Dan and the Teacher Ghost

by David Churchill

  The vase is still there, in shining fragments on the floor, and there’s bits of owl and wood in amongst the debris of the flowers. I didn’t do it, any of it, but who could ever believe me. I’m in a nightmare, the worst I’ve ever had, but I’m awake. It’s terrible.

  There’s no doubt where Dan is. I hear a noise. A sort of bumping and shuffling, coming up from the hole in the floor. Frightened to death almost, I tiptoe past the debris on the floor and as near to the hole as I dare. In a croaky voice I call, “Dan.” Then louder, in near panic. “Dan!”

  Immediately the noises stop. Dan’s voice comes echoing back, muffled but positive.

  “Come on Tony, that lady’s waiting for us. She wants us to help her. I’ve got your torch.”

  And so he has, I realise. He didn’t give it back on Sunday and he must have brought it to school today.

  Now I’m really desperate. “Dan,” I shout, “come back. She’s only a ghost. Come back!”

  “No,” the word echoes up from the void. Did I say he could be stubborn? “I’m going to help the lady. You…you can stay there if you’re afraid.”

  That’s Dan speaking, I think, and he’s saying it to me! Dan doesn’t say things like that!

  But he’s down there by himself – well, I hope he’s by himself – and he did say it. So what am I doing? I’m dangling my legs down over the splintery edge of the floor boards and I’m doing what I swore I’d never, ever do, because I haven’t got a choice. I got Dan into this and now I’ve got to drag him out or die in the attempt. He can’t be left alone down there with whatever it is. But I really, really don’t want to do it.

  “Dan, wait!” I yell. “I’m coming.”

  Now I’m lowering myself down into the cold, rubbly darkness, going carefully down the slope and setting off to where I can see a glow from the little torch. Dan’s still moving and I can hear him bumping and shuffling his way forward. What a state he’ll be in when I get him out. If I get him out. If either of us ever gets out. It all means trouble worse than anything I can imagine. Even if we survive this I’ll still get it for the state of the classroom and the crash in the dinner hut and, worst of all, for risking Dan’s life.

  But the effort of moving forwards stops me thinking. It’s just, take a step, hands out in front and to the side, head ducked in case of low bits, shuffle along, shuffle along, with Dan’s stumbling noises and the faint glow of the torch ahead in the blackness.

  I can just make out the first of the ghostly pit-props, but it’s impossible to move at any pace as the light from the classroom is left behind. I call out, “Dan, wait for me, I’ll catch you up. I need the light. Just wait!”

  Out of the hollow blackness his voice comes comfortably back.

  “All right Tony, I’ll wait here,” and he shines the torch down the tunnel towards me so that suddenly I’ve got too much light and I’m blinded.

  I twist my head away and for a moment I almost turn and run back to the classroom and daylight, but my body doesn’t listen to my brain and I shield my eyes from the light and fumble on, feet feeling for solid places amongst the loose rocks on the floor, each stone looking giant sized with the shadows from the torch.

  Now I’m there and Dan shines the torch into his own face and I see that round grinning mug of his, so pleased to see me, like he always is, and having the time of his life.

  I start to say, “Sorry,” about his drawing and all that in the classroom, but he’s already off again, blundering on into the wavering shadows until he stumbles and actually goes down onto his knees. The torch jerks out of his hand and the light goes out.

  Now it’s really black. Absolutely black. I break out into a cold sweat but I move forward guided by the sound of his puffing and grunting.

  “We’ve got to find the torch,” I whisper in his ear as I help him to stand up. It seems important to be quiet in that darkness. I’ve got hold of his arm with one hand but then my nose senses lavender and I find that I’m holding the torch in the other hand. I say to Dan, “Did you…” but I know he didn’t, he’s the other side of me.

  With a clammy finger I press the switch and the light flashes back on. I’m flashing it wildly around. What happened then? It just seemed to squeeze into my palm. This is worse than the classroom.

  “Those stones were hard, Tony,” he’s saying and I tug at his arm, still with an impulse to turn him and escape. But he’s solid, a dead weight when he feels what I’m doing, and definitely stubborn.

  “We’ve got to go on, Tony,” he says. He presses forwards, only to stumble again.

  “All right,” I say, “but let me go first.” Am I really doing this!

  I begin to step carefully through the awkward rocks that are all around my feet where the roof has fallen. With my free hand I’m gripping his sleeve so that we stay close together. It’s got to be so dangerous to be here!

  On we blunder until the torchlight shows that we’ve reached the place where the tunnel forks. I remember the last time we were here and how suddenly everything changed. Why should it be like that again? Perhaps it’s all gone now. Perhaps we really did imagine it…and all that stuff in the classroom. Perhaps it was just a sort of a blip in Time and now it’s all back to normal.

  I stop and Dan is at my shoulder now. I take the right hand opening, just as we did before and I’m still thinking, even at this late moment, how much I wish we had turned back here, that first time.

  Dan’s breathing is snuffling by my ear as we take one more step. And then another. Great, I’m thinking, there’s nothing here after all. Now please can we go back into the real world, however tough that’s going to be!

  One more step, then. Just one more.

  Into sunlight, rainbow, a spatter of rain drops, a blur of turf and rocks at our feet, a cottage with a thatched roof, a bird flying up, a dreary sound of chanting coming from the little open window - “one times six is six, two times six are twelve, three times six are eighteen” on and on - and a woman in a long dress, hair piled up on the top of her head standing in the sagging porch. As soon as we see her she sees us and waves to us to join her just like she did before. She’s waiting for us this time, there’s no doubt about that, and I feel such pressure in every bit of me to do what she wants.

  But I grip Dan’s arm and hiss, “No!” Whatever the pressure - and it’s like there’s a magnet, drawing me over to the cottage - I’m still scared stiff to go towards her. Dan struggles against me, desperate to go on.

  She’s looking across the bit of garden, straight at me, and looking into her eyes I can feel such will-power coming from her. But I realise suddenly that she looks kind too, like Miss Johnson our new teacher, and all at once I stop fighting. This is the moment I surrender. I have to accept what Dan has known all along. She’s all right, whatever she is. She doesn’t mean us any harm. And she needs us to help her.

  Dan drags me forward and I let him.

  “Tony,” he says, “that lady -”

  We’re on our way now, over the rough grass and up to the porch.

  She pushes a curl of hair away from her face and smiles at us but still somehow she doesn’t seem quite real. She looks a bit misty, as if I’ve got smoke in my eyes, and I blink as she opens her mouth to speak.

  Her voice is strange, quiet, papery, faint, like a sound coming from a long way away.

  A shiver runs all up my neck as she says, “ I can’t open the door. It’s time the children went home. Please help me.”

  The problem is clear. She’s outside and the children are inside. I can still hear them chanting as if they’ve been told not to stop. How long have they been doing that I wonder, and I can’t cope with the answer that comes into my mind. If she’s a ghost, and they are ghosts…how long?

  “Please,” the whispery voice repeats, “please help me. I have to send those poor, good children home. If only I hadn’t kept them in!” and she wrings her hands together in sudden anguish.

  Now she turns to the door and grips it and wrenches at i
t in a frenzy, only to fall back and press her hands to her face where tears of frustration and regret are streaming down.

  I can’t bear that and I rush up to the door. When I first grip it the wood feels soft, as if my fingers will go right through it, but the more I clench my hands round it, the harder it feels. Now I try to pull it open. Dan’s by me, trying too. But even the two of us together can only move it a fraction. Although the upper hinge has ripped free, the top is stuck against the lopsided porch and the bottom is jammed on the stone step.

  I stop for a moment, when I realise that it’s impossible. I step back and look at it. Dan is still there, struggling with all his strength. I realise that there’s only one way we might move it.

  I call out, “Dan, not that way, come back here.”

  He stops for a moment, turning his red sweating face in my direction, thrusting an obstinate lip out as if he’s expecting me to try to make him run away.

  “We’ve got to push it the other way,” I say. “Push it in.”

  He still looks defiant, and puzzled.

  “Charge it, Dan the Man!” I say. “Tackle it! Bash it down!”

  Big grin. “Bash it!” he says. “All right Tony Bony.”

  “Come back here then.”

  He comes and we stand side by side. I’ve almost forgotten about Miss, but she’s there, hand to her mouth, watching us, willing us to succeed. I can feel it. I’ve almost lost sight of the fact that she’s a ghost and there’s a room full of ghosts inside and the building is probably a ghost and the whole lot may be about to fall down around our heads and turn us into ghosts too. The door is the challenge.

  “Are you ready?”

  He’s beaming again now.

  “Yes Tony,” he says, with a quick, shy look at his “lady”.

  “Then charge!”

  We charge, hurtling against the solid timber, hearing it screech against the stones, feeling it give, and lurch inwards, then jam solid again.

  Rubbing our bruised arms and shoulders we step back. It might be a ghost door but it’s definitely not one that you could walk through, I’m thinking. It has shifted a long way but the gap, now inside the building, is still too small to squeeze through. Well, I just might do it, but that’s not the point.

  I’m fired up now and I think we might manage it with one more try.

  “OK Dan?” I ask him.

  “OK Tony,” he replies, eyes shining.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes Tony. I’m ready.”

  “Come right back here then.”

  “One,” I say.

  “Two,” he says.

  “Three,” we both say and I hear a third voice joining clearly with ours, coming from where the teacher stands, poised to rush into the cottage, her eyes shining like Dan’s and her strength flowing into us.

  “Charge!” we all yell, and Dan and I charge like a human battering ram. Our shoulders hit the door with a great thud. It squeals against the lintel, tears itself free of the hinge and crashes inwards. There’s a deafening cracking noise as it hits the stone floor with our weight on top of it.

  Before we can begin to untangle ourselves and get to our feet she’s past us. I feel her fly over us with a rush of air and she’s vanished inside.

  For a moment everything is still and quiet, then we hear her voice, clear and strong and warm in the echoing room.

  “That’s very good, children,” she is saying. “Now you may go home,” and goose bumps run all over me when I hear those words.

  Quickly we scramble to our feet and step back as there’s a cheer from inside and a trampling of feet.

  Now with a babble of voices, kids are streaming out over the flattened door. I can’t seem to see them properly and I don’t know how many. It’s only a few I think but there’s such a swirl of arms and legs and rough looking jackets that you can’t really make it out. I know there’s a little boy and a tall one, and girls in big skirts, with long hair that seems to fly out round them as they rush through the doorway and into the garden.

  I stare after them, longing to see them properly, to speak to them, but already they are disappearing into the dusky haze that surrounds this little world.

  Fifteen

  Now the teacher is standing in the battered doorway. She’s glowing in the sunlight. Her face is shining and she’s smiling like the sun itself. I’ve never seen eyes so green and so bright and cheeks so pink and a smile so warm. She reaches out as if she wants to put her arms round us, but stops herself and drops them to the sides of her long skirt.

  Her voice is still strong, like it was in the classroom.

  “You are so very good,” she says, “and so strong and clever. Thank you. But now you have to go too, and quickly. It’s going to happen again. There isn’t long. You must get away from here and away from your school. Light your lamp Dan. Come on.”

  Dan reaches out and I let him take the torch from me. She seizes his other hand and together they set off across the rough grass towards the misty darkness that surrounds us. I don’t know what’s going on or what she meant but I follow them, only stopping at the edge of the light for one last glance back at the strange, strange place that we’ve been in.

  I see everything move and change. The cottage roof caves in with a burst of straw torn away in the wind. The chimney topples and disappears into the building. The ground, almost to my feet, heaves and buckles and the building itself simply falls out of view down into the depths of the earth. And it all happens without making a single sound.

  I can’t help a cry of horror and shock, but the whole scene is misty now, fading, black shadows rolling in across it, wiping it out entirely…cottage, sky, grass, all gone except for a last faint trace of the red arch of the rainbow. Now I’m standing alone in the darkness. I feel the rocks under my feet shiver and I shiver with them.

  I turn away in fear and catch a glimpse of the torch light, vanishing away along the shaft. In a staggering rush I catch them up and follow until we are under the classroom and light is shining down on us. It’s magic!

  Dan is struggling up through the hole and I give him a big shove from behind. I want to be up there as soon as I possibly can be. But when I climb out and look around the room I see that things look strange, even worse than when I ran away from it.

  Something else has happened. It looks as if the blackboard has finally escaped from its screws and fallen off the wall to lie across the teacher’s table. The flowers and smashed vase and the wreck of the owl and its case are there in a heap but there’s a really big crack up the wall, much bigger than before. At least I didn’t do that. My Mum’s going to have a lot of sweeping to do, I think. The teacher is at the door with Dan, waving urgently to me to join her. I’m not resisting her any more and I do as I’m told, not even replacing the boards.

  Out into the yard I rush, but then I stop dead, staring. There are kids rushing everywhere. Our class has come out of dinners and they are charging around in a chase game we call short-string because when you are touched you have to join hands with the kid who caught you and then chase all the others until there’s four of you, then you can split into two’s and go on chasing. It’s good exercise on top of your dinner but I’ve never seen it played at such a pace. The sun’s come out for once, shining brilliantly across the yard, giving everybody long black shadows leaping along behind them. But that’s not the reason why I’m standing staring and it’s not the reason why the yard seems so full.

  Because it isn’t just our class going mad in the yard! The little kids from that other class are there too, as if they’ve been caught up in the game before they go home. They are running and spinning and whooping and laughing, jackets and long skirts and hair flying behind them as they weave and chase and dodge and join hands. It’s like they’ve been shut in for ages and are carried away by the freedom and the sunlight.

  I want to look at them properly now, but it’s hard to focus, what with the sun and the speed of the games. All the kids are zooming in an
d out of each other yet never knocking into each other.

  I see two of the old fashioned kids catch hold hands with a really little one and swoop into the crowd with him, going so fast that the boots on the end of his spindly legs hardly touch the ground. Then my eye picks up the tall boy that I saw in the doorway, as he swerves through the mob on his way to the gate. It looks like there’s somewhere he can’t wait to get to. Now Susan and Jason and Phil fly past – she’ll be glad to catch someone else and split away from those two, I reckon. A boy and a girl with identical chopped black hair - they’ve got to be twins - are swinging round one of the netball posts and the yard is full of mad movement.

  Watching them I shiver as I suddenly feel sure that the two groups can’t actually see each other, even though they are not colliding. I know I’m the only one who can see everything. It’s a weird thought, as if I’m in another world, but I’m sure that’s true. All the same they’ve got to be feeling something, somehow, because of the way they swerve past each other, even at the supercharged pace. The chasing is so wild and fast and the laughter and yelling are riotous. It’s an amazing, fantastic moment.

  Marvelling at the sight, drinking it in but not part of it, just a spectator, feeling the strangeness, sharing the excitement, and just about to rush in and join them, I stand on the edge of a big crack in the yard. Dan’s lady is still clutching him and hurrying him into the heart of the whirling mob. Then I blink and rub my eyes but it doesn’t make any difference. Because something else is happening. Dan’s still there, moving forwards, surrounded by the racing kids, but now I can’t see the lady properly. She’s becoming faint, like a figure made of smoke, fading, drifting into nothingness and those kids are fading too, and now they are only pale shadows amongst the others, growing fainter and fainter and then gone, however hard I stare. The game is slowing down and the yard looks half empty. I look at the netball post but the twins have vanished.