Eva Ibbotson - The Great Ghost Rescue

‘Very well,’ said Mr Horner, and started telling the class about Henry’s second wife, poor Anne Boleyn.

He hadn’t got very far before the classroom door burst open and Maurice came tottering in, trembling like a great, white jellyfish.

‘A THING!’ He pointed at Rick. ‘Like before. On Henderson’s bed. A b… beastly, ghastly g… ghost!’

‘Now really, Crawler,’ began Mr Horner. And then: ‘Henderson! How dare you leave the classroom without—’

But Rick, with Barbara running at his heels, had gone.

‘Humphrey! Oh, Humphrey!’ Rick swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘What’s happened ? What have they done to you?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Humphrey weakly, waving a skeletal finger. ‘It’s all the others… Rick, it was a trap. And they’re all dying. Perhaps dead. My mother and father, George, Winifred — everybody !’

And between the hiccuping sobs which shook him now that he’d reached Rick at last, he told him of the dreadful things that were happening at Insleyfarne.

‘You’ve got to help us, Rick,’ said Humphrey. ‘And quickly , before—’

He broke off as the door of the dormitory burst open and Peter Thorne rushed in.

‘They’re all coming up, Rick — Mr Horner and the Crawlers and beastly Maurice — to see this—’ He stopped dead. ‘Goodness! It’s true then. It really i s a ghost.’

‘Yes, it’s a ghost,’ said Rick quietly. ‘It’s also my friend and he needs help. Try and stop them coming in.’

Without any more fuss, Peter rushed back to the door and started pulling a chest of drawers across it. For someone so frail-looking he was surprisingly strong.

‘Humphrey, can you still vanish or are you too weak?’

Humphrey turned his grey, exhausted face to Rick’s. ‘I’ll… try…’ he said. It was obviously a tremendous effort but after a moment his poor, lumpy ectoplasm began to disappear and only his elbow hung like a shred of old sheep’s wool in the air.

The hammering on the door began. Rick ignored it. His face had gone as grim as stone. As soon as Humphrey had said the dread word ‘EXORCISM’ he knew how serious the danger was.

‘How many clergymen were there?’

‘Three,’ came Humphrey’s voice. ‘And another man with a beard. And Lord Bullhaven, of course.’

Rick wasn’t a silly, daydreaming kid. To tackle five grown men he’d need help.

‘Open up,’ screeched Mrs Crawler outside the door. ‘Open up, you wicked children.’

‘I can’t hold them much longer,’ said Peter, braced against the chest of drawers. And suddenly Rick remembered something. Peter was tiny and pale and thin with fair curls and pansy blue eyes. What’s more, he’d been so homesick the first few weeks of term that he’d practically never stopped crying. And yet no one teased or bullied him. Not that they hadn’t tried. Right at the beginning, Maurice Crawler had tried shoving him against the roughcast corridor leading to the gym — and then suddenly Maurice was sprawling on the floor.

‘Was it Judo?’ Rick had asked Peter, because Maurice was at least twice as big.

Peter had shaken his head. He used Judo quite a lot, too, he said, but this was something called Aikido. Japanese, too, but reckoned to be neater. His father had taught him. And then when he got to the word ‘father’ he started snivelling again and Rick had left him. Now, though, he made up his mind.

‘You’d better come with us,’ said Rick to Peter, pushing open the dormitory window. ‘Can you get down the ivy, Barbara?’

Barbara nodded. She was so furious at what they’d done to Humphrey that she couldn’t even speak.

‘Come on, then,’ said Rick. And as they climbed down the ivy and started running down the gravelled drive away from school, he turned to comfort Humphrey. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ said Rick the Rescuer. ‘I promise you, it’s going to be all right.’

Rick spoke bravely but he wasn’t nearly as sure or as hopeful as he sounded. Insleyfarne was over three hundred miles to the North West — ghosts glide so fast they can get you very muddled about distances. Even if they could find a car or train to take them there it would most likely be too late. ‘It’s how to get there quickly ,’ said Rick, thinking aloud.

He had forgotten Barbara.

‘I know how,’ she panted, running beside him. ‘Miss Thistlethwaite, that’s how. It’s Miss… Thistlethwaite we need.’

Rick was so surprised, he stopped dead. ‘Miss Thistlethwaite? Are you crazy?’

Miss Thistlethwaite was the visiting music teacher. She taught the violin and the piano, arriving on her bicycle on Thursday mornings and Tuesday afternoons. She was a rather odd-looking lady who wore long, flowing black dresses hitched up with dressing-gown cord and could be heard screaming in pain when Maurice Crawler missed his Top E or Smith Minor crashed like a runaway tank through Schubert’s Cradle Song .

‘Let’s see, it’s a full moon tonight, isn’t it?’ said Barbara. ‘Yes. Then it’s the village we want.’

If it had been anyone but Barbara, Rick would have argued. Now he just shrugged and set a steady pace, looking backward now and then for signs of the Crawlers.

The village hall was a low, wooden building in a lane beside the church. The door was locked, the blinds were drawn. A notice painted in red said Norton Women’s Tea Club. Members Only .

‘Try the back.’

At the back of the hall was a little door leading into a small cloakroom. Quickly the children crept inside, and the worn scrap of grey that was Humphrey’s elbow followed. Then they opened the door into the hall a crack and peered through.

The hall was dark except for the light of tall candles set in branched candlesticks on the window sills, and a strange, blue flame flickering in a bowl of charcoal on the upright piano. Three sides of the room were lined with trestle tables on which were all the usual things one brings, or buys, at village sales: jars of jam, and cakes, and crochet mats…. But the thirteen ladies who seemed to make up the Norton Tea Club were not, at the moment, buying or selling anything.

No, they were dancing. A kind of chain dance, weaving in and out, kicking up their legs and stamping….

‘Look at their hats,’ whispered Barbara.

And indeed the ladies’ hats were strange. Their own Miss Thistlethwaite wore a hat decorated with yew berries, mistletoe and poppies. Mrs Bell-Lowington, who lived in the manor, had a whole stuffed owl on her head. Miss Ponsonby, who ran the post office, wore a pink cloche embroidered with black triangles.

And now they had joined hands and were singing. The tune was pretty but the words were odd.

sang the ladies of the Norton Village Tea Club.

‘Ready?’ whispered Barbara — and opened the door.

The circle of ladies stopped dead still. Their mouths shut on the last word of their song and thirteen pairs of eyes with rather unpleasant expressions fixed themselves on the three children.

‘Miss Thistlethwaite?’ said Barbara. ‘Please, Miss Thistlethwaite?’

Miss Thistlethwaite took an uncertain step forward.

‘Fredegonda,’ thundered Mrs Bell-Lowington, who had been leading the dance, ‘what are these children doing here?’

Miss Thistlethwaite shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Nocticula,’ she said nervously.

‘Oh please don’t be cross,’ cried Barbara. ‘We know you’re witches and we won’t tell a soul. Only, please, please can you help us? We’re in trouble!’

A flutter passed through the coven of witches, the circle broke, and Fredegonda (which was Miss Thistlethwaite’s witch name because it is difficult to be a witch with a Christian name like Ethel) came towards them, followed by the chief witch, Nocticula. (Her Christian name was Daisy which was even worse.)