Emily Macintosh, Ghostbuster

by Jen Cole

Emily Mackintosh, Ghostbuster

  Jen Cole

  Copyright 2013 Jen Cole

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  It’s just Mum and me. I’ve never met my father but according to Mum he’s a miserable coward. They were seventeen when she got pregnant and he promised to stand by her. Instead he let his parents ship him off to university in England. He didn’t even have the guts to say goodbye and he never contacted her again.

  Mum still looks young and now that I’m fifteen, people often mistake us for sisters. We both have coppery hair hanging straight to our shoulders, along with hazel eyes and pale skin, except for a dusting of freckles over our noses. We’re more like friends than mother and daughter but sometimes Mum gets this funny expression when she looks at me and I can feel her thinking, will Emily turn out to be like me or him? I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove I haven’t inherited my father’s cowardice, and I guess that’s how I ended up as the school’s ghostbuster.

  My reputation began in primary school – grade six to be precise. Mum and I had just moved halfway across Melbourne to Bentleigh. She’d gotten this great job with a real estate agency, managing their rental properties, and Bentleigh was a step up from the suburb we came from. Our star was on the rise. At least that’s what Mum said. I wasn’t so sure.

  I was leaving all my friends behind to start grade six in a new school. Grade six – the worst grade you can possibly start new. Most of the kids have been together since kinder. They’ve all worked out their friendship circles and everyone’s really tight because graduation is on the horizon, and they know this is the last year they’ll have together before they split off to half a dozen different high schools. The last thing they want is some new kid muscling in.

  They didn’t exactly cold-shoulder me. They were polite, but at playtime they kind of drifted off leaving me to hang with the floaters – you know, the kids who don’t really have a group, but just float around the edges.

  Hailey was a floater – a skinny girl with short dark hair and a wobbly smile. She was the one who introduced me to the knocking ghost. It happened during my first week when we were strolling through the school grounds at lunchtime. We’d just walked through the maze garden, across the basketball court and up the sports oval to the adventure playground. As we passed the climbing equipment used mainly by the younger kids, I noticed that near the boundary fence was an aluminium shed with its door hanging open. I stepped towards it and Hailey spoke quickly.

  ‘That’s the groundsman’s shed. Out-of-bounds, of course.’

  I kept going, ignoring her little gasp. Ingrained in me was a constant need to show I wasn’t afraid of anything. I reached the doorway and peered inside. There were tools everywhere. Some hung on the walls. Others were strewn on top of a big bench.

  ‘Emily,’ Hailey was tugging my arm. ‘The duty teacher’s just over there. If she turns around we’re in trouble!’

  I looked over. The teacher was crouched beside a little kid, getting something out of her bum bag – probably a Band-Aid. We were in full sight if she turned. Safety lay on the other side of the shed. I grabbed Hailey and dragged her around. There was a narrow passageway between the shed wall and the fence, but as I moved towards it, she dug in her heels.

  ‘Not there. The knocking ghost!’

  I noticed the grass in the passageway was quite long. It should have been worn down by kids using that private area for, you know, private stuff. I glanced across at the duty teacher. She was rising. Any second now she’d turn our way.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, and dragged Hailey in. We just made it. The teacher’s voice came close as she walked in our direction, speaking to a couple of students. I turned to Hailey with a grin of triumph, which froze when I saw her face. It was drained of colour. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be holding her breath. Surely she wasn’t that scared of a teacher? The voices faded as the duty teacher continued on her circuit towards the adventure playground.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘She’s gone. You don’t need to…’ I was interrupted. From the shed wall beside us came three loud knocks. I nearly jumped out of my skin and Hailey screamed and shot off like a rabbit.

  Chapter 2

  I ran after Hailey, noticing the staring faces of some kids playing a little distance from the shed, and caught up with her in the maze garden. She was sitting on a bench, curled over and gasping.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

  She looked up. ‘Didn’t you hear it? The knocking ghost?’

  I sat beside her and spoke calmly. ‘I heard a knocking. So what? The groundsman probably came into his shed, heard us talking on the other side and decided to give us a fright.’

  She turned and pointed. Further down the maze, the groundsman was bent over a flowerbed, weeding. No way could he have got there ahead of us if he’d been the knocker.

  ‘Well it must have been some kid then.’

  She shook her head ‘Only the groundsman goes into that shed, but the knocking always happens when anyone goes down the side.’

  Madison Ryan, one of the popular girls, wandered up with a little band of followers.

  ‘Hailey,’ she said. ‘Heard you took the new girl to meet the knocking ghost.’

  Did I detect a hint of admiration in her tone? I seized my opportunity.

  ‘How long has it been knocking like that?’ I asked. ‘Do the teachers know about it?’

  ‘Of course they don’t,’ said a girl behind her. ‘If we told them they’d know we’d been out-of-bounds.’

  Another girl spoke up. ‘The knocking ghost has been haunting that shed since last year, and it hates visitors. Go anywhere near and it’ll soon start knocking.’

  The others nodded glumly. It was obvious that spot had been a favorite until the ghost arrived.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘It just so happens that ghostbusting is my specialty.’ I regretted the words the instant they were out. Not my best idea for gaining acceptance. If I failed to solve the mystery, I’d become a joke, left on the outer forever. And what if this wasn’t a simple mystery? What if there really was a ghost? I shook my head. Don’t be silly, Emily.

  Madison sneered. ‘It’s your first week here and already you’re an expert on our ghost?’

  Now I really regretted my words, but I stood up and put on a smile. ‘I’m prepared to check it out. Who’ll stand watch for the yard duty teacher?’

  Madison looked at the others and then back at me. ‘We will,’ she said.

  We wandered casually up between the buildings and across to the adventure playground. There we stood chatting until the yard duty teacher passed us on her round. She had to go all the way down to the basketball court, around the library, up through the maze garden and past the junior classrooms to get back. That would take several minutes and there was always the chance she’d have to stop and deal with some minor incident on the way.

  I darted across to the shed with the girls, and we all peered in. Empty. Madison posted two of them outside the door to make sure no one went inside and sent the rest to spread down the schoolyard and act as runners, should the teacher do something unexpected. Then she and I, and to my surprise, Hailey, went around the back of the shed and walked halfway down the passageway. For a few seconds we held our breaths but when nothing happened I turned to examine the shed wall. It was perfectly smooth. No breaks, gaps or secret openings. Next I bent to the ground. Apart from us, it looked like no one
had been there for months.

  I was just straightening, when bang, bang, bang! It sounded like someone hitting the other side of the shed wall. Hailey took off like a sprinter out of the starting blocks. Madison went white, but held her ground.

  ‘To the front,’ I said.

  We charged around to the doorway where the two guards were jumping up and down. ‘Let’s go!’ they were saying.

  ‘Did you hear the knocking?’ I asked them.

  Steph, the smallest, nodded. ‘It came from in the shed but no one’s there. I’m out of here.’

  She ran off, followed by the other guard.

  ‘Ghostbust that,’ said Madison, and ran off to join them.

  Chapter 3

  I so wanted to follow, but I couldn’t admit cowardice, so I turned and stepped into the shed. All was quiet. I went to the workbench where clutter of carpentry implements covered the table. Nothing unusual there.

  I glanced towards the back wall. The gardening forks and spades hanging on hooks were in shadow and looked sinister. They’re just tools, I told myself, and walking over to the wall, I said loudly, ‘I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.’

  Bang, bang, bang! The noise echoed around the shed and I turned and ran. A person can only be so brave. Fortunately the bell went at that moment and in the safety of the classroom, I felt my heartbeat returning to normal. Could there really be a knocking ghost in that shed? But if so, how come the groundsman wasn’t scared of it? He must go in and out all the time. Was it a ghost only kids could hear? That’s ridiculous, I told myself. The groundsman has to have the answers.

  After school I went across to the adventure playground and mucked around on the monkey bars, while keeping an eye on the shed. The playground quickly emptied and I ducked behind the wooden fort as the duty teacher did his final circuit. After he’d gone inside, I dashed over to the shed, arriving just as the groundsman approached from the other direction. Flattening myself against the wall, I prayed he’d go in the door and not walk around the perimeter.

  Luck was with me. Soon I heard him moving about inside the shed. The question was, what now? Should I just wait here or go in and talk to him? I wasn’t supposed to still be on the school grounds. What if he got angry and marched me inside to the principal? I was stepping indecisively from one foot to the other when I heard the knocking. Bang, bang, bang!

  I dropped to a crouch and peered around the shed wall towards the doorway. Would the groundsman come running out screaming? No. I could still hear him moving around inside the shed as though nothing had happened. Maybe he was deaf. If so, there was no point in asking him anything. He wouldn’t hear me.

  I was on the point of calling it a day and heading home when footsteps approached. Again I dropped down, this time lying flat before peering around the bottom corner of the shed. It was the assistant principal!

  ‘How’s it going, Albert?’ I heard her say.

  ‘Fine,’ came a gruff voice. ‘Got a lot of weeding done today.’

  So much for him being deaf. Then he said something I didn’t catch. It sounded like, ‘Sher-eye-pon.’

  The assistant principal laughed. Her reply was even stranger. ‘What a godsend. It’s saved us having to put an extra teacher on yard duty.’

  I headed home after she left and spent a lot of time in my room thinking, eventually coming up with a theory. I’d need to go back to the shed tomorrow to test it, but I wasn’t worried. I was pretty sure by now that the answer to this mystery had nothing to do with a ghost.

  The next day I arrived at school an hour early and stood out of sight against the shed’s side wall. There were no kids in the playground yet and for ten minutes I listened to the birds chirping. Not once was their song interrupted by any knocking. Then I heard two sets of footsteps – the heavy crunching of boots and a click-clack of high heels.

  ‘Here you go, Albert,’ came the assistant principal’s voice. ‘All freshly charged.’

  ‘No worries,’ was the growled reply. ‘I’ll hang it up.’

  The high heels tapped away and Albert clanged about in the shed for a while before emerging with a wheelbarrow loaded with gardening tools. He headed down to the maze garden, leaving the door open as usual.

  Kids were now beginning to arrive. I’d have to be quick. I ducked into the shed and went straight to the wall where the tools were hanging, squinting to check between them. I found it behind the rake – a little cotton pouch. As I reached over, the knocking started. Bang, bang, bang!

  This time I didn’t even blink. I lifted the pouch off its hook and pulled open the drawstring top. A quick look inside confirmed my suspicions. What Albert had said to the assistant principal last night was not, ‘Sher-eye-pon’, but ‘Here’s your iPod.’

  The three knocks were just a recorded sound. I guessed they were on a loop that played every five minutes over the day. The iPod’s volume was up fully and as it was right against the wall, that was plenty loud enough to scare people standing on the other side. Smiling, I pulled the drawstring closed and hung the bag back on its hook.

  As I joined my classmates in line I couldn’t help laughing. The teachers didn’t know about the knocking ghost? They’d created it, to keep kids from sneaking off behind the shed.

  When I revealed the truth to Madison’s group they were outraged and all ready to rush to the principal with complaints.

  ‘Are you mad?’ I said, and they looked at me questioningly. ‘The minute you tell them you know about the iPod, they’ll be forced to put an extra teacher on yard duty to patrol behind the shed. Let them keep thinking we’re scared of the ghost, and they’ll never bother checking back there.’

  Needless to say I was taken into the flock and ended up having a fantastic grade six year. I made sure Hailey was included and she and I became close friends. After that, word followed me to high school that I was a go-to ghostbuster and I kind of wish it hadn’t. Now kids bring every weird thing to me, and to keep up my fearless reputation I have to deal with them.

  I can tell you, there’s been some spooky stuff, but one thing I’ve learnt is that human imagination can make the most ordinary things seem scary. Take the time a year seven group approached me about exorcising the ghost under the 2B homeroom.

  Chapter 4

  The story went that years ago some kid had crawled under the school building after a ball. Searching for it, he knocked against a nail sticking out from one of the bearers. The nail punctured his jugular vein and he bled out on the spot while his classmates stood around wondering where he was. They didn’t find the body until the rotting smell started drawing attention. The place he’d died was directly under the 2B homeroom and every now and then, his ghost would thump on the floorboards, trying to get back into class. I don’t know who made up that story, but everyone totally believed it, especially when the thumping started.

  When I crawled under the school to check it out, a couple of girls actually screamed in terror and I had to get a grip on myself to stop them panicking me. The noises turned out to be water hammer in a pipe that hadn’t been tied down properly. Mum manages rental properties so I know all about water hammer. It happens when someone turns a tap on and off. In a long section of unsecured pipe, the sudden changes in pressure cause vibrations and thumping. Once I’d roped the free section to a beam, the ‘ghost’ went away. The worst thing for me in that whole episode was lying on my back on the cold earth in the semi-dark, trying to tie the rope securely while imagining I could feel spiders and centipedes crawling over my legs. At least I hope I was imagining it! Those are the times I curse my father for making me always need to prove myself.

  So far every ‘supernatural’ case brought to me had ended up with a natural explanation, from faulty wiring to the wind whistling though cracks, and once, some newborn kittens mewling in a ceiling, where their mother had carried them through a gap in a broken roof tile.

  Even so, deep down I’ve always had a tiny, nagging anxiety that some day I’d encounter a real ghost – o
ne that might not like my attempts to bust it. I’d been hoping to finish high school before any kid could bring me such a case, but as it turned out, I brought it on myself.

  It started at the beginning of a sunny weekend. I’d gone out to window shop and ended up snagging a brilliant new skirt in a 70% off sale. Mum’s estate agency was in the shopping strip, and as she was working this particular Saturday, I decided to drop in and show off my bargain. She greeted me with a smile, but seemed a little preoccupied.

  ‘I can head off if you’re busy,’ I said. ‘I’ll model my new skirt for you at home.’

  She waved me over. ‘I’ve got a bit of time. Let’s have a quick look now.’

  She was oohing and ah-ing over the stitching when the door opened. I’ve seen mum in action with clients and usually she charms the socks off them, but as the girl walked towards the counter Mum actually seemed to flinch.

  I checked out the customer from the corner of my eye. She looked about late twenties and was clear skinned, with shoulder-length brown hair. She wore a light grey bandanna and gold-rimmed glasses, and was casually dressed in a blue-striped shirt and jeans. I had the impression she’d normally be rosy cheeked, but right now she looked kind of pale.

  ‘What did you think?’ Mum asked, with an overly bright smile.

  The girl handed over some keys. ‘Not what I was looking for.’

  ‘Can you tell me what didn’t suit?’ said Mum.

  The girl hesitated. ‘I just… it just… It wasn’t what I was looking for,’ she repeated, and turned to go.

  ‘I have some others you might be interested in,’ Mum called, but the girl was halfway to the door.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said over her shoulder as she hurried out.

  Mum sighed as the door closed behind her.

  ‘What was that all about?’ I asked.

  ‘The un-rentable house,’ said Mum. ‘It’s been on our books for two months. We’ve dropped the price three times and still no one’s interested.’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘There’s nothing basically wrong. It’s a bit old fashioned, but in good shape…’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘I don’t know… on the morning I dropped in to inspect the house, I was on route to see a client. Normally I take my time with inspections, but I was running late. I do remember, as I stepped inside, being filled with a sense of wonder, yet there was nothing at all wondrous about the interior. It was quite ordinary. I rushed through the rooms with one eye on my watch, and as I headed out, a feeling of sadness took hold of me. Closing the door, I felt quite depressed.’