Page 2

"Of course it is. Let’s have a good look around while there’s still some light." The Professor clumped up the stairs, dust rising at every step. "They say the ghost’s been around since, oh, about as long as the house’s been completed. Fancy that." He touched the balustrade with a fingertip, and held it up to the wan light from a dirty landing window. "Nobody’s been up here for a long, long time."

"It’s not exactly inviting, is it?" I said. The upper floor comprised a long corridor with rooms leading off on either side. They were all empty, and the small windows let in enough light to show that the floors were covered with undisturbed dust.

"Hmm," the Professor said, looking into the rooms one by one. "No sign anyone’s been here."

"You think someone might have been waiting to scare off people by pretending to be a ghost?" I asked. "Why would they do that?"

The Professor shrugged. "I’m not thinking anything. At the moment I’m just looking. And so should you."

So I looked, without any idea what I was looking for. I followed the Professor as he walked from room to room, checking the windows. I checked them too – they were sealed to their frames with grime. Like him, I looked into the corners of the ceilings – there was nothing to see except a selection of defunct cobwebs. We toured the entire upper floor, found nothing unusual, and then repeated the performance on the ground floor too. We found nothing.

"It seems like any other house which hasn’t been entered in a long time," the Professor said at last, pausing by the open front door. The sun had gone down, but there was just about enough light to see by. "Well, there’s nothing to do but wait."

"Wait?" I asked. "Wait where? There isn’t even a stick of furniture to sit on. And I’ll bet there isn’t any electricity either!"

"Of course there’s no electricity," the Professor said. "In any case we’re supposed to wait in the dark – the only two constant things about what the so-called witnesses said was that the ghost appears in the dark, and before midnight. We’ll just sit on the stairs..." he took out a handkerchief and wiped ineffectually at part of the steps. "...Here."

 We sat down and watched the light outside fade. Soon it was completely dark except the glimmer of distant streetlights.

"So," I said, after we’d been waiting a while, "do we sit like this the whole time?"

"No," the Professor said. "We’ll get up every couple of hours or so and take a tour of the rooms."

"Wandering around this place will be fun in the dark," I said.

"I have a torch." The Professor flashed it, a narrow yellow beam in the darkness. "I’ll only use it if I have to, though."

Time passed. After a while the Professor got up and closed the front door.

"There might be someone watching," he explained. "I don’t want anybody to say we didn’t see the ghost because there was too much light from outside."

I was getting stiff with not moving as well as with boredom when he finally decided to make a round. We went through the same routine as before, entering each room and looking around. It was almost completely dark, but apart from that there wasn’t anything.

"It’s early yet," he told me, as though it was some kind of consolation.

We went back to the stairs. Time passed, and it became colder. In fact, it was the cold which kept me from falling asleep right there – the cold and the discomfort of sitting on the narrow staircase.

We did another round. Again, of course, there was nothing, and when we went back to the stairs I was tempted to suggest we quit. It was only the thought that the Professor would certainly say that I was free to go, but that he’d remain, which held me back.

We sat in silence, looking at the darkness until I began to imagine coloured lights. I rubbed my eyes and rotated my shoulders, try to ease myself. It didn’t help.

"It’s almost midnight," the Professor said. He, too, sounded tired. "We’ll just make one last round. To save time, each of us will take one room. Nothing will happen tonight anyway."

[ Continue to page 3 ]