Mountwood School for Ghosts

by Toby Ibbotson

  Twenty-eight

  Jinxed

  A large expensive car bounced up the rough track and drew up in front of the site office in Markham Park. Big Robby got out, slammed the door and took the steps up to the top hut two at a time.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he growled as soon as he got through the door.

  ‘You tell us,’ said the foreman, who was sitting at the little table covered with plans that took up most of the space. ‘There’s a jinx on this place.’

  ‘Don’t give me that. Incompetence is more like it.’

  ‘How do you explain two forty-ton excavators suddenly starting to dance with each other, and their drivers just sitting there getting dizzy. It was a like a blasted funfair. How’s that incompetence?’

  ‘Those machines are so full of computer chips these days, no wonder they go haywire. Get someone on to it.’

  ‘Done it. Couldn’t find anything wrong. They’re working all right now. And what about one of the caterpillars on a bulldozer stuck fast, like it was welded to the axle? It just drove round and round in circles. And then there’s that.’

  He got up and walked over to the window. Big Robby followed his gaze. A huge crane had been erected on the site; far out on the jib a metal plate had been fixed, with ‘Mayhew Construction Ltd’ painted on it. The words could now hardly be made out, because across them were scrawled the words ‘Up Your Bum’.

  ‘That’s sabotage! Have those words removed.’

  ‘Can’t be done. They’ve been burned into the metal. Been done with a gas cutter.’

  ‘What! How could they get up there?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’

  When Big Robby drove away from Markham Park he was furious. Jinx, eh? He wasn’t buying that. Sabotage pure and simple. He would have to buy in some security; more expense, more time wasted.

  The Phantom Welder was in everybody’s good books now, and the others were raring to get in and play their part. They decided to start off that very night.

  ‘We must build it up slowly,’ explained Iphigenia, who had naturally enough taken on the role of artistic director. ‘We must work up to a climax. Pace is everything.’

  So they decided that the advance party would consist of Kylie and the Druid. The others would have a quiet night. The next night it would be the Peabodys’ turn, with the Shortener. On the third night, as a grand finale, they would come in full strength.

  There wasn’t much to do for the ones who had been left behind. For a while they simply enjoyed the silence, now that the Druid was out of the house.

  Percy quickly got bored. ‘Please can I go and say hello to Daniel? Please!’

  ‘Perceval, we have told you—’

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ said Vera. ‘We will be very careful.’

  She did so want to make herself useful.

  ‘Oh, very well.’

  Vera took Percy by the hand, and they vanished. They passed invisibly through walls and across rooms until they came to number six.

  ‘Are you sure this is the right house?’ whispered Vera.

  ‘Yes, yes, Daniel’s room is at the top.’

  ‘But I thought they were a nice family. There is something black and ugly here.’

  Vera’s wailing might be a disaster, but she was extremely sensitive.

  Percy didn’t hear her; he was already bulging out of the wall above Daniel’s bed, ready to tell him all about the Phantom Welder’s bit of fun, and how Kylie and the Druid were going to start the ball rolling.

  Vera waited until she heard Percy’s cheery voice, and Daniel’s sleepy tones replying. Then she floated off. He would be all right for a while, and she really did not like the atmosphere. She glided on up the street, coming to a house which felt kind and just right for her. She could wait there for a while, and then take Percy back.

  The security guard who had been hired to patrol the perimeter of the construction site took his job seriously. He led a vicious Dobermann with a spiked collar on a thick leather lead. He had lots of things hanging from his belt. A truncheon, a torch, a two-way radio. He hoped that he would catch some hooligan trying to sneak in. That would liven things up a bit. As he paced along the chain-link fence that surrounded the site his dog suddenly stopped, lowered its head and emitted a threatening growl.

  ‘What’s up, Brute? You see something?’

  Then he saw it too. A hooded figure was standing in front of him, inside the fence! He instantly bent down and slipped Brute’s lead.

  ‘Get ’im, Brute!’ he cried.

  Brute snarled and leaped forward, his teeth bared. The figure threw back its hood, revealing a mass of golden hair and two twinkling blue eyes, which smiled at the dog hurtling towards it. Brute’s snarl died in his throat. He dropped to the ground and rolled over on to his back. The mysterious figure bent down and tickled his tummy. Brute squirmed with pleasure, then fell asleep.

  The security guard stood there with his mouth half open, staring at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She stood up and gazed at him. Then she spoke.

  ‘We meet at last.’

  ‘But . . . I don’t know you.’

  ‘Nor I you, and yet I have dreamed of this meeting.’

  She started to walk backwards, holding his gaze all the time with her enchanting blue eyes.

  The guard held out his hand. ‘Stop, don’t go yet,’ he cried.

  ‘Where I go, you must follow . . .’

  She moved further away, still facing him, moving effortlessly over the rough ground. The guard stumbled after her. They came to a deserted part of the site, where some traces of the park still remained, a few tired laurels and a patch of grass.

  Kylie called in a soft voice, ‘Follow, follow . . .’ and turned her back on him.

  The guard’s eyes widened in horror, and fear gripped him like a vice as he gazed at the empty shell that was Kylie.

  She dissolved slowly into the bushes.

  Charlotte’s mother was in the kitchen. It was late but she thought she might as well set out the breakfast things, because any minute now little Mary would wake up and start crying. She had been having nightmares or something, and every single night, when Margaret Hamilton was desperate for bed, Mary would wake up and couldn’t go to sleep again for ages. She had to be stroked and soothed, and tucked in again, and given a drink of water.

  When she had finished, Mrs Hamilton sat at the kitchen table and waited. She wasn’t going to be fooled this time. If she went to bed, she would only have to get up again. She waited a long time. Then suddenly, as mothers do, she started worrying. Something must be wrong. Why hadn’t Mary started her wailing?

  As quietly as she could, she crept up the stairs. Mary’s door was ajar, as always. From inside the room a strange faint light shone gently, and she heard a soft voice singing a strange melody without words.

  Mrs Hamilton opened the door. A pale, thin lady was stooping over Mary’s cot. She should have screamed and called the police, but she knew at once. ‘You’re one of Charlotte’s friends, aren’t you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ said Vera. ‘Please don’t be afraid. I know I shouldn’t be here. Such a sweet child, but she was a little worried.’

  Mary was sleeping like a lamb.

  ‘How on earth did you manage it? I simply cannot get her to settle down.’

  ‘We had a little chat, and then she felt better.’

  ‘But she hasn’t learned to talk.’

  Vera only smiled. ‘I should be getting back to Percy. Iphigenia will be worried. But perhaps I could visit again?’

  ‘Of course, any time.’

  Vera the Banshee faded slowly, and was gone.

  Ed Bales had volunteered for the night shift. Extra money always came in handy, and Big Robby was paying in cash.

  Under the arc lights that had been set up around the site he steered his big front-loader over to the huge pile of rubble and quarry waste that had been dumped on the site the day before. He scooped a load into his bucket
, reversed and headed for the place where his mate had almost tipped his excavator into the old mine workings. They had to be filled in and properly compacted before the end of the shift. There was a lot of pressure on this job; everything had to be done in double-quick time.

  ‘What’s this then?’ said Ed when he got to the place. ‘Is someone working down there?’

  A faint flickering light was visible, as though someone was using a headlamp down in the hole. He stopped and got out of the cab. Now he heard a weird chanting, which wavered up and down but never paused.

  Ed looked over the edge. At the bottom of the hole, in a shimmer of pale light, stood an ancient man with long white hair and a long robe. His arms were outstretched, and his eyes under the bushy eyebrows were dark wells of red fire. Ed Bales started, and backed hastily away. Before his shocked gaze the ancient figure rose slowly to float above the hole, boring into him with its chilling eyes.

  Ed was rooted to the spot. Now he could hear the chanting more clearly.

  ‘Damned for dastardly deeds of dirty destruction

  Malevolent marauders of Markham Park,

  Cursed be they cruelly with crippling curses; curs,

  Whipped be they wildly with thrice-bound thongs,

  The ninth Druid, nastiest, deadly doom-dealer . . .’

  Ed tore himself away, ran to his cab and jumped in. In desperation, fumbling with his levers, he started up, and lifted the bucket of his front-loader as high as it would go. He careered towards the edge of the hole and tipped the contents, several tons of rubble, right on top of the chanting apparition. With a thundering roar the whole load disappeared into the hole, and dust rose.

  Nervously Ed climbed out of his cab and crept forward to the edge. There was nothing to be seen.

  ‘Whatever it was, that fixed it,’ he said.

  But then, to his horror, a pale gleam gathered and, out of the heap that he had dumped in the hole, the Druid emerged unscathed. He was still chanting. But this time, instead of simply hovering, he glided up and advanced towards Ed, pointing a long bony finger and gnashing his tooth.

  ‘Sense now the Stinking Druid’s stench,

  So served, he renders revolting revenge.’

  Ed Bales heard no more. For at that moment his nostrils were assailed by a ghastly cloud of smell. The Druid had combined rotting corpses, boiling cabbage, some hellish sulphurous eggy fumes and a lot more besides.

  Ed didn’t even have the time to throw up. He simply collapsed unconscious.

  ‘Now industrial accidents! What on earth is going on here?’

  Big Robby was just about ready to tear his hair out. The security guard was in a psychiatric ward; any mention of Markham Park and he started on some babbling lunacy about hollow women. And now one of his best workers had collapsed unconscious. Big Robby was on the phone to his foreman.

  ‘Isolation? Why is he in isolation? What do you mean, because of the smell? Has he come round? He has? Well, what happened? A ghost! Did you say ghost? Has everybody lost their marbles?’

  He rang off. He would have to visit them himself and then talk to Bluffit. There was no way they were going to bring this project in on time.

  When he arrived at City Hall, Bluffit was looking at some pencil sketches that were spread out on his desk.

  ‘Snyder!’ he roared, hastily gathering the sketches in a pile and stuffing them into a drawer. ‘I told you . . . Oh, it’s you, Robby. Good news, I hope.’

  ‘Can’t say it is, Jack. One problem after another. Two of my employees say the place is haunted and they’re not going back to work.’

  ‘Haunted? What kind of stupid joke is that? They just want more money.’

  ‘I offered it. They still refused.’

  ‘Get it fixed, Robby.’

  The tone of voice reminded Big Robby of what happened to people who stood in Jack Bluffit’s way.

  The morning meeting in Markham Street was very satisfying. Kylie and the Druid came in for a great deal of praise and admiration. So far it was going well. One more night of softening-up, as Iphigenia called it, and then, finally, the big push, a full-scale horror show that would empty the place and make sure that no one ever worked there again.

  ‘We’ll have to be on our toes if we are to compete with you two,’ said Ron.

  Kylie and the Druid positively glowed with satisfaction. Then as a watery sun rose over the city, and morning rush hour began to limber up, the ghosts dissolved to their well-earned rest.

  Twenty-nine

  Mr Jaros Waits

  Rumours of strange goings-on in the Markham Park development scheme began to seep through the city. Workmen talk to each other when they have their tea breaks, and talk to their wives when they get home.

  In Markham Street itself, of course, quite a few people knew exactly what was going on, and Mr Bosse-Lynch’s odd episode caused a lot of talk even among those who didn’t. Great-Aunt Joyce met Mrs Bosse-Lynch in the street when she was out taking the air. Mrs Bosse-Lynch was the only one among the neighbours whom Great-Aunt Joyce ever talked to. If she met Margaret Hamilton with a pushchair and a load of shopping bags she just sniffed and pretended not to see her. Karin Hughes and Mr Jaros were foreigners, and Great-Aunt Joyce had even been known to cross to the other side of the street when she saw them coming.

  Now she said, ‘Good morning, Mrs Bosse-Lynch, how is your husband?’

  ‘Not very well, I’m afraid. He insists that he has had a visitation.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I know, frightfully silly, isn’t it? Clearly pressure of work, or a digestive problem perhaps. He is not as young as he used to be.’

  ‘No doubt you are right.’

  A sharp-eyed observer might have seen a fleeting look in Great-Aunt Joyce’s eyes that said something else.

  Mr Jaros didn’t give a fig for what Great-Aunt Joyce thought of him. He never had, and now she was as far from his mind as she could possibly be. So was everything else: violin bows, ghosts, Smetana . . . Jessie was dying.

  She might last an hour, she might last a week, but this was the end. She lay quietly on his jacket in the workshop. He had lit a fire in the stove and laid a blanket over her. She took great big difficult breaths now and then – they were more like sighs. When he knelt down to stroke her head, she opened her eyes and looked at him. There was no fear in them, and no pain. Only trust. Sometimes she made the tiniest little movement with the tip of her tail. Mr Jaros was not ready to weep yet. That would come. Now he just tried to make her as comfortable as possible, stroking and stroking her old head and speaking quietly to her.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Jess. We’ve had a good time together. It has to end.’

  And she looked at him, and without uttering a sound she agreed.

  Night fell on Markham Street, and in number twelve Iphigenia, Ron and the Shortener prepared to depart for their evening’s work.

  ‘Shall I come too? I can haunt too,’ said Percy.

  His mother looked at him kindly. ‘I think not, dear. There are some nasty men out there. But you could recite your little poem for Vera.’

  ‘Or do a few sit-ups,’ said Ron.

  Before they left, the ghosts drifted down to the cupboard under the stairs, where Angus Crawe was softly crooning an old Northumbrian air to Doris.

  ‘Are you joining us, Mr Crawe?’

  ‘Nae. Aa’m savin’ mesel’.’

  Ron shrugged his shoulders, and the ghosts departed.

  When they were gone Percy said to Vera, ‘Why aren’t you out haunting?’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m not very good at it, Percy.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  Vera gave him her hand and they floated off through the wall. Percy needed to talk to Daniel, and Vera wanted another chat with little Mary.

  Kylie left too. She had a little secret; she had found something absolutely wonderful in Markham Street. In one of the gardens was a silver birch, not a big one, but just big enough to be cosy in. It was such a joy to melt
into it and feel herself become a part of its lissom beauty. And it whispered tales to her of her ancestral homeland, the land that she had fled when the ravishing of the forests, the clear-felling and industrialized logging, began. The birch too, it told her in its melodious whisper, had come as a little seedling to a foreign land. It understood.

  The Druid remained at number twelve. He walked up and down the stairs, slowly and rhythmically reciting the ancient law of the Druids, the especially long one that he had had to learn for his initiation ceremony.

  After a while Angus Crawe crept out of his cupboard and said, ‘Aa’ve had enough of this jabbering,’ and dematerialized.

  Some of the night shift were having a tea break in the canteen. There were some Formica-topped tables, a cupboard with mugs and an electric kettle. A couple of scruffy posters adorned the walls. One of them was of a very curvy lady in a too-small swimsuit. The talk was of the events of the night before, particularly Jimmy’s experience.

  ‘I went to see him at the hospital, but I couldn’t go in there. The stink was unbelievable. All the nurses had masks.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nobody knows. But I heard him shouting, “I’ll never go there again.”’

  ‘Sounds like he’s been on the booze.’

  ‘Not Jimmy. He’s no big drinker. Always does a grand job.’

  The last speaker, whose name was Gary, was sitting opposite the other poster, an old one advertising a film called Destructor IV – War of the Planets. There was a picture of a famous action film star with huge muscles and a headband. He was baring his teeth and looking ferocious.

  Suddenly Gary, who had been slouching in his chair, sat up with a jerk. The film star had winked at him. He rubbed his eyes.

  ‘What’s up, Gary?’

  Gary couldn’t speak. He only pointed with a trembling hand.

  The picture was beginning to move, and the skin was falling away, revealing muscles and blood and nerves. The face became a grinning fleshy skull; but the eyeballs, they were the worst. They twisted around in the head, all the muscles expanding and contracting, seeming to search out the room. Then their gaze fastened on Gary, and a skinless arm with bloody fingers reached out of the picture, followed by the rest of the ghastly apparition.