make-believe: ghosts

when i was in prep a boy convinced me that there was a ghost called strawberry who lived in the gaps between clouds. we would lie out on the oval and talk to strawberry. i can't remember when i finally realised this was not true, but i do remember telling my friends when i was older about strawberry. they laughed a lot and were very mean about my cloud friend!

When I was little, maybe 6,7 or 8, I remember my mom got me a book about ghosts. I always wanted to please my mother, wich is why I started bawling when I realized I was scared to death of the glow-in-the-dark childrens book.

My Grandpa told my little brother and I that there was a ghost named Blakemoore, and you could only see his shoes. Whenever we saw an unfamiliar empty pair of shoes sitting around we would get excited and say it was him. After a while it got to where we couldn't see his shoes anymore and he was following us around 24/7. We never really disagreed much over what he was doing. He liked to sing. We would sing with him alot. And whistle.

For only one day, I went to a local church's daycare (around 4-5 at the time). All I can really recall is seeing a rather large, somewhat old lady (this is in retrospect) in a white dress. I thought it was a ghost, and was scared to death. My mother had to come and take me home, then find another daycare as I refused to go back to "the place with the white ghost".

I used to believe that if I slept with any piece of bare skin showing from under the duvet I would die. I don't remember how I realised this was wrong, but evidently it was.

Also, my cousin told me that I would be killed by a ghost if I was still awake past midnight.