Ghostly Holler-Day

by Daren King

  Well, I’m the only ghosty with the talent to pass through walls, ceilings and floors, even when wearing a hat.

  Though I have to say, normally I remove the trilby when I pass through. After all, it is the polite thing to do. But what with this cold weather –

  Anyway, so there I am out in this alleyway in my pyjamas, the trilby warming my bald patch, when who should float out of the shadows but my old mate Alfie Spectre.

  I’ve known Alfie since I was a small boy. He lives just down the road there, about a minute’s float from this very hotel. At least, he did when he was still alive.

  ‘Hello, Alfie,’ I said, doffing my trilby. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

  ‘Hello, Charlie,’ Alfie said with a smirk.

  The minute we’d decided to holler-day in Frighten, I’d called Alfie on the phantom phone, told him we should meet for a spot of business.

  That’s how I make my living, if you pardon the pun. I buy and sell whatever I can lay my haunted hands on.

  ‘What have you got for me this cold winter’s night?’ I said.

  Alfie unfastened his buttons and there they were, half a dozen gold watches pinned to the lining of his army coat.

  ‘Are they hot, Alfie?’ I said. That’s a cockney way of asking if the watches were stolen.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no angel – that’s a trilby on my head, not a halo – but I don’t buy stolen goods. I’m a gentleman, see?

  ‘Nothing’s hot in this weather,’ Alfie said with a wink.

  ‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said, and I bought all six.

  But something was wrong.

  When Alfie counted those pound notes and tucked them into his pocket, his hands were trembling like he’d seen a, um, ghost.

  Alfie had been a soldier, he’d been killed in the trenches, that’s why I’m in my forties and poor Alfie is still only twenty-one. He was a brave lad, our Alfie, and it took a lot to make his hands shake.

  ‘Alfie, whatever is the matter?’

  ‘Do you have far to float home, Charlie?’

  I glanced at the brickwork to my left, and gave Alfie a wink. ‘A pass-through, a wisp and a float, and I’ll be tucked up in no time.’

  ‘I’d get going, if I were you,’ Alfie said. ‘There’s a lot of funny people about.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Alfie lowered his voice. ‘Charlie, there’s been – shall we say, sightings.’

  This made me laugh so hard I almost dropped my hat. ‘That’ll be my old mate Headless Leslie. He wisped down to Frighten for his summer holler-days and forgot the way home.’

  Alfie frowned. It was hard to tell in the glow of the streetlamp, but his face looked white. ‘I’ve met your mate Leslie, and this wasn’t him. This chap was a good deal more sinister than your mate Leslie.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ I said, and I tried to do that thing where you flick the rim of your trilby with your finger and it does a somersault and you catch it on your elbow.

  Trouble was, Alfie had got me nervous, and I poked out the wrong elbow and missed my target. The trilby tumbled into the darkness.

  As I lifted the trilby from a frosty puddle I heard this muffled yell, and when I wisped back up Alfie had gone.

  It ain’t like Alfie to float off without saying goodbye. He’s playing a prank on me, I told myself as I tightened the cord of my dressing gown. A regular joker, is our Alfie. He’ll be hiding behind a wall, I thought, ready to wisp out and yell BOO.

  That was when this creepy feeling came over me, like I was being watched.

  When I turned around, there it was. A figure dressed in black, a top hat on its head, two red eyes peering out from behind this flowing purple cape.

  So now I knew why Alfie Spectre had wisped off.

  I didn’t stop to find out where he’d got to. I passed through that wall as quick as my transparent bits would float me, and wisped off to bed.

  5

  The Fortune Teller

  ‘You look terrible,’ Tabitha said when we gathered on the beach the following afternoon.

  ‘Wither snores,’ I said.

  All right, so that weren’t the real reason I hadn’t slept. The truth is, after seeing that caped figure in the alleyway I’d spent the rest of the night staring into the darkness.

  I kept thinking I should tell the other ghosties about what I’d seen, but I didn’t want to spoil the holler-day.

  Agatha floated down the sandy wooden steps that led up onto the pier. ‘The pier is closed,’ she said, fiddling with the brim of her floppy sunhat. ‘Some holler-day this has turned out to be. I told you we should have gone to Scare-borough.’

  ‘We can always find a way to amuse ourselves,’ said Tabitha. ‘Perhaps some of these amusement machines are switched on.’

  ‘You could make them work,’ said Pamela, ‘using your poltergeist skills.’

  ‘I’m afraid my poltergeist skills just aren’t that powerful,’ Tabitha said. ‘I can make a policeman’s helmet topple from his head, or a cyclist cycle backwards, but electricity is something else.’

  ‘I want candyfloss,’ Humphrey said, bumping into a brightly painted candyfloss machine.

  ‘If Humphrey doesn’t get his candyfloss,’ Agatha said, ‘we’ll never hear the end of it.’

  ‘Hide your eyes then,’ said Tabitha. ‘I’m awfully shy, you know.’

  Me, Humphrey and Pamela covered our eyes with our hands, and Agatha hid behind her floppy sunhat.

  It’s not the polite thing to do, I know, but I couldn’t help peeking. Well, I bet the other ghosties did the same.

  The turny thing turned and the whizzy bit whizzed, and this big tuft of pink candyfloss oozed through a tube and into a plastic bag, which popped out through an opening in the bottom of the machine. Humphrey grabbed it with a greedy hand and licked his lips.

  It was at that moment that I spotted this stripy tent thing on the edge of the beach. ‘There is one attraction still open,’ I said. ‘Look.’

  A wooden sign at the entrance read FORTUNE TELLER. We all wisped in through the open flap, and I paid the fortune teller 50p.

  The old woman fixed me with her eerie gaze, rubbed this crystal ball with her hands, and started to spout drivel about our future.

  ‘Ye shall find what ye seek on the pier,’ the old woman moaned, and when she nodded her head her hoop earrings jiggled. ‘Even though it is closed for the duration,’ she added. ‘Seek, and ye shall find.’

  ‘She means Headless Leslie,’ Agatha whispered.

  ‘And you, miss,’ the fortune teller groaned, staring into Agatha’s eyes, ‘will breeze about in a floppy sunhat, and you, boy,’ she wailed, turning to Humphrey, ‘will bump into things and annoy the seagulls.’

  ‘What a frightfully accurate reading,’ Agatha blushed.

  ‘It’s almost like she’s one of us,’ I said.

  ‘Funny you should say that, Charlie,’ Pamela said, ‘but the fortune teller looks like Wither.’

  ‘I say,’ said Tabitha, ‘where is Wither?’

  ‘And you will all stop being mean to Wither,’ the fortune teller went on, ‘and you will allow him to recite poetry all day, and—’

  Tabitha laughed, and Humphrey bumped into the table, and the crystal ball rolled onto the floor, and the fortune teller tumbled from her chair, the wig falling from her bald head.

  ‘Wither!’ Agatha said. ‘Who’d have thought you’d look so delightful in a dress?’

  Wither tore off the dress, revealing his ordinary clothing, folded his arms, and started to blub.

  6

  The Old Victorian Pier

  ‘That was a rotten stunt, Wither,’ Pamela said as the six of us floated up the rickety wooden steps to the pier.

  ‘Wither didn’t mean any harm,’ I said, though only to stop him blubbing. I even put my arm around the bony fool. ‘He was just getting into the holler-day spirit, weren’t you, Wither?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wither, wiping his eyes. ‘Th
e holler-day spirit, like Charlie said.’

  ‘Well, we thought you were highly entertaining,’ said Tabitha. ‘Didn’t we, Humphrey?’

  Humphrey nodded, and gave his candyfloss a lick.

  ‘Never mind all that,’ I said, straightening my trilby. ‘Look.’

  The pier’s ornate iron gates were secured with a chain, fastened with a heavy padlock. A sign hung across the bars read: FRIGHTEN PIER CLOSED UNTIL SPRING.

  ‘We’ll never get this thing off,’ Humphrey said, examining the heavy padlock. ‘Not without a skeleton key.’

  ‘How are we meant to find poor Leslie if we can’t get onto the pier?’ said Tabitha.

  ‘Perhaps there’s a key hung on a hook on the other side,’ I said. The bars were too close together to poke your head between them, so I doffed my trilby – the polite thing to do – and passed through the metal. ‘No,’ I said, passing back. ‘Not a dickybird.’

  ‘The key may be hidden from prying eyes,’ said Pamela, and she wisped over the top of the gate to have a look.

  We floated about for a minute or so, watching the seagulls squawk and flap, and then Wither wrinkled his brow. ‘I have to say, Pamela is taking her time.’

  A horrible thought occurred to me at that point. What if my mate Alfie Spectre hadn’t wisped off down that alleyway last night? What if he’d been nabbed by that figure in the cape and top hat? And what if that same haunted heinousity had captured our Pammy?

  Poor Pamela Fraidy, I thought as I peered between the bars. She’s a nervous wreck as it is, and that caped figure is enough to give any ghosty a fright.

  ‘She was probably distracted by the attractions,’ Agatha said. ‘You know how flitty she is.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said nervously. ‘She’s just having a look around, that’s all.’

  ‘Charlie,’ Tabitha said, ‘you’re shaking. Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘It’s this cold weather,’ I said. I passed through the gate for a quick flit, and when I saw Pamela I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘There she is, by the slot machines. And look, she’s found the key. Wither, Humphrey, wisp over the gate and tell Pamela to float back and let us in.’

  Wither and Humphrey frowned and wisped off.

  Two minutes passed, and the ghosties did not return.

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ I said. ‘We need that key, or we’ll be floating about out here all night.’

  ‘Float after them, Aggie,’ said Tabitha, and Agatha adjusted her floppy sunhat and floated off, leaving just Tabitha and myself.

  Two minutes passed, and Agatha did not return.

  ‘I can see Humphrey,’ Tabitha said a minute later. ‘He’s eating an I-scream.’

  ‘I could pass through the gate,’ I said, ‘round up the four of them, grab the key from Pamela and flit back.’

  ‘No need,’ said Tabitha, and over the gate she wisped.

  7

  Hall of Mirrors

  I decided I’d better tell the other ghosties about the caped figure. If I didn’t, and that top-hatted horror nabbed me like it had nabbed Alfie Spectre, the other ghosties would never know what had happened.

  Tabitha is the most sensible ghosty, so I approached her the moment I’d floated over the gate. ‘Tabitha, there is something I have to tell you.’

  ‘You can tell me when we’re all together,’ Tabitha said. ‘Where did the other ghosties wisp off to? Let’s try in here.’ And she wisped beneath the door of this long wooden hut.

  Along the side of the hut the words HALL OF MIRRORS were painted in huge white letters. I doffed my hat at the sign – an odd thing to do, perhaps, but a polite thing to do all the same – and passed through the wood.

  ‘There’s Pamela,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘Where?’ I said, glancing at my reflection in one of the mirrors. The wobbly glass made my head look like a grape with a pencil-thin moustache.

  ‘There,’ Tabitha said, pointing.

  I turned to where Pamela Fraidy was cowering in a corner by one of the mirrors, chewing her fingernails and quivering.

  ‘Poor Pammy,’ Tabitha said. ‘These mirrors can give one quite a fright, and Pamela Fraidy is a nervous wreck as it is.’

  As Tabitha and myself wisped to the rescue, I caught sight of a top hat reflected in one of the mirrors.

  ‘Then we must escort her to safety,’ I said, doffing my trilby at the caped figure’s reflection. ‘After all, it is the polite thing to do.’

  I grabbed Tabitha and Pamela by the hand and wisped them under the door.

  8

  Bumper Cars

  ‘Pamela,’ Tabitha said as we flitted about outside, ‘I need to have a word with Charlie. Would you mind awfully?’

  I thought perhaps Tabitha had seen the caped figure in the Hall of Mirrors.

  ‘Not at all,’ Pamela said, and she folded her arms and turned the other way. ‘One knows when one is not wanted.’

  ‘You are wanted, Pammy,’ Tabitha said. ‘I just need to have a word with Charlie, that’s all.’

  ‘About what?’ Pamela said, peering at Tabitha over her shoulder. ‘Nothing to worry about, I hope?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Tabitha. ‘I say, isn’t that Humphrey on the Bumper Cars?’

  We floated over the planks, waves crashing far below, to a brightly painted arena with the words BUMPER CARS painted across the front.

  ‘It looks frightfully fun,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘I’d say it looks frightfully frightening,’ Pamela said.

  We watched for a bit, then Pamela said, ‘Shouldn’t he be sat at the wheel, rather than bumping the cars with his belly?’

  ‘He’ll be sick,’ Tabitha said, ‘bumping about after all that candyfloss and I-scream.’

  I floated into the red car and Humphrey squeezed in beside me, and Tabitha and Agatha wisped into a green car with a dented bonnet.

  ‘The electricity is switched off,’ I said.

  ‘Humphrey, you will have to get out and bump.’

  ‘Tabitha,’ Humphrey said, ‘you could boot up the electricity using your skills.’

  ‘What skills?’ said Tabitha, shyly.

  A moment later, however, the light bulbs hung around the top of the arena illuminated the night sky, red and yellow and blue and green, and this waltzy-schmaltzy music started up and the cars began to move.

  Bump, bump, bump!

  9

  Ghost Train

  When we got off the Bumper Cars, Pamela had turned as white as a, um, ghost, and Humphrey looked like he was about to be sick.

  ‘I never knew bumping could be such fun,’ Tabitha said, and she bumped into me, Pamela and Humphrey.

  ‘This is no time for japes,’ I said. ‘We have to find the other ghosties before—’

  Before the caped figure nabs them, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say this out loud. I didn’t want to frighten poor Pamela.

  ‘Talking of finding the other ghosties,’ Tabitha said, ‘isn’t that dear old Withaniel?’

  Withaniel is Wither’s full first name. Withaniel Scunthorpe the Third.

  ‘Where?’ I said. I could just make out the blue-black line where the sea met the sky, with the rides and amusements silhouetted against the night.

  ‘It’s difficult to see much in the dark,’ Tabitha said. And she winked at me, and another string of bulbs lit up, and then another and another, until every bulb on Frighten Pier glowed a garish hue.

  We floated over to a spookily painted building with cut-outs of skeletons and spectres nailed to the front, the words GHOST TRAIN painted across the top in luminous yellow paint.

  ‘Wither,’ Tabitha said, ‘what are you doing?’

  Wither looked up from where he was sat in one of the cars. ‘The ghosties keep being mean to me. I’m going home.’

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t mean it, Wither.’

  ‘Don’t go home,’ I said, doffing my trilby. ‘We’re on holler-day.’

  ‘I need a holler-day from your meanness,’ Wither said, and the whee
ls began to turn and the row of cars rolled along the track and in through a spookily painted wooden door.

  ‘Your doing?’ I asked Tabitha.

  A minute later, this other spookily painted door opened and the row of cars rumbled out and came to a halt.

  Wither frowned. ‘I seem to have missed my stop.’

  ‘This train won’t take you home,’ Tabitha said. ‘The Ghost Train is a fairground ride. It’s meant to be scary.’

  ‘But it isn’t scary at all,’ Wither said. ‘There’s just a handful of jingly-jangly skeletons and so forth.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean it will take you home,’ said Tabitha, and again the train of cars disappeared into the tunnel.

  10

  Ferris Wheel

  After two more goes on the Ghost Train, Wither admitted defeat and floated out from the car. ‘The only place that train takes you is back where you started.’

  ‘We did try to explain,’ Tabitha said kindly.

  ‘I say, what happened to the other ghosties?’ Wither said, glancing round.

  ‘We’re trying to round them up,’ I said.

  Wither looked at me like I’d gone mad. ‘We?’

  ‘Me and Tabitha,’ I said. ‘We’ve found Pammy and Humphrey, and—’ But when I turned around, Tabitha, Pamela and Humphrey had gone. ‘Now where might those three have wisped off to?’

  ‘I’m in here, with Humphrey,’ I heard Tabitha call. ‘Though I don’t know what happened to Pamela.’

  Wither and myself followed Tabitha’s floaty, ghostly voice further up the pier to a covered arcade. Flickering lights spelt the word AMUSEMENTS across the front. Inside, the arcade was lined with slot machines, one-armed bandits, that sort of thing.

  ‘We’d better find the others,’ I told Tabitha. ‘There is something sinister going on, and—’

  ‘Not yet,’ Tabitha said. ‘Humphrey and I are about to make our first million.’

  Tabitha and Humphrey were floating above a carpet of coins that glistened silver and gold in the glare of the garish bulbs.