Dan and the Teacher Ghost

by David Churchill

  On wobbly legs I get up and go to her table. It’s a relief to be on my feet and away from the desk. Only as I take a fresh pencil out of the box something terrible happens. I see the vase of flowers tilt sideways then tip over and crash onto the table, spreading petals and water and leaves all over her papers.

  She jumps up with a screech, trying to keep the water off her clothes. I grab the vase, too late. She says, “Oh you are so clumsy, Tony. You must be more careful!”

  “Sorry, Miss,” I say, trying to stuff the flowers back in the vase. “I’ll get some water,” and I run out of the room, hearing the rest of them catcalling behind me.

  In the loo I stop and lean against the cool, tiled wall. I’m shaking. I never did touch that vase. I know I didn’t. In fact I saw the whole thing. I saw it tip and tilt and then dive over…and nobody touched it at all.

  But the story Miss told, and the things we saw underground and what happened when we came back up through the hole, and the goings-on in the classroom, besides the pressure I was feeling more and more to DO something, are all shouting a message to me. I don’t want to read the message but I don’t know how to escape it.

  My brain has put the whole story together in one horrible leap. Can it be true? Did we see the ghost of that little school on a summer day? Did we really see the ghost of the schoolteacher? And worst of all, did we let the ghost of the schoolteacher out into the classroom and now she’s haunting me? She’s doing it because she wants us to help her. She’s targetting me and she’s getting stronger and stronger. And that has to be such rubbish that I’m just inventing to scare myself…and how well I’m succeeding!

  But I definitely didn’t tip the vase over. It was nowhere near me when I picked up the pencil. If only I could tell Miss the whole story she’d sort it out and stop thinking I’m stupid and clumsy. But then she’d know I took Dan underground and no-one’s ever got to know I did that.

  I can’t hide in the loo for the rest of the day so I fill up the vase and carefully carry it back into the classroom. I’m scared of the classroom though and my legs still feel wobbly. I look suspiciously round the room as I go in, just in case anything else has happened. Miss gives me a forgiving smile but I can see that she stands back as I put the vase down on her desk, letting go very slowly and carefully, not to risk knocking it over. As I go to release it I feel it tug, as if it’s alive or someone has tried to pull it from my hand. I gasp and hang on to it with water splashing over its rim on to my hand, while Miss says “Careful Tony!” and reaches forward to steady it. Of course, it behaves itself now. It would, wouldn’t it!

  I go back to our desk, to sniggers and stupid comments. They lean away from me as if they think I’m going to bash into them. I will too, if they keep this up.

  Sitting down, I try to do some work but I know for sure that something’s going on. I can feel it in the air, like movement, like a force. I look at Dan and he’s scratching away with his pencil looking pleased with himself, contented. But me, it’s like there’s a wind pushing and squeezing against my head. Numbers don’t add up. It’s pressure, pressure all the time.

  At last it’s break and we can go outside. I feel relief now I’m through the classroom door and it’s even better in the fresh cold wind of the yard. A ball comes bouncing towards us and Dan takes a couple of steps in its direction but catches his foot in a crack and falls on his stomach. I’m thinking, is that a new crack, as I go to check he’s all right. Actually I’d be quite pleased if the school did fall down, just at this moment – except that Miss is still inside, of course. Dan gets up puffing and rubbing his hands together. He opens his mouth and before he get past saying, “That - ” I stop him.

  “Miss fancies you,” I say

  He goes pink and shuts his mouth then he gives a snort of laughter, like he does. We rush about after the ball on the cracked playground but all too soon Miss comes out and rings the bell and I have to face the classroom again. I definitely don’t want to, but I’m still capable of thinking perhaps it will be all right now.

  Twelve

  Back inside the classroom I’m looking round anxiously but things seem quite ordinary. We go to our desk but straight away I begin to feel the pressure again, like I’m being pushed inside my head. I’m scared of touching the floorboards and I put my feet back up on the metal bar and shake my head to clear it.

  While we’ve been out Miss has put paper and paint and water pots and brushes on our desks. She wants us to paint a picture, she says, of some place we’d really like to be if we weren’t in the classroom.

  I could enjoy this, if it wasn’t for the worries and questions banging around in my mind. Searching for inspiration I look up at the window where the winter sun is streaming in for once, showing up all the little specks of dust and stuff that we must be breathing in all the time without knowing it. The light is falling on Miss, making her hair shine. I really am in love and I know she’d help me if I could tell her everything.

  But horror! There’s something worse now. She’s not alone! There’s someone standing beside her. In the shaft of golden, dusty sunlight is the shape of a person. It’s just a silhouette in the brightness but it’s completely recognisable. I can see her straight back and square shoulders, and the hair piled on the top of her head. And I know she’s looking directly at me. I glance at Miss to see if she’s aware of anything but a movement catches the corner of my eye. It’s Dan, and he’s waving!

  “Yes Dan?” Miss asks nicely. “Have you got a question?”

  The sunlight fades suddenly as a big grey cloud moves in, the woman vanishes and Dan slowly lets his hand fall. He shakes his head, looking really puzzled.

  “What are you going to paint?” she asks, helping him along.

  Now Dan’s beaming. “That…” he starts.

  Here we go, I think, but Miss will never believe him. I cough to put him off.

  Dan starts again. “A lady,” he says, “and a house with straw on the roof. That lady -”

  At this point I kick him under the desk and he breaks off, surprised.

  Miss says, “That sounds really nice Dan. Good. Off you all go then and I’ll come and see how you are getting on in a little while.”

  I can’t sit staring round looking for ghosts so I begin to try to draw a football stadium, with rows of seats, then I find I’m putting a thatched roof on it so I stop. It’s hard enough, keeping my eyes going all round the room, and my fingers are so sweaty that the pencil slides about as I draw.

  Miss comes down the gangway making little comments and asking questions, as if she likes all the different scenes.

  At Dan’s she says in a surprised voice, “What a lovely drawing of an old-fashioned lady, Dan. My Grandma looked a bit like that in the old photographs. Wherever did you get that idea from?” Luckily she doesn’t wait for an answer but goes on, “I do like her hair style. That’s really good,” and with Dan sitting there all pink and speechless she goes on down the room.

  It seems peaceful enough at the moment, so I rub out the thatch and start to get the game going, I’ve got as far as sketching in the goal at an angle, and I’m just placing the keeper when Dan gives a little gasp.

  I look across quickly. What now? He’s holding his pencil on the paper and staring down at it. I take in the drawing of the lady and it’s too good to be true. I sniff that scent again. And I realise that his hand is moving across the page. As the words appear and I see where they are going I feel as if I’ve been dropped in a bath full of ice.

  The curly, beautiful writing is chilling me to my very bones. Dan never, never could write like that…who could! No don’t answer that question! But I see the dreadful words forming elegantly across the paper:

  Of course, Dan has learned to write and he copies quite neatly, but that isn’t Dan’s writing and it never could be. Mine neither. Beautiful, stylish writing. Old writing. Horrible writing. Yet I saw him do it, I know I did.

  Miss has noticed something going on and she’s getting up to come
in our direction. She mustn’t see it, she can’t!

  I act on instinct as I brush my arm across and knock the water jar so that it floods all over Dan’s picture. Even as I do it I know it’s a rotten thing to do, but I haven’t got a choice.

  “Oh no!” I shout and grab his paper to screw it up and mop down the desk, mop down Dan. It’s a nightmare.

  Miss is here now and she’s mad.

  “Tony!” she yells, “you’ve done it again! Poor Dan, you’ve ruined his lovely picture. What is the matter with you? How could you be so careless!”

  I might say, Look Miss, there’s a ghost in the classroom and she’s trying to get me to do something that I daren’t do. Dan’s on her side and I’m desperate. Please help me to get out of this horrible, horrible mess. But I still can’t confess what I’ve done.

  Dan’s in tears. That’s almost worse than all the rest. I’ve never seen him so upset before, ever. He’s sobbing with big bubbly breaths and I remember what my Mum said about him. I feel dreadful and I hate it all.

  Then the bell rings. It distracts Miss.

  “Oh dear,” she says, “it’s dinnertime. Don’t worry Dan, I’m sure you can do another, just as good. Tony didn’t mean it, he’s such an elephant today! We’d better stop now and have our dinner. We’ll go on later…Tony, I want a word with you before you go.”

  They all go out and I feel like crying myself. But just as the tears start to prickle Phil turns at the door, behind Miss’s back, and makes a very rude gesture. And he pulls a face. That’s enough to stop my tears.

  Miss is standing by our desk looking at me, her eyes big and worried.

  “Are you all right, Tony?” she asks, “I’m sure you’re not always as careless as you are today. You’re keen on football, aren’t you. You have be ever so controlled to do well at that, as I’m sure you know. Poor Dan, he was doing such a remarkable picture and now he’s really upset.”

  I want so much to tell her all about my troubles, share them with her and ask for help. I know she’d try to understand, especially after what she said about her Gran’s stories, and I’m just about to try and start when she looks at her watch and says, “I’ve got to rush over to the main building for a meeting. I’m the new girl so I mustn’t be late! Just do something for me, will you please?”

  I look into her eyes and gulp, “Yes Miss.”

  Go and find Dan and say you’re sorry. Can you do that?”

  I nod, what else does she think I want to do!

  “And take care,” she says with a sudden smile. “Don’t fall down a hole or walk into a wall. Watch out for the gravy! It’s not your day!”

  She grabs her bag and whizzes up the gangway and out of the door, leaving me alone in the room. Not for long. I’m not staying here by myself a moment longer than I have to.

  Thirteen

  I set off to follow her but something trips me and I stumble into the desk in front, bashing my knee. While I’m rubbing it, and trying to make out what caught my foot, I sense a movement. I look up and see that the globe on the shelf above the blackboard is in motion, slowly turning on its spindle. Blue sea … America ….blue sea…It’s a scary sight when there’s nobody near it. I stand transfixed, unable to move at all Now it’s accelerating, beginning to hum as it turns, faster and faster, rocking on its base, as if someone is pushing it repeatedly. All the world is a blur now and the rising hum is becoming a whistle, a scream, that’s filling my head. The hairs on the back of my neck tingle as I stand there, too afraid to move. She’s in the room and she’s making sure I know it. She’s pressuring me as hard as she can and I can feel how strong she’s getting.

  But what can she do? I don’t know much about ghost rules…like what they can walk through and what they can’t, or what they can do to you. I know she wants something from us and it’s crazy. I’m just not going down there again, and nor is Dan. How do I know that we would ever come out alive? How do people get turned into zombies and vampires, after all! The main thing is to get out of this room as quick as I can and find Dan and sort him out.

  The globe begins to slow now and the scream falls back to a whistle, to a hum. The drop in the noise gives me a bit of relief and I find I can move again. I start to walk carefully, almost tiptoeing, as if not to draw attention to myself, towards the front of the class. I reach the teacher’s table safely and turn towards the door but a flash of light from above my head catches my eye. I look up to see that it’s coming from the glass fronted case with the owl in. Slowly, deliberately, the whole thing is tilting forwards over the edge of the shelf towards the point of no return.

  Thinking, I’ll get the blame if it smashes, I rush under it just when a final invisible push sends it toppling off the edge of the shelf. I catch it and wrap my arms round it to slide it carefully on to the table.

  But before I can let go of it the vase lurches over to thud on the table, just like it did before, water splashing everywhere. When I grab for the vase to stop it rolling off the table I hit the glass case and the owl skids off instead to crash to the floor. The wooden cabinet splinters and the glass smashes with a terrible noise. Feathers fly up as I hurl myself to the doorway, hearing behind me another crash as the vase smashes down on to the remains of the owl. Once through the door I slam it behind me and don’t stop running until I’m out in the cold, grey light of the yard.

  Sweating and gasping I prop myself up against a netball post, looking at the school door, afraid of seeing something come out after me. But it’s all very peaceful. The kids have gone in for their dinners and everything is quiet except for the thumping of my heart,

  But what I know is that I can’t go on any longer by myself. The woman is powerful now. I’m terrified of what she might do next. I’ve got to tell Miss when she comes back after dinner and take the consequences. I’ll get Dan’s paper out of the bin and the writing ought to convince her that something’s going on and I’m not vandalising the classroom and making it all up.

  That decision makes me feel better but I can’t face Dan or the others for a few minutes. I’m not hungry either. So instead of crossing the yard to the dinner hut I walk the other way, alongside the hedge and round the back of the little old school building. The yard is really cracking up round here and there’s even a zig-zag line up the wall where the crumbly red bricks have split right through. I wonder if anyone has noticed how bad it’s getting.

  My mouth is dry and my legs still feel shaky so I sit down on a stone step outside the boiler room where I can’t see the school door at all. Thoughts jumble round in my head. How did Dan do such a good drawing and how did she make him write the words? Was she holding his hand somehow and was that why he looked so surprised? At least she isn’t making him smash things up and get into trouble, like she is me. I think she knows he can’t do it without me and that’s why she’s giving me such a hard time. She likes him, I think, and she knows he wants to help her – he wants to ever so much. But how can you help a ghost and even if you could you’d have to go underground to do it. Which is completely out of the question for him and for me. Completely!

  I take a deep shuddery breath. I want to run away. But I know I have to find Dan and make him smile again – that’s never very difficult – and then perhaps we’ll run away together…or tell Miss, anyway.

  So I make myself get up, go back round the corner and cross the yard to the dinner hut. There’s a clatter of knives and forks. Steam is in the air and a smell of chips and gravy. What did Miss say? Watch out for the gravy. I’m watching!

  I go past a couple of tables. Same big joke, everyone’s copying stupid Jason and taking cover, guarding their plates with their arms, shielding the water jugs as if I’m about to crash into them and sweep them off the tables.

  “Look out, the elephant’s coming!” squeaks Titchy Trevor.

  I ignore it all and look round for Dan. Can’t see him. Not in the queue, not at a table. I look all over again. No, he’s definitely not here. But at the end of the table I’m standi
ng by there’s a plate of chips and beans, with a fork sticking out of a sausage, and the chair is empty.

  Susan’s sitting across the table and she sees how I’m staring. She waves a chip-loaded fork towards the door. “He went out Tony,” she said, “all of a sudden. To help a lady or something.”

  Fourteen

  Although I look round desperately once more, I know she’s right. He’s gone to help a lady. He’s made his mind up, all by himself, and the urge to do it is so strong that he’s even left his chips and beans. It’s that strong!

  I spin round and run to the door. Straight into Phil who’s just behind me with a plate of gravy and mash. We crash and the plate falls face down. I go round him with a premier league swerve but it’s more like ice-skating with the thick gravy underfoot.

  As I bash out through the doors there’s a delighted cheer from behind me

  Putting off the worst, I spin round the yard looking hopefully to see Dan’s stocky ambling figure – perhaps looking for me. No chance! There’s only one place he can be.

  So, cold and shivery now, I go up to the school building and with a shaky hand I open the door. Under my fingers the latch feels like ice. It’s very quiet inside. I can smell the dust and the loos and the chalk and the stuff that my Mum sweeps over the floors. My heart thuds in my ears and I hear the building groan, like it does sometimes, as if it’s sharing my feelings.

  If Miss was here now I’d tell her everything – everything – and we’d get Dan out, and get ourselves out, and then we could think about it properly and it might all be all right.

  But there’s no-one here but me and I can’t not go on. There’s still a hope in my head that Dan isn’t here anyway, that I’ve got it all wrong. But as soon as I peer round the classroom door my worst fears are realised. Our desk is pushed to one side and the floorboards are in a heap in the gangway.