Toby Ibbotson - Mountwood School for Ghosts

Trembling in every phantom limb, Percy eased his way through the wall of the castle into the courtyard and sneaked over to the byre. He was totally invisible and the night was black as pitch, but he sneaked anyway, just to be on the safe side.

He glided into the barn, and immediately saw Samson sleeping quietly on the straw. But to his utter horror he saw something else. Two great worms were lying on either side of him! Percy knew about great worms. He knew about the Lambton Worm that had lived in the well at Lambton Castle and got bigger and bigger until it had eaten all the sheep and cattle. There was a song about it that Angus Crawe’s mates had sung when they were visiting him only the other week. Geordie Lambton had killed it in the end, not far from here, but could it have had children? These ones weren’t as big as the Lambton Worm, but there were two of them.

Percy was shaking with fear, but he simply had to be brave. Samson’s life was in danger. He had to frighten them off. He began to materialize, wishing he had listened more closely to the scary-noise lessons.

‘Ooh-wooh,’ he said.

The worms twisted and turned. Percy almost vanished in fright, but he took hold of himself and tried again.

‘Ooh. Ooh-wooh.’

Now the two worms lifted their heads, and to Percy’s utter horror and astonishment he saw not the evil worm heads with red eyes and venomous teeth that he had been expecting, but the heads of Daniel and Charlotte.

Percy panicked. ‘Oh no, they’re eating my friends! Stop! Help, help!’ he screeched.

‘Percy, is that you?’ said Daniel.

‘Yes, yes, I want to save you, but I don’t know how!’ The tears poured down his cheeks.

‘You don’t have to save us. We’re fine,’ said Charlotte, sitting up, ‘and we’re very pleased to see you. We thought you had all left.’

Charlotte and Daniel crept out of their sleeping bags. Percy saw at once that he had been a bit foolish, but it didn’t matter. He was so very pleased to see them.

He introduced them to Samson, and asked them if they had come on a bus, and then he cried, ‘Oh, I forgot. How could I? I should be invisible, and so should you. There are intruders.’

‘I think we are the intruders, Percy,’ said Charlotte. ‘We know that the Great Hagges don’t want you to talk to humans, but we just had to come. We are in trouble. We need help.’ And she told him what was happening to Markham Street.

‘My mama will want to help you, I know she will,’ said Percy when she had finished, ‘but I’m not so sure about—’

At that moment there was a mighty crash and the door of the barn flew open. Three dark figures stood silhouetted in the wide doorway. Behind them a dark red flush in the sky hinted at the coming of dawn.

The Great Hagges advanced on Daniel and Charlotte. Drusilla uncovered a lantern, which cast its flickering light around the byre, chasing shadows into corners and illuminating the faces of the two children. Daniel and Charlotte moved closer together, but they stood their ground. Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but there was no time.

‘We do not usually bother with children,’ said Fredegonda, ‘but since you are clearly determined to bother us , it seems we will have to make an exception. Goneril, if you would be so kind.’

Goneril stepped forward. Her long eyebrow had formed itself into a V-shape above her nose, and her left eyeball had turned green. Daniel’s feet suddenly felt icy cold. He tried to move, but he was rooted to the spot. He turned his head to look at Charlotte. She looked at him, and he saw real fear in her eyes.

‘Daniel,’ she whispered, ‘I can’t move.’

Then the heap of straw in which they were standing began to heave and writhe and rustle. Charlotte though of rats and worse, but there were no rats. The straw itself was alive; it roiled and twisted and great ropes of straw began to encircle Charlotte’s and Daniel’s legs, and waists, and arms. In no time at all two straw dolls were standing there. Their noses stuck out a bit, but nothing else.

When Goneril was finished, Fredegonda said, ‘Well, that will do for now, but we are not out of the woods yet.’

‘No,’ said Drusilla. ‘Someone will be expecting them back. But perhaps I can think of something. Memory loss is a bit unreliable. A sudden shock can jolt it. I would go for some kind of permanent brain damage.’

‘What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned fire?’ said Goneril, who liked a bit of a blaze. ‘Accidents do happen.’

Discussing possible solutions to their little problem, the Great Hagges returned to the castle. There was only an hour or two before dawn, so no time to waste. Percy had vanished in terror when the Hagges arrived and hung about in the rafters of the byre not daring to move. As soon as they left, he fled to find his father and mother.

‘You will be pleased to hear,’ announced Fredegonda, when the wraiths and phantoms of Mountwood had drifted in, in answer to their summons, ‘that the intruders have been temporarily discouraged. They will be dealt with later. Meanwhile we have missed a night’s work, but there is still time for a workout before sunrise. Goneril will lead a session of ectoplasmic callisthenics.’

Goneril took over. ‘Right, students, three separate groups, please, heads to your right, limbs to your left, torsos in a ring in between.’

Nothing happened. The ghosts stayed where they were. Fredegonda looked out over the crowd. Nobody moved. Only a faint smell of sweaty socks betrayed that the Druid, in spite of his new-found mastery, had let the tension get the better of him.

Iphigenia Peabody separated herself from the group and glided forward. ‘We wish to say something.’

‘By all means,’ said Fredegonda, but her voice held a warning note.

‘My son Perceval tells me that these two intruders are the children who saved him, and that they have come here in dire need, seeking our help.’

‘Go on.’

‘We feel that to bale them and then send them home unheard is not fair and just—’

‘Fair and just? Fair and just?’ All Fredegonda’s pent-up disgust welled up in her and spilled over. ‘Is it fair and just to paint skeletons on T-shirts and write stories about soppy teenage witches who moon about like film stars? To put green plastic trolls into fast-food cartons for toddlers to play with? I will hear no more of this nonsense. Return to the business in hand.’

‘No.’

‘No! No?’

For the first time for several hundred years Fredegonda was lost for words. Goneril stood open-mouthed, showing both her teeth, and Drusilla’s eyebrow had almost disappeared into her hairline.

‘We refuse. We are on strike. We will not be moved.’

Fredegonda found her voice. ‘All of you?’

She looked around.

The legless Anglo-Saxon warrior, pinioned by her steely gaze, looked as though he might be about to weaken. But the Phantom Welder, who was floating close by, spoke to him in a quiet but determined voice. ‘We have to stick together, comrade. Don’t be a scab, mate. They can’t break us if we hold the line.’ And he started to sing softly, ‘ The worker’s flag is deepest red, stained with the blood of martyrs dead …’

Iphigenia spoke again. ‘We only ask that you give them a hearing.’

There was a faint hissing noise, like the wind blowing through ripe barley, as the other ghosts agreed.

A long silence followed.

‘Fredegonda, dear,’ said Drusilla, ‘perhaps under the circumstances—’

Fredegonda interrupted her. ‘Goneril, fetch them, please.’

Daniel and Charlotte were led by Goneril into the great lower chamber of Mountwood, and the ghostly gathering parted to let them through. Wisps of straw clung to their clothes and stuck out of their hair. Charlotte’s face was drawn and thin, all eyes and mouth. Daniel’s square features were set, his jaw clenched and his chin up. Both of them were pale and freezing cold. There was no heating in Mountwood. The walls were damp and dripping, and the assembly hall was lit only by a few smoking torches and a handful of will-o’-the-wisps whom Drusilla had befriended in the marsh.