This Halloween, Darcy’s parents set up a tent in the garden and make some spooky snacks for her and Dave.
Darcy is old enough to start enjoying the spooky side of Halloween, so the family plan an evening of ghost stories.
Darcy’s dad starts by telling the story of the little girl who didn’t do her homework and was taken away by a group of zombies because she wasn’t using her brain enough!
“You’re so not funny, dad! If you wanted to scare me into doing my homework you should have said that I couldn’t ride Dave for a week. That would be really horrible!”
Next, Darcy’s mum tells the story of the ghost pony.
“One day, a new pony arrives on the yard. It’s a beautiful grey mare with a long swishy mane and big blue eyes.
The other ponies on the yard whisper to each other about how different she looks.
“She’s definitely too clean to fit in around here,” says one of them. “Yeah, there’s no way she’ll look like that tomorrow. Let’s take her to the big muddy puddle and see if she wants to roll in it with us!” another pony laughs.
That night, when the humans have finished tidying the barn, they say goodnight to their ponies, turn off the lights and lock the doors.
After a few minutes, the ponies notice a light glowing from the end stable. They try to peer over their stable doors but they can’t quite see. All they know is that it’s coming from the new pony’s stable.
Suddenly, they hear the clip clop of hooves and see the glowing pony walking up the barn towards the door.
“How did you get out there?” one of them gasps! They look back at her stable and whisper “The stable door is still closed!”
By the time they’ve turned back to the grey pony, she’s disappeared!
“I don’t like this,” cries the little Shetland pony. “You’re supposed to be the brave one,” replies the chunky cob.
“I know, but horses aren’t supposed to just disappear into thin air! Our humans locked the doors, so where did she go?”
They stand there trembling for a few minutes until, suddenly, the grey pony appears in the barn again! They all jump and run to the back of their stables.
The Shetland pony decides to be brave for the sake of the others and says “W…w...where did you go? H…h…how did you get out?!”
The grey pony walks over to his stable and replies, “Didn’t you know I’m a ghost pony?!”
All of the ponies start screaming and running around their stables.
“Woahhh,” shouts the ghost pony, “calm down everyone! I’m not going to hurt you!”
“So what do you want?!” they reply, cowering in their stables.
“Well, I thought that because I’m a ghost and I can walk through walls, I’d go and fetch that big bag of apples the humans left on the yard today. Ta da!” she holds up a huge bag in her mouth and starts handing them out around the barn.
They all breathe a sigh of relief and munch their apples.
“This whole ghost stuff might not be such a bad thing after all,” the Shetland pony chuckles as he bites into his apple and sprays apple juice everywhere.
“Thanks for the treats… uh… what’s your name?” asks the chunky cob.
But when they look back over their stable doors, the ghost pony is nowhere to be seen…”
Darcy’s mum looks over at Dave and Darcy hiding behind their blanket and laughs.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the ghost pony? I would have thought you would like the idea of someone sneaking out to get you apples, Dave!”
“That does sound good,” he replies, “but I’m not sure about the glowing pony. It’s a bit too spooky for me!”
“Can we have one more story before bed, please?” asks Darcy.
“Only if you’re sure you won’t have nightmares!” her dad replies.
“We won’t!” Dave and Darcy say together, grinning.
Fun fact
When we humans say that a horse is ‘spooky’, it doesn’t mean that they are a scary horse, it means that they get scared easily. For example, lots of horses ‘spook’ when a plastic bag rustles in the wind. Dave is generally a brave horse, but he sometimes copies his friends – if one of the other horses gets frightened by something, Dave often has a delayed reaction and ‘jumps’ a few seconds later, even if he’s not really scared.
Horses are also quite irrational. For example, Dave isn’t scared of combine harvesters, which you would think look like big, terrifying machines to horses, but he will jump at a pigeon flying out of a tree!
If you liked this story, you’ll love the Dave and Darcy series, which you can purchase here.
I’d love to see your drawings to go with this short story! Please either tag me on social media (@loiskingscottauthor on Facebook or Instagram) or send a photo to lois@loiskingscottauthor.com and I’ll share the best ones on social media and this web page!
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