Jenna and Jessica and the rest of the family looked out the window and saw a black figure standing there watching them. Two seconds later it had gone.
Before the twins knew it, Boo had come downstairs and was rushing around the living room screaming, ‘Help us! Help us all!’
Shocked at what he had seen, PC Dilks jumped up and down on the spot pointing at Boo. Mr and Mrs Tipple tried catching Boo to calm him down, but were unsuccessful and they ended up crashing into the Christmas tree, knocking it to the ground.
With Boo still bouncing around the house and the rest of the Tipples trying to calm him down, Beatrice stood in the corner of the room and slowly got out her mobile phone.
‘Beatrice, don’t you dare start filming!’ Uncle Patrick squealed. Put your phone down!’ But Beatrice carried on filming what was unravelling in the living room. Before the twins knew it, all of the Christmas decorations came crashing down.
‘Boo, calm down!’ the twins screamed. But Boo didn’t listen as he whirled around the living room even faster now, still shouting, ‘Help us! Help us all!’
Ignoring Boo’s moment of panic, Uncle Patrick leaped over to where Beatrice was standing, his hands reaching out in front of him. ‘Don’t you dare upload that to social media, Beatrice! Don’t you dare!’ But it was too late. The video was loading by the time Uncle Patrick snatched her phone off her. ‘Why, you little! How can I stop…? Blasted social media!’
Moments later, Jenna and Jessica heard the front door go, causing the family to pause. But not PC Dilks, as he was making his way out of the living room to check upstairs. When Mr and Mrs Tipple ran after him, Jenna and Jessica saw a bright flash of light in the hallway.
‘Nooo!’ Mrs Tipple screamed. Mr Tipple blocked his eyes from the bright light and nearly fell down the stairs. It was the black figure, and the black figure seemed to have taken PC Dilks.
Aunt Maud and Uncle Patrick had other considerations as to what was actually happening in the Tipple house on Bacton Square (besides Beatrice’s video upload), and they were grabbing the PlayStation and all the other electrical goods they had sent to the house and were throwing them in the bin. Aunt Maud was flustered and began shouting at Mrs Tipple, who was now in the living room and was nearly as pale as Boo.
‘You can’t invite the police in here!’ Aunt Maud screamed as she grabbed a set of Beats earphones and charged towards the kitchen. She then pointed at all the remaining goods spread around the house that she and Patrick had sent and said, ‘That’s stolen, that’s stolen, that’s stolen!’ and this continued until she’d pointed at every single item she had given the Tipples over the last few months. ‘Apart from Oliver, he’s legit,’ Aunt Maud said, catching her breath and smiling at Uncle Patrick proudly.
‘We haven’t got time to worry about your petty crimes, Maud!’ Mrs Tipple screamed, causing pictures and mirrors to fall from the walls. ‘We have to sort this mess out! My babies are in the frame for what happened to Caitlyn! This can’t be happening! This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening! This isn’t HAPPENING!’
‘Oh shut up!’ Maud shouted, and she slapped Mrs Tipple around the face. ‘This is happening. And you need to deal with it.’
This wasn’t good. It was not good at all, because now they knew the twins were the number one suspects. And the fact they were now the last to be seen with Dilks too just made it worse.
It was midnight by the time Mrs Tipple had told the house that the story is this… they hadn’t seen PC Dilks that night. They hadn’t seen him at all. PC Dilks may have intended to come here, but clearly he didn’t even make it to the front door.
Mr and Mrs Tipple, Uncle Patrick and the twins spent the rest of the night putting the tree back up and cleaning up the rest of the mess Boo had created.
‘You need to delete that video, Beatrice,’ Patrick said as he picked up some broken baubles.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Beatrice said sharply, picking up some tinsel.
‘Don’t play dumb with me, Beatrice!’
‘I’m not!’
‘God help me I’ll make sure there will be no more help when it comes to your weight! You will delete that video at once.’ said Uncle Patrick, wagging a finger.
‘But it’s got five hundred views and counting.’
‘I don’t care if it’s viewed by the queen!’
‘I want to see if it gets shares,’ said Beatrice huffily.
‘Shares? You want that thing to get shares! For goodness’ sake, Beatrice! Delete it now!’
‘I won’t!’
‘DELETE IT!’ they all barked at once, which caused Beatrice to storm off upstairs as she deleted the video.
‘It had five hundred views and count-ing!’ she said as she wept as she thumped up the stairs.
Aunt Maud then came in from the kitchen holding a plate of biscuits and an iPhone. ‘Well, I suppose we can keep this one, can’t we?’ she said, faking a smile. ‘Well that’s settled then. We’ll keep just the phone… and maybe the telly… well, all right then, and the PlayStation too. Can’t leave that one out, can we?’ Aunt Maud said before placing the phone on the table. She then brushed herself down as if she was starting a new day and held up the plate in the other hand. ‘Biccy anyone?’
CHAPTER NINE
*
THE PAINTING
It was next morning when the twins awoke startled and sweaty. It was probably a nightmare they’d had, but if it was, they couldn’t remember it.
They could hear Boo snoring under Jessica’s bed and quickly put their dressing gowns on before going downstairs. They were expecting a knock on the door at any moment due to PC Dilks’ disappearance, and it made them nervous, causing Jessica’s voice to squeak when she was spoken to.
As they entered the living room, Aunt Maud and Uncle Patrick were sitting on the sofas sulking.
‘Don’t talk to them,’ Mrs Tipple snapped. ‘They’ve just had a telling off about the stolen goods they had delivered here. Come to think of it,’ she said as she tottered off to the kitchen suddenly locking the kitchen door, ‘you two need to get on with your homework. We can’t let things slip now. If your grades go down, it will look even more suspicious. I’m sorry. I know it’s not nice. But we really need to clamp down on all this odd activity. Even Oliver is being locked in the kitchen until he knows how to stop hanging around with teenagers and wearing our clothes.’ She paused and sighed before continuing. ‘He even made an appearance at the pub the other night and came home drunk. I found him sleeping in the bushes outside.’
Jenna and Jessica went back upstairs to their bedrooms and opened their books. Their homework was to research the witches of Salem, and so they did.
With Boo now awake, they looked at paintings of the Salem witch trials together. Huddled on the same bed, they saw pictures of crowds swarming around the accused witches. They then went on to read underneath one of the paintings about one of the women, who was known by the name Martha Carrier and was accused of being a witch.
She was an unpopular woman who had little money. She also had her first child out of wedlock. Rumour had it she had spread smallpox and had spoken sharply to her neighbours.
‘Women who had had a child before marriage were frowned upon in those days. And for that reason alone, it is probably the reason she has been accused of being a witch’ read a quote in one of the books.
A little further down the page was a script from the trial itself. It said that one of the victims of Martha’s magic, someone called Susannah, cried out telling the court she could see an evil man dressed in black and that he may be the devil himself. She told the court he appeared a few times and was called ‘the black man’.
They then learned that Martha Carrier continued to plead her innocence and was later given the death sentence.
As Jenna and Jessica continued reading, they felt they could r
elate to the accused woman, because they had also been accused of things they hadn’t done.
The moment passed quickly and they continued flicking through the pages, until they came across something rather unexpected. To their shock, they saw a woman who looked like Miss Snippings. This woman was standing in front of a crowd waiting to be executed. Could it be? Jenna studied it at length and Jessica took it from under her nose now and then to study it herself, and eventually they were both fighting over it and not studying it at all.
‘I had it first,’ stated Jenna, ripping the book from Jessica’s hands.
‘But you’re not sharing it,’ said Jessica, snatching it back.
Jenna blew air into Jessica’s face. She knew this bothered Jessica more than a slap might because it bothered her as well. Blowing and breathing on one another was far more intrusive. Jessica blew back and they spent about a minute and a half blowing and breathing on each other, completely forgetting about the book, until they looked up and saw Boo waving it at them above their beds.
‘Give us the book,’ they pleaded.
‘I’m going to hold it for you both,’ said Boo. Jenna and Jessica didn’t argue. They stared back at the picture. This woman had ginger hair like Miss Snippings and a crooked posture like Miss Snippings. There was nothing about this picture to suggest it wasn’t Miss Snippings other than the dates, for no person could ever live for that long. Could she be a witch from Salem? No, possibly not. But they couldn’t help but feel they would be wrong to dismiss it.
At that instant they rushed down the stairs to ask if they could phone Tommy. They walked towards the living room and peered inside. Their mum was spying out of the window.
‘You ask,’ Jenna whispered to Jessica.
‘No, you ask. Mum will listen to you more…’
‘Girls, what is it?’ Mrs Tipple said, jerking her head around.
‘Well… we were just wondering if—’
‘Come on, quickly, spit it out, you two. I’m on police watch.’
‘Well, we just wanted to ask if we could phone Tommy… about homework,’ Jenna said uncomfortably.
‘Oh all right then,’ she said firmly, not taking her eyes off Bacton Square.
Jenna and Jessica hurried upstairs and grabbed for the phone in their bedroom. Surprised at how easy the conversation had gone, they stood holding the phone between both of them and whispered as loudly as they could, firstly filling Tommy in about the black figure coming to their home and snatching P.C Dilks, and how they are in the firing line for their missing sister, causing Tommy to spill off a load of ‘oh my god’s’ and ‘well I never’s’ and then finally telling Tommy to look at the painting of Miss Snippings in his copy of the book, which he did.
‘Well I never,’ Tommy said, breathing heavily. ‘I bet she’s a ghost!’
‘What are we going to do, Tommy?’
‘I dunno. Shall we try touching her when we see her next? I bet our hands go straight through her…’
‘I’m not touching her. You can but I won’t. Besides, she managed to throw us in the hole of black with no problem,’ said Jenna.
‘I’ll tell you what we need to do. We need to find room thirteen. There’s a reason no one’s allowed in there,’ said Tommy.
‘But how are we going to do that if nobody knows where it is?’
‘Rubbish. Of course someone knows where it is, and that has to be the witch herself.’
‘We can’t just ask her where it is. She’ll put us in the hole of black again,’ moaned Jessica.
Silence hung over them while all three thought intently. They didn’t know what it was they were looking for exactly, but any sort of answer or clue had to be better than none. They needed to know exactly what Miss Snippings was, and room thirteen was a better place to start than any other.
‘Ah, I know!’ Tommy shouted. ‘We’ll sneak into her office, first day back at school. If there are keys in there, we’ll put them in every door till one fits.’
‘We can’t do that. We’ll get caught! And how are we going to know it’s the right key?’ said Jessica.
‘Well, we’ll just guess!’ Tommy snapped. ‘I have to go, my mum’s calling me. She’s taking me out to see some Christmas lights and then we’re going shopping for sweets. I’ll see you in school first day back. Be there half an hour before school starts… meet me outside the gates.’
‘Okay, have a good Christmas.’
‘Okay, and you.’
The phone went dead and the girls finished their homework as quickly as they could.
*
Next morning they woke up again in a sweat. This time Jessica more so than her sister.
‘My God, you look rough,’ Jenna said to Jessica as they got dressed together, only this time Jessica seemed to be slower than Jenna. And Jessica seemed to be slower all day. She even ate her dinner slower, until she gave up and asked if she had to have any of it at all.
‘What’s wrong with you, Jessica?’ Mrs Tipple said, taking her plate away from the table.
‘I’ll have it,’ Beatrice said, seizing the plate from her mum’s hands.
‘I hope you’re not coming down with anything,’ her mum said, before turning to her dad. ‘Do you think she’s all right?’ she whispered to him as she began washing up. Mr Tipple shrugged and said he was taking Oliver out on the lead.
‘Good luck!’ Aunt Maud shouted with a mouth full of potatoes. ‘Last time I did that he howled so loudly it blew my skirt up.’
By the time it was night-time, Jessica was so exhausted she had gone to bed before Jenna had even started getting ready for it. The light was already out and Jessica was fast asleep as Jenna crept into her own bed. When she pulled the cover over herself and lay on her pillow, she could have sworn she saw something that wasn’t Boo sleeping under Jessica’s bed – a woman. And when she looked harder, that woman looked like Miss Snippings. Jenna blinked and focused on what she thought she saw, but this time when she looked it was nothing but Boo. Curled up. Fast asleep.
CHAPTER TEN
*
MISS SNIPPINGS’ CLIPPINGS
It was after the Christmas holiday, early in the morning and Chumsworth’s grounds were covered in ice. The twins met Tommy outside the school gates as planned and Jenna and Jessica couldn’t help but feel it was nice to finally get away from the house, what with their mum being on police guard twenty-four seven. Although what lay ahead of them wasn’t any better – just the thought of Miss Snippings catching them sneaking about made Jenna and Jessica shudder.
‘So, what excuse did you give your mum then? Ya know… to get here early ’n’ that?’ Tommy said with a mouthful of bubblegum.
‘We told Mum we didn’t want to be at home at the moment,’ Jessica said before they swept into the school grounds and hurried into the deserted reception area.
‘And what do you three think you are doing here at this time?’ It was Mr Smith.
‘We, err… we find out what parts we have for the school production today, don’t we?’ said Tommy. ‘We got here early to have a look.’
Mr Smith raised an eyebrow before speaking. ‘Wait here one moment… I’ll go and get the list,’ he said, before pacing down the corridor until they could no longer see him.
‘Quick,’ Jenna said, and they all pressed their ears up against Miss Snippings’ office. They didn’t have any time to lose, not with Mr Smith hovering about.
‘I can’t hear a thing,’ said Jenna.
‘That means nothing,’ Tommy interrupted. ‘Ghosts don’t really make noises.’
‘Some might,’
‘Okay, if that’s what we are all going by, why don’t we just barge in there right now?’ Jessica said.
‘Okay then,’ said Tommy stubbornly.
‘So we’re just going to barge in there, are we?’ asked Jessica.
‘Ye
p.’
‘Well go on then, Tommy,’ urged Jessica.
‘You first.’
‘Oh, I’ll do it!’ Jenna said before grabbing the door by the handle. She went inside, with Jessica and Tommy following quickly. It wasn’t long before they heard footsteps coming down the corridor.
‘Quick! It’s Mrs Greenose!’ Tommy said, shutting the door. ‘That was close.’
The three of them studied the office before getting to work. The room was filled with dark wooden furniture, which consisted of a desk, a cabinet, a bookshelf and a wardrobe. There was emerald-green carpet covering the floor and a mirror hanging on the wall.
‘I’ll do the desk,’ Tommy insisted. ‘One of you look inside the cabinet… the other keep an eye out.’
They worked their way through the drawers as quickly as they could. Tommy found a red book on top of the desk, and it seemed odd that it had no title and the pages he managed to flick through were blank. ‘Weird,’ he said as he tossed it aside.
‘Oi, shall we plant something in here? Like needles on her chair?’ he said, carrying on sifting through more paperwork and forgetting about the red book.
‘No,’ said Jessica, who had her eye stuck to the keyhole.
‘Lock her out then… squatters’ rights…’
‘Definitely not, Tommy,’ said Jenna, taking a load of papers from the cabinet and accidently dropping them on the floor. ‘Help me, quick!’ she said to Tommy, who was already rushing over to pick up the mess.
‘All right, start an argument, tell her how you feel.’
‘As if,’ said Jessica.
‘I might…’ said Jenna.
‘No you wouldn’t,’ said Jessica back.
‘I agree with Jessica… you wouldn’t say anything.’
‘I said I might,’ mumbled Jenna, who was rifling through the papers so fast her face was turning pink.
The Tipple Twins and the Gift Page 8
