Dial a Ghost (12 page)

Miss Pringle arrived at Helton late in the afternoon. Addie and Oliver were out for a walk, but Aunt Maud was waltzing about on the head of the man trying to strangle a snake and she came down at once.

‘Why if it isn’t dear Miss Pringle,’ she said. ‘What a pleasure to see you. We should have let you know before how very happy and grateful we are.’

Grandma, who was having a little nap on one of the benches, now sat up and said, ‘Yes that’s right. It’s a lovely place here; we’re as snug as anything. It just seems like a bad dream now, that time in the knicker shop.’ She called to Eric. ‘Eric, here’s Miss Pringle from the agency come to see how we’ve settled in.’

You can imagine how poor Miss Pringle felt. How she blushed and stammered and had to dash away her tears when she told them the dreadful news.

‘A mistake?’ said Uncle Henry, who had come to join them. ‘What sort of a mistake?’

Miss Pringle blew her nose and explained about Ted and the colour blindness.

‘You were meant to go to some nuns down in the West Country. Ever such nice people. And some quite different ghosts were ordered for up here. Rather fierce and horrible people but... suitable for such a big place.’

It was Uncle Henry who understood what she was trying to tell them.

‘You mean you want us to leave here? To go away again?’

Miss Pringle nodded. ‘The gentleman who ordered the ghosts for here was very angry and upset.’

The Wilkinsons could make no sense of this. All they knew was that they were not wanted.

‘Of course we aren’t headless,’ said Aunt Maud hopelessly.

‘I told you,’ said Eric. ‘I told you no one would want me. If Cynthia Harbottle didn’t want me, no one else will either.’

‘Now, Eric,’ said Grandma. He’d hardly mentioned Cynthia since they came to Helton and here it was starting up again. ‘It isn’t you, it’s me. It’s because I’m old.’

‘No, no, no!’ cried Miss Pringle. ‘It’s just that Mr Boyd wanted fierce ghosts and he’s very cross. It’s to do with attracting tourists.’

But she looked round at Helton in a very puzzled way. There didn’t seem to be any notices saying that the hall was open to the public.

Uncle Henry’s ectoplasm had become quite curdled with shock, but he spoke with dignity. ‘If we’re not wanted here, we must leave at once. Go and catch the budgie, Maud, and I’ll get our things.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Miss Pringle was getting more and more flustered. Still, she was running an agency; she had to be businesslike. ‘Where is Adopta?’ she asked, for the little girl was a special favourite of hers.

‘She’s out with Oliver,’ said Aunt Maud – and when she thought of saying goodbye to the child they had grown to love so much, she could no longer hold back her tears.

‘Oliver? Is that Mr Boyd – the man who owns Helton?’ asked Miss Pringle. ‘Because if so perhaps I’d better stay and apologize to him myself.’

But just then the children came running down the path. Oliver had found another letter from Trevor in the Troughton Post Office and his face was alight with happiness. At least it was till he saw the ghosts.

‘What is it?’ he asked, suddenly afraid. ‘What’s happened?’

Miss Pringle came forward and introduced herself. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had to tell them that they aren’t wanted here at Helton. That they were sent here by mistake.’

The next minute, she stepped back a pace because the most extraordinary change had taken place in the little boy.

He had seemed to be a gentle sort of child and not at all bossy or strong-minded. Now his chin went up and his eyes blazed.

‘Not welcome at Helton?’ he said furiously. ‘Not
welcome
! How dare you say such a thing! They’re the most welcome people I have ever known. They’re my friends. They’re my family and they’re not going away from here ever. I’ll... I’ll kill anyone who tries to take them away.’

The effect of Oliver’s words was incredible. The ghosts’ ectoplasm seemed to thicken and grow stronger. Grandma’s whiskers, which had faded almost to nothingness, stood out clear and sharp again, and Eric smiled.

‘Oh you good, kind boy,’ said Aunt Maud, and came to put her arms round him.

Miss Pringle, though, was completely muddled.

‘You see, dear, the man who owns this place—’

Oliver, usually so shy and never one to interrupt, broke in.

‘
I
am the man who owns this place,’ he said – and it seemed quite reasonable that this little boy, who scarcely came up to Miss Pringle’s shoulder, should talk of himself as a man. ‘I didn’t want to but I do – you can ask anyone – and I hated it here till the Wilkinsons came and
I will not let them go.
’

Miss Pringle stared at him. ‘But the person who came to the agency was a grown-up – a tall man with a long face and a moustache. And he said he wanted a very particular kind of ghost—’

‘That wasn’t the owner. That was my cousin, Fulton Snodde-Brittle, and it was very nice of him to order some ghosts because I was lonely. But whatever he ordered, these ghosts are
mine
.’

Miss Pringle had turned pale. She had just taken in what Oliver had said. ‘You mean you really own this place? And you live here all the time? You sleep here at night?’

‘Yes.’

Miss Pringle’s hand flew to her mouth. Mrs Mannering had found the Shriekers cursing and raging in the meat store and told them they could go to Helton.

And the Shriekers had sworn to destroy any child that they could find!

‘Oh heavens!’ said Miss Pringle. ‘How dreadful. Oh whatever should I do?’

‘At last!’ cried Sabrina de Bone. ‘At last a place that’s fit for us!’

The Shriekers stood in the hall at Helton, looking about them with their greedy, hate-filled eyes. It had become very cold; a fall of soot came roaring down the chimney, and a dead jackdaw tumbled out on to the hearth.

In the dining room, the pictures of the Snodde-Brittles fell to the ground and lay in a mess of twisted string and broken glass. A suit of armour crashed on to its side.

‘Nice,’ said Sabrina. She floated into the drawing room and drew her fingernails along the sofa – and the cloth ripped apart, letting the stuffing ooze out like clotted blood.

The hands of the clock began a mad whirring and an icy mist crept along the floor.

‘Something’s going on,’ said Mr Tusker, down in the basement. ‘Don’t like the sound of it.’

‘Better go and see if the boy’s all right,’ said Miss Match.

But Mr Tusker didn’t think that was a good idea at all. ‘Not me,’ he said and bolted the kitchen door.

The Shriekers floated on through the grand rooms, dragging the ghoul behind them. Blue flames sprang up in the fireplace and terrified mice scuttled deep into the wainscot.

Then suddenly Sir Pelham stopped.

‘Do you smell anything, snotbag?’ he asked.

Sabrina’s nose stump began to twitch. She turned her face this way and that.

‘Oh yes, I smell something,’ she drawled. ‘I smell something... lovely.’

Sir Pelham yanked the rope and the ghoul gurgled and choked.

‘Where is it, you slime gobbet?’ he asked. ‘
Where is the child?’

With his eyes still shut, the ghoul began to run wildly about. ‘Child,’ he muttered. ‘Burn. Fry. Sizzle. Child.’ He set off across the drawing room, through the billiard room, towards the staircase...

‘The smell’s getting stronger,’ said Sabrina happily. ‘And it’s a
clean
child. A washed child. I do love hurting clean children.’

‘Clean children are the best,’ agreed Sir Pelham.

Dribbling with blood lust, they followed the ghoul as he panted up the staircase... across the Long Gallery... down the corridor with the grinning masks...

It was the crash of falling Snodde-Brittles which woke Aunt Maud.

‘Is that you, Eric?’ she called, for the farmer and Eric had decided to go camping in the woods.

But the noises which came from downstairs were not the kind made by her shy son. Squealings... rappings... and now the sound of a clock striking twelve... and thirteen... and on and on.

‘Henry, I’m bit worried,’ she began.

But her husband was already sitting up, and now Grandma popped her head out of the coffin chest.

‘There’s some hanky-panky going on somewhere,’ she said. ‘I can tell by my whiskers. They’re as stiff as boards.’

‘I’m going downstairs to see,’ said Uncle Henry. ‘You stay here.’

But of course there was no way the women would let him go alone.

They did not have far to go before they saw the intruders. A pair of crazed, blood-spattered spectres and, pulling them along, a quivering blob of jelly with foaming jaws.

‘
Stop
!’ Uncle Henry spoke like the brave soldier he had been in the war. ‘This part of the house is private.’

The female spook tittered. ‘You funny man,’ she said. She unwound the python from her neck, and it hissed and swayed and shot out its flickering tongue.

But the Wilkinsons stood their ground.

‘You can’t come any further,’ said Aunt Maud. ‘You’ll wake the children.’

Poor Maud – she realized almost at once that she had made a terrible mistake.

‘Ah,
children
,’ gloated Sir Pelham. ‘Not just one child! One
each
, then. We won’t have to share! I’m going to strangle mine.’

‘I’m going to cut mine to ribbons with my nails.’

‘No you aren’t!’ Grandma stepped forward and lunged out with her umbrella. Uncle Henry plucked a sword from the wall. They were ready to fight to the last drop of their ectoplasm, but then something so horrible happened that they stopped just for a moment – and that moment was fatal.

The budgie, trusting and stupid, had followed them. Now he landed, fluttering and squawking, on Aunt Maud’s shoulder.

‘Open wide,’ said the bird in his friendly way. ‘Open—’

But it was the python who opened wide. And as the Wilkinsons stared in horror, watching their beloved pet disappear into the jaws of the evil snake, the Shriekers passed through them as if they were morning mist and entered the room where the children lay fast asleep.

They lay head to feet as usual. Addie had become invisible. She always vanished when she slept.

The moon was full and the quiet room was bathed in a silver light.

‘Child,’ gabbled the ghoul, and collapsed in a heap on to the rug.

The Shriekers stepped over him and moved towards the bed.

‘Ah, how sweet, a little boy in his pyjamas,’ sighed Sabrina and stretched out her fingers, with their dreadful nails, to touch his cheek.

And in that instant, Oliver woke.

‘Are you all right, Addie?’ he asked sleepily. Then he fell back on the pillow and a scream died in his throat. Bending over him was a spectre so hideous that he couldn’t have imagined it in his wildest dreams. She had no nose, her hollow eyes glittered with hatred, gobbets of raw meat clung to her hair.

It’s impossible, he thought. I can’t be seeing this.

Then he wondered if maybe it was a sort of joke. ‘Are you in fancy dress, Aunt Maud?’ he managed to say.

But he knew it wasn’t so. From the appalling spook there came such a sense of loathing and danger that no one could have pretended it. And now, looming up behind her, was a second spectre even more gruesome: a man with a broken skull who raised the whip he held in his hand – and laughed.

‘Well well, you look a nice healthy fellow, all safe and sound in your bed. What a pity your last hour has come!’

But as the female phantom’s fingers began to move towards his throat, something happened to Oliver that was far worse than anything the spooks could do. His chest tightened ... his breath came in choking gasps ... the air he had drawn into his lungs stayed trapped. Desperately he stretched out his hand for his inhaler ... he had almost reached it – and then the thong of the man’s whip curled round it and dashed it to the ground. Even as the vile spectres prepared to throttle him, Oliver was turning blue in the worst asthma attack of his life.

He tried to cry out and warn Addie, but there was no hope of making a single sound. This is it, then, thought Oliver. This is the end.

But Addie was awake. Without bothering to become visible she went into the attack.

‘How dare you?’ she screamed. ‘How
dare
you harm Oliver, you disgusting old spooks.’ Kicking out at Pelham with one foot, she swooped down and picked up the inhaler. ‘Breathe!’ she ordered Oliver, putting it into his hand. ‘Go on.
Do
it.’

‘Who are you? What’s going on here?’ spluttered Pelham, who could see nothing.

‘What’s going on here is that I’m going to do you in,’ yelled Adopta. ‘I don’t know where you come from, but I’m not scared of you, you silly old banshees.’ She aimed a kick at the ghoul, lying on the floor, then swooped up to bite Sabrina in the neck. ‘If you’ve hurt Oliver, I’ll kill you. I’ll turn your ectoplasm into semolina; I’ll grow maggots in your earhole.’