Ghostly Holler-Day

by Daren King

  Ghostly Holler-Day

  Daren King studied in Bath and lives in

  London. Mouse Noses on Toast, his first book for

  children, won the Gold Nestlé Children’s Prize.

  Peter the Penguin Pioneer was shortlisted for the

  Blue Peter Award. He is the author of four adult

  books. Boxy an Star was shortlisted for the

  Guardian First Book Award.

  David Roberts is the award-winning illustrator

  of over 30 titles. He has had a variety of

  interesting jobs, such as hair washer, shelf

  stacker, egg fryer and hat designer. He was

  born in Liverpool and now lives in London.

  Praise for Daren King:

  ‘Children will laugh out loud at the zany

  humour and the witty one-liners … while

  David Roberts’ comical illustrations can’t fail to

  raise a giggle.’ Scholastic Literacy Time Plus

  Magazine

  ‘King is very good at making children think

  about their world … hugely inventive and

  charmingly funny, early readers will adore

  having this book read to them and will love

  trying it themselves.’ Literary Review

  ‘Writer and illustrator have produced an

  hilarious fun-packed riot.’ Herald

  Ghostly Holler-Day

  Daren King

  Illustrations by David Roberts

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

  Quercus

  21 Bloomsbury Square

  London

  WC1A 2NS

  Copyright © Daren King, 2010

  Illustration copyright © David Roberts, 2010

  The moral right of Daren King to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 0 85738 089 0

  Print ISBN 978 1 85738 045 6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  For Rebecca

  Also by this author

  MOUSE NOSES ON TOAST

  SENSIBLE HARE AND THE CASE OF CARROTS

  PETER THE PENGUIN PIONEER

  FRIGHTFULLY FRIENDLY GHOSTIES

  Contents

  The Postcard

  Wartime Ticket Office

  Frighten-on-Sea

  The Caped Figure

  The Fortune Teller

  The Old Victorian Pier

  Hall of Mirrors

  Bumper Cars

  Ghost Train

  Ferris Wheel

  The Old Victorian Music Hall

  Trapped!

  Headless Leslie

  The Magician

  The Magician’s Illusion

  Velvet Trousers

  Alfie Spectre

  1

  The Postcard

  If you had seen us ghosties gathered on the front lawn that morning, winter coats buttoned up to our glum faces, you’d have thought we were on our way to a funeral.

  But then you’d have noticed the suitcases with Agatha’s hat box on top like a cherry on a cake, and the penny would’ve dropped. Those ghosties are off on their holler-days.

  I’m Charlie, by the way. Charlie Vapour. I take my hat off to you!

  It all started yesterday evening, with Wither hiding the postcard from Headless Leslie.

  No, let me think—

  It started with us lot floating about in the hall, bored out of our haunted heads. Tabitha had an idea, and the light bulb popped. That always happens when Tabitha has an idea.

  Tabitha Tumbly is a poltergeist, see, and that means she can move things and make things happen, using the power of thought.

  One minute you’re wisping about in the glare of the chandelier or that antique lamp by the bookcase, and the next thing you know, Tabitha has one of her bright ideas and the room is plunged into darkness. And there’s Pamela Fraidy trembling with fright and Wither blubbing about the price of light bulbs.

  ‘What us ghosties need,’ said Tabitha as we flitted about in the darkness, ‘is a holler-day.’

  ‘A holler-day?’ I said. ‘You mean, the sort you go on, then come back?’

  ‘It usually works like that,’ Tabitha said. ‘A holler-day, by the sea.’

  We all wisped into the light of the lounge.

  ‘That is a super idea,’ Agatha said, clutching her pearls. ‘Every ghosty loves a holler-day.’

  ‘And it’s dead boring around here,’ Humphrey Bump said, ‘since the still-alives moved out.’

  ‘But it’s winter,’ said Wither, gazing through the lounge window at the blue-black sky. ‘My knees will knock.’

  ‘The sun always shines by the sea,’ I told the daft old fool. ‘At least, that’s how I remember it, from when I was a boy.’

  Agatha Draft floated over to the coffee table and grabbed a couple of holler-day brochures. ‘Frighten-on-Sea, or Scare-borough?’

  The trouble was, me, Pamela and Agatha fancied Scare-borough, and the other three favoured Frighten.

  That was when we caught Wither hiding something behind the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. ‘What have you got there?’ I asked him, and he turned red – well, as red as you can get when you’ve been dead two hundred years – and wisped behind the clock.

  ‘Why did he wisp behind the clock?’ Humphrey asked me, loosening his school tie.

  ‘He’s embarrassed,’ I told the boy. ‘Wither always wisps behind the clock when he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.’

  It took us ten minutes to get Wither out from behind that clock. We tried everything. Humphrey Bump bumped the clock with his fat belly, and Tabitha jiggled the clock this way and that. I crossed my fingers behind my back and told Wither that if he came out, we’d let him perform one of his poems.

  ‘Aggie,’ Tabitha said, turning to Agatha Draft, ‘you could rustle up one of your force ten gales, and blow him out.’

  ‘I would,’ Agatha said, ‘if I had I the skills.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ I told her. ‘If there’s any ghosty who can blow Wither out from behind that carriage clock, it’s you, Aggie.’

  Agatha Draft possesses the ghostly ability to create an eerie breeze at will – the sort of breeze that ruffles a gentleman’s collar, and makes the cat’s fur stand on end.

  ‘Look away, then,’ Agatha said, and we all turned to the window while Agatha sent the clock sailing along the mantelpiece.

  When Wither tumbled out, looking flustered and mixed up, he was holding this seaside postcard. GREETINGS FROM FRIGHTEN, it said on the front.

  Humphrey snatched the postcard from Wither’s bony, boneless fingers, blew a raspberry and handed the postcard to Tabitha.

  ‘It’s from Headless Leslie,’ said Tabitha. ‘Wither, this postcard is add
ressed to all of us. Why did you hide it behind the clock?’

  The stubborn old fool refused to answer. He just floated by the fireplace with his hands in his trouser pockets, then wrinkled his brow in thought and said, ‘Charlie, you told me that if I floated out from behind the clock, you would allow me to recite one of my poems. Well, here I am, and—’

  ‘You didn’t float out,’ I said. ‘Agatha had to blow you out.’

  Tabitha handed Wither the postcard. ‘You can read out Leslie’s postcard instead.’

  Wither floated over to the chandelier, and tried to make out Leslie’s spidery handwriting. He cleared his throat and started reading in that warbly, passionate voice he puts on when he recites poetry.

  Humphrey stuffed his fingers in his ears and poked his tongue out.

  ‘Normal voice, please,’ Tabitha said. ‘We can’t make out a word you’re saying.’

  Leslie had written about how he’d gone on holler-day to Frighten, and how he had forgotten the way back.

  ‘No wonder we haven’t seen him since August,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘Headless Leslie would forget his head if it wasn’t screwed on,’ said Pamela.

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Wither.

  ‘But he wrote the address on the postcard,’ I said, straightening my trilby hat. ‘If he hadn’t, it’d never have got here.’

  ‘He must have forgotten the address after he wrote it down,’ Tabitha said. ‘And perhaps he then tried to read it, but couldn’t read the handwriting.’

  ‘Leslie’s handwriting is frightfully spidery,’ said Pamela Fraidy, and she shivered.

  Agatha floated about the lounge, rattling her pearls and fluttering her elegant eyelashes. ‘Our decision has been made for us. We holler-day in Frighten, and find our dear friend Headless Leslie.’

  ‘And his head,’ said Wither. ‘Don’t forget his head.’

  2

  Wartime Ticket Office

  So that’s how it came about. A haunted holler-day by the sea, in the dead of winter.

  Trouble was, we had to get there first, and we had an awful lot of luggage. And Humphrey Bump had this rubber ring around his waist – ‘Just think of all the bumping you can do with that,’ Agatha said – and he’d inflated it so big he could hardly fit through the front door.

  Not only that, but us ghosties aren’t terribly popular. Odd, really. After all, we’re frightfully friendly.

  It was too cold to be outside if you didn’t have to, so there weren’t a lot of villagers about. The only still-alive we passed was the batty old woman from down the road, who shook her walking stick at Pamela Fraidy and yelled something mean.

  Poor Pamela. She’s a nervous wreck as it is, and that old woman is enough to give anyone the shivers.

  The moment we floated into the village train station, dragging our ghostly luggage, the ticket office door slammed shut and a CLOSED sign flapped into place behind the glass.

  ‘This always happens when we try to buy train tickets,’ said Wither, glancing at his pocket watch. ‘Our sense of timing is atrocious.’

  ‘There’s always the old wartime ticket office,’ I said with a wink.

  ‘That ticket office was destroyed during the Blitz,’ said Tabitha. ‘I wasn’t born back then, but my grandfather told me all about it.’

  ‘Bombed out or not,’ I said, ‘it’s still open, for those in the know.’

  We flitted further down the track to where the train station used to be, and the air shimmered as the wartime ticket office materialised before our eyes.

  There was a big hole in the roof and the windows had shattered, and there was a good deal of smoke, and when the station master floated out from under the counter he had his fingers in his ears, and his spectacles were speckled with dust and soot.

  ‘Six terrifying tickets,’ I told the man, doffing my hat.

  ‘This ticket office is spiffing,’ Agatha said. ‘Is there a ghostly wartime train, too?’

  ‘There is,’ I said, ‘but it’s a steam train, so it’s a bit on the slow side, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Trains should go super fast,’ Humphrey said, bumping this way and that.

  ‘The still-alives will make room for us on the still-alive train,’ Tabitha said. ‘They always do.’

  ‘Only because they don’t want to sit with us,’ said Wither. ‘You know how mean-spirited they are.’

  3

  Frighten-on-Sea

  As we unloaded our luggage at Frighten Station, Pamela trembled with cold, Wither’s teeth chattered and Agatha sneezed an eerie, breezy sneeze. I had to pull my hat right down to my pencil-thin moustache to keep the wind out of my eyeballs.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ said Pamela. There were no still-alives on the platform, and most of the passengers had left the train at Ghoole.

  ‘It’s November,’ Pamela said. ‘Who visits the seaside in winter?’

  ‘A lot of people live in Frighten,’ Tabitha said.

  The handful of tourists who had braved the winter weather screamed at us and ran off, which ain’t exactly friendly, you have to admit.

  ‘This place is like a ghost town,’ said Wither as we floated onto the main street.

  ‘I expect they’re all on the beach,’ Agatha said. ‘Winter it may be, but us ghosties are on our holler-days, and I intend to make the most of it.’ She lifted the lid from her hat box and placed an elegant floppy sunhat on her head.

  ‘My arms are tired,’ said Pamela Fraidy. ‘Charlie, Wither, sorry to be a frightful bore, but if you two ghosties were gentlemen you would offer to carry our cases.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, sort of polite but miffed at the same time.

  The three girl-ghosties dropped their luggage and skipped off into the chilly air.

  ‘I’m too old and angular for luggage,’ Wither said, flexing his bony arms. ‘Charlie, you and Humphrey can carry it. I’m a poet, not a carthorse. I’d put my back out, and—’

  ‘And I’m too dapper,’ I said, adjusting my cufflinks. ‘Humphrey’s good at carrying luggage.’ Before Humphrey could protest, I loaded him up with the six ghostly suitcases, Agatha’s hat box and Pamela’s bucket and spade.

  ‘Tabitha, you must be frightfully cold in that bikini,’ Pamela said.

  ‘Not at all,’ Tabitha said, rubbing her goosepimply arms.

  ‘The sea air is bracing,’ Agatha gasped as we turned onto the promenade. ‘And – oh – I do believe it has stolen my hat.’

  A winter gale had blown in from across the sea, tossing the waves this way and that, whistling through Wither’s bony head, in one ear and out the other, and the wind had snatched Agatha’s floppy sunhat and wisped it away.

  I had to laugh. Well, she did look a sight, chasing after it down the prom-tiddly-om-pompom. And of course, Agatha being the breezy sort, she couldn’t help but rustle up a breeze of her own. The closer she got to the sunhat the further along the promenade it blew.

  ‘Don’t just float there,’ Agatha yelled. ‘Float over here and help.’

  The sunhat didn’t stop tossing and tumbling until it walloped into a tatty old newsstand, situated on the edge of the beach. Agatha retrieved it from a pile of crumpled newspapers and blew dust from the floppy brim.

  As Tabitha, Wither, Pamela and myself floated over, a group of tourists flung their buckets and spades into the air and ran off down the street.

  ‘Why are you all leaving?’ Wither asked them. ‘Is it something we said?’

  ‘Ghosts!’ one of the tourists screamed back as they disappeared out of sight.

  ‘I think they may be right,’ Tabitha whispered into my ear. She was studying the headlines on the newsstand. ‘It seems Frighten-on-Sea is haunted.’

  FRIGHTEN PIER HAUNTED BY HEADLESS GHOST, the headline read.

  ‘Don’t tell poor Pamela,’ said Agatha, arranging her sunhat. ‘Ghosts terrify her, and she’s a nervous wreck as it is.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what?’ Pamela Fraidy said with eyes like teacups. />
  It was myself, Charlie Vapour esquire – I take my hat off to you – who pointed out the obvious. ‘The headless ghost is our Leslie.’

  ‘Headless Leslie wouldn’t haunt,’ said Agatha. ‘He may have been dead since Elizabethan times, but he’s frightfully sweet, and it’s hardly his fault his head comes off.’

  A hackney carriage pulled up, led by a transparent horse. It was the sort of transport they’d have had in Frighten before I was born, back in Wither’s time. The roof was loaded up with luggage. Humphrey Bump sat perched at the very top, stuffing his big round head with doughnuts.

  ‘The hotel on Starfish Street,’ I told the driver as I sat with the girls in the carriage. I closed the door and fastened the ghostly latch.

  ‘This is frightfully fun,’ Agatha said as the carriage lurched forward. ‘I say, where’s Wither?’

  ‘Hither,’ said Wither, and in through the window he wisped.

  4

  The Caped Figure

  All that talk of hauntings gave me the shivers. I couldn’t sleep that night, and after an hour of tossing and turning I decided to float out for a lungful of fresh air.

  At least, that was what I told Wither.

  The daft old fool was snoring his head off in the top bunk – Humphrey tends to go bump in the night, so we gave him a double bed to himself in the next room, and the girls shared a room across the hall – but of course, the moment my big toe touched the carpet he woke up.

  Truth is, I had a spot of business to attend to. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more.

  I floated into my comfy slippers, tied the cord of my dressing gown, then wisped under the bedroom door and down the dimly lit hallway to the back of the hotel, where I passed through the outer wall.

  That’s this little trick of mine.

  Every ghosty has a ghostly skill, as I’ve said. There’s Wither’s ability to write the most dreadful poetry, and Humphrey’s ability to bump into everything in sight, for example.