He looked belligerent, but agreed. “I can be chill.”
Rima doubted that immensely. Kasper was the most dramatic person she’d ever met – except herself, probably. Sometimes their arguments about The X-Files got so loud that Leah would banish them to opposite ends of Mulcture Hall.
Rima had never had a group of friends when she was alive. She’d gone to an all-girls school and spent most of her time with the only other non-white girl there. When she’d started uni, she had decided that things were going to be different. She was going to be bubbly and chatty and make friends with everyone. But making that happen had been harder than she’d hoped. She’d spend an hour talking to someone over lunch in the dining hall, only to never see them again around the huge campus.
By the time she’d died, she was still the lonely girl who read while she ate dinner, and spent her evenings watching The X-Files in her room or going on the net in the empty computing lab.
Everything had changed when she became a ghost. Leah, Felix and Kasper had been the group of friends she’d been waiting for her whole life. She wasn’t lonely any more. She had found people who really knew her, well enough to tease her and laugh at her jokes before she’d even finished them.
Rima hoped that they could be the same for Harriet, too. The girl needed friends just as much as Rima had.
HARRIET
Harriet dropped onto the top step of the fourth-floor stairs, resting her head in her hands. She couldn’t even begin to process everything that had happened. She shuddered, mortified at the memory of dropping to her hands and knees, sucking up a dirty rodent while Rima and Kasper stood watching.
The last traces of energy were still fizzing in her chest, but the feeling was numbed slightly by shame at the way she had behaved. The possibility of getting more energy had sent her out of her mind. She’d thought she had more self-control than that, but the angry thing she had always buried deep inside herself had nearly burst free.
“It’s OK,” Rima said, approaching Harriet as gently as if she were calming a spooked horse. “It happens to the best of us.”
She sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Harriet automatically tensed, then carefully, painfully, made herself relax into the touch.
Harriet choked back a laugh. “Really? That happens to all of us?”
Kasper dropped to a crouch in front of her. “Trust me,” he said, in a more serious voice than she’d heard from him before, “we all lose control sometimes.”
It had been a long time since anyone had treated her so gently. Not since her parents had died, really.
“You don’t want to see Kasper when he’s angry,” Rima whispered in her ear. “He’s like the Hulk.”
Kasper let out a gasp, nudging Rima’s shoulder in affable outrage. “I didn’t come here to be disrespected.”
“You’re disrespected everywhere you go,” Rima replied. She stuck her tongue out at him, hamming it up for Harriet’s benefit.
Harriet’s friendships had been nothing like this – no in-jokes and silly comedy routines. In sixth form, she’d once spilt her drink down her shirt during lunch. Georgia, the girl she always sat with, had looked away in embarrassment on her behalf. Harriet couldn’t imagine Rima being embarrassed about anything Felix did. She’d be more likely to make a joke out of it. Kasper would probably pour coffee all over himself too in solidarity.
Was that what friendship was supposed to be like, when you found people who really understood you? Or were these people odd because they’d spent over two decades trapped alone together? Maybe they were all crazy, and she was the strange one, for being jealous of them.
Kasper folded his arms. “How dare you?! I am the backbone of this group. I deserve respect.”
Rima literally snorted with laughter. “Backbone. You’re a fumbling baboon.”
“RUDE? So, so rude!”
Harriet couldn’t help it; her lips curved into a smile.
“I thought you were the backbone, actually,” she said to Rima. “You seem to run the show.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said, preening. “Leah says I’m the mum friend. I think she meant it to be an insult, but, you know, I own it.”
“You are the mum friend,” Harriet said, with dawning realization.
“Kasper can be the dad friend,” Rima added.
“Er—” Kasper stuttered, flustered. “I, Rima – I’m flattered, but I don’t think of you…”
Rima’s cheeks turned pink. Harriet thought she was really pretty when she was flushed and laughing. “I didn’t mean like that! I meant you try really hard to look after everyone, but you’re kind of bad at the emotional stuff.”
He shifted, looking bemused, like he wasn’t sure whether to be offended. “Are you saying that I’m clumsy?”
“You have no idea how to handle social situations, is what I’m saying.”
Kasper huffed a sigh. “OK, that’s it. I’m out.” He turned and walked away.
“Dad, wait! I’m sorry. Don’t ground me!” Rima called after him, laughter in her voice.
Kasper waved a hand at them over his shoulder, not looking back. He stopped to say hello to a ghost that Harriet didn’t recognize – a boy in a rugby shirt and boxers who was carrying a hedgehog spirit under his arm.
Kasper and the boy chatted for a bit, but they weren’t joking around like he’d done with Rima. His behaviour seemed a lot less relaxed. Clearly, this boy was just a neighbour, rather than part of the inner circle.
It surprised Harriet that they seemed to have invited her to join their little group, when there were so many other ghosts around the building. What could they see in Harriet?
Rima turned back to Harriet, and her amused grin disappeared. “Seriously, though, are you OK?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m OK. Thanks, Rima.” Harriet bit her lip. She should use this opportunity while they were bonding to try and get Rima to help her. If she had managed to get rat spirits for Qi, there was no reason why she couldn’t get them for
