An anthology of spooky short stories and creepy poetry for children and young adults. Mr Ghastly explores the unseen worlds of ghosts and monsters; from wicked witches running disciplinary schools for wayward kids, to talking garden ornaments, hungr...
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Every now and again, my mother and father would take me to visit my nan at the cottage in the countryside. It was a lovely cottage; small, made of grey stone with a thatch roof, little bay windows with green frames, and colourful flowers, trees, and bushes planted by hand in the front and back garden. The surrounding fields were enormous, stretching further than the eye could see. Sometimes there were sheep in the fields, sometimes there were cows, and sometimes the fields were empty. No matter what, come rain or shine, winter or summer, day or night, the cottage was a wonderful, peaceful place to be.
My Nan was a lovely lady. She was small and round, with a head full of curly silver hair, which was occasionally brown, and sometimes even black, but usually silver. She had twinkly eyes, and a sweet smile, and a love of all things cake. She loved to bake cakes; it was something she did often, which was a real treat whenever I was allowed to visit her. I loved her homemade coffee cake.
When she wasn't in the kitchen cooking, she was in the garden looking after the plants, mowing the lawn, trimming the shrubs, and primping the flowers. Sometimes I would help her, but sometimes I preferred to stay in the toy room and empty the contents of the play box onto the floor and create an adventure for the day. Other times, I might sit with my Nan's fluffy sheepdog, Winnie, or we'd take her for a walk along the lanes and watch her scamper after the sheep in the fields, or fetch her favourite chewed up scruffy tennis ball.
There was always an adventure to be had at the cottage, and it was always fun to be there... until that night. The night of my seventh birthday. The night my Nan first introduced me to Ed.
As well as a big collection of flowers, shrubs, and trees, my Nan also had a collection of little and large statues and ornaments in her garden. There was a small stone hedgehog reading a book, a little frog sat on a mushroom, and even a small gnome or two.
"What's that one, Nan?" I asked.
My Nan, who was drying the last of the evening's dinner plates with a cloth, joined me at the window and glanced out.
"Which one, love?" She asked, cupping her free hand over her eyes against the window to see beyond her reflection. The garden was dark, but the moon lit the plants and statues very well.
"That one" I said, "The white one next to the big tree. Just behind the pond."
Nan looked, she saw, and she casually stepped away from the window to continue drying the plate.
"That-" she said, "Is Ed."
"Ed? It has a name?" I asked. As far as I was aware, she hadn't named any of the other ornaments in her garden, so it made no sense to me.
"Ed is a boy," Nan said, "Not an 'It'" She added the now dry plate to the collection on the shelf, and then took another wet plate from the side of the sink.
