Late summer 1980

Another busy day of exploring and finding out and being outside in my still short life. I was tired and ready to go to sleep. Got my stuffed animals around me and one of my favorites with its movable head on a spring (it was too big and too hard to be in bed with me) was standing guard on the windowsill across the room. It was pretty warm outside, so the window was open a tiny bit, the wind blowing a tiny breeze through the room. The door was closed so far that there was still a tiny thread of light bouncing off on the wall even if there was a streetlight right across the street outside my window giving lighting my room in a soft twilight orange hue.
I crawled under the cover, but not so far that I would be too warm. I was lying with my face towards the wall and tried to catch sleep. But it was too warm. Losing the covers didn't help and I started turning around a bit restless.
The moment I turned around and facing the door my heart almost stopped pounding. On the door in a dark shadow it was. In some sort of strange transparent structured background, lightly swaying its head. In the same rhythm as the background was swaying.
I took a dive under the cover and started wondering how on earth that thing could've gotten into my room without me noticing. And then realizing that if it was a ghost it didn't care if I'd notice or not, it would come into my room whenever and however it pleased.
By that time my heart had started pounding again, but now in my throat and in several other places I didn't even know it could pound and I felt majorly uncomfortable. Ok... I was scared as hell!!
I staid under the cover for quite some time, but it started to get mighty warm under there and I thought that I should take a peek to see if it was gone already. Maybe it was in a good mood? So I got out from under the cover and really carefully took a look at the door, but ofcourse it was still there, its head still swaying in that same rhythm, but for the rest it hadn't moved one bit. I wondered why it didn't come further into the room.
I considered yelling for mom, threw the option aside, but then reconsidered. I also knew that if I did and mom would come up, the ghost would be gone by the time mom would get into my room. Ghost always do that. They always make kids feel really shitty and ridiculous, because they never appear to parents.
But I yelled for mom anyway and she came running up the stairs, concerned by the tone of my voice. She came into the room to see what was wrong with me and like I expected: the moment she opened the door, the ghost vanished from the door.
I told mom that I saw something in my room, but that it was gone now, when she entered.
Mom gave me the standard (I know it's a "supposedly" standard thing now) story that ghost don't exist and that I'd probably imagined, and I tried to convince her that I really did see it. But mom told me to go back to sleep and everything would be fine.
I knew it wouldn't be...
So mom left, closed the door behind her, and the moment she closed the door, the ghost was back again, in the same dark shadow, with the same strange transparent structured background and its head swaying like it had never been away.
It took me like half a second to yell mom back in the room (she must've been really annoyed), but as before, the moment mom opened the door again, the ghost disappeared from the door and I started feeling annoyed myself, too. I lost pretty much of my fear and now there was only the dismay, because I was stuck with a coward ghost that didn't dare to show itself to mom!
Mom got back into the room and asked me where it was. I told her it was on the door again and them mom said she'd stay in the room until I was asleep or until the ghost got back (maybe she wasn't all that annoyed after all). So she closed the door and turned around to sit on the bed with me and the moment she closed the door, the ghost was back (maybe the ghost wasn't such a coward in the end). And I was like THERE!!! while pointing at the door.
Mom turned around briskly and looked at the dark shadow on the door.
Then she started laughing and I was wondering what could ever be so funny about a ghost in my room. She walked across the room to the windowsill and took my stuffed animal away and then there was only the strange transparent reflection of streetlight through the curtains on the door, softly swaying on the breeze that came through the open window.
After that one night I slept a long time with the door open, and there'd never been a stuffed animal in the windowsill anymore. Nor did that one stuffed animal belong to my favorites any longer.
Favorite animals aren't supposed to scare the crap out of you...