“Yes, it’s a parrot.”
“Is your parrot sick, then?”
“No. It got stuck up a chimney.”
“What can it say?”
“It doesn’t talk.”
“What use is a parrot that can’t talk?”
“Actually, if it could talk, it would say: Mind your own business.”
“Excuse me for breathing, sweetheart,” said the taxi driver, switching on his radio.
Before long they had left Hungryhouse Lane, Tunwold village and the quiet country far behind, and were approaching the city along a busy highway.
“I wonder what makes her do it?” Amy Steadings said suddenly. “What is it that brings out the wickedness in people? Gertrude was quite kind in her own rough way, you know.”
“She’s a rip-off artist,” said Charlie. “One more load and they’d have disappeared into the underworld where no crook ever squeals on another crook and we’d have lost them instead of catching them red-handed.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Amy. The taxi came to a halt, and they got out.
“Thirty-one pounds, please,” said the driver.
“Thirty-one POUNDS!” Zoe almost exploded. “You can’t be serious—we don’t carry that sort of money around on our persons.”
“Oh, I get it! Fare dodgers, eh? I knew there was something fishy about you lot.”
“How dare you! Our dad could buy your whole taxi with the interest on his capital investments,” cried Zoe.
“Ten taxis,” said Charlie.
“And he could buy me a helicopter for my birthday,” Bonnie threw in for good measure.
“I think I have the money here,” said Amy Steadings. “Oh dear, yes. It’s here somewhere.”
As he waited, the taxi driver stared at the Sweet kids, plus their dumb parrot and their red first-aid case, as if they had just beamed down from a passing starship. When the old lady coughed up the money, he took off like a Formula One racing driver. Zoe hoped that he didn’t have an accident and therefore require her medical assistance one day.
And there it was on the sunny side of the street: number 17. ALEXANDER THE GRATE sparkled in golden letters on a maroon background. The Sweets were filled with excitement as they stared at it between the passing vehicles, for in there were Lady Cordelia McIntyre and Sir James Walsingham, and Chief Suspect and Sick Mother—not to mention many of Miss Amy’s most precious things.
“We’re here Bobbie,” Zoe whispered to her sick parrot. “The time has come for you to do your stuff. Let’s see what happens when Alexander finds you in his grate!”
14
A Bandage for Gertrude
Alexander, surrounded by grates, paced around the floor of his shop in ever-diminishing circles until he came to a complete stop. And when he came to the stop, he threw out his arms as if to warn an invisible orchestra that their moment had come.
Then the arms flopped to his sides. Harmlessly.
“It is not some jerk of a joker, Mother. I saw it with my own two eyes as well as I’m seeing you now. It was right there inside the clock, it winked at me with an empty eye and spoke to me on the subject of smoke alarms. He says we stole him from Hungryhouse Lane.”
Moonshine! thought Gerty. But she bustled forward, determined to be full of jolly good cheer. There was nothing new in all this, actually—her Alex had always been a little bit nervous and high-strung. Such a great reader of monster and horror comics, he was!
“You’re run-down, dearie, that’s all. Why, there’s nothing in that old clock but the pendulum and that tatty old doll. There wouldn’t be room for a ghost in there, Alexander, would there, duck? Not if you think about it.”
For most of the night Alexander had been thinking about it, and now he was on the point of losing his temper, as people who are under pressure often do. He wanted to say, Listen, you old cow, it’s a ghost and the pendulum passed right through the middle of its head. Ghosts aren’t like you or me. The blighters are from beyond the grave and that’s what makes them weird and scary.
However, he didn’t say that, but instead looked out of the window at the street, where a scruffy mongrel stared in at him from the pavement. Its lollopy tongue stuck out sideways.
“When I go to sleep, the other one comes, you know. If it’s not King George, it’s Queen Anne. Or Admiral Foo-Foo.”
“Who is Admiral Foo-Foo?”
“Long John Silver’s monkey, Mother.”
String me up, thought Gerty, now he’s seeing monkeys.
“Alex—you will pull yourself together!” barked Gerty. “The house is a gold mine. Just one more run and we can take a long rest far away from here. We might even be able to buy you a bigger boat and sail away to Ireland.”
Alexander blinked at the word “Ireland.” He seemed to be thinking of somewhere else.
“Yacht, Mother. I do not sail boats.”
“You’ll sink like a blasted stone if you don’t listen to me! Think of all the goodies we’ve got already. That musket might have been fired by Cromwell himself, you know. I looked it up in my book of—”
At that moment Gerty broke off, for she had just noticed white fragments on the floor. Had something priceless been broken?
“My smoke alarm,” Alexander explained. “It went off at four in the morning. A policeman, a police car, three nightwatchmen and a tramp turned up at my door.”
“How did it get broken?”
“I belted it with a brass candlestick, that’s how!” cried Alexander. “That’s one dead smoke alarm, may the blighter rest in pieces!”
Sure enough, Gerty found the candlestick—an Edwardian work whose beautiful ornamental branches had obviously come off during the assault on the smoke alarm. Stone me, thought Gerty, this business is getting out of hand. She glanced at the raked ashes under the big chimney. Was Alexander cracking up completely?
“But your fire isn’t lit, dear. There was no smoke.”
“The fire’s got nothing to do with it. Admiral Foo-Foo does it with his tail.”
Tail my foot, Gerty was thinking—when she realized that something had just come down the chimney. A second glance told her that it wasn’t, in fact, a something; it was a somebody.
Oh, my gawd, thought Gerty. This sure wasn’t Father Christmas. Not that Father Christmas wouldn’t have been bad enough, but this looked like a ten-year-old sweep! A set of chimney brushes seemed to ooze miraculously through the stone wall and settle on his skinny shoulders.
You’re looking at a chimney-sweep ghost, Gerty, a voice within her head seemed to croak.
“It’s not! You’re some joker in sawn-off jeans and bare feet!”
But Gerty, the voice said—it’s floating.
“Aah. Oh, my gawd!”
The sooty little hoverer didn’t need wings or helicopter blades to just hang there in space. He had his own private means of locomotion. It’s looking right at you, Gerty, out of those spooky black eyes.
“Don’t you eyeball me, you shifty tick, or I’ll soon thicken your ear!”
Up rose the phantom brushes in a great slow arc to point straight at Gerty’s heart. But Gerty, your hand will simply pass through its ear, dear. And it’s coming to get you. So what are you going to do now?
“Oh, Alexander,” whimpered Gerty. “I think there’s a ghost in your grate.”
But when she turned, Alexander had company of his own. He grinned at her—well, his lips moved. Frankly, her son looked as though he’d seen a ghost. Which he had, of course. Three of them.
“Mother. Allow me to introduce King George, Queen Anne and Long John Silver. He’s a pirate.”
Three of them and a monkey. Gerty’s head began to swim, and she wondered whether people were right: Could your hair turn white overnight if you got a big fright? For a moment she thought she heard the bark of a dog; and imagined, too, the red outline of a first-aid kit as great rolling waves of panic dragged her under.
There was nothing like a crisis for bringing out the best in Zoe Sweet. She s
nipped the bandage around Gerty’s head with a flourish and spoke calmly to her patient as she tucked away her scissors.
“There. I have applied an antiseptic pad to the wound in your head so that germs can’t breed in there. The bandage will hold it in place. You’re very lucky I was here to stop the bleeding, or your life might have slowly ebbed away.”
Thus satisfied with a job well done, she snapped shut the red lid of her case.
Gerty found herself on the floor, cradled in the arms of Amy Steadings. Although her eyes were wide open, she could not be sure just yet that the world had returned to normal, for the littlest Sweet girl stood close by, hugging her doll as she spoke to the chimney ghost. Who was sitting on the head of a moose.
“Oh, Bobbie, you have saved Lulubelle, you are my favorite spook and you can help me feed my reindeer when I get it for Christmas and you can ride in my helicopter.”
And the male Sweet seemed to be holding out a tape recorder to that pirate creature, saying, “Did they ever make you walk the plank?” And that awful King George drifted across her vision at an angle of forty-five degrees. “Gallows too good for ‘em, what?” he bellowed, then sniffed the back of his hand.
Gerty twisted to look up into the face of Amy Steadings. “Has my hair turned white, dearie?” she whispered.
“Only the bandage is white, Gertrude. And be still. You hit your head on the fender when you fell.”
“It’s the first time, ma’am,” Gerty went on hoarsely, for she could see the fix she was in. “I’ve had a hard life, love. His dad run away to sea when he was four. I’ve seen the down side of life, love, you’ve no idea. And he’s not a bad boy, my Alex. He’s always been so good to his mother.”
“That’s no excuse for being a crook,” said Zoe. “They’ll give you ten years each using our evidence, I should think.”
“Oh, gawd.”
“I don’t like to believe ill of anyone, Gertrude,” said Amy, “and I am prepared to be lenient if you will promise me never to steal and rob from people again. You will return everything to Hungryhouse Lane, of course, that goes without saying. Today, please.”
“Bless you forever, ma’am, you have the heart and soul of a saint.”
But Amy was thinking sadly of Cordelia, who had just condensed her Nonmaterial Presence into the elephant’s foot. What her dear friends needed now was a period of Unwakeful Serenity, not more questions and excitement and publicity.
Saintliness had nothing to do with it.
15 …
Praise for the Parents
The holiday break for Mr. and Mrs. Sweet was almost over, and really, it was quite amazing how much they had missed their children about the house. Games of backgammon were played without interruption. They ate out at fancy restaurants. They got up in the morning when it suited them. Friends whom they had invited over for the evening actually did come over when it was established that the Sweet kids wouldn’t be there. And no dog hairs over the carpet and furniture! sighed Mrs. Sweet as the white Rolls rolled through the gates of Hungryhouse Lane.
“I hope they haven’t been too bad,” she said to Geoffrey.
“I’m filling it in with concrete,” Geoffrey swore between clenched teeth. “I am, you know—I really am.”
In his mind’s eye he pictured the filled-in swimming pool—a constant reminder to his squabbling children of what might have been.
They were waiting at the door with Amy Steadings, all packed up and ready to go. Bad sign, thought Geoffrey. That old lady had the heart of a lion, but five days was surely too long, even for her.
As Mr. and Mrs. Sweet disembarked, hugs and kisses were exchanged all around (except for Muldoon, whose tail had been beautifully bound in a white bandage).
“Mommy, Daddy, we found a pirate and a monkey and we brought them home. And look—do you see Lulubelle’s new smily-mouth?”
“Her mouth is lovely and smily, pet. Is that a smudge on her face?”
“She got dirty all over when she got captured by baddies.”
An extremely dirty look passed from Mr. Sweet to his son as he said, “I hope, Miss Amy, that they have been well-behaved for you?”
“Well-behaved? Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, they have been so wonderful I can hardly wait until their next visit. Your children are a credit to you! And in these difficult times, too, when young people can be so demanding. How on earth do you do it? I am certain that you must be terribly proud of them!”
Mr. and Mrs. Sweet glanced at each other, as if to check that their ears were in working order. In all honesty they felt a little embarrassed, for they did not have much practice in dealing with this kind of praise.
“Well,” Geoffrey muttered with a cough. “I hope you enjoyed the VCR.”
“But we didn’t open the box,” said Amy.
“Daddy, believe me, we didn’t have time to waste on watching videos,” said Zoe. “No way.”
Good heavens. How extraordinary, thought Mrs. Sweet. Hugs and kisses were suddenly exchanged once more—this time with promises of letters and phone calls thrown in—then the Sweet kids boarded the Rolls like pirates taking a treasure ship.
They were going home.
Let us fast-forward our story by about fifteen minutes or so, and bring it to a close by pressing the pause button.
In the Sweet Rolls Royce, Mr. Sweet is driving slowly (for him) because his mind is really thinking about the swimming pool. What a good job he hadn’t filled in the thing after all!
Mrs. Sweet is wondering: Didn’t they watch any TV at all?
Muldoon, like an experienced traveler, is already fast asleep in spite of his stiff white tail.
Zoe is feeling deeply satisfied that she has probably saved her first life, although she would have preferred to have wasted a bandage on a more useful member of society than a stealer of furniture.
Bonnie is nursing a box in her lap. Charlie doesn’t know it yet, but his juggling balls are in the box, each one tied up in a gorgeous satin bow. This is his reward for loving Lulubelle.
In the west chimney little Bobbie is giving Admiral Foo-Foo a last cuddle before she withdraws into a state of Unwakeful Serenity. Sir James is listing to starboard again as he cries to anyone who happens to be listening, “Did you see that unspeakable dog scratching itself? It’s enough to make a chap feel itchy.”
Standing by his cannon, Captain Henry John Blackskull laughs heartily. “A flea wouldn’t have much fun on you, Sir Jamesie—there’s nothing for it to eat.”
The outline of Lady Cordelia McIntyre billows softly in a draft as she smiles and thinks that a pirate might be interesting. Imagine eating octopus and turtle!
Two floors below, Amy Steadings is writing to a distant cousin of hers in Somerset, hoping that she will come and stay with her for the winter. Will Sir James and the new ghost get on together, she wonders?
And in the backseat of the Rolls, Charlie Sweet is speaking into his tape recorder. “Criminal Investigation Tape, Side Two. Recording Engineer, Charlie Sweet. Saved the spooks. Got the stupid doll back. Case closed.”
Henry Holt and Company, Inc.
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Text copyright © 1994 by Sam McBratney
Illustrations copyright © 1994 by Lisa Thiesing
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McBratney, Sam.
The ghastly Gerty swindle : with the ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane / Sam McBratney; illustrated by Lisa Thiesing.
p. cm.
Summary: While visiting their elderly friend Amy Steadings, the rambunctious Sweet children worry that her new companion, Gerty, will find the three ghosts who live in her attic. Sequel to “The Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane.”
[1. Ghosts—Fiction.] 2. England—Fiction. I. Thiesing, Lisa, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.M47826Gf 1993 [Fic]—dc20 93-15825
eISBN 978-1-4668-8474-8
First Edition—1994
The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane Page 7