by Eva Ibbotson
‘It must have been Fulton,’ said Oliver. ‘He kept telling me ghost stories, but I didn’t understand. I feel awful now, not liking him, when he was doing this marvellous thing for me.’
The Wilkinsons looked at each other. They weren’t so sure about Fulton Snodde-Brittle. Why had he left Oliver alone for days on end – and what had happened to the letters Oliver had given him to post? Because his friends in the Home had not forgotten him. There’d been an absolute spate of letters answering the one he’d sent from Troughton. They meant to keep a sharp eye on Fulton Snodde-Brittle when he came – and he came, as it happened, on the following day.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find the poor little boy in a dreadful state,’ said Fulton as he drove the car towards Helton Hall.
‘Barmy,’ agreed Frieda. ‘Completely raving.’
Dr O’Hara said he was sorry to hear that. He was a young doctor with dark hair and a friendly smile, and not the doctor whom Fulton had hoped to bring to Helton. It was old Dr Gridlestone whom the Snodde-Brittles had chosen to put Oliver away, but he was ill. Dr O’Hara was new to the district and it was his day off, but when Fulton had told him that there was a child who might become a danger to himself and others he had agreed to come.
‘Is there any mental illness in the family?’ Dr O’Hara asked. ‘Any madness?’
‘Is there not!’ lied Fulton. ‘His mother thought she was a chicken and his aunt jumped off a cliff and his little sister had fits. Not the Snodde-Brittles of course – the Snodde-Brittles are perfect – but the family on his mother’s side.’
‘So you see how worried we are for Oliver,’ said Frieda. ‘He must be shut away somewhere and protected from the strain of running Helton Hall.’
Dr O’Hara was silent, wishing he hadn’t come. The idea of picking up a struggling boy and carrying him off was not pleasant at all.
They turned into the drive and found Miss Match waiting for them.
‘Well, how is the dear boy?’ asked Fulton. ‘We’ve been so anxious about him, but Dr O’Hara has come to examine him and we can get an ambulance in no time and take him away.’
‘Best thing you can do,’ said Miss Match grumpily. ‘He gets sillier and sillier.’
‘Is he in bed?’
‘Not him. Rampaging round in the garden talking to himself. Won’t come in for meals. Leaves bananas on the sundial.’
Fulton and Frieda exchanged glances. ‘Bananas on the sundial, eh? That sounds serious, wouldn’t you say, Dr O’Hara?’
‘It is certainly unusual,’ the doctor admitted.
‘You’ll find him by the lake,’ said Miss Match, and stumped back into the house.
So the Snodde-Brittles, followed by Dr O’Hara, crossed the lawn and made their way down the gravel path towards the water.
Even from a distance they could see that Oliver was behaving very strangely. He was running round and round, beckoning and calling, and suddenly he burst out laughing.
‘I think I’ll just go back and see about the ambulance,’ said Frieda. She had remembered Fulton’s description of the Shriekers and even in broad daylight she didn’t fancy meeting them.
But at that moment, Oliver looked up and saw them.
Fulton expected anything except what happened next. Oliver gave a shout of welcome and ran towards his cousin with his arms stretched out.
‘Oh thank you, thank you,’ he said, hugging him round the waist. ‘Thank you so much – so terribly much! I was so lonely and miserable and now everything’s lovely!’ He turned to Frieda, standing with her mouth open. ‘And Cousin Frieda too! It’s the best thing that’s ever happened, you sending me the ghosts.’
Fulton loosened Oliver’s hands and took a step backwards. He had left a pale, thin child whose eyes were too big for his face. Now he saw a boy with rosy cheeks and the glow that happiness brings. Was it a feverish flush? Yes, it had to be.
‘What... ghosts?’ he stammered. ‘I never sent any.’
‘Didn’t you?’ Oliver was puzzled. ‘That’s strange. They said—’
‘They? Who are they?’ asked the doctor.
‘Come and meet them. Please. They vanished when they heard the car because they thought they might be in the way.’ He took Fulton’s hand and reluctantly the others followed. ‘Adopta’s very excited because Mr Jenkins has dredged up a phantom prawn for her and she thinks it might cheer up the fish in her sponge bag, but we’re not sure because it’s quite a big prawn.’
Dr O’Hara sighed. This was madness all right – and he’d really liked the little boy.
They had reached the lake.
‘It’s all right, everybody – please appear again,’ Oliver called. ‘It’s Cousin Fulton and Cousin Frieda and—’ he turned to the doctor. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘I’m Dr O’Hara.’
‘Oh, a doctor! Uncle Henry will like that. He was a dentist and he’s a very scientific person. Good – there they are!’ One by one the ghosts appeared and Oliver introduced them. ‘This is Aunt Maud... well, Mrs Wilkinson really, and this is Mr Wilkinson and this is Grandma...’
What followed kept Fulton and Frieda rooted to the ground. Dr O’Hara stepped forward and shook hands with – nothing. With air.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Wilkinson,’ he said. ‘And you too, sir.’ He took another step and this time he raised his hand to his forehead in a salute. ‘I was a Scout too,’ he said in his friendly way. ‘Though I never made it to patrol leader.’
‘Who are you talking to?’ shrieked Frieda. ‘What are you doing?’
Dr O’Hara turned to them, very surprised. ‘But surely you can see them?’ he said. ‘This gentleman here in the army helmet and the old lady with the umbrella and—’
‘No, we can’t,’ said Fulton, white-faced. ‘You’re making it up. You’re playing a joke.’
‘No, he isn’t, Cousin Fulton,’ said Oliver. ‘Those are the Wilkinsons. They’re my family. Look, there’s Adopta now – you must be able to see her. She’s my special friend.’
‘Yes, you must surely see the little girl?’ said Dr O’Hara. ‘Her nightdress is quite dazzling.’
‘You’re lying!’ Fulton was shaking with anger and fear. He had brought in a doctor who was as crazy as the child.
Oliver was very upset. ‘Oh how unfair, Cousin Fulton! That’s really rotten, you not being able to see the ghosts when it was you that gave them a home.’
But Addie didn’t at all want to be seen by the Snodde-Brittles. She thought they looked horrible with their long yellow faces and bulging eyes, and she was more certain than ever that Fulton was up to no good. Dr O’Hara was another matter – and now the Snodde-Brittles saw the doctor bend down and cup his hands as though something was being lowered into them.
‘Ah yes – how interesting! I’ve never seen a phantom prawn before. I think you’d be quite safe putting her in with your fish. It’s a female and they only attack when they’re laying eggs.’ He straightened himself and put his arm round Oliver. ‘You’ve certainly got a most delightful family,’ he said. ‘I haven’t met such pleasant ghosts since I was a little boy in Ireland. Our house was haunted by such an interesting couple – a schoolteacher and his wife who drowned in a bog. They were the most wonderful storytellers.’ He walked over to Fulton and Frieda. ‘I can’t see the slightest sign of mental illness in the boy; he seems as fit as a flea, and for someone who’s going to run a place like this, an open mind about unusual things is most important. You must be so relieved to know that you have nothing at all to worry about.’
But Fulton and Frieda had had enough. The last thing they saw as they hurried back to the car was a fishing rod lift itself into the air and drop into the doctor’s hand.
‘How very kind,’ they heard Dr O’Hara say. ‘I must say an hour’s fishing would be most pleasant. It so happens that it’s my day off.’
‘It’s your fault, you idiot,’ said Frieda when they were alone again. ‘You said you’d get ghosts th
at were going to frighten him into fits and look what you’ve done! Unless Dr O’Hara’s mad. Grandmothers. Boy Scouts. Little girls in nightgowns. It’s ridiculous!’
‘It’s not my fault – it’s the fault of that stupid woman in the agency. She swore she had a pair of spooks that would frighten the living daylights out of people. There must have been a mix-up and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. I tell you, Frieda, I’m not finished yet. I’m going to Set My Foot Upon My—’
‘All right, all right,’ said Frieda grumpily.
She wasn’t really in the mood for feet.
Chapter Fifteen
Colonel Mersham sat on a camp stool beside a meandering dark-brown river, reading a letter.
A turtle lumbered on to a sandbar, huge blue butterflies drank in the shallows, and in the rain-washed trees a family of howler monkeys caught each other’s fleas, but the Colonel did not look up. He was completely absorbed in what he read.
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘An interesting boy and an interesting idea.’
He was surprised. He had agreed to be Oliver’s guardian because he was sorry for the orphaned boy, but he loathed the Snodde-Brittles, who had been his mother’s cousins, and never went near Helton unless he had to.
This boy, though, was different.
He’d come upon a family of ghosts and a child who cared with all her heart for ghostly animals, and he was asking for help.
‘I want to set up a research institute for the study of everything to do with ghostliness,’ the boy had written. ‘I want to find out what ectoplasm is made of and what happens when people become ghosts – and animals too. Addie is particularly worried about the animals: she says you can tell people what happened when they pass on but you can’t tell animals, and they get muddled and bewildered and she’d like to make Helton into a safe place for them to be. Not a zoo, just somewhere they can live in peace.’
Colonel Mersham put the letter down and looked upriver to where Manuel, the Spaniard who had helped him in his travels, had drawn up the canoe. They had journeyed two days and nights to the place where the fabled golden toads of Costa Rica had last been seen. They had searched every lily leaf, every clump of rushes, every stone, but they had come back empty-handed. The beautiful, palpitating, pop-eyed creatures, who had lit up the dark landscape like shimmering suns, were gone.
The Colonel had found it difficult to be brave about this. It was happening in so many places; marvellous animals that lived on now only as memories: the aye-ayes of Madagascar, the tigers of Bali...
And now the golden toads. It had been his dream to see them ever since he was a boy.
Had he given up too early, he wondered? If he could not find a living toad, might he perhaps find... its ghost? And if so, could it be brought back to Helton and cared for, so that people in the future would know what these marvellous creatures had been like?
The Colonel folded his letter and rose to his feet.
‘Manuel!’ he called to his friend. ‘Get the canoe ready! We’re going back!’
Chapter Sixteen
It was the worst day of their lives, both Miss Pringle and Mrs Mannering were agreed on that.
When Mother Margaret and Sister Phyllida came into Miss Pringle’s office, Miss Pringle was delighted. She liked the nuns enormously and she hoped to get good news of her favourite family.
But one look at their faces and the question died in her throat. Mother Margaret looked as though she hadn’t slept for a week; Sister Phyllida had obviously been crying.
‘The most dreadful thing has happened,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘It has been the most terrible experience!’
‘And frankly we don’t understand how you came to do this to us, Miss Pringle. We only wanted to help.’
Miss Pringle was growing more and more frantic. ‘But what has happened? Are you not satisfied with the Wilkinsons? Surely—’
‘Satisfied!’ Mother Margaret was no longer the kind and placid nun who had been to the agency before. ‘Satisfied! When we have two lambs with dislocated legs and a kid with a gash in its throat still at the vet! When we nearly lost our favourite calf and the chickens will probably never lay again!’
‘But I don’t understand. What has gone wrong? Please explain – I sent you the nicest ghosts in—’
Mother Margaret rose from her chair. ‘The nicest ghosts! The nicest! I admit we are not worldly women but you had no right to play such a trick on us. If nice ghosts swoop down on innocent animals and scratch them with their fingernails... If nice ghosts wear evil pythons round their throats and tear the feathers off baby chicks...’
She couldn’t go on. Tears choked her.
‘And the man, Miss Pringle!’ Sister Phyllida took up the story. ‘That dreadful hoofmark, the vicious knees, the stench! He picked up a goat bodily and would have torn it limb from limb if Sister Felicity hadn’t raised her crucifix. Not only that – poor Sister Bridget hit out at the lady with a rowan branch, and look!’ She felt in the pocket of her habit and took out a small box which she opened. ‘You can imagine how she felt when this dropped on to her head.’
Miss Pringle leant forward and her worst fears were confirmed. Quite clear to those who have an eye for such things, was the decayed and bloodstained toe of Lady Sabrina de Bone.
She covered her face with her hands and moaned. ‘Oh heavens, how terrible. It was a mistake... a ghastly, ghastly mistake. Our mistake of course! We were asked for some really frightening ghosts for a stately home in the north and we sent the Shriekers. At least we thought we had. And you were supposed to get the Wilkinsons. I just can’t understand it – we took such care to match you up.’ She too was almost in tears. ‘Thank goodness you knew about exorcism. I mean rowan twigs and prayers and so on.’
‘We knew about it,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘But it is not a thing we liked to do. We wanted to welcome lost souls, not banish them.’
‘Are they... the Shriekers completely... you know... destroyed?’ asked Miss Pringle nervously.
‘Not they! They just took off cursing and screaming, dragging that wretched blob along behind them. They were coming back to London, I believe.’
Miss Pringle was beside herself. ‘You must let us make it up to you – the cost...’
But the nuns shook their heads. ‘There is no money that can make up to us for the terror and the sadness. Our new litter of puppies simply won’t leave their mother at all. They spend their time underneath her – and the bees will take weeks to recover.’
Though she was quite broken up by what had happened, Miss Pringle made a last plea for her favourite family. ‘You wouldn’t consider trying the Wilkinsons instead? They—’
But she had gone too far. ‘Definitely not, Miss Pringle. Frankly, we are surprised that you can ask it,’ said Mother Margaret.
And leaving Lady de Bone’s toe on Miss Pringle’s desk they went away.
When something bad has happened what one needs more than anything is a kind friend to talk to. But when Miss Pringle hurried across the corridor, she found Mrs Mannering as upset as she was herself.
‘I was just coming over, Nellie. I’ve had that Mr Boyd on the telephone – the one from Helton Hall. He was absolutely furious. It seems as though we sent him the Wilkinsons, and he wants them out. He says they’re namby-pamby and useless and he wants the ones he ordered at once. He wants the Shriekers. But where are they?’
‘I’ll tell you where they are,’ said Miss Pringle.
When she had finished, Mrs Mannering had turned quite pale. ‘The honour of our agency is at stake, Nellie. We must find out how it happened. I quite definitely put the Shriekers’ maps in a red folder and gave them to Ted.’
‘And I quite definitely put the Wilkinsons’ maps into a green folder and gave them to Ted.’
So they went into the little office at the back where Ted was sorting out the mail.
‘Now, Ted,’ said Mrs Mannering, ‘there has been a dreadful muddle and we have sent the wrong ghosts to two lots
of adopters. Do you remember my giving you a red folder to leave out for the Shriekers?’
‘And do you remember me giving you a green folder to give to the Wilkinsons?’
Ted got to his feet and stood before them. He was blushing and looking very hang-dog indeed.
‘Yes, I do. But... Well, I left them out like you said... Only... you see...’
So then it all came out. How he was colour-blind and had been afraid to tell them because he didn’t want to lose his job.
‘Oh, Ted, you should have told us; it was very wrong of you. We wouldn’t have dismissed you just for that, and now look at the harm you’ve done.’
‘We’ll have to get a computer anyway,’ said Mrs Mannering. ‘But in the meantime we must put this right at once. Fortunately the Shriekers are still wanted at Helton, so I’ll see if I can get hold of them and let them know.’
‘And I shall go to the Wilkinsons myself and break the bad news. The trouble is the nuns have been put right off adopting any more spooks, so we can’t do a swop. You’re sure they can’t stay at Helton too?’
‘Quite sure. Mr Boyd’s really taken against them. He wants them out at once.’
Miss Pringle dabbed her eyes. ‘It looks as though it’s back to the knicker shop for that dear, nice family. You know, Dorothy, sometimes I think that life just isn’t fair.’
Chapter Seventeen
Miss Pringle arrived at Helton late in the afternoon. Addie and Oliver were out for a walk, but Aunt Maud was waltzing about on the head of the man trying to strangle a snake and she came down at once.
‘Why if it isn’t dear Miss Pringle,’ she said. ‘What a pleasure to see you. We should have let you know before how very happy and grateful we are.’
Grandma, who was having a little nap on one of the benches, now sat up and said, ‘Yes that’s right. It’s a lovely place here; we’re as snug as anything. It just seems like a bad dream now, that time in the knicker shop.’ She called to Eric. ‘Eric, here’s Miss Pringle from the agency come to see how we’ve settled in.’
