The Ghost House ( Chapter 2)

Christmas passed with a succession of relations visiting our house bearing gifts like the Three Wise Men in the Bible, only we got Broons books, the Topper and Beano annuals,  the obligatory but unwanted matching floral shirt and tie sets also heaps and heaps of selection boxes, which my brothers and me devoured quickly being lovers of chocolate, Mars Bars, Marathons, and Flakes being the favourites, Milky Ways and Chocolate Buttons would be left until later as they weren’t as nice.

Grandma visited as usual on Christmas Day, and she was not telling us about how the old songs were the best, like in the Slade song, she was her usual jovial self, asking how we were ‘getting on at school,’ and telling Mum and Dad about what so and so was up to these days.

I had been thinking over how Alan and I could lure Ally Harrison to the Ghost House and scare him hopefully to death. I had this idea from a film that Alan told me about, ‘Whistle and I’ll Come,’ which had a ghost that looked like it was made from a sheet and a coat hanger, we could make one ‘Blue Peter’ style, with easy to find household items, and get a Blue Peter badge from Valerie Singleton or John Noakes into the bargain. My Mum had a candlewick bedspread in one of the cupboards at home, nobody would miss that if I were to take, to steal it, and of course we had heaps of wire coat hangers, from when Dad put his suits to Silver City Cleaners for dry cleaning.

 That was the easy part.

Getting Ally there might prove more difficult

I would see Alan when we got back to school, and we would get going, as Dad would say.

We could dare him to sleep one night in the Ghost House, he seemed to be up for any dare that proved him to be the hardman he thought he was. He had climbed onto the school roof, pretending to be Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, and jumping off in his version of slow motion, which  looked more like a falling sack of potatoes, and earned him a twisted ankle. Ally was not bionic like Steve Austin , and could not jump great heights, and throw boulders in the air like our fictional TV hero, we would see how  well he would fare in the Ghost House.

In the Ghost House, something stirred, Old Sam, once the caretaker, the janitor of the school awoke, as if from a lengthy sleep. He recalled being hit repeatedly by an axe, or a hammer years ago, when the school and the estate were new, Kings North, an archectural masterpiece, a new beginning, a new dawn, for some, affordable as well, for the working-class folk of the city. He wanted revenge, now that he was awake, but was he awake, the place looked the same, but had a different aspect about it, as if he were under water, or watching himself from outside his body.

The Ghost House was at the side of the school , just across  a steep lane which we called the ‘Dachshund Hill’, as my fear of dogs had got the better of me many times when going up there as the dachshund emerged from the path  at the top of the lane yapping with all its might, and me and other kids had to run in the opposite way to avoid it.

It was a  broken down granite house, built thirty years before, and Wifie Reid had told my Mum there had been a murder there , something to do with people who were around at the time our scheme was built. I imagined Alan and me , beckoning Ally to come into the house, with our makeshift ghost made ‘Blue Peter’ style, and how he would have be scared like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, and how he would run out uttering words like ‘Zoicks’.

We hoped it would work.

Who knows, maybe the house was really  haunted, time would tell.