Shirley Temple’s Ghost: One of the “Old Six”

13th November 2014

My grandma, Nama, and I are travelling around in an RV. We are trying to figure out how to use the bathroom in it as it’s all hidden. As we’re searching, the RV gets bigger and bigger, finally turning into a large pink bathroom with a spa/bath that has a lid on it. But you have to squeeze through an opening in a small cupboard to get there. We spend our first night in the RV, and Nama decides that we should go north and visit her old friends, the Walcotts in rural Michigan for a party they’re hosting.

We arrive at the party and we need to figure out how to hook up the water/waste to the RV. To do so, I have to climb up this big, man made hill that drops off abruptly and forms 3 really large dam-like sewer openings. I have to jump over them…and I land on one. As I’m clambering up this concrete sewer opening, water starts gushing out of it and the slope gets steeper and steeper until I’m hanging off a metal rod jutting from the concrete. I complain about how dangerous this is, and that someone or someone’s pets could be killed!

One of the girls helps me finish hooking everything up as guests start arriving for the party. There are young boys and girls there as well, and some boys are getting kicked out for stealing pies and the girls are sitting around some old wood swings hanging from a tree in front of a dilapidated old farm house. I walk past everyone and into the RV, where I find Danny and Uncle Dan sitting in the RV watching TV and eating doritos. I start to rummage through one of the drawers looking for clothes and I come across this dissolving bag of black dusty rubbish, I grab it to bring it outside and notice those girls again sitting in the swings.

I go up to them, and ask them what they’re doing. They’re telling old ghost stories about the house and the “old six” that used to live there. They’re wondering if they head inside if they’ll see anything spooky. Allie, my sister, is one of them. She gets off the swing to re-join the party and as she moves I see the ghost of Shirley Temple behind her and walks up to Allie’s empty swing. We start having a chat but after a minute she just kind of stares into space saying that she’s going to sit here and wait for Jake.

I ditch Shirley and head inside to the stupid RV again to look for new clothes…again. Uncle Dan and Danny are still in there, this time bickering about the TV this time which keeps changing places on the shelf. I throw my hands in the air and head outside to help clean up after the party. While I’m out there, I’m talking to Shirley about why she’s here, what’s the old six, who’s Jake…she doesn’t answer though. I wake up.

Picture this as the sewer drain but right in a lush green grassy hill and square…and then 2 more of them bigger than you are tall.

Kind of what the farm house looked like