How to speak spook (and stay alive)

the long version

Donald is ten. His mum, Alice, is a medium and a fortune teller, though sadly not very talented, yet proud that she is one eighth witch. Donald's dad, Larry, is separated from Alice, and lives a few streets away in a boarded-up house. He is also dead. Every week, Donald goes to visit his dad. Larry may now be a ghost but he's still determined to be a responsible father. Donald finds it easy to communicate with ghosts, but he plays this down because he doesn't want to hurt his mum's feelings. Unbeknownst to Alice, most of her paranormal mystery solving is down to Donald. They are often called to help solve ghostly problems, like ridding the local supermarket of a ghoulish flip-flopping display of reanimated fish. The real mystery of the first book begins when Donald notices that whole chunks of his evenings are disappearing. He sits down in front of the telly for a second and boom! hours have passed...It's happening to his best friend Merry too. An evil demon is sucking the life out of every child in the country; television, computers, mobile phones - none of them are safe!