The Drummer Boy

by Alice
(Swindon)

In my boarding school, we have many ghost stories; one that is most common is the Drummer Boy's tale. He supposedly haunts my boarding house, Windsor.

The Drummer Boy is supposed to be a ginger youngster, who played the bagpipes. He was chucked out of the band because he didn't practice enough and dug a tunnel under the chapel, to hide himself away from humiliation. When the bullies eventually found him, they made him run all the way to the water tower and then they locked him in pitch darkness. He was left in there for two days when he was finally found hanged by his favourite teacher. Rumor has it that he haunts Windsor house every night in this certain bed, which has a trap door underneath it, supposedly where he sleeps.

In my year of year seven, I swapped beds to sleep in this bed. It was quite scary at first, but then I got used to being at the back of the room, away from the door.

On the night of Annual parade, I had to sleep in this bed, as it was my bed. Little did I know about the Drummer Boy. The year elevens came in dressed in their parade uniforms and pretended to be the Drummer Boy, which just made me laugh, but then they finally stopped at two in the morning, so we could get some sleep.

That night I couldn't get to sleep because I was hyper and awake from laughing too much. All my dorm mates were tired, so they wouldn't talk and eventually fell asleep. I listened to my Ipod. It was quite relaxing to listen to something, it helped me sort of drift off, and I imagined me in the music video. All of a sudden, I heard a banging noise. I thought that one of the dorm mates were probably rummaging in their sleep, so I ignored it. I heard it again several times, until I heard a very loud creaking sound of a door opening from under my bed, and then I froze still. I closed my eyes tight and put my Ipod on full power, but the groans were too powerful to ignore.

I eventually opened my tight eyes to see a pale white face, with ginger hair, carrying bagpipes.

Since then I haven't gone anywhere near that bed and I never will.