Mountwood School for Ghosts

by Toby Ibbotson

  She got up when she saw Daniel and Charlotte.

  ‘Hello, shall we be off then?’

  She sounded cheerful, but her face said something else. Had she been crying? Charlotte wasn’t sure.

  They went in the Hugheses’ car to the police station. Mrs Hughes had filled a large basket with all sorts of things: a thermos of hot tea, home-made bread, a pot of her absolutely most special gooseberry-and-rhubarb jam, a Wensleydale cheese that she knew Lottie Wilder was particularly fond of and a very thick book that would take a long time to read. Daniel had a woollen blanket to carry, and Charlotte had the hot-water bottles, the pillow and the bedsocks. They walked up to the front desk. The sergeant behind the desk looked them up and down.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘We are here to visit Mrs Wilder.’

  ‘Visit? You can’t just come in and visit her.’

  ‘We can. I know we can. My husband talked to a lawyer. She has rights—’

  ‘Well, just visiting is not on, and there’s an end to it. You must take her home. This isn’t a blooming hotel; it’s a lock-up.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Is she free to go?’

  ‘Of course she’s free to go. I doubt if they’ll even press charges.’

  ‘But Mr Bluffit—’

  ‘Now you listen here, madam,’ said the police sergeant sternly. ‘That Mr Bluffit might be the bee’s knees over at City Hall, but his writ doesn’t run here, and never will as long as I’m around.’

  ‘But why is she still here?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘Ask her yourself,’ the sergeant said, and came around his counter to lead them through to the cells.

  Mrs Wilder spoke before the cell door was even open.

  ‘Please go away; I simply cannot abide this constant disturbance. Oh, it’s you Karin, and Daniel and Charlotte. How nice.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Hughes said doubtfully. ‘We brought you some tea and a few things.’

  ‘How very kind. But I’ve just had a cuppa. That nice duty officer came in with it a little while ago. That’s why I was a bit shirty when I thought he was back again. Isn’t this amazing?’ she went on. ‘Banged up at my age. In the nick at last.’

  ‘But, Lottie, they say you are free to go. We came in the car; we can take you home.’

  ‘Oh, not you too, Karin. I’ve explained several times that I need a few more hours of peace to finish my notes, and then perhaps a little rest. I might leave tomorrow. This is ideal, you know. I was having such a difficult time with my book, and now when I have a chance to get the proper criminal atmosphere, everybody just wants to snatch it away.’

  ‘You mean you want to stay in prison?’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Well, not forever, dearest, obviously. But if they put me in here, they can jolly well wait until I’m ready to go. Thank you for the lovely basket and the other things, and now you’d better be off. And please make sure they lock the door properly. It’s that shut-in feeling I’m after. Such a special experience.’

  They trooped out, making sure that the cell door shut with a satisfying clang behind them.

  When they gathered again at the front desk the police sergeant looked up. ‘You couldn’t budge her either? What a business.’

  ‘But can’t you make her go?’

  ‘What, you mean arrest her and throw her into jail?’ And he laughed bitterly at his own joke.

  ‘She’s writing a book,’ said Charlotte. ‘That’s why she wants to stay.’

  ‘A book, is it? So my lock-up is some kind of writer’s retreat. What kind of book?’

  ‘A detective story.’

  ‘Hang on – Wilder. Is she Lottie Wilder? The Lottie Wilder?’

  ‘Yes, she writes—’

  ‘I know what she writes – great stuff.’

  ‘You’ll probably be in the next one.’

  ‘You never! Think she’d sign a book for me?’

  ‘I’m sure she would, but I’d let her get some work done first.’

  ‘Of course, of course. But maybe another cuppa, and a biscuit . . . ’

  So they left, leaving the happy policeman chuckling to himself. ‘Lottie Wilder, in my cells. That’s something to tell the old woman.’

  It was late afternoon when they got home. Daniel climbed the steps to his front door slowly. In Mrs Cranford’s garden next door there was a huge pile of boxes, covered with a big sheet of plastic.

  Mrs Cranford was clearing out her house. She was going to stay with her sister on the other side of the river, at least until she found somewhere of her own, and there would be no room for even half of her stuff. And her sister had a small terrier that conducted a personal and very angry war on every cat it met. So Tompkins’s picture was in the newsagent’s window and on the noticeboard in the local library: ‘Gentle tabby seeks loving home to end his years in peace.’

  So far there had been no takers. Mrs Cranford knew what came next. Perhaps Tompkins knew too, because he was lying on the on top of the pile of boxes with his chin in his paws.

  When Daniel entered the house he heard voices from the front room, or rather a voice – Great-Aunt Joyce’s. She was the only resident of Markham Street who was pleased about what was happening to them, and now, without really meaning to, Daniel found himself eavesdropping.

  ‘One has to admit,’ Great-Aunt Joyce was saying, ‘that Mr Bluffit has a point. These old houses really are falling apart. Think how much easier it will be for me with fewer stairs to climb. I will be closer to the kitchen, Sarah, and you will not have so far to go with my tray. Of course, in a smaller establishment Daniel will have to contain himself, be a bit less bumptious. In fact I have been giving that some thought. Have you ever considered boarding school, John? A bit of discipline would do the boy some good. And you would have less trouble with him.’

  Daniel’s father wasn’t a particularly talkative person, more of a doer. But now Daniel heard him speak.

  ‘We have no trouble with Daniel, Aunt Joyce. And he will never, ever be sent away to school, even if we could afford it.’

  ‘Well, I must say, even if it requires some scrimping and saving, I think you should show me some consideration. The new place is much smaller, and I can’t have him on top of me all the time.’

  Then Daniel heard a chair being pushed back, and footsteps approaching the living-room door. He leaped up the stairs two at a time and reached the landing as his father came out into the hall below. Daniel looked over the banisters. He saw his father lift both hands to his head, grab two handfuls of hair and raise his eyes to the ceiling. He heard him groan, ‘Oh, God help me, what am I going to do?’

  He saw his father go to the front door, pick up his gardening shoes and leave the house.

  Twenty-one

  Drainpipe and Rolling Pin

  Sleep would not come. Seeing your father or your mother in despair and not being able to do anything about it is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. Perhaps the worst. Daniel would much rather have been run over by a train, or had his arm chopped off.

  Time ticked slowly by. Daniel cried, and hit his head on the pillow, and got up to walk around, thumping his feet loudly to disturb Great-Aunt Joyce, and crept back into bed again and pulled the blankets over his head. Soon Markham Street would be a ghost town, with boarded-up windows and overgrown gardens and litter in the street, waiting emptily for the end.

  A ghost town . . . Suddenly Daniel sat up in bed. The room was dark, and he remembered vividly that sobbing noise behind the wall and the arrival of Percy. He remembered something else too, a quiet voice speaking out of the darkness. ‘I shall be in your debt until the end of time. If we can ever be of help . . . I mean it, I do.’

  Daniel jumped out of bed. If ever anybody needed help, he needed it now. He had to speak to Charlotte, and it couldn’t wait.

  He rushed downstairs. He didn’t need to turn the lights on; he knew every creaky floorboard and wobbly banister in the house. In the hall he pushed his feet into a
pair of trainers and let himself out.

  Under the street lamps Markham Street was silent. Daniel crossed over and ran down the street and round the corner, doubling back up the alleyway full of dustbins at the back of the row of houses. Charlotte had a room at the back, quite high up. When he got to her house, he stood looking up. It was almost too dark to see, but a big city is never really dark.

  No light showed in Charlotte’s window. He tried whistling. No response. He had a look at the sheer brick wall. There was an old drainpipe that showed definite possibilities. He had tried it once on his own house. He seemed to recall that it hadn’t gone very well that time, but this time he would do it.

  He started shinning up the drainpipe, bracing his feet against the wall. Luckily it had been put there by builders who cared about their reputations, and it was bolted firmly in place. At last he reached the level of Charlotte’s window, and that was when he remembered quite clearly what had gone wrong last time. The windowsill was off to his right and he couldn’t reach it.

  ‘Charlie,’ he hissed, ‘wake up, please.’

  No movement from Charlotte’s room, no light. Daniel’s legs were beginning to tremble with the strain of staying where he was. He put his head back and yowled. There were always stray cats having fights in the back alley, and Charlotte used to complain that they woke her up and she had to get up and throw water over them. Sure enough, a light went on in Charlotte’s room, the sash window was pushed up and a tousled head appeared, followed by a hand holding a water jug.

  ‘Charlie, it’s me; it’s Daniel.’

  ‘Daniel? What on earth? What’s happened? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m stuck.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I won’t be here much longer if you don’t help me.’

  ‘OK, hang on.’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’

  Charlotte disappeared. She was gone for what seemed to Daniel like a very long time. When she reappeared at last she had something in her hand.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A rolling pin.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A rolling pin. I had to go down and get it from the kitchen. I’ve tied some washing line round the middle. Try to grab it and sit on it – you know, like a swing. I’ve tied the other end to the bed leg.’

  ‘Will it hold?’

  ‘I have no idea. Why didn’t you just ring the bell, for heaven’s sake?’

  Daniel didn’t answer; he was trying to push the rolling-pin between his legs with one hand and keep his grip on the drainpipe with the other. He succeeded just in time, lost his grip on the drainpipe, swung down under the windowsill, scraping his knees in the process, and with a lot of pulling from Charlotte, fell into the room.

  When he had got his breath back he got straight to the point, walking up and down the room while Charlotte retired to bed, hugging her knees and listening.

  ‘We can’t blow them up, we can’t shoot them, I know that. But what if we scare them off? The ghosts at Mountwood, you know, all Percy’s friends and relations, they can come here and haunt. They’re supposed to be learning to be really terrifying, aren’t they? Well, they must be pretty good at it by now. And Percy’s mother said if we ever needed help, they’d help us. Well, we do need help; we really do. We have to go and ask them to come. Get dressed, now, Charlie, we can sneak off and get the first bus from the station, or hitchhike or something. We can be there by this evening.’

  Charlotte was silent, her brown eyes gazing at Daniel and a frown on her face.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? No? Is that what you have to say? It’s our last chance, you must see that. I might as well die. Don’t you know what this is doing to my mum and dad?’

  Charlotte never spoke much about her own troubles, but she knew what the destruction of Markham Street was doing to her own family. Her mother hadn’t said anything to her, but Charlotte knew how desperate she was about having to move. It hadn’t been easy for her since Charlotte’s father had left them. Markham Street and their shabby old house had been what held her together.

  ‘Daniel, shut up and listen. It’s a brilliant idea. It’s our only hope. But I will not sneak off again like a thief in the night without telling my mother where I’m going. We must tell the truth.’

  ‘They’ll say it’s all nonsense and stop us going if we start talking about ghosts and Hagges.’

  ‘It’ll be all right. Anyway, I am not going to run out on my mum without a word. You’d better go now. And please, Daniel, use the stairs.’

  Twenty-two

  Lunatics

  Mr Salter was confused. His son had come down to breakfast with an expression on his face that Mr Salter was very familiar with. It meant that he had something to say and he was going to say it.

  When Aunt Joyce had left the table to take her morning bath, which meant that nobody could use the bathroom for at least two hours, Daniel started to speak. But the more he spoke, the more confused John Salter became. He stopped clearing the table to listen more carefully to his son, but it just didn’t seem to make any sense.

  The fact is that Daniel had bottled out. It was all very well for Charlotte to get on her high horse about speaking the truth, but it was easier said than done. He just could not risk being forbidden to go. So he started off rather vaguely.

  ‘Charlotte and I met some people when we were in Carlisle. Three important ladies. We want to go there again and ask them for help.’

  ‘What kind of help, Daniel? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, they were retired, I think, but they had power.’

  ‘Power? What sort of power?’ said Mr Salter, scraping the remains of Aunt Joyce’s wholegrain muesli into the compost bucket.

  ‘Well . . . they were . . . um . . . powerful. They had some very . . .’ Daniel struggled for words, ‘some very special students.’

  ‘I don’t see how students can stop a multi-million-pound development. You saw what happened to the demonstration. Daniel, it’s a fine thing that you want to do all you can, but I’m afraid you will be terribly disappointed. I know it’s boring, but parents are boring people and I have to say it. You will only end up even sadder, and I don’t think I can stand that. But l tell you what – if you get me the number, I’ll give these people a ring and find out more about them. Then we can decide.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’re not on the phone.’

  When the doorbell rang an hour or so later, Daniel was in his room. He went out on to the landing and heard his father open the front door and say, ‘Oh, hello, Margaret.’

  It was Charlotte’s mother. He couldn’t hear what she said because she was standing out on the front step, but he caught his father’s reply clearly enough.

  ‘A lunatic? No, Margaret, you must be wrong. Charlotte is anything but a lunatic. But come in, please, and I’ll put the kettle on.’

  They went into the kitchen.

  Any minute now, thought Daniel, and he was right.

  ‘Daniel!’ shouted Mr Salter from the kitchen doorway. ‘Come down here. I want to talk to you.’

  When Daniel came into the kitchen Charlotte’s mother was sitting at the table, resting her forehead in one hand and clutching a mug of tea with the other. She looked tired, as she always did, but now a look of puzzlement and worry had been added to her weariness. She was still wearing her apron and had flour on her jumper.

  ‘. . . so now she’s gone over to Mrs Wilder’s and is terribly upset,’ she was saying. ‘But honestly, I think all this trouble has gone to her head. Should I ring a child psychiatrist, John? I think she needs help.’

  ‘Let’s ask Daniel what he thinks,’ said Mr Salter, looking at his son. ‘I suspect he can enlighten us.’

  So Daniel told his father the whole story. When he had finished, he looked at his father, and feeling tears starting to his eyes he said, ‘You don’t believe a word of it, do you? I told Charlo
tte that we should lie about it. I told her.’

  ‘Daniel, first of all, you’re right, it is impossible to believe you. But you knew that, didn’t you? At least you and Charlotte are telling the same story. So you’re probably not insane.’

  ‘Just simple liars.’

  ‘Daniel, you are both very unhappy about moving; you need to comfort yourselves; it’s all perfectly understandable.’

  The telephone rang.

  Daniel’s father went out into the hall. When he came back he said, ‘That was Lottie Wilder. She wonders if we could come round.’

  They walked round in silence to number eight. The door was open and they went straight up to Mrs Wilder’s big room on the first floor. Charlotte was sitting in a chair by the window, staring out. She didn’t turn her head when they came in.

  ‘Hello, Lottie. You’re out, I see,’ said John Salter.

  ‘Yes. They put a car thief in the cell next door last night. Fascinating. I came home this morning and found Charlotte sitting on the front steps. I think we should have a little chat.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Daniel’s father. ‘But it seems a shame to bother you with all this, Lottie.’

  ‘No bother at all. And I have a guilty conscience. I was part of it all.’

  So Mrs Wilder told them about crossword puzzles, and finding Mountwood.

  When she was finished, Charlotte’s mother burst out, ‘But why didn’t you tell me? I’m her mother!’

  ‘There is a simple answer to that. Charlotte told me in confidence. I respected that.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘There are no buts in this case, I am afraid. I am not, and never will be, a tale-teller.’ Now they saw the other Lottie Wilder, the one who wrote about hard-boiled detectives and had made mincemeat of Jack Bluffit at the inquiry.