by Guy Bass
“The right thing?” repeated a baffled Stitch Head.
“The way I see it, if anyone should own this place, it ain’t Dotty Dauntless, and it definitely ain’t mad old Professor Erasmus … it’s you,” explained Arabella. She pressed the deeds into Stitch Head’s hand. “Reckon Dotty must have agreed with me, too, ’cause she signed the deeds over to you.”
“T-to me?” Stitch Head stuttered.
“It’s yours, Stitch Head,” said Arabella. “Castle Grotteskew is yours now.”
Stitch Head stared at the piece of paper, his mouth agape. He had never owned anything, never mind a castle. He wasn’t sure
what to think, or what to say. In the end he just muttered, “Thank you.”
“Did I hear what you are saying? Stitch Head owns us now?” asked Ivo, as he and the Creature joined them.
“GRuKK!” protested Pox.
“No … no one owns anyone,” Stitch Head assured them. He looked at Arabella and a smile spread across his patchwork face. “You can’t own a life … or an almost-life.”
“NEVER mind that, LOOK!” boomed the Creature, pointing with all three arms at Arabella’s feet. “ARABELLA’S got no BOOTS! THAT means she can’t KICK us any more!”
“You reckon so, d’you?” replied Arabella with a chuckle. “I don’t need no blinkin’ boots for kicking you lot! Come ’ere!”
With that, Arabella started chasing the Creature and Ivo around the courtyard as they laughed and squealed.
Stitch Head smiled again, and peered up at the stars. Then he closed the Great Door – his door – and felt more at home than ever.
COPYRIGHT
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
A paperback original
First published in Great Britain in 2016
Text copyright © Guy Bass, 2016
Illustrations copyright © Pete Williamson, 2016
ISBN: 978–1–84715–762–1
The right of Guy Bass and Pete Williamson to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in the UK.
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