Toby Ibbotson - Mountwood School for Ghosts

Goneril looked at Great-Aunt Joyce. She was in her curlers, wearing her dressing gown and a pair of tartan slippers. She was seated on the carpet, with her legs straight out in front of her. Around her in a circle were eight small lamps, like night lights. Their smoky flames flickered in the gloom.

‘I didn’t expect to find you here,’ said Goneril.

‘Didn’t you now?’ said Great-Aunt Joyce. But her eyes were no longer the eyes of Daniel’s great-aunt.

‘Well, as you know, I had a spot of bother and I needed to keep out of the way, I did. And the old lady happened along just at the right time. A walking holiday in our lovely Irish countryside. So I just borrowed her, if you take my meaning, and bought myself a ticket to Stranraer.’

‘And where is the real Great-Aunt Joyce?’

‘In Mayo somewhere, she should be. I took her memories, of course — couldn’t manage without them. She’s Maeve O’Donnell now, married to a farmer.’

‘Why this then?’ Goneril pointed at the ring of flickering lights.

‘Well, that banshee got a smell of me, I didn’t like that. Anyway, I fancied a move to a place with a decent bathroom.’

As she spoke her face was changing, and she was getting smaller. Soon in front of Goneril sat a small wizened man with a trilby hat on his head.

But before she could do anything, there was no little man on the bedroom carpet. Instead a wicked-looking snake writhed there. It was a spitting cobra. Its tongue darted in and out. Then it lifted its beautiful, lethal head and spat its venom straight into Goneril’s left eye. She staggered back, her eye useless.

And the snake was a snake no more. A great shadow seemed to grow in the room; a huge bear, its mouth open showing its vicious teeth, reared up and its enormous arms embraced Goneril in a frightful hug. Long sharp claws tore at her back.

Goneril was not called the Wardrobe for nothing, but she had met her match. She struggled helplessly to free her arms, to find some way of stopping the life being squeezed out of her. The bear opened its jaws wider, preparing to close them over her head.

As it did so, a hoarse shout rang out and Angus materialized in the room, the battle cry of the Crawes on his lips, his sword whizzing round his head. Doris passed through the head and body of the bear again and again. It didn’t do any actual harm — it was a ghost sword — but it drove the great bear to distraction. It was worse than having a cloud of angry bees round its head, stinging and humming.

The bear couldn’t help releasing one huge paw to flap and beat at the relentless blade. It was enough. Goneril freed one arm, took a large cambric handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt and wiped her eye. It flashed bright green. Instantly the bear vanished. But Goneril wasn’t fooled. Peering carefully about her, she saw an earwig skittering along the skirting-board. Her green gaze found it, and fixed on it for a long time. There was a look of fierce concentration on her face. Then she relaxed.

‘That should be pretty permanent,’ she said.

Then she looked around, found a little pillbox on the dressing table, emptied out the pills, bent down and popped the earwig inside.

Only then could she take the time to look to Angus Crawe. There wasn’t much to see. How he had managed, in his weakened and enfeebled state, to drag himself out of the cupboard under the stairs and raise his battle cry for the last time, it was impossible to say. But somehow he had done it. The blood of Starkad the Old ran in his Northumbrian veins, and no Norseman wants to die mewling in the hearth-straw. For now it was over. Goneril could see that he had given all he had. As the last wavering shadows of Angus hovered in the room, Goneril went to the door.

‘Fredegonda, dear, come in. It is time to bid farewell to Mr Crawe.’

Together the two Great Hagges stood solemnly before the wispy fragments of Angus. Only his face could be made out now.

‘Goodbye, Mr Crawe, we owe you our thanks,’ said Fredegonda.

They heard, oh so faintly but quite distinctly and well-articulated, ‘Nae bother. Ta-ra then lassies.’

And he was gone. Goneril blew her nose.

In the workshop at number four Markham Street, Mr Jaros sat and wept. Jessie was dead. She had heaved one last, tremendous sigh, wagged the tip of her tail in a final greeting to her beloved master, and the light had faded from her eyes. As he sat there in the half-light, with his heart breaking, Mr Jaros thought he heard a voice.

He raised his tearful face. It had come from outside, somewhere above the moonlit street.

‘Haway then, Jess. Aa could use a bit of company.’

Then, as clear as a bell, he heard the joyful barking of a dog.

Back in number twelve, Drusilla noticed instantly that the ghosts’ decline had been arrested. The shimmer around them lost its sickly hue and began to recover its normal bluish look. The Druid even sat up and started mumbling a few stanzas.

‘Well done, Goneril,’ said Drusilla, to nobody in particular.

Fredegonda and Goneril returned shortly after.

‘That’s sorted,’ said Fredegonda. ‘It was that tiresome Irishman, the Gruagach.’

‘Wasn’t he being hunted by the whole of Tír na nÓg for messing with a member of their royal family? A bit of a scandal, as I recall.’

‘That’s the fellow. But Goneril’s fixed him. Now it’s back to Mountwood, I suppose, for a bit of rest and recreation.’

‘Yes, they won’t be much use for a good while,’ said Drusilla, looking at the ghosts, who were clearly better, but still very weak and wobbly.

Charlotte was sitting unnoticed in the corner of the room. Her heart sank.

Jack Bluffit left his house and climbed into his car. It was midnight, but he wasn’t going to bed just yet.

He had sat thinking all evening. Was that Robby trying to pull a fast one? All this talk of ghosts and threats and jinxes, all the extra money that was being poured into the development. There was a scam going on somewhere; he could smell it. Was Big Robby trying to rip him off? It would be just like him. He had to have a look at what was going on, see if he could figure it out. Then he would shove it in Robby’s face, and make him pay.

He left his car a few streets away and walked up to the site. The arc lamps were blazing, and men were hard at work. Robby had made a lot of calls, twisted a lot of arms, and scraped together a new crew. Tough guys they were. Jack walked round the site until he found a place where he could scramble over the fence unseen. He dropped down on the other side, and keeping low he ran to a clump of rhododendrons that still stood forlornly, surrounded by piles of reinforcing iron and discarded pallets.

Percy stood alone, invisible, despairing, on the plinth where General Markham had been until recently. His parents were disintegrating, and waves of panic-stricken sorrow washed over him. He would be an orphan.

The work went on around him, men in hard hats shouting to each other, cranes swinging heavy girders, the thump of heavy pile-drivers slamming into the night sky. But Percy hardly noticed it. He would never be an artistic Percy now, or a gymnastic Percy, he would just be Percy. Perceval the Pitiful, the Lonely Ghost. Not his mother’s Percy, not his father’s Percy.

‘I’ll just be me,’ whispered Percy to himself. ‘And what use am I?’

In a sudden fury at the injustice of his fate, Percy stamped his foot.

All hell broke loose.

First came the darkness. Every light in the city went out; the blackness was thick and impenetrable. Then a vast rolling rumble filled the whole sky, followed by a furious crack of thunder. Daggers of lightning split the night, stabbing the earth beneath again and again. And now the ground in front of General Markham’s plinth heaved and gaped open, exposing the angry red glare of fire. There was a roar of flames. They licked up into the darkness, and there was a foul smell of sulphur in the air.