Writing for Fun
November 2017
Things That Go Bump In The Night - The Saga Of Henry - Anne Wilson
Hello, my name’s Billy and I’m just nine. I never forget my age because when I do something wrong my parents keep telling me I’m nine now and old enough to know better.
Up to the age of eight and three quarters and a few days I lived with just Mum and Dad and our cat in a nice, modern house near my school. Now someone else lives there too. Grandpa. I have two Grandpas but the other one lives a long way away and I hardly ever see him. I think this one is my mother’s Dad because when Mum and Dad argue about him she always takes his side. Dad thinks he ought to go and live somewhere called a residential home, but Mum says that he’s far too young and she gets very upset and says he needs our support.
Grandpa is possibly around seventy years of age and therefore almost extinct like a dinosaur, but he can still stand up and walk about and dress himself and is quite funny in a strange kind of way. He also has his own teeth, which is surprising as my friend Sammy’s grandfather is only a bit older and takes his out of his mouth at night when he goes to bed because he says they’re uncomfortable and they keep him awake. He tells Sammy it’s because his dentist is an idiot and is totally incontinent and that the plate doesn’t fit properly. Sammy has seen them in a glass jar by the side of his grandfather’s bed when he goes to stay with him and says they’re gross. We looked up the word ‘incontinent’ on the net and are surprised the dentist can do his job at all. It must be awful for him.
Grandpa is less strict than Mum and Dad. He’s always joking and fooling around and in a strange way I like it when it’s during the day because it’s good fun, but it’s scary if it’s in the middle of the night.
A couple of weeks ago I woke up because I heard a tapping from the room next to mine, which is a spare room and which Mum said we needed in case anyone came to stay. I called out to Mum and Dad, but Grandpa and I have rooms at the back of the house and Mum and Dad at the front so they don’t always hear things. In any case my Dad makes a terrible noise at night and Mum has to wear earplugs. She says he snorkels loudly and it’s deafening. Sammy and I looked it up on the net and we can’t understand how Dad can go underwater in bed but apparently he does most nights and Mum is very cross with him in the morning. She is threatening to sleep in the spare room and in a way I hoped she would because she might have frightened the ghost away. No-one else heard the noises but Grandad told me there are things we cannot explain and that maybe our house is haunted. Dad was cross with him and told him he was frightening me. Shortly afterwards I found some leaflets on top of his desk about somewhere called The Twilight Retirement Home For The Elderly.
A few nights later I heard the same tapping sound and hid under the bedsheets. I was really scared and curled myself into a ball on my side because I thought it would protect me from whatever was on the other side of the wall. I tried to call out, but no sound came out of my mouth. I stretched out and rolled over from side to side as it stopped and started, but this time I could hear a moaning sound as well. It was horrible, as if someone was in pain and I rolled over onto my back and held my hand over my ears. Eventually I must have gone to sleep but I had difficulty waking up in the morning. Mum was bad-tempered because of the snorkelling during the night and didn’t really listen when I explained what had happened and Dad told me I was just being silly. Grandpa paid me attention though. He told me that we must be on our guard for ‘things that go bump in the night’. It might be the ‘undead’ come back to haunt us. He laughed and put his arm round my shoulder and winked at Dad, who didn’t wink back. He gave Grandpa a very long, curious look instead.
The tapping from the spare room stopped for several nights and I began to relax. Then one night I woke up to hear it again and the terrible moaning noise. I wished I could lock my own door from inside but Mum wouldn’t give me the key she as thinks it’s not a good idea if I should need her suddenly during the night. I don’t know why; she can’t really hear me with the ear plugs in and all the snorkelling going on in the background. I started to shiver with fear as I heard the door handle turn from the other side and called out, ‘Please don’t come in. Please.’
But something did. It was dressed in a white bedsheet with two slits cut into the top through which its eyeballs peered. Waving its arms about, it let out a terrible wail. I laughed hysterically between the screams because it looked so funny.
‘I am the undead. I am the undead,’ the voice said.
Suddenly I heard footsteps getting nearer and nearer and a woman appeared at my doorway, slightly out of breath. It was Mum.
She was very brave. Her hands tugged at the sheet and she lifted it up to reveal a familiar figure beneath.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she shouted at Grandpa. ‘It’s the middle of the night. Get back to bed at once.’
It has not been happy in our house for some time. Dad says Grandpa is something called senile, because he wanders about at night and frightens people, but Mum says that’s a terrible thing to say and he’s something called compost mentis. Sammy and I are baffled because we’ve looked up the word ‘compost’ and don’t know what fertiliser means either. He’s been very quiet recently and Mum says he has learned his lesson. I don’t think Dad feels the same but they are rewarding him by letting him stay with me overnight whilst they go to something called an office conference at a hotel. I asked Dad what a conference is and he says it’s something where a lot of boring people speak during the day and then the people who’ve been listening to them drink too much in the evening to get over the boring bits during the day. I don’t think Sammy and I would like it.
It’s three o’clock in the morning and I feel very grown up lying here tonight in my bed alone in the house with Grandpa, knowing that Mum and Dad aren’t here. I feel I’m nearer ten than just turned nine and I want them to be proud of me when they get back tomorrow. I have a key to lock my bedroom door from the inside now and no-one can get in. Grandpa’s not been as grown up as I have and I don’t know whether to tell Mum and Dad or not. A couple of hours ago I heard him banging on my door and he was moaning and calling out something called a heart attack. Then I heard a thud and I think he was pretending to fall down outside my room. I’m not going to open my door just so that he can get up and pretend he’s a ghost.
He’s stopped now and I haven’t heard a sound for a long time.
I must look up what a ‘heart attack’ is in the morning.