Dial a Ghost

‘And such a pretty bell tower,’ put in Sister Phyllida, ‘full of tangled ropes and iron rings and trap doors. A child would love to play there.’ She looked wistfully at Miss Pringle. ‘There don’t happen to be any children?’

‘But there are, there are! Eric is a teenager and a bit wrapped up in himself – but there’s a delightful little girl – she’s not a real Wilkinson, they found her lost and abandoned, but they quite think of her as their own. She’s rather strong-willed and very fond of animals but—’

Miss Pringle paused, wondering if she should warn the nuns about Addie’s passion for unusual pets. But the nuns just said that it was natural for children to grow up with animals, and it was arranged that the family should come to Larchford Abbey in three weeks’ time.

‘Friday the 13th seems a nice date,’ said Mother Margaret, looking at her diary. ‘Ghosts would like to come on a date like that, I feel sure.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Miss Pringle, quite overjoyed at the news she was going to give the Wilkinsons. ‘Now if you would just be kind enough to fill in this form...’

That night in the Dirty Duck the ladies had not one port and lemon, but two.

‘If only we could get your Shriekers placed as happily,’ said Miss Pringle.

Mrs Mannering sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s going to become of them, Nellie. They’re wrecking the meat store, and that servant of theirs has climbed into one of the containers and passed out cold. I keep wondering what would happen if someone came for a tray of hamburgers and found a completely frozen ghoul.’

Miss Pringle made sympathetic tutting noises. ‘We must just go on hoping, dear,’ she said. ‘Perhaps getting the Wilkinsons fixed up will turn our luck.’

Chapter Six

‘Is this really mine? All of it?’ asked Oliver.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Fulton grimly. ‘I hope you’re impressed.’

But Oliver was not impressed; he was appalled. They had driven through a spiked iron gate along a gravel drive and now stood at the bottom of a flight of steps on either side of which were statues. To the left of Oliver was a lion being stepped on by a man who was beating him on the head with a club. On the right was an even bulgier man wearing a sort of nappy and strangling a snake. The windows of the tall grey building stared like a row of dead eyes; pointless towers and battlements sprouted from the roof, and the front door was studded with nails.

Almost worse than the gloomy building and the statues of animals being bullied by bulging men was the icy wind sighing and soughing in from the sea. Tall trees bent their branches; rooks flew upwards shrieking. Everything at Helton looked grey and miserable and cold.

Oliver shivered and wondered again if there was some way he could give the place away. Perhaps he should ask his guardian? Colonel Mersham sounded sensible, trying to save the lemurs in the rain forest and looking for golden toads; but he wasn’t going to be back for months.

The door now opened from the inside and Oliver found himself in a stone hall which was full of things for killing people. Crossed pikes, a blunderbuss, a row of rusty swords fastened to the wall...A stuffed leopard snarled from a glass case and beside it stood the butler and the housekeeper waiting to greet him.

Oliver thought he had never seen two people who looked so old. The housekeeper, Miss Match, had a grey bun of hair and a pink hearing aid stuck lopsidedly to one ear. The butler, Mr Tusker, was bent almost double with rheumatism. As he shook their dry leathery hands Oliver was shocked that they should be working as servants; they should have had servants working for them.

‘Dinner is ready in the dining room, sir,’ said Miss Match to Fulton. She had been told to take her orders from him and she was too ancient and tired to be curious about the little boy who now owned Helton Hall.

Oliver followed them down a long corridor hung with portraits of the Snodde-Brittles in heavy golden frames. They passed through a shuttered billiard room . . . a library with rows of leather-bound books locked up behind an iron grille... and reached the dining room where Oliver’s first meal at Helton Hall was waiting.

It was a meal he never forgot. Cousin Fulton and Cousin Frieda made him sit at the head of the table and his feet, hanging down from the high carved chair, didn’t even touch the ground. The table was the size of a skating rink, the room was freezing cold – and beside his plate were more knives and forks than Oliver had ever seen in his life.

‘Start from the outside in,’ Matron had told them when they went for a treat to the Holiday Inn and had a proper banquet. So he picked up the round spoon and ate the soup, and then Mr Tusker shuffled away and came back with a very red-looking bird and some potatoes and cabbage. Oliver ate the vegetables and took two mouthfuls of the bird, which was full of round dark pellets and tasted of blood. Then he put down his knife and fork.

‘Have you finished, sir?’ asked the butler.

‘Yes, thank you,’ said Oliver.