#william allington

Over the next few months, the Allingtons' three children celebrated their birthdays.

William, Joseph and Ada were all ready for the next stages of their lives.

“Boys, are you upstairs?”

Elsie was slowly climbing the stairs, looking for her sons who, for some reason, were playing in their older sister’s room. She hadn't even reached the end of the stairs before she could already hear Will whispering as he seemed to be explaining something to Joseph. Elsie smiled. She was so glad that their kids were getting along. Unfortunately, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.

in the room, instead of her sons, there were two... creatures born of old nightgowns and masks with clumsily drawn faces. Both Will and Joseph were obviously too busy with... whatever they were doing to even notice her.

“Oh, hi Mama,” the creature with Will's voice said. “We were… We were playing.”

“I see…” Elsie didn't know whether she should laugh or be worried.

“Because we have this game with my friends. And we really need Joseph to play with us.”

Elsie looked at his younger son.

“Joe, do you like this game?”

Please say yes, please say yes, Will silently begged his brother. He needed him. He needed someone to be a ghost and Joseph was perfect for this role. He ran fast and chaotically and, more importantly, he wasn't able to argue with him much.

“No!” with one word Joseph dashed all his hopes.

Elsie chuckled, picked up Joseph, and took off his mask. Then she looked at Will and took off his mask as well.

“Will honey, you can't dress your brother up as... a ghost and force him to play with you. And where did you want to play?”

“In the forest,” Will mumbled.

“What was that?”

“In the forest.”

“Will! He's too little to go there! And it's too cold to go outside in just a nightgown.”

“That's why he's wearing his shoes!” Will felt like he had to point out that he had thought about the weather.

Elsie sighed, sat Joseph down on the floor, and tenderly stroked her eldest son's hair.

“I know you didn't mean anything bad, but I can't let you do this. Maybe play something else? At home and without ghosts, okay?”

“Okay,” Will sighed.

Elsie left the room and Will was left alone with his brother, who happily began playing with his toys, and while Joseph was happy with the way things turned out Will was the opposite. Now he had to change his plan.

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A/N

This amazing ghost costumes were created by @twentiethcenturysims

Will didn't like the school. It wasn't as fun as his sister said. Was it even fun at all? Well...

For Will, classes were divided into two types - pretty interesting and very very boring.

In the first case, he was listening to what the teacher was saying, even if he was sometimes losing focus, and his correct answers made him happy.

In other cases he was just sitting in the last row, tired of the teacher's chatter, starring out the window, just waiting until he could run out of the building and play outside.

He wished he could leave school at any time and come back when it was no longer boring. And why were the breaks so short? This was stupid.

First of all, they had to make this cabin a proper haunted place. That wasn't too difficult. After all, it had already looked quite scary before they came here.

Then they had to convince the other children that the cabin was haunted, but luckily they had managed to find a safe way to stay there, and only for a small price they could show them around. This was Bessie's job. Will quickly realised that his friend had much better acting skills than him, so he asked her to do most of the talking with the others, limiting his role to helping her.

And it worked.

Soon the first group of children came to them, and he and Bessie, like good hosts, showed them around the cottage, trying to make it an unforgettable experience.

Of course, they couldn't forget about Frank.

Their friend was standing in a costume at a distance with a sheet over a coat rack so that anyone looking in that direction would see two ghosts.

Will was happy, it looked like everything was going according to his plan.

If only one girl hadn't been so scared that when she returned home she told her parents about everything, saying that she would never set foot in the forest again…

Her parents of course had some questions.

Will was devasted.

He was sitting on his bed in his room, wondering what would happen now. The girl's mother had just left, leaving his parents alone to discuss what to do with their son and Will was sure they were disappointed in him.

Suddenly the door opened and his parents entered the room. Will looked up and realized he couldn't read their expressions. But they didn't look really angry.

"Will," James started calmly. "Could you tell us what happened?"

"Didn't Mrs. Jones tell you everything?" Will replied, looking anywhere but his parents.

"She told us only her version, which was... Very dramatic. We doubt you were raising money for local gamblers, so we'd like to hear what you have to say." Elsie sat down beside her son.

"I was just..." Will blinked a few times to keep from crying. "I wanted to help you with money. So Ruth wouldn't have to drop out of school."

The room went silent. After some very long seconds, James and Elsie exchanged surprised glances, and James joined his wife and son on the floor. "Listen, Will, no one is going to leave the school, okay? And it looks like we owe you a talk."

For the next half hour Elsie and James tried to explain that their financial situation wasn't bad, that he didn't have to worry about it for now, and that if he wanted to help them, he could just focus on working on the farm.

And although his parents managed to calm him down and assure him that everything was fine, Will understood one thing that night - he would have a lot of money in the future. So much that no one in his family would ever have to think that their financial situation was insecure.

Maybe Will didn't have the best opinion about school but he had to admit one thing - because of it, he had made some friends! Bessie Ryan and Frank Carroll were always there for him, ready for more adventure. The trio didn't like spending time in one place, they all loved running around the local forest, trying to explore all its nooks and crannies.

And where there is a local forest, there are also local mysteries and legends. Actually, the forest of Henford-on-Bagley had only one mystery - a gloomy old cabin that had been abandoned years ago, long before the kids were even born. For the adults, there was nothing interesting about the cabin. They all knew that the previous owners had moved to another town, and bored locals simply began to create ghostly stories about it, but for Will, Bessie, and Frank the cabin appeared as a mysterious place, just waiting to be explored. That's why, one spring day, three friends stood in front of an old door that urged them to open it and see what was waiting on the other side.

Therefore one autumn day, the two Allingtons walked to school together. Ruth was excited to continue her studies, and Will... Will was excited because from what his sister had told him, school sounded like a great place!

Even though the days were getting shorter and and there was always something to do on the farm, the family still managed to find some time to spend together enjoying the last days of summer.