The Phredde Collection (58 page)

A place can seem really empty when phaeries leave. I mean, humans walk out the door so you have time to sort of say goodbye. But phaeries just go PING! and they’re out of there.

Not that I minded. Not at all.

Or just a little bit. Maybe.

Or quite a lot really.

I sat at the table and sniffed, then reached for my hanky and had a good blow. Suddenly I heard Amelia’s voice, almost as though she were really in the dining room. ‘Of course poor Phredde and Bruce must get so BORED with a human trailing after them.’

Did they get bored? Maybe…maybe Phredde just hung round with me because there were no other girl phaeries. Maybe she really wanted a friend who could PING! just like her. Maybe Bruce would rather have a girlfriend who was a phaery too, I thought miserably. Of course he knew Phredde, but she didn’t like frogs.

Maybe now they were older they’d go PING!ing off to parties in Phaeryland with other phaeries. They’d forget all about our adventures escaping from dinosaurs or discovering Ancient Egyptian villains. Maybe every time they’d rescued me from a zombie librarian or an exploding volcano they’d thought,
Oh well, here we go again. The poor human needs to be rescued…

‘Wuff,’ said something at my feet.

I looked down. There was nothing to see, of course—you can’t see ghosts in daylight. But suddenly I smeled a familiar smell.

Willie had weed under the table.

‘Wuff,’ said Willie again, and I felt…almost felt…a small wet nose brush against my ankle, then a breeze of ghostly fur jumped onto my lap.

He was only a ghost, of course. But it was nice to have him there.

It was an okay day after that.

I rang Mum. I’d forgotten to ring her the night before and she was having kittens and wondering whether to call the police, or Phredde’s mum to race over here on her magic carpet, but luckily I caught her in time.

‘And are you
sure
you’re all right?’ Mum asked for the twentieth time.

What could I tell her that wasn’t going to alarm her? That I was in a house full of ghosts and one of them had given my underpants a makeover, and my two best friends—ex-best friends—had deserted me? So I just said, ‘Everything is fine, Mum. No, there’s nothing to worry about. Yes, I cleaned my teeth. Yes, Phredde and Bruce will PING! me to safety if there’s any danger.’

I crossed my fingers a bit on that one, because, after all, they weren’t there. But as there
wasn’t
any danger, it wasn’t really a lie.

‘Yes, I’ll call tonight. No, I won’t drown in the lake. Yes, I’ll wear my hat and my sun block. No, I won’t talk to any strangers. I can’t, Mum, I’m all alone here.’ Apart from a houseful of ghosts, I thought, but I didn’t tell Mum that.

Mum finally had enough of worrying about her only daughter and hung up.

Then I had to think about what to do.

What can you do in a haunted house in the daytime?

‘Wuff?’ barked Willie hopefully, leaving a small yellow pool by my chair.

‘Okay, Willie,’ I said. ‘Walkies.’

‘Wuff, wuff!’ said Willie.

So we walked around the lake and I tried to see if there was a ghostly fisherman. I
almost
thought there was, but maybe it was just the wind on the water. I almost saw Knock-knock’s train engine too. Or maybe it was just the way the sunlight slanted through the trees onto the old railway track in the grass.

‘Wuff,’ said Willie, leaving a wet patch on the gravel.

It’s strange taking a ghost puppy for a walk, because you can’t see where it’s running off to, just a yellow puddle now and then. But I sort of knew where Willie was, even if I couldn’t see him. And when I bent down to pat him I could sort of feel his furry ears as well. Maybe, I thought, that’s what Willie loved best when he was alive—being scratched behind the ears and…and being loved. So maybe he could touch his friends and his friends could touch him too, just like Cookie could touch apricot pancakes and Annie could touch underpants.

Which made me feel better, because I needed a friend that morning.

It began to rain again. The rain didn’t bother Willie—I don’t suppose ghosts can get wet. But I was getting cold. So we went inside and I wandered about a bit, looking in all the rooms again. In Annie’s workshop there were underpants everywhere, pinned to the wall as patterns or half-made on the big sewing table. As I looked, a needle and thread floated through the air and into a pink frill.

Which was a bit creepy, even though I knew it was only Annie.

Cookie’s kitchen was better—at least it smelled of food, even if the spoon stirring the custard all by itself looked weird.

I wound up in the library.

Ghosts don’t matter in a library. I mean, any library is full of ghosts in a way—all those stories and lives on the shelves. A few more ghosts don’t matter.

This was a really cool one, a room as big as our school hall, with so many bookshelves they were like a new sort of wallpaper—you couldn’t see the walls for books. And as soon as I thought about what I’d like to read—a big funny book I could get lost in—it floated down towards me. So I guessed one of Uncle Carbuncle’s ghosts had been a librarian.

There were some big bean bags on the floor, so I curled up in one with the book. Willie curled up with me—I could tell he was still there because of the smell. I must have read for an hour at least, and then maybe I dozed. After all, I hadn’t had much sleep last night. There were no cold draughts about so I guessed that the ghosts had decided to leave me alone, just in case I got too scared to stay. Except for Willie, of course, but he didn’t scare me at all now. Then the next
thing I knew there was a pounding coming from the front door.

‘Mmff,’ I said. I’m never at my best when I wake up.

‘Grrr,’ said Willie, almost too softly to hear.

‘What is it, boy?’ I whispered. Then I wondered if Willie really WAS a boy. I hadn’t thought to look last night. But Willie was a boy’s name, wasn’t it?

Bang, bang, bang.

‘All right, I’m coming!’ I yelled.

I had to think for a moment how to get to the front door—the mansion was BIG. But finally I found it.

The banging was even louder now.

‘Coming!’ I yelled again.

I opened the door. It was Mr Nahsti.

The dead rat was still on his head. And he had another one of those fake kid-loving smiles on his face.

‘Hello, Prudence dear,’ he said sweetly. ‘How has your night been? Ready to go home now?’

‘No, thank you,’ I said politely. ‘I’m fine.’

Mr Nahsti blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said I’m fine!’ I repeated, a bit louder.

‘You’re not gibbering with terror?’

‘Nope,’ I said.

‘Not too scared to open your eyes?’

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Big wide eyes. And I’m staying here another night too. So you can forget about selling this place for your Good Manners for Children Society.’

Mr Nahsti’s face grew so red I thought he was about to turn into a tomato. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘So your phaery friends have made it all nice and safe for you, have they?’

‘They have not!’ I said indignantly. And they hadn’t, because I’d made friends with the ghosts all by myself. ‘They’re not even here! So there!’

‘Where are your phaery friends then?’ asked Mr Nahsti slowly.

I shrugged. ‘Search me. Who cares, anyway. I’m fine all by myself.’

‘All by yourself,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘Are you now?’

Suddenly I realised what I’d said. I WAS all alone. And Mr Nahsti’s eyes were meaner than those of any crocodile in the Nile.

I stepped backwards. ‘I’d…I’d like you to go now,’ I stammered.

‘Really? But I don’t feel like going,’ said Mr Nahsti, smiling at me as if I was an ice-cream and he was about to chomp me up. ‘Not when you’re ALL ALONE here.’

I fumbled for Mum’s mobile and began to punch in the numbers. Suddenly it vanished from my fingers.

‘I don’t think so, dear,’ said Mr Nahsti, stuffing the mobile in his pocket.

‘My mum will worry when I don’t ring her!’ I shouted.

‘Well, yes, she probably will,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘But she won’t do anything about it, will she? Not until tomorrow morning. Your mum lets you play with phaeries, and someone like that won’t come dashing to her daughter’s side just because she misses making a phone call. Not when that would mean you’d lose this house.’

It was true. Mum had worried last night, but she hadn’t come racing to rescue me. Maybe, I thought vaguely, Mum trusted me more than I thought.

Then I stopped thinking at all, because Mr Nahsti was reaching towards me.

I just ran.

I ran down the corridor, round the corner, down the next corridor and up the stairs. I could hear Mr Nahsti behind me. He wasn’t as quick as me, but he was bigger and stronger. I’d get tired long before he did. And then he’d…

I didn’t know what he’d do.

But I knew I wouldn’t like it.

Up another flight of stairs. I could hear him puffing now and slowing down. Maybe I’d have time to hide. But where?

I raced down the corridor where the bedrooms were. Could I hide in one of them? But if he found me there, I’d be trapped.

Why had I come up here? There was no way out but down! All Mr Nahsti had to do was search room by room and then he’d find me!

I’d come to the end of the corridor. I darted into a bathroom and looked around. Nowhere to hide. Maybe
I could climb out of the window, then down the ivy clinging to the walls? Except there wasn’t any ivy clinging to the walls, and even if there was maybe it wouldn’t take my weight and…

You think FAST when you’re trying to escape an evil solicitor. I opened the window and peered out.

No useful trees to clamber down. Not enough towels in the room to knot into a rope—not in ten seconds anyway. He’d be here before I’d even started…

I raced back across the room and peeked out the door. No sign of Mr Nahsti. He must be searching the first bedroom, I thought. Maybe I could sneak down the corridor while he was busy. I could tiptoe down the stairs then run outside, or go round the house and in another door and find a hiding place he’d never think to look.

I listened, but there was no sound at all. I tiptoed along the corridor again, trying to will myself invisible as I passed the bedroom doors. But no hairy hand reached out to grab me.

I peered down the stairs. No sign of Mr Nahsti. I took a deep breath and started down, hoping I didn’t trip. One flight…two. I turned the corner to the final flight.

‘Got you!’ cried Mr Nahsti.

…

Okay, I was scared. Make that terrified. Every warning Mum had ever given me whirled round my head like a paranoid Mum-type merry-go-round. Except maybe she wasn’t paranoid because it had HAPPENED. I’d been captured by a horrible man and…

And…

And what, I wondered. I could kick him in what’s supposed to be a really delicate place for blokes—it
works on TV, they just crumple right up—but I wasn’t sure of quite the right place to kick. So instead I bit his arm, which tasted yuck. Human flesh does
not
taste like chicken or pork, no matter what it says in
1001 Fascinating Facts About the World
in our school library—or at least it doesn’t when it’s still raw and attached to someone.

The papers are full of really Nahsti, sorry, nasty stuff about grown-ups hurting children. But I never thought it might happen to ME! I have phaeries for friends who can PING! any nasty Nahsti into a bucket of maggots, the fat white wriggly kind. I’m the kid who fought dinosaurs—well, okay, gave them a really bad case of diarrhoea—and escaped trolls and…

And I can escape this
, I thought fiercely.
Somehow. Soon.

I just had to wait for my moment.

I gulped, spat out two of Mr Nahsti’s wrist hairs and hoped that moment wasn’t very far away.

…

Have you ever been dragged down the stairs? Then dragged down a corridor and out the door and down the path? It isn’t fun.

‘Help!’ I yelled. ‘Help! A nasty maniac is kidnapping me! Help!’

Mr Nahsti grinned, nastily of course. ‘No one to hear you, my dear,’ he said.

‘I’m not your dear,’ I said automatically, thinking,
yes, there is, there’s a whole houseful of ghosts to hear me!
If they weren’t asleep, or off doing whatever ghosts did in the middle of the day.

But really, what could ghosts do to help me anyway?

‘Oh dear, my dear,’ said Mr Nahsti as he grabbed my
hands and clicked on a pair of handcuffs. ‘Those manners of yours do need work, don’t they. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.’

I glared at him. ‘Is that why you’re kidnapping me, you nasty man? To improve my manners? Well, let me tell you something for free—kidnapping someone isn’t very good manners either. You could do with some improvement in that department yourself!’

I was starting to feel like I’d made a really good point when Mr Nahsti chuckled. ‘I’m not kidnapping you. Just, shall we say, BORROWING you. Just for tonight.’

‘Tonight?’ I squeaked, all Mum’s warnings crowding in again. ‘What are you planning tonight?’

‘Nothing much, my dear,’ said Mr Nahsti. ‘Apart from a few lessons in manners. No, I’m just going to keep you somewhere safe. Somewhere away from here.’

He clicked more handcuffs around my ankles and shoved me into the boot of his car.

And then I realised. All he had to do was keep me away from the house for the second night so I wouldn’t inherit it. He’d be able to sell the house for his Society for the Improvement of Children’s Manners…and Uncle Carbuncle and all the ghosts would be homeless.

And it would be all my fault. Well, not really my fault, I admitted to myself, it was mostly Mr Nahsti’s fault, and Uncle Carbuncle’s for trusting such a nasty solicitor. It actually wasn’t my fault at all. But it
was
up to me to save them.

‘You’ll never get away with—’ I began. Which changed into ‘Myffle, whuffle, whump’, because it’s hard to protest with a handkerchief stuffed in your mouth and another tied over your face.

Then Mr Nahsti slammed the boot shut.

Darkness, horrid-smelling, stuffy darkness, with no room to do more than wriggle my toes.

How long before I used up all the air, I wondered. Was he going to leave me here all day and night?

But there was no way to ask. No way to do anything.

I heard Mr Nahsti start the car, and we drove away.