Hey there, Monster Talkers. It's time for another Christmas ghost story. And this year, we're doing one of the most Christmassy and ghosty stories of all.

Smee by A.M. Burridge.

No, said Jackson with a deprecatory smile. I'm sorry. I don't want to upset your game. I shan't be doing that because you'll have plenty without me.

But I'm not playing any games of hide and seek.

It was Christmas Eve, and we were a party of 14 with just the proper leavening of youth.

We had dined well.

It was the season for childish games, and we were all in the mood for playing them.

All that is, except Jackson.

When somebody suggested hide and seek, there was a rapturous and almost unanimous approval.

His was the only dissentient voice. It was not like Jackson to spoil sport or refuse to do as

others wanted. Somebody asked him if he were feeling seedy.

"'No,' he answered. "' I feel perfectly fit, thanks, but he added with a smile which was soft and without retracting the flat refusal. I'm not playing hide and seek. One of us asked him why not.

He hesitated for some seconds before replying.

I sometimes go and stay at a house where a girl was killed through playing hide-and-seek in the dark.

She didn't know the house very well.

There was a servant's staircase with a door to it.

When she was pursued, she opened the door and jumped into what she must have thought was one of the bedrooms, and she broke her neck at the bottom of the stairs.

We all looked concerned, and Mrs. Fimley said, how awful! And you were there when it happened?

Jackson shook his head very gravely. No, he said. awful and you were there when it happened?"

Jackson shook his head very gravely.

No, he said, but I was there when something else happened. Something worse.

I shouldn't have thought anything could be worse.

...