Something Beginning With ‘G’

Alice and her mum were in the living room. Alice had just had her bath and they were playing Alice’s favourite game one more time before
Alice would have to go to bed.

“I spy… with my little eye”, said the little girl, pointing to her right eye, “something beginning with ‘G’”.

Alice’s mum looked round about her at all the things in her living room, trying to make the game fun for her daughter although it always bored her to tears, but as hard as she looked, she couldn’t find anything beginning with the letter ‘G’.

“Is it glass?”, she asked, out of desperation, “The glass in the windows?”.

“No mummy”, said Alice, giggling and shaking her blonde curly head emphatically from side to side, “It’s not glass. Try again! Try again!”.

Alice’s mother looked round the room again but no, there was nothing else that she could see that began with a ‘G’, “Ok. I give up”, she said, feigning interest, “What is it?”.

“Can’t you see it mummy? It’s right behind you?”, said Alice, disappointedly, pointing a little index finger towards the wall behind where her mother was seated.

Alice’s mother screwed up her eyes and stared at the back of the living room but all she could see was a standard lamp in the corner of the room and flock wallpaper that was starting to peel.

Then, for some reason, the lights in the house went out. It was after 4 O’clock in the middle of
November, dark blue outside and pitch black inside.

“It’s probably a power cut. Just stay where you are, darling. Don’t move from the couch. I’ll get some candles from the kitchen cupboard”, said Alice’s mum getting up and going to the living room door.

But the door of the living room just didn’t seem to want to open even though Alice’s mum was pulling on it with a lot of force, then, behind her, in the darkness, she thought she could hear something moving near to the back of her head something large.

“I told you to stay sitting, Alice”, said her mum, “I don’t want you walking around in the dark incase you trip and fall”.

“But I haven’t moved, mummy”, said Alice from the darkness, “I’ve stayed on the couch just like you told me to”.

Suddenly the thing behind her started to get louder and closer to her right ear and she thought it sounded somewhat like a person breathing excitedly or a dog panting, then she felt something cold touching the back of her neck and she froze, “If you’re on the couch. Then what’s that behind me?”, asked her mother, her voice starting to tremble.

“I told you mummy. Something beginning with ‘G’”, said Alice, “Ghost”.