothing.

Dr Macdonald listens, but rarely interrupts during those first sessions. Her smooth, oval, fine-featured face shows no signs of either incredulity or condemnation. Or sympathy, for that matter. Her expression is of polite but intense interest, for the most part, and gives me no clue to what she is thinking.

'I want you to know that there's nothing wrong with me,' I say calmly. 'My mind is as clear as crystal and as sound as a bell. I've known all the time that Jamie doesn't exist as you or I do. That when he was born, he was already dead. I've always known that he's a ghost.'

Wait, that's not quite true. When we were very young, I didn't know. From my very earliest memories, Jamie was just
there,
my twin and constant companion. Mum and Grandpa and my nursery teachers and everyone else played along when I insisted that Jamie got the things I did – birthday cards and birthday balloons and sweets and all the rest of it.

After all, it's cute, isn't it, that a four-year-old has an imaginary friend?

It was only gradually, when I saw the sidelong glances and the frowns of disapproval on people's faces, that I realized a seven-year-old with an invisible companion is not acceptable.

And so I learned to keep quiet. But Jamie was still there, a solid, real presence in my life. When I wrote about him in my prize-winning essay, I was very careful not to give away my secret.

My brother is always with me. I feel him around me. He watches over me like a guardian angel, and I always know when he is near . . .

But I did not say anywhere in that essay that I
see
Jamie and talk to him and he talks to me. Because I know people won't understand, and even people who
say
they believe in ghosts will think I'm crazy.

'Do
you
believe in ghosts?' I ask Dr Macdonald.

Dr Macdonald has a way of thinking things through for a moment or two before replying, as if she is afraid she might incriminate herself by saying the wrong thing. Her pale brow furrows slightly and she brushes a stray hair neatly back into her French pleat.

'I don't believe the case has been sufficiently proven yet, by any means,' she says.

'
I
believe in them,' I say boldly. 'You might think I'm not quite right in the head, but I'm not the only one. Lots of people think that ghosts exist.'

'But not many of them live with a ghost on a daily basis,' Dr Macdonald replies gently.

I am silent. She's right, of course.

'You don't believe Jamie is a ghost,' I say. 'You think I'm seeing things.'

This time Dr Macdonald doesn't answer my question. Our conversation appears to be a kind of game. We're playing cat and mouse, rather like Lee Curtis and I did in the annexe, but with words this time. I think Dr Macdonald sees herself very much as the cat, but I'm not ready to roll over and die just yet.

'Is Jamie here now?' she asks.

My smile vanishes. 'No. I haven't seen him since that morning.'

The last time I saw Jamie was when he was on his way to the annexe. This is the longest time since we were babies that we haven't been together, and it feels like I've lost half of myself.

Why doesn't he come?

'Do you know anything of the circumstances of your birth, Mia?' Dr Macdonald asks, changing the subject yet again. Another of her tactics. 'Yours and Jamie's?'

I shake my head.

'Apparently it was a difficult one, and there were complications,' she explains gently. 'Your mother was attended by a relatively inexperienced doctor, and all these factors affected what happened to Jamie.'

I bite my lip, feeling deep, profound sadness. I am now beginning to understand Mum's pathological dislike of doctors and hospitals.

'Does . . .' I swallow. 'Did Mum realize that my "imaginary" childhood friend was my brother?'

I choke a little on the words. I can imagine all too vividly the pain this would have caused Mum and I regret it bitterly, even though I was too young to know at the time.

'I believe she suspected it, although she was never sure,' Dr Macdonald replies. 'Apparently she read some research that indicated twins retain memories of each other from the womb, even when one of them dies before or during birth.'

'Mum told you all this?' I ask hesitantly.

'Yes.' Dr Macdonald holds my gaze. 'Does that surprise you, Mia?'

'A little,' I admit. 'I guess it's taken something pretty drastic to force Mum to talk about it. Like me being involved in an armed siege.'

'This is what you thought would happen, though, isn't it?' Dr Macdonald remarks.

I stare uncomprehendingly at her.

'You told me earlier,' she goes on, 'how you felt you had to push your mother into getting medical help by making her sit up and take notice of you.'

'Oh,' I say, suddenly understanding. 'That wasn't me. It was Jamie.'

'Yes.' Dr Macdonald's face is a smooth, expressionless mask. 'Well, we shall make sure your mother gets the help she needs this time, Mia. Don't worry about that. Now, I think our time is up for today.'

I am grateful to Dr Macdonald, but that doesn't stop me from clinging tenaciously to what I damn well
know.
That Jamie has been with me all these years, and that he is a ghost.

A
real
ghost.

I think that's probably an oxymoron.

No one seems to know exactly why Lee Curtis did what he did, or what he was expecting to happen as a result. He had a grudge against the school, and particularly against Mrs Lucas, as she was the teacher who had caught him dealing and got him suspended. And maybe he was showing off for Kat Randall's benefit too.

But the gun Lee was carrying was only a replica, bought on the internet. More sinister were the explosive devices he had brought into school, hidden in his rucksack. Again, these had been prepared following instructions he had found online. Lee placed these devices around 9D's classroom, then attaching one to the door of the cupboard where I'd been hiding, and one to the classroom door. He'd warned the hostages that these devices were linked to the others around the room. Any attempt to leave by either door would trigger them all. And so he kept them terrified, silent and immobile, while he was pursuing me.

I learned all this and more from Mum and Bree, when they visited me in hospital. Well, mostly from Bree. Mum was in too much of a state to say very much. She sat by my bed, sobbing quietly, and we held hands or she would stroke my hair.

I am less anxious about Mum now. Although I dislike Dr Macdonald, I trust her and I know that Mum will get the help she needs.

Bree has been told by the doctors not to upset me, so even though I can sense that she's
dying
to ask me why I stayed behind in school that day, she hasn't. But she has filled in all the gaps for me and told me everything. How the explosive device that Lee was still carrying in his rucksack was actually the
only
one he made up correctly. Apparently the ones he left in the classroom were duds and wouldn't have gone off in a million years – as Bree says, Lee always
was
in the lowest set for science. When he threw his rucksack off, he detonated the device. Then the police stormed the building and the siege was over. Lee was seriously injured, but he'll recover, eventually.

Bree also brought in a whole heap of newspapers, both local and national. Everyone is calling me a heroine.

I'm sure Kat Randall is
very
grateful to me.

Is it really only a few weeks since she stopped me at the school gates and grabbed my tie and almost choked me? It seems a million years ago, in a different universe.

After everything that has happened, I know I will never be scared of Kat Randall again. And as I told Lee Curtis, I won't be bullied by anyone else,
ever.

Not even by Dr Macdonald.

I go into our next session, all guns blazing (ha ha), and begin by staring challengingly at Dr Macdonald.

'You haven't asked me yet what I am sure you're absolutely
dying
to know,' I say. 'That's not meant to be funny, by the way.'

Dr Macdonald refuses to rise to the bait. 'If there's something you want to tell me, Mia, go ahead,' she replies calmly.

'You want to know why, if Jamie is a ghost, I believed so strongly that he could hold thirty-three people hostage,' I state confidently. 'So strongly, in fact, that I put my own life in danger to stop him.'

Dr Macdonald says nothing, she just looks at me. I feel a terrible urge to throw a cushion at her.

'What you have to understand, first of all, is that Jamie was trying to help me.' I am impatient and I speak quickly, words tumbling out. 'Everything that happened, all the bad things he did, all the times he tried to make me stand up to Mum and get her help, were for
me.
He tried to give me courage. He tried to make me brave so that I wouldn't go through life being walked all over. He wanted to give me the kind of future that he would never have, that he would never have the chance to experience. And besides . . .' I can't help giving Dr Macdonald a triumphant glance. 'I know for certain that Jamie is a ghost and that he isn't just inside my head. He is separate to, and outside of me. I know,
because other people have seen him.
'

Dr Macdonald does not look either impressed or underwhelmed. She simply
looks.

'I see,' she says. 'So Jamie can appear to other people, but he doesn't do it on a regular basis, I take it. Why do you think that is, Mia?'

'Oh, God, I don't know all the rules of the spirit world, do I?' I mutter irritably. 'The point is that other people have seen him too. Not just me.'

Dr Macdonald does not react. For pity's sake, I've already told her my story from start to finish. Surely she remembers?

'Just to remind you,' I add with a hint of sarcasm, 'I
know
that Grandpa saw Jamie too.'

'You mean when he was ill?' Dr Macdonald asks. She says nothing more, but we both know she is referring indirectly to the fact that Grandpa was drugged and dazed for the last few weeks of his life.

'He could see Jamie the day he died,' I assert stubbornly. 'I know he could.'

Dr Macdonald and I are fencing with each other. I say what I know to be true, however far-fetched it may seem, and she challenges me, without really seeming to, with cold, hard logic.

'I also told you about Doctor Zeelander,' I say, looking her straight in the eye. Imagine the old Mia Jackson having the nerve to do that. 'When she refused to talk to us about Mum, Jamie got so angry, he smashed the in-tray off the desk. Doctor Zeelander could
see
him then. I could tell by her face. She was petrified.'

Dr Macdonald nods thoughtfully. 'Did she say anything at the time?'

'No, but we can ask her,' I say defiantly. 'Or maybe you think Doctor Zeelander was seeing things too.'

'Certainly we could ask her,' Dr Macdonald agrees, much to my surprise.

'And then there's Mum,' I sweep on, determined to convince her. 'She hasn't seen Jamie, but from what she says I think she can hear us talking sometimes—'

'Mia, your mum suffers from bi-polar disorder – also known as manic depression,' Dr Macdonald says quietly. 'Hallucinations, both visual and auditory, can be a feature of the condition.'

'Maybe you think
I've
inherited Mum's illness,' I snap back. I'm joking, but Dr Macdonald does not smile.

'Look.' My nervous energy takes over and I jump to my feet and begin to pace the room. 'I know you don't believe that Jamie is a ghost. I know you think I've made this up. But other people have seen him, not just me. Maybe he didn't do those things I told you about, but it seems too much of a coincidence, doesn't it? And if Jamie didn't do them, who did? There's no one else . . .'

Dr Macdonald says nothing. The light is fading outside and she switches on her desk lamp. All the while she regards me steadily but does not speak.

Realization hits me like a punch to the head. My knees are suddenly no longer able to bear my weight and I sink down onto my chair.

'You think it was me,'
I summon up the strength to whisper.
'You think I'm Jamie.'

'I did not say that, Mia,' Dr Macdonald replies. For the first time I hear a hint of compassion in her voice.
'You're
saying it.'

'But—'

Confused, I press my fingers to my temples. They are burning and yet my hands are ice-cold. 'You think that I'm two people inside my own head? That's not possible! I
talk
to Jamie. I
touch
him. I
see
him!'

My voice cracks with shock. I have always thought of Jamie and myself as two halves of one whole. Now it seems we could be even more closely entwined than that.

A split personality.

Two people in just one mind and one body.