Harvey is a little boy of ten years of age who lives in Millsap town with his mother and father. At the beginning of the book, Harvey, tired of the dull February days, meets a little man called Rictus who takes him to the Holiday House, a place that is supposed to be full of fun.

In chapters 9 and 10 of the book, the Holiday House works hard to please Harvey after he loses his ark in an eerie incident that occurs at the lake and that leaves him convinced that the house is haunted. For instance, it gives him a present of a bike, fills the tree house with monkeys and parrots, and turns the flames of the fire in the living room into dragons and heroes engaged in bitter warfare. It also presents two of Rictus’s siblings to Harvey, Jive and Marr, who help Harvey to plan a retaliatory Halloween trick on Wendell. Marr transforms Harvey into a scary vampire, and Harvey is then able to give Wendell the scare of his life. Not knowing that the vampire is actually Harvey, Wendell begs it to devour Harvey instead: “I’m too fat to eat, but there is another kid around here somewhere.” Jive, hidden in a nearby bush, encourages Harvey to suck Wendell’s blood after he hears of Wendell’s betrayal. However, Harvey refuses to bow down to pressure from Jive and chooses to let Wendell go, saying that Wendell was his friend and that the vampire trick was but a game.

From these two chapters, we learn that Harvey is a loving and caring boy. He cares for his friend Wendell, even though it does not take much for the latter to betray him. Also, he is loyal to those he loves and is sensible enough not to be swayed by others into doing the wrong thing.