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Mike Wheeler was bored.
B-O-R-E-D , he mouthed, dangling his arms over the side of his bed. Bored . He shouldn’t be bored. Halloween was tomorrow. Will was sleeping over tonight!
But neither of those were happening now . And he’d done everything to prepare. Really! His skeleton costume was hung up carefully next to his bed, and Will’s sleeping bag was all set up on the floor. He’d even hung up the string of star shaped fairy lights from Nancy’s room, that she never used and he knew Will liked. He was absolutely, completely ready. And now he was bored.
Down the hall, Nancy shrieked.
Mike jumped, then shuffled around until he was sitting up on his bed, listening intently. He heard stomping as his sister made her way down the stairs. He heard her burst out in angrily murmured suspicion. Then, sure enough, Mom’s voice: “Mich- ael !”
Busted . He sighed, slipped off his bed and ran down to the kitchen.
Nancy was glaring at him, arms crossed. Her hair was a tangly mess. Mom turned around with a rubber spider dangling from her palm. Mike’s plan had worked– it had dropped right into Nancy’s hair. He struggled not to laugh.
“Did you put this in your sister's hair?” Mom asked accusingly, holding out the spider.
“No,” Mike mumbled.
Mom raised her eyebrows. Mike sighed.
“Yes. But it’s not like I hurt her. She’s fine!”
“You scared me!” Nancy shot back, looking at him reproachfully.
“It’s Halloween, Nancy. You should have been prepared!”
“That’s enough, both of you!” Mom said irritably. “Michael, you apologise to your sister.”
Mike scowled. He fidgeted his fingers. Finally, he muttered, “Sorry.”
“Good boy.” Mom ruffled his hair. “Now, stay here and help me with the brownies. Will and Barb will be here soon.” She made to move back over to the bench, where a tray of brownies sat cooling.
“Wait!” said Nancy. “That’s all? You’re not going to punish him or anything, he just gets to help you make brownies?” she stomped her foot. "That’s not fair!”
When Mom turned around, she looked tired. “Nancy, sweetie, it was just a toy spider. You go brush your hair. Come on, Mike.” She grabbed the tray and began to cut the brownies into squares.
Mike poked his tongue out at Nancy, but she didn’t respond. She just looked thoughtful. Then she turned away and ran up the stairs.
Mike’s Mom passed him a bottle. “You put some food coloring into these mixtures, okay? We’re going to make some icing.”
Mike nodded, and began adding drops.
Then Nancy came running back into the kitchen again. Her hair was still all tangly and messed up, but instead of talking to Mike and their Mom, she went over to the bench and began lifting things up, looking for something.
“What’s up, Nance?” Mom asked, looking up from where she was switching on the kettle.
“I can’t find my hairbrush.” Nancy frowned, then looked accusingly at Mike. “Did you hide that, too?”
“No.” Mike wrinkled his nose. “Why would I do that?”
“So my hair would be all messy when Barb comes! You would!”
“Nancy, honey, Mike wouldn’t steal your hairbrush, he doesn’t care enough about that.” Mom said soothingly. “Sometimes things just get lost. We’ll keep an eye out for it. Won’t we, Mike?”
Mike nodded, but he knew he wouldn’t.
“But how am I supposed to brush my hair?” asked Nancy, looking distressed.
“You can use my brush. It’s in my bathroom. That okay?”
“Okay,” said Nancy. She looked at Mike one more time, then ran off upstairs. Again.
Up, down, up, down , up , Mike thought, dripping a tiny bit of orange colour into the icing mixture. He frowned. He couldn’t help feeling like it was weird. Nancy never lost anything.
* * *
Icing was hard.
It was especially hard trying to write ‘R.I.P’ on a gravestone. Or to make a blob look like a pumpkin. After several unsuccessful attempts, Mike had been delegated to ‘sticking on’ duty.
He had pushed the last gravestone onto a brownie and was just turning around when something weird happened.
Out of nowhere, a tea towel sailed across the kitchen from the hallway and landed with a ‘thump’ on Moms back.
She turned around, pulling it off and pursing her lips in a frown. Then she fixed her disapproving stare on Mike. “Mich- ael . What was that for?”
“It wasn’t me!” he insisted, eyes widening. “It came from over there!”
He clambered off his stool and ran over to the hallway.
There was no one there.
Mom came up behind him and patted his shoulder. “Honey, we’ve talked about this. No lying. You’ve finished the brownies, and that’s good, but you just say my name if you want to talk to me, okay?”
“I didn’t throw it!”
But Mom didn’t hear him– she was frowning at the tea towel. “Where did you get this? I threw it in a box in the attic years ago.”
Mike thought about protesting his innocence, but he knew sometimes it was best just not to argue. He shrugged, looking at the floor.
Mum shook it off, then smiled at him. “Oh well. Why don’t you–”
DING DONG.
“WILL!” Mike yelled. Tea towel forgotten, he thundered down the hall and yanked the door open.
There was his best friend, smiling shyly, Mrs Byers standing holding up a costume bag behind him.
“Hi, Will!” said Mike excitedly. “You’re here! Is that your costume?”
Will nodded, giving a gap toothed smile. “It’s a pumpkin! Jack-o-lantern, with fire eyes. Mom and Jonathan helped.”
“Hi, Mike.” Mrs Byers gave him a little wave. “Can we come in?”
Mike nodded seriously. Then, after Mrs Byers said goodbye, Mike grabbed Will’s hand and they raced up the stairs to Mike’s room.
“Finally!” Mike yelled, leaping onto his bed and bouncing up and down. “I’ve been waiting all day.”
“Me too!” Will looked at the fairy lights and smiled, and Mike was pleased with himself. Then Will walked over to the side of Mike’s bed, where his skeleton costume was displayed. “Is this your costume?”
“It’s a skeleton!” Mike declared proudly. “I have a mask. And me and Mom made graveyard brownies! With little gravestones and crosses and they even say R.I.P.”
“Cool!”
Will grinned. Mike grinned. Everything was perfect.
Somewhere downstairs, the doorbell rang again, and Mike heard Nancy speaking excitedly. “Barb is here,” he informed Will, who nodded solemnly. Barb was nice, but they had to be careful when Nancy had her friends over. They always tried extra hard to get Mike in trouble. And Will got in trouble by association.
There was a knock at Mike’s door, and both boys looked up. Mike’s mom stood in the doorway, smiling. “Hi, Will. Are you boys ready for dinner?”
“Hi Mrs Wheeler!” said Will.
“What is dinner?” Mike asked suspiciously.
Mom sighed. “It’s a casserole. One of the ones I know you and Will like. Come on, it’s going to go cold if we wait too much longer.”
Mike shrugged at Will, and they followed his Mom downstairs to the kitchen. Nancy and Barb were already at the table, and Will said a polite hello to Barb as he sat down. Mom smiled at Will approvingly as she took her spot right in the middle of the table.
Then she opened the casserole pot and gave a little gasp of surprise.
Nancy leaned over to look, and her mouth fell open. “My hairbrush!”
Mike stood up to see for himself. There it was– sitting innocently on top of the casserole, as though that was exactly where it was supposed to be. He looked at Will, who was looking at him already, and a look of bewilderment passed between them– What’s that doing there?
After a moment of shocked pause, Mike’s mom tentatively picked it up. “It’s cold.” she said, sounding relieved. “It didn’t go in the oven. Nancy, go run and put it back in your room. I don’t know how that could have gotten there…”
She sounded completely mystified, as though she couldn’t possibly imagine how this could have happened. Mike remembered the tea towel from earlier and frowned.
Lots of weird things were happening today, he thought as his Mom deposited a slab of the casserole onto his plate. I wonder why?
* * *
The rest of dinner was mostly normal, except for when Barb’s napkin went flying out of her lap and onto the ground. But Barb was a bit clumsy sometimes, Mike reasoned, so it wasn’t necessarily anything weird.
Right now, Will was drawing, and Mike was watching quietly. The drawing was a dragon, and it was super cool. Mike didn’t know how Will did it.
“That was so weird with the hairbrush.” Will said, outlining one of the wings.
Mike nodded. “I don’t know who would put it there. And same with the tea towel!”
Will stopped outlining. He looked up curiously. “What tea towel?”
Mike explained.
When he finished, Will’s eyes were wide. “An attic tea towel from nowhere. A teleporting hairbrush. Creepy.”
“Spooky,” Mike agreed.
Suddenly, the starry fairy lights flickered and went out. Will squeaked. Mike jumped.
“It’s okay,” he said uncertainly. “I’ll just turn them back on.”
He ran over to the little button that controlled the lights and clicked them back on, but the moment he sat down next to Will, they turned off again.
Mike frowned. “Maybe something’s wrong with the lights. I’ll ask Mom.”
“I’m coming too,” said Will, his worried expression obvious even in the dark. Together, they stood up and ran towards the door…
But then the lights turned on again.
Mike looked at Will. He walked around the room. The lights didn’t turn off anymore. “Weird.” he shrugged. “Let’s keep drawing.”
“Boys! Dessert!”
“Brownies!” Mike hissed excitedly. He grabbed Will's hand and they raced downstairs.
By the time they got there, Nancy and Barb had already eaten a lot of the brownies. Mike didn’t think that was fair. Nancy didn’t even help! But when he tried to say that, Nancy just reminded him the brownies were a punishment , and so ‘make it, eat it first’ didn’t count. Eventually, though, they finally left, and it was just Mike and Will.
Will stretched his hand over the tray and picked up a brownie. Mike recognised it– the icing on the pumpkin was wobbly, and the letters ‘R.I.P’ were barely readable. He blushed.
Will noticed, and smiled at him. “Did you make this one?”
Mike nodded, staring at the floor.
“It’s perfect,” Will declared. Mike looked up in surprise as he took a bite, and then gave Mike a thumbs up.
A wobbly smile spread across Mike’s face. He grabbed his own brownie. There was silence as the boys ate.
Then, up above them, Mike heard a loud ‘thump’.
“That’s coming from my room,” he whispered to Will, who had stopped chewing and was looking at the ceiling with wide eyes.
Will looked at Mike. Mike looked at Will. Mike grabbed the brownie tray and they ran back upstairs. Mike went to run into his room, but stopped short in the doorway.
His room was a mess . His wardrobe door was wide open, and his clothes were everywhere . They were strewn all across the floor, on top of Mike’s bed, in Will’s sleeping bag. He bent down, and there were even some under his bed.
Will came up behind him. “What happened ?” he asked, surveying the room and looking just as surprised as Mike felt. “It looks like a monster ran through here. Or–”
“A ghost,” Mike whispered.
“What?” said Will.
“It all makes sense! The attic tea towel from nowhere, the teleporting hairbrush, Barb’s flyaway napkin, the flickering lights, the wardrobe disaster. It’s a ghost!”
“But if there’s a ghost in your house, how come you’ve never seen it before?” Will asks, looking uncertain.
“Ghosts wake up more at Halloween.” Mike whispered. “I know, I read it in a book. And I was at your house at Halloween last year, and the year before I wouldn’t be old enough to remember, not really.” he bounced up and down on the spot. “There’s a Halloween ghost in my house!”
“Do you really think so?” Will asked, biting his lip. He was gripping his t-shirt so tightly his knuckles were white. For the first time, Mike noticed how scared he looked.
“Hey,” he said, softening his voice, “Maybe there’s no ghost. Maybe it’s just a co– a co-in– a coin-dence. Let’s clean up these clothes, and then we can brush our teeth, and then we’ll decide what to do.”
“Okay,” said Will quietly. He picked up one of Mike’s shirts and began to carefully fold it. Mike watched him for a moment, then silently grabbed a shirt of his own.
* * *
Mike opened the bathroom door and was hit in the face by a plume of hot steam. He winced. “Why is it so foggy in here? No one’s even had a shower. Or a bath.”
Will shrugged. He still looked wary, like the clothes might burst out of the cupboard again and come chasing after them. “Let’s just brush our teeth.”
Together they made their way over to the sink, where the toothbrushes sat in a cup. Mike grabbed his, and Will clutched the one he’d brought from home. Just as Mike was leaning over to grab the toothpaste, stretching out his arm super far to reach over the sink, he felt a drop of hot water land with a ‘splat’ right in the middle of his hair.
“Stupid foggy mirror,” he grumbled, glaring up at the streak of water where the drop had fallen.
Then his glare faded to surprise.
It wasn’t just normal foggy streaks on the mirror. It was words. And Mike knew those words, all of them. They were some of the first words he’d learned.
HELLO MIKE AND WILL
Mike dropped his toothbrush. He stepped back slowly from the mirror. “Will?” he asked, trying to disguise the tremor in his voice.
Will tilted his head at Mike, looking confused. Mike pointed at the mirror with a wobbling finger.
Mike watched the horrified realization slowly dawn on Will’s face. “ Ghost ,” he gasped, running over to where Mike was standing.
They stared fearfully up at the foggy glass, looming high above them. Mike had always been way shorter than the height of the vanity. He used a stool. But he’d never been… so scared of it before.
“We need to go tell my Mom,” he decided, turning on his heel and racing out of the steamy bathroom. Will’s feet were pattering along right behind him.
Mom was still downstairs, Mike thought as he ran. He could hear the low murmur of voices, a conversation between her and Dad. He made a beeline for the staircase and began to all but sprint down it, thudding frantically on each step.
Then there was a rustling noise, just around the corner from the last few steps.
Mike tensed. He slowed to a stop, listening carefully. Mom and Dad were still talking in the living room, so it couldn’t be them. Will was ruled out, just behind him, pressing against Mike’s back. He only did that when he was really, really scared.
Mike stretched out his foot and shakily pressed it onto the next step.
Then a flash of white burst onto the staircase.
Mike’s heart stopped. It was an honest to goodness, real life ghost . Flowing and white and moving right towards them .
Will screamed. Mike grabbed his best friend's hand, yelled “ Run !” and took off.
Mike ran faster than he ever had in his life , even in races or fighting dragons at recess. He flew up the stairs two at a time, pulling Will after him frantically as they clambered up the last step and they made a beeline for the doorway to his room. There they stood, terrified, knowing the ghost was just behind them but having nowhere else to run.
“The bed!” Will gasped.
Mike never wanted to go to bed. Not usually, and especially not at sleepovers. But today he threw himself at it.
Will crashed beside him, and Mike yanked the covers over them.
Silence. Mike barely dared to breathe. He listened to the thumping of his heart, squeezing Will’s hand tight. He was more scared than he’d ever been before. He didn’t think he could ever be this scared again.
Will trembled beside him, and Mike pulled him into a hug, trying not to make a sound. Through the quilt, he could see the glowing stars were flickering crazily, covering the whole room in brightly flashing light… except for a blob that was moving close, closer, around the side of the bed. Mike ducked his head down and held his breath. They were done for. He knew it.
Slowly, steadily, the cover was peeled off, leaving them out in the open. Mike dared to look up, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The ghost loomed, staring with black, empty eyes. He couldn’t help it. He gave a little shriek of terror.
Then all of a sudden the lights stopped flickering. They turned back on, normal, innocent and warming the tone of the room as though they’d never stopped.
Something flitted across Mike’s mind. The dawn of an understanding.
He pulled away from Will, just a little, and turned to stare at the ghost.
Something under the ‘ghost’ sheet begins to pull, sliding it gently over to the side. It lands in a heap on the floor…
Before revealing the face of Nancy Wheeler, a smug smile stretched across her face. Mike turned, and Barb waved from where she stood in the doorway, holding a button for controlling the lights.
His mouth fell open, and Nancy’s smile grew wider.
“It’s Halloween, Mike.” she said triumphantly. “You should have been prepared!”