Ghostsitters by Angie Sage

felt a bit sick, and Wanda said she did too, so we decided to go upstairs and read for a while. We crept by the first-kitchen-on-the-right-just-before-the-laundry-room. The door was still closed, which was good, but Wanda pointed out that it didn’t mean that Ned and Jed were still in there. And because Wanda is Miss Nosy Bucket, she tried the door—it was unlocked.
    But Ned and Jed were still there—and Mathilda was there too .
    â€œOops, sorry,” said Wanda.
    â€œWanda, I asked you to keep Araminta out of the way.”
    â€œSorry, Mathilda. I didn’t know you were in there,” said Wanda.
    â€œ Why is Wanda trying to keep me out of theway?” I asked. “That’s not fair.”

    â€œOf course it’s fair,” said Mathilda, who I noticed was busy trying to hide a whole flock of shopping bags. “Now go away ,” she said, and slammed the door.
    Well! I was not happy. Not one bit. You would think with my birthday coming up the next day my cousin and my so-called friend Wanda Wizzard would try to be a bit nicer.
    I spent the rest of the day in our Wednesday bedroom feeling sick, and if anyone had mentioned bananas and baked beans I probably would have been sick. But Wanda didn’t care; she disappeared to do secret stuff with Mathilda. Some friend .
    Every now and then I looked at the ring that Sir Horace had given me and polished it a bit. I was glad that Wanda did not know I had it. If she was going to keep secrets with Mathilda, then I would keep my ring secret, so there . And even if I didn’t get any other birthday presents—which I was pretty sure I wouldn’t, considering how horrible Wanda and Mathilda were being—I didn’t mind. Sir Horace’s ring was special. Really special.

9
BIRTHDAY BOTHER
    T he next morning was my birthday!
    Usually I wake up early on my birthday and then I have to wait a long time for my presents, but that morning I woke up really late, as I wasn’t a bit excited.
    Wanda was still asleep so I opened Uncle Drac’s present. It was a knitted bat. At least I think that’s what it was. It had a long piece of string on it so I hung it up above Wanda and waited for her to wake up. Well, actually I didn’t wait. I prodded her and hissed, “Wand aaaaaa !” in her ear. She sat up suddenly—like she always does when she wakes up—and the knitted bat dangled right in front of her eyes. She screamed really loudly.
    I felt a bit bad about that when she gave me a birthday card and a present . The card was fun—it had a lot of ghosts trying to blow out birthday candles and it said GHOSTLY GREETINGS . The present was lovely. It was a ghost maze game and I have always wanted one of those. I couldn’t wait to play it and I put it in our Thursday bedroom right away. Then I remembered Sir Horace’s ring that I had been keeping as a birthday present and I put it on. It fit my biggest finger. The green stone sparkled and looked lovely.

    It was strange not having Aunt Tabby or Uncle Drac there on my birthday. Wanda and I crept downstairs to get some breakfast and I noticed how empty Spookie House felt. Usually Brenda is either rattling the boiler or singing her favorite song, Aunt Tabby is scuttling about finding things for people to do, and Barry is thumping sacks of bat poo around. But that morning it felt really quiet and empty—and a little bit lonely.
    There was no sign of Mathilda either, and her bedroom door was still closed. We passed Ned and Jed lying feet to feet on the long bench on the landing. It is hard to tell with ghosts, but they looked like they were asleep. As we tiptoed by nothing got thrown at us so they must have been. We stepped over a smashed flowerpot and crept downstairs,through the shafts of dusty sunlight that shone between the gaps in the moth-eaten curtains, which were still drawn because Aunt Tabby was not there to open them.
    As we passed the grandfather