Chapter One: Mary Anne's Spooky Experience with Kids and a Vortex and Gets her Bra Snapped!
I pressed the doorbell and waited nervously. Suddenly Alan Grey appeared from the bushes and snapped my bra strap, then laughed in a high-pitched fashion and ran off.
"Calm blue ocean," I told myself, and smiled my least-nervous smile as the door opened for my admittance.
Not that the exterior of the house, number 666, Honted Hill, did much to reassure my jangling nerves. Oh sure, the stonework was nice, but I didn't much like the look of the gargoyles and the bell tower was frankly excessive. And that gardener dressed as a clown with spiked teeth didn't help matters. So I was glad to follow the butler into the cool gloomy interior.
"Hi there, Mary Anne, I'm Mrs. Von Sterbenhauser" said a voice from the living room. I went in. A tall, pale lady in a twinset and pearls was waiting. "Thank you so much for coming at such short notice. I don't know why our other babysitter had to cancel. Anyway, you're here now. These are my two children, Flossie and Billy Bob."
I turned as two kids came into the room.
"Gee, golly, gee whiz, it's our new babysitter, gosh!" said the boy, who looked about eight years old.
"Let's break out the cracklin's and deep-fried squirrel!" cried the little girl, who I guessed was about six years and three months, give or take a couple of days. I had a talent for knowing all about children. They loved me. I was after all ridiculously young to be babysitting.
The mom picked her way across the extensive graveyard in the backyard, and climbed into what looked suspiciously like a hearse. "Well I gotta go, I'm late for taxidermy club," she called. "The emergency numbers are in the secret passageway. Make sure the kids have juice and crackers for lunch. No squirrel till after dinner."
As the hearse lumbered away with Mrs. Von Sterbenhauaser in the back, the kids capered wildly around the living room. "Hey Billy Bob!" shrieked Flossie, "let's show the fresh meat – I mean, the babysitter, the house!"
Billy Bob took my hand. "Yeah, you gotta see my dad's laboratory," he said earnestly. "And the vaults! Oh, and we gotta vortex out that back that's, like, the coolest!"
While I allowed myself to be led down a series of dark passages, I mused to myself. There was something odd about these children and this house, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I shrugged it off. At least it was better than that family of naturists I had sat for in the hilarious adventures chronicled in #129, "Mary Anne Gets Naked".
As we turned a corner in the hallway, I heard a soft moaning coming from upstairs. "That sounds like Kristy in a car crash!" I said.
"Don't worry, it's just Tom the ghost," laughed Flossie.
At that point, a see-through old man floated down the stairs, hotly pursued by Harry Potter and Ron Weasley in a cameo appearance (A/N: when it's so long between Harry Potter books, they pay the bills by putting in cameos in other people's books. Duh.)
"Beware..." he moaned.
"Don't mind him," said Billy Bob anxiously. "He says that to everyone."
Flossie came to a halt in front of a set of large wrought-iron gates. They opened with a forbidding squeal, revealing a small room which was charmingly decorated with textured wall paper, a large vortex, and a couple of 1920s Tiffany lamps.
"Wow, nice vortex," I said politely.
Suddenly I realised that the children were looking at me kinda funny. Then I realised that there weren't the sweet innocent little tykes that I had originally thought. Mary Anne, I told myself, you've made an awfully big mistake. Their little grasping hands reached towards me and they cackled menacingly as I backed slowly away.
A slow dripping noise attracted my attention, and I looked upwards to see some sort of red, sticky, haemogoblin-rich liquid dripping from a crack in the ceiling. "Noo!" I howled, as I reached out for the wall, too late to save myself from slipping in the puddle and falling head first into the vortex.
(A/N: Ok, I don't know how vortexes work so I'll just make it up ok! Please R&R!)