Dial a Ghost

Most of the time though Oliver was fine. There were things in the Lexington Children’s Home that made up for all the shabbiness and the rattling of the trains and the smell from the factory chimneys. Behind the house was a piece of ground where every single child that wanted to could have a little garden. Matron had saved a three-legged mongrel from a road smash – a brave and intelligent dog who lived with them – and they kept bantam hens which did not lay eggs very often but sometimes. Trevor had a guinea pig and Nonie had a rabbit and Durga had a minah bird which she had taught to sing a rude song in Urdu.

Best of all, the children had each other. You never had to be alone in the Home. At night in the bunk beds there were stories told and plans hatched, and if Matron couldn’t come to a crying child there was usually someone who got in beside the child who was miserable and made them laugh.

To Oliver the other children were his brothers and sisters; Matron – if she couldn’t come near to being his mother – was kind and fair. There was no dog like Sparky, racing round on her three legs, no conkers like the ones they shook down from the old tree on the embankment – and when the mustard and cress came up on his patch of garden and he could make sandwiches for everyone for tea, he was as pleased as if he’d won first prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.

So you can imagine how he felt on the day that Matron led him into her office and told him that he was not Oliver Smith but Oliver Snodde-Brittle and the new owner of Helton Hall.

Though she spoke slowly and carefully, Oliver at first thought that she must be joking – except that she wasn’t a person who teased people and if this was a joke it was a very cruel one.

‘It will be a fine chance for you, Oliver,’ she said. ‘In a place like that you’ll be able to help people and do so much good.’

She tried to smile at the little boy staring at her in horror out of his large dark eyes. He did not look very much like the master of a stately home, with his stick-like arms and legs and his soft fawn hair.

‘You mean I have to go miles and miles away and live by myself?’

‘You won’t be by yourself for long. Some cousins are coming to fetch you and help you settle in. Think of it, Oliver – you’ll be in the country and able to have all the animals you want. Ponies... a dog...’

‘I don’t want any dog but Sparky. I don’t want to go away. Please don’t make me go. Please!’

Matron took him in her arms. She had never told children that it was sissy to cry – sometimes one cried and that was the end of it – and now as she smoothed back his hair, she felt his tears run down her hand.

As a matter of fact she didn’t feel too good herself. She made it a rule not to have favourites but she loved this boy; he was imaginative and kind and funny and she was going to miss him horribly.

And she wasn’t the only one. There was going to be a nasty fuss when Oliver’s friends heard he was leaving. A very nasty fuss indeed.

The cousins who were coming to fetch Oliver were called Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle. Fulton was the headmaster of a boys’ prep school in Yorkshire and Frieda was his sister and they had sent a letter to the lawyer, Mr Norman, offering to take charge of him.

‘Our school will be shut for the Easter holidays,’ Fulton had written, ‘and we shall be happy to help him settle in. It must be rather a shock for the poor little fellow. As you know we are used to boys; the pupils in our care are just like our own children and we shall know how to make him comfortable.’

‘I must say that’s very kind,’ said Mr Norman, showing the letter to the bank manager. ‘I was going to go and fetch Oliver myself but I’m very busy. And really I didn’t know what was going to be done with the child in that barrack of a place. It’s been shut up for months and the servants are very old.’

‘You haven’t heard from Colonel Mersham?’ asked the bank manager.

Mr Norman shook his head. The man they had chosen to be Oliver’s guardian was an explorer and away in Costa Rica looking for a rare breed of golden toad.

‘He’s due back at the end of the summer, but in the meantime this offer of Fulton’s is most convenient.’

‘Yes. I must say he’s been very decent when you think that if it wasn’t for Oliver, Fulton himself would be master of Helton Hall.’

Which just shows how simple-minded lawyers and bank managers can sometimes get.

Because Fulton wasn’t kind at all; he was evil, and so was his sister Frieda. The school that they ran was called Sunnydell, but no place could have been less sunny. The children were beaten, the food was uneatable and the classrooms were freezing. The sweets the parents sent were confiscated, and the letters the boys wrote home to say how miserable they were never got posted.