Eva Ibbotson - Dial a Ghost

Helton had belonged for hundreds of years to a family by the name of Snodde-Brittle. They owned not just the house but most of the village and a farm and they were very proud of their name, though you might think that a name like Snodde-Brittle was nothing to be cocky about. Their family motto was ‘I Set My Foot Upon My Enemies’, and if any Snodde-Brittle tried to marry someone who was common and didn’t speak ‘nicely’ they were banished from Helton Hall.

But then things began to go wrong for the Snodde-Brittles. Old Archie Snodde-Brittle, who liked to hunt big game, was run through by a rhinoceros. Then his son Bertie Snodde-Brittle took up hot air ballooning and was shot down by a mad woman who thought he was a space invader, and Bertie’s son Frederick was strangled by his tie. (He had been chasing a housemaid in the laundry room and his tie had got caught in the mangle.)

Helton then passed to a cousin of Bertie’s who was not very bright and dived into a swimming pool without noticing that it was not filled with water, and the cousin’s son was struck by lightning when he went to shelter under the only tree for miles around which was sticking straight up into the air.

Fortunately the cousin’s son had had time to marry and have children, but the luck of the Snodde-Brittles was still out. The eldest son fell over a cliff while robbing an eagle’s nest in Scotland; the next one overtook an oil tanker on a blind bend, and the youngest was hit on the head with a rolling pin by an old lady he was trying to turn out of her cottage on the estate.

That was the end of that particular batch of Brittles and the lawyers now had to search the family tree to find out who should inherit next. It looked as though it would be a man called Fulton Snodde-Brittle, who was the grandson of Archie’s youngest brother Rollo. Fulton had watched eagerly as the ruling Snodde-Brittles were struck by lightning and dived into empty swimming pools and had their heads bashed in by fierce old ladies. But just as he was getting ready to come to Helton, a most exciting discovery was made.

It seemed that Archie had had another brother called James who was older than Rollo. James had quarrelled with his family and changed his name and gone to live abroad, but it now turned out that James’s great-grandson was still alive. He was an orphan, not more than ten years old, and had spent most of his life in a children’s home in London.

The name of this boy was Oliver Smith and there was no doubt at all that he was the true and rightful owner of Helton Hall.

The news soon spread all over Helton Village.

‘It’s like a fairy story!’ said the blacksmith’s wife.

‘Imagine his little face when they tell him!’ said the lady in the post office.

Even the family lawyer, Mr Norman, and the bank manager who was a trustee for the estate, were amazed.

‘It’s really extraordinary,’ said the bank manager. ‘A child brought up in an orphanage. One wonders how he will be able to cope. I suppose there’s no doubt about who he is?’

‘None at all. I’ve checked all his papers. We’ll have to appoint a guardian, of course.’ The lawyer sighed. It was going to make a lot of work, putting a child into Helton Hall.

The Lexington Children’s Home was in a shabby part of London, beside a railway line and a factory which made parts for washing machines and fridges. The building was grimy, and the beds the children slept in were old bunk beds bought from the army years and years ago. Instead of soft carpets on the floor there were hard tiles, some of them chipped; the chairs were rickety and the only telly was so old that you couldn’t really tell whether the pictures were meant to be black and white or in colour.

But there was something odd about the Home and it was this: the children who lived there didn’t want to be adopted.

When there was talk of someone coming to foster a child and take it away, the children slunk off to various hiding places, or they pretended to be ill, and the naughty ones lay down on the floor and drummed their heels. People from outside couldn’t understand this, but it was perfectly simple really. The Home might be shabby and poor, but it was a happy place; it was their place. It was where they belonged.

The children came from all sorts of backgrounds, but there was something a little bit wrong with most of them and perhaps that made them kinder to each other than if they’d been big and blustering and tough. Harry stammered so badly you could hardly tell what he was saying and Trevor had lost a hand in the accident which killed his parents. Nonie still wet her bed though she was nearly ten, and Tabitha couldn’t help stealing; things just got into her locker and wouldn’t come out.

And Oliver, who thought he was called Oliver Smith, suffered from asthma; he’d had it since his parents died when he was three years old. The doctor said he’d probably grow out of it, but it could be scary, not being able to catch one’s breath.

Most of the time though Oliver was fine. There were things in the Lexington Children’s Home that made up for all the shabbiness and the rattling of the trains and the smell from the factory chimneys. Behind the house was a piece of ground where every single child that wanted to could have a little garden. Matron had saved a three-legged mongrel from a road smash — a brave and intelligent dog who lived with them — and they kept bantam hens which did not lay eggs very often but sometimes. Trevor had a guinea pig and Nonie had a rabbit and Durga had a minah bird which she had taught to sing a rude song in Urdu.

Best of all, the children had each other. You never had to be alone in the Home. At night in the bunk beds there were stories told and plans hatched, and if Matron couldn’t come to a crying child there was usually someone who got in beside the child who was miserable and made them laugh.

To Oliver the other children were his brothers and sisters; Matron — if she couldn’t come near to being his mother — was kind and fair. There was no dog like Sparky, racing round on her three legs, no conkers like the ones they shook down from the old tree on the embankment — and when the mustard and cress came up on his patch of garden and he could make sandwiches for everyone for tea, he was as pleased as if he’d won first prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.

So you can imagine how he felt on the day that Matron led him into her office and told him that he was not Oliver Smith but Oliver Snodde-Brittle and the new owner of Helton Hall.

Though she spoke slowly and carefully, Oliver at first thought that she must be joking — except that she wasn’t a person who teased people and if this was a joke it was a very cruel one.

‘It will be a fine chance for you, Oliver,’ she said. ‘In a place like that you’ll be able to help people and do so much good.’

She tried to smile at the little boy staring at her in horror out of his large dark eyes. He did not look very much like the master of a stately home, with his stick-like arms and legs and his soft fawn hair.

‘You mean I have to go miles and miles away and live by myself?’

‘You won’t be by yourself for long. Some cousins are coming to fetch you and help you settle in. Think of it, Oliver — you’ll be in the country and able to have all the animals you want. Ponies… a dog…’

‘I don’t want any dog but Sparky. I don’t want to go away. Please don’t make me go. Please! ’

Matron took him in her arms. She had never told children that it was sissy to cry — sometimes one cried and that was the end of it — and now as she smoothed back his hair, she felt his tears run down her hand.

As a matter of fact she didn’t feel too good herself. She made it a rule not to have favourites but she loved this boy; he was imaginative and kind and funny and she was going to miss him horribly.