Toby Ibbotson - Mountwood School for Ghosts

‘Oh, Daniel, I didn’t see you. You must not creep up on people like that. This gentleman is from the surveyor’s office. They are surveying the street.’

‘Yes, hello,’ said the man, ‘but we are only doing a structural survey. Foundations, walls, that kind of thing. As I said, the state of the bathroom isn’t our business.’ He was embarrassed. ‘Anyway, I’m all done here, so I’ll be off next door.’

‘Bring a cup of tea to my room, Daniel,’ said Great-Aunt Joyce, turning to go upstairs. ‘I don’t know where your mother has got to. She really shouldn’t expect me to answer the door. She is fully aware of my legs.’

Mr Jaros got a visit too. Not from the surveyors but from the health-and-safety inspectors. After they had gone he sat by the stove and worried.

The two ladies who had come to visit him had seemed very friendly, and he had offered them a biscuit and a cup of coffee. But they had left a list that was two pages long of things that were wrong with his workshop. Fire hazard, commercial premises, emergency exit, risk assessment, extractor fan… The words jumbled and jostled in his head. It just went on and on. He liked the smell of glue and resin and turpentine, and those fans sounded like jet engines. How could he listen to Smetana and Dvořák with a fan roaring away? But the worst bit came at the end of the list. Something about domestic animals in high-risk industrial environments. He guessed that the domestic animal must be Jessie, and the high-risk industrial environment must be his workbench. But she had lain beside it for almost thirteen years.

‘Ah, Jess,’ he said, and she opened one eye and thumped her tail, ‘What is all this about?’ Jessie didn’t know. Or if she did, she wasn’t saying.

‘The inquiry is to be led by Lord Ridget,’ said Jim Dawson that evening, as he and Peter were making supper in their kitchen.

‘That old goat? I thought he just hunted and fished and wrote letters to the newspapers about people going for walks across his grouse moors and disturbing the birds he’s going to kill.’

‘He does now, but he used to be a judge before he retired. He was in the news once; he was trying a man for mugging someone and stealing his trainers. Ridget said, “What on earth are trainers?” And the barrister replied, “I think you might know them as plimsolls, m’lud.” They called him Rip van Ridget.’

‘Why dig him up suddenly? There must be a reason.’

‘There is. I rang Sam Norton on the local paper this morning. He always knows what’s going on behind the scenes.’

‘And?’

‘He said he smelled a rat. He said that Ridget is in Jack Bluffit’s pocket; he’ll do anything he wants. Bluffit knows what he’s doing. He’s counting on Ridget to make sure the inquiry goes his way.’

‘So what are our chances, Jim?’

‘Very thin indeed, I’d say.’

Fredegonda was rounding off the evening’s lecture, the fourth in her series ‘Spectral Theory and Human Psychology’.

‘So, to summarize our conclusions,’ she said, ‘first — the vast majority of humans are surprisingly squeamish about suppurating excrescences, that is to say pustules, abscesses, ulcers, blisters, pimples, spots, carbuncles and the like. Also, putrefying or maggoty flesh, especially when still connected to a living body, usually arouses a satisfyingly negative response. Secondly, do not forget our little motto: “More is better.” A single infected abscess on the nose or cheek might even arouse sympathy, and we don’t want that, do we? But a face and body entirely covered with an infestation of pussy boils can hardly fail to have the desired effect. Finally, I would like to leave you with a little tip — hospital waste. Tissues, organs, amputated body parts, blood and bodily fluids can be great sources of inspiration.’

She glanced out of the window set high in the wall, where a few stars glittered.

‘Time for a break. Please be here again in an hour for your practical work with Miss Goneril.’

When she had left the hall the ghosts relaxed and chatted to each other for a while.

The Phantom Welder said, ‘I didn’t get much of that. What’s an excrescence when it’s at home?’

‘Why don’t you ask the Druid?’ said Iphigenia. ‘He knows any amount of words.’

She knew that the Druid was still smarting from his experience the other night and had been avoiding the Welder. So the Welder glided over to the Druid, who went a bit transparent when he approached, and would have gone pale if he could have been any paler.

‘I need some help here, mate,’ said the Welder.’ I’m all over the place.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said the Druid. ‘All your parts appear to be connected at the moment.’

‘I mean I don’t get what that Miss Fredegonda’s on about. Look,’ he went on, for he knew very well why the Druid was avoiding him, ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just me and my big mouth.’

‘Well,’ said the Druid, ‘how can I help?’

The ice was broken, and the Druid took the Welder aside and explained at length about suppuration and infestation and other long words that Fredegonda had used.

Meanwhile Ron Peabody had drifted outside to do some deep breathing and a few stomach curls. He wanted to shine in the practical class — it was his strong suit, after all. His wife always smiled gently and told him that true haunting was an art, not a science, and no doubt she was right about that. She was much cleverer than him. But there was something to be said for a really fit ghost of the old school. Just go straight at ’em and scare ’em stiff. No fancy stuff, that was the thing. Like Lord Nelson at Trafalgar.

Ron started thinking about his son, Percy. He was a bit of a softy, it couldn’t be denied, and Ron wished Iphigenia would see that. There was nothing wrong with poetry — he himself was fond of a bit of noble verse. But all these birds and butterflies were sapping the lad’s willpower, and willpower was the most important thing of all. He should know. Once in his life he had lacked willpower, and look what had happened.

Ron stared gloomily into the darkness of the courtyard and his thoughts turned yet again to that fateful week in his life. Oh, how he had worked! Honing his body to perfection, swimming for hours up and down the Thames, with the tide, against the tide, across the tide. At last he had been ready to go where no man had gone before. Nobody had ever swum the English Channel. They said it was impossible, but he, Ron Peabody, was going to do it. And then, that evening, the visit to the theatre, and the glorious vision on stage. Love at first sight. Love? No, adulation, worship.

For three nights in a row he had simply gazed at the miracle that was Iphigenia, all else forgotten. And he had won her heart. A week later, that newspaper headline had screamed at him from every street corner, every paperboy yelling out the news: ‘Captain Webb swims the English Channel.’

He had learned a grim lesson then. Willpower. He had found the love of his life but the price had been high indeed. If he had waited, controlled himself, he could have been famous forever. Instead he threw himself headlong into ecstasy, and missed the goal of his life. He had found some comfort in other goals; the Bristol Channel had never been swum, nor the Irish sea. But still… willpower, that was the thing.

Ron pulled himself together, dismissing the past from his mind. It was time to return to class.

‘Now then,’ said Goneril, when the ghosts had drifted in after their break, ‘I want you all completely visible and attentive. Make a ring, please. Kylie, perhaps you should show us what you can do.’