Shadowhall Academy: The Whispering Walls

Phil Hickes's Shadowhall Academy: The Whispering Walls is a proper shivery boarding-school ghost story for 11 year olds about a new girl, a cold dormitory and a tapping from inside the wall.

What happens

Lilian Jones likes everything in its place. Her seashells are lined up from large to small. Her marbles are sorted by colour. Her books are in alphabetical order, just like a library.

So being sent a hundred miles away to boarding school is a lot. Shadowhall Academy has turrets, a gargoyle on the gates and a headmistress, Ms Strange, with cold grey eyes. The corridors all look the same. The food is terrible. Nowhere is ever warm.

She does find friends, though. Marian (call her Maz) is a goth who dyes her hair black against the rules. Serena is rich and sharp and tries to take Lilian's lucky shell on day one. Lilian bluffs her way out of that with a story about a nerve in the neck that she's only read about in a book. It works!

Then shy Angela arrives from Ipswich, and on the first night Lilian hears it. Tap-tap-tap. Coming from the wall. Half-joking, she asks "Is anybody there?"

And something taps back.

Maz knows why. Years ago, a girl called Mary hid inside the walls during a game of hide-and-seek before half-term. She got stuck, nobody heard her, and she was found too late. Girls call her Cold Mary. Guess which dormitory she was found in?

Lilian doesn't believe in ghosts. So she decides to prove it's just pipes, prising open an old painted-over hatch with a nail file and climbing into the dark between the beams. It's a real hold-your-breath moment!

It's a very atmospheric read. Lots of creaking, cold air and doors that were shut and now aren't. The girls' jokes and teasing keep it bearable, and Lilian's gloomy one-liners are brilliant ("That's because everything's dying," she says of the autumn colours).

Just so you know, Cold Mary's story is grim. A child trapped and freezing, found blue with her fingers knotted, is told in detail, and the story keeps coming back to it. It's perfect for a reader who loves a scare, and too much for one who's easily spooked at bedtime.

What to read next

Fans of Phil Hickes may spot a clue or two. Lilian's first ever shell came from a place called Malmouth. In The Haunting of Aveline Jones, Aveline goes to stay in Malmouth with her rather strict Aunt Lilian, who used to teach at a posh boarding school. Make of that what you will!