Free Tthe Sleepover Club on the Beach by Angie Bates

about?”
    “Yes, this is Lyndsey,” said my uncle.
    “I suppose she’s come to see Eeyore here.” The old man gave me a searching look. “Pretty little old boy, in’t he?”
    “He’s beautiful,” I said with feeling. But I couldn’t help saying, “Why ever did you call him Eeyore?”
    Because if that pony was mine, I’d have named him something really lovely, not called him after some gloomy donkey.
    The old man laughed, a rather rusty laugh, as if he didn’t get much practice. “Oh Lord, he weren’t mine to name, dear. He belongs to my granddaughter, Amy. She’s been in the hospital these last three months. We’ve all been right worried about her. I promised I’d take care of Eeyore for her while she was poorly, but today we’ve just had some good news, and she’s a-coming out next Friday.”
    “Ohh,” I said. “So that’s why you—”
    Then I went bright red. I’d been going to say, “So THAT’S why you were looking so bad-tempered.”
    Instead I said hastily, “So that’s why you’re up and down the lane all the time.”
    “You like horses, then, do you, Lyndsey?” he asked.
    “I
love
them,” I said. “I go riding every chance I get.”
    “You want to come back in a few months,” he suggested to my surprise. “We’re a-going to break that little pony in, when Amy gets her strength back. You and she can maybe get together.”
    While we were chatting by the gate, the sweetest thing happened. Like all horses, the dream horse was really nosy. He came sidling up, to see what was going on, whiffling his super-sensitive nostrils.
    “Let him smell your hand,” said the old man. “Go on, let him know you’re his friend.”
    Very slowly I reached out my hand, and to my delight Eeyore actually brushed it with his velvety nose, then danced away on his gangly foal legs.
    I touched my hand to my cheek. I couldn’t stop smiling.
    “We’d better go,” said Uncle Phil. “Your mum’s waiting.”
    I started pushing my bike up the hill. “Erm, I’m really glad Amy’s getting better,” I called. “I’d like to meet her when I come again.”
    The old man gave me a brief wave. He still looked like a big elderly ted, but he didn’t look nearly so villainous somehow.
    That’s a major difference between our world and the book world where villains are instantly recognisable because of their rat-like features. In our world you probably pass villains in the street all the time and never know it.
    When we reached Willow Cottage, Uncle Phil said to run and tell Mum I was back, while he put the bikes away.
    But when I walked in through the front door, there was nobody there. I wandered in and out of the rooms calling, but no-one answered.
    I started to get slightly spooked. It was like they’d all vanished off the face of the earth.
    I’d just decided to go across to the stable cottage to see if they were there, when I heard the tiniest movement behind me.
    I spun around – and found myself two metres away from the ghost.
    OK, as ghosts go it wasn’t incredibly old fashioned, but a ghost is a ghost, right? And the fact that this ghost was a freckle-faced boy, about my own age, wearing baggy 1940s shorts and tragic beige knitwear, didn’t make it any less terrifying.
    It made it worse, actually. It was like I was being haunted by a character from the Thingybobby books!
    I just stood there, gawping at him, almost fainting with fright. Suddenly he put his hand into his pocket. For a moment I thought he was going to hand me a toffee, or perhaps (eek!) give me a hold of his pet rat. Instead he pulled out a large home-made catapult.
    “Don’t shoot!” I squeaked ridiculously.
    “Oh, ha ha, great joke,” he snorted. “My parents won’t even let me fire it at a tin can.” He scowled. “That’s just SO typical. They drag me into the middle of nowhere to takepart in some stupid historical reconstruction, and make me wear these stupid prickly clothes, and they STILL never let me have any