Ten Things You Didn't Know About Ghosts

By David McRobbie

It is 1937 and the London to Glasgow train crashes one wintry Scottish night. Shortly after that tragic event two ghosts appear — a girl and boy who had been living passengers on the train.
The ghosts somehow find their way into a nearby orphanage where only 12-year-old Beatrice McMullin can see them — and then begins a tricky partnership. The ghosts initially have trouble communicating with Beatrice, but they work on this part of their ghostly skills. They have something on their mind, and need Beatrice’s help to achieve their aim.
Meanwhile, two other ghosts, adults this time, observe this growing contact, and don’t like what they see. They set about making sure the relationship doesn’t last.
From then on, the tale becomes complicated and full of twists and turns with several groups of people in pursuit of the same goal.
This is a Scottish ghost story with just a hint of comedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David McRobbie
• Release date: Jul 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311878236

David McRobbie

David McRobbie was born in Glasgow in 1934. After an apprenticeship he joined the Merchant Navy as a marine engineer and sailed the world, or some of it. Eventually he worked his passage to Australia, got married and settled down for a bit only to move to Papua New Guinea where he trained as a teacher. Subsequently he found work as a college lecturer, then a researcher for parliament. Back in Australia in 1974 he joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a producer of radio and television programs for young people. In 1990 he gave up this work to become a full time writer for children and young adults. He has written over thirty paperbacks, mainly novels, but some are collections of short stories, plays and 'how-to' books on creative writing. Three of his novels were adapted for television, with David writing all of the sixty-five scripts — the first being The Wayne Manifesto in 1996, followed by Eugénie Sandler, PI then Fergus McPhail. These shows were broadcast throughout the world, including Australia and Britain on BBC and ITV. The BBC adapted another of David's novels for television — See How They Run, which became the first BBC/ABC co-production. At the age of 79, David is still at work. His most recent paperback novels are Vinnie's War, (Allen & Unwin) published in 2011, about childhood evacuation in the second world war. This was followed by To Brave The Seas, in 2013, a story about a 14-year-old boy who sails in Atlantic convoys during WW2. Both books are available online.

Book preview

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Ghosts

David McRobbie

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Ghosts

David McRobbie

Copyright 2014 David McRobbie

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Cover image: Alice-Anne Boylan

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

About the Writer

Other Books by David McRobbie

Prologue

Somewhere in South West Scotland - Winter 1937

The LMS guard slid open the compartment door to announce there was heavy snow falling on the railway line ahead, so the train would be ten minutes late getting into Glasgow.

Leora didn’t mind. She snuggled into her seat while Rufus, her younger brother, lay against her shoulder, sleeping blissfully. It was warm in the compartment. A good place to dream.

On the seat opposite, two adults, Valerie and Albert nestled side by side, tenderly, loving. Leora liked that about them, the way they played their part, like a real husband and wife. Albert nursed a small leather case on his knee. It was fastened securely to his right wrist by a chain and padlock. He smiled at Leora, and said, ‘We’ll be in Glasgow very soon now.’

Valerie added, ‘You and Rufus will shortly need to put on some warmer clothes.’

Leora nodded agreement, then asked, ‘What’s the first thing you’ll do in Glasgow, Albert?’

‘Leora, you are to call me father,’ he corrected her, but not in an unkind way. ‘Even here, while we’re alone. It must be father. Remember, always father.’

‘Sorry — father.’ Leora smiled.

For security reasons she and Rufus had been chosen for this trip: to make it look as if they were an ordinary family of four. No one would suspect them of travelling on a secret and important mission.

They had made the rail trip across Europe, then the short sea voyage to London, followed by the train journey to Glasgow. The assignment had gone well with no hold-ups or problems. Leora nodded off, then after some minutes, and through half-shut eyes, she saw the compartment door slide open by little more than a centimetre.

Then she heard a hissing sound and a mist began to rise up from the bottom of the door. There came a pleasant smell and after a second or two Leora began to feel drowsy. Albert’s head drooped forward on his chest; Valerie’s mouth was already slack.

A man slid the door open and entered. He wore a gas mask and set about using pliers to cut the chain that secured the leather case that rested on Albert’s knee. Leora frowned and held out a hand to stop this happening, but she no longer had the will to do more.

A woman followed the man into the compartment. She also wore a gas mask, while in her hand was a blue cylinder with a valve and slender nozzle from which vapour still streamed. She closed the valve and the hissing stopped.

The man showed her the case, with the end of the chain hanging free. He said, and his voice was muffled by the gas mask, ‘Got it. We must be first off the train when it reaches Glasgow. These four will be all right. No harm will come to them.’

From that moment onwards in the railway compartment, Leora remembered nothing more.

Chapter One

We Are Ghosts

Later on that wintry Monday night, Leora and Rufus stood looking at the twisted wreckage that lay below them. On the railway track down where they gazed, train carriages were no longer rolling on towards Glasgow, nor were they following one another in a straight line. Now they were zigzagged into a hopeless jumble, spread across both tracks. At the head of this sad train, the locomotive lay on its side, blowing angry steam, while red-hot coal embers spilled from its fire-box.

A keen wind blew, carrying with it flurries of snow, heaping them into drifts. Despite the cold, Rufus and Leora didn’t shiver or show any signs of discomfort. This was strange, considering the clothes they wore: Leora, a cotton dress and light sandals, Rufus was in short trousers, a shirt and woollen pullover. On his feet were socks, but no shoes. They’d left warm clothes and winter footwear behind in their carriage, which was now split open and lying at an angle against the sloping walls of the railway cutting.

Rufus asked his sister suddenly, ‘Leora, do you think we have become ghosts?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Are you cold?’

‘No.’

‘That proves it. Neither am I.’ Rufus was pleased with this discovery. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he went on, ‘if we were still living, then with all this blizzardy sort of weather, my feet would be ice, but they’re not, so we can’t be alive any more.’

‘Then we’re ghosts.’

‘Strange feeling. I’m not hungry, don’t need to go to the lavatory.’

‘Or comb my hair, brush my teeth. Not ever again, I expect.’

‘I’ve been thinking that too,’ Rufus agreed. ‘Besides, you didn’t bring your toothbrush.

They continued to look down at the scene where rescue workers had already arrived to do their best in the wreckage. A little further along the track, a narrow, hump-backed road bridge spanned the railway lines. At this time on a winter night, there was usually very little traffic, but that changed quickly. First a rushing ambulance crossed over the bridge, followed by another, then in quick succession came two fire engines with their bells ringing loudly.

From nearby houses and cottages, people suddenly appeared from the darkness. They were warm-wrapped in coats and scarves, mittens and heavy stamping boots. Some still wore their pyjamas and nightgowns beneath their overcoats. All were upset by the sudden devastation that had come to their community. ‘Och, it’s awful,’ one woman said in an anguished sort of voice. ‘The poor, poor people doon there on that train.’

‘Aye, and where dae we start?’ a man muttered before making his cautious way down the sloping face of the railway cutting to the shattered debris below.

Leora and Rufus looked on as if none of this concerned them, although just minutes before, they’d been a part of it. They’d slept, sitting up in their compartment, brother and sister, with his head resting against her shoulder, because he was the younger one, and not as tall.

Leora took his hand and asked suddenly, ‘Are you sad, Rufus?’

‘M-mm, not really. There were things I should have said, you know, said to people. I was looking forwards to seeing Glasgow, and spending a whole fortnight in the city. But none of it matters to us now, does it?’

‘I expect not.’ His sister thought for a bit, then said, ‘I’ve still got something on my mind. It is a thing I saw tonight, before that crash happened when we were asleep. I think it’s very important for me to remember, but I can’t right now.’

‘It’ll come to you, Leora.’ Rufus comforted her. ‘It always does. If you lose something, it’s always in the last place you look. It’s the same with remembering important things.’

Leora changed the subject suddenly. ‘What should we do now?’

‘I don’t know. It would be good if we had some sort of guide book.’ Then Rufus quoted, as if reading from a set of instructions. ‘Good evening. Welcome to being a ghost. If this is your first experience —’

Leora cut him off. ‘Of course it is.’ She took a deep breath, then realised she didn’t need to do that any more. It was force of habit, plain and simple; breathing, blinking her eyes and yawning. Sneezing, privately scratching that itchy bit behind her ear and choosing which hair ribbon to wear; they all belonged to a time that had now gone. Leora went on, ‘I suppose we’d better find somewhere to haunt. If that’s what we’re expected to do.’

‘We could just stay by the railway line. I like trains, as long as they don’t behave like that one down there did.’

‘It’s very noisy here. I’d like to haunt somewhere quiet, Leora said. ‘I mean, we might have to do it for quite a long time.’

‘Then do you think we could go there?’ Rufus pointed and they saw in the background a large, square, two-storey house with many barred windows and high brick walls all the way around the grounds.

‘We might as well. Come on, then, Rufus. Keep up if you’re coming.’

As he followed his ghostly sister, Rufus said, ‘Look, we’re not leaving any footprints in the snow.’

‘That’s nice.’

•

Leora and Rufus had been noticed. Not by any living persons, but by the Man and Woman, who’d also been in the train wreck. Being older, and somewhat wiser, they’d realised much more quickly they were no longer alive. Like Leora, they too had something important on their minds.

‘This is not good,’ the Man muttered. ‘Not good that they are the way they are.’

‘Like us, you mean?’ the Woman asked. She carried a gas mask, swinging from her left hand. ‘You mean, able to — still able to be?’

‘Yes, able to be in spirit form. The girl, Leora, saw what we did. Before the crash happened and changed things forever. She witnessed what she was not supposed to see, and even raised a hand to stop me. It wouldn’t matter if she’d gone like all the others, but the way she is isn’t good.’

‘So what can she do? And the boy, her brother, what can he do? And does it matter to us any more?’

‘It always matters. Not to us, I agree, but to those left behind to fight for — The Cause.’

‘Oh, yes, The Cause.’

The Man pointed. ‘The pair of them are going towards that big house.’ He led the way and they moved under the shelter of