"They had been asleep about 2 hours when suddenly one of the girls woke up with a start. She was just about to close her eyes and go back to sleep when suddenly something made her look around the room again. This time she saw something to make her blood run cold. There, at the foot of the bed stood a man. She tried to scream but nothing came out of her mouth, she tried to shake her sister, but she couldn't move; the only thing she could do was watch this man. He was a very tall man and he wore a long black coat, black trousers, black shoes, and a very tall black hat. To her he looked just like the undertaker out of Oliver Twist. His hair was long and black and there was something about his eyes – they seemed to glow. Again she tried to move; and again she found that she couldn't. As she watched, the man slowly lent over her sister and looked at her, it wasn't a kind look; it was a long hard stare. Then, all at once, he walked, or rather seemed to drift away from the bed toward the wardrobe with the strange carvings. And as she continued to watch him he slowly turned, stared at her sister again and then floated through the wardrobe. All at once she screamed, her sister sat up and screamed too and, after a second or two, there was the sound of running feet along the corridor and into their room burst Mr and Mrs Gaskins. After trying, unsuccessfully to calm the girls down they eventually found out what the matter was. Susan told her parents what she had seen at the end of the bed and what the man had done; all the while her sister was going whiter and whiter. When she had finally finished her story and Mr Gaskins had checked the wardrobe to make sure the strange man wasn't inside, Susan's sister suddenly blurted out, I had a dream and I dreamt the same thing! A man came and peered at me with a cold hard stare and then floated through the wardrobe"
Becky and Jessica screamed!
"At this everyone in the room looked shocked and turned very pale." Tom continued, without pausing for breath. "Mr Gaskins asked again what the man looked like and as Susan and her sister described the man in as much detail as they could remember Mr Gaskins turned almost grey. He started walking around the room muttering to himself, and every now and again he would glance in the direction of the wardrobe as if he was afraid that the man would come back out any moment. Mrs Gaskin and the girls all started talking at once, asking him what the was matter, what they were going to do about the man and where they were going to sleep, but Mr Gaskins seemed not to hear them, he only carried on muttering to himself under his breath, something about beds and dark nights and undertakers and not being seen again."
Tom looked up and saw his two young cousins literally shaking, the wind was still howling outside, causing the branches of the nearest trees to pound against the side of the shed as if someone outside was trying to break in, the rain was still lashing down and the thunder and lightening, although not directly overhead now, was still very loud and very bright. He decided that he'd scared the girls enough so he just said.
"The only thing left to say is that the two girls in the story were your mum and my mum!"
By now the girls were so frightened that they couldn't look at him. Very slowly they moved, they stood up, and, edging round the walls of the shed, keeping as far away from the bed as they could, walked toward the door of the shed, clutching each other, to afraid to let go.
"Where are you going? You'll get soaked." Tom asked.
They didn't answer they just slowly opened the door and then ran through the windswept garden, along the rickety path towards Tumbledown House. The house seemed further away now and the path more uneven than it had that morning when they had left the house to play in the forest. The wind was so strong that if they slowed down to catch their breath it blew them back up the path away from the safety of Tumbledown House. It whipped around their faces reopening the cuts they had got escaping from the forest and making their eyes water, blurring their vision and making it even harder for them to see where they were going. As the tears trickled down their lacerated faces and penetrated the cuts it felt as if their faces were on fire. Eventually after what seemed like hours struggling towards the house the girls crashed thorough the kitchen door and stood in the kitchen, cold, bloody, dripping wet, crying and terrified.
Tom's mum looked up from her cooking and exclaimed!
"What's happened to you? You look terrible! Are you alright? What's Tom been doing to you? I told him to look after you!" As she said this she got up and hurried the girls out of their wet clothes and into warm towels and stood them by the fire, wiping the blood off their faces. "It's ok, your safe now dears. Tell me what happened." She said in a comforting, coaxing voice.