The Chocolate Factory Ghost

by David O'Connell

  He had only walked on a few more steps when there was a whistle from behind the tangle of metalwork ahead.

  ‘Who’s there?’ called Archie. The twins again? Sherbet gave a short bark and disappeared around a corner. Archie followed cautiously. The gangway was empty – the dog had vanished!

  ‘Sherbet? Where are you?’

  A hand reached out from behind a large pipe and grabbed his collar, dragging him into the shadows.

  ‘Welcome back,’ whispered a voice he recognised. It was Fliss! A light was switched on and Archie found himself on a platform wedged amongst the pipework and completely hidden from the gangway. It was almost like a cave, or a treehouse where the tree branches were all made of metal.

  ‘I thought you were the Puddingham-Pyes!’ said Archie with relief. ‘I think they’re trying to get rid of me.’

  ‘You’ll be safe here,’ said Fliss. She grinned at him. ‘This is my secret hideout. I can stay in the factory all day and no one knows where I am. It’s been used by other children throughout the years but I’m the only person who uses it now.’ There were tools lying about, some comics and books, and drawings of machines and aeroplanes. A couple of stools and a lamp stood in a corner whilst some drink cartons sat on a bookshelf, along with a selection of McBudge confectionery products that Archie suspected had probably been pinched from a nearby conveyor belt. Sherbet sniffed around suspiciously.

  ‘You’ve timed your arrival perfectly,’ said Fliss. ‘We have an appointment.’

  ‘With who?’ said Archie.

  ‘Someone who can help us with your treasure hunt thingie.’

  ‘It’s a quest. And it’s a supposed to be a secret! Why not tell the whole of Dundoodle whilst we’re at it?’

  ‘Pardon me for wanting to help you with your fancy-pants quest! I thought you might need some expert help. Quiet – I can hear him now.’

  ‘An expert?’ said Archie. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Billy Macabre,’ whispered Fliss, peering through the pipes. Archie looked though a gap and saw a small, scrawny boy with large haunted eyes walking along the gangway. He was dressed from head-to-toe in black, and carried a heavy-looking black bag which he clutched to his chest.

  ‘That’s our expert?’ said Archie. The boy was younger than either of them.

  ‘Yes!’ snapped Fliss. ‘His real name is Billy MacCrabbie but he says “Macabre” makes him sound more enigmatic.’

  ‘More like completely bonkers,’ said Archie. The boy appeared at the entrance to the hideout. He looked from Fliss to Archie and frowned.

  ‘This is Archie,’ said Fliss. ‘He’s the client I was telling you about, Billy.’

  ‘Client?’ said Archie.

  ‘My card,’ said Billy curtly, presenting Archie with a small piece of paper. Written on it in scruffy handwriting were the words:

  William Q. Macabre, Esq.

  Paranormal Investigator

  Wyrdiness is My Business.

  ‘Archie and I need your help, Billy,’ whispered Fliss. ‘There have been mysterious happenings.’

  ‘Mystery is my natural abode,’ said Billy in a gruff monotone, as if he were advertising a horror film. ‘I live in the shadows.’

  ‘Your card says you live at 14 Bluebell Avenue,’ said Archie, reading the back of the piece of paper. Billy gave him a superior look.

  ‘That is my base of operations,’ said Billy, dropping the horror voice. ‘My investigations can take me to parts both perilous and supernatural.’ He paused. ‘As long as I’m back for tea, or my mum will kill me.’

  ‘Billy is an expert on all the magical stuff in Dundoodle,’ Fliss explained as they sat down on the floor of the hideout, with Sherbet curling up for a snooze in Archie’s lap. She handed them both a McBudge Jelly Toad from her stash. ‘Billy knows everything.’

  ‘Is there lots of magical stuff?’ said Archie, chewing the toad. It was a very odd-looking town with odd-looking people. He could well believe Honeystone Hall wasn’t the only place with secrets.

  ‘It’s wyrdiness,’ corrected Billy. He opened the bag and brought out several exercise books that were bound together with string. On the cover of the first book was the handwritten title:

  The Ensyklo Book of Wyrdiness of Dundoodle and its Surroundings

  By William Q. MacCrabbie Macabre

  The rest of the cover was decorated with tinfoil stars and magical symbols drawn in felt-tip pen. Billy opened the book to the first page, which had a photocopied drawing of a tree stuck on to it. The drawing looked like it had been taken from the kind of book found in a museum, as it was surrounded by words in an old-fashioned style of writing.

  ‘This is the Wyrdie Tree,’ said Billy, speaking in a slow, solemn voice. ‘It’s a tree that’s supposed to grow in the middle of the forest by the loch. It’s the oldest tree in the forest, if not the whole world. Its roots reach deep, deep underground, stretching for miles, even under Dundoodle itself.’

  Archie remembered the tree root that had broken through the floor of the greenhouse.

  ‘What’s so special about this tree?’ he said.

  ‘The roots go so deep they touch the magic locked in the earth, the leftover magic from when the world formed. The tree draws the magic up into its roots and inside itself. Wherever the Wyrdie Tree’s roots spread, they spread the magic with them. It makes Dundoodle a hot spot for strange creatures and unusual occurrences.’

  ‘Billy collects all the stories about Dundoodle,’ said Fliss with admiration, ‘and puts them in his book. His knowledge could help us. This isn’t an ordinary quest. It’s a magical one.’

  ‘I am Dundoodle’s foremost expert on all the old legends about the small folk, gnomes and magical people.’ said Billy. ‘Wobble-gobbles, wyrdie-birds and wigzits are a speciality. I also have a sideline in investigating ghostly hauntings, and know everything there is to know about graveyards. For instance, would you care to speculate on how many different types of maggots feed on dead bodies?’

  ‘Two?’ Archie guessed, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘Twelve,’ said Billy. ‘My schoolteacher says I have an “unnatural interest”,’ he added proudly.

  ‘Have you actually seen any of these wyrdie-whatsits or whatever they are?’ said Archie. Billy looked uncomfortable for a moment.

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘But everyone knows Dundoodle is odd.’

  ‘Everyone,’ agreed Fliss. ‘You must have felt it. My granny said she’d seen the tree sprites of Dundoodle forest when she was little. They’re meant to be a bit stupid because their heads are full of woodworm. And Mr Tavish from the supermarket says he’s heard the cry of the Beast of Glen Bogie, the legendary and really, really annoyed giant vole. Then there is the Waggott family. They’re supposed to be descended from local were-badgers.’

  ‘There’s a Waggott at our school,’ said Billy, ‘who’s already shaving.’

  ‘Poor Fiona,’ said Fliss. ‘She’s only six.’

  ‘And let’s not forget Pookiecrag Castle, of course,’ said Billy.

  ‘Pookiecrag Castle?’ said Archie, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling at the name. ‘I saw that on a map. It’s on an island at the other end of the loch.’

  ‘You should know it,’ said Fliss. ‘It’s the old McBudge ancestral home, so it probably belongs to you along with everything else around here. The McBudges had to move out and build Honeystone Hall to live in instead.’

  ‘Why?’ said Archie.

  ‘Because,’ said Fliss, lowering her voice to a whisper, ‘it’s the most haunted place in the whole of Dundoodle.’

  ‘The most haunted?’ said Archie with a shiver. This inheritance had turned out to be quite a mixed bag.

  ‘Oh yes!’ said Billy, in his element. ‘Eerie flickering shapes fly amongst the shadows of its ruins on many a dark night, and the sounds of hell-spawn digging their way through the earth emanate from its dungeons.’

  ‘But Honeystone Hall seems to have its fair share of wyrdiness too,’ sai
d Archie. He described the strange creature he had seen on the roof earlier.

  ‘That sounds like a mobgoblin!’ said Billy, excitedly flicking through the pages of his book. ‘I can’t believe you’ve actually seen one! It’s got a rating of six out of ten on the Macabre Creepy Scale.’ He took a pen out of his bag and scribbled some notes on to a page that had the heading Mobgoblins, Harpydarps & Other Wyrdie-Birds. ‘Some gargoyles you see on old buildings are meant to be mobgoblins that have been turned to stone. They were used as messengers and spies by witches and wizards.’ Archie frowned. So the creature had been watching him and his mum. But spying for who?

  ‘What do you know about flying letters, Billy?’ said Fliss slowly, as Sherbet began to growl.

  ‘Never heard of such a thing,’ said Billy emphatically. ‘Are you sure … ?’ he began, but stopped as a piece of folded paper flapped past his nose and came to a rest on top of his head. ‘I-I’d give that a rating of five out of ten on the Macabre Creepy Scale,’ said Billy with a gulp.

  ‘It’s my letter!’ said Archie. ‘It’s back!’ Sherbet leaped from his lap, knocked Billy flat and chased the fluttering object out of the hideout. The children ran after the excitable dog, who stalked the flying paper as it skipped and hopped along the gangway. It led them down some stairs and through a set of swing doors.

  ‘This is the packing area,’ said Fliss, ‘where they box up all the sweets for delivery.’ Piles of boxes of all sizes were stacked around the room. Everyone working was far too busy to give three children and a dog a second look, and certainly didn’t see the letter sailing silently over their heads. It slipped through a doorway at one side of the room which had Seconds and Damaged Goods written on a sign next to it. Archie and the others crept through the door and found themselves surrounded by more boxes, but some of these were dented and torn.

  ‘If anyone drops or breaks anything it ends up here,’ said Fliss, ‘until they work out what to do with it.’

  The letter had settled on the top of the tallest pile of boxes and didn’t move. It was much too high to reach and the boxes looked far too wobbly to climb. Sherbet sat and stared at it. He was not going to let it out of his sight again.

  ‘The letter’s brought us here for a reason,’ said Archie. ‘Remember how it showed us where the first clue was, by flying into the tree? I think the next task of the Quest is in this room.’

  ‘I think so too,’ said Fliss, picking up a smaller box that was sat on its own. ‘Look!’

  Unlike all the other packaging, with their colourful labels, the box was plain and undecorated. On its top, written in distinctive caramel-brown ink, was the word ARCHIE. Archie carefully lifted the lid and held his breath, nervous of what might be inside. It was filled with small pieces of a shiny treacle-coloured substance. Archie recognised it at once.

  ‘It’s toffee,’ he said. ‘Lots and lots of little bits of toffee.’

  ‘That’s a bit disappointing,’ said Billy, peering over Archie’s shoulder. ‘I was expecting a mystical shrunken head or at least a blood-covered dagger.’

  Fliss screwed up her nose. ‘In a chocolate factory?’ she said. ‘All the clues are going to be sweets. I think we can be certain of that now.’

  ‘Then it’s a shame it’s broken,’ said Billy. ‘A dead end before we’ve even begun.’

  ‘Wait a second – maybe it’s meant to be broken!’ said Archie. ‘Look, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle.’ He showed them one of the larger pieces. ‘There’s a picture in the toffee. I can’t tell what it is, but if we fit these bits together it might show us something.’

  He gently tipped out the pieces on to the floor and sighed. There were hundreds of them! It was going to take ages.

  ‘This isn’t the best use of my talents,’ said Billy with a sniff. ‘Let me know when you’re done and actually have something mystical for me to look at.’

  Fliss grabbed the boy by the sleeve as he edged towards the door.

  ‘Three heads are better than one,’ she said firmly. ‘If we work together we can get this solved quickly!’

  Archie smiled at her gratefully as Billy grudgingly knelt next to him. The three children bent over the toffee jigsaw and got to work. They were soon engrossed in fitting all the little pieces together.

  So engrossed that they were unaware someone was watching them …

  ‘We’re almost there!’ said Archie. They had been kneeling on the floor of the Seconds and Damaged Goods room for ages. The toffee jigsaw puzzle was practically finished. There was just one corner left to do.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Billy, chewing on a damaged piece of McBudge Strawberry String that he had ‘rescued’. ‘I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time looking at toffee rather than eating it.’

  ‘But what is the picture meant to be?’ said Fliss. They studied the cracked oblong shape they had created. There were lines and squares somehow drawn through the toffee, giving it the look of a stained glass window.

  ‘I think it’s a plan of a building,’ said Archie. ‘Showing all the different rooms and how they connect to each other.’

  ‘Is it the factory?’ said Fliss. ‘Honeystone Hall?’ Archie shrugged.

  ‘Wait – we’ve still got to finish this corner of the puzzle,’ he said. They hurriedly sorted the final pieces into place, an extra bit of the picture emerging from the remaining bits of toffee.

  ‘What is it?’ said Fliss. ‘Is it a bat?’

  ‘Or a mobgoblin?’ said Billy.

  ‘No,’ said Archie. ‘It’s a little dragon. Look – it’s pointing its claw at one of the rooms in the plan.’

  ‘What for?’ said Billy.

  ‘Perhaps it’s pointing to the location of the final treasure,’ said Archie. The others’ eyes lit up with excitement.

  ‘It’s a treasure map!’ said Fliss.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen this place somewhere,’ said Billy, scratching his chin.

  Before he could say anything more, there was a sniffing noise behind them and Mr Hankiecrust appeared in the doorway. It was too late to hide the toffee jigsaw.

  ‘Hello, kids,’ the factory manager grinned. ‘I thought I heard you in here. The factory will be closing soon so you’d better finish your game. I wouldn’t want you to get trapped inside when the lights go out. Although at least you wouldn’t go hungry!’ He gave a chuckle and a sniff at the same time, which ended up as a kind of mucus-filled snort. The children smiled weakly.

  ‘Do you think he saw the picture?’ whispered Fliss after Mr Hankiecrust had left.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Archie. ‘He doesn’t know about the Quest. He just thought we were playing.’

  Meanwhile, Billy had opened his book and was drawing a copy of the jigsaw’s picture into it.

  ‘That way we can eat the toffee,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘We don’t want to be carrying it around with us all the time.’

  They gathered up the bits of the jigsaw and put them back in the box – ‘It’s too precious to eat,’ said Archie, much to Billy’s annoyance – along with Billy’s sketch. Then they made their way back to Fliss’s hideout. The letter had gone, disappearing when they were distracted by Mr Hankiecrust, but Archie wasn’t surprised.

  ‘I reckon the letter only shows up to lead us to the clues,’ he said, as they stored the box in a nook amongst the pipes.

  ‘It’s a messenger from beyond the grave,’ said Billy. ‘Guided by your great-uncle’s spirit, using undead ectoplasmic wyrdie-forces.’

  Fliss shivered.

  ‘Let’s just say it’s magic, shall we?’ she said. ‘And leave the undead out of it. So that’s two clues dealt with. I wonder what’s next.’

  It was getting late and the factory bell rang to signal it was about to close, so they agreed to meet up the next day at the Hall. Archie watched Fliss and Billy leave by the main factory doors, along with all the workers, before he and Sherbet ran down the connecting passageway to the house.

  They found Mum in the library, sit
ting at his great-uncle’s old wooden desk, and surrounded by papers.

  ‘I’ve been looking for anything to do with this missing secret ingredient,’ she said, looking tired, ‘but no luck so far. What we will do if we can’t find it? Mr Hankiecrust sounded very concerned.’ Archie had completely forgotten about the McBudge Fudge secret ingredient! He ought to be taking more interest but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Quest. Responsibility was hard work.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ he said. ‘It’ll turn up somewhere.’ He stared at the painting of Great-Uncle Archibald, hoping for some sign, but none came.

  Just then, Tablet appeared at the door with hot chocolate and toast covered in rhubarb jam. He may not have been good at dusting but he certainly seemed to know when some comforting food and drink were needed. Mum and Archie curled up with their tea on the comfy leather sofa by the fire, whilst Sherbet nestled between them, snuffling for the occasional dropped crust. Archie was bursting to tell Mum about everything that had happened but he could see she had plenty on her mind already. He licked melted butter and crumbs from his fingers. I’ll keep quiet for now, he thought.

  There was an icy feel to the breeze when Archie met Fliss and Billy at the front door of the Hall the next morning.

  ‘Dad says that snow is on its way,’ said Fliss, stepping into the hallway and heaving off her winter coat.

  ‘If it is then you should be careful,’ said Billy darkly. ‘It’s the favourite weather of the blue-bottomed pixies of Ben Doodle. Their full moon ritual is famously horrifying.’