Read Online Goblins and Ghosties by Maggie Pearson - Free Book Online

size. Her head started spinning round and round. Faster and faster it spun, till it lifted clean off her shoulders. She held it up, spinning, on the tip of one finger.
    â€˜I can do that with a football,’ said Chang. ‘Do you fancy a game?’
    The ghost put her head back on. She opened her mouth wide, wide, wide.
    Chang covered his ears, expecting a scream, but what came out was a blast of ice-cold air, which gathered itself into a whirlwind.
    Curtains and carpets, dust and loose papers, books, cushions, anything not nailed down, were all swept up in a dizzy merry-go-round.
    Chang himself had to hang on to the nearest bookshelf to prevent being swept away.
    The air was sucked out of his lungs. He could hardly breathe. Yet he still managed to force out the words, ‘You’re still… not… scaring me!’
    The whirlwind died. The ghost had gone.
    The next thing Chang knew, his uncle was shaking him awake. ‘My boy! My boy! Thank heavens you’re still alive.’
    â€˜Of course I am,’ said Chang.
    â€˜What about the ghost?’
    â€˜What ghost? Oh, that ghost. No problem. Do you think I could borrow the key of the library tonight, uncle? I don’t want to get locked in again.’
    That night, there sat Chang in the library, determined not to fall asleep this time (in spite of another very good dinner). He wanted to see the ghost appear and how she did it.
    She came first in a cloud of evening mist, which darkened till it looked more like smoke. The smoke wreathed about, thicker in some places, thinner in others, till he could see a body forming, arms, legs, head and all.
    And there she was!
    â€˜Hello,’ said Chang.
    â€˜Oh, no!’ she scowled. ‘It’s that stupid boy again!’
    She stamped her foot, spun round three times and disappeared.
    And was never seen again.

Goldenhair
    Corsica
    She was a merchant’s daughter, not especially beautiful, apart from her long, golden hair. Everyone remarked on it when she was little. So soft, so fine, so fair! As she got older and young men started taking an interest, her mother always made sure it was tightly braided and pinned up in a modest coil on top of her head whenever she went out.
    At home though, when she shook it out and sat in the garden combing it in the cool of the evening by the light of the setting sun, that hair was like a river of shimmering molten gold.
    Count Rinaldo saw it as he was riding by on his way home from terrorizing a few of his peasant farmers and decided at once to marry her.
    Her father was delighted. ‘Think of the business he’ll bring me!’
    Her mother was over the moon. ‘To think of hob-nobbing with the nobility!’
    â€˜But he’s horrible!’ cried Goldenhair. ‘He’s mean and cruel and miserly. Even his dog’s afraid of him!’
    All of which was true. On top of that, she was in love with Joseph, who was nothing but a common soldier.
    Marry a common soldier? Out of the question! Maybe if he rose to be an officer, they’d consider it.
    â€˜But I love him!’ sobbed Goldenhair.
    â€˜What’s love got to do with it?’ sniffed her mother. ‘Do you think I married your father for love?’
    â€˜ Well, I won’t marry anyone else,’ said Goldenhair. ‘And certainly not Count Rinaldo! If it’s my hair he wants, I’ll cut it off now, this minute, and you can box it up with a pretty bow on top and send it to him.’
    â€˜Now you’re just being silly,’ said her mother.
    Count Rinaldo was used to getting his own way. Step one of his plan was to get rid of his rival. He lay in wait for Joseph one dark night, but things didn’t go quite as he expected. At the end of a short, sharp fight, it was Count Rinaldo who lay dying in a pool of blood, so he never got the chance to move on to step two.
    Poor Joseph, meanwhile, having killed a nobleman, even if it was in self-defence, had to