Dial a Ghost

Matron looked at his troubled face. ‘Yes, I quite understand that, Oliver. Look, would you stay till Trevor’s party? It’s only a few more days and it would mean a lot to him.’

Oliver nodded. It meant letting Grandma go ahead with the ghosts, but Trevor had always been his special friend.

‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ he said, and Matron was relieved. If Colonel Mersham had not returned by then, she would try to find someone to go down with Oliver.

When he went back into the garden, Oliver found the other children still sitting listening to Grandma, but Trevor had left the circle and was waiting by the climbing frame. Trevor was tough: he’d had to be, losing his parents, losing one hand, finding that his relatives in Jamaica didn’t want him. He was a boy who hit out first and asked questions afterwards. But when Grandma came to the bit of her story where they’d found out that Trixie wasn’t with them, he always got a lump in his throat. That poor spook in her flag lost in space for ever . . . It was more than anyone could stand.

‘I’m staying for your party,’ said Oliver. ‘But after that I’ll have to go even if Matron doesn’t give me permission. I’ll have to.’

Trevor nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll come with you,’ he said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Think of roast kidneys dipped in icing sugar,’ said Adopta. ‘Or marshmallows fried in Marmite. Go on, think of them,’ she ordered the snake.

But the python didn’t. He was still draped over the towelling rail and he wouldn’t be sick whatever she said to him. She could see the bulge where the budgie was, and since the python had swallowed him whole she was hopeful that he might be all right, like Jonah inside the whale, but whatever she said to the wretched snake he just hung there with a blank look in his eye, refusing to throw up.

Addie had spent a lot of time in the bathroom since the Shriekers came, because her long-lost parents were driving her mad. They popped up behind bushes begging her to call them ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’, or crawled about in the flower beds asking her to forgive them. Sabrina called her ‘Little One’ and Sir Pelham wanted her to sit on his knee. But what made Addie really angry was the way they kept on snubbing the Wilkinsons. They called Uncle Henry ‘that tooth puller’ and sneered at Eric’s woggle, and they thought it terribly funny that Aunt Maud had been a Sugar Puff.

And she was missing Oliver badly. She knew it was right that he should be out of the way till they had dealt with Fulton, but life was not the same without her friend.

Uncle Henry now came in, as he had done each morning, to look at the snake.

‘I could operate, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but there’s always a risk.’

‘Let’s wait a bit longer,’ said Addie. She was cross with the python, but it was hard to think of a hole being cut into his side. ‘I’ll go and see if Mr Jenkins wants any help.’

It was the farmer who was in charge of making it look as though Oliver had drowned. He saw to it that Oliver’s shoes bobbed up occasionally, and that there were footmarks leading into the water such as might be made by a boy running in terror from something evil. Mr Tusker had been quite certain that Oliver lay at the bottom of the lake, and the ghosts were sure that Fulton would think the same.

But when she reached the water, Addie found Lady de Bone dripping bloodstains on to Oliver’s torn shirt, and at once the fuss began.

‘Ah there you are, darling Honoria,’ she cried, trying to rub her nose stump against Addie’s cheek. ‘Have you come to tell your mother that you love her?’

‘And tell your father that you love him?’ said Pelham, rising from the bullrushes.

‘No, I have not,’ said Addie. ‘Where’s Aunt Maud?’

The de Bones looked at each other. ‘She’s in the walled garden smelling the flowers,’ sneered Lady de Bone.

But Aunt Maud was only pretending to smell the flowers. What she was really doing was trying not to cry.

‘Have they been beastly to you?’ asked Addie. ‘Because if so—’

‘No, no. Not really. It’s just . . . I mean, it’s very silly of me not to know what a lobster claw squeezer is, but you see we never had them at Resthaven. And I didn’t realize it was common to say “toilet”. One should say “loo” but I never have, Adopta. And honestly I think it might be better if I just gave up and let them have you. I’m not really grand enough to haunt a place like this.’

‘Now, Aunt Maud.’ Addie was very cross indeed. ‘That’s enough. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times that I’m a Wilkinson. You and Uncle Henry are the only parents I want and if they go on sneering at you, I’ll do them in.’