Ghostly Surprise

• Ki Jackson, Grade 3, Sacred Heart Primary School -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

“Tonight is the night! One more item to find, then this should all be over.”
It started six months ago, Jayda, Caitlin, Olivia and myself, were all dressed and ready for Halloween. I was a vampire; Jayda, a zombie, Caitlin a zombie bride and Olivia a princess. Olivia was always a princess.
We were walking around our town of Chesterville, knocking on doors collecting candy. Then we came to the Allan house. The Allan house has been abandoned for years; it sits in the middle of the town covered in vines. The myth is there was a family of four, they found a secret passage in the house, but when they entered, they disappeared, forever. No one has seen them since and no has ever been able to find the secret passage. Eventually, the house and its legends scared off everyone in the town. No one wanted to live there.
As we stood staring at the house, our friend Ben came running out. “That house is super creepy you girls couldn’t handle it!” he yelled as he walked off. “Let’s go in!” says Jayda already walking towards the house. We followed, except Olivia, “No way!” she yelled. I grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
We crept inside and stared at the pictures of the Allan family hanging on the walls; leading us to a large room. Their belongings filled the room; the street light was bouncing off an old jewellery box.
We all stood around the jewellery box as Caitlin slowly opened the lid. As the lid opened, four black shadows flew out. They flew around us for a moment and then all stood in front of us, moving closer until they were inside us. We closed the jewellery box and ran out, hoping it was our imaginations.
A week later; when moonlight touched, we realised something was different. We were ghosts. It only lasts till sunrise, but now whenever we come into the light of a full moon, we turn into ghosts. We are sharing our bodies with the Allan family. We learnt that the family had lost important items from their jewellery box stopping them from passing to the other side.
We are hoping to say good bye to our ghost friends tonight. Over the last six months, we have searched the house for the missing items. We have one more to find and have narrowed it down to one last room. It was time; we opened the curtain letting the light of the moon in. Our ghost friends appeared and together the eight of us started to look. An hour later, Olivia shouted, “We found it!” Mrs Allan’s wedding ring. We gathered all the items together and headed for the main bedroom, where we first found the jewellery box.
We all gathered around opening the jewellery box in excitement. Once we put all the jewellery in, we felt the ghosts leave our bodies. They were finally at peace and could move on to the other life.