Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

  Chapter 4

  The Little Girl

  The following night I couldn’t sleep.

  I tried and tried but just couldn’t. I read my book of ghosts for a while but reading about a ghostly innkeeper in a Somerset village got me thinking about the noises and voices and the dream of the old man. So I put the book down. Although I left my bedside lamp switched on I covered my head with my football duvet. Because I hadn’t done much during the day it took me ages to finally doze. I thought about Mum for a while and settled on a few happy memories such as a caravan holiday in Cornwall we once had, and going to the fair at Easter. I remembered getting told off by a man for dropping my candy floss onto the dodgems and Dad telling him off for telling me off.

  When I did fall sleep I was sat on the floor in the old man’s room again, near the dining table with the thin table cloth brushing my face and the nets moving at the window. The mirrors and pictures were all there as before but the old man didn’t appear. But I heard the voice of the girl. Not frightening, but soft and cute. I listened and the voice seemed to become clearer and I realised it was saying the same thing over and over in a sort of loop. It was slightly different than before.

  I held myself still and listened hard.

  It was two words.

  I listened still harder.

  And then I caught them like fish in a net.

  “Help Him...Help Him...Help Him...Help Him...”

  Then I was back in my bedroom and staring up at my white ceiling. I wasn't sure if I was awake or not. I know I was shocked and frightened. I thought that I was still dreaming so I lay completely still.

  Slowly, I realised I was awake.

  And I also realised that I wasn’t alone.

  I was listening to the pleading voice of the girl again. But what she had been saying was said differently now. Not quickly over and over, it was said slowly and with other words and with an accent.

  “Help him. Please help him. Please.”

  And the words were close.

  Very close.

  I was confused and dizzy. I wasn’t sure what was dream and what was for real. By now I had the duvet pulled over my head so I was surrounded by complete darkness. I listened to the girl that seemed so close, so close I could touch her.

  “Can you help him? Can you? Please help.”

  What was going on? My dreams had been invaded by a little girl!

  “Can you help him? Please can you? Please!”

  Again I could feel her breath on me. Like before the voice seemed soft and young. Younger than me. I also recognised a kind of West Country accent. Like fishermen have or farmers in childrens’ TV programmes.

  “Can you? You must!”

  At last I decided to be brave - I would come out from under my duvet!

  Slowly I turned over and the duvet slid away from my head. Orange light from my bedside lamp made me squint but the voice must have seen me move as it suddenly stopped. The silence frightened me even more. The duvet was still covering the lower half of my face and I peered through narrowed eyes over the top of the parapet I had made.

  My bedroom had suddenly become a place you wouldn't want to go to after dark. The weak, lucozade light from my bedside lamp had left the corners of my room in gloomy darkness so now the looming shadow of my wardrobe had changed into a thick oak tree, books and odds-and-ends strewn about the floor had suddenly become rats and giant spiders, and pictures hung up windows where faces would look in.

  But I saw the little girl as I looked slowly towards the bottom of my bed. A little girl, sat patiently on my swivel chair, staring back at me.

  I never realised what people really mean when they say ‘my heart was in my mouth’. But I do now. Kevin from number 21 had made me jump one Halloween by leaping out on me in a cloak and skeleton mask and Kyle always made me scared when we visited the old derelict house on King’s Street.

  But this was different. Although I was ready to see something, I guess you can never be totally ready to actually see something. The shock was like an electric shock. I shouted out and covered my head again.

  I hadn’t been running but I found myself panting hard in the darkness under my duvet. I really wanted to shout to my Dad to come and help. This was just too scary. I was only eleven.

  “I just want to talk to you,” I heard her whisper and she said it so sweetly that my mouth closed and my panting slowed. Gradually I grew calmer and a little braver. Only gradually.

  “Can you talk to me?” she said, “I won’t hurt you.”

  I was scared so I’m not proud of what I said next. It just came out. I really didn’t think about it.

  “If you don’t go away I’ll...I’ll get my Dad!”

  I waited for a reply. I clearly heard the little girl at the end of my bed give a deep sigh.

  “I will!" I Iistened for a response. “He’ll be angry.”

  “Your Dad can’t hear you silly,” said the girl.

  Under the duvet I didn’t understand. “Why? Why can’t he hear me?”

  “Because I’m here,” she answered.

  This was weird but somehow I didn’t feel frightened. “What makes you so special? That’s stupid nonsense,” I told her. There was a spark of anger now. Who did she think she was? Barging into my room, uninvited, telling me that my Dad can’t hear me. I listened but the girl didn’t answer.

  “Hello? Why can’t my Dad hear me? What have you done to him?”

  What if she had murdered him in cold blood with a bread knife or something? Left him pale and dead. It happens. I’ve seen the news.

  Outside my duvet the girl gave another sigh.

  “Boys. Why are they so scared of girls? They act so brave all the time yet look at you. Hiding under your duvet. You look silly.”

  Out on the street and in broad daylight her accent would have been funny. But in the middle of the night it all seemed so stupid.

  And I was still angry.

  “If I come out will you go away?”

  “I only want your help.”

  “OK. I’m coming out”. My voice was a little bit shaky. “But you’ve got to tell me what you’ve done to my Dad and then leave.”

  “I suppose so”.

  I came out from under my football duvet. This time to stay. I sat up and squinted towards the end of my bed.

  She was a girl. That was certain. Around about eight or nine years old. She was dressed in a skirt with socks pulled up tightly just below the knee. She wore a thick jumper and what looked like a cardigan. I say cardigan because I’ve seen Granddad wear one. She also wore a scarf and gloves. She was prettily plain with a dainty chin and thin lips. Her long hair was done into pig-tails and she seemed to have some sort of beret on her head. She was still sat on my swivel chair and she looked at me curiously, her head cocked to one side like a cat, hands placed respectfully on knees that were drawn together.

  Now, the way the girl was dressed and held herself was odd. But odder still was her colour. The girl was completely grey. Hair, skin, clothes, shoes. All grey. I can only describe her colour as like looking at a bad picture on an old black and white television set. She shimmered slightly, as if she were some sort of projected image.

  For a moment this is what I thought she was.

  “But,” I said without trying to upset the stranger too much, “you’re...”

  “Grey?”

  “Yeah."

  I also noticed that her voice didn’t match up with the way her lips moved. It was like - what’s the expression? - like she was out of sync. It reminded me of the delay you get sometimes when a digital TV channel isn’t tuned in properly. Then the girl put a grey hand to her mouth and giggled.

  “What are you laughing at?" I was getting annoyed again now.

  “It’s your pyjamas,” she smirked. “They’re funny.”

  I suddenly became aware that I was just lying there in my old Spiderman pyjamas in front of a stranger. I was immediately embarrassed. I quickly covered myself with the du
vet again, brought it up to my neck.

  “I want you to leave now,” I told her.

  The girl became upset at this and instantly stopped smiling. She looked down at the floor. The way girls do when they want you to know that they’re sad and want you to change your mind. Of course I felt sorry for her. I’m a boy. Boys can’t help it.

  “You can only stay if you tell me who you are, how you got in and what you’ve done to my Dad.”

  I was getting braver by the second.

  The girl smiled, her lips moved and then the words came. “Your Dad’s fine.” The words straggled my way. “He just can’t hear us.”

  “Why? Have you covered his ears?”

  Again the girl giggled. “No, he’s fine, believe me. It’s just that I can do that.”

  “Do what?”

  The girl shrugged. “Things.”

  That’s it! I decided she was a ghost.

  “Are you a ghost?" I was really brave now.

  “Sort of.”

  The stranger pulled a white handkerchief from the front pocket of her cardigan. She wiped her nose and replaced it. Then she looked hard at me.

  “My name is Elizabeth Raynor, or “Lizzie” for short and Raynor with an ‘O’. I live here in this house with you.”

  I don’t mind saying I was speechless. Tonight was just getting better and better.

  “What do you mean ‘live here in this house with you’? Only me and my Dad live here...” Then I thought about what I’d just said. “…and Mum sometimes.”

  Elizabeth seemed to be expecting this. She looked up at the ceiling, seemed impatient. “I live here in this house with you but in a different time, silly!”

  Now I was completely confused.

  “A different time! How come?”

  “Well, you know time,” Lizzie said sarcastically, “you live in one and I live in another.”

  “So you’re saying that you’ve travelled through time?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  Now this was just too far-fetched. I felt afraid again and cold. How was I to know who or what she was? I pulled my duvet close. I decided to be polite and maybe she’d go.

  “So what are you doing here, Elizabeth?”

  “Lizzie’s fine.”

  “So what are you doing here, Lizzie.”

  “I’ve come for your help. You should have recognised my voice. I’ve been calling you for months now. You just didn’t hear me.”

  This little slice of information suddenly made sense.

  “My dreams. Have you been in my dreams?”

  “Yes and I don’t know. Sometimes it just works out like that. When we realise that someone could be listening we just keep trying to make them hear us and understand.”

  “Us? There’s more of you?”

  “Yes,” said Lizzie, “a few.”

  “What, ghosts?”

  “Who can be sure? We just felt that you were listening so we called out for help. Now here I am.”

  The way Lizzie was talking about time and ghosts and calling for help was so casual and normal that I just couldn’t believe her.

  “I’m sure this is a wind-up.”

  Lizzie seemed confused. “Wind-up? Like a clock you mean?”

  I didn’t answer. What was she going on about?. In my bedroom, in the middle of the night and saying these strange things. She was waiting for a reply but I couldn’t think of what to say. I just wanted her to go.

  “You want me to go, don’t you?” Lizzie completely read my thoughts.

  I nodded and Lizzie got up from the swivel chair by my computer. ” I’ll be on my way then.” She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.” But I’ll jolly well be back. Goodnight, Jay.”

  And Elizabeth Raynor, with an ‘O,’ climbed down invisible stairs and disappeared through my bedroom floor.