TO KIM AND NOEL—for the gift of space, serenity and a view that made writing this book even more enjoyable than it already was. Not quite Keegan River . . . but with just enough kangaroos to keep the imagination hopping and the ideas flowing.

  Scholastic Australia

  An imprint of Scholastic Australia Pty Limited

  PO Box 579 Gosford NSW 2250

  ABN 11 000 614 577

  www.scholastic.com.au

  Part of the Scholastic Group

  Sydney • Auckland • New York • Toronto • London • Mexico City

  New Delhi • Hong Kong • Buenos Aires • Puerto Rico

  Published by Scholastic Australia in 2026.

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia in 2026.

  Text copyright © Fiona Harris, 2026.

  Illustration and design copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2026.

  Cover illustration: Isabelle Duffy.

  Cover and internal design by Nicole Stofberg.

  The moral rights of Fiona Harris have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or used to train generative artificial intelligence technologies, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended.

  E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-76172-906-5

  contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  one

  ‘WAIT! LOOK . . . OVER THERE . . . WHAT’S THAT . . . ? Is it a . . . Is it a . . . AAAAHHHHHHHHH!’

  ‘Violet?’

  My dark bedroom lit up, and I spun around to see my mum standing in the doorway, a panicked look on her face and her finger on the light switch.

  ‘What happened?’ she cried. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘Just acting out a scene.’

  She put her hand to her heart. ‘For goodness sake, Violet,’ she scolded. ‘Don’t scream like that. You scared me to death!’

  I shot her an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry.’

  Mum sighed, then glanced at the iPad propped up on the bookshelf behind me. She raised an eyebrow. ‘I wondered where that was.’

  ‘I needed it to film my scene,’ I said, walking over to stop recording, ‘so I can show the girls tonight. Can I take it to our sleepover?’ Today was Saturday, and my friends and I always had a sleepover on a Saturday night.

  She smiled. ‘Sure, and don’t forget to take your pretzels. Dad’s just put them in a tin for you.’

  ‘Oh cool. Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll let you get back to your . . .’ She paused. ‘What’s this? Another ghost story?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘It’s called, “The Majestic Banshee”!’

  She grinned. ‘Great title. Have fun!’

  As soon as Mum left, I sat down to watch the recording back. I was pretty happy with it, especially with how frightened I looked.

  I’d always loved making up scenes and stories and acting them out, especially scary ones, but lately, my ghost fascination had ramped right up. It started a few weeks ago, after Abbie, Zi, Naira and I had a sleepover at The Majestic. Our new friend, Mackenzie, and her family had just moved into Keegan River’s oldest hotel, and we were so excited when she invited the four of us to stay over. The Majestic sat on a cliff-top, overlooking the ocean, and looked a bit like a castle. It was over a hundred years old, and back in the olden days the owners used to hold dances in its big ballroom every week. Nana said that her mum, my great-grandmother, went to one of those balls, and she told Nana all about it. The elegant dresses, the music and tables overflowing with delicious food. It must have looked amazing.

  Abbie had always been obsessed with The Majestic, but I’d never really thought about the place much until the night we stayed there. Mackenzie’s dad said we could sleep in the old ballroom, and as I lay there, on the floor in my sleeping bag next to my friends, my imagination went wild. I started thinking about all the people who must have stayed in the hotel over the years, all at different times, from different places and with their own different stories.

  I lay awake long after the others had fallen asleep, and just as I was starting to drift off, there was a weird thumping noise above us and my eyes shot open. I was about to wake Zi, but then I remembered Mackenzie saying that the hotel creaked a lot at night because it was so old, so I took a deep breath and told myself it was nothing. But just as I was about to close my eyes again, I felt an icy-cold breeze on my face.

  A ghost!

  Either that or wind coming in through one of the cracked windows, I told myself. But it was too late. I started to imagine a creepy old banshee with long fingernails floating over me and totally freaked myself out. I snuggled up to Zi, squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to think about all the beautiful women and men in their costumes at the balls of long ago instead, until I finally fell asleep.

  The next morning, I waited for Mackenzie to leave the room before telling the girls what had happened.

  ‘I DEFINITELY felt a presence,’ I told my wide-eyed friends.

  Zi’s dark eyebrows shot up. ‘Really?!’

  ‘Cool.’ Abbie grinned.

  ‘Violet, don’t!’ Naira looked around as if expecting a ghost to come floating out of the wall at any moment. ‘Anyway, didn’t Mac say this hotel creaks all the time because it’s a thousand years old?’

  ‘Yes, but this wasn’t a normal creak,’ I whispered. ‘It was a weird creak.’

  ‘What’s the difference between a normal creak and a weird creak?’ Abbie frowned.

  I side-eyed Abbie, then leaned towards my friends. ‘Don’t tell Mac,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t want to scare her.’

  When I got home that afternoon, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened, so I sat down and wrote a scene about a girl trapped in a haunted house. Since then, I’d written and filmed loads of spooky scenes and put them all in a folder on Mum’s iPad named ‘VIOLET’S VLOGS’. The scenes I filmed weren’t technically vlogs because I’d never put any of them on the internet (not allowed), so my friends were the only people who ever saw them.

  Abbie, Zi and Naira knew I’d always had a habit of getting obsessed with stuff. It had happened a lot over the years. Like the time I only spoke in an English accent for weeks, or another time when Nana showed me an old black-and-white movie called Charade, and I wore a headscarf for days, just like the main character. It drove them nuts sometimes, but they were used to it because we’d all known each other since we were babies. Mackenzie had only been in Keegan River for a few months, but it felt like we’d known her for ages too, especially since we all started our Sleepover BFFs business together.

  Which reminded me. I’d better get organised for today’s booking.

  two

  I WALKED OUT OF OUR BACK DOOR, TOOK A SHARP left and headed straight into the back of the Keegan River Café, where Dad was standing at the stove, cooking up a storm. He looked up and smiled.

  ‘Hey, hon,’ he said, nodding at a large blue tin on top of the fridge. ‘I put the party food in there.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said happily, reaching up to grab it. ‘Where’s Mum?’

  He jerked his head towards the front area. ‘Running around like a headless chook!’

  I bent down to peer through the kitchen hatch to see the café buzzing with customers, and Mum hurrying from one table to the next.

  ‘Wow, busy! Is Jemma on today?’ I asked.

  Jemma was a woman who lived in Echo Bay, the next town over, and sometimes helped Mum and Dad out in the café.

  ‘No, she’s gone to the city to see her mum,’ Dad said. ‘We didn’t expect it to be so busy today, but a busload of tourists just pulled up.’

  ‘Do you need me to do anything when I get back?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah, that’s alright, love,’ Dad said. ‘You go set up your sleepover. We’ll be fine.’

  I weaved my way through the busy café, turning to wave goodbye to Mum as I headed for the door.

  I felt a bit guilty about leaving her on her own. I liked helping my parents when I could, especially if they were slammed like today, but before I could think about it for too long, a familiar voice screamed my name.

  ‘VIOLET! VIOLET! OVER HERE!’

  It was Zi. She was jumping up and down on the grass, waving her hands in the air, with Naira, Abbie and Mackenzie next to her. Naira gave Zi a gentle whack on the arm as I walked up to them.

  ‘Why are you shouting like that?’ she scolded. ‘The girl’s right there. She can see us!’

  ‘Ooh,’ Abbie said, spying the tin in my hand. ‘Are those the pretzels and dragon eggs?’

  I grinned proudly. ‘Yep.’

  This afternoon’s booking was a birthday sleepover for a girl named Stella. She was turning six and had asked for the Fairyt ale Sleepover package.

  We’d had heaps of fun getting this one organised, and wrote everything down so we could keep notes in our Sleepover BFFs folder for the next booking:

  Used empty boxes from the café to make a castle entrance with ivy and flowers all over it for Stella’s bedroom door.

  Made stars and flowers to hang from the roof to give the room an ‘enchanted forest’ vibe.

  Borrowed fairy lights and paper lanterns from Abbie’s mum’s shop to hang around the bedroom.

  Borrowed tulle from prep classroom to make canopy ‘castles’ to drape over the kids’ sleeping bags.

  Drew unicorns, dragons and fairies to cut out and stick onto little cardboard stands for the party table (Mackenzie did those—she’s an awesome artist).

  Made ‘magic wands’ (pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate) and ‘dragon eggs’ (basically chocolate Easter eggs).

  Created a fairytale treasure-hunt game, including map with clues on it.

  It had been a lot of work, but because it was our first Fairytale Sleepover booking, we wanted to impress.

  We each had different roles in the Sleepover BFFs business. Abbie had always been the best at organising our own sleepovers, so she was the CEO, which meant she did most of the organising and made all the big decisions. Mackenzie was great at drawing, so she was our graphic designer. Zi kept track of the bookings, and Naira was our treasurer and looked after the money. I was in charge of marketing, which meant that my job was to think of ways to get us more bookings. That hadn’t been a problem lately. Even though we’d only started the business a month ago, we’d had sleepovers booked almost every week up until now, and they were still rolling in.

  ‘Violet, can you stop doing your job so well?’ Abbie had groaned the other day. ‘We won’t be able to keep up if it keeps going like this. It’s so busy!’

  ‘Good,’ I’d said. ‘Then I can buy my own iPad and won’t need to steal Mum’s to film stuff.’

  Saving money was the reason we’d started our business in the first place. We were all too young to get proper jobs, and had always loved having themed sleepovers, so we came up with the idea for Sleepover BFFs.

  Zi eyed the tin in my hand. ‘Can we have a look?’

  I opened the lid, and my friends leaned forward to take a peek inside.

  ‘YUM!’ Mackenzie said. ‘They look amazing.’

  ‘It’s so annoying that we have to give them to the kids,’ Zi groaned.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Dad and I made extra for our own sleepover.’

  ‘Yay!’ Zi squealed.

  ‘Okay, let’s go,’ Abbie said, starting off down the road, pulling the cart behind her. ‘We don’t want to be late.’

  ‘Did everything fit?’ I asked, taking a quick look.

  The cart looked chockers, but I wanted to check that we hadn’t left anything behind.

  ‘Yep,’ Abbie said. ‘I struggled a bit getting the castle entrance in, but Mum helped.’

  ‘I can’t WAIT to see the looks on those kids’ faces when they see the enchanted forest,’ Naira squealed. ‘They’re going to flip.’

  ‘Yeah, but we won’t see their faces, will we?’ Zi sighed. ‘We’ll be gone by the time the kids get there for the party.’

  ‘Yeah, I’d love to be able to see their reactions,’ Mackenzie said.

  ‘And not by hiding in the bushes like our first booking.’ Zi rolled her eyes.

  ‘Our first disaster, you mean,’ Abbie said.

  We all shuddered as we thought back to our first—and what could have been our last—Sleepover BFFs job. The water balloons burst and the jellyfish piñata broke, so the kids all ended up saturated and covered in tissue paper. We’d also accidentally left the gate open, so the neighbour’s dogs got in and jumped up on the food table, before running all over the backyard and making even more mess. The experience nearly broke the business and our friendship, but luckily we’d sorted it out. As Mum said afterwards, There are bumps in the road with any new business.

  My parents knew all about business bumps. Just last week, I heard them talking about losing a big catering client and all the bills they had to pay. It worried me when my parents were stressed out, especially because they loved the café so much, but they’d just started posting on social media to try to get more customers.

  Hang on . . . what if . . . ?

  I stopped and turned to face everyone.

  ‘Hey, maybe we could offer photos and video as part of the business?’ I said. ‘Then we can film the kids arriving, and at the party. I can edit the video to make it all look really cute, with music and stuff over it. Then we can charge extra for it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Abbie said. ‘But if we’re charging extra, we can’t just use one of our parents’ phones. That wouldn’t look very professional.’

  ‘We could use this,’ I said, pulling my digital camera out of my bag.

  ‘Or I could ask Dad if we could use his phone,’ Mackenzie said. ‘It’s really good quality.’

  Naira grinned. ‘The phone that caught Yasmin cheating in the surf comp?’

  ‘Yep,’ Mackenzie said proudly.

  ‘Yeah, it did!’ Zi hooted.

  ‘Okay, Mac,’ Abbie said as we turned into Stella’s street. ‘Maybe ask your dad and see what he says and . . .’

  She stopped talking as we suddenly found ourselves face to face with Yasmin and Piper. They were running down the hill, surfboards under their arms, and we’d almost smacked straight into them as we rounded the corner.

  ‘Watch it!’ Yasmin snapped, dodging around us.

  ‘YOU watch it!’ I snapped back.

  Yasmin and Piper were a year older than us and the biggest bullies in Keegan River. But they didn’t scare me, especially not after Yasmin was exposed as a cheat in front of the whole town a few weeks ago. Piper hadn’t cheated, but she was just as mean. They’d both kept a low profile since the surf comp, but our town was so small that it was hard to avoid anyone for too long.

  ‘Aw, are the kiddies taking their little red wagon for a spin?’ Piper sneered. ‘Careful your toys don’t fall out!’

  Abbie’s expression darkened angrily. ‘For your information, we’re—’

  ‘Ignore them,’ Zi muttered, tugging on Abbie’s arm. ‘Come on.’

  I knew Abbie wanted to say something else, but she stopped herself and nodded at Zi.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go,’ she said.

  We gave Yasmin and Piper one final glare, then walked away, trying our hardest to ignore their nasty giggles behind us.

  ‘How are they still so smug?’ Mackenzie said, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘They were humiliated in front of the whole town!’

  ‘Rhino skin,’ Naira said.

  Abbie frowned. ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s something my dad says,’ Naira explained. ‘It means Yasmin and Piper have super-thick skin, so they don’t care what people think of them.’

  ‘I wish I had rhino skin,’ Mackenzie sighed. ‘I care WAY too much about what people think.’

  ‘I’d rather have dolphin skin,’ Zi mused. ‘It’s so shiny and smooth!’

  ‘I reckon octopus skin would be the best,’ I said. ‘They can change their skin to blend into the background and hide from predators. Like, they can literally disappear.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Zi stopped walking again to frown at me. ‘How do you know this stuff?’

  ‘It’s called reading.’ I grinned, slinging my arm around her shoulder.

  Zi rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, that old thing!’

  Everyone laughed as we continued trudging up the hill towards Stella’s house, pulling the heavy cart behind us.

  three

  IT DIDN’T TAKE TOO LONG TO SET UP THE FAIRYTALE decorations at Stella’s house, and when we’d finished, they looked even better than we could have imagined. We also put the food out and hid the ‘treasures’ (plastic gems, chocolate gold coins and tiny crowns) around the backyard for the treasure hunt. I took a bunch of photos for our website while Abbie gave Stella’s parents the instructions for the games, then we all headed back to Zi’s for a game of Bin Friz.

  ‘Do you reckon the kids will understand the story-time charades?’ Abbie asked me, flinging the frisbee towards the bin opposite us. ‘Or are they too young?’

  Story-time charades was a game I’d come up with, where the kids had to act out a famous scene from a fairytale.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9