Hubby was exercising, daughter went to her room with Snapchat and a bowl of nuts. Olle (9) and I were sitting on the couch when I heard the noise. A kind of ticking, a kind of bell. Young people were chatting outside, I assumed it was a bicycle bell or something.
But it didn’t stop. Not even when the young people had long since left. It irritated me, that ticking, that bell. “What is that sound?”, I asked, “Olle, do you hear it too?” Olle looked at me. “What sound? I don’t hear anything.”
“Turn the TV down a bit, because you won’t hear anything with that cartoon scream.” Olle turned down the TV. You’d just see, no ticking or bell to be heard. I stuck my finger in the air. “Just wait a minute, it’ll start again soon.” Olle rolled his eyes. “Can I continue watching now?” I nodded.
A few minutes later it happened again. “See, I’m not crazy, turn off that TV!”, I said excitedly. “Then hear!” Olle looked at me uncomprehendingly. “I can’t hear anything, Mom. No way.” I was unsure what to do. If I continued, I would worry Olle, that much was certain. His look said it all, it already betrayed ‘Mommy isn’t there after all cuckoo crazy to become?’.
Poltergeist?
So I said, “Never mind,” and got up from the couch to take a leisurely stroll around the house on my own. Was there a ghost in the house? A poltergeist perhaps, or a tick spirit in this case? The tapping didn’t stop. At intervals it was quiet for a while, and then it started again.
“Yoohoo, is there anyone there?”, I said to no one (or that typo) in the hallway and I declared myself crazy, but I had to do something, right? The sound would not stop on its own, that much was clear by now.
I looked in the hallway, in the garden (maybe it came from outside after all?), upstairs (maybe it was Puk who had loud music on, but she was lying on her bed mopping with her earphones in as usual), and walked back to downstairs.
“What’s wrong, Mom? What time will Dad be home?” There it was. A beginning touch of fear in Olle. “Nothing, I must have heard it wrong,” I lied. “Come on, let’s go together First Dates to look. I looked for the most recent episode in the app and helped Olle under the fleece blanket, so that he would become warm and relaxed and the putting-to-bed process would go smoothly.
Go to bed without any problems
Then I walked to the kitchen for a cup of tea and plugged my phone into the charger. “Damn! See! I wasn’t crazy! That ghost turned out to be staying here! Olle, you left the tablet on. That’s what I hear, some kind of game.”
“Sorryyyy,” he said and sprinted upstairs. The going to bed process that evening went smoothly and wonderfully quickly. The tick spirit had taken care of that.
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