Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town Cutting Room Floor 2

While revising and editing, some good stuff gets cut and ends up on the cutting room floor. This is another example, where Anton does some musing.

Because life wasn’t all about hunting ghosts and dealing with murderous cults, I hoped Dad was going to have a bumper bookselling day because, despite grandad’s investments, money was turning out to be an issue. Even in the middle of large scale ghost upsurge, that was a problem. Like, when wasn’t it? Oh, we weren’t going to starve, but a luxury lifestyle? Not really. No solid gold foot warmers for us. And despite our shady family history, we had no ‘there’s money in the banana stand’ fall-backs, worse luck.

In between working in the shop and dispatching ghosts, I’d kicked around plenty of get rich quick plans, but ghost hunting isn’t actually all that full of possibilities for spinning off a lucrative sideline. I even played around with the idea of franchising, but after thinking it through—something some people like Bec claim I never do with anything—I dumped it for two reasons.

1. The whole ghost hunting world hates publicity and bajillions of Marin Ghost Hunting franchises popping up all over the place might upset the wrong sort of people.
2. We’ve already got all these serious ghost hunting leagues, brotherhoods, associations and stuff. We don’t need more getting in the way. Lots of Jim’s Ghost Hunting vans everywhere? No thanks.

That’s not to say that I’ve got anything against Jim. That bald guy is one impressive hombre. Lawns? Check. TV antennas? Check. Pool cleaning? Check. Home surgery and international peace keeping? Probably coming soon.

Oh, Anton.

Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town, coming in July from Allen and Unwin.