And then I made it. The pencil moved. I moved it up on to its point, and it balanced there in the air, just as if some magical hand was around it, which, in a sense, it was.

“MY GOD!” Eggy gasped. I wanted to “tell” her, “Don’t worry, Eggy, don’t be afraid”, but I had no thoughts to spare. Everything of me was concentrated on that pencil, on holding it upright in the air, and on making the pencil moving towards the paper.

Eggy remained in her chair, just waiting, waiting to see.

She didn’t scream, she didn’t run, she didn’t shout for Mum and Dad, she just sat there, watching as the pencil began to move towards the paper. And as it did, she said, “Harry? Harry? Is it you?”

I moved the pencil to the paper, and I made it write the word: “Yes.”

She didn’t turn. She kept her eyes fixed on the pencil and the paper.

“Harry,” she said. “I am so sorry, Harry, I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I’ve thought about it ever since, every second of every day. I’d do anything to undo it, Harry. I wish I could turn the clock back. I am so sorry, Harry. I am.”

And I made the pencil write:“ I know. I’m sorry, too, Eggy.”

The writing was like my writing when I was alive, only it was faint(unclear) and long and thin, like the legs of a spider. I didn’t have the mental strength somehow to put much pressure on the pencil. Just, making the pencil write and keeping it in the air was taking all the strength I had, and I didn’t know how whether I could hold it for much longer. I already felt exhausted, as if there wasn’t much me left.

I thought at the pencil, as hard as I ever could. And, you know, making that pencil move across the paper was the most difficult thing I’d done in my entire life.

“Forgive me, Eggy.” I wrote.

For a moment, she didn’t say anything, she just sat, staring at the words on the paper, but then she swallowed hard and said, “Of course I forgive you, Harry. Of course I do. Forgive me, too. Forgive me too, Harry. You know I didn’t mean it, don’t you? I was angry. I said a stupid thing. Forgive me, Harry. I love you.”

My strength had almost gone. I tried to force the pencil over the paper, to make it write down what I want to say. I tried, I really did try.

“I love you, too, Eg—”

And then the pencil fell before I could finish her name, and I couldn’t write any more.

“Harry, are you still there?” she turned and looked around the corner.

“Harry?”

And of course I was still there, but all my strength had gone. And there was no more that I could say to the living. And little use in them saying anything to me. And I felt that it was time for me to go now.

To go, and never to come back.

But I felt at peace at last. Sad and sorry, but at peace. I’d made up with Eggy, and that made me feel as if a great weight had been lifted from me. And I remembered our headmaster, Mr. Hallent, had said one year ago, “______________________________,” meaning that you should never go to sleep still hating someone, especially someone you loved, because one of you might not wake up in the morning. If so, you’d stuck with a whole big plateful of unfinished business, just like me.