Personal and Imaginative writing: Ghost Story.

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Personal and Imaginative writing: Ghost Story.

"What d’ya mean, we have to pay?" thundered James. The ticket lady just sat there like a robot.

"It’s pouring down outside, and all we want to do is get inside and shelter from the storm" James said reasonably. The robot-like lady just replied with another ‘You’ll have to pay’, in a dull, droning, monotonous voice.

"We don’t have the money to pay you, and it’s not like we even want to be here. You could just let us stand there" and James pointed to a spot about three feet away, getting more and more visibly irate, "and watch us. You’re not exactly bustling with customers at the moment, are you?" James shouted at the lady. I tentatively reached up for James’ elbow, to tell him to keep calm, and explaining that the lady’s only doing her job, but Matt got there first.

"It’s all right mate, keep your head on." Matt told James, whilst putting a hand on his shoulder, firmly keeping James from trying to smash through the plastic screen, and throttle the robot-like woman.

"Thanks for your help, we’ll be on our way now" Annie calmly told the robot-like woman, whilst shooting a look to everyone that meant that she’d thought of another way to stay out of the rain, and not pay.

We all shuffled off towards the main front door, at the other end of the entrance hall, with James still grumbling about the stingy lady, and mumbling about what he’d like to do to her if he got the chance.

Rachel stopped in front of Matt.

"Something’s changed since we first got here. Don’t you feel it? It’s scary." She half whispered in his ear.

"It’ll be O.K, you’re probably just tired darlin’. Anyway, Annie’s got a plan, so we’ll be safe." Matt replied, giving her a friendly hug, and with that they both ran to catch up with the rest of us.

"So, what’s the plan then darlin’?" Craig was asking Annie about her ‘plan’.

"O.K, is everyone here? Hurry up you two" Annie urged Matt and Rachel.

"Well, you know we had to walk round the side of this mansion to get to the front. In any case, I saw a window open, and I reckon either Rachel or Gemma could climb through and open it enough for the rest of us to get in." Annie told us, and everyone turned to stare at me, as we all knew how much Rachel hated heights. She could barely sit on top of a table and look at the floor; it’s so bad.

"O.K, I’ll do it, but if I can’t get through, don’t say I didn’t warn." I have this thing about being one of the larger girls that we know. I don’t know why Annie didn’t volunteer herself. She’s as skinny as a pencil, and really strong, and to top it all off, she has the loveliest ginger hair ever! All of that flew out of my head as I realised what I’d agreed to do. The open window was on the fourth floor, and the modern drainpipe was about 5 meters away from the window. No use in trying to use that then I thought grimly. How the heck was I meant to get there?

"Um, I’m not wanting to disappoint anyone here, but how am I meant to get to the window, without turning into Superwoman?" I asked, fearing that they’d think of me as a wimp, or worse, that they’d already worked out a plan, but as it would have been worked out by James, Matt and Craig, it was bound to be a hare brained scheme, to say the least.

"Well, I think I’ve got some rope in my bag that Matt dumped there" Rachel said quietly, before Craig could launch into his plan, whilst fishing around in the bottom of her black Nike backpack. Her blonde hair flopped in her face as the wind and rain grew another level or two in ferocity.

"Here it is." And with that she handed over a long, thick coiled up piece of very old looking rope.

"It’s certainly long enough, but I’m not sure whether it’ll hold my weight." I said cautiously.

"You’ll be fine. All you have to do, is get up there, preferably quickly so we don’t all freeze to death, and we’ll do the rest. All right babe?" James said comfortingly.

"Yeah, I’m fine. Here goes nothing" and with that, I attached one end of the rope to a very large stone. Threw that into the open window, tugged at the rope a few times to make sure that it was secure, and started to climb the side of the mansion. Luckily, I’d been on an outdoors activity course with my school a while ago, and the main thing I’d done, was rock climbing. After a bit of trouble with the rope getting caught on a dead rose, and me almost hitting my head in the wall when I saw a flash of lightning, I managed to get in the window and secure the rope to the nearest leg of a solid oak, four poster bed.

"Hey people," I shouted down at them "I’m in and the rope’s secure. You can come on up now." And with that, I saw the rope go taut as someone began to climb. Whilst I was waiting for them all to arrive, I took a quick glance ‘round the room.

My first impression was that I was standing in a storage room, but when I turned on my torch, I realised that I was in a very large bedroom, but all of the furniture was covered in dustsheets. What appeared to be a dresser, two large oak wardrobes, and a chair, had been shoved into one corner, and had dustsheets, in varying stages of decay, thrown on top of them. The bed was a gigantic, four-poster, and the hangings were still tied on, and apart from the odd moth-eaten hole, they were as good as new. You’d have thought that purple silk hangings would be very susceptible to being moth-eaten, wouldn’t you? These apparently, only had 3 that I could see. I switched my torch off.

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"Hey Gemma, give us a hand would ya" I turned ‘round as I heard Annie’s voice, and was about to walk over to her, when I saw the painting by the right hand side of the window. It showed a normal everyday scene, probably a market in a nearby town, but that wasn’t the reason why I was staring at it. The thing that caught my attention, and froze me to the spot, was what was covering it. In the next flash of lightning, I saw the same on the curtains as well. They were both stained with blood. Centuries ...

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