The House — a short story for English reading and speaking

We all laughed when the landlady told us the story of the ghost.

“I expect you’ve all heard about this house,” she said. “And the ghost that occupies it.”

And we had heard the story. But we all put it down to this batty old woman and her son that lived with her.

The son who never spoke a single word to anyone and the big house the two of them lived in on the outskirts of town.

That house is haunted, other students at college said.

And the house was ancient. A crumbling old wreck of a place with large turrets and a big garden filled with high trees. It had all the appearances of a haunted house.

But the four of us moved in.

Me, Cathy, Luke and Martine.

We paid the first month’s rent, closed the door and cracked up laughing.

We thought nothing of this house being haunted. Or the stories that went around.

We just liked the fact that we had a huge place to live in, with a garden as big as the local park.

There was even a tennis court at the back.

“Maybe we should have the place checked out,” said Luke, as he took a box of books into his room.

“Who should we call?” I asked him. “Ghostbusters?”

And again we laughed.

That evening, we went to the pub. It was the first week back at college and everyone was in that first-semester feeling.

Happy to see college friends again. Happy to be back at college.

We all walked down the big hill to the main town and met a large group of other students in The Castle.

It was a fun evening. We had some drinks and some laughs.

Then around 11pm, we all decided to leave together.

On the way back, we talked about things people said in The Castle. Laughed at some of the comments the others had made.

We got to the house and Cathy pulled out her key to open the door.

We walked in and immediately heard a sound in the living room. A loud voice urgently talking about something.

Luke opened the living room door, and a bright light filled the room from the TV screen.

“Someone left the TV on,” said Luke.

Some middle-aged man with a serious expression. A late-night chat show with four people spouting their opinions about something.

Luke looked round at us, waiting for one of us to confess.

“Wasn’t me,” I said.

The two girls shook their heads.

“Well, someone left it on,” said Luke.

He picked the remote up and turned it off.

We thought nothing of it and went to bed.

Everything was fine in the house. No weird sightings of ghosts flying around or any other paranormal activity.

But sometimes the lights were turned on. Or off.

One time, all the heating was turned off.

We didn’t think there was a ghost, though. We put all these little events down to one of us doing it by mistake.

Or forgetting to turn lights off or whatever.

Then one morning, I got up a little earlier than usual. The others were all still sound asleep, and I went down to the kitchen to make some coffee.

I walked into the kitchen and every single cup, bowl, and plate that we owned was on the kitchen table.

Every last piece of crockery was taken out of the cupboards.

And not just put there. But piled on top of each other in precarious towers.

I stared at the cups and bowls in these weird arrangements in disbelief.

Now things were starting to get a bit weird.

There was a door at the back of the kitchen that led out to the garden. Not one of us had ever opened this door before, but when I reached for the doorknob, it opened.

It was unlocked.

I immediately assumed that it was the oddball son in the main house.

Him and his cranky old mother trying to freak us out by turning lights on and off or moving things around.

One by one, the others woke up and came downstairs. I told them what I had seen in the kitchen and we decided to have a word with the landlady.

Just to make sure she knew what was going on. And we were not going to accept it.

Me and Luke went to her house at the end of the drive. She answered the door, and we told her what I had seen in the kitchen.

We didn’t say that we thought her son was doing it, but we did imply that maybe someone was playing a trick on us.

“Have you seen anyone lurking around?” asked Luke.

The woman shook her head.

“It’s the ghost,” she said, staring us straight back in the eye. “I told you, the house is haunted.”

We went back to the house and told the girls what the landlady had said.

Now it was no longer funny.

Now we were starting to think that she was kind of deranged.

That weekend, we went into town again. We wanted to put whatever was going on in the house out of our minds.

We didn’t want to think about the landlady and her son.

I was absolutely convinced it was the two of them playing games with us.

We went to The Castle and had some drinks with friends.

I saw Martine talking to one of her classmates. She looked upset about what had been going on at our house.

Luke spoke to me alone.

“I think we need to leave that place,” he said. “That woman has lost her mind.”

I had to agree with him.

“Let’s tell the girls,” I said. “Tomorrow we can start looking for a new place.”

I felt relieved to have made a decision about the house. It was time to leave.

We could easily find another house to rent. One without an insane landlady and her weird son.

Later that evening, we walked back to the house.

Martine opened the front door and then froze.

“What’s the matter?” I asked her.

She didn’t speak. Just stood in the doorway, her eyes transfixed on the living room in front of her.

I stared into the semi-darkness and I could not believe what I saw.

The sofa, the two armchairs, and the coffee table hovered above the floor. Like they were suspended by invisible wires from the ceiling.

And the lamp spun around between them like some kind of toy plane.

And in the background, laughter. A cackling, gleeful laughter.