Eva Ibbotson - The Great Ghost Rescue

‘Wow!’ said Rick.

‘So you’d better go to the Houses of Parliament and ask if you can speak to him.’

‘But nobody will ever let me in .’

‘Rick you’ve got to be firm . Everyone’s allowed to see their M.P.; I told you. That’s the point of a democracy. And if he isn’t at Westminster you must go and see him in his house. He lives at 397 Cadbury Avenue, Golder’s Vale. It’s in the North of London somewhere.’

‘All right,’ said Rick. ‘And then I explain to Mr Wilks about the ghosts and ask him to take me to the Prime Minister.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I’ve never heard of a boy who just got taken to the Prime Minister,’ said Rick. Now that he was actually in London it all seemed much more difficult than it had done at Norton.

‘There’s always a first time,’ said Barbara briskly.

Rick sighed. ‘O.K. How are things at school?’

‘All right. The Crawlers are quite happy about you being gone because your rich godmother is going to buy a smashing present for the school.’

‘My rich what ?’

‘Never mind. I’ll explain when you get back. Nothing’s happened really. Maurice’s feet are worse than ever and Masterson got detention for hoisting Matron’s knickers on the flagpole. The usual stuff.’

‘Well, I’d better be off.’ said Rick. ‘I’ve got to feed this vampire bat.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Barbara, who was a very motherly girl. ‘A waste, really. I’d be better at it. More blood.’

And hung up.

The following afternoon, feeling as if a whole lot of very large butterflies were banging about in his stomach, Rick took a bus to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. They looked very beautiful and very impressive in the sunshine, with the Clock Tower and Big Ben standing out against a clear, blue sky, pigeons roosting on the carved stonework, and glimpses behind the buildings of pleasure boats going up the Thames. It seemed perfectly ridiculous that a boy no one had ever heard of could just march into a place like that.

But of course Barbara was perfectly right. She always was. The first policeman he spoke to directed Rick to St Stephen’s Gate and the policeman there showed him the entrance that visitors used, and there he was in a huge, echoing place called the Central Lobby which felt like a cross between a railway station and a church, filling in a green card which yet another policeman had given him. And when he’d filled it up and put in his own name, and the name of the person he wanted to see, a very grand man in a tail coat, wearing a golden chain took it and went off to find Mr Wilks.

While he was waiting, Rick looked round and what he saw encouraged him. There were a lot of people queuing up to see their Member of Parliament: a party of school children come to see how the government worked, two students, and a whole bus-load of grey-haired ladies — probably a Women’s Institute or something like that. And as one by one their Member of Parliament came to take them inside, Rick noticed that the M.P.s all had very kind and intelligent faces. He even overheard one of them say something cheering about going to have tea.

But when Mr Clarence Wilks came, Rick’s heart sank. Not that you could tell just by looking at someone but it did seem as though Norton Castle School and District had elected the only dud in the Houses of Parliament. Mr Wilks had one of those dark red, sweaty faces that looks as though it’s about to explode from trying to cram too much fat in under the skin; pale glassy eyes and that superior look that people have who think that everyone who is not grown up is half-witted.

‘What can I do for you, young fellow?’

Rick looked round the crowded hall. ‘Could I speak to you more privately, do you think?’

‘No one will hear us here,’ said Mr Wilks, leading him to a slightly less packed bit of the floor. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have long, so make it as brief as you can. You didn’t say what you wanted on your card.’

Rick swallowed. ‘Well, what I want is… for you to take me to the Prime Minister.’

‘The Prime Minister!’ Mr Wilks thought this was the funniest thing he’d heard for a long time. ‘The Prime Minister ! You’re a humorist. I see. Why, I can’t get to see the Prime Minister, let alone a child!’

‘It’s important. Honestly.’ And plucking up his courage, and ignoring the people tramping backwards and forwards across the crowded lobby, Rick began to tell Mr Wilks the story of the ghosts.

‘So you see,’ he said when he’d finished, ‘that’s why I want to see the Prime Minister. Only he is important enough to help me set up a ghost sanctuary.’

All the time Rick had been talking, Mr Wilks had been letting out little bursts of laughter, like an overcooked sausage spitting out hot fat.

‘Ghosts!’ he wheezed when Rick had finished. ‘Ghosts! A ghost sanctuary! Oh, I’d love to see the Prime Minister’s face if I told him that.’

‘You don’t believe in ghosts then?’

‘Most certainly I do not .’

‘Mr Wilks, if I could prove to you that there were such things as ghosts, then would you take me to the Prime Minister?’

‘Oh, sure, sure,’ said Mr Wilks. ‘I’d take you to the moon, too. In fact it might be easier to arrange. And now if you’ll excuse me — I’m a very busy man.’ And still wheezing, he turned and walked away.

‘So you mean it’s no good?’ said the Hag, her voice quivering with despair. ‘He won’t help us?’

Rick had got back to Hyde Park late in the afternoon. There were still people about so all the ghosts had made themselves invisible, but the pink glimmer of Humphrey’s elbow, and a smell of squashed head lice had led Rick to the dark shrubbery behind the gentlemen’s toilet and there they all were, waiting for him.

‘He absolutely refused. He said there were no such things as ghosts.’

‘Nit!’ said Humphrey furiously. ‘Wheezing Windbag. Festering Fool!’

‘Be quiet, Humphrey,’ said the Hag. All the same, the ghosts were exceedingly cast down. They had been so certain that Rick would come back with good news. Then Humphrey put his hand trustingly on Rick’s arm and said: ‘You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?’

‘Have you, dear boy? Is there anything we can do?’ asked the Gliding Kilt.

‘Yes,’ said Rick. ‘There is something you can do all right.’

‘What?’ said all the ghosts eagerly.

‘HAUNT,’ said Rick. ‘Haunt as you’ve never haunted in your life! Before this evening’s out, Mr Wilks is going to be very sorry he said there were no such things as ghosts.’

The house Mr Wilks lived in was called Resthaven .It was a large house with white bits let into the pink brickwork, like a house with measles. A long drive led up to it lined with laurels and rhododendrons. At the back there was a lawn and a summerhouse made to look like a Swiss chalet with silly, carved cuckoos on the roof, and a dog kennel which had Buster painted on the side. Buster himself didn’t seem to be around.

Rick had chosen a good night for the haunting. The Wilks were giving a dinner party. Even in the time it took Rick to creep through the laurel bushes and make his way round to the back, a caterer’s van arrived and then a wine merchant’s, and inside the house he could hear Mrs Wilks shouting things to her maid.

‘Now remember,’ he said, when he’d joined the ghosts who were waiting in the summerhouse. ‘Start off gently — just a scream or two from George, maybe the odd wail from Winifred. Then, when they get to the dining room step it up a bit. And when I give you the signal, it’s full steam ahead. O.K.?’