Toby Ibbotson - Mountwood School for Ghosts

When they got back from Mountwood, Charlotte and Daniel had had a little conference, and Charlotte had the brilliant idea of putting up the ghosts in the Bennetts’ house. Gillian and her parents had already moved out. Mr Bennett had found a job in the south; he had been wanting to move anyway, so it had seemed best to get out as soon as possible.

Alexander took his thumb out of his mouth and piped excitedly, ‘The big crane, look!’

The boom truck had one more job to do that day. He had instructions from his foreman, who said they came right from the top.

He climbed into his cab, started up and drove straight across the park, ignoring paths and waste bins and flower beds and shrubbery. He stopped at the open space in the middle of the park, next to the statue of General Markham. He climbed out of his cab, unloaded a big strap and looped it round the waist of the general, who stood proudly gazing out over the city. The driver slung the other end over the hook of the crane and got back into his cab. The great boom lifted, the strap tightened, and with a wrenching sound General Sir Markham was ripped from his pedestal. He swung in the air, shedding debris and revolving slowly.

The crane drove carefully to the edge of the park, where a skip stood by the kerb on the other side of the wall. The crane’s long boom lowered, and General Markham disappeared head first into the skip. Only his shattered feet stuck up over the edge.

Daniel and Charlotte watched in silence. There was nothing to say. Now everything depended on their desperate plan.

‘Good,’ said Jack Bluffit.

It was he who had given the order that the very first thing to be done in Markham Park was getting rid of that statue. He hated it. He was not superstitious, but he could not stand that old general standing there as though he was guarding the place. So the sooner it went, the better. There would be a much better statue standing there by the end of the year anyway.

Snyder had shown him some sketches that the sculptor had done, and he thought they were pretty impressive. No horse though. After that trip out to Ridget’s place he never wanted to have anything to do with horses again, not even as a statue. They should all be turned into hamburgers, in his opinion.

‘Good,’ he repeated.

He was talking to the person sitting on the other side of his desk. He was called Big Robby, and the name certainly suited him. The chair he was sitting on only had room for one of his buttocks, and looked as though it would collapse at any moment. His shaved head sat like a rock on massive shoulders. There was no neck in between. Once he had been as solid as granite, but now most of him wobbled like jelly when he moved.

His real name was Robert Mayhew, and he was a multi-millionaire and sole owner of a huge construction company that had built skyscrapers and airport terminals and motorways all over the north of England. Big Robby Mayhew had started working as a hoddy on building sites in his teens, running bricks up and down ladders; he had been tougher and worked harder than anyone else, and soon he went into business for himself. It was much easier to make money that way. You could fiddle your taxes, use cheap materials and charge for expensive ones, pay low wages and scare people who complained. He knew every trick in the book, and in no time he had made his first million — the first of many.

‘Yup,’ he said, ‘statue’s in a skip. When my boys get to work they don’t hang about. We’ll start digging out for foundations tomorrow, and before you can say knife we’ll be pouring concrete.’

‘You’re going to have to get a move on. That’s the deal.’

Big Robby had wanted the Markham Park development job, and he had got it. But the really big payout would come if he got the job done fast. Jack Bluffit was in a hurry, with rat-face Norton sniffing at his heels and some stupid nosey parker on the council saying he had tried to pervert the course of justice by telling the police to give that old lady a going-over.

‘I tell you, we work fast. We’ll keep our end of the bargain,’ grunted Big Robby.

The two men eyed each other across the desk. They didn’t like each other. Each one thought the other was stupid. But they went way back. They had been playing around with the council’s money for years, building shoddy houses and unsafe roads, and putting money in their own pockets.

The following day the excavators moved in. Alexander was in ecstasy, and Charlotte had to bring a book with her to the park. The diggers stretched and swung their great jointed necks, taking a scoop of stones and earth the size of a small car with every bite. Charlotte had been trying for about an hour to read and hold on to Alexander at the same time when suddenly he squirmed and screeched, ‘It’s falling over!’

One of the excavators was indeed teetering on the edge of the hole it had been digging, its caterpillars scrabbling in reverse. The driver was fast and skilful. He swung the whole body of the digger round and dropped the arm quickly, so that the toothed edge of the bucket dug into the ground. Then the powerful arm began to flex, and the digger hauled itself back from the edge. The driver hopped out of his cab as other workmen gathered round and peered down into the hole. There was a lot of shaking of heads, then one of them walked over to the site office, ran up the steps and disappeared through the door.

Big Robby was in his office when the phone rang. It was his foreman, ringing from Markham Park.

‘It’s like we thought, Robby,’ said the foreman. ‘Straight through to an old mine shaft on the first day. The whole area is riddled with old workings; they go back hundreds of years, some of them. We shouldn’t be building here at all. I’ve said that from the start.’

‘You let me worry about that. Fill it in somehow.’

‘Well, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s going to take a long time.’

‘We have a deadline to meet. And we’re going to meet it. Rig up some arc lamps; we’ll have to work night shifts.’

‘That’s going to cost you.’

‘Never mind, just square it with the men.’

It would eat into his payout, but it was the only thing to do. Big Robby put down the phone and said a rude word.

As soon as Daniel and Charlotte had left, the Great Hagges got down to business. Organizing a posse of ghosts was just the kind of thing they were good at.

First they announced that since so many of the ghosts had applied for the mission, they would themselves make the selection, based on individual merit and value to the team. Some were bound to be disappointed, they said, but there would be other opportunities to excel.

Then they had a staff meeting. It was a proper planning meeting, and they expected it to go on for quite a long time, so Drusilla had prepared a light lunch in the Mexican style. There was a plate of crispy blowfly fritters, with a lamb-phlegm dip sauce, and toadstool sauté. When they had eaten they pushed their plates aside and got to work. Some lively discussion followed.

There were one or two obvious choices: the Peabodys for example.

‘Mrs Peabody is highly gifted, and she has drive. Her interest in this situation is hardly in question. She will give of her best,’ said Fredegonda.

The others agreed. It was clear that the family was a unit, and that Mr Peabody could also be relied on to pull out all the stops.

‘I would suggest Kylie,’ said Goneril. ‘She is flighty, I admit. But we are talking of a building site, and we must assume that most of the employees will be men. And men are rather her speciality.’

‘True,’ agreed Drusilla. ‘A temptress is indispensable, I would say.’

‘And also the Phantom Welder,’ Goneril went on. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, when the other two looked doubtful, ‘He has not been the most exceptional of students, but if anyone knows his way around a construction site, it is he. If he is on familiar ground it might inspire him. And he has one indubitable strength, and that is in the telekinesis department.’