Ghost Byte Read online

  About the Book

  Brendan Stevens’ life is falling apart. His dad and his brother have gone to live on the other side of the country, and his mother hates flying. His girlfriend or – to use her term – ex girlfriend, Helen Wong, is going out with his worst enemy; and there’s a strange demonic presence in Brendan’s bedroom – apart from his socks.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright Notice

  More at Random House Australia

  For Pat & Brendan Larkin (Mum & Dad) and for Jacqui.

  Chapter 1

  From his window seat in the Qantas jet, Brendan Stevens could see the suburbs of Sydney flickering through the clouds far below. He tried, as he did every time he came back from Perth, to spot his house somewhere along the coastline. It was hard.

  When he came in last time, six months ago, he told his mother that he could see their house and that he had accidentally left his bedroom light on. Rather than laugh, she gave him her well-known clip round the ear.

  She didn’t like flying. She reckoned if people were meant to fly they would have been born with boarding passes in their hands. Brendan knew she hated it because she usually spent the entire journey listening to his walkman, even though she loathed his taste in music.

  Because of his mother’s fear of flying, Brendan was pretty much left to entertain himself on these flights. As a result he would happily spend the journey eating, reading, and annoying any passengers who looked like they might be easily annoyed, like the old couple behind him.

  His efforts to strike up conversations with his mother were usually thwarted by the fact that she shut down her brain for most of the journey.

  ‘Mum, I can see Sydney Harbour Bridge.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘There’s the Opera House.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear.’

  ‘Mum, there’s a hippopotamus at the zoo playing cricket.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear.’

  ‘There’s an evil demonic presence in the seat next to you.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  Brendan reckoned he could tell her anything he liked because she obviously wasn’t listening. He thought he’d see how far he could push it. ‘Mum, the engines are on fire and we’re going to crash into Sydney Tower.’

  ‘That’s nice, dear.’

  The nervous old coot in the seat behind kicked Brendan’s seat and told him to bloody be quiet.

  This was great. He’d told her a whole bunch of lies and she’d believed every one of them. The engines weren’t on fire at all, and he couldn’t even see the bridge because they were on the wrong side of the plane. And as for the hippopotamus—he wasn’t playing cricket—it looked more like squash.

  Chapter 2

  After collecting their bags, Brendan and his mother dragged their bodies in the general direction of the taxi rank. The old red-eye flight from Perth always took it out of them and they were in no mood to deal with difficult taxi drivers. Although from where he was standing Brendan reckoned he could’ve hit about a hundred difficult drivers with one wayward throw of a tennis ball. He didn’t have time to test this theory as they were quickly bundled into the first taxi on the rank, and he couldn’t find his tennis ball.

  The taxi driver seemed to suggest they were mad for living in a suburb that he’d never heard of. Eventually they came to a compromise and he agreed to take them on condition they directed and gave him a big tip.

  Brendan’s mother was not the greatest navigator in the world so it was Brendan who pointed at the streets he wanted the driver to turn down.

  The driver was great behind the wheel. The way he turned left from the right-hand lane was done with such skill that the other drivers honked their horns in approval. And the way he reached for a packet of cigarettes while steering with his knees was something else. Obviously the ‘NONSMOKING’ sign was provided as a bit of light reading for the passengers.

  When they started heading north on the highway, Brendan sat back and tried to relax. He didn’t think you could get jet lagged on a four hour flight from Perth, but he must have been. He actually thought he’d seen—well, not seen but felt—a presence in the spare seat next to them on the plane. He’d felt it so strongly that his skin wanted to crawl off his body and go and hide in the toilets for a bit. But it had been a bumpy flight and maybe the turbulence had upset his horizontal hold. That must have been it.

  As soon as Brendan and his mother got out of the taxi, the driver took off. He came back a couple of minutes later and reluctantly took their suitcases out of the boot. There was a brief exchange of words, a few shaken fists before the business was settled and he sped off to spend the afternoon wreaking havoc on Sydney’s roads.

  Chapter 3

  To say Susie was glad to see them home would be an understatement. She ran around inside the house at a million k’s an hour and barked and barked. Although she didn’t have a tail, her little stump beat what air it could get hold of. Cat, on the other hand, didn’t seem too fussed whether they were back or not. He just slunk around, graceful and aloof. If he was pleased to see them he wasn’t letting on. He just licked his paws and stayed clear of Susie as she raced past.

  It was good to be home.

  Even though Brendan loved visiting his dad and brother Ducky in Western Australia, covering three thousand kilometres by car, train, bus, plane and taxi in the space of eight hours would be enough to wear anybody down. Brendan and his mother tossed their suitcases into a corner and hoped the clothes would put themselves away.

  Brendan kicked off his shoes and went out the back door. He walked down the narrow path in his backyard and out onto the beach with Susie jumping around beside him all the way.

  Brendan reckoned that she couldn’t have been too well looked after while they were gone. The old fart next door reluctantly said he’d feed her, but judging from her food bowl, which was sparkling clean, he must have just been chucking her Meaty Bites over the fence, one a day. And judging from the feathers on the path and down on the sand, Cat had obviously been feeding himself and probably drinking out of the pool.

  It was great having a house that backed on to the beach. Brendan walked down to the edge of the water. The swell wasn’t really happening today; only a couple of diehards were out there. He thought about getting his board out, but he was pretty tired and needed a few hours under the doona before he could even think about taming the Pacific.

  It was so good to feel the sand under the old toes again. After being stuck in a country town like York for two weeks and spending the last four hours in the air with his panic-stricken mother, he’d have gladly walked barefoot through a bindii patch to have the beach under his feet again. It felt great.

  As he walked back up the path to his house, he realised that this was the eighth time he’d made the trip in the past two years. He’d spent more time i
n the air recently than most ducks. He’d probably have to fight off an urge to fly north this winter.

  ‘Cat’s been attacking birds again, Mum.’

  ‘It’s only natural.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s been eating them, too. There’s a couple of beaks and a leg down on the path.’

  ‘He does look a little thin, but I gave Mr Pettigrew plenty of cat food.’

  ‘Probably eats it himself.’

  ‘Oh come on, Brendan. I don’t think Mr Pettigrew would take to eating cat food.’

  ‘Why not? I saw him chasing a ball with a bell in it around his backyard a couple of minutes ago, and then he raced up a tree when Susie barked.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No, Mum.’ His best lines were wasted on her, but he kept feeding them to her anyway.

  ‘Look, Mum! There’s Mr Pettigrew licking his backside.’

  ‘Thank you, Brendan. I think we’ve done the cat jokes to death. I’ll go and see Mr Pettigrew later on if you like. I’ll see if he’s grown any more whiskers.’ She looked at Brendan for approval.

  ‘Not bad for a fossil.’

  ‘I’ll fossil you, Brendan Stevens.’

  ‘Later, Mum. I’m pretty tired.’

  ‘Me too. I’m going to have a shower and then go to bed. What about you?’

  ‘I’m not having a shower! There isn’t a lot of dirt on Qantas jets. I’m just gunna go to bed.’

  Brendan turned round and called Susie and Cat.

  ‘Are you taking them with you?’

  ‘Yeah! They look more tired than we do.’

  ‘Do you miss your dad?’

  How did she make connections between being jet-lagged and AWOL fathers? Brendan shook his head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s an idiot!’

  ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘It’s true, though.’ It was two years down the track, and Brendan still found it hard to believe that his dad had given up a home next to the beach and a successful business to open up a hobby shop in a place like York. Even the flies got bored there.

  ‘You know what the doctor said about stress!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But did he have to take Ducky?’

  ‘He didn’t take Ducky. Ducky had his choice. He went of his own accord.’

  ‘Yeah, but he wouldn’t have gone if Dad had still been here, would he? He wouldn’t have had anywhere to go.’

  ‘We could always go and live with them.’

  ‘No way! They left us, they can come back!’

  ‘Okay, Brendan, I think we’re both pretty tired.

  We’ll talk about it later on if you like.’

  ‘There’s nothing else to talk about. I’ll see you later, Mum.’

  Brendan, Susie and Cat all struggled for room on his bed. There wasn’t much. He thought about making them sleep on Ducky’s bed where they usually slept, but he enjoyed the company and let them stay.

  He needed some serious zzzzzzzz’s. And apart from being woken up in the middle of the day by his bed crashing to the floor, Brendan had a peaceful sleep.

  Chapter 4

  ‘No, Helen! Don’t do it!’ Mumble, snort, snarl. ‘He doesn’t love you like I do!’ Snort, snarl, mumble. ‘That …’

  ‘Brendan! Brendan! Wake up.’

  ‘Uhh, what?’

  ‘You were having a nightmare. Or should I say daymare?’ His mother opened the curtains and the sun came bursting into the room like a Clearasil salesman entering a youth camp.

  Brendan shook his head and tried to focus. York or home? Hmmn, home; he could hear the waves calling him. ‘A nightmare! What did I say?’

  ‘You said, “that”.’

  ‘That?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That what?’

  ‘That wave? That seagull? That hermaphrodite? How should I know? It was your dream. You were mumbling something and then when I came in you said, “that”. By the way, what’s your bed doing on the floor?’

  ‘It fell down.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Video night! Brains or Zervoid.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Our video club. Me, Zervoid, Brains and Calculus. We had the last one here the night before we went to York, remember? I wondered why Brains showed up with a screwdriver and a wrench.’

  ‘Well, you can tell Brains that he can come and fix it up.’

  ‘No, that’s not how it works. I’ve been caught out; I have to fix it up myself.’ Brendan’s mind was already busy whirring away with plans for revenge. Brains was gunna get it.

  ‘What time is it?’ Brendan just imagined himself taping Brains to a sailboard for a one-way trip to New Zealand.

  ‘It’s after three o’clock.’

  ‘What day?’

  ‘Sunday. We’ve been asleep for about eight hours.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. School tomorrow, what do you think about that?’

  ‘I thought you said I was having a nightmare.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘Well, if it’s school tomorrow, man, I’m still having it.’

  ‘I’m going to put the kettle on and make us some lunch, although we may end up calling it dinner. Then I think we’ll go for a walk along the beach. Oh, and Brendan! Boys who want to make it to their fifteenth birthday in one piece do not call their mothers “man”.’

  ‘Yes, mein commandant.’

  ‘And another thing. When we come back from our walk I think we’ll go and ring Mr Pettigrew’s scrawny neck.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He mustn’t know we’re home yet. I went out the back earlier on and there was a lump of ant-riddled mince next to the fence. He must have thrown it over for Susie last night. He left nothing for Cat.’

  ‘See! I told you. He’s never forgiven Cat for bogging in his flower beds. If I was Cat I wouldn’t bog in his flower beds—I’d do it in his bed. I know what I’ll do. When he goes out next time, I’ll break in and do a huge, smelly …’

  ‘Forget it, Brendan! I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘Are you going to do one?’

  ‘I’m not even going to answer that.’

  When his mother went to put the kettle on, Brendan sank back down deep into his doona and thought about his dream. Why was it always the same? Helen Wong marrying that creep, Barry ‘Wave’ Hunter.

  Helen Wong was Brendan’s girlfriend, or to use her term, ex-girlfriend.

  They’d met about a year ago when Helen’s family first moved here. Brendan had spotted her sitting alone in the quadrangle, the new kid at school and, liking what he saw, he went up to talk to her.

  ‘Did your family move here from China?’ Brendan had said slowly and loudly so that she could understand.

  Helen looked up from her peanut butter sandwich. ‘Nope. Canberra.’

  If she hadn’t been such a babe, Brendan would have taken his foot out of his mouth, walked away and paid someone to beat him up for being so stupid. But she was gorgeous: beautiful brown eyes, sexy olive skin, a figure to die for, and hair he would have loved to run his hand through or surf through or something. She was worth the embarrassment. ‘If you don’t let me start this conversation again, I’ll kill myself, or take 4-unit maths when I get to Year 11.’

  ‘You can start again,’ Helen had said with a smile. ‘No one deserves 4-unit maths.’

  Got her! thought Brendan. It was the wit. They couldn’t deny the wit. Who needed to be good looking, tanned and muscled when you had a tongue like a hyperactive machine gun?

  They became a pretty hot item: regular movie goers, walks along the beach hand in hand, and no Year 8 party was complete without at least a brief appearance from Helen Wong and Brendan Stevens. She even used to come and watch him surf, which Brendan thought was the best. He’d always wanted a surfie chick. And while most surfie chicks seemed happy just to sit awestruck on the beach and watch their heroes sliding down the barrels, Helen would sit under her beach umbrella and work through her te
xt books. But what the heck, she was there. He was a guy of the nineties, equality and all that stuff, and a surfie chick with brains was definitely the way to go.

  They had a big future: Helen would be doing her PhD in Psychology while he managed a surf shop part time and looked after the house. Their kids would race home from school, plough through their homework and then come down to the beach and plough through some breakers with their old man. If that wasn’t heaven he didn’t know what was.

  But then she dropped him.

  They’d only been going out for six months and their kissing had just turned passionate when she dumped him like the Hawaiian coastline dumps body surfers.

  She’d started hanging around some girls from his class and the general feeling among them was that Brendan was a dag. Okay! He did wear a neck-to-ankle wetsuit in the middle of summer and massive amounts of zinc cream on his nose. That’s why he was called Fluoro-man. So what! They probably didn’t think you were cool until you had a couple of melanomas hacked off.

  But Helen had said that she didn’t want to get tied down, and that she wanted to expand her horizons. Expand her horizons? He’d taken her to Manly and taught her how to surf. What more did she want?

  Two weeks after she let him loose, Helen started going with Barry ‘Wave’ Hunter. Local myth had it that he was the most rad surfer, the fastest swimmer and the best looking guy under eighteen on the whole of the east coast. He was also, according to Brendan and a couple of his friends, the biggest jerk ever to set foot on this planet.

  His nickname alone was enough to make any sane person want to puke. ‘Wave-hunter’. It was best not to think about Blow-wave too soon after lunch unless you carried a bucket around with you.