Frightfully Friendly Ghosties by Daren King

1
    Pamela Fraidy

    You still-alives are so mean to us ghosties. Only yesterday you locked Pamela Fraidy in the attic. She’s a nervous wreck as it is! Not all ghosties can pass through walls, you know. That’s only in cartoons and storybooks.
    The only ghosty who can pass through walls is Charlie Vapor. He can pass through ceilings too, even when he’s wearing a hat.
    Poor Pamela. We could hear her shivering from outside the attic door.
    â€œTry to keep calm,” I told her through the wood. “We’ll get you out.”
    â€œHelp!” Pamela cried. “It’s d-d-dark in here, and I think it may be haunted.”
    I asked Charlie to pass through into the attic, to comfort her.
    â€œCertainly not, Tabitha,” said Charlie, in that adorable cockney accent of his. “It would be an invasion of her privacy.”
    â€œBut she’s petrified.”
    â€œWho isn’t? This rickety old house gives me the shivers. No wonder the still-alives always look flustered.”
    â€œCharlie,” I said, “please do comfort Pamela.” Charlie passed his head through the door, then pulled it out quickly. “It’s dark in there. I reckon I’ll wait out here with you, Tabitha.”
    â€œBut you’re the only ghosty who can pass through.”
    Once again, Charlie passed his head through the door, shuddered, and pulled it back out. “Tabitha Tumbly, I refuse to float into that attic. There’s a spider in there as big as my hat.”

    Pamela was getting desperate. “What are you
doing
out there?”
    â€œDon’t you worry about a thing,” I told her.
    â€œWe will float downstairs and fetch the key.” That happened yesterday, and the key is still on the hook by the front door. The problem is, ghosties can’t pick things up.
    I can move things. I’m a poltergeist. That’s why they call me Tabitha Tumbly. To be honest, I’m not very good at it. I can make a basket of laundry tumble off the sideboard, or an orange roll along the kitchen table, but I can’t lift a key from a hook, float it upstairs, and insert it into a keyhole. Only a still-alive can do that. But, as Wither would put it, you still-alives are mean.

2
    Charlie Vapor

    Charlie and I left Pamela Fraidy quivering in the attic and wisped downstairs to the hall, where we found Wither floating by the hat stand.
    â€œWhere are the still-alives when we need them?” Charlie asked him.
    â€œThe still-alives are frightfully mean,” said Wither, wrinkling his forehead. “You’re better off without them.”
    â€œWe need them to help us with the key,” I told him.
    â€œThey won’t help,” said Charlie as the three of us floated toward the front door. “It was the still-alives who locked Pamela in the attic in the first place.”
    â€œThey didn’t intend to.”
    Wither folded his bony arms. “Tabitha, they were being mean, and you know it.”
    â€œEven so,” I said, “it doesn’t hurt to ask.”
    â€œThere’s a still-alive in here,” said Charlie, passing his head through the wall.
    â€œI haven’t been in that room since I was still alive,” I said. “Which room is it?”
    â€œIt’s the drawing room,” said Wither.
    â€œThe drawing room?”
    â€œHe means the lounge,” said Charlie. “Wither is frightfully old-fashioned.”
    â€œI call it the living room,” I said. “At least, I did when I was still living.”
    â€œLife was more civilized in my day,” said Charlie. He took off his hat—it’s the polite thing to do—and passed through the lounge wall.
    A moment later, we heard a loud scream, and Charlie reappeared white as a, um, ghost. “Those still-alives give me the shivers.”
    â€œAny luck?”
    â€œNo, Tabitha. There was one sitting in an armchair eating corn flakes. I bid her good morning, and she