The Great Ghost Rescue

And now he was flying steadily north with three unknown children in the plane beside him and an odd, cobwebby scrap of grey that kept catching his eye when he turned round.

‘It was hypnotism, really, wasn’t it?’ said Barbara.

Rick shrugged. ‘Hypnotism. Willpower. Witchcraft – it’s all the same I guess. Just as long as we’re not too late.’

They flew over dark lochs and rocky islands, over spruce forests and rolling moors. The country grew wilder, bleaker. And then at last:

‘Insleyfarne!’ cried Rick. ‘Look! There!’ And Peregrine banked, circled and came neatly in to land on a long, empty beach of hard, packed sand to the north of the promontory.

It is not easy to surround what is practically an island, and quite a big one, with only four men, but Lord Bullhaven had done his best.

He’d put Mr Heap, the clergyman who looked like a pig, on a rocky outcrop just below the castle, and Mr Wallace, the nice one with nine children, on a shingle beach near the causeway which led to the mainland. Dotty Mr Hoare-Croakington was up on the hill by the rocket site and Professor Brassnose was down by the ruined chapel and the well. All of them had folding chairs to sit on and packets of sandwiches to eat and thermos flasks of hot coffee to drink, so that they could go on and on exorcising and of course all of them had books of ghost-laying spells and rowan twigs, and Professor Brassnose also had bottles of vinegar and iron filings and cymbals to bang and a hold-all of strange ointments and powders from his laboratory.

Lord Bullhaven himself was too mad to sit quietly on a chair exorcising. He just rampaged round the island yelling things like, ‘Vile, disgusting creepie-crawlies!’, ‘Filthy, foul scum!’, ‘Britain for the British’, and making lopsided pentacles out of anything he could lay his hands on. And if any of the clergymen stopped even for a second, just to stretch his legs, Lord Bullhaven came charging up and said: ‘Back, blast you! Back to your post.’

Mr Heap didn’t take much notice of the aeroplane that passed overhead and landed a mile or two to the north. He was sitting with his back to the sea and his big, bristly face turned up to the castle. Cigarette packets and sandwich papers flapped round his ankles because he was a litter lout as well as a crook and he was gabbling ghost-laying spell No. 976 with such venom that bits of spittle came out of his mouth and dropped disgustingly on to the pages of the book.

Spider, Scorpion, Ugly Toad

Follow on your Hellbound Road,

Bile and Blisters, Blasts and Plague

Every Sore and III and Ague!

Out with Hag and Vampire Bairn

Let the Earth Be Clean Again,

gabbled Mr Heap.

And then quite suddenly he wasn’t sitting on his chair. He was sitting on a patch of wet and slippery rock and a small, fair boy who seemed to have come out of the sea was standing over him.

‘I’d like you to stop now, please,’ said Peter Thorne politely.

‘Why... you...you....’ Mr Heap struggled to his feet and put out a huge hairy hand to seize Peter by the throat.

Only it wasn’t any longer Peter’s throat. It was just thin air and Peter himself had somehow become a ball of lead charging straight at Mr Heap’s fat and unprotected stomach.

‘Yaaow!’ yelled Mr Heap and crashed down on to the rocks again. By the time he was up once more, Peter was running up the steps of the castle, the book of ghost-laying spells under his arm.

‘Give me back that book, you little swine,’ yelled Mr Heap.

Peter turned at the top of the steps. ‘If you want it, come and get it,’ he shouted.

He ran on up the steep cliff track to the drawbridge which crossed the pit of slime and mud that was the castle moat. Then he stopped quietly and waited for Mr Heap – steaming with sweat and gibbering with fury – to catch up with him.

‘Here’s your book,’ said Peter sweetly.

Mr Heap lunged forward to grab it. Peter narrowed his eyes, concentrating very hard. The Uki-Otoshi hold was a bit tricky; one had to get it exactly right. Then he dropped on one knee, stiffened his other leg – and as the flabby, panting man collapsed against him, pushed with all his might.

And Mr Heap sailed quietly into the air and fell – all sixteen quivering stone of him – with a splash that sent up a flock of startled seagulls – into the green and putrid waters of the moat.

Meanwhile poor Mr Hoare-Croakington, up on the bleak and windy hill by the rocket site, was getting more and more confused. He had been so absolutely certain that he had been asked to Insleyfarne to shoot grouse. Mr Hoare-Croakington had never before shot grouse – he had never before shot anything – and he wanted to very much.

But no one had handed him a nice shotgun and some pretty, pink cartridges. Instead they had put him on a canvas chair on a very cold hill and told him to say poetry out of a book. Mr Hoare-Croakington was not fond of poetry and he found the whole thing very disappointing and sad.