The Chocolate Factory Ghost

by David O'Connell

  Sherbet whined and growled, backing away in fear. Archie and Billy each grabbed the mobgoblin by its wings, whilst Fliss held on tightly to the string.

  ‘Keep still, you little monster!’ she said, as the creature wriggled in their hands. ‘You’re more slippery than an eel in a bowl of jelly!’

  ‘The keeper is the mobgoblin’s owner,’ said Billy. ‘Usually someone evil like a witch or a sorcerer or a dinner lady.’

  ‘Who’s your keeper?’ Archie snapped at the creature. ‘Who sent you to spy on me?’

  ‘Garstigan will tell you nothing!’ spat the mobgoblin. Archie tried again.

  ‘You were trying to destroy my letter, Garstigan,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  Garstigan’s yellow eyes flashed but he didn’t speak, he just watched as the letter flew down to earth, landing gently on the street nearby. With a sudden great effort, the mobgoblin pulled himself free of Billy’s grasp, then bit through the string that anchored him to Fliss. He pushed his clawed feet into Archie’s face and launched himself into the air, before diving back down on to the letter. Archie cried out in horror but it was too late. Garstigan ripped the paper to pieces, cackling spitefully. He took off once more and disappeared over the houses without a backwards look, the raspberry Slurpopop still stuck to his wiry little body.

  ‘It’s ruined,’ said Archie, staring at the torn paper. He sank to his knees in despair. ‘That’s it. The Quest is over.’

  The remains of the letter blew around Archie like snowflakes. Just when he had finally been ready to rise to the challenge of the Quest, it had been taken away from him!

  ‘What am I going to do?’ he said, desperate tears forming in his eyes.

  ‘There’s only one thing to do at times like this,’ said Fliss firmly. She pulled him to his feet. ‘Have the biggest mug of hot chocolate we can find. With fudge marshmallows and caramel sprinkles. And white chocolate sauce on top!’

  ‘Let’s go to Clootie Dumpling’s,’ said Billy. ‘Her hot chocolate is as dark as the soul of the Dark Lord of the bottomless Pit of Darquenesse – at midnight with the lights off!’

  The two children steered Archie back through the streets towards the McBudge factory. Sherbet trotted behind, now and again glancing skywards, keeping watch in case the mobgoblin might decide to return. After a cold, silent walk, Archie found they had brought him to the McBudge Fudge shop.

  Built on to the side of the factory wall, the shop sold all the sweets and chocolate made next door. A golden glow poured from its windows into the grey street, particularly welcome in the miserable twilit afternoon. Inside, the shop was a treasure trove of goodies, filled with talkative and boisterous children on their way home from school. They were noisily picking their favourite sweets from the vast selection the McBudge factory made, although the fudge was always the favourite. Some of them pointed at Archie as the three children entered, recognising him as the McBudge heir.

  At the back of the shop was a little café that served tea, cake, sandwiches and other tasty things. Archie and the others sat themselves down at a quiet corner table near the kitchen, away from curious faces.

  ‘Clootie Dumpling runs the café,’ said Fliss lightly, as Sherbet curled up for a snooze under Archie’s feet. ‘She’s got some witch-blood in her, I reckon.’

  The little old lady who served them did indeed look like she might be just as at home stirring a cauldron as she was ladling hot chocolate into mugs. Her features were sharp but kindly, and a mound of white hair swept around her head, tied in a complicated plaited knot on top.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you, young Mr McBudge,’ said Clootie, as she brought the tray of hot chocolate over to their table. She looked at Archie with a sparkle in her eye. ‘I’ve brought you some chewy fudge cookies too. You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind, and chewing always helps me think.’

  ‘Chocolate always helps me think,’ said Billy.

  ‘Then you’ll be a genius after you’ve downed this,’ said Fliss, reaching for her mug. ‘And we’ve got lots of thinking to do.’

  Archie felt a lot better after a few sips of rich, sweet chocolate and the cheery, busy warmth of the café brought him out of his daze. But there was no escaping the gloomy facts.

  ‘What now?’ he said eventually. ‘With no letter to lead us, how are we going to find the last two clues?’

  ‘And to make things worse,’ said Fliss. ‘Someone out there wants to cause trouble. If Garstigan was sent to destroy the magic letter, then whoever sent him must know about the Quest.’

  ‘He’s been spying on you to see how far you’ve got,’ agreed Billy. ‘Remember how he was outside the window when you found the ring? So he knows you’ve got that, at least.’

  ‘That means his keeper probably knows what the treasure is,’ said Archie. ‘And must want to stop us from getting it because it’s important for something, and not just to prove that I’m worthy of the name McBudge.’ He sighed thoughtfully and stared into his mug. ‘But it doesn’t matter anyway, now that I’m never going to find it.’

  Just then Clootie returned to the table.

  ‘It’s very odd, Mr McBudge,’ she said. ‘But there’s a letter here for you that appeared on the counter just now. I don’t know who brought it – it must have flown in by itself !’ She laughed and reached into an apron pocket, producing an envelope. It looked very familiar. All that was written on its front (in chocolate ink) were the words ARCHIE McBUDGE. The children glanced at each other, but didn’t say a word until Clootie had gone back to the kitchen.

  ‘Special delivery from spooky mail!’ whispered Billy. ‘The postal service of the dead is pretty efficient, I’ll give them that.’

  ‘A new letter to replace the old one!’ said Archie, tearing at the envelope. He pulled out a folded piece of paper, a golden lollipop tumbling out on to the table with it. The lollipop was made of transparent, hard sugar, shaped into a circle, and glistened, like a honey-coloured jewel on the end of a white stick.

  ‘It’s a new clue!’ said Archie. ‘The Quest is back on!’

  ‘That will do nicely as a replacement for the one that Garstigan has stuck to him,’ said Fliss, picking up the lollipop and twirling it in her fingers. ‘I wonder if he’ll ever be able to unstick it?’

  ‘What does the letter say, Archie?’ said Billy. He slurped his hot chocolate impatiently, getting foamy marshmallow on the end of his nose.

  ‘Dear Archie,’ Archie read aloud. ‘If you have received this letter then dark forces are at work to frustrate your cause. So it only seems fair that you should receive a little extra assistance. I hope this gift will help you see your path more clearly. Signed A. McB.’

  ‘Dark forces?’ said Fliss. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘See your path more clearly …’ repeated Archie, his brow wrinkling. He put the letter safely into his coat pocket.

  ‘Maybe the lollipop is a magic weapon,’ suggested Billy. ‘It burns with the phantom fire of the underworld to slice a path across a moonless graveyard, through the grasping hands of undead, maggot-infested corpses.’

  ‘Will you stop with all the corpses and undeadness?’ said Fliss, making a face and waggling the sweet at Billy. ‘It’s gross!’

  The light from the kitchen shone through the glassy lollipop as Fliss waved it about her, making it glitter and flicker before Archie’s eyes. He grabbed her wrist tightly and held her hand still.

  ‘Ow!’ said Fliss. ‘You’re hurting me!’

  ‘Sorry – but look!’ said Archie urgently. ‘Look through the lollipop.’

  He gently took the sweet out of Fliss’s hand and held it in front of them. Fliss and Billy stared at the café through the golden pane of sugar-glass. The customers and shop workers, their sweets and clothes and faces, were all blurry and coloured a soft honey-brown, as might be expected. But around them, on the walls and the floor, and even the ceiling, were bright spots of light like little specks of fire. When Archie took the lollipop away the fiery mar
ks disappeared.

  ‘It’s like a magnifying glass!’ said Billy. ‘Dougie McFly in Dougie McFly, Spectre Detector uses one to search for clues.’

  ‘But this one is showing things that are invisible!’ said Fliss. ‘What are those lights?’

  Archie held the lollipop up to his eye and studied one of the marks on the near wall. It was round with five pointed lines coming away from its centre. It shone as if it were burning a hole through the wall.

  ‘They’re footprints!’ he said. ‘Tiny little footprints. Or paw prints perhaps. It’s like something has been wandering all over the shop after stepping in glow-in-the-dark paint.’

  ‘Rats!’ said Fliss. ‘Don’t tell Clootie she’s got magical rats.’

  ‘They’re too big to be rats,’ said Billy expertly. ‘They’re claws. Mobgoblin tracks?’

  ‘No,’ said Archie firmly, shivering at the memory of the long, knife-like feet that had scratched at his face earlier. ‘Not a mobgoblin. There’s one set of prints. I think it’s another trail we have to follow.’

  Trying not to attract too much attention, Archie wandered through the café and around the shop, the lollipop held close to his eye. Some of the other children gave him a strange look – the wealthy McBudge boy with his golden monocle – but he paid them no notice. The little feet led him to all corners of the room, sometimes doubling back on themselves, or walking in circles, or criss-crossing to make a knot of light like a nest of fireflies. Eventually the trail traversed the floor and led under the door of the kitchen. Clootie was busy at the shop counter, packaging a chocolate box in shiny gift wrap for a customer.

  ‘Cover me!’ he whispered to Fliss and Billy who had been watching breathlessly. ‘I’m going into the kitchen.’

  ‘What if you meet … whatever it is that made the prints?’ hissed Fliss, but Archie was already through the door.

  The kitchen was empty. It was very tidy, with all the pots and pans and utensils hung across the wall on one side. Archie used the lollipop to follow the footprints around on what must have been quite an obstacle course for whatever little animal had made them. Behind jars of chocolate chips and fudge sprinkles it went, and in and out of boxes of marshmallows.

  Finally they marched across the wall of kitchen equipment, passing metal spatulas and spoons, whisks and knives, stopping at what seemed to be a small silver hammer sitting alone on a shelf. A hammer in the shape of a dragon!

  ‘It’s amazing what one can find scurrying around a kitchen,’ said a woman’s voice from the doorway behind him. But it wasn’t Clootie Dumpling. Mrs Puddingham-Pye loomed over him, a malicious glint in her eye.

  ‘What are you up to, Urchin?’ hissed the woman. She clutched her black handbag like a weapon. ‘Your little friends outside tried to tell me you weren’t in here but I saw you through the window.’

  She sauntered towards him, a strange, sweet raspberry perfume wafting about her. Archie’s heart beat like a drum. Had she seen him examining the dragon hammer?

  ‘Were you admiring the kitchen tools?’ continued the woman, running her finger along a rack of carving knives. ‘So many very sharp objects. It’s a wonder there aren’t more terrible, terrible accidents. I’d be very careful if I were you, Urchin.’ She picked a vicious-looking knife off the rack and, without even blinking, tossed it into the air so that it spun in a tight circle, before calmly catching it again by its handle. She fluttered her eyelashes at him innocently. The P-Ps seem to be experts on accidents, thought Archie with a shudder. He pulled himself together. There were too many people – too many witnesses – around for one of their ‘accidents’ to happen here.

  ‘My name is Archie, not Urchin,’ he said. ‘This is my shop. Why shouldn’t I be in here? The question is – what are you doing in here?’

  Mrs Puddingham-Pye was taken aback for a moment. Then she smiled, resembling a shark Archie had seen in a nature documentary.

  ‘Dear thing,’ she purred, putting the knife back into the rack. ‘I merely popped in to say that my darlings Georgie and Portia enjoyed playing with you so much that they couldn’t wait for another attempt … er, visit, I mean. So I’ve just dropped them off at the Hall.’

  Archie gulped. That was all he needed. He wasn’t sure which was worse, being attacked by a flying demon or having to entertain the murderous twins again.

  ‘They’ll be waiting for you,’ cooed Mrs Puddingham-Pye.

  They’re probably booby-trapping the front door right now, thought Archie. The woman glided back into the café, ignoring Fliss and Billy who were waiting nervously by the kitchen doorway. ‘I hope you have a lovely, lovely time,’ she called.

  The two children hurried to Archie’s side. He gave a long sigh of relief.

  ‘I thought she was going to put me in the oven for a moment,’ said Archie. ‘She looks like the type of woman who might have a home in the forest made of gingerbread.’

  ‘What weird thing did you find this time?’ said Fliss. ‘A metal detector made out of liquorice? A message written in marshmallows? A mime performed by jelly babies?’

  Archie showed them the little silver hammer.

  ‘It could be the mystical hammer of Throb, the god of headaches and family holidays,’ said Billy, examining it reverently. ‘Legend has it he lives on the top of Ben Doodle, along with Frij, the goddess of damp clothes, midges and leaky tents.’

  Fliss rolled her eyes.

  ‘You’re the god of useless information, Billy,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t hired you.’

  ‘You’re only paying me in chocolate buttons,’ muttered Billy.

  ‘It’s more like a toffee hammer,’ said Archie, getting back to the matter in hand. ‘I’ve seen them used in the factory to break up hard slabs of sugar. Let’s put it with the other things.’

  ‘We can go back to the Hall via the factory,’ said Fliss. ‘And pick up the toffee map from my secret hideout.’

  ‘And that way we can sneak up on the Piglets,’ said Archie. ‘Before they sneak up on us.’

  He stuffed the hammer into his coat pocket along with the letter, and they slipped back into the café. They woke Sherbet from his snooze and made their way quickly out on to the street and into the factory next door, slipping up some backstairs to the gangway where Fliss’s den was hidden. They passed the burst sack of icing sugar, still lying where it had almost hit Archie a couple of days before.

  ‘Nobody comes this way,’ said Fliss. ‘So it hasn’t been tidied up yet.’

  But somebody had been that way. There were footprints in the spilt icing sugar leading along the gangway towards the hideout. Fliss stopped suddenly. Her face was pale.

  ‘Someone’s been in there!’ she whispered. The prints clearly led behind the maze of pipes that formed the entrance to the den.

  ‘They might still be in there!’ said Billy, but Fliss didn’t wait. She clambered through the pipes before the boys could stop her. There was silence for a heartbeat.

  Then Fliss’s voice wailed eerily from behind the muddle of metalwork.

  “It’s gooooone!”

  ‘What?’ said Archie. They followed her into the hideout. She looked horrified. All her things had been thrown about. It was a complete mess. ‘What’s gone?’ Archie repeated.

  ‘The box,’ said Fliss. ‘The box with the toffee jigsaw, and Billy’s drawing of the map. It’s been taken!’

  ‘From doom to joy and back to doom again,’ said Billy, gravely surveying the wreck of the hideout. ‘This Quest is turning into a real roller coaster!’

  Fliss was furious. She kicked at an upturned stool.

  ‘When I get my hands on whoever did this,’ she said, picking up a spanner, ‘I’ll take them apart and put them back together with their bits all the wrong way around!’

  It was Archie’s turn to provide them with some cheer.

  ‘We can soon tidy up,’ he said. ‘It will be as right as rain in no time. And as for the map, we know a person took it and not some magical creatu
re. Those footprints are definitely human. That gives me some hope the map isn’t lost for good. Let’s get back home before anything else happens.’

  They marched quickly to the passage that linked the factory to Honeystone Hall. Archie carefully checked for signs of the Piglets in the hallway of the house before they silently ran upstairs to his bedroom. They added the hammer to the box in the wardrobe and Archie showed them the strange message he had found inside the chocolate dragon.

  ‘This is the weirdest assortment of stuff,’ said Fliss. ‘It’s like the clutter I keep in my tool kit.’

  ‘Anyone would think you were collecting for a car boot sale, not a treasure hunt,’ said Billy. Archie nodded.

  ‘The biggest test of this Quest is going to be working out what each thing is for,’ he said. ‘Whether we have a map or not.’

  He put the wooden box safely back in the wardrobe. At that moment his coat, which he had dumped on the floor and which Sherbet was using as a bed, suddenly began to twitch as if it were coming to life. The dog jumped up and growled suspiciously.

  ‘It’s possessed!’ gasped Billy. ‘A laundry poltergeist – they usually go for underpants – a rating of four point nine on the Macabre Creepy Scale!’

  ‘It’s the letter,’ said Archie. ‘It’s trying to get out of my pocket.’ Sure enough the folded paper wiggled out from inside the coat and spread its crisp, white wings. It flapped towards Archie’s bedroom door, where it hovered expectantly. Archie opened the door and the letter flew away down the corridor.

  ‘The last clue!’ said Fliss. ‘Quick – after it!’

  It was dark outside and the house was now filled with shadows. They stumbled down the passage and arrived at the top of the stairs as the letter swept down the stairwell. Billy was fastest and got there before the others, jumping down a couple of steps at a time, closely followed by Archie and Fliss. The letter floated into the hallway at the bottom, before diving through the open doors of the library. The library is where it all started, thought Archie. It was funny that the final clue should be in there.