There was a ghost in the house.  Billy just knew it.  His mother and father had told him not to be so silly and get into bed, and now of course he couldn’t sleep.  There was a chilly feeling in his room that was making him want to go to the toilet, but he felt sure that if he got out of bed something horrible would happen to him.  If you asked him why he thought that, he wouldn’t have been able to give you a very convincing answer, unless you yourself have had a feeling of something good or bad being about to happen for no particular reason.  The only way that Billy knew something would happen was from one of those feelings.

He lay still for a very long time, but eventually he had to move to make himself more comfortable, and to try and ease the feeling of needing to go to the toilet.  When Billy turned over, a terrifying sight met his eyes.  He had known all along that there was a ghost in the room, but when he saw the white glowing figure floating by the window he couldn’t help crying out.

‘Ssh!’ said a voice.  ‘You’ll wake your mother and father.’

‘S-sorry,’ Billy whispered.  ‘W-w-what do you want?’

‘Why are you stammering like that?’ asked the voice.  ‘Are you scared or something?’

‘W-well,’ said Billy.  ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Aren’t you a g-g-g-’

‘A ghost?  Yes.  I suppose you’ve heard horrible stories about what happens to little boys and girls who meet ghosts.  Your sweet old granny or somebody has warned you not to go anywhere near the old school building on the other side of the woods because it’s full of nasty, dangerous ghosts.  That’s about right, isn’t it?’

‘Y-yes,’ said Billy, who had heard stories about that old girls’ school from his grandmother that very afternoon.  ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Well of course it is,’ said the voice.  ‘Where do you think I came from?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Billy, needing to go to the toilet more than ever now.  ‘Were you a teacher there, or a pupil?’  He had an idea that the ghost of a pupil would be rather less scary to talk to than the ghost of a horrible strict teacher.

‘A pupil,’ said the ghost.  ‘My name’s Annie.  What are you called?’

‘B-B-Billy.’

‘Oh.  Pretty silly name if you ask me, but maybe it sounds better if you aren’t stuttering.  Have you heard many stories about that place, Billy?’

‘Well,’ said Billy.  ‘A few.’

‘Which ones?  Have you heard about Miss Gruel?’

‘I… I don’t think so.’

‘She was the woman who made meals for the girls right up until the day she died.  People were afraid of the headmistress, but it was Miss Gruel you really didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.’

Billy was afraid to ask about Miss Gruel, but he was so curious to hear the rest of this story that he just had to: ‘What did she do?’

‘Well,’ said Annie, ‘kitchens are dangerous places, and they always have been.  Miss Gruel didn’t have any newfangled inventions like an electric kettle.  If she wanted to boil water, she hung it over the open fire in a huge copper kettle.  One of her favourite things to do was make a girl stand in front of the fire and hold the kettle over it until the water boiled.  Ooh, we had a few blisters from that, I can tell you!’

‘What if you dropped it?’ asked Billy.

‘Well then you got nearly boiling water all over your legs,’ said Annie.  ‘We dropped it nearly every time, of course, and always if it was our first go.  Miss Gruel loved punishing us like that so much, sometimes she used to roam around the school just looking for girls who were doing something a little bit wrong.  The first time I had to hold the kettle was when she caught me taking apples from one of the trees in the orchard.  She grabbed me by the ear, said “Isn’t my food good enough for you, girl?” and dragged me into the kitchen.’

‘How long before you dropped the kettle?’ asked Billy.

‘Hardly any time at all.  She made me mop up the water, beat me with her rolling pin and then sent me away.  The next time I had to do it I managed to hold onto it for a bit longer, and then by the sixth time I managed to get the water all the way to the boil without dropping it.  I had developed a bit of a callous by then, I suppose.’

‘The sixth time?’ said Billy.  ‘I think you must have been rather bad at school if you had to do it six times.’

‘I suppose I was rather,’ said Annie, sounding rather proud.  ‘But of course, if you held the kettle until the water boiled, that only made her angrier.  She loved to see us drop it and spill the water all over our shins.’

‘Then what did she do if the water boiled?’ asked Billy.

‘She made us stick our hands in it,’ said Annie.  ‘Not the one we’d held the kettle with, though, because that was used to the heat.’

‘That’s horrible!’

‘I know.’

‘But she doesn’t do that anymore, does she?  She’s a ghost - she can’t make you hold a real live kettle over a real live fire.’

‘No,’ said Annie, ‘but by some law of metaphysics, if she catches children trespassing in her kitchen, she can still use her mincing machine.’

As she said this, Billy felt a lump come to his throat.  He swallowed it, and said quietly, ‘Mincing machine?’

‘She only used that on us in the later days, when she’d gone completely insane.’  Annie paused, and then said stiffly, ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

‘What about this headmistress?’ asked Billy, sure now that a little girl who had been tortured with a mincing machine couldn’t be as dangerous as the horrible women who had run the school.  ‘What did she do?’

‘Ah, Miss Bludgeon,’ said Annie, with what sounded like a wistful smile.  ‘Now she was a funny one.  She had a great many punishments, but I suppose her favourite was to dangle us out of a top storey window by our hair.  She was a very strong woman.’

‘Didn’t she ever drop anyone?’ asked Billy.

‘Well of course she did.  She was strong, but the hair wasn’t.  I had a friend called Sarah once, who had such feeble wispy blond hair that it came clean off her scalp while Miss Bludgeon was dangling her out of the window.’

‘How awful!’ said Billy, wincing when he thought of how much it must have hurt even before the girl hit the ground.  ‘Did she die?’

‘Oh no.  It was a long way down, but the nettle bed broke her fall.  So if you’re ever passing by that old place in the middle of the night, and you see someone dangling outside an upstairs window, you can guarantee they’ve had a disagreement with Miss Bludgeon.’

‘Are there any more ghosts there?’ asked Billy.

‘Billy,’ said Annie.  ‘I rather think you’re enjoying hearing about this.’

She was right about that.  Billy was both appalled and fascinated, and as a result he felt less as though he needed to go to the toilet.

‘Well,’ said Billy, ‘I’d be very frightened if I thought these ghosts could hurt me.  But I’m safe in my bed, aren’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said Annie.  ‘You’re safe in your bed.  You told me you’d heard some stories already.  What have you heard?’

‘I’ve heard about the little first-year girls freezing to death on the pond when it turned to ice,’ said Billy.

Annie made a noise as though she was sucking in her breath, though of course she had none, and said, ‘Ah, yes.  Nasty business, that.  The poor little wretches hadn’t learnt their three times tables properly, so Miss Brute made them all go and stand on the frozen pond in their bare feet.  Unfortunately she left them out there just a little bit too long.  There was a very nice chocolate cake at the teachers’ lunch table that day, and between you and me I think Miss Brute had forgotten she’d put eleven five-year-old girls out on the ice.  By the time she went to get them back inside, only one of them was still conscious and three of them were dead.  So you’ve heard about their ghosts, then?’

‘I’ve heard that you can still see the three dead girls standing on the pond, shivering and begging for shoes,’ said Billy.

‘Most uninteresting, as ghost stories go,’ said Annie.  ‘Haven’t you heard about what happened to the senior prefects?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well then I’ll tell you.  They were a ruthless bunch of girls who punished you almost as badly as the teachers and Miss Gruel.  If they caught you out of bed after lights-out, they’d strip you down to the skin and leave you outside all night.’

‘What if you had to go to the toilet?’ asked Billy, once again very aware that he rather needed to do just that.

‘So much the better,’ said Annie.  ‘The prefects tried to catch you before you’d been, so they could throw you out needing to go.  Then another one would come and catch you soiling the school premises and give you six of the best with the birch.’

‘I’ve heard about the birch,’ said Billy.  ‘It leaves your bottom bleeding and red and raw.’

‘It certainly does,’ Annie said with feeling.

‘So what happened to the prefects?’

‘Well, the thing is that the prefects weren’t really supposed to be catching people out of bed after ten o’clock, because that was when they were supposed to be in bed themselves.  And one day they got caught - so of course they were stripped and sent out into the cold.’

‘Did they freeze to death like the first years?’ asked Billy.

‘Oh, if only,’ said Annie.  ‘No, it was rather more horrible than that.  They tried warming themselves by going into an outhouse and making a nice little bonfire.  Only the outhouse caught fire, and they all burnt to death.’

‘Oh no!’ cried Billy, who could not imagine a worse death than burning alive.

‘And we were stark raving naked too,’ said Annie.  ‘Most undignified.’

‘Yes,’ said Billy, ‘it must have been.  Hey… wait a minute!’

‘Yes?’ said Annie.

‘You said “we”.’

‘Did I?’

‘Is that what happened to you?’ asked Billy.  ‘Were you one of those senior prefects?’

‘Well yes,’ said Annie, ‘as it happens I was.  Miss Bludgeon was furious about the outhouse, you know.  She always said she wished she could punish us for that too.  And now, of course, she can.’

‘Oh, how awful for you,’ said Billy.  ‘Is that why you left?’

‘What?’ said Annie.  ‘Oh no, no, not at all.  I left because since the school shut down, there hasn’t been very much for us prefects to do.  Not very many people out of bed after lights-out, you see.’

‘Oh,’ said Billy.  ‘I see.  But if you did find somebody out of bed…?’

‘Well then bad luck for him,’ said Annie.  ‘Or her.  And that is all I’ll say on the matter.’

By now Billy’s heart was hammering, his throat was dry and his bladder was fit to burst.  This time, he didn’t press Annie for more information.  He simply rolled over in bed, squeezed his legs together and prayed that it was almost morning.