Dial a Ghost

When the nuns had gone, the Shriekers went on quarrelling and pelting each other with foul things they had found on the floor of the ruined abbey. Then suddenly they got bored and decided they were hungry.

The ghoul lay on a tombstone, quivering in his sleep.

‘Wake up and cook something, stenchbag!’ screeched Lady de Bone, twitching his rope.

‘And be quick about it or we’ll nail you up by your nostrils,’ yelled Pelham.

As they screamed at their servant and jerked his rope, the ghoul became madder and madder, uttering his weird cooking cries and waving his frying pan to and fro.

‘Fry!’ he gabbled. ‘Sizzle! Burn!’

As he ran about, the pan became less grey, more reddish... hotter. Suddenly it burst into flame and he scooped a dead owl from a rafter, tore its feathers off and threw it into the fire. Then he tossed two burnt thighs at the de Bones and collapsed again on to the slab.

Back in the convent, the smell of cooking came quite clearly to the Sisters.

‘That’s their breakfast now,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘They’ll soon feel better.’

‘There’s nothing like a nice cooked breakfast to settle the stomach,’ agreed Sister Phyllida. ‘So many families just start the day with nothing but a piece of toast, and it’s so unwise.’

They felt very relieved, sure now that the ghosts they had invited were going to lead a sensible life, and then they said goodnight to each other and went to bed.

But the Shriekers, tearing the flesh off the roasted owl, were not exactly being sensible. Mind you, they had had a very difficult journey. The mouse had not agreed with the python, who had been sick, and the ghoul kept passing out at the end of his rope like a log. And when they had at last lost height and come down where the instructions had told them to, they had seen none of the things they had been promised. No great hall with towers and battlements, no writhing statues, no suits of armour or stone pillars or iron gates. Instead there were a few tumbledown buildings and a ruined abbey with the most awful feel to it – the feel of a place where people had been good.

And then when dawn broke they saw something that made them stagger back in horror: a row of nuns on their way to the chapel to pray!

‘I’m not staying here!’ Sabrina yelled. ‘I’m not having that awful gooey goodness clogging up my pores. I can feel it between my teeth. Ugh!’

But they had been too tired to glide back at once. Now they decided to wait for a few days and gather up their strength.

‘There might be a child we can harm,’ said Pelham.

‘How could there be? Nuns don’t have children.’

‘No. But they might run a school.’

The idea of scratching and strangling and smothering a whole school full of children cheered Sabrina up a little.

‘Well, all right. But I won’t stay for long.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Pelham. ‘I’m all set to make those women in the agency wish they’d never been born!’

Chapter Eleven

A new and happy life now began for Oliver.

He woke to find Adopta sitting on the bottom of his bed and heard the other ghosts splashing about in the bathroom and thought how wonderful it was not to be alone.

They all came down to breakfast and made themselves invisible while Miss Match brought him toast and cereal. Just as she was putting it down, the budgie said, ‘Open wide’, and she jiggled her hearing aid and said, ‘I’m not going to open wine at this time of day. Wine is for supper.’

‘I’ll bet she can’t see us,’ said Adopta – and before Aunt Maud could stop her, she flitted off into the kitchen.

‘I told you,’ she said when she came back. ‘I leaned over her and said ‘‘Boo’’ and she just went on reading some silly story in the paper. We’ve got nothing to worry about there.’

But in any case, Miss Match was only supposed to leave out Oliver’s meals. The rest of the day she spent in the village with her cousin. Fulton’s plan to leave Oliver quite alone was turning out to be the best thing that could have happened.

The ghosts simply loved the house.

‘Oh, my dear boy,’ said Aunt Maud. ‘These cellars... the fungus... the damp! It’s a bit strong for me, but just think what poor Mr Hofmann would make of this place. How happy he would be!’

‘Who’s Mr Hofmann?’ Oliver wanted to know.

‘He’s Grandma’s boyfriend,’ said Adopta. ‘He lives in a bunion shop and he’s got every ghost disease in the book, but he’s terribly clever.’

The ghosts liked the kitchens and they liked the drawing room with its claw-footed chairs, and the faceless statues in the library. They liked the hall with its huge fireplace which you could look up and see the sky, and they absolutely loved the library with its rows of mouldering books.

‘I bet there are ghost bookworms in those books,’ said Adopta. ‘I bet they’re full of them. Can I look later?’

‘Of course. I wish you wouldn’t ask, Adopta.’ Oliver sounded quite cross. ‘If Helton’s mine then what’s mine is yours and that’s the end of the matter.’