A Ghost Story for October

     My name is Lynn Schiffhorst, and I've been writing children's stories for a long time.  Last year, I published many of my stories on Kindle, but lots of people don't have a Kindle or know how to access it, so I decided to create a blog that will offer two children's stories a month, mainly for readers between the ages of eight and twelve.
     (If you want to learn something about me, you can easily google my name and read my Author's Page on Amazon.)
      Since this is October, I'm starting off with a story about a boy who's a wind and a girl who's a ghost.  There can never be too many ghost stories in this world!
   

                                 

GUSTY SEES A GHOST

                                               By Lynn Schiffhorst

 

      A wind named Gusty was chasing along behind his teenage brother.  “Bluster, wait for me!” he shouted.

     “Sorry, Squirt,” Bluster shouted back.  “I’m gonna roar over the ocean.  You can’t keep up.  Bye, Squirt,” called Bluster, as he picked up speed.  He was out of sight before Gusty could ask, “Can I hop on your back?”

     Gusty liked to play over the ocean too, but Mama wouldn’t let him go alone.  Why wouldn’t Bluster take him?  It wasn’t fair.

     Gusty got a bright idea.  “Maybe one of my cousins will take me,” he said to himself.  Gusty looked in all the ice caves where his cousins liked to play with their friends.  But the caves were empty.

      Disappointed, Gusty raced off to find Billow, his married sister.  He had just reached her igloo when Billow shot out the door.  A big sack was flapping over her shoulder.  “I can’t stop, Gusty,” panted Billow. “I’m after my twins.”

     Billow’s five-year-old twins, Howler and Growler, wouldn’t come when she called them.  Billow had to chase them.  When she found them, she tossed them into the sack.  If the twins were very bad, she used two sacks and bagged them up separately.  Howler and Growler hated that.

     Gusty watched Billow dash off.  He hoped she would find the twins before the twins found him.  He didn’t like Howler and Growler.  Most of the other winds didn’t like them either.  They called the twins “the Holy Terrors.”

     But Gusty was out of luck.  He had just reached the edge of the ice, when a little wind whizzed straight over his head while another little wind whizzed just beneath him.  Then they changed places with each other and whizzed over him and under him again.  And again.  It was a game Howler and Growler had invented called “buzzing.” 

     Gusty hated being buzzed.  He shouted, “Quit it!  Quit it!” 

     A polar bear was crossing the ice with her cubs.  With a loud roar, she raised herself up and waved a massive white paw at the twins.  She was telling them, “Stop bothering Gusty.”

     Paying no attention, Howler called out to his brother, “Let’s play hide and seek.” When he tore off, Growler followed.  Hide and seek was Gusty’s favorite game, but he wasn’t going to play it with the Holy Terrors.  

     Who could he play with?  Suddenly, he saw his twelve-year-old sister, Breezie.  “Breezie, take me somewhere.  Please take me somewhere.”

     “OK,” said Breezie.  She was in the mood to roar down a mountainside.

     Gusty hopped on her back, and off they went to the mountains. 

     When they got there, Gusty liked the look of the mountains.  They weren’t the highest ones with snow on top.  These were smaller.  They had dark green trees and bright green meadows growing along their sides. 

     On a rock close to the top of one of the mountains was something odd.  It looked like a sheet.  Gusty hopped off Breezie, so he could go and investigate.    

     When Gusty got a little lower, he saw that the sheet was moving on its own.  It was swinging its feet in the air.

     As he looked down, the Sheet looked up at him.  It had a face as well as feet, and the face was smiling.  The Sheet was a little girl. 

     “Hi,” shouted Gusty. 

     “Hi,” she shouted back.

     “I’m Gusty,” he called to her. 

     “I’m Giggle,” she called back.

     “I could blow you down there,” Gusty offered.  He meant into the valley between the mountains.  There was a village in the valley.  A river flowed through it, and in the center was a pretty stone church with a bell tower next to it. 

     “OK,” said Giggle.  She jumped up, stood at the edge of the rock and stretched out her arms.  “I’m ready!”

     Gusty got behind her and whooshed.  Up Giggle shot!  And off she flew!

     Bent double from laughing, she spun around and around like a wheel.  The air was filled with chuckles. 

     When she began to drift down toward the little village, she called up to Gusty,  “Do that again.”

     Gusty zoomed down and gave her a second, stronger whoosh.  At a dizzying speed, Giggle rocketed up, flopped over and zigzagged down through the soft air, past the trees and the meadows, into the streets of the village.

     “Bet you can’t find me,” she shouted to Gusty before she landed.  “Close your eyes and count to ten before you look.”

     Gusty closed his eyes and counted.  Then he opened his eyes.  He breezed around the streets, looking for Giggle.  As he flew over the river that flowed beside the longest street, a girl's voice called after him, “Cold!  You’re getting cold!”

     Not sure where the voice was coming from, Gusty went on a short distance.

     “Now you’re freezing!” chuckled the voice.

     Gusty made a U-turn.  He whooshed himself up the other side of the river.  When he reached the school, he saw a little patch of whiteness sticking out from the doorway.  “Gotcha!” he called.

     When Giggle heard him, she darted away from the school and sped along the sidewalk to the bridge.  Just as she put one foot on the bridge, Gusty whooshed again.  Up she went, flying into the sunny air.

     Tickled at playing such a great game, Gusty crossed over the bridge to puff at her from the opposite direction.  But she was quicker floating down than he thought she would be.  He lost her!

     “You-can’t-find-me,” chanted Giggle.  “Bet-you-can’t-find-me.”

     Gusty spun around.  Beneath him was a park with a grove of cherry trees in the middle.  The trees were masses of white bloom.  How could he find a white sheet in all those flowers?

     “Give up?” teased the voice.

     “No!” shouted Gusty.  But after he circled the trees until he was dizzy, he had to ask, “Giggle, where are you?”

     Giggle dropped down from a tree in the center of the grove.  Just as she ran to the edge and cried, “Here I am,” the bell in the church tower began to swing. 

    Bong, bong, bong.  It was three o’clock.

    “I have to go home now,” she said.  “Can you blow me up to my room?  I live there.”  She pointed to a window in the tower.

     “Sure,” said Gusty.  He puffed her up a short distance and huffed her sideways right through the window.   As she waved goodbye, Gusty called out, “Giggle, why are you wearing a sheet?”

     She said, “This isn’t a sheet.  It’s me.  I’m a ghost.”

     Two tall sheets popped up behind her.  They waved at Gusty too.  “Goodbye, Gusty,” they called.  “You can play with our daughter anytime.  You are very well-behaved.”

     As Gusty flew off to find Breezie, he shouted over his shoulder, “See you tomorrow, Giggle.”

      “You’ll have to catch me first,” she shouted back.

    

    (The end. . . for right now!  Check back later this month for more Giggle and Gusty.)