Ghostsitters (6 page)

I
was still standing guard when Wanda came back from shopping. She didn't see me as she walked past with two really big bags full of stuff.

“Whoooooo,” I said in my best spooky voice.
“Whoooooo…”

“Argh!” she squeaked. “Don't
do
that, Araminta!”

“
Whoooooo
…What have you got in those
baaaaaaags
?” I said, flapping my arms like Edmund sometimes does.

“Nothing,” said Wanda, which was obviously a lie. A
big
lie. Then she tried to change the subject. “Anyway, what are you doing there?”

“I am on guard,” I told her.

“Why?”

I was about to tell her that I was stopping our best ghost from leaving
forever
when a huge crash came from the basement.

Wanda rushed off and I followed. I figured Sir Horace would be safe because at least now I knew where Ned and Jed were.

They were in the first-kitchen-on-the-right-just-before-the-laundry-room. The first-kitchen-on-the-right-just-before-the-laundry-room is where Aunt Tabby keeps
stacks of plates—but not anymore. Just as we got there the door flew open with a bang and a stream of plates came flying out and hit the wall opposite. Smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash,
smash
!

Wanda screamed and dropped the shopping bags and I am sure that I heard the crunch of cheese and onion chips getting squashed. I can hear the sound of squashed cheese and onion chips from miles away.

We took cover until the plates had stopped, then we peered around the door. Yes, you guessed it—Ned and Jed were sitting at the kitchen table, grinning, in the middle of a sea of broken plates. I added the plates to the Things that Aunt Tabby Will Not Like When She Comes Home list.

“Hello, little girls,”
they said. A couple of
plates zoomed out and hovered above our heads like flying saucers.

“Don't you dare!” I told them.

Very slowly, the plates flew back into the kitchen and settled down onto the last teetering stack.

“Why don't you go and haunt somewhere else?” said Wanda, furious.

“Why should we? We like it here,”
said Jed—or was it Ned?

“In fact we like it here so much that we have decided to stay,”
said Ned—or was it Jed?

“Well, in that case, you can stay in
here
,” I said and I slammed the door with a bang. Inside the room there was a massive crash.

“Oops,” said Wanda. “That's the rest of the plates.”

“Well, at least those two ghosts didn't have the fun of smashing them,” I said, then I locked the door and left the key in the lock. “They can stay in there now,” I told Wanda. “Good riddance.”

“But they are
ghosts
, Araminta,” said Wanda. “Ghosts can go through doors.”

“They wouldn't dare,” I said.

 

Wanda had done some weird shopping. She had bought lots of gummy bears, three tins of baked beans, some cheese, a packet of Choco-Drop Krackles, and a whole
ton
of bananas. There were only two teeny bags of cheese and onion chips plus a whole bunch of stuff that for some reason I was not allowed to see, which was very annoying. When I asked Wanda why I couldn't see it she said that Mathilda had told her that I mustn't.
Suddenly it seemed that now Wanda was Mathilda's best,
best
friend. Huh.

Wanda cooked lunch. We had sliced bananas and baked beans, which Wanda mixed up in a saucepan. It was quite nice, really. Wanda stirred some gummy bears into hers and sprinkled cheese on top. I had mine with two bags of squashed cheese and onion chips and some Choco-Drop Krackles sprinkled on top.

When we had finished I felt a bit sick, and Wanda said she did too, so we decided to go upstairs and read for a while. We crept by the first-kitchen-on-the-right-just-before-the-laundry-room. The door was still closed, which was good, but Wanda pointed out that it didn't mean that Ned and Jed were still in there. And because Wanda is Miss Nosy Bucket, she tried the door—it was unlocked.

But Ned and Jed were still there—and Mathilda was there
too
.

“Oops, sorry,” said Wanda.

“Wanda, I asked you to keep Araminta out of the way.”

“Sorry, Mathilda. I didn't know you were in there,” said Wanda.

“
Why
is Wanda trying to keep me out of the
way?” I asked. “That's not fair.”

“Of course it's fair,” said Mathilda, who I noticed was busy trying to hide a whole
flock
of shopping bags. “Now go
away
,” she said, and slammed the door.

Well! I was not happy. Not one bit. You would think with my birthday coming up the next day my cousin and my so-called friend Wanda Wizzard would try to be a bit nicer.

I spent the rest of the day in our Wednesday bedroom feeling sick, and if anyone had mentioned bananas and baked beans I probably would have
been
sick. But Wanda didn't care; she disappeared to do secret stuff with Mathilda. Some
friend
.

Every now and then I looked at the ring that Sir Horace had given me and polished it a bit. I was glad that Wanda did not know I had it. If she was going to keep secrets with Mathilda, then I would keep my ring secret,
so there
. And even if I didn't get any other birthday presents—which I was pretty sure I wouldn't, considering how horrible Wanda and Mathilda were being—I didn't mind. Sir Horace's ring was special. Really special.

T
he next morning was my birthday!

Usually I wake up early on my birthday and then I have to wait a long time for my presents, but that morning I woke up really late, as I wasn't a bit excited.

Wanda was still asleep so I opened Uncle Drac's present. It was a knitted bat. At least I think that's what it was. It had a long piece of string on it so I hung it up above Wanda and waited for her to wake up. Well, actually I didn't wait. I prodded her and hissed, “Wand
aaaaaa
!” in her ear. She sat up suddenly—like she always does when she wakes up—and the knitted bat dangled right in front of her eyes. She screamed really loudly.

I felt a bit bad about that when she gave me a birthday card and a
present
. The card was fun—it had a lot of ghosts trying to blow out birthday candles and it said
GHOSTLY GREETINGS
. The present was lovely. It was a ghost maze game and I have always wanted one of those. I couldn't wait to play it and I put it in our Thursday bedroom right away. Then I remembered Sir Horace's ring that I had been keeping as a birthday present and I put it on. It fit my biggest finger. The green stone sparkled and looked lovely.

It was strange not having Aunt Tabby or Uncle Drac there on my birthday. Wanda and I crept downstairs to get some breakfast and I noticed how empty Spookie House felt. Usually Brenda is either rattling the boiler or singing her favorite song, Aunt Tabby is scuttling about finding things for people to do, and Barry is thumping sacks of bat poo around. But that morning it felt really quiet and empty—and a little bit lonely.

There was no sign of Mathilda either, and her bedroom door was still closed. We passed Ned and Jed lying feet to feet on the long bench on the landing. It is hard to tell with ghosts, but they looked like they were asleep. As we tiptoed by nothing got thrown at us so they must have been. We stepped over a smashed flowerpot and crept downstairs,
through the shafts of dusty sunlight that shone between the gaps in the moth-eaten curtains, which were still drawn because Aunt Tabby was not there to open them.

As we passed the grandfather clock in the hall it struck thirteen and Wanda jumped in surprise. The clock always strikes thirteen, so it didn't mean that it was thirteen o'clock—although it nearly
was
. Both hands were pointing at twelve—which, as even Wanda knows, is midday. Midday—and we had only just got up. What would Aunt Tabby have said?

We tiptoed past Uncle Drac's cupboard—I don't know why we were tiptoeing except that that is what you do when a house is very quiet—and I could not resist a peek inside, just in case Uncle Drac had come back for my birthday. Of course he hadn't. His old black cloak was hanging up like it always does, his green string scarf was slung over another hook, and his crutches from when he broke his legs were propped up in the corner. They reminded me so much of Uncle Drac that I felt really sad. And there was no sign of Sir Horace either—just the newspaper left on the chair.

While Wanda was thumping around the kitchen fixing breakfast, I went to check on the boiler. The boiler does not like being left alone for long and I was afraid it might have gone out. It nearly had. I emptied the ash and got the fire going again with little pieces of wood and coal. Soon it was blazing away, making the hot water pipes rattle and clang like they always do. There was a funny smell coming from the kitchen so I thought breakfast
was probably ready, but as I was about to go, a spooky green glow appeared in the corner of the boiler room by the ash can. It was Edmund.

Edmund was the first ghost I discovered in Spookie House and when I first saw him I was really excited—and even a little bit scared—but nowadays when I see him I get the same feeling as I do when I am out shopping with Aunt Tabby and she stops to talk to one of her friends and they both go on and
on
about all kinds of stuff. Yawn.

“Hello, Araminta,”
said Edmund in his weedy voice.

“Oh, hello, Edmund. Must rush. Stuff to do. Bye.”

I was nearly out of the boiler room when I heard a booming ghostly voice shout,
“Miss Spookie!”
and Sir Horace lurched out of the cupboard where Brenda keeps all the boiler stuff. He was followed by Fang, who stared at me with his tongue lolling out over his big white teeth. I do like Fang, but he can be a little scary close up.

“Sir Horace! What are you doing in the cupboard?”

Sir Horace did not sound happy.
“Unfortunately, Miss Spookie, I have been forced to spend the night here after an incident involving a flowerpot.”

“Oh dear,” I said.

“The only reason I did not leave immediately, Miss Spookie, was that I wished to say good-bye.”

I was shocked. “Good-bye?”

“Indeed, Miss Spookie, I am leaving for
Catheter Cottage. Please give my regards to your aunt and uncle, and, of course, the delightful Miss Wizzard. Come, Edmund, Fang. Away!”
Sir Horace swung his left leg forward, the rest of him followed, and he started clanking out of the boiler room.

“No!” I said. “Please don't go, Sir Horace.
Please
.”

What a horrible birthday this was turning out to be.

 

“Breakfast!” yelled Wanda from the kitchen—and suddenly I had a Plan. Not a big one, it is true, but a small one with potential.

“Come and have a farewell breakfast with us, Sir Horace,” I said.

For a moment I thought he was going to say no. But he bowed and said,
“A fine tradition, Miss Spookie. At Hernia Hall we used to have many splendid farewell breakfasts.”

When Sir Horace saw what Wanda had cooked for breakfast he must have been glad that he was a ghost and didn't have to eat anything. As we came into the kitchen, Wanda was taking something out from under the grill. It looked like toast with green glue on it, although I could not be sure. “What's
that
?” I asked.

“Gummy bears on toast,” said Wanda, sounding rather proud. “Oh.”

“It's all we've got,” said Wanda grumpily.

Sir Horace politely left his sword at the door and sat next to me. Edmund wafted around until Wanda noticed him and said, “Ooh, hello, Edmund. Come and sit next to
me
.”

Fang, who still does not realize that ghosts do not eat anything, sat beside my chair and stared up at me, hoping I would feed him.

I was going to tell Wanda that Sir Horace was leaving and we had to do something fast, but I made the mistake of taking a bite of my gummy bears on toast first. It actually tasted quite nice, but when I went to open my mouth to speak I couldn't. My teeth were stuck fast.

“Wharrrarr,” I said, trying to pry my teeth apart.

“Whaaaa?” said Wanda, who was having the same trouble.

“Srrr Hrrrss
sleeving
.”

“Wheerr?”

“Srrr Hrrrss sleeving!”

“Whaaarrrr?”

Sir Horace came to the rescue.
“Miss Wizzard, I believe that Miss Spookie is trying to tell you that I shall be leaving shortly and going to live in a quiet alcove in Catheter Cottage.”

Wanda was frantically trying to pry her teeth apart with the end of her spoon. “Curthtr Crrrtge!” she spluttered.
“Nerrrr!”
Any other time I would have been rolling around on the floor laughing—but not now.

Suddenly Wanda's spoon worked. “Catheter Cottage! No! Please don't go, Sir Horace, I will miss Edmund
so
much,” she said. “And I will miss you too, Sir Horace,” she added rather quickly.

Suddenly I had a Plan. It was only another small one and I wasn't even sure what potential it had, but what can you expect when you have used up all your energy unsticking
grilled gummy bears from your teeth?

“Sir Horace,” I said. “It's my birthday.”

“Indeed? Many happy returns, Miss Spookie,”
he boomed.

“And it's an old Spookie House tradition that you must grant one wish to the daughter of the house on her birthday.”

“What's a daughter of the house?” asked Wanda.

“Not what—
who
,” I told her. “It's me.”

“I thought it might be,” said Wanda.

“So what wish has Miss Wizzard granted you, Miss Spookie?”
Sir Horace asked with a smile in his voice.

“She promised not to ask any silly questions on my birthday. Didn't you, Wanda?”

“Did I?”

“Wand
aaaa
.”

“So what wish can
I
grant for your birthday, Miss Spookie?”

Aha
. Sir Horace had walked right into my Plan. I was learning a thing or two from Mathilda. “Sir Horace, my wish is that you will stay in Spookie House and not go to that
horrible old alcove—which I bet is where Nurse Watkins keeps her nurse's bag. And
that
is full of all kinds of yucky stuff—take my word for it.”

I saw Wanda's jaw drop. She looked impressed, I thought.

Sir Horace did not say anything for a few moments. Then he said,
“I will stay in Spookie House but—”

“Yaay!” We cheered and then we stopped as we realized there was a “but.”

“On one condition.”

“Oh,” I said. I reckoned I knew what that might be. I was right.

“If those two scoundrels throw anything else at me I shall leave at once.”

“Don't worry, Sir Horace,” I said. “They won't throw anything else at you.”

 

But they did.

As we helped Sir Horace up the basement stairs, one of Aunt Tabby's very best vases, complete with moldy flowers and smelly green water, landed on Sir Horace's head. The green gooey water dripped through his visor—which is the little bit that he looks out of—and ran into his armor.

“Rust!”
boomed Sir Horace in a panic.
“Rust!”

Sir Horace
hates
water getting in his armor. He clanked up the rest of the stairs at top speed and headed across the hall with Wanda, me, and Fang running after him. Sir Horace was not going on his own.

“Good-bye, Sir Rust Bucket,”
laughed Ned and Jed, who were sitting on the monster
chair by the clock.

“Good-bye, you
horrible
ghosts,” I said. “
We
are going too.”

Then Wanda, Sir Horace, and I stomped and rattled out of Spookie House.