an encounter with a real and terrifying ghost, David decided not to be scared and instead offered out his hand, hoping for a hearty handshake. The ghost obliged with a firm businesslike handshake and simply asked
“Would you like a ride in my ghost-car?”
David thought that a ride in a ghost-car with a real ghost would be absolutely fantastic, so gladly accepted the kind offer.
As they both carefully stepped back down the haunted staircase, Max explained how he and his expensive car had become ghosts. Earlier that year, he had driven over to Potato Island to visit his uncle King Edward the Spud Head, who had zapped him and his car with a special ghost-ray gun. This gun allows you to spend a couple of years living life as a ghost and to enjoy some of the benefits. As a ghost-car driver, life is considerably cheaper and easier. There are no petrol and running costs for the car, parking is free and there are no traffic jams.
They both ventured back though the dingy hovel full of haunted items and out towards the garage. The spooky creaking garage door opened to the now familiar sounds of the tuneless organ, and manic laughter. Lurking inside Max’s garage was the breathtaking sight of a low, wide, evil ghost-car. It was a menacing black in colour and surrounded by thick icy fog. David and Max excitedly scrambled inside the ghost-car and whooshed off silently. The night thunder storm incredibly changed back into a sunny afternoon, as soon as they drove out of the garage and into Possum Road.
One excellent thing about ghost-cars is that they can drive anywhere without crashing into anything, or even anybody noticing them. It seems that people can only see ghost-cars, if they believe in them but as not many people do, they are effectively invisible. Being invisible, the boys decided to get up to some naughtiness. They first drove though the local restaurant and blew raspberries at all the customers who were enjoying a delicious curry. The customers responded by throwing bread rolls around the room, as they all blamed each other for the raspberry noises. They then drove into Studs’ house and shouted “Studs is a softy”. Studs looked around for the person who called him a softy, went into a rage and started throwing objects around his house. Max realised that this was probably a mistake so drove away as quickly as possible. They then drove over to the school and into a boring teachers meeting, which was currently taking place. Max explained to David that he always kept a bucket of rotting vegetables in the car for situations such as these. Before David could say blimey, Max grabbed a handful, and started throwing the rotting vegetables out of the ghost-car’s window into the faces of the unsuspecting teachers. The bored teachers suddenly looked shocked and bewildered as they all turned around to see where the vegetables had come from. Before any of the teachers started believing in ghost-cars and realising who was behind the attack, Max and David sped out of the school at high speed.
This was all a huge amount of fun but Max then explained that he was desperate to go and see the Real Ghost-Train, which was apparently at the fairground in the next village of Tophamsted. Max had noticed a poster a few days ago, advertising the appearance of a genuine ghost train, which was visiting the Tophamsted Fair, and he was extremely keen to visit. Full of excitement, they drove over to the next village and arrived at the car park. Ghost-cars don’t actually need a parking space so as the car park was full, Max parked the car inside another parked car and didn’t even have to pay. Max and David got out of the fantastic ghost-car, stood and admired its mean looks for a while then started walking towards the very scary and impressive looking ‘Real Ghost-Train’.
It obviously was real, as vultures were flying overhead and only the people who believe in ghosts could actually see it. A few people were obviously terrified by the sight of the monstrous Ghost-Train, but most people walked cheerily past as if it simply wasn’t there. Max and David stopped in front of the train and watched in amazement as the huge black ghost-train charged around the track, faster and faster until it had reached impossibly high speeds. Round and round the track it screamed, creating a strong wind as it rushed past them. David felt a little dizzy. Suddenly there was a huge clattering and screeching sound as it came flying off the tracks and headed straight towards them! David and Max dived out of the way as the runaway train stormed past them in the direction of the car park. As this was a real ghost-train, it just passed straight through all the parked cars as if they weren’t there, but was heading straight for Max’s ghost-car! Max covered his eyes, not wanting to see any harm come to his beloved ghost-car. There was a huge clap of thunder and some violent lighting, as the escaped ghost-train smashed straight into the fantastic ghost-car. Max slowly opened his eyes and was very sad to see that the ghost-train had barged his ghost-car out of the way causing quite a lot of damage.
It is very rare for a ghost-car to suffer any damage. This would only be possible during a crash with another ghost-article, such as a ghost-train for example.
This was indeed a very unlucky day for Max, who could not believe what had happened and was looking very miserable. David knew this was the time he needed to produce the Bottomhamsted Main Event leaflet again. Max took one look at the leaflet and noticed the enormous amount of prize money. He cheered up straight away. Luckily, the ghost-car was still drivable, so they jumped in and made their way back to Bottomhamsted in time for tea.
THE OZ HOLE
The deepest hole in the world
David woke up the next morning and felt unwell, so decided to take a day off school to recover from all the excitement of the last few days. His parents gave him some extra powerful medicine and left for work, leaving David all alone in the house. After spending some hours in bed recovering, David started to feel much better so got up and went downstairs.
It was a very quiet day in Possum Road. There was no mayhem outside in the street and nothing was happening inside the house. In fact it was perfectly silent. But David was sure he could hear the unmistakable sound of a didgeridoo being played somewhere in the distance.
Didgeridoo:
A wind instrument which sounds like somebody blowing raspberries down a long toilet-roll. Before locks were invented, didgeridoos were used to warn people that the bathroom was occupied.
He opened a window and looked outside, but the sound definitely wasn’t coming from anywhere near Possum Road. He closed the window again and the sound definitely became a little louder.
“How could the sound of a didgeridoo be coming from inside the house?” mumbled David to himself.
He went though the various rooms in the house looking for the source of the sound, and definitely thought the sound was slightly louder in the downstairs bathroom. David then put his ear to the open plug hole in the sink and came to the startling conclusion, that somebody was definitely playing the didgeridoo somewhere underneath the house!
The sound seemed to be coming from beneath the bathroom floor, so he lifted up the carpet and was amazed to find a manhole cover with the words ‘Oz Hole’ written on it. David was not sure what to make of this stupid manhole cover, but he was really curious to find out where the music was coming from, so proceeded to try and open it! It seemed that the manhole cover was screwed into the ground and could be opened by turning it. David started to slowly turn the manhole cover and it started to unscrew. After a lot of effort, he managed to remove the manhole cover completely and placed it to one side.
With the manhole cover removed, the sound of the didgeridoo was now much louder!
He peered down into the pitch black hole and realised straight away that it must be extremely deep. The hole was completely round and lined with a kind of smooth metallic material. It looked more like a tube than a drain.
He wanted to test how deep this hole was, so found his least favorite toy car and dropped it into the darkness. David waited to hear the sound of the toy car landing at the bottom, but he heard nothing apart from the didgeridoo.
All this hard work had made David hungry, so he grabbed a banana and carelessly tossed the skin on the ground. This was really stupid of David as he immediately
slipped on the banana skin and fell head first straight down the Oz Hole.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
screamed David, as he hurtled down the hole at an ever increasing speed.
After spending a few minutes falling down the Oz Hole, David reminded himself that he was fearless and stopped being scared. He started looking around as he was falling and could see the light from his bathroom slowly disappearing above him, but below him was still darkness.
The sound of the didgeridoo continued to grow louder and louder, the further he fell down the hole. After what seemed like an age of high speed falling, he became aware of a light at the bottom of the hole. He also realised that he was slowing down as he got closer to the light.
“This is really weird” mumbled David.
The light was now getting very close and he was now falling at a surprisingly slow speed. David prepared himself for a gentle landing, as it was clear he was about to find what was at the bottom of the Oz Hole.
To his great surprise, he didn’t land with a bump at the bottom of the enormous hole, but instead popped out the other end of the tube and landed on a soft sandy beach, right next to his least favorite toy car. David looked around in a state of
The Nutty Neighbours of Possum Road Page 6