Out of the back of the truck came not one, not two, not three, but four beautiful horses.

  “Horses!” squealed Crissie. “They have horses we can ride. And look! That one’s spotted.” She pointed at a white horse that had brown spots.

  “That’s called an Appaloosa,” Cassie told her. Cassie knew all sorts of things about lots of different stuff because she liked to read lots of books.

  But the horses were very tall.

  “How are you going to get on top of them?” asked Carla.

  Crissie thought about it. “I will just need to get on when they are near a fence.”

  But the horses weren’t near a fence yet, so she would have to wait.

  The boys returned. “Mum, this house is haunted right?” Benjamin asked. “Especially the room with the yellow wallpaper.”

  “It’s not,” his younger brother Byron cried. “You’re just saying that cause I picked that room first.”

  “Am not,” said Benjamin.

  “Are too,” said Byron.

  Their mum threw her hands in the air. “Boys! Boys! It’s not haunted.”

  “See,” said Byron.

  “But what about the writing on the wall when we came to look at it before?” Benjamin insisted.

  “Vandals,” replied his dad.

  “But they’ve done it again and the house has been all locked up,” said Benjamin.

  “You’re lying,” said Byron.

  “Am not.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Are too.”

  “BOYS!” shouted their mum.

  Both of them went instantly quiet.

  “If either of you has been drawing on the walls you’ll be in very big trouble.”

  Both boys shook their heads very rapidly.

  “Probably vandals got in again,” said their dad. “I’ll go take a look. The real estate agent said that it’s just local kids and that it should stop once the house is lived in again.”

  “But we live in it,” said Cassie. “This is our house.”

  But only her sisters could hear her.

  “What have they written?” asked the boys’ mum once their dad had returned.

  “It’s very strange. I don’t understand kids today at all,” the boys’ dad said. “They wrote the word ‘fluffy’.”

  Callie burst into a fit of giggles. “Fluffy! Fluffy! Fluffy!” she cried as she danced right through all the members of the newly arrived family. Not around them. Not beside them. But right through them.

  The dad shivered. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this cold up here. Come on, boys, let’s get everything unpacked as fast as we can.”

  “See, there are ghosts,” whispered Benjamin to his brother.

  Byron gave the front of the farmhouse a worried look.

  “I’m not afraid of ghosts though,” Benjamin declared proudly. “I’ll even sleep in the haunted room.”

  “No!” Byron stamped his foot. “That’s my room.”

  “No!” squealed Callie. “It’s mine.”

  The family put the horses into one of the front paddocks.

  “Gosh-darned rabbits!” cursed Benjamin’s mum when she nearly tripped over a rabbit hole.

  They got started unloading the next truck, which was considerably less interesting as it contained only furniture.

  “Do you think they’ll have a TV we can watch?” asked Callie.

  Not long after they had first become ghosts, and before all their stuff had been cleared away, the girls had tried to change the channel on the TV. But whenever they had touched the box or the remote, the TV had gone all static-like as if it had really bad reception.

  “I hope so,” said Carla. “I think it will be nice to have people in the house again.”

  “No way. I don’t want to share our house with any stinky boys,” said Cassie. She ducked as a set of drawers was almost walked right through her. Cassie didn’t like when things went through her.

  Callie jumped up and down and nodded in agreement.

  Crissie was too busy looking at the horses though. She wouldn’t care who they had to share their house with if it meant she could ride a horse. And right now, the spotted one was standing right by the fence.

  Crissie went up to it, speaking to it softly.

  It’s ears twitched as if it could hear her.

  Carefully she climbed the fence.

  She reached one hand out but it was too far away to touch. She was going to have to jump if she wanted to ride it at all. Gently she tried coaxing it, but it did not move. Finally, she got herself ready to jump. She bent her knees. Then, all at once she leapt onto the back of the horse.

  Next thing she knew, Crissie fell right through the horse and landed on the ground with a THUMP!