The Great Ghost Rescue

‘So you see we’ve got to find them somewhere to go,’ Rick said. ‘Only how do we do it?’

Barbara picked a long piece of grass and began to chew the stem.

‘Westminster,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Go to London. To the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. That’s where the Government is. You’d have to go to the top for a big thing like that. To the Prime Minister.’

‘Write a letter, you mean?’

‘No,’ said Barbara. ‘Go. Take them. Keep them invisible till you get there, then insist on seeing your Member of Parliament. Everyone’s allowed to see their Member of Parliament. It’s a law of the land. Make him take you to the Prime Minister. Then show him the ghosts. No one will believe you otherwise.’

‘Goodness.’ Rick was a bit overwhelmed.

‘Well you can go on messing about trying to get people to do things here but no one’s got the money for a start. A ghost sanctuary would cost thousands and thousands of pounds. Only the government could afford it.’

‘It’s over two hundred miles from here to London,’ said Rick. ‘It’s all right for the ghosts – they’ve got a phantom coach and anyway they can glide. But what about me? I can’t walk that far.’

Barbara’s large, peaceful forehead screwed itself up into dents and grooves.

‘You’d have to do it in stages. From here till Grange-on-Trant you could go in Uncle Ted’s milk lorry. That’s about thirty miles. Then you could get a bus to Lonsdale – country buses are cheap. Over Saughbeck Moors you’d have to walk or hitch maybe, and then perhaps you could do the last part by train. I’ve got a bit of money.’

‘Me too,’ said Rick. ‘I’ll manage.’

‘Do you want me to come with you? I will if you like,’ said Barbara, picking two more bits of grass and starting to chew again.

Rick took the bit she gave him and thought. It would be nice to have her. Sort of calming. Then he shook his head. ‘I think you’d better stay here and cover up for me. And look, see if you can get the key of the school office and be in there between seven and eight each evening. Then if I’m stuck I can ring you up.’

‘Right. Do you think I could see them before you go?’ said Barbara. ‘I’d awfully like to.’

‘Sure,’ said Rick, and led the way to the gym.

The ghosts were having a marvellous time. The Gliding Kilt was hanging from the parallel bars doing a very difficult arm exercise. Aunt Hortensia had discovered the trampoline and was bouncing up and down, her nightdress ballooning over her stump, her horny feet twitching with pleasure. George was standing on his skull.

‘Look at me, Rick!’ shouted Humphrey the Horrible, and promptly fell off the rope.

‘Goodness,’ said Barbara, staring wide-eyed. ‘I must say I’m impressed. What’s that disgusting smell?’

The Hag, very pleased with what Barbara had said, stopped doing press-ups and came over to talk to her. ‘It’s wet whale liver. One of my husband’s favourites,’ she said shyly. ‘I was wearing it when we met.’

Rick introduced Barbara and all the ghosts came down to hear what had been decided.

‘A good plan,’ said the Gliding Kilt, twirling the sword in his chest approvingly. ‘Always go to the top if you want things done. When do we leave?’

‘We thought at dawn tomorrow. That’s when the milk lorry goes into town,’ said Rick.

‘At dawn, at dawn,’ shrieked Humphrey the Horrible, excitedly, bouncing up and down like a yo-yo.

‘Sooner you than me,’ said Barbara as she and Rick left the gym together. ‘Definitely sooner you than me.’

Neither of them noticed a tiny, black bat which had been dozing in the rafters and now flew out after them and vanished from sight. Even if they’d noticed it they couldn’t have known that this particular bat was the grandson of Susie the Sucker, one of the most famous blood-sucking vampire bats in the whole of Britain. And that before night had fallen, news of Rick’s march to London would have spread like wildfire across the river, through the forests of Saughbeck and on, on to the edges of the sea.

Rick did not exactly enjoy the journey in Uncle Ted’s milk lorry.

Getting the ghosts ready had been a most exhausting job. The phantom horses were feeling frisky after their rest and didn’t want to be harnessed. Aunt Hortensia, whose bunions were shooting, slapped the Shuk for dribbling on her head and this made Humphrey so furious that he refused to sit in the coach and insisted on travelling with Rick inside the milk lorry.

‘I promise I’ll stay vanished,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

‘Even your elbow?’

‘Even my elbow.’

And now it turned out that Uncle Ted wrote poetry.

I like to see the butterflies

I like to hear the bees

But best of all I like to eat

A sausage roll with peas,

he shouted above the noise of the engine. ‘Did you like that?’

‘Very nice,’ said Rick politely, looking anxiously up at the sky. Later he learnt to make out where the ghosts were even when they weren’t visible – it’s a sort of knack, seeing invisible ghosts. But now he could only hope that the phantom coach was keeping up with the lorry and that everybody in it was all right.