Mountwood School for Ghosts

by Toby Ibbotson

  Ron stepped down from the wall. ‘Evening, gentlemen. Who would like to go a few rounds with me?’

  There was a headlong rush for the door. Pushing and shoving and even crying, the workmen threw themselves down the ladder, not caring if they fell or crushed each other in their panic. Once down, they started running, and one of them ran all the way back to his house, which was a good four miles away on the other side of the river.

  Just after midnight Mr Jaros fell asleep. He was sitting in his chair by the stove, with Jessie on her jacket at his feet. Jessie was asleep too, breathing very shallowly. But Mr Jaros was instantly awake when he heard her make a little noise in her throat.

  He sat up. The room was lit only by the reflected glow of the street lamp outside. Standing in the room was a tall, dark figure. It held a great sword. Both hands were cupped on the hilt; its point was resting on the floor. Mr Jaros did not really know whether he was awake or asleep. But he was not afraid.

  ‘Have you come for my Jessie? Are you the angel of death?’

  ‘Nae, aa’m Angus.’

  ‘Angus?’

  ‘Angus Crawe. Aa’m thinking of my auld Sal. She was the best. None better. Wept like a bairn, I did, when she left me. A man shuld ha’ a dog.’

  ‘When she went . . . how could you bear it?’

  ‘Aa couldn’t.’

  ‘But what did you do?’

  ‘Do? Nothin’. Aa just went on.’

  Big Robby was in the site office talking to his foreman. They heard the thundering of footsteps from the canteen below, and the ring of heavy work boots on the metal stairs.

  ‘They’re keen to get back to work anyway,’ said Robby.

  His foreman didn’t reply. He had had enough of this job. It was a shoddy piece of work from the start. He was no engineer, but he had lots of experience, and he knew that it was madness to put up huge buildings and build roads on this land, honeycombed as it was with old mine workings. He was hard-headed, but all these weird goings-on felt like a warning to get out while he could.

  ‘I’m chucking it in, Mr Mayhew. You’ll have to find another foreman.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish, man.’

  ‘I mean it. I want out.’

  ‘Well, forget it. I could make problems for you, and you know it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that. You promised.’

  ‘Wouldn’t I? You might get a knock on your door some day, someone asking where that old girl got to.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’

  ‘Wasn’t it? Bit of a hurry you were in, to start demolishing those flats without checking properly.’

  ‘But you told me to get on with it. Not to waste time.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to swing a wrecking ball through a pensioner’s bedroom window when she was taking her afternoon nap. She’s in the foundations of that high-rise car park, I suppose. You get to work, my lad, and see this job through.’

  Robby pushed back his chair, stood up and walked out.

  It was strangely quiet on the site. The foreman couldn’t hear the usual sounds of shouting and the roar of heavy diesel engines. He got up to go to the door, but just as he was about to open it he heard a tapping sound behind him.

  He turned round to see a face peering at him through the window. Impossible! The site office was ten metres off the ground. The features were those of an elderly woman. Her hair was tangled and filthy, full of dust and plaster, and her expression one of anguish. The foreman backed against the wall, all the blood draining from his face, as the apparition came closer, seemed to pass through the window. Now he saw the rest of her. Dressed in a flowery nightdress, her feet in a pair of woolly bedsocks, the old lady floated towards him.

  She put her hands to her wizened chest. ’Oh, I can’t breathe,’ she wheezed. ‘Buried alive, smothered by dust and darkness. Oh the weight of it . . . the weight . . .’

  The foreman burst into floods of tears and fell to his knees.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he wailed. ‘I didn’t know you were in there. Please . . .’

  ‘I shall never grant you peace,’ the spectre croaked, ‘until you have done some good in this world.’

  And then she was gone.

  Iphigenia was rather pleased with the effect she had had. She would have to remind Kylie that research, a bit of careful listening before going into action, could make all the difference. Seize the moment. That was the key. And she went off to find her husband and see how he had got on.

  When Big Robby walked towards his car he was deep in thought. This was without exception the worst bit of business he had ever got mixed up in. He got in, started the engine and headed off towards the works entrance. Right in the middle of the open gateway stood a man in a bowler hat.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ he muttered. ‘Some nosy official. Probably Health and Safety. What’s he doing here in the middle of the night?’

  The man didn’t move until Robby drove right up to him and sounded his horn. Then he moved towards the car, with a polite expression on his face.

  Robby glared at him and opened the window. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘That is a very interesting question,’ replied the man. ‘Very philosophical, I declare.’

  For some reason the radio in Robby’s car came to life. Sombre organ music was playing, reminding Robby suddenly of when his grandma used to drag him to chapel on Sundays.

  ‘Look here,’ said Robby, sticking his arm out of the window and pointing at the man. ‘I’ll have you know I’m the contractor.’

  ‘And I am the Shortener,’ said the man, lifting his hat and making a little bow. ‘Allow me to help you contract.’

  Before Robby could do anything about it, the window of his car shot up, trapping his arm. Robby swore and struggled, but he was stuck.

  The man smiled gently, reached into his inside pocket and brought out a small butcher’s cleaver.

  ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘About here should do it, I think.’

  He raised the cleaver high in the air and brought it flashing down.

  Robby fainted.

  Thirty

  Number Six

  Big Robby was at home. He lived in a modern house in the suburbs, with everything that someone with his money has to have. He had two expensive cars in the garage: a big expensive one for himself, and a small expensive one for his expensive wife. He didn’t mind that she was expensive and had three walk-in wardrobes full of clothes, and about eight different handbags that each cost at least five thousand pounds. Rich men had to have the right kind of wife, and the right kind of car. That cost money.

  Now he sat drinking very expensive Italian coffee in his kitchen. He didn’t like it much. He preferred a cup of tea, the ordinary kind from the supermarket, but if you have paid a lot of money for an Italian coffee machine, and you have an Italian live-in maid who knows how to work it, then you have to make the best of it.

  Robby sat at the table with the newspaper in front of him.

  ‘Horror in Markham Park,’ said the headline. Journalists just love mysteries, and ghost mysteries are the best of all. The article started, ‘Is this General Markham’s revenge?’ and went on to quote some of his workmen.

  His foreman had quit. Apparently he was going to start a charity for old ladies who couldn’t afford to heat their homes properly or eat decent food. Robby wasn’t going to go to the police with that old business with the wrecking ball. He had only wanted to scare his foreman into staying on. The last thing he wanted was the police poking around in his affairs.

  Now he rubbed his arm thoughtfully. He couldn’t believe it was still there. Had it been a nightmare? That man in the bowler hat had seemed perfectly solid, just an ordinary person. When he had come round, with his arm still stuck in the window but still attached, he had driven shakily home, determined to pack the whole thing in, whatever it cost him. But now, in the light of day . . . Big Robby was a cheat, a liar and a bully, but he was not a coward. He had the kind of grim bravery that
never backs down from a fight. This time though . . . he wasn’t so sure. It was one thing to take on a tough navvy in a pub brawl. But ghosts . . . How did you fight ghosts?

  Robby looked out of the window and saw a sleek car turn into his driveway. He knew who that was. Jack Bluffit was paying a call. The doorbell rang, and he heard the maid open the front door.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Mr Mayhew inna di kitchen.’

  ‘Right then, out the way.’

  Bluffit stormed in. He didn’t waste time on good mornings. ‘Don’t back out on me, Robby. I can break you, you know I can. And I will.’

  Big Robby clenched his fist, thinking how nice it would be to stand up and punch him on the jaw. Instead he said, ‘You can’t scare me, Jack. But I got a scare last night.’

  Jack snorted. ‘Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe that stuff. Spooks and phantoms – I ask you.’

  ‘Well, you explain it then,’ said Robby, and told Jack about his meeting with the Shortener.

  Jack calmed down while he was talking, nodding his head from time to time.

  When Robby was finished he sat down at the table opposite him, leaned forward and said, ‘Look Robby, it’s clear enough. That was no ghost. That was someone trying to put the frighteners on you. Someone trying to muscle in on your patch. They want you to quit, so they can take over the job themselves. Don’t you have any enemies in this business?’

  He certainly did, lots of them. Robby thought of that big contractor from Liverpool, who, he knew for a fact, wanted to expand his business north. That man would stop at nothing.

  ‘I think you’re right, Jack. I’m not giving up yet.’

  Robby felt better. Having real enemies to fight suited him fine. He had been fighting all his life.

  The night was clear, and a big yellow moon rose over the city, shrinking and turning pale as it climbed into the sky, as though it was getting sadder the more it saw.

  Daniel had gone to bed, but he knew there was not much point in trying to sleep. For the last two nights Percy had shown up, full of his own problems. Percy felt small and useless. In some ways this was absolutely true, and Daniel felt that Percy’s parents were not helping matters at all. He was being torn in half; poetry here, gymnastics there. He had to find his own way. But Percy also told him about the ghosts’ escapades in Markham Park. And tonight was the big push. It really looked as though they might succeed, if the newspapers were anything to go by.

  His father had been really impressed when he read the paper that morning. ‘This is incredible, Daniel. Your friends are doing an amazing job. Just make sure, will you, if I ever doubt you again, that you remind me about this.’

  Daniel had felt so pleased that he didn’t say anything at all.

  The room went cold, and the wall beside his bed began to bulge outwards and go wavery. Daniel sat up, ready to discuss the events of the night with Percy.

  ‘Hello, Percy.’

  As soon as Percy appeared, Daniel knew that something more than usual was wrong. He looked so woebegone and worried that he was obviously about to cry.

  ‘Are you unhappy about not being able to go along for the big push?’ asked Daniel.

  Sure enough, Percy burst into tears. ‘There is no big push,’ he sobbed. ‘Nobody’s going.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re just lying there. Mother and Father and Vera and everybody. They can’t go. I don’t know what’s happening.’

  ‘Are they ill or something?’ Daniel didn’t even know if ghosts could be ill.

  ‘Help. You must help. I don’t know what to do,’ Percy wailed in despair.

  ‘Percy, you must go and wake Charlotte. We’ll think of something.’

  Daniel was just trying to comfort Percy. He had no idea what he could do to help.

  ‘Go along, Percy. I’ll meet you at number twelve.’

  Daniel hurried into some clothes and crept downstairs past Aunt Joyce’s room. As he passed, he saw a dim light escaping from the crack under her door. Apparently she was still awake.

  Daniel let himself out and ran down to number twelve.

  Charlotte came quickly, barefoot and in dressing gown and pyjamas. ‘I’ve got the key.’

  Charlotte’s mother still had a spare key to number twelve. She had watered the plants for the Bennetts when they were away. They let themselves into the empty hallway and opened the door to the living room.

  The room was faintly lit with ghostly ectoplasmic radiance, but it was weak and unsteady, coming and going in dim waves. And it was an odd colour. The glow, which was usually bluish, was shot through with angry streaks of red and sickly yellowish green. Daniel and Charlotte could hardly make out the ghosts at all. They were not floating about as they usually did, but lying unmoving in odd places on the floor.

  Kylie was sitting in a corner, with her head on her knees. Beside her was the Phantom Welder, his head back, his mouth open. The others were scattered about on the floor, apparently unable to move. Angus Crawe was nowhere to be seen.

  Charlotte and Daniel crept into the room and went over to Iphigenia.

  ‘Mrs Peabody,’ said Charlotte, ‘what’s the matter? What shall we do?’

  For a long time Iphigenia said nothing. She was so weak that it was like looking at an image made of water. They could see the floor beneath her quite clearly. Then she spoke in a whisper so faint that they had to bend close to hear her.

  ‘A plague . . . poison . . . I don’t know. We are being sent on.’

  ‘Sent on?’

  Daniel turned fearfully to Charlotte. ‘Can ghosts . . . ?’ He didn’t want to say it. ‘Can ghosts die?’

  ‘There is exorcism. I think that destroys them.’

  Then something struck Daniel. ‘Why is Percy all right?’

  They both turned at the same time to speak to him. But Percy was gone.

  The Great Hagges were in a hurry. The Rolls was going as fast as it could, with Goneril clutching the wheel and staring grimly before her, passing lorries on dangerous bends, shooting over crossroads without looking to left or right.

  Fredegonda’s thumb had started to prick when they were eating their breakfast that evening. At first she had dismissed it. Sometimes it did that when Vicar Flitch drove past on the main road to visit his parishioners. But it didn’t stop. The pricking got stronger and stronger. Fredegonda went outside and held it up, turning slowly in a full circle. At one point, roughly east, in the direction of the city, her thumb swelled to twice its normal size and started throbbing visibly. There was no doubt about it. She went inside again. Drusilla was having a sneezing fit.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, blowing her nose for the fourth time.

  ‘Our team are in trouble, I think,’ said Fredegonda. ‘There is no time to lose. Goneril . . .’ But Goneril was already hurrying out to the car.

  Now the Rolls sped through the night, reaching the outskirts of the city in record time and threading its way through the suburbs until it turned in at Markham Street and parked outside number twelve. The Hagges marched up the steps, pushed open the front door and entered the living room.

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ said Daniel when they entered.

  He and Charlotte had been sitting helplessly watching the ghosts get fainter and weaker without being able to do anything to help.

  ‘No need to thank Him, I assure you,’ said Fredegonda. She took charge immediately. ‘This is worse than I feared. We are under attack. This is no exorcism. Drusilla, what can you do?’

  ‘Not much I’m afraid, unless we find the source.’

  ‘I won’t be much help,’ said Fredegonda, looking at her thumb. ‘There will be protection.’

  ‘Then I fear we will lose them.’

  ‘Lose them?’ Daniel spoke up.

  ‘Yes, lose them,’ said Goneril. ‘They are being sent on, disintegrated, dissolved.’

  ‘But ghosts are already dead, aren’t they? What will happen to them?’

  ‘It is beyon
d our ken. But they will be ghosts no more.’

  ‘Think, boy, think,’ said Fredegonda. ‘Who or what could be doing this?’

  ‘Um . . . Jack Bluffit . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk nonsense. That oaf couldn’t spellbind his way out of a paper bag.’

  Then they heard a weak voice, almost inaudible, from the floor by the window. It was Vera. She was in a terrible state, hardly there at all. Already most of her was just a dirty-yellow swirling mist.

  They all came closer.

  ‘What did you say, Vera?’ said Drusilla. ‘Try to speak.’

  ‘Number six,’ came a tremulous whisper in reply. ‘Something black and ugly . . . I . . . I . . .’ But she could say no more.

  ‘Number six? But that’s where I live,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Right,’ said Fredegonda. ‘Number six it is. Drusilla, you stay here. Do what you can. Goneril, come along.’

  In two strides she was out of the door, with Goneril after her. Daniel and Charlotte were forgotten.

  Daniel ran out after them into the street. Already they were almost at his front gate.

  ‘Wait, my mum and dad, I have to . . .’

  Goneril strode up to the front door, which Daniel had locked behind him when he went out. ‘I’ve got the key,’ he called, fumbling in his pocket.

  But it was too late for any of that. Goneril put her hand against the locked door, and gave a little push. The lock splintered and the door swung wide.

  ‘Hey, you can’t . . .’ shouted Daniel, but again he was ignored.

  ‘Upstairs, wouldn’t you say?’ said Goneril.

  ‘Definitely. No more noise now.’

  The Great Hagges took the steps three at a time, with Daniel stumbling after. They moved completely silently, in spite of their huge feet. On the landing they stopped.

  Fredegonda pointed left, then right, at the two doors, and raised her eyebrow.

  Goneril pointed to the right-hand door. A faint glow still showed under it.

  ‘I’ll go in. You keep an eye out,’ said Goneril, and she pushed open Great-Aunt Joyce’s door and disappeared inside.