Shiverton Hall (15 page)

Penny and Arthur looked at George in horror.

‘I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel worse. So well done, George,’ Penny said crossly.

‘Hey,’ he replied. ‘You asked me what phantoms can do.
That
’s what they can do.’

Chapter Thirteen

Although George had spooked Penny and Arthur with his grandfather’s story, it turned out that the person he had frightened most was himself. Of course, he had read the Shiverton stories hundreds of times and knew them inside out, but they took on a whole different meaning when there was a growing possibility of something similar happening to him. So it was that at midnight Arthur found George knocking on his door, dragging his duvet behind him.

‘You don’t mind if I sleep on your floor, do you, mate?’ George asked sheepishly.

Arthur rolled his eyes, but secretly he was relieved. He was having trouble sleeping himself, as visions of the injured soldiers kept on marching into his mind. ‘Go on then,’ he sighed.

‘Thanks, Arthur.’ George grinned and went about making a bed for himself out of cushions and rugs.

George woke two hours later to the sound of a dripping tap. He groaned and stumbled up to Arthur’s sink, making sure the taps were fastened as tight as they could be. Arthur had kicked off his duvet and was sleeping with his mouth wide open, and George was tempted to cover his face in toothpaste. He thought better of it, considering Arthur had kindly lent him his floor, so he climbed back into his makeshift bed and closed his eyes.

The dripping began again, more insistently than before. George tried to ignore it, but its irritating irregularity was enough to keep him awake. He got up again and turned the taps with all his might, yet the sound continued. He stuck his hand underneath the faucet and was puzzled to find no dripping water. He peered under the sink at the pipes: there was no leak there either. He checked to see if it was raining: it wasn’t. Now he was awake enough to think more clearly, he tilted his head, straining to identify where the sound was coming from. It wasn’t within Arthur’s room, he realised. It was in the corridor.

George tiptoed across the room to the door, and opened it as quietly as he could, checking that he hadn’t inadvertently woken his friend, but Arthur remained sprawled inelegantly on his bed, dead to the world.

The dripping was louder in the hallway. George walked slowly, feeling his way towards the sound. The hall lights were on a central system that was turned off after midnight, and the lack of windows meant that it was pitch black. George stopped. Was that someone breathing on his neck?

He bolted blindly towards the bathroom and crashed the door open, relieved to be greeted with the buzzing, fluorescent light. He peered back down the corridor and laughed nervously when he found it reassuringly empty. The dripping was loudest in the bathroom; someone had obviously failed to turn off the shower properly.

There were ten boys to a bathroom at Garnons, so the rooms were necessarily large. The bathroom on Arthur’s floor was the biggest in the house, with six showers on one side and six loo cubicles directly opposite, with everything painted or tiled a dazzling, hygienic white. The cubicle doors were shut, as were the shower curtains, and George, a little nervous after scaring himself in the corridor, felt a burst of childhood apprehension at the idea of having to peer behind them. He walked up to the first curtain and tentatively pulled it back as the dripping grew louder. The overhead light flickered, and George turned around with his hand still on the damp polyester.

There was a rustling of material and the clinking of curtain rings two cubicles away from him. The light flickered again, accompanied by a muffled laugh. George ran and ripped open the remaining curtains one by one, hoping that the Forge triplets were playing a trick on him. But he found each one empty, and none leaking enough to merit the almost deafening drips. The cubicle door behind him began to rattle. He kicked it open: nothing.

‘Come on,’ George said weakly. ‘I’m not frightened of you.’

All the doors began to rattle at once and the curtains twitched and quivered, opening and closing themselves, pulled by some invisible hand. George immediately regretted provoking whatever it was that was in there with him.

Whatever it was. George knew what it was: Stripes.

The chuckle sounded again, and the lights blinked to a low buzz as a shadow materialised from behind a white curtain directly in front of George. He could make out Stripes’s vile silhouette: the hat, the deformed body, even, faintly, the redness of the hair.

The light went out entirely and George yelped.

‘Come and play with me, friend.’ The voice whispered so close to George that he could smell the clown’s dank breath.

George lashed out in the darkness, but struck nothing. The voice laughed again, this time from the other side of the bathroom.

George groped up ahead of him and his hands grasped the steel curtain rod. He tugged, painfully aware of a stirring in the darkness near him. George somehow managed to pull the rod free and he brandished it in front of his face.

‘Get away from me,’ he screamed, as he felt something brush past his back. ‘Leave me alone!’

The cruel laughter echoed around the room as George felt his hands move involuntarily. The rod clattered to the ground and he felt the damp material enclose his face. George struggled against himself as his hands pulled the curtain tighter around his nose and mouth. He could hear Stripes circling him, his breathing ragged and excited. The waxy material gagged George, making it impossible to cry out.

‘George!’ a voice shouted. But it wasn’t the scraping voice of Stripes. ‘George!’

George lurched to the ground. In the back of his mind he was aware of a light coming on and the curtain being removed from his face, but that awareness lasted only a moment before he lost consciousness.

George opened his eyes to find Arthur staring down at him apprehensively.

‘Thank goodness!’ Arthur breathed. ‘I thought you were a goner.’

George propped himself up drowsily. ‘Did I get knocked out?’ he asked.

‘Only for a few seconds,’ Arthur assured him.

‘He could still be here!’ George said, sitting up with alarm.

‘Who?’ Arthur asked.

‘Stripes,’ George whispered. ‘He was here. He tried to make me suffocate myself with the shower curtain.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate, but I think you hit your head. When I came in you were all caught up in the curtain – it looked like you slipped when the light went off and got tangled up.’

‘How would that even happen?’ George said indignantly.

‘I promise, George,’ Arthur replied, ‘there was no one here when I came in. Only you. Are you sure you weren’t sleepwalking?’

‘I was wide awake!’

‘OK, OK,’ Arthur said.

‘Why did you come to look for me then if you’re so sceptical?’

‘I woke up and saw you weren’t on the floor, then I heard a crash in the bathroom.’

‘I think you just saved my life.’

‘Death by shower curtain,’ Arthur said. ‘Classy.’

Penny was far more concerned than Arthur when George explained his unpleasant experience the following morning.

‘Arthur!’ she scolded. ‘Why don’t you believe him?’

‘I do!’ Arthur replied. ‘I’m sure George
thought
it was Stripes, but when I walked in George was alone. If Stripes wanted to kill George, he could have made him do it with me in the room – I couldn’t have stopped it.’

‘Do you think you could have imagined it, George?’ Penny asked softly.

‘No!’ George said, hurt.

‘You actually saw Stripes? Definitely?’ she persisted.

‘Well, I saw his shadow. But then the light went out, so not exactly . . .’ George faltered. ‘But he spoke, I heard him! And the doors were rattling off their hinges.’

‘You were half-asleep,’ Arthur said.

‘Thanks a lot, guys!’ George fumed. ‘I always believe you.
Always
.’

Arthur felt guilty. ‘Fine. You’re right. What do you want to do then?’

‘I think we need to tell someone now,’ Penny said.

‘Who?’ Arthur said.

‘As much as it pains me to say it,’ she sighed, ‘I think we need to speak to Professor Long-Pitt. She’s the headmistress – she needs to know.’

Arthur and George protested, but Penny surged on. ‘Jake is in hospital. I almost dashed my own brains out. George nearly suffocated himself. We should have gone to Long-Pitt ages ago.’

Chapter Fourteen

Long-Pitt stared in amazement at the students who were standing in front of her desk. She put down her pen carefully and pursed her lips.

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she began, ‘but are you telling me that there are phantoms inhabiting this school that are taking on the forms of your childhood imaginary friends and attempting to make you kill yourselves?’

‘Yes,’ Penny said, relieved to have it out in the open.

Long-Pitt struck her desk with her hand, making them all jump. ‘I’m shocked,’ she said.

‘I know,’ George replied. ‘It’s terrible.’

‘No, you misunderstand me. I’m shocked at your behaviour.’

‘What?’

‘I know that it has been a traumatic time for everyone since Jake’s accident, but that is no excuse to indulge yourself with these silly lies.’

‘We’re not lying!’ Penny said angrily.

‘And to have the audacity to come to me and waste my time with such nonsense. It’s beyond reproach.’ She glared at Arthur. ‘I imagine this is your doing. You thought it might be amusing to play on the school’s reputation and scare your new friends?’

‘No!’ Arthur cried.

‘No? I understand that it can be hard to get attention when you’re the new boy, but to use another student’s unfortunate experience to frighten everyone is frankly appalling.’

Arthur felt his face burning with the unfairness of this accusation. ‘Professor, I –’

‘Don’t interrupt me! Have you told anyone else this ludicrous fantasy?’

‘No,’ they all murmured.

‘Good. Keep it that way. The last thing we need at this time is students becoming hysterical over some ridiculous theory of yours. If I hear anyone repeating the things you’ve told me, each of you will be suspended.’