The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom

by Margaret Mahy

  And then the ghost slowly took its own form once more. Somehow, it flowed out around Rancid, and not merely around him either, but right through him. Rancid gasped… struggled… crumpled and fell to his knees, giving strange whooping cries almost as if his throat and lungs had been filled with snow. The ghost moved away from him, leaving him twisting on the floor. It stood beside the frozen bunk and looked at Bonniface, still clasping the diary. Then it looked towards Corona, who was holding the gun as if she was not quite sure what to do with it. After that, the ghost looked into Sophie’s eyes.

  “I can tell you’re brave,” it said. “See that bunk there? Lift the blanket. It’s frozen, but see if you can lift it all the same.”

  Sophie and Edward struggled to shift that frozen blanket. They pushed and pulled until it cracked and came to pieces in their mitted hands Under that shattered blanket lay a figure, its open eyes peering up at them through a shroud of ice. Its face was shrunken and withered, but there was no doubt that they were looking at the body of Captain Cathcardo himself. Rancid Swarthy yelled and writhed in the doorway, but nobody took any notice of him.

  “Escher Black killed me,” Captain Cathcardo said. “I thought he was my friend. I was so excited, I told him about the meteorite and showed him the diamonds. So he stabbed me with his knife, and stole the diamonds. I think he even wrenched my good-luck pendant from around my neck. I seem to remember him waving it in front of my dying eyes, laughing as he did so. I don’t know for sure what happened after that. I suppose he sailed the ship into this outlet, told the crew some story and led them away. You may be able to tell me the end of my own story. And I do hope that, now you are here, I might be set free at last… free to go on to the next thing.”

  “Help! Help!” screamed Rancid. “What’s happened? Where has the world gone?”

  “It’s still around you,” Sophie assured him.

  “No, it isn’t!” he yelled back. “The world’s gone. Gone! Where did all this blue mist come from?”

  “Why haven’t you gone on to the next thing before this?” Edward asked Captain Cathcardo. “I once read that ghosts couldn’t cross running water, but nearly all the water here is frozen.”

  “I think I needed my pendant. It was virtually part of me,” the ghost explained. “And perhaps I needed to haunt my logbook.” It smiled at Bonniface. “Now I know that the right person has found it I might be free to go.”

  “Take me with you!” screamed Rancid, who was still gasping and whooping and wailing and waving wildly on the floor behind them. “I’ll scrape off some of the diamonds from my bedroom ceiling and give them to you. I promise I will.”

  “I don’t need diamonds…” began Bonniface. “I want to know!” He looked at Captain Cathcardo again. “I just want to know!”

  “I understand,” said the ghost. “I was like that too, once upon a time.”

  “Will you really be able to go on to the next thing?” Sophie asked curiously. “What is the next thing?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” the Captain replied.

  Sophie unzipped her first jacket so that she could pull her scarf free. She unwrapped her scarf so she could get at her first collar.

  “Sophie!” cried Corona. “Don’t! You’ll freeze.”

  But Sophie had already unzipped her second layer, and was feeling quickly under her third fourth and fifth layers. She ducked her head as she lifted the cord of the pendant over her head.

  “Is this yours?” she asked.

  Captain Cathcardo gave a cry of happiness. “It IS mine!” he cried. He took it from her. “It was stolen from me, but it is mine. See? I can’t hold anything else, but I can hold this.”

  The pendant swung safely from his gloved fingers.

  Corona, in a particularly motherly way, was hastening to wrap Sophie’s scarf back around her throat, to pull up her neck gaiter, to zip up her second layer, and then to zip up her first. Meanwhile, Rancid had somehow staggered to his feet.

  “Help me!” he was shouting as he toppled to the right, toppled to the left and then fell over again. His black mukluks kicked at the air. “Why am I going in all directions at once?” he screamed.

  “Let’s climb out on to the deck,” suggested Captain Cathcardo.

  “I thought you were going on to the next thing,” said Edward.

  “Another five minutes won’t hurt me,” said Captain Cathcardo, moving towards the door. Rancid howled with apprehension and rightly so, for the ghost walked through him for the second time. “I fancy one last look at the ice,” said the Captain, making for the companionway.

  They all followed him, stepping past Rancid – Bonniface hugging the diary, Corona hoisting Hotspur on to one shoulder and carrying the gun over the other, Edward scooping up Rancid’s powerful torch as he wriggled by, and Sophie (who came last of all) managing to jump right across him, cleverly avoiding his frantic kicking.

  “We’ll come back and get you,” she promised (because, after all, you have to be kind even to someone nasty or it means you are being nasty yourself). “Try to relax!”

  “Wait for me! Wait!” howled Rancid, so desperate by now that he actually did manage to come tumbling after them, crashing against first one frozen wall and then against the other. Sophie couldn’t help feeling sorry for him in spite of his wickedness. Desperately, he climbed up after them, crashing and tumbling over the deck. And then, as the Sapwoods and Corona slipped and slid down the gangplank, grasping the rail all the way. Rancid somersaulted over that rail, crashing on to the ice below. “Help me!” he howled yet again.

  “We can’t just leave him,” said Sophie reluctantly, and when they stood on level ground once more, Bonniface helped his flapping, flopping enemy to his feet.

  “Lean on me!” he suggested, and Rancid did lean on him which was very uncomfortable.

  Light seemed to flare up around them. It was a dim light, but to anyone emerging from the depths of The Riddle it was almost dazzling. They all squeezed back through the little gap connecting the two caves to see, once again, those blue serpents of sea and sky and the ghostly white penguins. In the distance, through the big hole that Bonniface and Edward had broken in the ice wall not so very long ago, they could see sunlight. And, black against that brightness, stood an unexpected figure. Someone, it seemed, was waiting there, peering in at them anxiously. Beyond this figure they could also make out part of a black helicopter.

  “Take me home!” howled Rancid. “Take me home!” And, letting go of Bonniface’s shoulder, he stumbled ahead of them towards the helicopter.

  “Let’s be careful!” Corona hissed sideways to Bonniface. “Remember that smile! He’s treacherous – through and through. He might have guns on that helicopter.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” said the ghost. “I altered all that as I went through him. I didn’t know I could do such things, but I found I could. I mean, he’s doing his best to be treacherous right now, but his wickedness will never work again. It must be very upsetting for him. Anyone can see how he depends on it.”

  As they watched, Rancid sprang in his lopsided way towards the mouth of the cave, and the man waiting there rushed to meet him. But Rancid sent him sprawling and blundered past, making for the waiting helicopter. The sprawling man, a short, weedy little fellow, picked himself up and ran frantically after him.

  “No! Wait, Sir! Wait!” he was howling. “Just hang on a bit! Crambo’s still on board.” He tripped over but leaped to his feet once more, shouting all the time. “Crambo hasn’t finished the… that is to say we can’t blow up the cave just yet! Sir, we can’t take off. There’s no pilot on board.”

  “I’ll fly it myself,” Rancid shrieked over his shoulder. “I’ve had lessons.”

  Climbing the helicopter steps, he dived through its door and vanished from sight.

  “Wait, Sir!” the short man cried over and over again, bounding wildly after Rancid. “You don’t know what Crambo’s been up to.” The helicopter was already throbbin
g and shaking. The short man leaped up the steps and vanished too. Then the steps fell backwards on to the snow, and the helicopter lifted into the blue and gold of the endless day of the Antarctic summer. They watched it grow smaller and smaller as it wobbled wildly off into the north.

  The Sapwoods, Corona and the ghost wound their way through flocks of white penguins, taking care not to stand on any nests. As they came to the mouth of the cave they were astonished to find a stranger sitting on a rock and staring out after the helicopter with a stunned expression.

  “They’ve left me behind,” he said. “I can’t work out what’s going on. Me, I’m from Scott Base. I was told to pilot the Swarthy Industries helicopter for Rancid Swarthy, which I did. I landed exactly where Mr Swarthy wanted me to land – just over there. Then, after Mr Swarthy had shot off into that cave, one of the passengers – the big man – Crambo, they called him – ordered me off the helicopter. I don’t know what he was up to, but I suspect it might be something to do with explosions. He was certainly one of those blokes who liked things to go with a bang And, hey – that little joker didn’t want anyone trying to take off in the helicopter, did he?”

  “No,” agreed Corona. “He didn’t. But he jumped into it himself, for all that.”

  “I think he wanted to stop his brother doing whatever it was he was doing,” said the pilot. “And before they really knew what was going on, they were up in the air.”

  “Gone!” said Bonniface, sighing with relief. “I’m glad they’ve gone.” But as he spoke there came the sound of a distant explosion, and a sudden fierce burst of light flared up beyond the headland.

  “Doesn’t sound good,” said the pilot. “I don’t think we’ll hear from them for a while.”

  “We’d better try to rescue them,” said Edward doubtfully.

  “They wouldn’t come to your rescue,” said the pilot, shaking his head.

  “But we’re better man they are,” exclaimed Sophie. “We have to be.”

  “Where’s my cell phone?” cried Bonniface a little wearily. “I’ll call in the experts.”

  By now they were all standing out in the Antarctic summer light, with many albino penguins, blinking in the sunshine, standing around them. Although it was hard to feel properly worried about anyone as wicked as Rancid Swarthy, or even Explosions Ltd, Bonniface began searching the trailer of the blue skiddoo for his cell phone so that he could ring Scott Base and arrange for a Rancid Swarthy search party.

  But the ghost showed no anxiety. “I had forgotten how beautiful it was,” he said, staring around him.

  The children and Corona Wottley did not even glance at him as he said this because they were too busy looking outward themselves – out across snow, and ice and sea to an ethereal line of peaks and glaciers. They couldn’t help feeling happy… happy simply to be alive.

  “Maybe it’s better man being on another planet,” said Edward.

  And suddenly an entirely new voice chimed in – a voice that no one had ever heard clearly before.

  “Wonderful world!” it said.

  “Hotspur!” screamed Sophie. “Hotspur said something!”

  “Wonderful!” repeated Hotspur, beaming around at everyone, thrilled by his own cleverness.

  The strange thing was that, right then, having Hotspur speak actual words suddenly became the most exciting thing that had happened all day. It was only when they had stopped fussing over Hotspur, praising him and trying to get him to say a whole lot of other things, that they looked up at each other, all smiling, and saw Captain Cathcardo was dissolving into the air. It was a little like watching grains of sugar melted by hot water, except that he was being melted by light.

  The ghostly figure smiled back at them as he slowly disappeared. He waved at them; his lips moved. There was no sound but they could tell he was saying, goodbye… goodbye… goodbye to them all, goodbye to The Riddle, goodbye to the wild, white world of the Antarctic. Set free at last, he was going on to the next thing…

  CHAPTER 29

  Antarctic Wishes

  “Let’s go on,” said Edward. “Let’s go all the way to the South Pole.”

  “I know just how you feel,” said his father and Corona together.

  “But we can’t,” added Corona. “We’ve got just enough fuel to take us home and a little bit over in case of accidents. And don’t forget we’ve now got an extra passenger as well.”

  “Thanks,” said the pilot, looking deeply grateful.

  “Besides,” added Bonniface, “this has been the easy part. Going to the South Pole would be ten times as hard. We’ll do that some other time. In any case,” he added, “I can’t wait to tell everyone that I’ve found the lost Riddle.”

  “Who found it?” asked Corona giving him a hard look.

  “I mean ‘we’,” cried Bonniface quickly “We found it. You, me and the kids! Oh, Corona, we’ll be famous all over again. Aren’t you glad to be able to have such adventures?”

  “I wasn’t too sure half an hour ago, but I am right now,” said Sophie.

  “I’m still thinking about it,” said Edward.

  So they collected themselves, trekked over to the skiddoos, repacked themselves and rearranged themselves. Then they got off the skiddoos, unpacked themselves and rearranged themselves some more until, at last, they had fitted everyone and everything on in a comfortable way. Then off they went, shooting around the coast once more.

  “If people come to look at The Riddle I do hope they’re kind to the albino penguins,” said Sophie to Corona. “I don’t think those penguins will like big crowds.”

  “They’ll have to arrange it very carefully,” said Corona. “They’ll have to wait until the nesting season is over, for example. And perhaps they might even haul The Riddle back round the coast and set up a Riddle museum at Scott Base. Then the penguins would have the caves all to themselves again.”

  “We’ll see,” cried Hotspur, already sounding as if he knew everything. But sometimes little kids are like that.

  So they skiddooed back past the place where they had been buried in snow, then back to the ice hut where they rested, ate dinner and wrote in their diaries, and slept and dreamed while the sun edged on around them. Then they woke up, ate breakfast and set off again.

  “You know there’s something important I’m forgetting,” said Corona fretfully. “I can feel it flicking around in my head, but I can’t quite catch hold of it.”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” Bonniface said, “because there’s something I’ve forgotten, too. It’s there in the back of my head, but I can’t quite pull it into the front of things, if you know what I mean.”

  “Same with me!” said Edward.

  “Me too!” said Sophie.

  “I know I’m forgetting something important,” put in the pilot, frowning and tapping his forehead.

  “I know!” said Hotspur, looking rather smug.

  “Well, what is it, Mr Clever?” said Edward, a little crossly. After all, it is annoying when a little brother, who has just spoken for the first time, claims to remember something you have forgotten.

  “Secret!” said Hotspur even more smugly.

  Back, back, back they travelled, and somehow all things went wonderfully well. The snow was crisp. The sun kept its golden eye on them as they skiddoodled and skiddaddled and skiddeedled along, singing as they went. The pilot joined in cheerfully.

  “We love the Antarctic,” sang the new voice of Hotspur.

  “A great place to be,” agreed Edward quickly adding a line of his own.

  “We found The Riddle!” sang Bonniface and Corona, inventing as one explorer and smiling secretly from skiddoo to skiddoo.

  “We set the ghost free,” Sophie finished the song for them, remembering that last radiant smile of mysterious Captain Cathcardo as she did so.

  And for a while they fell silent, all thinking their own thoughts, while the silence of the Antarctic arched over them.

  “There! There!” shouted Bonniface s
uddenly. And sure enough, there ahead of them they could see the long green sheds of Scott Base. The pilot shouted with pleasure. He was longing for a cup of tea.

  Bonniface and Corona looked deeply into each other’s eyes across the snow that separated the blue and red skiddoos. They were both longing for a quick cup of tea, to be followed quickly by an Antarctic wedding, with a big party afterwards.

  Edward found he was longing for sausages cooked on a barbecue. Hotspur wanted to dance in the snow, make a snowman and throw snowballs at his brother and sister.

  Sophie wanted something too. She wanted to remember what it was she knew she was somehow forgetting… some special, happy thing that was dancing like a dream in the back of her mind.

  They slid in between the green sheds, parked the skiddoos, sniffed the Scott Base air, and then sniffed again. The air smelt delicious. It smelt of roast turkey, onions, potatoes, green peas and steamed pudding. Bonniface shouted, and a whole lot of people (all wearing five layers of Antarctic clothes) came running to greet them, waving their mitts high in the air and cheering as they ran. In between cheers they were shouting something over and over again.

  “Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas!” everyone was calling out to them.

  “Oh! Of course!” cried Sophie. “Fancy forgetting Christmas!”

  “There’s been so much else to think about,” said Edward. “And it seems as if everything has happened in just one day.”

  “Happy Christmas!” they shouted back, leaping off the skiddoos and dancing happily.

  “It’s wonderful to see you all safe and smiling,” said one of the then. “We did check on that exploded helicopter you told us about, but it had blown itself into black dust. It must have been a tremendously efficient explosion.”

  “I had the strangest feeling while we were looking at that dust,” said another man. “I glanced up and thought I saw three misty figures fighting with one another. But when I blinked and looked again they were gone.”

  “I saw them too,” exclaimed a third man. “It was highly spooky. Personally, I think that the place where that helicopter crashed is going to be haunted from now on.”