Krystal Bull

Chapter One

My mum talks to dead people.

She’s not mad or anything, it’s her job. You see she’s a psychic and she communicates with the spirit world. Sometimes the spirits tell her what’s going to happen in the future.

“If you’re psychic, how come you didn’t know that Dad was going to run off with the post woman?” I asked her at breakfast one day.

“It doesn’t work like that Krystal,” she said.

Yeah, that’s my name. Krystal. Mum chose that name because when she was pregnant with me she said I kicked a lot in her tummy, which meant I had loads of energy and crystals have energy. But to make my name a bit more special it’s spelt with a K.

I quite like the name Krystal really, it’s just a shame that my surname happens to be Bull.

I have to put up with a lot of stick at school because of my name and Mum’s job. Plus I get asked all sorts of dumb questions like: ‘What questions are we having in the SATs and is Man U going to win the Premiership?

Now I’m in Deans Comp and the questions tend to be more along the line of:

“Krystal, can you ask your mum if Jason is going to ask me out?” That was Donna Edwards, she is my least favourite person in the school.

Jason is in year eleven, the year above me, and is well fit. Everyone wants to go out with him, especially me.

“Donna,” I said the next day. “Mum told me to tell you that you must avoid anyone whose name begins with a J.”

It was a lie of course but she believed me, the sad cow, and it worked for a week. But then Donna’s mum had to go and meet my mum at the new Weight Watcher’s class that started up in the school hall and she told my mum what I had said and I got grounded for a week. Bummer.

“I know what you are up to Krystal,” Donna said at school the next day. “You want Jason to yourself.”

Quick on the uptake that girl.

“Just stay out of my way,” she said and stalked off.

“Talk to the hand,” I shouted after her.

I’m afraid we have become enemies since then and I have made it my mission to get Jason first, whatever happens.

So you can see it isn’t great fun having a mum who’s a psychic. Mind you I can’t say that the actual talking to dead people bit has ever bothered me. That is until one Saturday a few weeks ago when I was freaked out big time and my life changed forever.

It all began with a knock at the door. I was eating my breakfast in the kitchen.

“Get that would you love?” Mum shouted from upstairs.

I opened the front door and did a double take. It was Mr Wormley, my French teacher. I have to tell you he’s just about my worst teacher ever. He hasn’t been at the school long. He took over from Mrs Beecham. She had a nervous breakdown brought on by teaching our class 4J, at least that’s what everyone reckons. Mr Smith, the Head, said she was on a sabbatical in Lyons but Tanya saw her in Tescos. She said she looked well pale and thin. When Mrs Beecham saw Tanya she started shaking and dropped the bottle of salad cream she was holding and ran out the shop. Things must be bad, Tanya wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

So this Mr Wormley arrived all bad breath and BO. He said he was French on his mother’s side and he spoke with a funny French accent like that Poirot bloke on the TV. Mum loves that programme.

Mrs Beecham wasn’t a very good teacher in the first place but at least she smelt nice, more Body Shop than Butcher shop.

Now here was Mr Wormley on my doorstep with his grey steely piggy eyes and shiny, bald head. I felt a wave of panic in my stomach. Had he sussed that I’d copied my friend Lara’s French homework? I’m useless at the imperfect tense.

“Hello, Krystal, is your mum there?” he asked, his smelly breath wafting all over me.

“Depends. Why do you want her?”

If it was the homework, she was deffo out.

“She told me at parents' evening that she’s a medium and I have a nine o’clock sitting with her.”

I chuckled to myself, Mum’s more a large really. She wears size eighteen black blouses and black frilly skirts. With her dyed red hair and pale skin she looks dressed for Halloween every day of the year.

“Mum!” I shouted up the stairs. “It’s Mr Wormley. Says he’s got a sitting.”

She came clomping down the stairs in her wooden Scholl sandals.

“Oh Mr Wormley, do come in,” she gushed. Mum seems to gush at everyone.

He wiped his feet on the mat and stepped into the hall.

“This way,” Mum said ushering him through the lounge door.

I grabbed her arm.

“God Mum, how could you give him a sitting?”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Duh, he’s my teacher, and a nerdy one at that.”

“Ssh! Krystal don’t be so rude, he seems a very nice man.”

“Oh God, you don’t fancy him do you?”

The image of Mum and Mr Wormley snogging came into my mind. Yuk, it was too awful for words.

“No I don’t. Now leave us alone and go up to your room.”

I hovered by the lounge door glaring at Mr Wormley. Shame it wasn’t Mr Evans our PE teacher, I thought, all the girls had the hots for him. He was totally gorgeous with his gym-toned body of perfection, black floppy hair, and dreamy sexy eyes. I wouldn’t mind Mum snogging him, or me come to that.

I looked around the lounge where Mum does all her sittings.

We live in a cramped Victorian two up two down terraced house in North London.

It’s well unfair because the TV is in here and when Mum's working I can’t watch it and I have to go up to my bedroom. There’s an old fireplace in my room and sometimes in the winter the wind howls down the chimney and makes it cold. Dad was going to board it up but he never did. I’ve stuck a huge poster of Justin Timberlake over it and now when the wind blows it makes him look all bloated and horrible.

Mum painted the walls in the lounge bright pink after Dad left. There’s a white leather three piece suite that’s a bit worn and scuffed, huge pink fluffy cushions are scattered all over it.

By the side of the Victorian fireplace is a mahogany bookcase. It’s crammed with books on fortune telling and astrology. My favourite book is ‘Mind Power’ by Uri Geller. I read some of it once and tried bending a fork. It never went back to its original shape. Well, could I help it if I had to force it a bit? Mum grounded me for two weeks for doing that.

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