midnight
`` If only Caroline does n't say anything , '' she thought , adding spitefully : `` And now I suppose I 've got to be nice to the old thing , whether I want to or not . '' Meanwhile , the rest of the girls were having a gay time . Never had a forbidden feast gone off so beautifully before , and they were in hilarious spirits . As the hour hand of the little clock on Nellie 's dresser crept near to midnight the girls packed up the fragments of the feast , and , after they had pushed the baskets out of sight under the beds , drew their chairs together to form a semi-circle and began joyfully to tell the most blood-curdling ghost stories they knew . Each girl had to tell some story she had read or heard , or if she was so unfortunate as never to have read or heard any , was forced to make one up `` out of her own head . '' The fun waxed fast and furious , each story being more hair-raising than the last until it came to Billie 's turn . `` But I do n't know any ghost stories , and I 'm no good at making them up , '' she protested when the girls looked at her expectantly .