The Facts of Life and Death by Belinda Bauer Read Free Book Online Page A

stood with her back to the front door and listened for the familiar sounds her father always made before her mother came in from a shift – the scraping of fish scales, slide guitars on the CD player – but there was nothing. Only the usual background noises of the wind keening through the bathroom window, and the trees testing the bowed roof.
    ‘Daddy?’
    She fumbled for the switch and turned on the light.
    ‘Daddy?’ She wanted to be the first to tell him about the leper parade. And to show him her light.
    And then Ruby froze at a sound she’d never heard before.
    Ching.
    It was a high, metallic ring. Like someone dropping a five-pence piece into the bathtub.
    She only heard it for a second and then it stopped.
    Ruby felt the silence thud against her eardrums.
    Nothing. There was nothing.
    ‘Da—’
    Ching. Ching.
    She sucked the word back into her mouth and held it there.
    Ching. Ching. Ching. Ching.
    Ruby felt a little black worm of fear twist across her belly. The sound was like the ring of a loose shoe on a horse.
    Or on a pedlar’s donkey…
    She quietly turned off the light, and looked up at the ceiling.
    Ching. Ching.
    It was coming from Mummy and Daddy’s bedroom.
    ‘Daddy?’ she said carefully, but there was no answer, and suddenly the sound of her voice all alone in the damp air made her resolve not to speak again.
    Ching. Ching. Ching
across the floor.
Ching. Ching. Ching
back in the other direction.
    Luring her up there.
    The thought made Ruby’s bladder loosen a little, and she clenched her thighs to keep the piddle from running down her leg.
    She wouldn’t go up there. She
couldn’t.
Couldn’t open the bedroom door and get trapped by a crazed ghost until morning. She thought of her mother tugging at the unlocked door, screaming for help, she thought of her father hammering on the yellowing paint, and of Adam Braund shouting her name, while all the while a dead man in chains terrified the rest of the wee out of her – and worse.
    Ruby’s face crumpled in self-pity. She wasn’t going to go upstairs to be got by a ghost!
    But she didn’t have to …
    Ching. Ching. Ching.
Her breath caught once more and she watched the ceiling all the way across the bedroom to the door. And then she gasped at the unmistakeable transition:
Ching-creak. Ching-creak.
    The ghost was coming downstairs to get her.
    Ruby’s back flattened against the front door, which snapped shut under her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on the narrow white door that shut off the winding stairwell from the front room.
    Ching-creak. Ching-creak. Ching.
    The sound stopped behind the little door and her breath stayed in her bumping chest. Then, in a rare show of athleticism, she darted to the sofa and tumbled over the back of it, dropping into the dark triangle of space that was filled with dust bunnies and lost things – a glove, a pen lid, the back off the remote control. A red light pulsed to the same crazy rhythm as her heart and with a jolt Ruby realized that it was the LED. She fumbled behind her and pressed the button, then knelt there, shivering, her eyes only just above the velour back, staring so hard at the little white door that they stung.
    The door creaked slowly open.
    ‘Daddy!’ Relief was like a sugar rush. Ruby jumped up.
    ‘Why’s it so dark in here?’ he said, flicking on the lights. He was already in his cowboy gear.
    ‘Didn’t you hear me shouting?’ said Ruby.
    ‘I wanted to surprise you.’
    ‘Why?’
    By way of an answer, Daddy swaggered across the room towards her.
    Ching. Ching. Ching.
    Ruby frowned at his feet, and then gasped. ‘Spurs!’
    ‘Not just any old spurs,’ he grinned. ‘Jingle Bobs.’ He lifted his heel to show her, spinning the spiked wheel that jingled like sleigh bells. ‘Those little metal bits? That’s the clappers. That’s what makes the noise, you see?’
    He put his foot down and did a little dance to make them ring.
    ‘Wo-ow!’ Ruby climbed back over the sofa and bent to