Ghostly Tales for Ghastly Kids is a 1992 children's fantasy horror book of cautionary tales written by British author Jamie Rix and is the second book in the Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids series. It was published by André Deutsch and contains 15 short stories.
Synopsis
Grandmother's Footsteps The narrator cannot sleep because a long-fingernailed, messy-haired figure (presumably a man) is tormenting him outside of his window, promising to take him on a magic carpet ride to a magical breadstick land if he opens the window. Terrified, the narrator calls for his grandmother and tells her everything. They listen to the man's tapping outside and Grandma decides to distract the narrator with a ghost story. The story is about a boy named Jolyon, who is reading a book in his bedroom when he hears loud tapping from outside, which becomes faster and faster. He pulls his duvet over his head and watches the silhouette of a giant hand tap the window and smash the glass. He screamed in fear and his grandmother ran into the room, armed with a bedpan. The end.
The narrator is annoyed because Grandma promised a ghost would appear. Grandma explains that the tapping came from the branches of the apple tree moving in the wind and the storm caused the branch to break the window. As for the ghost, she says, "Here I am!" She walks towards the door, stops to take off her head, and disappears; outside, footsteps are heard fading away. The narrator does not sleep for a week.
Burgers Burgerskip is the most successful fast food chain in the world, particularly in the UK. At the end of every school day, children of all ages race out of school to meet with friends and grab their dinner at the Burgerskip in Crawley High Street, as the chain's mascot — a clown — watched over them. The clown is based on Burgerskip's CEO, Seamus O'Burger, who is planning to expand his fast-food empire even further as his helicopter team escorts him to the Amazon rainforest. O'Burger wants parts of it bulldozed so there will be more space for farmland, after his pilot suggests it to him. The next day, O'Burger leads a team of bulldozers through the forest, pushing over trees and pulling up flowers. O'Burger's Amazon guide realises the extent of his tourist's plans and begs him at break time not to cut any further. O'Burger ignores him as he eats his breakfast burger and orders the bulldozing team to continue. The guide refers to the tree opposite them, explaining the Amazonian tribes respect it as a deity named Panachek, the "heart and soul" of the rainforest. O'Burger notices that the team have become hesitant to follow his orders and cuts Panachek down with a chainsaw. Everyone and everything in the rest of the rainforest watches in mournful silence as the tree tips over dead and O'Burger stands triumphant.
The chain becomes so successful Burgerskip begins running out of supplies. O'Burger spends a lot of time with his helicopter team to travel around the world for more farmland space, whether forests have to be bulldozed or not. Meanwhile, in the UK, a little girl named Charlotte visits Crawley High Street's Burgerskip with her father. She orders a Jolly Burger with chips and takes a bite outside. She splutters and chokes and shows her father a tiny mahogany tree inside it. The news of the burger reaches Burgerskip headquarters and to O'Burger, who redirects the plane to make an emergency meeting with the board of directors. Terrified of disappointing their boss, the directors are hesitant to speak up but one stammers that similar tree burger complaints have reached their headquarters. The tour guide from the Amazonia enters the room and refers to outside the window. O'Burger looks out to see hundreds of Burgerskip buildings suspended in the air by trees. The tour guide explains that this is a part of Panachek's revenge for destroying the Amazon and that he is not finished with O'Burger yet. O'Burger jumps on the guide and attempts to strangle him but the boardroom starts to shake. The ghost of Panachek bursts through the floor, picks up O'Burger and shoots up into the sky.
An epilogue reveals that this was the last time O'Burger was seen alive and Burgerskip was ever successful. An Australian farmer later found a part of O'Burger's clown costume but the claim lacked evidence. The UK becomes the new rainforest where roasted parrot became a popular meal.
Tag One day, a boy in Terry Blotch's class arrives at school with a giant marble given to him from a Scottish grandmother for his birthday, which everyone on the playground gathers around to admire. Terry envies his friend's sudden popularity and is determined to make him cry. He sneaks into the classroom and steals a ring from the classmate's desk. This envy triggers a need for Terry to steal and he begins to shoplift from many stores, stealing a variety of items, and stealing from the streets, notably a dog. While hiding in a locker in an empty school changing room, Terry notices a sports bag containing a football kit belonging to "A. Phantom", according to the name tags. Terry snatches the kit, puts it on and leaves, and wears it for the rest of the day.
At home, the name tags cause blemishing rashes that would itch all over. By the next morning, Terry's face is covered in boils. His mother telephones for an emergency home doctor, who recommends he avoids eating junk food and to have a bath, assuming it is acne (although he admits he has no idea whether his hypothesis was accurate). Terry's mother suggests it is chickenpox when she notices the boils had spread all over her son's body but Terry knew no one who may have had the disease. "It's that football kit!" his mother cries and runs out of the bathroom. In bed days later, the boils begin to itch and Terry cannot resist scratching them. Each scratched boil explodes, covering his bedroom floor with thick pus, making him howl in pain. His mother rushes in, falling in the pus and gasps: her son's boils had disappeared and he had 1019 "A. Phantom" name tags sticking out of his body. The biggest (the 1020th) hung from the back of his neck which read "Thief". She tries to remove the tags with scissors but the name tags immediately regrow whenever she successfully cut them off. She demands to know what is going on so Terry reluctantly tells her about his secret shoplifting addiction.
Terry returns to school the next day, still covered with name tags. He sneaks into the changing room and puts the sports bag on the hook he stole it from and rushes out. The name tags disappear by lunchtime apart from "Thief", which soon falls off after a few days. Terry never steals again — the slightest itch will remind him of his humiliation, whenever he has a potential shoplifting opportunity — however, he has started getting lots of acne that is hard to get rid of.
The Locked Door Somewhere in an unspecified country is a house with a locked door that has not been opened in 75 years. Every midnight, blood trickles from a lightbulb, and screams for help and heavy thumps can be heard by anyone coincidentally awake. Many people who once lived alone in the house were found dead days later. It is bought by Matt and Jody, two deaf newly-weds from New Zealand, who give birth to a daughter they name Rosie. Rosie is not deaf and is fascinated by the mysterious locked door her parents refuse to open. One night, she disappears. The parents searched every creepy room of the house until the locked door is the only option. Matt kicks the door but the force makes the ceiling collapse in front of him. He looks up and sees baby Rosie looking through the hole back at him. From that evening, no one is allowed to go to the loft.
That has been three years ago, but Rosie suffers from nightmares since, and will wake up to the locked door's midnight sounds frequently. This, and being banned from the floor above, only fuels Rosie's curiosity even more. One midnight, Rosie wakes up to scratching and investigates her bedroom's fireplace. Dust shoots out and a voice begs for help; Rosie runs out of the room towards the locked door. A pale hand appears under the door with a key as a voice begs her to let them free. Rosie takes the key and unlocks it. Inside is an axe, broken furniture and wood. An old man with a long beard is standing behind her and thanks her. Rosie takes him to meet her parents and lets him eat sponge cake; Matt and Jody are expectantly shocked, and are surprised they can hear his voice. The old man explains he has been locked in the room for years and has spent nights chopping firewood, occasionally cutting his hand. He is most likely 115 years old. Rosie jumps into his lap and lands on the wooden chair.
A Tangled Web Nigel has a passion for torturing spiders, and a habit of clicking his tongue and daydreaming with his mouth open. He nicknames himself "Black Nigel" and will declare himself the spider that spiders fear, confusing (and sometimes annoying) his parents. One day, Ariadne, a pregnant spider, rushes into his bedroom to prepare for her labour. She runs towards the wardrobe to make a web at the top. Nigel hears her tiny footsteps and waits, picking up the jar he hides under his pillow. When Ariadne spins her web, Nigel swipes the jar across it, trapping her. Nigel screws the lid on and holds the jar against a candle flame, burning the spider alive. He dumps the corpse into a bin outside his window the bin men empty the next morning. At the landfill, the ghosts of the unborn babies are "born" and allow the wind to carry them through the town.
After Nigel is sent to bed for irritating his parents again, the spider ghosts float through his open bedroom window and into his open mouth. Hours later, Nigel wakes up with a tight chest as if he has a severe cold; through the night, the vengeful spider ghosts spin webs around his ribcage. Nigel coughs up a spider but only spots it after it had run across the bedsheets, only realising it came from him when he coughs up another. Nigel never opens his mouth again and he never does. He now spends a lot of free time knitting. He has no idea why he always knits webs as big as his bedroom. It is just instinct.
The Well Mr and Mrs Halley live in Wellsdeep cottage in Devon, which has an 1100-year-old well at the bottom of the garden, with a bottom. Mrs Halley wants her husband to cover the well before their two grandsons (Louis and Ben) arrive, who put their hands anywhere. In the morning, Mr Halley promises to do block it but by the afternoon, the boys arrive and the well is not covered. "I'll do it tomorrow," says Mr Halley when his wife confronts him. That night, Mr Halley feels tiny hands tickling his feet and touching his eyelids as he sleeps. He jumps out of bed and opens the curtains, and hears laughter coming from the well. He loudly vows to cover it before his wife reminds him that he is not wearing his . At sunrise, Mr Halley races to the well with measuring tape and a pencil but the tape falls down the well before he can read the measurement of the diameter. He has a tantrum, throws his hat after the tape, and tells his wife he will fix the well tomorrow with better equipment. At lunchtime, Louis and Ben run to the well to play Pirates; Louis sits in the well's bucket to imitate the crow's nest and Ben holds the rope. Mrs Halley runs to the well to stop them as Ben lets go, and grabs the rope before the bucket dropped too far. Mr Halley (who had been asleep inside throughout the incident) is woken up by his wife angrily pouring water over him and splutters that he will fix the well tomorrow.