DAY 8: Saturday
My skims: 1
Wriggler’s skims: 1
Days to becoming world champion: 31 (If I’m still alive.)
Today was the scariest day in history. Ever. Without doubt. Bar none.
Money made for tinnie: $0 ($735 to go.)
Wriggler was still worried about going back to the river in case we ran into that weird guy in the black suit again.
If we had a tinnie we could have floated past our skimming spot to check out if anyone was there. But we didn’t. Not yet anyway.
I had to creep down the path first to make sure no one was there. It was pretty windy and the branches on the bushes kept brushing into me, which made me doubly jumpy.
There wasn’t anyone around but it wasn’t a great day for skimming anyway. Wind is the pits when it comes to skimming. When there are too many waves on the water it becomes impossible to get the rocks to bounce more than once.
We gave up trying to skim and went to have another look in the deserted house. I found an old broken mirror on the floor. It was really dirty, and you could hardly see anything in it.
Then I came up with the best plan ever. It hit me like an angry kayaker. We would make a ghost film. That would make us our fortune on YouTube, as long as Wriggler didn’t delete it again.
I made Wriggler stand in front of one of the broken windows in one of the rooms that came off the hallway. Then I balanced the mirror on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. I had to get the angle exactly right. I put some rocks behind the mirror so it tilted down and Wrigs could just see himself in the dirty glass. Then I put some bricks around the mirror so you wouldn’t notice it.
The plan was that Wriggler would stay there while I raced out the front of the house. Standing outside what would have once been the front doorway, I’d point the camera at myself and say, ‘Locals claim this place is haunted, but I, Digger Field, ghost hunter, am here to prove that it’s a myth.’
Then I would walk into the house, videoing the falling-down walls and broken windows.
I’d say, ‘People believe that the spirit of an eleven-year-old boy haunts the house.’ Then I’d walk into the room Wriggler was in, making sure I didn’t film him standing in front of the window, and add, ‘He was killed here many years ago. But, as you can see, there’s no evidence that his ghost is still here.’
As I said this, I would pan the camera past the mirror on the wall, which you could hardly see because I’d camouflaged it so well.
Then I’d shout, ‘What’s that?’ and whip the camera back to the mirror. I’d zoom into a close-up of the mirror and shout, ‘There, just above the fireplace.’
In the close-up you would just be able to see Wriggler in the mirror through all the dirt. He would look like a ghost. He had to look straight into the mirror and then walk away so you wouldn’t see him any more.
I would hold the shot for a moment, scream and start running out of the room. Then the camera would stop mysteriously.
Sounds simple? It wasn’t. We spent hours trying to make it work. Once I tripped over some bricks on the floor as I walked into the house. A couple of times I got the words wrong. When I finally got the words right, Wriggler giggled like a goober. He looked more like a freak than a ghost.
But we finally filmed the whole thing all the way through without stuffing it up. Hollywood here we come! An Oscar was in the bag. Best Horror Movie by Someone Under Twelve Years Old.
We ran to my house to watch the video. We pressed ‘play’ and I popped up on the screen looking like a real television reporter. The camera panned around the rooms, then you could just see something above the fireplace, exactly as I’d planned.
Then the camera quickly whipped back. ‘What’s that?’ you could hear me say.
The camera zoomed in and you could make out the ghostly-looking figure of Wriggler. He was staring at the camera at exactly the right time. Then you could hear me scream and the camera started shaking as I ran out of the house. After that, the video mysteriously stopped. It was the scariest ghost film ever.
‘High five!’ I said to Wrigs but he left me hanging.
‘What’s that?’ he said. He was pointing at the screen. This time he really looked like a ghost. ‘Behind me. Go back, go back.’
I skipped back on the video to just where the camera zoomed in towards the mirror. I pressed ‘play’ just at the bit where Wriggler looks up at the mirror and then starts to walk off. The mirror trick worked a treat. Then there was something else.
As Wriggler walked off another person appeared behind him in the mirror.
The weird guy with the black suit and the briefcase was standing outside the house, watching Wriggler through the window. He was looking straight into the mirror and at the camera.
Just watching it made the biggest chill ever run up my spine. I had no idea what the man was doing there. Or how long he had been watching us. Or why we hadn’t noticed him.
I’m not sure I’ll ever go to the river again.