SOLVED. Children's Ghost story, probably 1950s - 1970s. Tween girl in light blue cape on Halloween night. Classmate, or missing girl from Colonial times? [s]

[Lorna]

Or the missing girl may have been from Civil War times. Some pre-electricity era, anyway. ETA: I read it around 1980. It was in a collection of ghost/spooky stories aimed at kids. It was a paperback, Scholastic or similar. I remember one other story: a young girl was staying on a farm and thought her bedroom was haunted; the "ghost" was a horse, nudging her window screen looking for apples.

Anyway, the story I'm looking for is told first person, from the POV of a tween girl. At the start, she mentions that ever since this night, one girl who used to be somewhat of a bully, has noticeably mellowed out. POV character is trick-or-treating with a small group that does not include the mean girl, but does include a girl who is shy but nice, maybe too nice...Call her Alice.

It's drizzling this Halloween night, not enough to cancel TorT, but enough for parents to insist on rain gear. Most kids are not jazzed about wearing plain ponchos or slickers over their costumes; however, Alice lucked out. She's wearing a powder-blue ballerina costume, and she has a pale blue cape that's waterproof, and that she can twirl in, and sweep up to front doors in.

When things are starting to wind down, along comes MG, with at least one other girl. She notices Alice, who is standing motionless, with the cape pulled around her, and staring blankly. Odd, since she'd been so exuberant earlier, but perhaps MG makes her uncomfortable. MG comments to the effect of "I bet you're not even wearing a costume!" and starts to pull the cape open. Then...

...MG stops as suddenly and stilly as if she's been freeze-framed, then yanks her hand back, *then* turns on a dime and runs back the way she'd come, screaming like a mad thing. Everyone follows (well, maybe not *everyone*), and when they catch up to her, she turns from screaming to sobbing uncontrollably. MG's friend offers to escort her home, and while they stumble away, along comes Alice.

Where was she? Well, she'd doubled back to one house to ask to use the bathroom. No, she hadn't been in front of the Jones' house a minute ago. No, she didn't know they'd crossed paths with MG. She did what? Weird.

So they're about done with TorT anyway, and when POV character gets home, grandma, or some older woman who was raised in this area, reminisces about a Halloween ghost. A girl about twelve disappeared one Halloween night, generations before her time, and she's been known to show up on Halloween. "No, I haven't seen her myself, but I know people who claim they have."

"What...does she supposedly look like?"

"Well, when she disappeared, she was wearing a long blue cape. Powder blue, I guess you'd say."

[Rainbowheart]

What year did you read it?

Was this a short story in a collection, or a standalone child's novel?

[Lorna]

Oops! Sorry, I've edited to reflect those details.

[Rainbowheart]

Thanks for the extra details!

Does anything on the Children's Ghost Story Collections list look familiar?

[Lorna]

Unfortunately not. They all look more recent than turn-of-the-80s. Thank you, though!

[Rainbowheart]

I found the story with the apples!

It's "The Friendly Ghost" by Elizabeth Yates. It appears in A-Haunting We Will Go, Spooks and Spirits and Shadowy Shapes, and Arrow Book of Spooky Stories, but I couldn't find your other story in these collections.

[Lorna]

Ah! Well, that gives me hope, at any rate; thank you.

[Rainbowheart]

It also appears in Holiday Ring, Reader's Digest Great Stories for Young Readers, and a variety of school textbooks, but still no luck with the other story.

Are you pretty sure you got your book from the Scholastic book club?

[Lorna]

Oh, it wasn't *my* book. It belonged in my 4th, 5th or 6th grade classroom. We had a lot of those Scholastic paperbacks, or Dell Yearling or what have you. This was one of those shabby paperbacks.

And I just remembered -- every story had one illustration. In this one, it was the moment when Mean Girl reaches out towards staring Ghost Girl.

[Ayshe]

"The Ghost in the Blue Cape" by Vic Crume from The Ghostly Hand and Other Haunting Stories?

[Lorna]

I do believe that's it! Thank you sooooo much!

[Rainbowheart]

Oh, good find, Ayshe!

I can't find an anthology that includes both the Yates and the Crume stories, but that's certainly the one in question.

[Lorna]

And there's the tiniest chance they were not in the same anthology. I loved ghost/spooky stories as a kid; I could be conflating two different collections.

[Rainbowheart]

From Archive.org!

There were five of us trick-or-treating along Maple Avenue, and I guess not one girl in our group will ever forget what happened — especially Kate Corner. She’s never been quite so mean since.

Alison Berry was the ballerina, and she certainly looked prettier than anybody. Unfortunately, just as she was leaving her house, her mother made her go back upstairs and take off her matching pink satin ballet slippers and put on brown and white saddle shoes. Of course, it ruined the outfit, but Alison made the best of things, and borrowed her older sister’s pale blue raincape. On Alison the cape almost touched the sidewalk and hid those awful shoes.

In between houses and doorbell-ringing, Alison would push the cape back over her shoulders, and she’d twirl and dance along the sidewalk. The cape would billow out like a big scarf, and the spangles on the fluffy pink tutu would glitter in the street lights. Then at somebody’s doorway, down would go the cape so the shoes wouldn’t show.

Alison didn’t say a word. She stood still as a statue wrapped around by fog and held her cape tight.

Kate’s hand shot out as though she meant to jerk Alison’s cape right off. And then her arm suddenly drew back as though she had touched something awful. And at the same instant Alison’s voice called out from behind us, “Hey! Wait for me!”

We all whirled around and looked back. There was Alison Berry, her cape flying and her ballerina skirt bouncing as she danced up. “See!” she cried. “Look what Mrs. Appleton gave me!”

It was months later that my mother happened to tell me the story of the girl who had once lived in the old Moultrie mansion. How, many years ago she had disappeared into the fog one night and was never seen again. She had been wearing a long blue cape!

[Lorna]

Bing - freakin'- O!