Dial a Ghost

‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Wilkinson,’ he said. ‘And you too, sir.’ He took another step and this time he raised his hand to his forehead in a salute. ‘I was a Scout too,’ he said in his friendly way. ‘Though I never made it to patrol leader.’

‘Who are you talking to?’ shrieked Frieda. ‘What are you doing?’

Dr O’Hara turned to them, very surprised. ‘But surely you can see them?’ he said. ‘This gentleman here in the army helmet and the old lady with the umbrella and—’

‘No, we can’t,’ said Fulton, white-faced. ‘You’re making it up. You’re playing a joke.’

‘No, he isn’t, Cousin Fulton,’ said Oliver. ‘Those are the Wilkinsons. They’re my family. Look, there’s Adopta now – you must be able to see her. She’s my special friend.’

‘Yes, you must surely see the little girl?’ said Dr O’Hara. ‘Her nightdress is quite dazzling.’

‘You’re lying!’ Fulton was shaking with anger and fear. He had brought in a doctor who was as crazy as the child.

Oliver was very upset. ‘Oh how unfair, Cousin Fulton! That’s really rotten, you not being able to see the ghosts when it was you that gave them a home.’

But Addie didn’t at all want to be seen by the Snodde-Brittles. She thought they looked horrible with their long yellow faces and bulging eyes, and she was more certain than ever that Fulton was up to no good. Dr O’Hara was another matter – and now the Snodde-Brittles saw the doctor bend down and cup his hands as though something was being lowered into them.

‘Ah yes – how interesting! I’ve never seen a phantom prawn before. I think you’d be quite safe putting her in with your fish. It’s a female and they only attack when they’re laying eggs.’ He straightened himself and put his arm round Oliver. ‘You’ve certainly got a most delightful family,’ he said. ‘I haven’t met such pleasant ghosts since I was a little boy in Ireland. Our house was haunted by such an interesting couple – a schoolteacher and his wife who drowned in a bog. They were the most wonderful storytellers.’ He walked over to Fulton and Frieda. ‘I can’t see the slightest sign of mental illness in the boy; he seems as fit as a flea, and for someone who’s going to run a place like this, an open mind about unusual things is most important. You must be so relieved to know that you have nothing at all to worry about.’

But Fulton and Frieda had had enough. The last thing they saw as they hurried back to the car was a fishing rod lift itself into the air and drop into the doctor’s hand.

‘How very kind,’ they heard Dr O’Hara say. ‘I must say an hour’s fishing would be most pleasant. It so happens that it’s my day off.’

‘It’s your fault, you idiot,’ said Frieda when they were alone again. ‘You said you’d get ghosts that were going to frighten him into fits and look what you’ve done! Unless Dr O’Hara’s mad. Grandmothers. Boy Scouts. Little girls in nightgowns. It’s ridiculous!’

‘It’s not my fault – it’s the fault of that stupid woman in the agency. She swore she had a pair of spooks that would frighten the living daylights out of people. There must have been a mix-up and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I tell you, Frieda, I’m not finished yet. I’m going to Set My Foot Upon My—’

‘All right, all right,’ said Frieda grumpily.

She wasn’t really in the mood for feet.

Chapter Fifteen

Colonel Mersham sat on a camp stool beside a meandering dark-brown river, reading a letter.

A turtle lumbered on to a sandbar, huge blue butterflies drank in the shallows, and in the rain-washed trees a family of howler monkeys caught each other’s fleas, but the Colonel did not look up. He was completely absorbed in what he read.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘An interesting boy and an interesting idea.’

He was surprised. He had agreed to be Oliver’s guardian because he was sorry for the orphaned boy, but he loathed the Snodde-Brittles, who had been his mother’s cousins, and never went near Helton unless he had to.

This boy, though, was different.

He’d come upon a family of ghosts and a child who cared with all her heart for ghostly animals, and he was asking for help.

‘I want to set up a research institute for the study of everything to do with ghostliness,’ the boy had written. ‘I want to find out what ectoplasm is made of and what happens when people become ghosts – and animals too. Addie is particularly worried about the animals: she says you can tell people what happened when they pass on but you can’t tell animals, and they get muddled and bewildered and she’d like to make Helton into a safe place for them to be. Not a zoo, just somewhere they can live in peace.’