by Annie Kelsey
Then I suddenly realized that my ghost was wearing a wig. And his clothes were a costume. My ghost wasn’t a ghost. It was an actor, dressed in a King Charles costume.
I must have seen him hurrying to get ready to give his talk.
I started to feel hot. I could feel my face turning red. I was just about to die of embarrassment when Jason pointed at the actor and laughed. “Look, Pippa. It’s your ghost!” Then he laughed even louder and called to the actor. “Pippa thought you were a ghost!”
Everyone started laughing. Even Ms Allen.
If I had died of embarrassment, I would have haunted Jason Matlock for the rest of his life.
Then Catie put her arm round me and gave me a quick squeeze. “Never mind, Pippa,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find a real ghost soon.”
Sophie squished in next to me and whispered, “I thought it was a real ghost too.” And she gave me a sympathetic smile.
Suddenly I felt better.
OK, it wasn’t a happy smile, but it was a smile. Perhaps I haven’t found my ghost yet, but at least I’ve started to cheer Sophie up.
We had a packed lunch in the castle grounds after that. Me and Catie shared a picnic bench with Sophie and Jenny. Sophie and Jenny swapped sandwiches (Sophie likes cheese after all), and I offered to swap my plain crisps for Sophie’s salt and vinegar ones. She looked really pleased.
When we got back on the coach, Sophie sat next to me like she really wanted to instead of because she had to. And when I suggested a game of I Spy, she said yes.
I spied something beginning with C. Sophie guessed a gazillion things. Car. Cow. Cloud. Coat. But she was looking out of the coach window. I was looking at the crocodile plushie dangling from Mandy Harrison’s rucksack. When Sophie finally followed my gaze and saw it, she squeaked “Crocodile” so loudly that she blushed and put her hands over her mouth as though she’d just accidentally burped.
It almost felt like we were proper friends. So I asked her about her old school. I wanted to find out if she used to go to a girls’ school (Reasons Sophie Might Be Sad #2) but she said no. It was a school just like ours. Then she started to look miserable again, so I quickly told her it was her turn at I Spy and she started looking for something to spy.
I started crossing things off the list in my head.
Reasons Sophie Might Be Sad
• Extra toe
• Too much cheese
• Having to go to school with boys
Then Sophie interrupted my thinking by saying really quickly, “I-spy-with-my-little-eye-something-beginning-with-T.” She was looking out of the window, so I looked too. The coach was whizzing past a red phone box. I shouted “Telephone box” and I was right! First guess! The box looked really old, like the ones on the TV programmes Mum likes to watch.
I wonder if Marcus Flaunch has ever investigated a haunted phone box? I can imagine watching Most Spooky with Marcus and Sally Pippin squished into a phone box, while Marcus is having one of his psychic moments.
MARCUS: Can you feel the cold?
SALLY: (huddled beside him) I’m actually feeling rather warm.
MARCUS: There’s definitely a presence in here. My energy meter is off the scale.
Then the phone suddenly rings.
Sally screams.
Marcus answers it and a ghostly voice says, “The last person I phoned never escaped from here…”
That would be SO scary!
Perhaps it’s good that King Charles didn’t turn out to be a real ghost. He’s probably still quite cross about having his head chopped off by Roundheads. Kings don’t expect to get their heads chopped off. They’re usually the ones who do the chopping. If he had been real and spotted me chasing him with my phone, he might have thought I was a Roundhead and started chasing me!!
The sun’s come out so I’ve taken off my ghost-hunting blue jumper. I think I need a break from ghost hunting. I wonder what the cinema will be like?
GHOSTS DETECTED: 0
SMILE METER: E
At the hotel after tea
Dinner was great. I am SO full! We had three courses. It was like having three separate dinners. First we had minestrone soup with alphabet pasta in it. Catie wrote CATIE, SOPHIE and JENNY on the edge of her bowl. Then Jenny rearranged the letters and spelled I ENJOY NICE PEAS.
I wrote GHOSTS with my pasta.
The soup was quite cold when we finally ate it, but it still tasted nice.
Then we had something chickeny. It was much nicer than the lasagne (but not as good as nuggets). Pudding was even better. It was chocolate sponge but all runny in the middle. It was so delicious Jason asked for seconds. But the waiter said they didn’t serve second helpings in hotels and gave him a look like he’d rather be feeding penguins. So Jason licked his plate. Then Tom licked his plate, and before long all the boys were licking their plates. I wanted to lick my plate but I didn’t want to end up with a chocolate nose like Jason’s. So I just used my spoon to scrape up all the sauce.
We’re back in our rooms now. I’m lying on my bunk like a big washed-up whale. I may have to go running through the hotel corridors after I’ve had a good burp. I need to work up an appetite. It’s our midnight feast in two and a half hours. HURRAH!
But first I have to write about what happened at the 4D cinema!
It was a film about being under the sea. We were all wearing 3D glasses (I love sitting in a room where everyone’s wearing the same glasses. It looks so weird, like a robot festival). My seat kept jiggling about and pummelling me when something on-screen was moving or getting pummelled. And when there was wind in the film, real wind blasted over me. And water sprayed everyone. It was brilliant. Then there were bubbles rising around us like we were underwater. At first there were just a few bubbles. But then there were more and more until I couldn’t see the screen any more. Bubbles were everywhere. One of the cinema staff raced down the steps to the front and started fiddling with a machine under the screen. The ushers opened the exit doors and waved their arms around, trying to flap the bubbles out of the cinema.
A whisper rippled along our row until Catie murmured in my ear: “The bubble machine’s broken.”
Mr Bacon and Ms Allen got up and started trying to flap the bubbles away. Then everyone was standing up, flapping, and bubbles were swirling everywhere. No one was watching the film any more. I helicoptered my arms but it just made the bubbles swirl around me even more. It was like being an underwater explorer, except I could breathe. I started to imagine swimming past dolphins and sharks and finding a wrecked ship lying at the bottom of the ocean.
I flapped my arms harder and pretended I was swimming through the portholes and up and down the seaweed-covered decks.
We didn’t need the movie at all. I glanced at Sophie next to me. She was splatting bubbles between her hands. I’m sure she was smiling but it was hard to tell through all the flapping and bubbles.
Sophie has just climbed up to my bunk.
SOPHIE: (looking at my pink pig pyjamas) I like your pyjamas.
ME: (grinning proudly and scooting over to make room for her) Thanks.
SOPHIE: (pointing at my diary) What are you doing?
ME: Writing in my ghost-hunting journal.
SOPHIE: That’s so cool! (making herself comfortable at the end of my bunk) Do you like jelly babies?
ME: I love them.
SOPHIE: Good, because I’ve got some for the midnight feast.
GHOSTS DETECTED: 0
SMILE METER: C
After midnight
This the latest I’ve ever stayed up (except for the New Year’s Eve when Uncle Pete climbed on to the roof to celebrate and got stuck and Mum had to call the fire brigade).
It’s been the best night ever (even better than New Year’s Eve). We’re going home tomorrow but I will remember tonight for ever and ever.
We waited until after lights out, then I knocked on Catie’s wall.
ME: C-O-M-E T-O O-U-R R-O-O-M.
CATIE: O-K.
Then I heard someone else knocking on the wall below me. At first I thought it was the ghostly knocking from last night. Then I realized it was using our code.
G-O-T J-E-L-L-Y B-A-B-I-E-S.
I dangled my head over the side of my bunk and saw that Sophie was sitting with her phone shining on to her code grid and knocking a message through the wall.
I grinned at her and hopped down out of my bunk, landing as quietly as possible. I didn’t want Ms Allen to come to check on us.
Then there was a soft tap on the door and I let Catie and Jenny in.
They’d brought their duvets with them and we pulled all the sheets off our beds and made a fantastic sheet fort using the chairs from the other side of the room. Then we dragged our duvets and pillows inside. It was SO comfy. Jenny had brought a torch and we used it as a lamp and we all emptied our sweets stash into a pile in the middle.
Then we snuggled under our duvets and started eating.
Catie had brought liquorice wands and cinder toffee (that yummy puffy honeycomb stuff that sticks in your teeth) and Jenny had brought chocolate melts and fizz bombs and I’d brought gummy snakes and a whole box of white chocolate cats, which Uncle Pete had given me for my birthday.
Sophie had brought two whole bags of jelly babies and some peppermint toffees. She also had a huge bag of cheese puffs.
“I love cheese,” she said as she opened them.
That gave me a brilliant idea. Jelly baby and cheese puff sandwiches! I squashed a jelly baby between two puffs and ate it in one mouthful. It was really quite nice. The salty puffs and the sweet jelly gummed into my teeth and it tasted really nice when I sucked it out again.
I made Catie try one and she quite liked it but Jenny said, “No way.” Sophie said she liked cheesy puffs so much she didn’t want to ruin the taste with jelly babies.
Then Catie ate a peppermint toffee and a fizz bomb at the same time. She looked so happy as she chewed it that we all tried. Peppermint-toffee fizz bombs are fabulous.
I was just about to try a cinder-toffee-chocolate-melt combo when I heard The Knocking.
ME: (freezing like a surprised mouse) Shh!!!!
CATIE: (with her mouth still full of toffee bomb) Wha’?
JENNY: (stretching a gummy snake) I didn’t hear anything.
SOPHIE: (putting her finger on her lips) Shhh!!!
We all went quiet and listened.
The Knocking came again.
Catie’s eyes grew round as headlights. “Who can be knocking??? There’s no one next door! We’re all here!”
JENNY: (winding the gummy snake around her finger) It’s probably just the pipes, like Ms Allen said.
ME: Does that sound like pipes to you? (The knocking was quite soft, like Catie’s code knocks but more thuddy.) Pipes don’t go thud, they go clang.
SOPHIE: (leaning down and listening hard) It’s coming through the floor.
Catie gasped and wriggled deeper under her duvet. Jenny started chewing on her gummy snake.
Sophie flipped on to her belly and pressed her ear to the floor.
The knocking started again.
Thud thud thud thud.
“It’s underneath us,” Sophie said.
The thudding went on.
Catie squeaked. “It’s a ghost. I know it’s a ghost!”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Jenny said.
Thud thud thud.
“Yes, there are!” I told her. My heart was beating really fast now. I was half scared and half excited. This could be my chance to find a ghost - a real ghost - to put in my ghost-hunting journal! I squirmed from under my duvet and fought my way out of the fort. The air outside was freezing cold. That was a definite sign of a ghostly presence.
Thud thud thud.
I grabbed my blue fluffy jumper from under the bunks and put it on. It crackled with static and I’m sure my hair must have been standing on end as it fizzed right through me. The thudding was getting louder. I stuck my head back into the fort. “This is the scariest and best thing ever!”
Sophie was still listening through the floor. Catie was peeping over the top of her duvet. Jenny was gathering up our sweets stash in a pillowcase.
Then the thudding stopped.
Catie froze and stared at me. “Has the ghost gone?”
Sophie sat up. “It’s either gone, or it’s coming to get us.”
“No!” Catie squeaked and disappeared beneath her duvet.
“Don’t worry! I know what to do.” Tbh, I hadn’t got a clue what to do. What if the ghost WAS coming to get us? My ghost-hunting journal would end with empty pages. I would end up covered in spooky slime.
The ghost might steal our sweets!
I pushed away my scary thoughts and ducked out of the fort.
Then I heard footsteps.
Loud, slow footsteps in the hallway outside. And they were heading towards our door.
“It’s coming!” Jenny scrambled out of the fort. Sophie followed. Catie poked her head out between the sheets. The torch glowed spookily on her face as it rolled across the floor.
The footsteps stopped.
Then something banged on our door three times. We all squealed.
I signalled for the others to stay back. After all, I was the most experienced ghost hunter. I’d watched Most Spooky. And I’d got a ghost book out of the library. I tried to imagine what Marcus Flaunch would do.
The banging sounded again.
Marcus would try to speak with The Presence.
I crept towards the door. “Who’s there?” My voice was trembling.
A low wail sounded beyond the door.
A second voice began moaning. Then it broke into a spooky cackle.
The wailing voice started to cackle too, a crazy cackle that made the hair on my neck stand on end.
“There are two of them!” Catie sobbed. She was outside the fort, clinging on to Jenny.
Sophie was staring at the door through narrowed eyes, like she was planning something.
The spooky cackling died away.
I was breathing so fast I could hardly speak. But I imagined I was Marcus Flaunch. They want to communicate, I told myself. They must have something important to tell me. Suddenly I felt special. Out of all the hotel guests, these ghosts had chosen me. I straightened my shoulders. I was going to help these poor lost souls find the peace they needed. “Speak to me,” I called through the door, feeling exactly like Marcus Flaunch. Then I tried out one of his lines. “Let me guide you to your final rest.”
“Piiiiiiippppppppppaaaaaaaa.” One of the ghosts was calling my name!
My heart felt like it was going to burst. My fluffy jumper was prickling like I was being rubbed with balloons.
And the draught from under the door was so icy my feet felt like I was standing in snow. I pressed the record button on my phone.
“What do you want?” I asked, quoting Marcus Flaunch. Part of me wanted to run and hide in the fort and scream till Ms Allen came to rescue us. But I had to find out what these ghosts wanted.
There was another spooky cackle - well, actually, it sounded more like a giggle now - then a voice came through the door. “We want youuuuuuuuuuuu!”
I backed away. I was shaking now. This never happened to Marcus Flaunch. If it did, I bet Sally Pippin would have fainted and Marcus would have dropped his recording equipment and run away.
“Help!” Catie sounded hysterical with fear. She climbed into the top bunk. Jenny clambered after her and they hugged each other, their eyes wild with terror.
Sophie hadn’t moved. She was staring at the door, looking thoughtful.
I blinked at her. “Aren’t you scared?”
“No.” She turned and headed for the bathroom. A moment later, she came back carrying two big white towels. She marched towards the door, flinging one of the towels towards me. I caught it and stared at her. “What’s this for?”
“Listen,” she whispered and pressed her head against the door.
/> I leaned my head beside hers and heard sniggering on the other side.
“It’s Jason and Tom,” Sophie whispered. “They were making the knocking noise too. I bet their room is under ours. They were thumping on their ceiling.”
I pressed my ear harder against the wood. The spluttery giggles did sound more like boys than ghosts. I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
Then Sophie put her towel over her head.
“Copy me,” she breathed.
I flung the towel over my head. “What are we doing?” Was this Sophie’s idea of hiding?
“We’re being ghosts!” she told me. “Sound scary!” She turned the handle and flung open the door. “Wooooooooooooooooo!”
I lifted my arms, making the towel flap, and gave a blood-curdling shriek.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Two terrified screams exploded in front of us. Footsteps thudded over carpet. I pulled the towel from my head in time to see Jason and Tom racing down the corridor, wails of terror trailing behind them.
Behind me, Catie whimpered. She’d climbed down from my bunk. Jenny was peering over her shoulder. “What was it?”
“Jason and Tom,” I told her. “They were pretending to be ghosts.”
Sophie pulled the towel from her head. She was grinning. A big wide smile that pushed her cheeks up and wrinkled her eyes. She looked so happy!
“I think our ghosts were more convincing.”
