Page 74 - English Expedition Class 2

11 My House Is Haunted – I

When a place is said to be ‘haunted’, it means that there are ghosts in that place. Do you think

ghosts are real? Have you ever experienced something strange that you couldn’t explain? Have
you heard or read any stories about haunted houses? Share them with the class.
The story you are about to read is from the famous children’s novel Heidi by Johanna
Spyri. The novel is about a little girl called Heidi who was orphaned as a baby and lives

happily in the beautiful mountains of the Swiss Alps with her grandfather. Then, she is
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whisked away by her aunt to Frankfurt, Germany. There she has to live in the Sesemann
household as a companion to Clara, the sickly child of the wealthy Mr Sesemann.
In this extract, strange things start happening at the Sesemann household that scare the

servants and Clara’s governess, Ms Rottenmeier. Read the story to find out what scared them.

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For several days Ms Rottenmeier had been wandering silently around the house.
Whenever she went from room to room or along the corridors, she would often look
back as if she was afraid that somebody was following her.

If she had to go to the upper floor or to the lower floors, she always asked someone
to come along. The strange thing was that even the servants did not dare to go anywhere
alone and always asked for each other’s company.
Something strange was happening in the house. In the morning, when the servants

came downstairs, they always found the front door wide open. At first everybody
thought that the house had been robbed, but then nothing was ever missing. The door
was doubly locked at night, but it was no good – the door stood open again the next
morning.
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At last John and the butler Sebastian gathered the courage to sit up all night to see
who the ghost was. They went to a room downstairs and waited. At first they talked,
but soon, getting sleepy, they leaned back and fell asleep in their chairs.
When the clock from the old church tower struck one, they woke up. Together, they

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went out into the hall and a strong wind put out the light that John held in his hand.

1 whisked away: taken away quickly and suddenly 4 sit up: stay awake
2 wandering: roaming 5 put out: stop something from burning
3 butler: the head manservant
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