Free The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir by John Mitchell

with you forever.”
    “Of course, wee Johnny. Of course. You are my boy. My bonny, bonny boy. Forever and ever. My boy.”
    “Can I go with you to see a man about a dog?”
    “Och, there you go again, saying the funniest things!”
    “I want to go with you. I want to be with you, Daddy. I want to be with you forever and ever and ever!”
    “You will, wee Johnny. You will, my dear, wee boy. Forever and ever.”

19
    W e will never be cold and hungry again. Miss Jones said there are really hot places in other parts of the world where it never snows and you can walk around in nothing but your underwear all day if you want. She said they have bananas and coconuts growing on trees and you can just reach up and take one—and no one even cares. And they have flying fish that jump right out of the ocean onto your plate for you to eat. One of those places is called Australia and it’s right under our feet. If we could dig all the way through the earth we would be there and we would never be cold and we would have as much food as we want to eat.
    I have therefore started digging to Australia.
    I told Emily she has to help me. She was not very happy about that because it’s so cold outside but I can’t dig all the way to Australia on my own—any fool would know that. So I said she could use the hammer and I would use the coal shovel. But the ground in our back garden is very hard and Mum said that’s because it’s the middle of bloody winter and it’s frozen solid. And I said that’s why we need to dig our way to Australia and then we will never be cold again. Mum said that’s a very good idea because we’ve run out of coal for the fire and she hasn’t seen my dad for three days.
    We had only been digging for about an hour in the dark when those men started banging on our front door. Mum was in the backyard with us when all that noise started. She told us to wait in the backyard but we didn’t and even though our shoes were covered in mud, we ran through the house after her. We took the hammer and coal shovel with us.
    Those men were not very nice and they shouted at my mum because they said my dad has got their money and it’s in a biscuit tin under my mum’s bed.
    “There’s no biscuit tin under my bloomin’ bed!” Mum shouted back at them.
    But they never listened. They said Dad told them all their money was in a safe place and a biscuit tin under your bed is a very safe place. So they pushed past my mum and ran down the dark passageway to the stairs. Mum grabbed the coal shovel from me and ran after them. I grabbed the hammer from Emily and ran after my mum. Emily screamed—the way girls do.
    We chased them all the way up the stairs and the fat one got his foot caught in that hole at the top of the stairs and serves him right. And I thought he would have to stay there for the rest of his life with his foot caught in that hole. But he pulled it out just like that so it isn’t true that your foot will be stuck forever.
    Well, Mum was just as surprised as me when one of them shouted out that he had found the biscuit tin under her bed. Of course, it was really dark in the bedroom and anyone could make the mistake of thinking it was a biscuit tin when it was, in fact, my dad’s piss pot. And it made the man very angry when he found out it wasn’t a biscuit tin full of money but was a piss pot full of piss and all the piss splashed on him and the other man.
    My dad hates emptying that piss pot.
    “We’ll be back! Mark my words! We’ll be back, and this time we will have the police with us. Do you understand? We want our money! That thief will not get away with this!” they shouted and drove away in their big brown Humphries van.
    Mum said it was bloody obvious that my dad had not hidden a biscuit tin full of money under her bed. No one listens. And anyway, if there was any money in the house, she would use it to buy coal for our fire and then we wouldn’t be freezing to death. Yes, and we would not have to