Eva Ibbotson - Dial a Ghost

And she wasn’t the only one. There was going to be a nasty fuss when Oliver’s friends heard he was leaving. A very nasty fuss indeed.

The cousins who were coming to fetch Oliver were called Fulton and Frieda Snodde-Brittle. Fulton was the headmaster of a boys’ prep school in Yorkshire and Frieda was his sister and they had sent a letter to the lawyer, Mr Norman, offering to take charge of him.

‘Our school will be shut for the Easter holidays,’ Fulton had written, ‘and we shall be happy to help him settle in. It must be rather a shock for the poor little fellow. As you know we are used to boys; the pupils in our care are just like our own children and we shall know how to make him comfortable.’

‘I must say that’s very kind,’ said Mr Norman, showing the letter to the bank manager. ‘I was going to go and fetch Oliver myself but I’m very busy. And really I didn’t know what was going to be done with the child in that barrack of a place. It’s been shut up for months and the servants are very old.’

‘You haven’t heard from Colonel Mersham?’ asked the bank manager.

Mr Norman shook his head. The man they had chosen to be Oliver’s guardian was an explorer and away in Costa Rica looking for a rare breed of golden toad.

‘He’s due back at the end of the summer, but in the meantime this offer of Fulton’s is most convenient.’

‘Yes. I must say he’s been very decent when you think that if it wasn’t for Oliver, Fulton himself would be master of Helton Hall.’

Which just shows how simple-minded lawyers and bank managers can sometimes get.

Because Fulton wasn’t kind at all; he was evil, and so was his sister Frieda. The school that they ran was called Sunnydell, but no place could have been less sunny. The children were beaten, the food was uneatable and the classrooms were freezing. The sweets the parents sent were confiscated, and the letters the boys wrote home to say how miserable they were never got posted.

But you can only run a school like that for so long. The inspectors were getting wise to the Snodde-Brittles, and so were the parents. At first they had liked the idea of their boys being toughened up, but gradually more and more children were taken away, and as the school got smaller and smaller the Snodde-Brittles got poorer and poorer.

So when they heard that the last owner of Helton had had his head bashed in by a fierce old lady, their joy knew no bounds.

‘I’m the new master of Helton!’ yelled Fulton.

‘And I’m the new mistress!’ shouted Frieda.

‘We’ll Set Our Foot Upon Our Enemies!’ shouted Fulton.

‘Both our feet!’

And then came the letter from the lawyer saying that Oliver had been found and that he and not Fulton was the rightful owner of Helton.

For two days the Snodde-Brittles nearly choked themselves with rage. They prowled the corridors muttering and cursing; they practised every kind of cruelty on the pupils, twisting their arms, shutting them in cupboards; they shook their fists at the heavens.

Then Fulton calmed down. ‘Now listen, Frieda, there must be something we can do about this boy.’

‘Kill him, do you mean?’ asked Frieda uneasily.

‘No, no. Not directly. The police would get on to that; they’ve got all sorts of scientific equipment these days. But there’ll be something. We’ve just got to show that he’s unfit to take over… that he’s mad or ill. There’s bound to be bad blood in him somewhere. Now listen; we’ve got to pretend to be his friends… his loving relations,’ said Fulton with a leer. ‘We’ve got to show everyone that we’re on his side — and then…’

‘And then what?’

‘I don’t know yet. But I will soon. Just leave it to me.’

So they wrote to the lawyer and two weeks later they were on their way to London.

‘What a shabby house,’ said Frieda disgustedly as the taxi drew up in front of the Home. ‘The curtains are patched and the plaster is peeling. Really, I don’t know what the council is doing to allow such a place.’

Both the Snodde-Brittles were dressed in black; both were tall and bony, and both had moustaches. Fulton’s moustache was there on purpose — a dung-coloured growth on his upper lip. Frieda’s was there by mistake.

‘One could hardly expect anything else in this part of London,’ said Fulton, not giving the taxi driver his tip and sneering at an old lady shuffling to the corner shop in her slippers. ‘It is given over to beggars and the Poor. People who are shiftless and don’t work.’

The door was opened by a cheerful girl in a pink overall which Frieda disapproved of: maids should wear uniform and call her ‘Madam’. She also disapproved of the rich smell of frying chips, the sound of laughter from the garden and the children’s paintings tacked to the walls of the corridor.

‘Matron will be along in a minute,’ said the girl, and showed them into an office with two sagging armchairs and a large desk almost completely covered in photographs of children who had been in the Home throughout the years.

‘It’s quite extraordinary that a true Snodde-Brittle should have been living in a place such as this,’ said Frieda.

‘If the brat is a true Snodde-Brittle,’ said Fulton, biting his moustache.

Matron came in. She wore a woollen skirt and a hand-knitted cardigan, and clinging to her hand was a small boy.

‘Good heavens!’ said Frieda rudely. ‘Is that the child?’

‘Yes, this is Oliver,’ said Matron quietly, giving his hand a squeeze.

‘I do not see even a trace of the Snodde-Brittles in this boy,’ said Fulton, frowning.

This was true. The Snodde-Brittles were tall and long-faced with bulging eyes and mouthfuls of enormous teeth.

‘His mother was French,’ said Matron. ‘We think that Oliver takes after her.’

‘Ha!’ Fulton was disgusted. Foreign blood! Then remembering that he was posing as Oliver’s friend, he leaned towards him and said: ‘Well now, boy, you will have heard of your good fortune?’

‘Yes.’

Oliver’s voice was almost a whisper. His troubled eyes were turned to Matron.

‘You don’t seem to realize how lucky you are. Children all over the world would give anything to be in your shoes.’

Oliver raised his head, suddenly looking cheerful. ‘If there are children all over the world who want to live there, can’t I give it to them — Helton Hall, I mean — and stay here?’

‘Stay here?’ said Fulton.

‘Stay here ?’ said Frieda.

The Snodde-Brittles were flabbergasted. They couldn’t believe their ears.

‘Oliver, you must try out your new life,’ said Matron. ‘We’ll write you lots and lots of letters, and as soon as you’re settled, some of the children will be able to come and stay.’

The Snodde-Brittles looked at each other. Long before common and scruffy children were allowed to come and stay at Helton, Oliver should be safely out of the way.

‘We have to catch the three-twenty from King’s Cross,’ said Frieda.

Matron nodded. ‘Go and get your things, dear,’ she said to Oliver. ‘And tell the others that they can come and see you off.’

When the boy had gone she turned to the Snodde-Brittles. ‘You will find Oliver a willing and intelligent child,’ she said, ‘but he’s delicate. When he’s upset or if he gets some kind of shock, he has asthma attacks and finds trouble in breathing. I’ve put in his inhaler and exact instructions about what to do, and of course you’ll have a doctor up there. But the main thing is to keep him on an even keel, and happy. Then he’s fine.’

The Snodde-Brittles exchanged glances.

‘Really?’ said Fulton, licking his lips. ‘You mean it could be dangerous for him to have a shock? Really dangerous?’