“Oi! Keep that damn torchlight pointed down, Skull! I can’t see a thing and I don’t want to end up falling into an open grave.”
“Sorry chief. Thought I heard something.” The torchlight flicked from a tree nearby, to the ground below Ella, illuminating four pairs of scruffy Doc Martin boots. She could just make out the faces and shapes of two boys and two girls, a few years older than her.
Why were they here, at this time of night?! If she timed it right, Ella could scare the living daylights out of all of them by jumping down right in front of that Skull guy. They’d think twice before breaking into the Yard again. But most kids in town wouldn’t come into the Yard even in the daytime, never mind creep around it in the early hours of the morning. And on a school night. Thinking it was maybe best not to mess with them, Ella kept still, willing them instead to move on quickly.
“You always think you heard something or saw something,” the Chief boy jeered. “Everyone’s dead round here! That’s why it’s perfect.”
“But, it’s the middle of the night and there’s a full moon,” Skull flung his torchlight skywards.
“Aren’t you scared, even a little?” it was a different voice this time, one of the girls who was clinging on to the other girl’s hand. The boy they’d called Chief spun round to face her, throwing something large and heavy against the tree trunk as he did.
“What a bunch of wooses!” he snapped. “After everything we’ve seen and done, how can you be afraid of a few ghosts?”
Ella was puzzled and intrigued. Most people get freaked out a bit in the Yard, which is natural because it’s so quiet and has lots of twists and turns so it’s easy to get lost and start thinking you’ve seen something that’s not there but few people, especially those willing to come into the Yard at night, would openly talk about seeing a ghost. Also, the more they talked, the more something nagged at her. They seemed familiar somehow but she couldn’t place them.
“A few ghosts? A place this size is bound to have hundreds of them!” Skull whispered loudly and started whipping his torch around again, pointing it at anything and everything.
“Well, we better get on with it before we wake them up with your yammering!” the Chief said. “Pull yourself together! It’s not like this is our first time here. Now shut up and keep an eye out for that old man. He almost caught us last night.”
Ella caught her breath at the mention of her Dad. Her head felt dizzy and her hand slipped slightly causing a big piece of bark to break off and land on top of the Chief’s backpack. No one noticed though. They were too busy trying to agree on which direction to go in.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she had realised that these kids were the vandals that had been breaking in at night for the last few weeks and drawing strange symbols over some of the headstones. Dad, the latest in a long line of the Yard’s Caretakers in the Rove family, was so determined to catch them that he had taken to sleeping in an old caravan further up the hill. He was more likely to catch them from there than from their house at the front gate. He knew these kids weren’t coming in the conventional way.
Then suddenly, as if his ears had been burning, a voice yelled through the trees, “Oi! You there! What the hell are you lot up to?!”
Ella saw the faint outline of her dad between the dark trees, pushing his way through the tall grass as he hurried through the headstones. But he was still quite far away. Nice one dad, she thought. Lost the power of surprise.
The gang panicked, pushing and banging into each other in a frantic attempt to escape. Their trainers scuffed in the gravel and Skull landed on his backside, slamming into the tree trunk and causing Ella’s branch to shake wildly. Finally the gang leader yelled, “For god’s sake, RUN!”
That snapped them out of their panic and they took off down the path towards the gate.
At last dad made it out of the overgrowth and onto the path, dressed as ever in his old gardening clothes. It was clear that he would never catch up with the kids so he paused to catch his breath, doubling over and putting his hands on his thighs.
“Bloody kids,” he mumbled, and then for good measure, cupped a hand over his mouth and shouted after them, “I’ll be here every night! I’ll catch you lot next time!”
After a few more deep breaths, he collected himself and flashed his torch onto the surrounding headstones checking for damage. Sighing with relief as he found nothing, he started on his way back to the caravan, mumbling grumpily to himself.
Ella pushed herself back against the tree trunk and let herself breathe again. That had been close. She had bark under her fingernails and her arms ached from holding on to the branch so tightly. She wasn’t sure if she would have been in more trouble if she had been caught by that gang for spying or by her dad for being out of bed.
After a few more minutes, she decided that the coast was clear and jumped down onto the bone-dry grass. Her foot caught on something and reaching down her realised that in the mayhem, the Chief had left his backpack behind. Picking it up, she quickly looked it over. It was a standard black bag but an eye had been painted on it in reflective paint. It glowed eerily in the moonlight.
“I bet there will be something in here that will tell me who you are and what you’re looking for,” she said softly, feeling the weight of its contents. Throwing the backpack over her shoulder, she took off through the Yard, finding her way home easily through the labyrinth of paths, until she was safely back in her bed with the covers pulled up over her head.
