THE TEN COOLEST THINGS WE PUT IN OUR HAUNTED HOUSE

Can you guess who came up with these plans for our haunted house? Try to figure it out as you read each one. Good luck! I hope you get all ten right.

1.   We hung the black light on the skeleton’s ribs, so the entire bony dude glowed a creepy whitish-purplish colour.

2.   We tied all the rubber spiders on to Ashley’s dad’s fishing rod and hung it in the corner, so when people walked past, we could drop the spiders into their hair. That would make the hair on their necks stand to attention.

3.   We recorded Frankie’s scary howl on a tape recorder. Then we slowed the tape recorder down so when we played it back, the howls turned into spine-chilling shrieks.

4.   We peeled grapes so they had the perfect texture for eyeballs and put them in a bowl of slimy egg whites as if the eyeballs had just spewed their gooey insides into the bowl.

5.   We made a human brain by boiling spaghetti until it was mushy and mixing it with Marshmallow Fluff so the brain would stick to kids’ fingers when they touched it. Nobody wants to walk around with grey matter stuck to their fingers.

6.   We lined my old Mets cap with clingfilm and put the brain mixture in it. When kids stuck their hands in that hat, they would think someone had taken their hat off and that their brain had come off with it. (I’m even grossing myself out now.)

7.   We made Emily’s bedsheet into a ghost, and then we put a fan under it, so it would billow out and look like it was about to take off and fly around the room.

8.   We went through three large economy-sized bottles of ketchup, covering anything you can think of with fake ketchup blood – including a roasting fork, gauze bandages and an old vest of my dad’s.

9.   We saved the last bottle of ketchup to add a bloody spot to the ghost’s chest area, where its heart would have been.

10. We put Ashley’s head through the cardboard from my Italian table costume. Then we squirted Ashley’s cheeks with ketchup and threw a napkin over her head. We gave her a torch to hold under her chin whenever someone uncovered her head.

Answer Key

1.   Hank***

2.   Hank***

3.   Hank***

4.   Hank*** (although Ashley peeled the grapes)

5.   Hank***

6.   Hank***

7.   Hank*** (Frankie pulled the sheet off the bed)

8.   Hank***

9.   Hank***

10. Hank***

*** I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m bragging, taking the credit for all the ideas, but I felt really proud of them. It’s not every day that I actually get to say I’m proud of my brain. So excuse me for getting a little excited.