Dan and the Caverns of Bone

Pour Rose et Hubert

1 Paris Or Bust (…Or Maybe Just Bust)

2 ‘This Eurostar Contrivance'

3 Hotel Cafards

4 Squatters' Rites

5 ‘What Is It, That It Is?'

6 The Empire of the Dead

7 My Inner Ninja

8 Death by a Thousand Cheekbones

9 Grim Developments

10 The Caverns of Bone

11 Danse Macabre

12 What's the French for ‘Aaargh!'?

13 Breaky and the Bogeyman

14 I Get Decisive (Sort Of)

15 Styx and Stones

16 Lifeboat Or Deathboat?

17 The Light at the End of the Tunnel

18 The Boy Who Cheated Death

19 Last Mango in Paris

I'm that kid, remember? The one who sees dead people?

Hey, don't freak out – it's cool! Okay, it's also pretty spooky, I know, but I've had the whole ‘unquiet grave' thing sussed for years, ever since Simon came along.

Who's Simon? Well, he's like my shadow, or my ghostly guardian if you like, though if he's an angel, he's a pretty shabby one. While you're chatting to me, he's the one you
can't
see, lingering just behind your head in a veil of eighteenth-century ectoplasm, watching your every move, ready to strike.

Or gazing at the flowers. With Si, it could go either way.

Point is, though, Si's one of them – a dead person, I mean. He's the sidekick only I can see, my partner in crime. I'm the talent, he thinks he's the brains, and together we're pretty damned awesome. In a skin-of-my-teeth kinda way.

‘Daniel.'

‘Wait a mo, Si. I'm just getting to it.'

The thing about my line of work, though, is it's dead exhausting. I mean, here I am having to go to school every day and keep my eyes open and pretend to be normal, when every midnight – POP! – there's another one of
them
in my room, wailing about how they died too soon, moaning for my help. What's a psychic kid got to do to get a bit of feet-up time these days?

‘Daniel, I must insist…'

‘Stick your pony tail in it, Si, I'm getting there.'

Anyway, when I heard about the school trip to Paris, the first thing I thought of wasn't ‘sacre bleu' or ‘ooh la la', or even ‘brunettes' (honest!). Nah, all I could see was the chance for a bit of a holiday. Some down time from all the phantom freakery that follows me about London. ‘See ya in a week, Si' – that kind of thing.

But Simon was all, ‘Ah, Paris, the City of Light!' and even passport control at St Pancras Station couldn't stop him from coming too. So here I am, wearing my trademark purple sunglasses and death's head coat, waiting to board the Eurostar to Paris with Si still wittering on in my ear. Because, as ever, there's a problem.

‘Daniel, I simply must ask you one last time.' Si's hopping from one foot to the other – never a good sign.

‘Just give it a rest, Si. You'll be fine,' I mumble. I can't speak too loudly now because some of the other kids have shuffled closer. They didn't want to, I can see that. No one ever wants to get too close to the weirdo who talks to himself, but the platform's filling up and there's nowhere else to go. I see in their eyes that they're all hoping someone else will have to sit next to me on the train.

‘T'is just…' Si says, ‘… is it really necessary to ride the locomotive? Could we not sail? T'is said this Eurostar contrivance conveys one deep beneath the earth, through some manner of tunnel. That sounds most disagreeable.'

I slap my face into my hands. He's only scared of travelling on the train. I mean, he's a ghost for crying out loud! What's the worst that could happen? You see the kind of thing I have to deal with?

‘Don't look at me like that,' says Si. He's embarrassed, I can tell, because the ectoplasm leaking from the bullet hole in his head is dribbling down like poo from a squeezed nappy.

‘You don't know what it's like to be buried, Daniel. The bowels of the earth are no place for the living.'

‘But you're
dead
,' I say for about the hundredth time, though I immediately regret it because a couple of nearby girls exchange looks and then edge away. Something tells me I won't be making any friends on this trip.

‘I am sure we would have a more diverting time without your classmates,' Si goes on, ‘and I would show you a Paris your school master couldn't even dream of.'

‘Si, you just don't get how school trips work,
do you?' I more-or-less whisper. ‘I have to go with everyone else, and I have to go on the train. If it's such a problem for you, don't come. Take the week off! Go powder your wig or something.'

‘
Est-ce que tu vas faire ça toute la semaine?
' says a voice, and I rotate on my heel. Slowly. Our French teacher, Mr Phelps, is right behind me, and I just know he's been earwigging in on my onesided conversation. But why's he got to talk to me in French? That's just sticking the boot in, that is.

‘Er…' I say, trying to make the ‘r' sound all Gallic. ‘E-rrrr…'

Frenchy Phelps fixes me with his beady eye.

‘I'm watching you, Dyer. And I'm sick of seeing your name at the bottom of my class, especially when you get straight A's in everything else. Why do I get the feeling there's something a bit fishy about that?'

‘Je ne say pah what you mean, sir,' I say. Well, at least I'm trying.

‘Don't get smart with me, boy. You may have your classmates rattled with this talking-to-someone-who-isn't-there act, but you don't impress me. If I don't see some improvement in your French by the end of the week, I'll squeeze you with extra homework until I do. Is that clear?'

‘Yes, sir,' I say, ‘I mean
oui
, sir.'

Typical! I'm rubbish at French, and he takes it personally. But it's not like I'm trying to wind him up – I really
am
rubbish at the old
parlez-vous
. It gets my tongue in a tangle just thinking about all those
kilos de pommes
I have to pretend to order. With Phelps on my case and Simon in a flap, this trip to Paris is looking less like a holiday by the minute.

When we finally get on the train, I have to slide past a girl called Tanya to get to my window seat. Her face is a picture when she realizes she's drawn the short straw. But that's nothing compared to how she looks when Si settles down next to me,
in the same seat as Tanya
!

She can't see him of course, but some part of her must sense his presence, 'cause within twenty seconds she's gone green and is running to throw up in the toilets.

‘Talk about invading someone's personal space,' I say. ‘Can't you be more careful?'

‘I apologise, Daniel.' Si arranges his frills and ponytail. ‘But I thought you liked to be alone.' And he smiles his skeletal smile.

I give him the eye and say nothing. Yeah, I just love not fitting in and never having anyone who isn't dead to talk to.

The two seats opposite me – across the table – are booked for the school trip too, but no one turns up to claim them. I look down the aisle and see two kids sitting on their suitcases at the end of the carriage. Business as usual then, as we ease out of the station.

So it's a bit of a surprise when, after five minutes, someone
does
come and sit opposite me after all.

‘Brian, isn't it?' I say, thinking I might as well pretend to be sociable with the freckled, rabbit-eyed kid who's suddenly there. ‘Come for a bit of quiet time in the spooky seats, have you?'

Brian jumps when I speak. He's one seriously freaked-out kid, but surely I'm not
that
bad. But
then I clock what's going on. Baz, the class gorilla, is eyeing up Brian from a few seats away. And now I see why Bri's come to sit near me. Even Baz keeps away from the kid who talks to himself.

Mostly.

‘
Brain
Cabbidge!' shouts Baz from the safety of his seat, and laughter ripples round the train.

Brian shrinks down into the corner and hides his head in his hands. That's his actual name, you see: Cabbidge. He's good at maths too, the poor kid.

And I thought
I
had problems.

A ball of scrunched-up paper flies over and lands on the table. I think for a moment it's a bit lame of Baz to be chucking paper pellets, but then I realize what it is: a screwed-up paper aeroplane. And I remember that paper planes are Brian's obsession.

‘Yeah, that flies!' shouts Baz. ‘You little
freak
!'

Brian picks up the ruined plane, and, even screwed up, I can see it was fantastically complicated. But no good ever came of being clever around Baz – Brian should know that by now. He gives me a wretched look for a moment, then buries his head in his hands again. His shoulders heave, and I think I hear a sob.

Fancy paper engineering
and
a tendency to cry? I really wouldn't want to be in Brian's shoes now Baz has him on his radar. I give Si a glance, but Si doesn't return it. He's too busy glaring at Baz. Ectoplasm is puffing out of his head like smoke from a steam engine, and I see I'm in for trouble of my own if I don't rein him in.

‘Easy, Si,' I whisper. ‘Let's not get involved, yeah? Baz's all mouth and no trousers.'

‘Trousers? Zooks, Daniel! This poor child is being persecuted –'

‘Yeah, bullies do that,' I interrupt. ‘But we're on holiday, remember? Baz's just a big wuss in Wookie's clothing, that's all. He wouldn't dare come over here.'

And that's when Baz comes over here.

He looms over our table, all zits and bumfluff on a stack of un-earned muscle. What was Mother Nature thinking of?

‘Did you just call me a wuss, spooky boy?' Baz says to me, and I find it's gone very dark in my corner.