When Ignatius McFairyman woke that morning he didn’t know the task he was about to be called upon to pursue what would involve a visit to Disneyland and his first encounter with a ghost like no other.
Ignatius had fallen into ghost hunting. It wasn’t his first choice of a career. He had spent a lot of years as a fairy hunter undercover in the garden of a certain fairy community. All his efforts had come to naught.
This job however intrigued him. His brief was to find the ghost of Malcus Overtopper, the one time owner of the Haunted House, in the days before Disney acquired it and moved it to his theme park.
It seemed in recent times that Malcus had come out of hiding and was not at all happy that his house was now public property.
As far as his experience with ghosts went Ignatius was accustomed to the unusual happening. He expected that as he approached the old haunted house.
He found his way inside and observed: food on the kitchen table, washing up not done, a chair kicked over.
All this was so very unusual as Malcus had a reputation as a fastidious man; anal about cleanliness and the present state of the kitchen was a long way from that.
Ignatius looked around and noticed a small man sitting at the end of the kitchen table. He was impeccably dressed and was sipping a cup of tea.
‘Cup of tea?’ Asked the man.
Ignatius looked at him and realised this man was transparent.
‘Yes I know,’ he said, ‘Its all a bit sad isn’t it I’ve been reduced to a shadow of my former self.’
If this was Malcus Overtopper then he was not as Ignatius imagined him.
This man, what was there was of him was not a happy chappie in any way. In the silence that followed he sipped and slurped his tea, stopping to take a bite of a buttered scone.
‘Its all become a bit pointless,’ he said. ‘Since they arrived there doesn’t seem to be a place here for me.’
Ignatius was about to question Malcus when he noticed movement behind him.
A small man with very sharp features and pointy ears carrying a sign with a large number 2 painted on it.
Behind him came a troupe of smaller people each with a backpack walking in twos one holding the others hand. Above them hovered the most captivating of pink fairies.
‘Another tour group,’ whined Malcus. ‘They keep coming ever since those cursed pink fairies took over.
I’m feeling very redundant.’ complained Malcus.
Ignatius was also at a lose. After all these years of fairy hunting here they were inside Disney’s Haunted House.
‘Its humiliating,’ said Malcus ‘After all these years just me in this house these creatures turn up and take over…..its all Disney’s fault you know him and his magic kingdom, I wish he’d left the place to rot on the old allotment and me along with it rather than suffer this indignity.’
He looked so forlorn at that moment.
‘You know the pink fairies have banned me from some rooms. Me! It’s my house.’
Ignatius was curious to find out why he had been banned.
‘They have converted some of the rooms to exhibit halls. There’s Russian one, an English one even an Australian one complete with ferns…..last week a mob of them arrived all the way from Australia can you imagine how irritating it was having a bunch of those creatures flitting around the place saying ‘G’day’ every ten seconds. I couldn’t wait to see the back of them. As it is they sat around in their exhibit with the French fairies singing Waltzing Matilda until the small hours all drunk on some beveridge they brought in with them.
The tone of the place has changed. Its no place for a self respecting ghost anymore I’m thinking of moving out.’
It was clear to Ignatius that his work here was not to remove Malcus but to save him.
As he left that day to formulate a plan to rescue Malcus from the pink fairies he couldn’t help but smile at the sound of the fairies in their respective exhibits singing, albeit badly, the songs one associates with the regions they had come from.
In the front room he could hear the jingle of fairy coins as the pink fairies counted the extent of their newfound wealth.
Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/fairy-tale-april-10th-2015-ghost-hunting/
Morpethroad 