I told you so!

Brian didn’t like his new school. He thought it was too much like the old one.

He didn’t like his new classmates. He didn’t like his new teachers.

He didn’t even like his own name. Who called a kid Brian?

The main issue was ghosts, and haunted houses. Brian was obsessed with the subject. Not just for Halloween, but every day. Not just every day, but every hour. It seemed, to those listening, like every minute.

In school assembly, when pupils were encouraged to read out a story, Brian described a haunted house, with scary ghosts in it who screamed and wailed and generally frightened everyone who went near there. That would have been ok, but he had told this story hundreds of times.

He wrote ghost stories in elaborate detail in his exercise book. Not his homework, ever, but loads and loads of ghost stories. There was nothing that wasn’t haunted. Nowhere that a ghost couldn’t appear with a loud “Boo!”

If the teacher asked anyone to share something, Brian’s hand would shoot up.

“Yes, Brian?” The teacher would ask tiredly.

Brian would talk about ghosts.

Ghosts, ghouls, poltergeists, anything macabre was the subject of conversation with Brian.

Relatives hardly visited, and he rarely saw his aunts and uncles since the move. But when he did, he’d tell them about spooky creatures. They’d quickly switch off. It was easier to ignore him.

“Don’t encourage him,” his mum would say if Brian started telling a stranger about his haunted house at the bus stop. She was tired too.

She waited for the call from the school, which came. Brian was talking too much in class, at inappropriate moments. The topic of conversation? Ghosts, haunting, spooky subjects.

Brian’s mum sighed. She explained to the teacher she would try her best to stop Brian from going on about ghosts so much. But she needed their help too. She’d already moved him from his old school for this reason. And the school before that.

The new teacher noticed Brian as soon as he came in. There must be a reason he wanted to talk about ghosts, he thought. Especially this much, to anyone who’d listen. He asked Brian if he wanted to spend some time outside the lesson talking about ghosts. Brian was delighted. Finally! Someone who thought this was an important subject.

I told you so, thought Brian as he watched the police take away his dad. I tried to tell you, he thought as the counsellor droned on and on. Now everyone else wanted to talk about ghosts, when Brian was finally tired of talking.