Eva Ibbotson - Dial a Ghost

As he ran about, the pan became less grey, more reddish… hotter. Suddenly it burst into flame and he scooped a dead owl from a rafter, tore its feathers off and threw it into the fire. Then he tossed two burnt thighs at the de Bones and collapsed again on to the slab.

Back in the convent, the smell of cooking came quite clearly to the Sisters.

‘That’s their breakfast now,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘They’ll soon feel better.’

‘There’s nothing like a nice cooked breakfast to settle the stomach,’ agreed Sister Phyllida. ‘So many families just start the day with nothing but a piece of toast, and it’s so unwise.’

They felt very relieved, sure now that the ghosts they had invited were going to lead a sensible life, and then they said goodnight to each other and went to bed.

But the Shriekers, tearing the flesh off the roasted owl, were not exactly being sensible. Mind you, they had had a very difficult journey. The mouse had not agreed with the python, who had been sick, and the ghoul kept passing out at the end of his rope like a log. And when they had at last lost height and come down where the instructions had told them to, they had seen none of the things they had been promised. No great hall with towers and battlements, no writhing statues, no suits of armour or stone pillars or iron gates. Instead there were a few tumbledown buildings and a ruined abbey with the most awful feel to it — the feel of a place where people had been good .

And then when dawn broke they saw something that made them stagger back in horror: a row of nuns on their way to the chapel to pray!

‘I’m not staying here!’ Sabrina yelled. ‘I’m not having that awful gooey goodness clogging up my pores. I can feel it between my teeth. Ugh!’

But they had been too tired to glide back at once. Now they decided to wait for a few days and gather up their strength.

‘There might be a child we can harm,’ said Pelham.

‘How could there be? Nuns don’t have children.’

‘No. But they might run a school.’

The idea of scratching and strangling and smothering a whole school full of children cheered Sabrina up a little.

‘Well, all right. But I won’t stay for long.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Pelham. ‘I’m all set to make those women in the agency wish they’d never been born!’

A new and happy life now began for Oliver.

He woke to find Adopta sitting on the bottom of his bed and heard the other ghosts splashing about in the bathroom and thought how wonderful it was not to be alone.

They all came down to breakfast and made themselves invisible while Miss Match brought him toast and cereal. Just as she was putting it down, the budgie said, ‘Open wide’, and she jiggled her hearing aid and said, ‘I’m not going to open wine at this time of day. Wine is for supper.’

‘I’ll bet she can’t see us,’ said Adopta — and before Aunt Maud could stop her, she flitted off into the kitchen.

‘I told you,’ she said when she came back. ‘I leaned over her and said ‘‘Boo’’ and she just went on reading some silly story in the paper. We’ve got nothing to worry about there.’

But in any case, Miss Match was only supposed to leave out Oliver’s meals. The rest of the day she spent in the village with her cousin. Fulton’s plan to leave Oliver quite alone was turning out to be the best thing that could have happened.

The ghosts simply loved the house.

‘Oh, my dear boy,’ said Aunt Maud. ‘These cellars… the fungus… the damp! It’s a bit strong for me, but just think what poor Mr Hofmann would make of this place. How happy he would be!’

‘Who’s Mr Hofmann?’ Oliver wanted to know.

‘He’s Grandma’s boyfriend,’ said Adopta. ‘He lives in a bunion shop and he’s got every ghost disease in the book, but he’s terribly clever.’

The ghosts liked the kitchens and they liked the drawing room with its claw-footed chairs, and the faceless statues in the library. They liked the hall with its huge fireplace which you could look up and see the sky, and they absolutely loved the library with its rows of mouldering books.

‘I bet there are ghost bookworms in those books,’ said Adopta. ‘I bet they’re full of them. Can I look later?’

‘Of course. I wish you wouldn’t ask , Adopta.’ Oliver sounded quite cross. ‘If Helton’s mine then what’s mine is yours and that’s the end of the matter.’

If they liked the house, the ghosts liked the gardens even more. The weeping ash tree with its drooping branches, the rook droppings on the stone benches, the yew trees cut into gloomy shapes…

‘It’s so romantic, dear boy, so cool!’ said Aunt Maud. ‘You can’t imagine what it is like to be here after the knicker shop.’

When they reached the lake they found Eric staring down into the water.

‘There is someone in there,’ he said. ‘Someone like me. Someone who has suffered.’

‘There’s supposed to be a drowned farmer,’ said Oliver. He had been afraid of the body trapped in the mud, but already the ghosts were making him think of things differently.

Eric nodded. ‘He died for love,’ he said. ‘I can tell because of Cynthia Harbottle. She wouldn’t go out with me even after I’d bought her a box of liquorice allsorts. It took all my sweet ration and she didn’t even say thank you. And this man’s just the same. People who have been hurt by women can recognize each other.’

‘Can you call him up, dear?’ said Aunt Maud. She was thinking how nice it would be if Eric could talk to someone else about being unhappily in love. When he talked to her about Cynthia Harbottle she got terribly cross. Mothers always get cross when people do not love their sons, and Cynthia had been a nasty piece of work, wiggling her behind at American soldiers and smearing herself with lipstick.

‘He doesn’t want to; not now,’ said Eric — and Oliver couldn’t help being glad. He didn’t feel quite ready yet for a drowned farmer covered in mud.

But the farmer reminded Aunt Maud of something she wanted to ask Oliver.

‘Now please tell me honestly,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Don’t be polite. But… how would you feel if… if someone came here, someone appeared , who was only wearing a flag? Would she be welcome?’

Oliver was quite hurt that she should ask such a question. ‘Of course she would be welcome. Of course. A ghost wrapped in a flag would be… inspiring.’

After lunch (which was a sandwich for Oliver in the garden) the other ghosts said they would rest, and Oliver and Adopta climbed up the hill to look at the place where the two hikers had frozen to death.

‘I can’t feel them,’ said Adopta. ‘I’m afraid they may just not have become ghosts. Perhaps it’s as well if they had bad frostbite. But I think you ought to ask your factor to put up a proper cross or a little monument. It seems rude not to have anything.’

‘I don’t know if I’ve got a factor. What is it exactly?’

‘It’s a person who runs an estate and tells the shepherds and farmers what to do.’

‘How do you know about factors? I mean you wouldn’t have had them in the knicker shop or at Resthaven.’

Adopta shrugged. ‘Sometimes I know things that I don’t know how I know them, but please don’t start on again about how I’m really someone else because I’m a Wilkinson and I’m me.’ She glanced round at the wide view, the heather-covered hills, the river. ‘Pernilla would love this. She feels so trapped in the shopping arcade.’

‘Who’s Pernilla?’

‘She’s a Swedish ghost — she came to look after some children and learn English, and some idiot in a Jaguar drove her home from a party and crashed.’