1. The vampire house
By Jess
One afternoon in a small house by a river, four foster sisters
carried their suitcases upstairs. “Race you there!” Angel
called, breaking into a run. She won the race, obviously. The
oldest girls, Angel, who was 15, and Amelia, who was 14,
claimed the largest room in the house. 13-year-old Alice and
twelve year old Aelita, the two more sensible sisters,
reluctantly managed to fit all their belongings in the tiny box
room.
They settled into their rooms. Even though it was small,
Aelita fit in quite well, as she was only twelve. Alice was small
for a thirteen year old so she just about fit. Angel squeezed in
to the room and smirked at them. “I don’t know how you’ll
survive living in this room,” she told them, flipping her hair
and laughing. “But anyway, I heard there’s a haunted house
on the hill…”
Aelita stopped and the CDs dropped out of her hands, and
sprawled out on the floor. Alice knocked some books off her
shelf, but none of them cared. A haunted house?
Alice broke the silence by saying, “Ghosts aren’t real, Angel. I
thought you knew that.”
Aelita let out a sigh of relief.
“No, it’s in the newspaper, look.” Angel waved the
newspaper in front of their faces. Five 17-year-olds enter
house on hill and have never been seen again. They gasped in
shock. “M-Maybe…” Alice stuttered, but nothing sprang to

2. mind. There was no other way. They lived downhill from a
haunted house.
“Doesn’t mean there are ghosts,” Aelita said. “It could be
something else. Maybe they got trapped in the basement.”
Angel shook her head. “Let’s go. Get your jacket,” she told
them both.
Aelita frowned. “Why are we going if they were never seen
again?”
Angel smiled mysteriously and left the room. Aelita sighed
and put on her jacket. Alice did the same. They left out the
front door after informing Amy, their foster mother, that
they were going to the park.
When the girls left the house, Amy’s eyes flashed red and she
disappeared.
They trudged up the hill and saw the sinister house, which
they had never been near. Cobwebs covered the front door,
but Alice didn’t mind cobwebs and wiped them all away.
Angel knocked on the door one, two, three times. The door
slowly creaked open, revealing a long dull corridor.
“Come on!” Amelia said, now taking lead.
Alice saw a portrait, and tears filled her eyes. Aelita realized it
looked exactly like her mum, who died before Alice was put
in a children’s home.
Aelita comforted Alice and they carried on. They heard
footsteps, thudding gently upstairs.

3. “Maybe it’s those people who got lost in here!” Angel
exclaimed. “We could win pots of money!”
There was a sinister laugh, and the creaking of a floorboard.
“They’re trying to scare us!” Amelia added.
There was a box, stuffed to the brim with jewels and gold
coins. They looked around. “Look! A real diamond, and real
gold! An emerald!” Angel and Amelia were chanting, enjoying
searching the box.
“Let’s go,” Alice suggested.
“No! Look, here, you can have the sapphire if you want.
Aelita, you have this…um, this garnet.” Angel took the
diamond and Amelia took the gold. They both took an
emerald each.
“Rubies!” Angel said.
After they had finished with the box, the footsteps grew
louder, and louder, and louder…
A long claw reached out and then suddenly disappeared into
thin air.
Aelita and Alice screamed. “Chill!” Angel said. “Probably just
some of the effects in this place. Obviously, they’re trying to
scare us. The laugh, the claw, and they tempted us with the
jewels.”
The girls went upstairs. There was a large room, and the door
was locked.
“Anyway, I was just thinking, as they’re in the house right
now, we could just stop joking around with them and just
tempt them in here.” It was the voice of Amy!

4. “Slow and steady, Amy. Now, transform!” A deafening growl
filled the eerie palace.
“Perfect!” the voice said again. “Now, let’s open the door.”
The door swung open. The girls, who were hidden, ducked
down even more.
“I can sense them, here, hiding!” the voice said again. “Come
on…”
Angel jumped out, followed by Amelia. The other two
climbed out of the darkness as well.
When the man jumped forward, he dragged his sharp nails
along each of them. Then Amy grabbed Alice and locked her
in the room.
The girls screamed and ran, down the stairs, to the front
door.
“Quick, the window!” Aelita yelled, still feeling really worried
about Alice.
They each punched the window very hard, and it smashed
open. They clambered out one by one, and bolted down the
hill, occasionally falling over and rolling down even further.
Finally they got home. They rang the police, and told them
that their foster mother had left and they needed a new one.
They were assigned to different foster homes. But they knew
that they would never go near a haunted house again!
The End