The PTA Queen Bee & The Teen Rebel

Shelley put the caller on hold, Allison very much pleased by the interest in the property, which was the one opposite the road from the O'Dea house. "Would 10.30 this morning be okay for them?" she asked Shelley.

"Would 10.30 be convenient for you? It would? That's excellent." Shelley took the contact details and passed them to her employer. "They're a young couple, they've just gotten married and are looking for their first home and their names are Matthew and Nicole Clayton." Shelley giggled. "Another viewer for the haunted house."

Kurt, who was just collecting his work schedule for the week, also laughed. "Yeah, I wouldn't live there if you paid me. There's something very seriously wrong with that house."

"I've only been inside once, and that was enough for me," said Shelley.

"Now you two, you can joke like that when it's just me, but don't go around joking about that when clients or other people are about," warned Allison. "The house is not a haunted house, there are no haunted houses."

"It has been on the market so many times I've lost count," said Shelley. "One family lived there six weeks before they moved out and put it on the market again. Six weeks! That's not normal."

"I was mowing the lawn there one time, and I felt like I was being watched even though the house was empty," said Kurt. "And another time I was driving by it at night and I saw these strange, eerie lights in the windows, like fluorescent lights moving around even though nobody was there at the time. It was weird, I just drove away as fast as I could."

Shelley shuddered, spooked by Kurt's tale, but Allison was unmoved. "You probably saw the moonlight or streetlights reflected. Come on, ghosts don't exist not now, and not ever. Yes, the house has changed hands many times over the years and it admittedly doesn't have the happiest history, but it's nothing but coincidence. It's not cursed, there's no such thing as curses either."

Collecting her paperwork, Allison set off in her car for Swan Street so she would be early to meet the clients, seeing the ever-stressed Carol O'Dea reversing erratically out of her driveway to run errands. Allison shook her head. Even when the kids were at school – the eldest and most troublesome daughter at boarding school – the woman was a bag of nerves, with no spine at all.

Turning into the driveway at Number 24, Allison stopped her car and looked up at the beautiful two-story white Cape Cod house, with its black shingle roof and black window frames, gutters and shutters. The house was well-maintained, with all the modern conveniences, a two-car garage, a large front porch, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a basement which on paper made it an attractive proposition for a buyer. The garden was well looked after, with two flamingo statues, plenty of lawn, well-landscaped garden beds and a number of trees all well back from the house, including three large pines in the back yard.

Allison stared up at the house as she got out of her car, recalling the conversation at the office, again thinking how ridiculous the notion of ghosts and haunted houses were, but Allison soon realized she was trying without success to convince herself of this. In her mind, Allison could not stop herself going through the troubling history of the property and her own experiences there, having sold it many times over the years as one owner after another went through it.

Built in 1928, the house got off to an unhappy start when the first owner, having lost everything in the Black Tuesday stock market crash the following year, shot himself dead in the yard. The property changed hands three times in the 1930s, a couple with five sons bought the house towards the end of that decade, and lost all five sons in the Second World War. While the death toll in the war was high, to lose all five sons was quite disturbing. The pretty Cape Cod residence changed hands again post war, and a couple with a daughter moved in in 1949 and stayed three years until their daughter then aged 16 mysteriously died in her sleep and no reason for her death could be determined. Several weeks after that her mother, heart-broken at the loss of her daughter, fell down dead in the living room.

In the 1950s and early 1960s the house saw one family after another move in and out again in rapid succession. Some chose not to stay in the house while it was on the market, instead preferring to rent until the house sold and they could buy another place. All occupants seemed to suffer some sort of bad luck while living there; marital breakdown, financial problems, job loss, accidents, illness or premature deaths. Perhaps the most mysterious incident had taken place in 1962, when the 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son of the owner set off for the store with a female cousin, and simply vanished from the face of the Earth. None of the three teenagers were ever seen or heard from again, and not a single clue could be found to explain their disappearances. True this did not happen at the property, but the connection was there, and added to the rumors and gossip swirling about the house around town.

An investor purchased the property in the mid-1960s, but found that tenants did not stay long, many breaking their leases in their haste to depart. The only ones to stay longer than a year were some very strange people who were unpopular in the neighborhood due to their nonconventional lifestyle and ways. They were possibly the only residents to leave unwillingly, evicted after problems with paying the rent. After losing a great deal of money the investor sold at a loss to a young couple with a baby in 1970, but the husband had struggled with his experiences in Vietnam and after less than six months, the profoundly depressed young man hanged himself from a tree in the garden.

Again, the house saw one owner after another in the 1970s, among them a family with a six-year-old son in the latter part of this decade. Every day at school without fail, the boy would break down in tears, pleading that he did not want to go home to where the bad people came to the house at night. Nobody knew the identity of these mysterious 'bad people' before his parents packed up and left town.

Another investor, an Italian-American man bought the house in 1980 and Allison was the property manager. Like the other investor years earlier, the owner found himself losing money as the tenants would not stay long. But while the owner in the 1960s simply lost on his investment, the owner in the early 1980s was not as fortunate. After the latest tenants left after less than a month of their lease, the owner went to the vacant house to do some painting on a Saturday morning. When he failed to return for dinner and darkness fell, his wife became concerned and drove out there, finding the lifeless body of her husband on the stairs. And like the teenage girl who had died there in the early 1950s, a post mortem could find no identifiable cause of death.

The deceased estate was soon back on the market, and Allison sold it six times in four years. As Shelley pointed out, one family lasted just six weeks and another buyer failed to move in at all, as he fell into the Hudson River and drowned before he had the chance to take residence. Then in 1986 the Marsh family – a mother, father and their only child, a pretty teenage daughter named Dana who was in the same year as Allison's kids Courtney and Brad – purchased the house. The trio were pleasant and grounded, and for once the house simply seemed just like a normal suburban house in a normal suburban street occupied by a normal suburban family where nothing but normal things happened.

Unfortunately, this was not to last. One Saturday in the fall of 1987, Mrs. Marsh returned earlier than expected from running an errand to find her husband in the now 18-year-old Dana's bedroom wearing a wig that matched the color and style of their daughter's light brown hair tied back with one of her pink hair ribbons. He had applied some of Dana's make-up to his face, and wore several items of her jewelry. On his body he wore one of the teenager's sleeveless jackets adorned with badges, a pink tee-shirt and a matching pink bubble skirt, her white sneakers and white ankle socks on his feet. Under the tee-shirt, he wore one of Dana's bras, the cups stuffed with tissues to emulate his daughter's breasts; and under the skirt the man wore a pair of Dana's white cotton panties.

While it was entirely understandable that the woman would be shocked, freaked, confused and angry at finding out that her husband felt the need to dress up like their teenage daughter when alone in the house, Mrs. Marsh's reaction was for her and Dana to pack their bags and leave that night. Not understanding the true situation of how cross-dressing and transvestitism worked, Mrs. Marsh was anything but discrete in going around town telling anyone and everyone that her husband was a gay pedophile who liked to dress up as a teenage girl. Not surprisingly Mr. Marsh soon left town after these stories – exaggerated at every retelling - spread like wildfire and his wife started divorce proceedings. Mrs. Marsh and Dana also left town and returned to New York City, and once more the unhappy house at 24 Swan Street was on the market, with Allison again charged with selling it.

The property had been vacant since the Marsh family had departed so acrimoniously six months earlier, and the 'For Sale' sign had stood forlornly at the front of the property as the leaves turned red and fell during the fall, through the snowy New York winter, through the cold rains of early spring and was still there as the new green growth and blossoms came through as the weather warmed. Once, Allison had commented to her brother that she would let him sell the house and he could take the commission. He had laughed and refused saying it was all hers, before adding that the place gave him the creeps.

Allison looked around the garden making sure there was no litter or anything else unpleasant before the potential buyers arrived. She glanced across the lawn at the O'Dea house, glad she was showing the property on a weekday when the awful, unruly kids across the road were at school, as their behavior when there was another factor that made this house so hard to sell. On the weekends they were there running around causing no end of trouble, and often their cousins too. Weak-willed Carol was a doormat not only to her husband, but to her own brother and sister and her husband's own siblings and cousins, and they would frequently drop their own unruly kids off at the house on the weekends for Carol to take care of while they went out to enjoy themselves. Sometimes there were close to 20 brothers, sisters and cousins at the house of varying ages, all shouting at each other to shut up. Nobody in their right mind would buy a house across the road from that zoo.

Thinking of the O'Dea family, Allison pondered if the hopeless Carol had organized anything for the PTA spring fete as yet. Probably not. Apart from producing awful kids, Carol was pretty much useless at everything.

Allison again thought of the O'Dea family, and how the kids had cost her several chances of selling this house and getting her commission. Soon after it went onto the market following the departure of the Marsh family, she had met potential buyers – a couple aged in their 30s with a son aged about nine. Shaking the boy's limp hand, Allison was quite taken aback by his effeminate speech patterns and mannerisms, gushing in a lisping voice that he wanted to be a ballerina when he grew up. Good at disguising her own emotions, Allison kept a neutral expression as his parents – best described as progressive – said how proud they were of their son. Allison took them inside to show them the property, while their son stayed out in the front garden to practice his ballet.

Inside the house, everything was going well and Allison had the couple on the hook and just about reeled them in, but across the road angry Andy O'Dea was watching with dismay this very strange boy doing ballet practice in the garden of the empty house. Andy knew that it was okay for girls like his sister Polly to do ballet, but boys who did ballet were homosexuals. He also knew from listening to the sage words of his older brothers, sisters and cousins that homosexuals were very bad people who went around spreading AIDS to non-homosexual people, and that one could catch AIDS if one sat next to a homosexual for long enough. Knowing for certain that he did not want any homosexuals living in the area causing him to get AIDS, Andy had decided it was his responsibility to solve the problem. Grabbing a pair of home-made nunchakus, Andy had ran across the street and launched a surprise attack on the ballet-loving boy, yelling 'faggot', 'homo' and 'queer' at the top of his voice.

Hearing their son crying, screaming and yelling for help, the parents had ran downstairs, Allison behind them to the sight of Andy laying into the cowering, sobbing boy with the nunchakus. Amazingly, the parents did nothing to stop the attack, only politely asking Andy to stop doing what he was doing, and it was up to Allison to drag Andy away, before Mike O'Dea came storming over.

Not apologizing at all to the parents of the kid who had been beaten up, Mr. O'Dea had dragged his son away by his shirt, yelling, "How many times have I told you not to hit other kids?", before taking the nunchakus and hitting Andy with them on his arms, legs and backside.

As the parents drove their son away to see a doctor, the furious Allison had watched her sale and commission slip away as the car vanished up the road, and cursed under her breath. Andy O'Dea would end up in juvenile hall as a teenager and no doubt prison as an adult and the ballet boy was always going to get beat up, but why did the two have to cross paths just as she was about to sell the house?

Another time it had been Jenna O'Dea that had cost her any chance of selling the house on a Saturday morning. The girl was home for Thanksgiving, and had a problem. She was listening to her heavy metal cassettes in her room and wanted a cigarette, but was not allowed to smoke in the house. The 18-year-old soon found a solution; turning up the volume on her music as high as possible, opening her bedroom window and going outside to enjoy her smoke while continuing to listen to her music. Dressed in a denim jacket, black heavy metal tee-shirt and mini-skirt, the knees of her stocking-clad legs wide apart shamelessly showing off her white panties, Jenna sucked in the nicotine with vigor, as the charming sounds of screeching base guitars, pounding drums and lyrics shouted rather than sang filled the street.

With the prospective buyers due to arrive any moment, Allison set off across the road to confront the teenager and get her to turn the music down, but unfortunately the ultra-conservative couple interested in the house pulled into the driveway at that exact moment to be greeted by that racket. Allison went through her sales routine, but knew as soon as the couple stepped out of the car and were unable to keep from staring in complete disapproval at the young metal fan across the road that it was a lost cause. The O'Dea family's dog Sambo made sure any tiny chance of selling the house vanished completely, barking loudly and continuously for over 15 minutes, the other O'Dea kids repeatedly shouting at the dog to shut up.

It was Todd, however, who held the record of destroying Allison's chances of selling the house. One time, an older couple had been keen to view the property and Allison was awaiting them, when Todd emerged from the O'Dea house at that moment and stood in the front garden, his fat stomach hanging over his jeans, devouring a jelly doughnut. The couple's eyes had gone wide at the sight of their prospective neighbor, as Todd belched as loudly as he possibly could, scratched his groin and grabbed another doughnut out of the bag he carried, stuffing it into his mouth. The man had put his foot on the gas and sped away, never to return.

Another time, Allison was showing an African-American couple the house and after their car broke down, she drove them there for a viewing. As Allison turned into the driveway, she and her clients were greeted by the sight of Todd standing on the front lawn of the house Allison had exhaustively praised and promoted. His fat body was dressed up against the cold in a white, hooded jacket and he was walking Sambo, the dog squatting down and producing a massive pile of crap on the lawn. As usual Todd was eating, this time some fried chicken, and as the horrified Allison and her stunned clients stepped out of the car, he had greeted them by pointing at the dog excrement and saying, "Look at all the shit Sambo did," followed by, "If you people buy this house, you'll have to clean up a lot more of Sambo's shit." Then throwing the bone of the chicken onto the lawn, Todd and the dog had returned to their own house leaving a huge stinking pile of dog shit behind them, Todd getting another piece of fried chicken to munch on the long journey across the street, shouting, "Shut up, Sambo!" when the dog broke into a stream of barking at a bird flying past.

The stone-faced African-American man had uttered a terse, "We're done here," and smooth-talking Allison knew she was not selling this house to this couple. That Todd's appalling faux pas had been caused by astounding ignorance and stupidity – not least that he thought it acceptable to allow a dog to defecate on somebody else's lawn and not clean it up - and shockingly bad timing rather than true racism somehow made it all the worse.

Then one day a few weeks after this, Allison knew the house was good as sold. The O'Dea family – the dog, the kids and their stentorian father - had been conspicuous by how quiet they had been, nothing weird had happened at the problem property and the husband and wife with three young kids were keen to put in an offer. Remembering one time years earlier how she had lost a sale at this very strange house when she and the prospective buyers were completing the paperwork in the kitchen and what sounded like footsteps followed by a creaking door could be heard in the empty upstairs, Allison had suggested they all go outside on such a sunny day, fearing something strange might happen to jeopardize the sale if they stayed inside.

In the garden, the man had the pen in his hand, about to sign when Todd had appeared, stuffing his fat face with potato chips and asked Allison, "So, have you sold the pedophile house?"

Allison had quickly tried to clarify things, but knew from the moment Todd described the house as 'The Pedophile House', that the sale was gone. The prospective buyer had sought clarification from Todd as to why he called it that, and Todd was very keen to pass on the exaggerated, mostly untrue gossip going around that the previous owner was a gay pedophile who when not dressing up in his teenage daughter's clothes, would drive around to playgrounds and schools using candy to lure children into his car. Of course, suburban super-sleuth Todd had known all along that this neighbor had been a child molester, but had been unable to go to the police about it due to lack of evidence.

Just to make sure that the prospects of selling the house were completely destroyed, Todd then added that the house was known to be haunted, and recounted the disturbing number of times the house had been sold and re-sold and that a number of deaths including two suicides had taken place there, as well as some teenagers who lived at the house in the 1960s vanishing without trace. The prospective buyers' three kids, overhearing the word 'ghosts', had become terrified, crying and pleading to their parents not to make them move to a haunted house where there were ghosts. And of course, they did not.