The Great Ghost Rescue

‘Hamish! Oh, Hamish,’ said the Hag, and as she took him in her arms the room filled suddenly and gloriously with the smell of mouldering pig’s intestine.

It must have been a sort of magic time limit when the effect of the exorcism began to wear off because Peter jumped up as the skull he was holding began to scream softly. One tail reappeared on the Shuk’s back, then two, then three....

‘Oh look!’ said Humphrey. ‘Winifred’s bowl’s back! Winnie! Winnie, your bowl!’

A Colourless Lady turned blue, another showed patches of green. The Grey Lady got up and began at once to totter about looking for her teeth.

‘Head?’ said Aunt Hortensia’s stump, and when they brought her head to her they saw that it was almost back to its old, disgusting, white-haired nothingness.

This happy scene was suddenly and terribly interrupted by a shriek of anguish as Sucking Susie, followed by the four vampire boys, came flapping into the room.

‘My Baby, my Rose,’ howled Susie, quite beside herself. ‘She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s DEAD!’

A complete and frightful silence fell in the Castle Hall.

‘No,’ gasped the Hag weakly.

Rick had gone deathly white. ‘No,’ he said also. ‘No!’

But as he stepped forward and took the tiny, grey body from Susie’s claws it seemed there could be no doubt. Rose had shrunk almost to nothingness – she hardly stretched across the palm of his hand. Her body was quite cold and completely still. There was no heartbeat.

‘No,’ said Rick again. He was trembling all over but with a tremendous effort he managed to steady himself. Then he bent over and very gently pulled Rose’s thread of a mouth open with his hand.

‘The kiss of life?’ whispered Barbara.

Rick didn’t answer. He lifted Rose up in his cupped hands and began to breathe into her mouth. In–out; in–out; in–out....

Nothing. No movement. No one stirred in the Castle Hall. Only a small, stifled sob from Humphrey the Horrible broke the silence.

Still Rick breathed softly, steadily, never stopping, holding Rose’s jaw open with his fingertips.

‘It’s no good,’ wailed Sucking Susie, beating her wings hysterically. ‘She’s dead, I tell you, she’s dead, she’s dead.’

Rick didn’t even look up. He just went on quietly, steadily breathing. In and out, in and out....

And then suddenly the limp, cold thing in his hand gave a tiny jerk, so faint that he thought he had imagined it. Then another; a little twitch, a judder and... yes, it was her heart. It was beating. She was alive.

‘Oh heck,’ said Rick the Rescuer, completely disgusted. Because from his own eyes it must have been, there’d dropped on to the little body a fat, wet, and quite unmistakable tear.

Seventeen

After that, of course, there was only one thing to do. ‘A party!’ said the Hag. She was still full of aches and pains, the Gliding Kilt’s left thumb was still missing but the Hag loved parties and couldn’t resist giving them.

Rick went out to see if Peregrine wanted to come but he had fallen asleep in the cockpit of the Cherokee, so they just covered him with a blanket and left him there.

There is nothing like release from danger to make you feel ecstatically and wonderfully gay. Outside, the owls hooted and a baleful moon glared through the scudding clouds. Inside, the ghosts ate toadskin rissoles, stewed spookfish and minced gall bladder, and showed each other their exorcism scars.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to make you any maggot sandwiches?’ the Hag kept asking the children. ‘It would be no trouble at all.’

But Rick and Barbara and Peter said they were perfectly happy with the chocolate and apples they’d brought from the plane.

As the night went on, everyone got merrier and merrier. Rick was surprised to see a fat bull seal among the guests but when he tried to walk through him to help the Hag serve drinks, he went sprawling over his very solid body.

‘That’s Henry,’ Sucking Susie explained. ‘Rose’s Dinner. He’s so fond of her he won’t let any of the other seals feed her at all.’

The Gliding Kilt’s thumb appeared just after midnight and then a very nice thing happened. The Grey Lady found her teeth. At least she said they were her teeth and they were certainly a very good fit. She’d just glided out to get some air and was quite carelessly turning over the earth on Aunt Hortensia’s burial mound and there they were!

Everybody was very happy for her and no one said that perhaps it was a bit unlikely when she’d died three hundred miles away on the Isle of Man that her teeth would turn up in the north of Scotland but as Aunt Hortensia’s head wisely said: ‘When all’s said and done, teeth are teeth!’

And of course when they’d eaten and drunk and played games and managed to persuade the Finnish harp-playing ghost that she was still too weak to give a concert on the clifftop, they all got to their feet and drank the toast that the ghosts always drank now when they were together.

‘Rick the Rescuer!’