The Time of the Ghost

by Diana Wynne Jones

  “No,” said Fenella.

  They arrived back in their own kitchen, where Fenella first poured a large heap of cornflakes and milk in a bowl for Oliver and then another, without milk but even larger, into a bowl for herself. She sat down to eat them dry.

  “Have some milk,” Imogen said hopelessly, with the jug in her hand.

  “No,” said Fenella. “Milk makes them all soggy.”

  “Milk is good for you,” Imogen observed, pouring milk on her own cornflakes.

  “I never eat things which are good for me,” said Fenella.

  There was silence except for the sound of three mouths eating cornflakes. In it, the ghost hung, wondering what to do. She saw she had been silly to expect Mrs. Gill to notice her. For Mrs. Gill would have mentioned it in the hospital if she had understood. According to Cart, it was her sisters who had seemed to understand. So how had she attracted their attention?

  One of them must be me, she said.

  She looked at Imogen. Imogen was spooning up cornflakes, fast and desolately. A tear was working its way down one of her cheeks. Mrs. Gill had started her grieving again, and that meant she was not likely to notice anything else.

  Fenella, then? Fenella knew she was there. Maybe that was because they were the same person. The ghost floated nearer, just beside Fenella’s bony shoulder and sharp munching jaw.

  Fenella, she said. I think I may be your ghost.

  Nothing came of it because overhead Cart came to life again. She came with a scream, which modulated to a roar and then became a scream again, without ever once sounding like a human voice. “Will you all stop that horrible crunching!”

  All jaws stopped, even Oliver’s. All attention was on the ceiling.

  “How can a person sleep!” screamed Cart. “In all this din!”

  Fenella gave Imogen a deeply expressive look and raised her voice in return. “It’s after ten,” she boomed. “We’re having breakfast.”

  “Well, stop it at once!” howled Cart. “Or I’ll come down and kill you!” She meant this. It was clear to everyone. Oliver lay down beside his bowl with a sigh. Imogen and Fenella looked at one another.

  “No one can eat cornflakes quietly,” Imogen breathed.

  “Even soggy ones,” Fenella whispered grimly.

  “And stop that bloody whispering!” yelled Cart.

  Imogen and Fenella looked at one another again, united in loathing for Cart. The ghost did not blame them. She had been thinking kindly of Cart—too kindly, she knew. Maybe the grown-up Cart deserved this kindness. This Cart did not. She had forgotten what Cart was like in the morning, and not just this morning but every morning. And there was worse to come, she knew. Imogen bowed her head and gripped the edge of the table, mustering courage.

  “I shouldn’t,” Fenella said warningly.

  Imogen took no notice. It was something she did every morning. She never seemed to learn. Having made herself as brave as she could, she got up silently and tiptoed gently, gently, through the living room. She stopped at the foot of the stairs, where she cocked her head sideways and adjusted a sweet smile on her face. She was seeing herself as a ministering angel. She needed to, in the circumstances.

  “Cart, dear,” Imogen cooed gently up the stairs, “shall I bring you up some coffee?”

  A terrible growl was the answer. Imogen flinched. Oliver at his fiercest sounded like a lamb in comparison.

  “I’ll put the kettle on, shall I, Cart, dear?” Imogen said. It was more of a quaver than a coo.

  “Oh, shut up!” snarled the thick animal voice upstairs. “When you start being tactful, you really get up my nose!”

  “Cart, dear—” Imogen began again unwisely.

  “Aaargh!” went Cart. There was a surging sound and a heavy bump that shook the ceiling. Imogen went pale. Her ministering attitude somehow became that of someone poised on one foot ready to run. And with reason. The ceiling vibrated. The stairs shook. Cart appeared with unbelievable speed, wild-haired, white-faced, and snarling, and dived down the stairs without apparently treading on any of them. The ghost caught a whirling glimpse of bared teeth, and swollen eyelids with little piggy eyes glaring between them, and found herself crouching on top of the piano. Imogen took a running dive and vanished into the space between the piano and the sofa. By the time Cart hit the living-room floor, with a crash that shook the whole building, the room was apparently empty.

  “Aaargh!” snarled Cart, glaring pig-eyed. She made for the kitchen in huge strides.

  There was a crash, a yelp from Oliver, and the sound of big bodies falling about. Fenella bolted round the door, running on hands and knees like a spidery monkey, and came to join Imogen behind the sofa. “I told you not to!” she whispered.

  “Come out, you cowardly little creeps!” Cart bawled. There was a series of awesome bangs.

  “What’s she doing?” Imogen whispered, as Oliver, too, crept into the living room. His blurry tail was wedged down between his great hind legs. He was shivering.

  “Breaking another chair, I think,” said Fenella. She sighed.

  Sure enough, the bangs became splintering noises and the sound of pieces of wood clattering onto the stone floor. All the same, Cart’s growl showed signs of becoming slightly less animal. Once there was even the gasp of a human being with a splinter up its thumbnail. This was followed by a thick human voice, swearing. And this in turn was followed by a last clatter, then silence. Eventually there came the sound of cornflakes pattering into a bowl.

  Imogen relaxed a little. She dared to sit up. “Cart’s blood sugar is low in the mornings,” she explained to Fenella.

  “Is that what it’s called?” said Fenella. “I thought it was bad temper.”

  They sat side by side on the floor, listening to the sounds of an ape woman chomping cornflakes in the next room. The ghost descended to them.

  Fenella, you know I’m here. Please help. I’ve only got six and a half hours left now.

  Unfortunately Imogen spoke at the same moment. “Fenella,” she said, “what am I going to do? I can’t do my practice without going through there.” She pointed to the kitchen door.

  Fenella spoke to Imogen. She did not hear the ghost. “You could wait an hour till she’s human,” she said.

  “But they’ll be using the music rooms in an hour,” Imogen wailed. “I’ll be turned out again.”

  “Shut up!” Cart growled from the kitchen. “Let me have breakfast in peace!”

  Fenella and Imogen shut up. They were forced to hold the rest of their conversation in signs, which left them no attention for a ghost.

  “Oh, all right,” Imogen whispered dismally at length. “Everything’s horrible anyway. But I bet she’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll guard you, I promise,” Fenella whispered back.

  Sighing, Imogen scrambled to her feet and pulled the legs of her trouser suit out from under her shoes. She began gloomily clearing away the picture, the papers, and the jar of paint water from the yellow keys of the old piano and dusting it with the front of her suit. The suit was big enough for Imogen to take a bunch of it and use it as a cloth, without even leaning forward. Fenella, meanwhile, dragged an armchair in front of the kitchen doorway and took up a post cross-legged on the back of it. She made signs to show that Cart was now reading a book.

  Imogen nodded and arranged music on the yellow stand. Then she arranged herself on the frayed and wobbly stool and sat staring at the music.

  “It’s okay,” Fenella whispered encouragingly. “Get on.”

  But Imogen seemed to be in the grip of gloomy apprehension. She just sat. The ghost did not blame her, knowing what Cart was like. She tried to use the silence to catch their attention.

  Imogen! Fenella! she screamed. Help me! It felt as if it ought to be as loud as the roars of Cart. But even she could tell that it made no sound at all. She stopped, despairing.

  “This is going to sound excruciating,” Imogen murmured.

  “Well, it’s a crucial piano,”
Fenella murmured back.

  “I don’t mean that,” said Imogen. She sighed. Her face was bloated with misery as she put both hands to the yellow keyboard and began to play.

  The ghost listened, rather amazed. It was a piece of music which the ghost knew as well as Imogen evidently did. Imogen did not bother to look at the music. Her elbows were stiff, and her head was slightly bent, and she seemed to be attending to something away beyond the music. Maybe she was waiting for Cart to erupt again. But there was more wrong than that. The ghost had always thought of that particular piece as a soaring electric rumble, with a tune edging sideways from the rumble. True, Imogen was playing it on a cheap old piano which was rather out of tune. But she was playing it like a machine, and the music was simply a collection of notes.

  Oh, come on, Imogen! she said, without meaning to. You can do better than that!

  “No, I can’t,” Imogen answered as she played, without looking round. “I think I hate it.”

  Imogen had heard her! It must be because Imogen was playing and not really attending. Terribly excited, and trying not to let the excitement show and distract Imogen, the ghost said, You must have been on this piece too long, then. That seemed likely, considering how well they both seemed to know it.

  “Only a fortnight,” Imogen said gloomily.

  Well, then, said the ghost. Try something else you like better. And while you’re playing, listen to something I—

  “It’s not that!” Imogen interrupted irritably, rattling notes off like a pianola. “I’ve a brilliant memory for music. I don’t deny that. But—”

  “Shut up!” Cart bawled from the doorway. A book, heavily thrown, caught Fenella in the stomach and knocked her backward off her chair. Cart followed up the book with the packet of cornflakes. It hit Imogen on the head and burst all over her. Cornflakes whirled in the air and pattered down on the piano keys. “Take that!” Cart howled. “For making a horrible noise! I told you to be quiet!”

  Imogen turned, with immense dignity. A cornflake, lodged in a tear, slid down one of her cheeks. While it slid, Imogen examined Cart’s glaring face for signs of humanity. She seemed to decide Cart was joining the human race by now. “I have to practice,” she said.

  “Yes, but you don’t have to babble to yourself like a lunatic while you do!” Cart snarled, and breathed heavily and threateningly through her nose, like a bull ready to toss someone.

  “I shall talk if I like,” retorted Imogen. “And you’ve wasted all the new cornflakes. Clear them up.”

  “You made me do it! Clear them up yourself!” roared Cart.

  “And you’ve murdered me!” Fenella boomed, crawling out from beyond the armchair. She knelt up, holding her stomach. “When I die, my ghost will come back and haunt you.”

  By this time all three of them were shouting at once. Imogen was keeping time to her shouts by banging her hand down on the piano. The noise was horrible. Jangle, crash, scream.

  The ghost quivered among the yells and the discords. She was very shaken, not by the quarrel—she was used to those—but by the way she had known that music Imogen was playing so well. It ought to mean she was Imogen, but if she was Imogen, why on earth had she gone to art school? Everyone knew Imogen was going to be a concert pianist. And then Fenella had thrown it all in doubt by threatening to come back and haunt Cart. Fenella had meant that. And here she was, a ghost.

  Oh, how shall I find out? she wailed to herself, moving away backward from the noise. It was a great relief to hear the screams getting fainter and fainter. But this was not helping her attract their attention. She was getting too far away. She could see a monstrous mummified leg again. And as the narrow torch beam of her attention turned back to the hospital, it caught a memory of a gray, crisp paper with words swimming on it. “ONTARIO … HOWARD IN THE HEDGE.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  Of course! she said. Howard was in on it. He’s the one to get in touch with.

  She was whirling through the orchard as she said it. Through the hedge to the trampled garden she went, under the lime trees and in by the pointed door in the redbrick school. The hum of the building told her that lessons were still on—but, surely, it would be break any minute now. She floated her way to the arched door labeled “IV A.” And stopped. She could hear Himself’s voice beyond it.

  Well, that doesn’t matter, she said. He didn’t know I was there before. She pushed herself through the wood of the door into the warm classroom beyond.

  Himself was striding sideways up and down in front of the rows of faces, ruffled and beaky, with his hands clasped behind his back so that his jacket humped out like two folded wings. He resembled nothing so much as an eagle sidling up and down its perch. He was ready to peck at anyone who came near, too. He was in his worst mood, his morning mood; Cart’s bad temper was hereditary. With a snap and a dart of his head, he was saying, “So you can’t see the use of learning grammar, can you? So you’ve been infected with this modern nonsense, have you? You think there’s no point in knowing a noun from a verb. I repeat, Filbert, what is a preposition?”

  In front of him the gap-toothed face belonging to Nutty Filbert wore a bemused grin. At the sight of it, Himself’s head jerked, in pecking position, ready to rend Nutty Filbert. The grin left Nutty Filbert’s face. “I know what it is, sir,” he said hastily, “but I can’t explain, sir.”

  “It’s impalpable, sir,” someone at the back suggested cleverly.

  Heads turned to see who had dared be this clever. Among them was the smooth otter head of Will Howard, with, beside it, the sandy brush of Ned Jenkins. The ghost darted to them. Howard, please—!

  “Impalpable!” roared Himself. He sounded worse than Cart. “What’s that supposed to mean?” His arms spread. The eagle mantled, ready to take off and destroy. “Impalpable means ‘it can’t be touched.’ I suppose that means you intend to leave the preposition severely alone. Let me tell you, boy…”

  As Himself roared on, the ghost beat unavailingly round the smooth otter head in its electric field of life. But Howard, like all the rest, was staring at Himself mantling and roaring, waiting for the blow to fall.

  And here it came. Himself folded his wings, reclasped his hands, and went quiet. “Very well,” he said. “We must see how willful this ignorance is. Boys are not going to leave my hands without knowing basic grammar. Open your books at page forty-nine and write me out translations of sentences one to five.”

  “But, sir,” someone had the nerve to protest, “it’s nearly break time.”

  “Is it?” Himself’s head shot savagely round that boy’s way. “What a shame. Then you’d better get to work quickly, because no boy is leaving this room until he has handed me in those five sentences.”

  The room was thick with held-in sighs and moans no one dared make. Pages tumbled and rustled as everyone sought for page forty-nine. It was odd, the ghost thought, how teachers always talked as if you could open your book at the exact page they wanted. No one ever could. Exercise books were spread open, pens picked up, and heads bowed. She looked down on Howard’s smooth, bent head. This was impossible. Howard’s yellow ballpoint pen was poised in the air, making irritable, scribbling movements, as Howard tried to work out what sentence one could possibly mean. Howard’s mind was on Latin and break, and not on ghosts or even his friends the Melford sisters. Now his pen went down. He was writing.

  “1. We point at the elephants—”

  But this was it! It could be done just as she had done it at the séance. She threw herself against Howard’s fizzing hand and the pen held in it.

  “—advancing toward Rome,” Howard wrote stolidly. She had not been able to shift his hand a millimeter. Now his pen was up, scribbling in the air, while he worked out sentence two. She waited, dithering. When he started to write again, she would push the pen. The pen went down. She threw herself at it, shoving mightily.

  “2. The soldiers walked out of the temple and marched round the forum,” Howard wrote imperviousl
y. And up went his yellow pen again. The ghost moved up with it, nearly in despair. One thing kept her hovering, ready to try again. Howard had sent that telegram. And that meant she had got through to him somehow. But he was being a long time over sentence three. It must be difficult.

  There was movement on the other side of her. Ned Jenkins’s red pen in Ned Jenkins’s left hand was coming slowly and doubtfully down toward a blank page. I didn’t know you were left-handed, she said to him. Hey—! Howard’s yellow pen was still scribbling in the air. So why not try pushing at Ned’s hand while she was waiting?

  She threw herself at Ned’s red pen just as it met the paper. He was holding it slackly, listlessly, obviously wishing the lesson would be over. And it moved. Under her push, it jerked sideways and drew a long, curved line. Ned muttered something exasperated. His arm fizzed against her as he went to lift the pen up. But she could not let him do that. She held it down with all her strength. There was more fizzing, as Ned fought to get his hand up and move the pen off the paper, and wild electric heat higher up, as Ned’s face first went bright unwholesome red and then drained to yellow-white, blotched with freckles the color of cornflakes. She went on holding his hand down. It was suddenly limp. He was holding the pen laxly and staring down at it, white and unblinking. She was afraid he had fainted. But she could move the pen.

  It was still immensely difficult. Ned’s hand was like a dead weight, white, freckled, and bony. And it was used to writing Ned’s way. It was not good at someone else’s writing. She had to heave and force and thrust at it, and try as she would, she could not make writing of an ordinary, small size. Her letters were huge, sprawling and ungainly. Because of that and because of it being so difficult, she kept it short.

  “IM ONE MELFORD GIRL DONT KNOW WHICH 7 YRS OFF NEED HELP MONIGAN HELP”

  The message ended in a sharp scribble because Ned, still white and staring, seemed to expect her to go on writing. She had to wrench herself away from his limp hand and then give it a sharp shove the other way to show him she had finished. Ned jumped. A faint pink came back to his face. She saw him look hastily round. One or two boys were already going out to the front to hand their exercise books to Himself. Almost at the same time there was the immense shrill dinning of the bell for break. That made Ned jump again and seemed to galvanize him into action. Deftly, so deftly and swiftly that it was clear this was something he often did, he took the page out of the exercise book. He did not tear it. He flipped open the staples in the middle of the book and took the whole sheet out, the page from near the beginning of the book as well as this one near the end, and folded it into his pocket in one quick movement. Then he pushed the staples shut again and began to write on the next clean page as if for dear life.