Dead Scary: The Ghost who refused to leave by Sally Gould

  ***

  As I held the front door open for Mom and Dad, I said casually, 'Where do you keep the candles?'

  Mom gave me an odd look.

  'Just in case.'

  'In the cupboard above the oven. The matches are there too; don't leave them lying around.'

  'Enjoy boring ol' Fletch,' I said. He was the school principal.

  Dad grunted. 'My cell is on vibrate if there's an emergency.'

  'Okay,' I replied as I closed the door. And what could my dad do if our house was invaded by a pack of Warrior Spirits? Just thinking about it made my whole body erupt in goose bumps. Then I heard Grandpa George's voice in my head. There is nothing to fear.

  While Emily put her dolls to bed, I put my watch, the clock on the microwave and the wall clock forward one hour. Then I found a story about a dog in her pile of favorite books and knocked on her door. 'Story time!'

  She frowned. 'Already?'

  'Yep. It's eight o'clock.'

  She pointed to the book. 'That's my favorite.'

  'Good, let's read it.' Relieved, I watched her choose two more books and climb into bed. At first, I read too fast. Then Emily stuck her hand over the page. 'You missed a page.'

  I turned back a page. There was no way I'd get away with that trick. She probably knew every book she owned off by heart.

  After we'd finished the three books, it was time to check for monsters. Queen Emily sat up in bed surrounded by her dolls, while I checked under the bed and behind each closet door. I'd done the routine before, but it was the first time I really took my time and had a good look. I looked for the shimmer I'd seen two nights before, but there was nothing.

  'All clear,' I announced.

  'Now the photos,' she demanded.

  'Right.' She reckoned the figures in the photos moved and she'd never even seen a Harry Potter movie. I studied each photo very carefully. Photos and paintings are favorite places for ghosts to merge into when they wanted to stay out of sight. 'All still,' I announced.

  'I'm not tired,' she said before she stuck out her bottom lip.

  'Oh. Well, I have to tell Mom and Dad you went to bed at the right time, so I'll leave all the lights on and you can read more books until you're tired. Good idea?'

  She gave me a sly smile, probably thinking she was so lucky to stay up late.

  From her bookcase, I grabbed all the books with an animal on the front cover and handed them to her. 'I'll check on you soon.'

  Escaping into my room, I grabbed the small tin box of energized quince seeds from my drawer. My heart began to beat like crazy. I felt as though I was playing with rare dark magic. Was I? Grandpa George carried on like each seed was equivalent to a gold bar. They just looked like apple seeds to me.

  I had to get the seeds above every doorway and window before Mom and Dad got home. With the tin box stuffed into my pocket, I grabbed the footstool from the laundry. Starting at the front door, I put two seeds over each doorway. Having a much bigger house did have one drawback. Each time, I had to fold and unfold the footstool very slowly so it didn't screech. The last thing I needed was for Emily to run out and see I was up to something weird.

  As I laid two seeds above the laundry door, I heard a voice.

  'What are you doing?'

  I looked down to see Isabel, in her Dorothy outfit, sitting on the washing machine. 'What're you doing here?'

  'Why haven't you moved out?' she demanded to know.

  I stepped down to the floor. 'You're lucky you got in the house before I finished putting up the quince seeds.'

  Her mouth opened, as she seemed to comprehend that I knew something about getting rid of ghosts. 'You've got energized quince seeds?'

  I nodded and took the tin box out of my pocket.

  She leaned back as if they were poisonous. 'Put them away. They won't work, you know. Eddie has a special portal in his secret room in the roof so he can always come and go. And they definitely won't stop Warrior Spirits coming in.'

  'What?'

  'Earthbound spirits aren't stupid. We know about energized quince seeds. If Edward knew what you were doing, he'd laugh. But he's with Sir John ... that's why I risked seeing you.' She folded her arms.

  'What secret room?'

  She pointed to the ceiling. 'There's a small room in the ceiling where he keeps stacks and stacks of old newspapers. There's a light, a couple of chairs and a table. His family used it as a storage space, but someone must've plastered over the trapdoor.' She laughed. 'He hangs out up there to get away from you and Caesar.'

  'So even if I put up quince seeds over every doorway and window, Eddie and the Warrior Spirits will be able to come and go?'

  'Yep.'

  Once I'd fully understood what she meant, I felt a sense of hopelessness. Clearing ghosts was so easy in theory. Did Grandpa George even know ghosts could create special portals?

  'If you had been polite to him in the first place and respected his Rules, then you wouldn't be in this dangerous position. Do you have any idea what the Warrior Spirits are capable of? I told you they have special powers. You must take Emily and get out. NOW!'

  'Where? Where would I take her, Isabel? Our relatives are all a plane flight away. Emily refuses to sleep at any of her friends' places; she gets frightened unless she's with us. You know if I told my parents the problem, they'd check me straight into a hospital for insane teenagers.'

  Isabel groaned and pulled at her ponytails as though they were real. Her aura turned yellow, which meant she was afraid. Afraid for Emily and me. She said, 'What are we going to do?'

  'Shh,' I held my finger up to my lips; sure I could hear Emily's bare feet coming up the hallway.

  As she appeared holding her favorite doll, I turned on some extra lights. 'Em, are you okay?'

  'What are you doing?' She seemed suspicious.

  'I caught a spider and took it outside,' I said, hoping that would explain why I had one foot on the footstool.

  'You didn't kill it, did you?'

  I shook my head. 'I'd never kill anything, I promise.'

  She handed Lucy to me. 'You check the bathroom for monsters? I need to go to the toilet.'

  'Sure thing.' Silently, I thanked God for not gifting Emily with the ability to see ghosts. I checked behind the bathroom door and behind the bath towels. 'All clear.'

  I half closed the door and Emily called out for me to wait outside the door.

  'Yep,' I reassured her.

  With a concerned look, Isabel said, 'How could anyone scare her? She's adorable.'

  When Emily came out of the bathroom, I said to her, 'I'll tuck you in. Mom and Dad will be home any minute, you better go to sleep.'

  'And leave my light on.'

  'Sure.'

  I managed to collect the quince seeds I'd put over the doorways and windows moments before Mom and Dad returned. It took me five minutes to reassure them that Emily was fine and went to sleep without any trouble. Changing the subject, I asked, 'Is it okay if I call Grandpa George?'

  Mom's face lit up. 'Yes, he'd love that, but his telephone still hasn't been installed. Waiting so long could be a good thing, because he might shock us and buy a cell phone.'

  'Oh,' I uttered, trying not to sound like it was the end of the world.

  'He just got an email address. Although whether he'll ever check his emails is another matter.' She told me his email address and I made sure I didn't show I was super-excited that I could now contact him.

  I said I was tired and needed to get to bed. As I headed down the hallway, I remembered the clocks. While Mom and Dad were out of sight, I changed them back to the right time.

  Once my bedroom door was shut, I sent a quick email to Grandpa George. In the subject line I put 'HELP!'

  Dear Grandpa George

  There's a ghost in our new house who has lived here for over eighty years and he thinks he owns the place. He didn't like it when I wouldn't obey his Rules, so he wants us all out. Salt and quince seeds didn't work to get rid of him. Tryin
g the sage will be difficult. Now he's got Warrior Spirits coming to get us out of the house. Have you heard of Warrior Spirits?

  PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

  Love

  Adam

  The moment I got into bed and pulled the blankets up to my neck, I felt something on my bed. I sat straight up; afraid the Warrior Spirits were about to strike. 'Isabel! Did you watch me get changed?'

  With a dramatic click of her tongue, she asked, 'Do you think it makes any difference to me if you've got clothes on?'

  I didn't answer. Now she was sort of like a sister, but not long ago, when she was alive, I'd never even spoken to her. Everyone knew who she was because she'd been the lead in two school musicals and in a few TV commercials. Then she'd landed the part of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz at the Royal Theatre. Every boy in school had a crush on her.

  'I can't come again. Not that I could help you against the Warrior Spirits anyway. Bye.' Before she disappeared, she looked at me with sad eyes as though we mightn't see each other again.

  8

  At school the next day, I doodled on the inside cover of my notebook while our teacher gave us a lecture about the creative writing assignment. First she'd told us to write what mattered to us. For me and my friends, that was playing soccer. Somehow she'd discovered that seven of us were all planning to write almost the same story. We'd become professional soccer players, play in the English Premier League and kick the most amazing goal the world had ever seen. That wasn't on, she said. So, now I had to think up something else. Personally, I'd prefer public speaking naked than having to make up a story. Almost, anyway.

  What mattered to me? At the moment, I couldn't care less about soccer. Taking on a bunch of Warrior Spirits by myself was what mattered. Keeping Emily unaware of the Earthbound Spirit world suddenly mattered more than anything. Ordinarily, I would've done anything to get 500 Facebook friends before Greenie, but even losing that bet didn't matter too much.

  The bell sounded for recess and we all leapt out of our chairs. My heart raced. I could barely believe what I was about to do. First, I'd never skipped school in my life. Leon gave me a nod, because he was going to cover for me if anyone noticed I was missing after recess. We had gym, so there was a good chance I wouldn't be missed. Of course, I hadn't told Leon the reason I needed to skip school and being a friend, he didn't ask.

  Casually, I strolled over to part of the school fence that was hidden by trees, heaved myself over and jumped down. Easy. I took the back way home, so there was less chance someone would see me.

  In ten minutes I was at home. There was no sign of Warrior Spirits or Eddie. Caesar was real happy to see me until I locked him outside. He whimpered and pawed at the back door.

  'Sorry,' I said, before I checked all the windows were completely shut.

  From a closet, I grabbed the sage, the matches and the large stainless steel bowl I'd put in there before going to school. Thoughts of whether the smell would ever come out of the curtains and the carpet niggled at me. Just do it, I told myself. Grandpa George reckoned ghosts wouldn't come back into a house if it'd been properly smoked out with sage. I supposed the smoke wouldn't affect the Warrior Spirits, but if Eddie couldn't return to his own house, the Warrior Spirits wouldn't have a reason to get us out.

  I started at the front of the house in the study. I lit the sage and the smoke filled my nostrils before I put the enormous bunch of sage over the bowl and held it away from me. Grandpa George's words came back to me. The whole house must be smoked out - every corner of every room. When he'd told me, it never occurred to me I'd be desperate enough to smoke out my own home. Luckily, Mom wouldn't be home till late.

  It'd take ages to smoke out the whole house. Seeing Mom and Dad's study thick with smoke filled me with guilt. Every now and again, I put the sage and the bowl down to get away from the smoke and breathe deeply.

  When I reached the kitchen, I thought, Halfway there. At the same time, I heard the key in the front door and the door swing open. I froze. I heard a cough and then the sound of Mom's high-heel shoes coming down the hallway. That forced me into action. I stuck the sage under the kitchen tap, dumped the wet sage into the garbage bin and put the bowl into the dishwasher.

  I turned to see Mom with her mouth hanging open and her eyes looking like they'd shoot bullets at me.

  'Hi,' I said as I shoved my hands into my pockets. Pathetic, I know. I'd been so busy worrying about ash falling on the carpet and how long it'd take for the smell to disappear, it hadn't occurred to me that Mom might come home in the middle of the day.

  'What are you doing?' she asked.

  'I forgot my gym gear, so I raced home at recess to get it,' I said, realizing I'd never forgotten my gym gear in my life. 'How come you're home so early?'

  She put her keys and her handbag on the kitchen bench and stuck her hands on her hips. 'I got a call from a neighbor. I'd only met her once and, fortunately, I mentioned where I work. She went to a great deal of trouble to track me down to tell me that my son came home shortly after eleven o'clock and he was burning something that created a lot of smoke.'

  I shrugged. 'Well ... umm ... I love this house and everything, but I can't stand that lavender smell. I thought I'd give the house a nice smell before I went back to school.'

  Wrong answer. She leant toward me and exploded. 'So you skipped school and came home, so you could burn something that gave off a nice smell? First, that isn't a nice smell, and second, you could've burned the house down.'

  I stepped backwards and murmured, 'Sorry.'

  She folded her arms. 'Adam, I don't buy that story for a moment. I need the real reason why you'd fill our house with smoke.'

  I bit my bottom lip. I should've told her I was doing a science experiment to see how long the smoke would take to disappear. She'd never believe that now. I remained silent. What else could I do? Not in a million years could I tell her the truth. She and Dad saw the world in black and white. To them, if something wasn't scientifically proven it didn't exist. If I told them about Earthbound Spirits, they'd assume I was crazy and my mind needed fixing.

  After a minute of her staring at me and me trying not to look at her, she said, 'I don't know what has happened with you. When you were little you never kept secrets from me.'

  I laughed inside. When I was little I'd tried to tell them the truth. I used to talk about Holly, the ghost of a six year old who moved into our old house, not playing fair or hiding my toys, and Mom and Dad thought she was my imaginary friend. They thought that was cute.

  Mom kept staring at me. I had to come up with a story. A good one. Fast.

  I began like I was about to confess to murder. 'You won't like this. Me, Leon and Greenie are competing to be the first to get 500 friends on Facebook and one way to get people to be your friend is to put up sensational photos, so I was going to fill the house with smoke, take photos and put it up on my feed and tell everyone I stopped our new house from burning down. People tell their friends about the photos and then they ask to be your friend and it snowballs, so I get 500 friends, win the bet and live happily ever after.'

  She looked me up and down like I was a total nut case and then shook her head. 'Well I can't go back to work until we've cleared out the smoke. Help me open all the windows and then you can shake out the mats, towels and everything that can be shaken out.'

  I wasn't sure if she believed me, but at least she'd stopped demanding an explanation. I grunted and opened the nearest window. That had been my chance and I'd blown it. Soon Eddie would be back, and then the Warrior Spirits ...

  After we'd opened all the windows, Mom set up her laptop on the outside table next to the pool. She watched me shake everything I could find that was capable of being shaken out.

  'A little manual labor never hurt anyone.'

  I turned round to see Eddie. As hard as I could, I belted the rug I was holding against the pool fence.

  'Adam, I hope that's the last of your clever tricks,' he said. 'When Emily gets h
ome from school, you need to take her and leave. The Warrior Spirits have been authorized to evict you and your family. They could turn up any time. I submitted a request to ensure Emily remains unaware of their presence; however, they don't operate like that. They'll clear the house of all members of the Living. Empathy and compassion are not emotions they feel.' He held his forehead as if this whole problem gave him a headache. And he was afraid for Emily; I could see by the yellow current moving up where his spine used to be.

  'Look, Edward, this is our house. If you call off the Warrior Spirits, and move out, then nothing bad can happen.' I turned my back on him and again belted the rug on the pool fence.

  9

  What was worse? Waiting for a bunch of Warrior Spirits to scare us out of our house or waiting to be punished for smoking out our house? After school, I waited in my room for Mom to come in and tell me how long I'd be grounded for. I couldn't concentrate. The slightest sound and the tiniest vibration made me jump. What would the Warrior Spirits do? Would I see them or just see their powers in action?

  I checked my inbox three times for a message from Grandpa George. He was probably busy having cups of tea with every person in his village; he'd probably forgotten I existed.

  Three new Facebook friends were all I had to show for almost two hours at my desk. And then I discovered all the effort was for nothing. All of a sudden Greenie had 502 friends. How could that loser get more friends than us? Now me and Leon had to do our three-minute public speaking talk on why Greenie was such a great guy. Thinking about it made me ill.

  Finally, Mom stuck her head in my room. 'Hi. Did anyone at school notice you were gone for all that time?'

  I shook my head. 'Leon covered for me.'

  'Good.' She added, 'How is your creative writing assignment coming along? I'll read it tonight.'

  I nodded and she left. Of course, my assignment wasn't coming along at all.

  Mom, I reckoned, wanted to discuss my punishment with Dad when he got home. She did that when I'd done something really bad - like the time I hid my teacher's reading glasses because I was dared to do it.

  During dinner, Mom and Dad carried on as though nothing had happened. When Emily mentioned a funny smell, Mom changed the subject. Weird.

  As soon as Dad switched on the news, Eddie appeared and paced up and down the room as if he was the one who'd have to deal with the Warrior Spirits and not me. Usually he sat in his favorite armchair to watch the news.

  After a minute, he said to me, 'Adam, I like to know what's happening in the rest of the world. Could you please change the channel to the world news?'

  'No. My dad likes this news because he went to school with the newsreader.'

  Eddie thought about that for a moment, then said, 'I expect you can find a good reason to change the channel. If you don't, I can change it myself and ensure the television remains locked on that channel.'

  I sighed, barely able to believe what I was about to say. 'Dad, for school we're meant to watch the world news for a week or so to see the difference between it and the local news.'

  Without hesitating, he picked up the remote, switched channels and replied, 'Good idea.'

  I couldn't believe it as I watched pictures of a flood in some random part of the world I'd never heard of.

  'Very creative, Adam,' Eddie said. 'If you used your initiative, you could convince your parents to leave my home for good. That would—'

  Mom's cell rang as if it wanted to shut him up. Eddie's aura turned orange; he didn't like the ringing noise.

  I could tell by Mom's groans that something bad had happened at her work. When she got off her cell, she explained the fire sprinklers on her floor had come on when a faulty appliance caught fire. She needed to get back to her office and save what she could. Dad said he'd help her, and then they both turned to me.

  My mind whirled. What could I say? I can't possibly look after Emily and deal with the Warrior Spirits.

  'Yeah, yeah, I'll look after Em.'