The Phantom Lollipop Man Read online

  One time something SERIOUSLY SPOOKY happened at our school and even though Jodi (that’s my best friend) wants to be an actual GHOST FINDER when she’s older, even SHE wasn’t FULLY PREPARED.

  It all started when the LOLLIPOP man went MISSING.

  Our friend Maisie said that the LOLLIPOP man might have gone on holiday to ROME.

  But then when we spoke to the OFFICE LADIES we found out that the LOLLIPOP man definitely HADN’T gone to Rome!

  And that’s when everything got really

  with the NEBULOUS CLOUD and KARLY-WITH-A-K and the FIRE ALARM and the BLACKOUT!

  Our other best friend, Zach, said we probably should have been wearing

  from DAY ONE and that if we had, I probably wouldn’t have ended up with HOLEY TIGHTS!

  Jodi said that we all had to become GHOST AWARE asap. Especially when we saw the

  And most people have never been to an actual GHOST PARTY in their lives.

  But we have.

  When we arrived at school on Monday, Maisie said, “Who’s THAT?” And then she pointed to the LOLLIPOP man.

  That’s when I saw that it wasn’t our normal LOLLIPOP man and that it was actually a LOLLIPOP LADY.

  So we all went over and Jodi said, “Who are you, please?” And I knew that she said “please” because of one time when we went to the takeaway around the corner from Jodi’s house and there was a new person serving the food and Jodi said, “Who are you?” and the new person said, “None of your business! Who are YOU?” And then Jodi’s mum made us wait outside while she

  with the new person and then she didn’t have to pay for the chips that day and she told Jodi that she should always say please when she asks who someone is.

  So anyway, the LOLLIPOP lady smiled at us and said, “I’m Mabel. Pleased to meet you.”

  And we all just looked at each other because the old LOLLIPOP man NEVER smiled at us and I don’t think he was really pleased about meeting any of us.

  So we asked Mabel if she knew what had happened to the old LOLLIPOP man but she said that she didn’t and that she was sorry and we said that was OK because it wasn’t her fault she didn’t know.

  Jodi said that maybe the LOLLIPOP man was off sick or something and I thought that she was probably right because the LOLLIPOP man was REALLY old and I was sure that he must’ve been almost one hundred years old. Maisie said that she hoped the LOLLIPOP man was OK because even though most people do not like the LOLLIPOP man because he’s

  and he shouts at us and waves his LOLLIPOP stick about if he doesn’t like the way we’re crossing the road, he seems to like Maisie and he even speaks to her a bit and asks us where she is when she’s not with us.

  So I said that he had probably just gone away for a long weekend like my gran does when she goes to Blackpool and Maisie smiled and said she thought I was right and that she hoped he had gone to Rome.

  But the LOLLIPOP man wasn’t back the next day. Or the day after that. And when we arrived at school on Friday and the LOLLIPOP man STILL wasn’t back Maisie said that she thought something had

  in Rome and that she could feel it in her BONES and that maybe the LOLLIPOP man had been

  Jodi looked at me and I looked at Jodi because we were both thinking the same thing. And that was that the LOLLIPOP man HADN’T been kidnapped in Rome and that he had probably been SACKED and REPLACED by the new, younger LOLLIPOP lady who actually SMILED at people and seemed not to hate everyone like the old LOLLIPOP man did.

  But before we could say anything Zach said, “I’ll ask Miss Jones,” and he got up and wandered over to Miss Jones’s desk.

  Maisie STARED at Miss Jones when Zach spoke to her and so did we because Miss Jones had a

  on her face and then she went a bit RED like the time she accidentally said a SWEAR when she couldn’t fit the school minibus into any of the parking spaces at Tesco when Gary Petrie needed a wee and people kept tooting their car horns at us.

  When Zach got back from Miss Jones’s desk he said that she didn’t know if the LOLLIPOP man was sick or not and that Miss Jones had seemed really

  when he asked her and that it seemed like she didn’t actually KNOW who he was talking about.

  We all thought it was a bit WEIRD that Miss Jones didn’t know who the LOLLIPOP man was because he’d been here since we were in Year One and maybe even before that.

  But Jodi said that Miss Jones probably never needed his help to cross the road because she always gets here really early and parks her car right outside the classroom. Then Jodi said she wasn’t sure grown-ups were even ALLOWED to use the LOLLIPOP man and that LOLLIPOP people were probably only allowed to help people who were under sixteen cross the road and that they probably even asked to see their passports as PROOF OF AGE.

  That’s when Maisie said we needed to ask

  why the LOLLIPOP man was missing and what hospital they thought he might have been taken to so that we could all go and visit at the weekend and take him some Lucozade and grapes.

  So at break we wandered around the playground asking people about the LOLLIPOP man. But nobody knew where he was. Then Jodi said, “That’s it. We’re going to have to ask the OFFICE LADIES. They’ll definitely know.”

  Maisie

  Even though Jodi was very right to say that the office ladies would know (because the office ladies know EVERYTHING!) it was still a bit of a dangerous thing to do because:

  When we got to the school office, Jodi said that she wasn’t going to be the one to go up to the glass window because she had been the one who came up with the idea to ask the office ladies and that it was someone else’s turn.

  So I just looked down at the ground and didn’t say anything because I was hoping Zach would say he would go because usually we just make him do it anyway.

  But then nobody said anything for ages and when I looked up I saw that Zach was looking down at the ground, too. And also that Maisie was covering her face with her hair.

  So that’s when I said, “Fine. I’ll go,” and I took a deep breath and walked over to the glass window and knocked on the wall beneath it because the window is too high up to reach. And my granddad says that that’s what the office ladies DEMANDED when the school was first being built and he knows that for a FACT because he helped build my school ages ago when he came back from The War.

  So anyway, the glass window slid open but before I could even say ONE WORD it SLAMMED SHUT again.

  I looked over at Jodi and she did her WIDE EYES at me so I took another deep breath and knocked on the wall again.

  When the glass door opened, I shouted,

  before it could shut again. That’s when one of the office ladies stuck her head out and I saw RIGHT up her nose.

  My hands were

  but I just wiped them on my skirt and said, “I’m really sorry but I need to ask you a question.” The office lady sighed REALLY loudly and then muttered something to one of the other office ladies inside the office and then THEY sighed, too. The office lady didn’t say anything after the sigh, but she didn’t close the glass door either, so that’s when I said, “Where’s the old LOLLIPOP man gone, please?”

  The office lady leaned out of the window further and I could see that she had a long, dark hair under her chin which was a bit weird because she was a lady and also because it was just one long hair and I wasn’t sure how it got there or why she didn’t just pull it out.

  Then she said, “Who?!”

  So I said, “There’s a new LOLLIPOP man that’s a lady. What happened to the old LOLLIPOP man?”

  The office lady slid the glass door shut and started whispering to the other office ladies inside. So I put my ear against the wall to try to hear what they were whispering about but I co
uldn’t.

  Then the other office lady stuck her head RIGHT out of the window and said, “The LOLLIPOP man has moved on.”

  And then she slammed the little door shut. And that’s when I heard

  Once the nurse EVENTUALLY let us in to see Maisie, I thought Maisie was going to tell us that she’d screamed and fainted into the big pot plant because she’d heard that the LOLLIPOP man had MOVED ON.

  But when we sat on the end of the little bed in the nurse’s office, Maisie said that she had gotten the

  when the office lady leaned out of the window because she thought the office lady had been trying to “get” me.

  I looked at Zach and Zach looked at Jodi because we knew that if Maisie HADN’T heard what the office ladies had said about the LOLLIPOP man MOVING ON, she didn’t realise that they obviously meant that the LOLLIPOP man had PASSED AWAY.

  Then Jodi said, “Maisie, why don’t you have a little rest and I’ll make sure Miss Jones knows where you are. We’ll come back and get you at lunchtime, OK?”

  Maisie nodded and Jodi gave us a LOOK

  and we knew that it meant that we shouldn’t tell Maisie about the LOLLIPOP man just now because she was already in a bit of a state about the scary office lady.

  Jodi went off to speak to the school nurse while me and Zach tucked Maisie in and poured her a juice.

  When we got outside Jodi said that she’d told the nurse that she should

  tell Maisie about the LOLLIPOP man passing away. And that the nurse hadn’t known about the LOLLIPOP man passing away. But when we went back to the nurse’s office at lunchtime, the nurse wasn’t there and neither was Maisie.

  So we went to the dinner hall to see if she was there. But she wasn’t. And she wasn’t in the toilets either.

  That’s when me and Zach started to PANIC but Jodi said,

  because Jodi is very good at calming everyone down when they start freaking out. Like the time we went to the museum and Jodi had to grab our old head teacher, Mr Murphy, by the arms and give him a bit of a shake because he started crying and screaming a bit when he couldn’t find Nola Burke, even though Nola Burke hadn’t even been on the trip that day because she’d had chicken pox.

  So anyway, that’s when Jodi said, “We need to get INSIDE MAISIE’S HEAD. Think, people! Where would Maisie go if she was scared?”

  And that’s when we knew where she’d be.

  We all RAN to The Den (which is our secret room under the stairs that go up to the boys’ toilets that no one except us knows about). But Maisie wasn’t there.

  Then Zach said that Maisie had probably seen the office lady again and started HYPERVENTILATING and been taken away by ambulance with an OXYGEN MASK on, like the time she found the DEAD MOUSE.

  But then all of a sudden we heard the SECRET KNOCK on The Den door, so Jodi did the secret knock back and then moved the chair away and opened the door and it was Maisie and she had a big smile on her face.

  We thought that she might be in SHOCK.

  And we knew that for a FACT when we asked Maisie where she had been because she said, “I went to say hello to Jack but by the time I got outside, he’d disappeared!”

  Zach asked Maisie if Jack was one of the PARAMEDICS who had helped her with the OXYGEN MASK.

  But Maisie shook her head and said, “Jack the LOLLIPOP man.

  Jodi gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.

  We all looked at each other but we had NO IDEA what to say because Maisie had clearly hit her head when she fainted into the big pot plant.

  I gently took Maisie’s hands and made her sit down on the floor of The Den and Jodi put the chair back against the door. And then she put a few boxes there too and I knew she did it so that Maisie couldn’t run away when we explained to her that she was

  Zach said that he was going to make Maisie a nice cup of tea (even though we don’t have a kettle and we just use cold water from the little sink and a tea bag, so it’s not really that nice actually).

  The WHOLE TIME Zach was making the tea Maisie kept talking about how happy she’d been when she spotted Jack through the window in the nurse’s office.

  I just smiled and nodded as Maisie chatted away because I didn’t know what else to do because she was obviously still having

  That’s when Maisie noticed that we were all behaving a bit strangely and also that Jodi was inspecting her head for LUMPS. Maisie asked us what was going on but Jodi just said, “NOTHING!” and then she began tidying up The Den and whistling loads.

  But Maisie KNEW that we were HIDING SOMETHING from her and she started to PANIC that it was something SCARY like when we had

  at our school.

  So that’s when Zach told her about the LOLLIPOP man moving on.

  But Maisie just shook her head and said, “You’re WRONG. I just saw him!”

  So Jodi stroked Maisie’s hair and said, “No, Maisie. You just THINK you saw him. You imagined it because you were in SHOCK after hitting your head on the pot plant.”

  That’s when Maisie said, “I DIDN’T imagine it! I saw him!”

  But Jodi said it didn’t really make sense because the school wouldn’t have needed the NEW LOLLIPOP lady if the LOLLIPOP man hadn’t MOVED ON.

  But Maisie stood up and said that we were COMPLETELY WRONG and that she had DEFINITELY seen him and that she was feeling FINE and that she was not SEEING THINGS because of the pot plant. So I explained that it had been the OFFICE LADY who had told us and that’s when Maisie

  She shook her head backwards and forwards for ages because she knew that the office ladies know EVERYTHING and that they are

  But then Zach said, “Erm … there might actually be a way that BOTH things are true. The LOLLIPOP man COULD have moved on AND Maisie could have just seen him.”

  Then Zach looked at me for AGES and I just KNEW what he was going to say before he said it and why he was looking specifically at ME.

  And that was because Zach knew he was about to say my

  And he did.

  Zach said, “I think the LOLLIPOP man might be a

  Usually everyone is trying to calm MAISIE down because she’s pretty much scared of EVERYTHING and one time she actually called 999 because someone sneezed on her arm.

  But this time everyone was trying to calm ME down because I was shaking my arms ALL OVER THE PLACE and I could hear

  but I didn’t realise until afterwards that it had been coming from me.

  Jodi put the palm of her hand against my head and said, “SLEEP!” because she’d seen that magician on TV do it to people when he hypnotises them and then does things like tell them everyone in the world is a ZOMBIE now and then they start freaking out.

  But it didn’t work.

  Then I heard Zach say that someone was going to have to SLAP me across the face to

  and then Jodi started counting down from five so I calmed down. Maisie sat next to me and showed me how to do the SPECIAL BREATHING TECHNIQUE that her doctor had shown her for when she has a PANIC ATTACK. And that worked a bit.

  But then Jodi said that we had to go looking for the phantom LOLLIPOP man to make sure we were right and that’s the last thing I remember.

  When I woke up I felt

  and I could hear whispering and the squeaky sound the Official Secret Meeting Pen makes on the little whiteboard that Jodi accidently stole.

  I sat up and realised that Maisie, Zach and Jodi were having a meeting about

  and also that I couldn’t move my arms or my legs!

  But then Maisie noticed that I was awake and she smiled and crawled over and started taking off all the blankets that were wrapped around me and I realised that I must have fainted and that Maisie had wrapped me up tight and let me have a little nap just like we do when she faints.

  It was

  being the one who had fainted and missing a bit of the secret meeting and I realised that that’s what Maisie must feel like all the time. Zach gave me a Twix and Jodi told me to eat it all for STRENGTH so that she co
uld update me on the CURRENT SITUATION. So I did.

  That’s when Jodi said that they’d been researching PHANTOMS on Zach’s phone.

  I looked at Maisie. She didn’t look scared at ALL (which was

  because she’d just seen

  Zach said that they’d managed to find out LOADS and that Jodi had even known TONNES OF STUFF before they started researching.

  Then Jodi turned the whiteboard around and it said:

  Then Jodi said that they’d planned a MISSION and also that it was happening in one minute.

  Maisie wasn’t scared AT ALL when we arrived at the janitor’s office.

  In fact, as soon as we got there she knocked on the door really loudly.

  We all knew that the LOLLIPOP man kept his LOLLIPOP stick in the janitor’s office when he wasn’t using it. And one time Gary Petrie even ran in and waved it about a bit and then ran out again.

  But no one answered the door and that was probably because the janitor had his little TV on REALLY loud and it was SO loud that I could actually tell that he was watching that programme where people give up their houses and jobs and coats and go live somewhere that’s sunny, like Africa or Benidorm.