13 Stories After Dark: The Beginning: 1

Thirteen children sat in a circle and dared the shy one to tell a ghost story. He made one up. When the lights came back on, there were fourteen children in the room.Every legend had a first night.There's a boy in every class photograph at one school going back thirty years, and he is always eleven years old. There's a fourth door in a bathroom that only has three stalls, and something behind it has been knocking since 1978. There's a school kitchen where the Friday soup makes you remember something wonderful - and one afternoon a new cook uses the whole tin.Thirteen scary stories for readers aged 9-12.These aren't retellings of urban legends. They're the stories of how each one started - what actually happened, to a real person, before anybody knew there was a rule.And every one of them leaves you with a rule of your own:¿ If your classroom has a desk nobody sits at, leave it where it is.¿ If you hear knocking from an empty stall, don't ask it anything. Just tell it you're there.¿ Never eat anything that isn't on the menu.Inside:¿ 13 complete stories, 10-20 minutes each - one per night¿ 13 full-page black-and-white illustrations¿ A hidden mystery running through all thirteen, solvable only if you read every one¿ Real chills and real consequences - no gore, no violence, nothing that needs a grown-up in the roomNew to the series? Start here. The Beginning stands completely alone - but it's also where everything in 13 Stories After Dark comes from.Perfect for confident readers, reluctant readers, sleepovers, campfires and long dark car journeys.