The old grange was haunted. Everyone in the village knew it. The ghosts made sure they knew.

Anyone they caught intruding on the granges ground would suddenly find that they had an impossible to resist need to dress in the pinkest and frilliest and sissiest of dresses. After a week, this would disappear, leaving the victim suddenly discovering, in the most embarrassing place possible, that they were wearing girls clothes.

The problem for the local boys was that the grange had the best apples and conkers in the county. The complicated mathematics of bravery, showing off and embarrassment all combined to produce the inevitable result of boys regularly turning up at school out of uniform.

The smarter boys figured out there was a pattern. The first boy to try each season always got caught, and after that it was every 2 to 3 weeks before the next boy got caught. The only exceptions were boys who took too many apples, smart boys who thought they had figured out the pattern, and the year the school swot said "If a lot of us go in at once, there is no way they could catch us all."

Shortly after that, he discovered that, yes, they could catch everyone, even if you hid on the other side of the village during the event, and the results are even more embarrassing.