Eva Ibbotson - Dial a Ghost

‘You have heard of ectoplasm, surely?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And you have heard of bacteria? Of germs? The things that cause measles and chicken-pox and everything that’s vile?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, we have found out how to grow a bacterium that eats ectoplasm. The Ectoplasm Eating Bacterium or EEB. We are manufacturing it as Rid A Spook and soon every hall, house and mansion in the land will be free of ghosts!’

Fulton was convinced. He had come to the right place. But when they were back in the office he had a shock.

‘How much would it cost to rid Helton Hall of ghosts? Completely?’

‘Well, the charge is a thousand pounds a room. Which I’m sure you’ll see is reasonable—’

‘A thousand pounds a room! But Helton has got thirty rooms.’

‘Then it will cost you thirty thousand pounds. Which does not seem a lot to make sure that Helton is free of nasties for ever. And I’m afraid I have to ask you to let me have the money in cash. You won’t believe it, but we completely cleared a castle for a well-known British lord and when we came to cash the cheque it bounced.’

Fulton was thinking, chewing on his moustache. How on earth was he going to get thirty thousand pounds? But once people knew that he was going to be the master of Helton, they’d lend it to him. After all, Helton wasn’t worth thousands of pounds; it was worth millions.

‘Very well, Dr Fetlock,’ he said. ‘You shall have it in banknotes, I promise you.’

Addie perched on the arm of the sofa and glared at her long-lost parents. A night and a day had passed since the Shriekers had seen the birthmark on Addie’s arm and realized that she was their daughter, and the change in the evil pair was staggering. They crawled about on the floor, they tried to touch the hem of Addie’s nightdress, they wept — and all the time they begged and implored and beseeched their daughter to forgive them.

‘We shouldn’t have done it,’ wailed Sabrina.

‘We only meant to punish you a little. We didn’t think you would jump into the lake.’

‘We haven’t had a moment’s peace since that dreadful day we found that you were gone.’

‘That’s why we tried to strangle other children. We couldn’t bear to see them well and happy while our Little One was lost to us.’

Addie took not the slightest notice. The python, with his sad bulge in the middle, had been hung on the towel rail in the bathroom and all she cared about was helping Oliver. He said he was all right; he’d wanted to go out and fetch the clothes he’d left strewn by the lake the day before when he was helping Mr Jenkins, but he still looked very pale, and the Wilkinsons insisted that he stayed indoors and rested.

Aunt Maud would have been ashamed to moan and grovel like the de Bones, but she had never felt more wretched in her life. She felt sure that she was going to lose Adopta. Addie might say now that she was a Wilkinson, but how could she stand out against two such grand spectres — spectres with titles, who knew about the upper classes? Sooner or later Addie would want to become Honoria de Bone, Aunt Maud was sure of that, and she felt as if her heart was breaking.

Uncle Henry and Grandma were almost as upset. They had known that they were only foster parents, but somehow they had not really thought that things would ever change.

All the same, Uncle Henry was a fair man and now he said, ‘I think the de Bones must be allowed to tell their story. What was it that made Adopta jump into the lake and drown?’

So the Shriekers began.

‘It happened on the night that Queen Victoria came to supper with us in our house near the Scottish Border. You must remember our house, Honoria?’ said Sabrina.

‘I’m not called Honoria,’ said Addie, scowling, ‘and I don’t remember a thing.’

Sabrina sighed and went on with her story. ‘You have to understand how important it was to us to have the great Queen in our house. She was the Empress of India, remember, and the Mother of the Country, and it was her husband who first brought Christmas trees to England.

‘So we prepared a tremendous banquet. We slaughtered seven oxen and shot one hundred and twenty pheasants and killed five dozen salmon and—’

‘Well I think that’s disgusting,’ said Addie. ‘All those animals killed just to stuff into the stomach of a fat little queen.’

‘Yes, that’s what you said. You were very angry. You were always an angry child — though we love you, of course — we absolutely adore you—’

‘Go on with the story,’ said Adopta.

‘So de Bone Towers was decorated with flags, and the crimson bedroom was hung with fresh tapestries and there were flowers everywhere. It meant a lot to us, this day. You see, your father was expecting to be made an earl — people often were when they had the Queen to stay. But you had been getting crosser and crosser because of the dead animals. Of course we quite understood but—’

Pelham put up his hand. ‘I will go on with the story,’ he said. ‘Queen Victoria arrived and we put on our evening clothes and our medals and our knee breeches. The footmen were in livery; the Great Hall sparkled with candlelight and the table was set with gold plates and crystal goblets and decanters of priceless wine. Queen Victoria sat at the head of the table and the ladies-in-waiting sat at the foot of the table, and the pheasants were just being brought in on great platters — all one hundred and twenty of them — when the long windows on to the terrace opened — and a cow entered the dining room.’

Addie was wrinkling up her forehead. ‘Daisy?’ she said dreamily. ‘A cow called Daisy?’

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ cried Sabrina. ‘Oh, my little darling!’

‘Go on,’ said the child. ‘What happened next?’

‘Daisy was a large cow, ready for milking. She came up to the Queen and mooed and pushed her head on to the table and the glass fell over and spilled wine on to the royal skirt. Then came Buttercup… and after Buttercup came Violet… and after Violet came Rose and Geranium and Marigold. All our cows were named for flowers. Twenty-three cows were herded into the dining hall, mooing and shoving their heads into the plates and… er… lifting their tails to spatter the ground with manure… And after them came the bull. The bull was called Hector — he weighed over a ton — and he began chasing Daisy. Daisy was his favourite. You can imagine… chairs turned over, people on the table, tails swishing… and the Queen, the famous Queen whose throne was inlaid with ivory and tourmaline and gold, shrieking and stepping in cow-pats and being butted in the behind by Daisy’s horns.’

‘And then came the sheep,’ said Adopta suddenly. ‘The cows were easy — I just shooed them up the steps — but the stupid dog couldn’t get the idea of herding sheep into the house.’

Both the de Bones turned to her. ‘So you do remember! It’s all coming back to you,’ they said excitedly. ‘You see now that you are truly our child!’

Addie shrugged. ‘I remember the cows and the sheep — and that silly Queen honking at the end of the table.’

‘Anyway, that was the end of all Pelham’s hopes of becoming an earl. The Queen left that night and never came back and we were very, very angry. So we locked you in the tower at the edge of the lake. We just wanted to keep you there for the night and make you realize what a terrible thing you had done. We never imagined you would jump into the water and try to escape. Oh, the misery and the guilt and the wretchedness… After that I’m afraid we let ourselves go.’

‘You certainly did that,’ said Grandma, looking at Lady de Bone’s dress and the bare feet with their mouldering toes.