When Mum got home we told her all about it. I wanted to go next door at once, bang on the door and demand my prize back. But she wouldn’t let me.
“Emily, listen. You’ve got absolutely no proof she took it – none at all. Maybe it fell out of your pocket. Have you thought of that? The first thing we do is report it missing. Perhaps somebody found it and handed it in.”
“And if not?”
“Then we’ll write to the Tourist Board, or the railway. I don’t know… they might cancel the ticket and send you another one, if they’re feeling generous.”
“What would happen then, if Emily used the stolen ticket? Would she get arrested?”
“Didn’t I tell you, forget about Emily unless you get some kind of proof? Wild accusations are not proof. Just because you don’t like someone doesn’t mean they’re a thief.”
Tom said, “Don’t worry, I bet you a quid it gets handed in by the end of the week.”
I won the bet. It wasn’t handed in.
I rang Denise and told her what had happened.
“I’ve had enough of this ‘love your enemy’ stuff. It’s no use. Doesn’t work.”
“What d’you mean, doesn’t work?”
“I thought if I was nice to her, she’d be nice to me. And she was, for a bit. Well, at least we were talking. But now see what she’s done! The Bible was wrong!”
“Wait a minute, it didn’t say…”
“I told you it must be a misprint, didn’t I?”
“It didn’t say, love your…”
“Well, I’m not going to bother any more. I’m going back to hating my enemies.”
“Emily! Shut up just for one second, will you? Jesus didn’t say love your enemies and then they’ll love you.”
“Didn’t he?”
“Not when he already knew his own enemies were going to end up killing him. It wouldn’t have made sense. Would it?”
“Oh, I thought…”
“Hold on. I want to check exactly what he did say.”
I held on, hoping this wasn’t going to use up all the credit on my mobile.
Denise picked up her phone again. “This is what it actually says: ‘Love your enemies, do good to them… then your reward will be great, and you will be God’s children’.”
“It’s still not right. Your reward will be great? What’s so great about having my prize nicked off me?”
“Maybe it means in heaven. You’ll get your reward in heaven.”
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” I said.
I felt angry and mixed-up inside. God seemed a long way away – if there was a God. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe all believers were just idiots.
***
“What do you think Mum meant by proof, exactly?” I asked Tom.
Mum had gone out for the evening. She had a date with a man! “Oh, he’s nobody special, just someone from work,” she’d said, but she still spent about two hours deciding what to wear.
It was quite cosy, just Tom and me, with a packet of chocolate digestives and a horror movie. Tom had borrowed the DVD from a friend at school. (“And if you tell Mum, I’ll cut you up bit by bit, fry you and eat you.”)
“Proof about what?” Tom said absently.
“Oh, you know… Emily stealing my prize.”
He thought for a moment. “I suppose you’d need to find it in her possession – find where she hid it, that means.”
“How do I do that? Break into her house?”
“Hmmm… difficult! But maybe it wouldn’t be in her house, especially if she has the sort of mum that hoovers and dusts all the time.”
“But that means it could be anywhere!”
“I’ve just remembered something,” he said. “Ages ago, I was up the hill with Matt, getting some sheep in, and I saw her in the distance. You’ll never guess where.”
“In the graveyard? Digging up bodies?”
“Emily! This movie must be affecting your brain… No, she was going up the track that leads to the old mines. Matt thought it was odd at the time. There aren’t any houses or farms or anything up that way.”
“You mean she could have a secret den somewhere!”
“Yeah. That valley would be perfect. Nobody ever goes up there, except for the sheep.”
“I’m going to follow her next time she goes out,” I said. “Jenny’s coming round on Saturday – she’ll help.”
Soon I got bored with the horror film and went up to bed. I lay awake for a while, making plans. I was just drifting off to sleep, when…
What was that? Someone screaming?
I sat up in bed. The sound had come from downstairs… Oh yes, of course, it must be Tom’s DVD.
Then I heard a door slam – that sounded much nearer. At the same time, there was a movement in the corner of my room. The door of my cupboard slowly, gently swung open…
I sat frozen. My room was almost dark. The inside of the cupboard was blacker than the deepest black hole in outer space. What was in there? Was it coming out?
What came out, after a moment, was the voice of the ghost. It was like the last time – the heartbroken cry, the endless sobbing that would never be comforted – it went on and on, and I could not bear it… I could not bear it.
Mum, come back quick! Get rid of it like last time!
But no one came.
Oh God, help me – oh God, help me. Make it stop. Show me what to do.
After a minute I remembered Tom downstairs. Trembling, I got out of bed – this meant going past that awful door – and slipped silently down. I touched Tom’s shoulder and he jumped about a mile in the air.
“Oh, it’s you! What d’you go and do that for?”
“Tom… the ghost… it’s come back!”
He sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t let you watch this movie. You’ve been dreaming about it, haven’t you?”
“No, it’s really there. It’s in my cupboard…”
“A haunted cupboard? That’s new.” He got up. “OK, let’s see it.”
When he reached my bedroom door he stopped suddenly, and I knew he had heard it. Then he went slowly into the room. I thought he was incredibly brave. From the doorway I watched him go right up to the cupboard and look in.
“There’s nothing to see,” he whispered, coming out of the room. “But you’re right. It does sound like it’s in the cupboard…”
“Put the light on,” I begged.
“No, wait, I want to try something.”
He went back in and I followed. I was sweating all over. Downstairs another horror victim was screaming, but scarier by far was the noise in my room. It was quieter now, like a child who’s cried so much that no tears are left… Oh, stop! Please stop!
Tom went right into the cupboard, which was just about big enough to stand up in. He knocked on the wall at the back of it, quite loudly, three times. And at once the crying stopped.
We held our breath. There was a tiny scuffling sound, and then silence.
Tom beckoned me into his own room. He said quietly, “It isn’t a ghost.”
“W-what is it then?”
“I think it’s somebody locked in a cupboard – another cupboard right next to yours, in Emily’s house.”