「おや? と思って振り返るとちゃんといるのです。」

Question

A taxi driver picks a girl up. He is driving. Unintentionally he looks at rearview mirror and he doesn't see anybody. Then I found this sentence:

おや? と思って振り返るとちゃんといるのです。

When I have read it I have understood that he is driving, he sees that nobody is there, he turns to the back seat but the girl is there. However, it doesn't make any sense to me. At the end of the story the author says that he was afraid but he continued to drive and when he stopped the girl was not there.

Can somebody explain this sentence to me?

Answer 1

This story is a horror story.
I suggest that this girl was a ghost.

Don't you feel horrible to know the following series of phenomena?

1) A taxi driver picked up a girl. - She was there.
2) While he drove for a while, he found that the girl was not reflected in a rearview mirror where she should be. - She wasn't there.
3) He turned to the back seat but the girl was there. - She was there.
4) He continued to drive and when he stopped the girl was not there. - She wasn't there.

Answer 2

The pivot point is と, "when"".

Literally: "When, thinking 'What on earth?', he turned round, she was there sure enough"

More idiomatically: "'What the..?' he thought, and turned to look. There she was all right."

ちゃんと means right, proper, neat, tidy, precise, accurate. I'd say the sense here is "and no mistake"

Answer 3

This would be a terrible story. What the author want to say is that the girl is a ghost.The driver couldn't see her in the rearview mirror but when he turned to the back seat, the girl was there. However when he stopped, the girl was not there. The girl sometimes could be seen or sometimes could not be seen like a ghost.