Page 54 of Unalive On Air

“Yeah, I have thought of that,” Josh continues. “And I don’t think Gary’s microphone will pick up our ghost voices, but maybe if we can somehow connect Stoves’s mic to the big black square bit you used the other night, and we connect the big black square bit to my phone, we could set up a studio somewhere in the hotel and you can record Unalive from there.” Josh makes eye contact with me for half a second before looking at the floor again, but I can tell he’s pleased with this idea. Fucking hell, I’d be pleased if I came up with this.

“Okay, okay,” I say, mostly so that the other ghosts don’t interrupt my thinking time as I begin to pace. Or float-pace.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Camille yells, hands on hips. “Does this mean you can connect to the internet on your twenty seventeen ghost phone?”

I stop pacing. This seems like news I should have been told, like, yesterday. “You can communicate with the living world?”

“Yes.” Josh screws up his face again, but this time it looks pained, not shy. “Though before you get too excited, if you manage to contact your family, just know that they will become super pissed off with you, and call you a scammer, and report you to the police.”

“Oh, honey.” Pixie puts her arm over his shoulder and pulls him close to her. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Josh says nothing, but his swallow is audible.

And now I feel terrible for bringing it up. I understand what it’s like to crave love from people who are supposed to dish it out unconditionally.

Josh shrugs and smiles, suddenly much more chipper. “The plus side is that my birth year is two thousand and two, so there are no restrictions on the number of porn sites I can visit.”

“Joshua Little, you are fifteen years old.” Pixie releases her grip on him.

“Nuh-uh, according to the internet calculator, I’m twenty-three.”

Jeanie shakes her head, like a mother choosing her battles. “You are fifteen, and sadly for everyone, you will always be fifteen. Now, I can’t exactly stop you from looking at those websites, since the moment you go to sleep your phone will reappear in your hand, but I want you to know I find it all . . .”

“Icky?” I suggest.

“Very icky,” Pixie agrees.

I place my hand up. “Sorry, just one tiny question. How does a ghost phone connect to the living realm?”

“Through the Wi-Fi, duh,” he says.

“Sure,” I say dryly. “Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?”

“What’s Wi-Fi?” Peter asks.

“It’s the internet,” Stove says.

“But . . .” Pete scratches the back of his head. I guess, when he was alive, even dial-up wasn’t a thing. It’s almost inconceivable for him to have imagined that in thirty, forty years people would carry around pocket-sized computers that can connect to the other end of the world in milliseconds. “I know what the internet is. Stove taught me. I’m just confused. How are the interwebs so small?”

“Huh? You see guests with these all the time. Helga has one, and you rarely leave her side,” Pixie says pointing at Josh’s phone. She turns to Stove. “What exactly did you tell him the internet was?”

Stove pretends to be offended by her question by placing a hand on his chest. “The usual. Myspace, Napster, and wank fodder.”

I shrug, then nod. The early noughties was a great era to be a teenager.

“It’s so much more now,” Camille says. “You can speak to anyone in the entire world at any time. You can book aeroplane tickets to any destination. You can look up the heights of your favourite actors. You can have almost any food you like sent straight to your house.”

“I miss food so much.” I accidentally say that out loud. Others nod and sigh sadly. “When does that feeling go away?”

“Never, unfortunately,” Trystan says. “You’ll never feel hungry again, but you’ll also never forget how much joy food brought you.”

Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Just really sucks that I’ll never have another biscuit in my mouth.

“If you learn how to possess people, you can always choose a host in the dining room and grab a cheeky munch,” Stove says.

Jeanie blinks slowly, buying herself processing time. “Possessions are generally a no‑no around here. However, we all have our weaknesses, and we’ll not think badly of you if, now and then, you have the overwhelming urge to eat . . . a . . .”

“Jammy Dodger?” I can already feel the texture against my tongue, the sweetness, the chewy, jammy centre.