Every year, I write a Christmas story for children (previous ones can be found be clicking on the link here). We've had dinosaurs and Partridges in Pear Trees before, but this year it's all about ghosts and a girl named Scout. I hope you enjoy it (and many thanks to Alex and Lucy for letting me write about their daughter: she ain't afraid of no ghosts).
Nick x
Christmas 2020
Scout and the Ghost in the Machine
By Nick Mellish
In the middle of Norfolk, there lived a girl named Scout.
Scout lived in a house with her mum and her dad, and seemed to have an ordinary life. Most days she played with her parents or went to nursery. She was a happy and friendly girl—but Scout had a secret.
Every night, when everybody else had gone to bed, Scout would creep out of the house wearing her coat, her pyjamas and a fluffy pair of slippers, and she took with her a very unusual machine.
It had a large transparent bowl at one end connected to a funnel, floppy and ridged like a straw, with two buttons on it: a blue one to suck things through the funnel, and a pink one to shoot things out. It was a bit heavy, but Scout ate all her fruit and vegetables and drank a lot of milk so she was strong. She had made the machine herself to do a very special thing.
You see, Scout was a ghost hunter!
She had been hunting ghosts for the past couple of weeks now. It was nearly Christmas and at the beginning of December, when Scout had opened the first window on her advent calendar, ghosts had arrived in Norfolk, in houses and schools and streets. Scout was determined to capture them all in her special machine. She knew that her parents would be scared of ghosts though, so she kept her ghost hunting a secret.
That night was cold and quiet, but Scout was sure there were ghosts around. She stood by a large Christmas tree in the high street and looked up and down.
“I’m coming to get you!” Scout called into the crisp air, when suddenly she heard a shuffling sound. Scout saw two pea-green-coloured ghosts floating outside a nearby clothes shop. The shop was decorated with silver and blue tinsel, and the ghosts were playing with it.
“Hey!” Scout shouted. “Stop!”
The ghosts looked frightened and whizzed off down the high street. Scout ran after them with her special machine.
The ghosts twisted left and right as they fled, but Scout soon caught up with them. She aimed the machine’s funnel and pressed the blue button. The machine twitched and made a loud sluuuuuuuuuurping noise, like it was sucking up a piece of spaghetti.
“Argh!” said the ghosts and they were swept into the container.
Scout watched them bobbing around inside it, and went to capture some more.
There was a ghost rummaging through a pile of Christmas cards in a nearby post box. There was a ghost pretending they were a jockey, sitting on an inflatable reindeer. There were ghosts scarfing down out-of-date mince pies thrown out by a bakery, ghosts dancing to Christmas songs playing from an old radio, and ghosts playing with baubles hung inside a chemist’s shop.
“Stop!” said Scout to the ghosts in the shop. The ghosts panicked, knocking things off the shelves, but Scout gulped them up into her machine.
Scout tried to clean up the chemist’s shop but it was very messy. The ghosts had knocked a whole shelf full of cotton wool onto the floor. Scout put it into her pocket to make the floor look tidy, then yawned. It had been a long night and she was starting to feel dead tired. She walked back to an alleyway near her house. This was where she ended her ghost hunting every night because at the bottom of this alleyway was a drain: the smelliest drain in the whole wide world.
The reason the drain smelt so awfully was that it was full of stinky, slimy drain water. Scout aimed the funnel of the machine down the drain, then pressed the pink button.
POP! The machine spat the imprisoned ghosts straight down the drain.
SPLASH! They fell into the stinky, slimy drain water.
“Oh no!” said all the ghosts and they ebbed away, never to haunt again. The stinky, slimy drain water was Scout’s special weapon. It was so smelly that no matter how many baths the ghosts had or how many times they scrubbed away with a flannel, they would always whiff of stinky, slimy drain water. The next time they went to haunt a house or scare someone, the scent would come with them.
“Cor!” their victim would say, sniffing the air. “What is that horrible pong?” And with that, they’d run away before the ghosts could even say ‘boo!'
Scout smiled: a job well done! She turned around and walked back home. She went to open the front door and creep to her bedroom, when she heard a noise in the bush behind her. She spun round and looked, but couldn’t see anyone there.
“Hey ghosty ghosty!” whispered Scout. “Come out come out wherever you are!”
There was a rustling noise and Scout pounced forward...
...but it was only a hedgehog, snuffling in the icy grass.
“Silly Mr Hedgehog!” said Scout. “You should be fast asleep like me!”
She watched as the hedgehog yawned and went to bed, then smiled and turned to go to her own bed—but there was a ghost! A sparkly purple ghost, glowing in the moonlight and looking through the front window of Scout’s house at all the lights twinkling inside.
“Argh!” said Scout!
“Oh, hello!” said the ghost. “My name’s Miranda!” But before she could say another word, Scout had aimed the machine’s funnel and pressed the blue button.
“What are you doing?!” cried Miranda as she flew through the funnel and into the container. She banged on the side of it. “Hey! What’s your name?”
“Scout,” said Scout.
“Let me out of here, Scout!” demanded Miranda.
“No!” said Scout. She thought about going back to the drain, but she felt dead tired. She took some of the cotton wool from the chemist’s shop out of her pocket and shoved it into the top of the funnel, so Miranda’s complaining couldn’t be heard and wouldn’t wake anyone up. Scout yawned again and, groggily, she made her way to her bedroom, took off her coat and fluffy slippers, and fell fast asleep.
When Scout woke up the next day, she rushed to look under her bed. There, hidden behind a large blanket, was the special machine and inside, looking very grumpy, was Miranda. Scout pulled the cotton wool out of the funnel.
“Hello, Miranda,” said Scout, tapping on the container.
“It’s very cramped in here!” snapped Miranda. “Are you going to let me out?”
“Yes,” said Scout.
“Oh good!” said Miranda, smiling.
“I’m going to let you out and drop you in the drain!” said Scout.
Miranda’s face fell. “Not the drain! It’s full of stinky, slimy drain water!”
“I don’t care!” said Scout. “You and your friends have been scaring everyone in Norfolk.”
“Have we? Oh dear!” Miranda looked dismayed. “We didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”
“An accident?” said Scout.
“Yes,” explained Miranda. “We came to Norfolk because it’s Christmas! We heard that people here are really nice and we wanted to see all the Christmas decorations and Christmas trees, and join in with all the Christmas songs!”
“Why?” asked Scout.
Miranda looked really sad. “No-one even gives Christmas cards or Christmas trees or Christmas presents to ghosts,” she said. “People are so scared of us, they just run away. All we want to do is enjoy Christmas!”
Scout remembered all the ghosts she had seen last night: they had all been doing Christmassy things, like dancing to Christmas songs or eating Christmas food.
Scout remembered other ghosts she had seen on other nights. There had been ghosts making paper chains, ghosts pulling Christmas crackers, and ghosts dressed as Father Christmas. One ghost had even said they were the Ghost of Christmas Future and they really were busy and had to see someone very urgently, but Scout had vacuumed them up and dripped them in the drain.
Now she really thought about it, Scout realised that Miranda was telling the truth. Scout pressed the pink button on her special machine and Miranda tumbled out of the funnel.
“Phew! That’s better!” said Miranda, stretching her arms and flexing her legs.
“I’m sorry I gobbled you all up, Miranda,” said Scout. “I didn’t realise you just wanted to have a nice Christmas. I thought you were trying to haunt everybody!” Scout felt a bit embarrassed. “I was really scared.”
“Why?” asked Miranda.
“You looked so different,” explained Scout, “and I didn’t understand what you were doing!”
“Just because someone looks different, it doesn’t mean you should be scared,” said Miranda. “And you should have just asked us what we were doing. We’d have explained it to you!”
“I know,” said Scout. “I’m really sorry.”
She felt terrible for all the ghosts she’d scooped into her machine and shot into the stinky, slimy drain water. What could she do to make it up to all of them? Scout looked around her bedroom and saw the cotton wool sitting on her bed—and she had a great idea.
“Can you find all the other ghosts?” asked Scout.
“I think so,” said Miranda. “Why?”
Scout explained her idea.
That night, when everyone else was fast asleep, Scout and Miranda went to the big Christmas tree in the high street. Scout scattered all of her cotton wool on the ground, so that it looked like snow. She found the old radio and switched it on. She gathered all the out-of-date mince pies the bakery had thrown away and laid out a feast. She put all of her best toys from home around the Christmas tree, and she got Miranda to invite every single ghost Scout had captured in her machine to join them.
The ghosts all flew to the Christmas tree and gasped with surprise. They snaffled all the food! They made snowmen and snowwomen from the cotton wool! They sang along to the Christmas songs on the radio! They played with all of Scout’s best toys and the decorations on the Christmas tree, and they had the best night ever.
They even found a special soap in the chemist’s shop that washed away the aroma of the stinky, slimy drain water, so that all the ghosts now smelled of sunsets and rainbow kittens.
“Thank you for the party, Scout!” said Miranda as they watched all the other ghosts having fun.
“That’s okay,” said Scout. “Sorry again for ghost hunting. Next time I don’t understand something, I’ll make sure I ask someone!”
Miranda and Scout hugged each other.
“Do you want to have a snowball fight with me?” asked Miranda.
“Yes!” said Scout, and she walked to the party with her new friend.
The End
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