Golden & Grey: The Nightmares That Ghosts Have [Hardcover]

Grade 4-7–Fans of 11-year-old Tom Golden and his Invisible Friend, ghost Grey Arthur, will thoroughly enjoy this sequel to Golden & Grey: An Unremarkable Boy and a Rather Remarkable Ghost (S & S, 2005). For readers new to this pair, the author fills in the details, allowing careful readers to catch up. With their newfound celebrity, Tom and Grey are fairly bombarded by ghosts in all forms looking to become companions to human children in need of friends. Meanwhile, ghosts the world over are disappearing at the hands of the legendary Collector. Although a few notes sound reminiscent of a Harry Potter story (notably the references to spaces hidden between train station tracks), the ghostly elements and personalities are refreshingly original, funny, and endearing even in the face of danger.–Genevieve Gallagher, Murray Elementary School, Charlottesville, VA
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In this delightful follow-up to Golden and Grey: An Unremarkable Boy and a Rather Remarkable Ghost, 11-year-old Tom Golden discovers that his spirit-world fame has prompted his ghost friend, Grey Arthur, to start an Invisible Friends school for goth-ghost Mildred, poltergeist Tike, egotistical Thesper Montague, and a Harrowing Screamer. Things are chaotic but manageable until ghosts begin to disappear, which leads to a dangerous mission and the discovery that the mythic, scary ghostworld character called the Collector is real. Arnold's engaging story, laced with sly wit and whimsy, brings ghost and human worlds together, with abundant, inventive details and diverse characters that interact and influence one another in often unexpected ways. Tom is an appealing protagonist who faces magical and mundane challenges while keeping his ghost-seeing ability and his spectral cohorts a secret. Full of high jinks and heart and not too scary, this will appeal to fans of Eva Ibbotson. Shelle Rosenfeld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"Light and likable."

-- Kirkus Reviews

"[R]efreshingly original, funny, and endearing even in the face of danger."

-- School Library Journal

"Full of high jinks and heart..."

-- Booklist --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

When you have a ghost as your friend, like Tom Golden does, you quickly learn the benefits. Grey Arthur supplies Tom with pens in class, grabs Tom's lunch when he forgets it, and generally helps him out as any best friend would. It's just that, in this case, no one else can see Grey.

But right as Tom is settling into a comfortable routine, his life is once again turned on its ear when Grey Arthur starts a school for Invisible Friends in Tom's house. Ghosts are crowding into Tom's room and setting up camp in his attic with hopes of learning the art of the newest job in the ghost world. Meanwhile, other ghosts are mysteriously disappearing, and the repercussions are felt throughout the human world, even by Tom's parents. There are sinister forces at play, and it's up to Tom and Grey to figure out what's going on. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Louise Arnold wrote her first poem (about the adventures of cheese-eating bees) at the age of four, and her love of writing was born. She graduated with a degree in drama from University of Kent in Canterbury, England, where she now resides.

A New Beginning

Little Frank Longfield burst through the door, heart pounding, and skidded to a halt. He loosened his school tie, gasping in heavy breaths, lungs aching from running. A quick glance behind assured him that Big Ben was nowhere to be seen, but still an uneasy feeling crawled inside him, and couldn't be shaken.

Something felt wrong.

He had no idea where he was. He'd been so desperate to get away, so scared, that he'd run and run without a thought for where he was going, his feet always ten steps ahead of his mind. Big Ben had been behind him, so close behind, and Frank had simply run and run until the shouts grew distant, until the sound of chasing footsteps became fainter, and still he'd run, on and on, through labyrinth-like school corridors, running until he physically couldn't run any farther. His legs shook beneath him, scarcely able to carry his own weight. He took his schoolbag off his shoulder, and let it slide to the floor. He'd managed to lose his pursuer, so he should be safe now, but still that feeling inside him remained: a gnawing worry, a sense of being watched, of not being alone, just the knowledge, indescribable but definitely there, that something was wrong.

Frank glanced up and down the corridor, but it was utterly deserted. Rummaging in his bag, he managed to find the Thorbleton school map they had been given on the first day of term. It was flimsy now through overuse, holes appearing along the creases. No matter how he turned it, or screwed up his eyes with concentration as he read it, he still couldn't work out where he was. He scanned the walls for clues, but all the posters had been torn down, scrawled on, or covered in so much chewing gum that it was impossible to read the original message. The only poster that remained intact warned that it was an offense to set off the fire alarm without there actually being a fire, and had been hastily amended that morning to include a warning against setting a fire purely so you can pull the fire alarm. The doors to the classrooms had all had their numbers pried away, so only blank spaces remained. Frank glanced at his watch, and realized that the bell to signal the end of lunch would ring soon, and when that happened the last place he wanted to be was lost. He scrunched the map up, and threw it into his rucksack, hauling the bag back onto his shoulders. Slowly, he began walking forward, scanning the corridor for clues, any slight hint that might give away where he was. Crisp packets were strewn across the floor, but whoever had left them there was long gone. It was unusual for any place in school to be this empty, this still.

As Frank Longfield walked on, the sense of something being wrong grew and grew. He felt, no, he was sure, that there was someone else in the corridor with him, but whenever he glanced behind there was nobody to be seen. The hairs on the back of his neck began to stand on end, and goosebumps traced their way across his arms. It felt colder now, darker now, as if light and heat were slowly draining away. The sound of his own heart thumped loudly in his ears, and he walked slower, taking quiet steps, ears straining to pick out any noise. Nothing. Nobody. He looked over his shoulder again, and the corridor stretched out behind him: anonymous doors, tatty posters, shadows reaching out across the ground, empty, and yet...He stopped, wrapping his hands tightly around the straps of his bag, knuckles turning white, and called out, his voice echoing in front of him.

"Hello?"

The sense of fear that nestled inside Frank was suddenly swept away, and wild terror took its place, making his thoughts scream, his heart hammer, but leaving his feet firmly frozen to the spot. He swallowed dryly.

The Screamer stalked up behind Frank, breathing in light, shadows slowly streaming from his mouth. His long, curling toenails clicked on the floor as he edged forward, old bones creaking, ever closer...

Frank took in a deep breath, and held it, every ounce of his being willing him to run, and yet every muscle knotted in place. If he'd have looked behind, he wouldn't have seen a thing, because normal humans can't see ghosts, but he knew there was something there, something getting closer....

The Screamer behind Frank Longfield stretched out a long, curled talon, and swiped the KICK ME sign from off his back.

Feeling something tug against his sweater, Frank threw his bag to the ground, threw his arms into the air, and ran off screaming hysterically.

The Screamer, note impaled on his discolored nail, threw the scrap of paper into his mouth, and chewed it. Sharp, shard-like teeth reduced it to confetti in seconds. He then spat it out, soggy clumps of mangled note, threaded with specks of shadow, and raised his sinewy arms in the air, hissing triumphantly. Swirling shadows pooled at his feet. Frank Longfield disappeared, still screaming, into the distance.

A slow clapping sound disrupted the scene.

"Well yes, I suppose that's one way you could do it," said Grey Arthur, in the most polite tone he could muster. "Does anyone else want to tell the Harrowing Screamer how he could have perhaps handled this differently?"

As the bell to mark the end of the lunch break sounded, the rest of the school for Invisible Friends looked on in shocked silence as the Harrowing Screamer stamped on the remnants of the chewed-up note with both feet, howling all the while.

"Anyone?"

Where to Begin?

It had all begun a few weeks back, when Tom and Arthur's normal lazy Sunday routine had been rudely interrupted by the arrival of a new ghost, clutching a copy of the Daily Tell-Tale.

Well, that's not strictly true....

It had all begun a couple months back, when a lonely boy was befriended by a well-meaning ghost, when the rules of Ghost World and Real World had been shattered, when a human boy discovered he could see ghosts, and when a ghost discovered what he was meant to be.

Actually, that's not really true either....

The beginning had begun, as so many beginnings do, way back at the very start. Way back, before color seeped into photographs, before photographs even existed, when the world was chronicled in hues of paint, or even etchings on a cave wall. It began when humans began, and when ghosts began, a footnote now faded in a long-stretching history. Maybe it had begun even before that -- ghosts haunting dinosaurs, Screamers chasing terrified Tyrannosaurus Rexes across the tundra, Poltergeists "borrowing" eggs from nesting Pterodactyls, and swapping them with those of broody Diplodocuses, endlessly confusing all parties involved. Perhaps that was when it really started, though nobody is really sure anymore. Some Thespers will tell you they were there, way, way back when dinosaurs and not politicians ran the world, but Thespers are renowned for telling wild stories, and not all of them are true.

So it started somewhere way back when, and has been going on ever since. New chapters of this story emerged: the time when humans stopped seeing ghosts, when ghosts faded from truth and fact into legend and myth, when the world consigned them to bedtime stories and overactive imaginations. Skip many pages, and you will find the chapter where a human boy, with an unseen, unknown ghost friend, is struck by a car, and can suddenly see the Ghost World that is all around him. Skip forward again, and you will find the story of how the ghost community united to help save this boy from a man who wanted to use this power to see ghosts for his own greed. A little further, further still, then add a day or so more, and that is where this story starts.

So...

It had all begun a few weeks back, when Tom and Arthur's normal lazy Sunday morning routine had been rudely interrupted by the arrival of a new ghost, clutching a copy of the Daily Tell-Tale.

Not Such a Standard Sunday

Sundays were trusty, familiar days, the comfort blanket of the week. No alarm to rudely drag Tom out of bizarre dreams or just contented snoring, no school uniform waiting to be put on, no heavy schoolbag weighed down with homework and textbooks and whatever "interesting" concoction his mum has hidden inside a sandwich. There was no hurrying out the door, no urgency, no glancing at his watch every five seconds to make sure he wasn't late, and no panicking when he realized he was.

Tom wandered downstairs in his pajamas, pillow-hair making him look a little eccentric, but it didn't matter, because it was a Sunday, and everyone knows that nothing happens on a Sunday. He'd left Grey Arthur upstairs, playing the card game solitaire. He'd introduced Arthur to it a couple days ago, and it had been driving Arthur to within an inch of insanity ever since. One time he claimed to have completed it, but the trouble with being a ghost is that when you are slightly see-through, hiding cards in your pockets doesn't work so well. Tom had gently explained that you can't really cheat when you are the only person playing, and Arthur had sighed deeply and started all over again. And again. And again.

So Tom left Grey Arthur staring indignantly at the game, willing the cards to behave, and he wandered downstairs, pajamafied and bed-haired.

"So you finally decided to wake up then?" Dad asked, as Tom stumbled into the kitchen. As was Sunday's tradition, Dad was sitting next to a pile of newspapers that would take the best part of the day to read, and drinking tea from a cup that looked like it was made for giants. Tom smiled blearily, heading straight for the fridge for his traditional pint of milk. Mum was out in the back garden, battling with the wind to hang out bed sheets and school shirts and assorted damp laundry on the line. A particularly large gust of wind caught her off guard, and a T-shirt escaped halfway across the garden before she managed to catch it. She looked up, and seeing Tom watching her through the window, waved the t-shirt triumphantly. Tom smiled. Another typical Sunday.

The doorbell rang.

Tom's Dad looked up from his paper, and raised an eyebr... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.