Granny Ada and the Poltergeist.

Granny Ada believed in God, plain and simple, no messing about.

Every Sunday she pulled on her crotchet gloves, took her well worn bible and left the house to walk to hear Reverend Simms opinion of the world. Knowing what was best for me, I followed, still swiping the sleep from my eyes. But my best Sunday shoes shone as I stumbled after her, having polished them the night before.

She took in waifs and strays.

‘My Christian duty,’ she declared over plates of hot porridge and glistening brown sugar with a dollop of melting cream in the middle.
By way of grace she would say ‘God loves you child,’ as she plonked the plate of deliciousness that still makes me salivate, in front of each of us. ‘Eat and be TRULY thankful.’
I loved the way she always said TRULY……….God’s worth it I realised.

When Sadie moved into the house as another ‘foster’ so the Poltergeist moved in too. (Granny Ada would not have approved of a capital P for poltergeist as that is giving him a sense of importance she would say. But it’s a proper noun……isn’t it?)

The poltergeist (you’ve won this argument Granny Ada!) moved stuff and was often noisy.
Without anyone in the kitchen, a pot would suddenly crash to the floor! Granny Ada treated him like one of us. ‘Oh stop this nonsense,’ she would mutter as she picked it up.

A blue vase crashed spilling water and flowers we had picked from the hedge all over the tiles. ‘Oh drat and darn (the absolute worst that ever came from her lips) ‘there you go again. When are you going to move on?’

One night she woke with a fright having dreamed that a ‘presence’ had entered her bedroom.

She invited Reverend Simms for tea and they sent us kids out to play with a biscuit in each hand, so they could ‘talk’.

While playing ‘Red Rover cross over’ I stood near the veranda and was amazed to hear the pair of them burst out laughing at this ‘ridiculous’ creature that was harassing Granny Ada at 2 am.

‘Wonders will never cease’, I thought. I hoped we were going to see a ‘cleansing of the house of ghosts’ or some such and was quite disappointed.

Sadie was a disturbed girl and had ‘fits’ when her eyes rolled back and Granny Ada just sat with her while her body shook until she recovered and then gave her (and us) a cup of sweet tea.

I added 2 and 2 together and came to the startling conclusion that Sadie’s sometimes ‘ bad behaviour, when she ran demented yelling blue murder for a few minutes’ coincided with the red eyed devil ghost that had started disturbing Granny Ada’s sleep.
I was sad to see that she even lost a bit of weight and her hair looked fuzzy some mornings.

After another afternoon tea party with Reverend Simms and more laughter from the veranda, things were suddenly better.
Sadie calmed down. She in fact became a leader of our pack and began sorting out little arguments and organising games that we loved. I was TRULY thankful and told God that………..a lot.

Granny Ada perked up too. No more disturbed nights I guessed.

When Reverend Simms came for tea a THIRD time in 3 weeks, I hid behind a bush near the veranda.

‘I took your advice Dr Simms (he had a serious degree in theology I learned as I grew up).

‘When another thump in the ceiling heralded hissss (she spat) arrival last week, I woke as usual but with our prayers helping me, I sat up and instead of my heart threatening to jump out of my body, I was calm,’ and they laughed delightedly.
‘I looked this red faced devil in his ghastly eyes and said, ”oh it’s only you” and lay back on my pillows and slept again. Like a baby.'

‘And then,’ prompted Dr Simms, ‘what happened?’

‘Nothing, absolutely nothing………..for 6 nights now, silence, all night, just the usual frogs croaking away and the occasional cricket chirping, Blessed God given SILENCE for which I am TRULY thankful.’

They wiped tears of laughter from their eyes.

pixabay

‘Another cup of tea Dr Simms?’ said Granny Ada and lifted the best teapot with the roses on the side.

Copyright -Justjoy - All rights reserved.