Criminal Case (DETECTIVE TALES)

Glady and The Ghost Girl

It was Saturday afternoon, and Gladys' three older sisters were just finishing their breakfast.

"What shall we do for the rest of the day?" Asked Sam in a half-asleep voice.

"You mean what's left of it," said Gladys who had been up for hours, but her sisters didn't seem to hear her.

An hour later, when they had finished getting dressed and putting on their make-up, the girls went out of the front door and started to shamble along the pavement towards the bus stop. Gladys came too, not because she was dying to go with them, but because she was too young to be left in the house alone. Well that's what their Dad said anyway. They hadn't decided where to go, but they took the bus into the shopping centre just out of habit. There, they wandered along, looking through windows at designer gear, and making comments about some of the other shoppers, like, "Core, he thinks he's a dude," and, "She looks like she just got out of bed," which Gladys thought was a bit rich, considering how long her sisters had been awake.

They ended up in a new store called The Place. It was a sort of warehouse with cheap copies of expensive designer clothes. Mandy, Laura and Sam were in fashion heaven.

Gladys thought that one top with a hoodie looked much like another. She was listening to the piped music and wondering if she could write better songs than the ones they were playing. The shop had its own in-house radio station with its own DJ, and Gladys thought she recognised his voice. Yes, she was sure of it. It was Kevin, the engineer who had recorded their first demo song in the studio.

"Hey girls, do you know who that is?" She asked, but none of her sisters took any notice of her.

Then the shop DJ said, "And don't forget, The Place is where you heard them first. They're cute, they're hot, they're all shiny and new – they are the chiX!!!" And he began to play in the song which he had recorded for them.

[We play in the chiX song]

Gladys started to jump up and down. "Hey, listen, listen," she said, but the girls were engrossed in t-shirts and trousers. Then suddenly Mandy came out of her fashion dream and said, "Hey whadd'ya-know, that's us!"

Laura said, "We've made it."

And Sam said, "Yeaaaah!!!"

And Gladys said, "I was trying to tell you, it's Kevin. He's working as the DJ for the shop."

But the girls weren't interested in what Gladys said. They were too busy grooving around and lip-syncing the words. Some of the other shoppers were staring at them – but that only made the girls go for it even more, because this was their first live performance before an audience.

"You see, that's our song," said Gladys to the bemused shop assistant, a young girl on her Saturday job. "I wrote it and they sung it." But the girl just carried on folding the jeans that the shoppers had taken off the hangers, and then left strewn all over the place.

The girls tripped out of the shop still singing, and they danced all the way back to the bus stop, and kept on dancing until the Number 11 arrived. People thought that they were, well, just a bit bonkers, but the girls didn't care because they were so happy. Their good mood lasted all weekend.

On Monday during school lunch, Gladys told her best friends, Ethel and Judith, all about what had happened. When she had finished, Ethel said, "So your sisters really think they're famous? I know, let's play a joke on them. We'll start sending them fanmail."

And although Gladys didn't think the idea was that funny, Judith thought it was hilarious, and she and Ethel spent the rest of the lunch break writing letters like: