Eva Ibbotson - Dial a Ghost

‘It could be,’ said Matron. ‘But if you’re careful everything will be fine. We’ve never had any trouble here.’

In the taxi on the way to the station Fulton was silent, thinking hard. A shock could be dangerous, could it? But what sort of a shock?

Frieda sat with a grim face, thinking of the ridiculous fuss there had been when Oliver left. Children swarming all over him, stuffing things into his pockets; a three-legged mongrel who should have been shot, jumping up and down — and all of them running after the taxi and waving like lunatics.

Between Fulton and Frieda sat Oliver, holding his presents carefully on his lap. A torch from Trevor, a box of crayons from Nonie… they must have saved up all their pocket money. There was a huge ‘good luck’ card too, signed by everyone in the home. Even Sparky had added her pawmark in splodgy ink.

The taxi was crawling, caught in a jam. Now it stopped for traffic lights ahead. Looking out of the window, Fulton saw a number of signs on a tall grey house.

Adopt A Ghost , said one… and DialA Ghost , said another.

Dial a ghost? Now where had he seen those words before? Of course, on the leaflet he’d picked off the mat at Helton when he went ahead to give orders to the servants. ‘Every kind of ghost,’ the leaflet had offered…

Fulton bared his yellow teeth in the nearest he ever came to a smile, and his eyes glittered.

He knew now what he was going to do.

No sooner had Oliver’s taxi disappeared down a side street than two nuns, looking like kind and intelligent penguins in their black and white habits, made their way up the steps of the agency. It was one of the days when people came to ask for ghosts, not ghosts for people, and as soon as she saw them Miss Pringle felt that something good was going to happen.

Mother Margaret, who was the head of the convent, came to the point at once.

‘We have been very lucky,’ she said, ‘and our order has just moved into new buildings. Very beautiful buildings with a cloister and a refectory, and a little chapel where we shall be able to pray without the rain coming on to our heads from the broken roof.’

‘God has been very good to us,’ said Sister Phyllida.

‘So we wanted to share our good fortune,’ said Mother Margaret.

‘You see, our old abbey buildings are still standing. It was too expensive to pull them down and we thought we might offer a home to a suitable family. They would be quite undisturbed. We shouldn’t trouble them — and of course we would expect them not to trouble us.’

Miss Pringle was becoming very excited.

‘You know, I think I have just the family for you. The nicest ghosts you could possibly ask for.’

‘I know you will understand that we need ghosts who are not too noisy. Sadness wouldn’t worry us,’ said Mother Margaret, ‘or cold kisses from bloodstained lips. We would completely understand about sadness and cold kisses. Someone headless would be all right too, as long as they didn’t frighten the goats. We keep goats, you know.’

‘And bees,’ said Sister Phyllida eagerly. ‘It’s quite a little paradise we have at Larchford Abbey. Our rose garden—’

‘Yes, the bees are important. We ourselves would not be disturbed too much by screams and that kind of thing, but bees are very sensitive. So we would ask you to be very choosy.’

‘Indeed, yes — I think you couldn’t help being pleased with the Wilkinsons. You wouldn’t mind a very old lady? She has rather a fierce umbrella but she is an excellent person and in no way shrivelled or withered — or at any rate no more than is usual at her age.’

‘Being shrivelled or withered would be no problem at all,’ said Mother Margaret with her kind smile. ‘We are used to nursing old people and have great respect for them.’

‘Then there is Mr Wilkinson — he was a dentist, a most upstanding man, and his wife is one of the nicest people you could imagine. She has done wonders trying to make the knicker shop into a home.’

Miss Pringle blushed, wondering if she should have said the word ‘knickers’ in front of nuns, but they did not mind in the least.

‘They sound just the sort of people we want,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘And I may say that the accommodation we offer must be what any ghost would want. A ruined cellar — rat-infested of course. A roofless chapel overgrown with weeds and the haunt of large white owls. A tumbledown refectory with a fireplace open to the roof…’

‘And such a pretty bell tower,’ put in Sister Phyllida, ‘full of tangled ropes and iron rings and trap doors. A child would love to play there.’ She looked wistfully at Miss Pringle. ‘There don’t happen to be any children?’

‘But there are, there are! Eric is a teenager and a bit wrapped up in himself — but there’s a delightful little girl — she’s not a real Wilkinson, they found her lost and abandoned, but they quite think of her as their own. She’s rather strong-willed and very fond of animals but—’

Miss Pringle paused, wondering if she should warn the nuns about Addie’s passion for unusual pets. But the nuns just said that it was natural for children to grow up with animals, and it was arranged that the family should come to Larchford Abbey in three weeks’ time.

‘Friday the 13th seems a nice date,’ said Mother Margaret, looking at her diary. ‘Ghosts would like to come on a date like that, I feel sure.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Miss Pringle, quite overjoyed at the news she was going to give the Wilkinsons. ‘Now if you would just be kind enough to fill in this form…’

That night in the Dirty Duck the ladies had not one port and lemon, but two.

‘If only we could get your Shriekers placed as happily,’ said Miss Pringle.

Mrs Mannering sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s going to become of them, Nellie. They’re wrecking the meat store, and that servant of theirs has climbed into one of the containers and passed out cold. I keep wondering what would happen if someone came for a tray of hamburgers and found a completely frozen ghoul.’

Miss Pringle made sympathetic tutting noises. ‘We must just go on hoping, dear,’ she said. ‘Perhaps getting the Wilkinsons fixed up will turn our luck.’

‘Is this really mine? All of it?’ asked Oliver.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Fulton grimly. ‘I hope you’re impressed.’

But Oliver was not impressed; he was appalled. They had driven through a spiked iron gate along a gravel drive and now stood at the bottom of a flight of steps on either side of which were statues. To the left of Oliver was a lion being stepped on by a man who was beating him on the head with a club. On the right was an even bulgier man wearing a sort of nappy and strangling a snake. The windows of the tall grey building stared like a row of dead eyes; pointless towers and battlements sprouted from the roof, and the front door was studded with nails.

Almost worse than the gloomy building and the statues of animals being bullied by bulging men was the icy wind sighing and soughing in from the sea. Tall trees bent their branches; rooks flew upwards shrieking. Everything at Helton looked grey and miserable and cold.

Oliver shivered and wondered again if there was some way he could give the place away. Perhaps he should ask his guardian? Colonel Mersham sounded sensible, trying to save the lemurs in the rain forest and looking for golden toads; but he wasn’t going to be back for months.

The door now opened from the inside and Oliver found himself in a stone hall which was full of things for killing people. Crossed pikes, a blunderbuss, a row of rusty swords fastened to the wall…A stuffed leopard snarled from a glass case and beside it stood the butler and the housekeeper waiting to greet him.