The Great Ghost Rescue

  They drove steadily north. It got colder; rain began to slide in from the sea. On either side Rick saw brown peat bogs swirling with mist; granite boulders glistening with damp; trees gnarled and bent against the wind.

  The road narrowed and ran along the side of a deep, black loch. And then it became a rutted track taking them across the neck of shingle and sand that joined Insleyfarne to the mainland – and there they were.

  The ghosts just couldn’t believe it! As soon as the driver had gone, promising to return for Rick in a few hours, they appeared one by one, clapping their hands and laughing with happiness.

  ‘And what’s more, we can stay visible for ever and ever,’ shouted Humphrey. ‘Can’t we!’

  Rick said, yes they could, and then they did a tour of their new home.

  It had everything. A castle with dungeons, a derelict chapel, a ruined village with tumble-down houses.... Up on the hill was a burial mound and the old rocket site with some rusty Nissen huts. Every tree, every blade of grass was bent and twisted by the wind. And surrounding them on three sides, roaring and pounding and sighing as much as any ghost could wish for, was the cold, grey Atlantic Ocean.

  When they had looked at everything all the ghosts went off to choose where they would like to live. The Hag and the Gliding Kilt decided on the castle.

  ‘Oh, darlings, what a lovely, lovely home,’ said the Hag, scrabbling about happily among the owl pellets and mouldy feathers that littered the old guard room.

  Rick was glad she thought so. Insleyfarne Castle was a hulking black ruin. The windows – just slits, really, that people had used for pouring boiling oil through – were stuck up with the droppings of thousands of sea birds, weird fungi grew up the damp walls; evil-looking steps led downwards into dark dungeons or upwards into nowhere.

  ‘A very nice little place indeed,’ said the Gliding Kilt approvingly, shooing two large rats out of the old armoury. ‘This’ll do nicely for my study.’

  ‘Can I have this room for my own, Mother?’ asked Winifred, pointing to a round pit into which prisoners had once been thrown so as to starve to death. ‘It’s so pretty.’

  ‘I’m going to sleep here,’ screamed George from the top of the East Tower.

  Rick left them to it and went to find Humphrey who was helping Aunt Hortensia to stable her horses.

  ‘Very satisfactory, most delightful place, such lovely air,’ she said, pushing her horses into the roofless stable through which the rain was beating down. ‘I’ve seen the place for me – a nice little burial mound under those blasted oak trees. Nothing like dead Scotsmen for making the earth soft and comfortable. Here, give! Good dog!’ And the Shuk dropped her head which she tucked under her arm and then she wandered off through the icy rain towards her tomb.

  ‘I wanted that tomb,’ said Humphrey, and his jawbones began to tremble. ‘At Craggyford I always slept in a tomb.’

  ‘Oh, tombs are crummy,’ said Rick. ‘We’ll find somewhere much better for you.’

  And they did. An old, dark, deep well which had gone dry and had a lovely soft bottom of mouldering leaves and slime. No one could see Humphrey when he was curled up at the bottom and he absolutely loved it.

  ‘I’m Humphrey the Horrible, the Ghost of the Well,’ he shrieked, gliding up and down and making his voice echo.

  All the other ghosts were just as happy. The vampire bats had found a marvellous cave on the side of a cliff. It was full of seagull droppings and broken eggshells and bones from animals which had been trapped in it and died there. And it had an excellent view of the sea.

  ‘And I’ve solved the food problem, my dears, simply solved it,’ said Susie excitedly to Rick.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Seals, don’t you see. Seals! The place is full of them. And they’re warm-blooded animals. Mammals. Not cold and acid to the stomach like fish.’ She pointed with her terrible fangs out to sea and there, sure enough, were about twenty sleek bobbing heads.

  ‘Won’t they mind—’ began Rick.

  ‘Now Rick,’ said Susie reproachfully. ‘How many times have I told you that we vampires know our job. And believe me the seals will like to have us around.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if a place is known to be haunted by vampire bats no human beings will go near it. And you know what humans have done to seals in the past.’

  Rick hung his head. He remembered seeing rows of sealskin coats in the window of the furrier near his home. Even his grandmother, though she was a very nice woman, owned one.

  ‘Will Rose be able to manage? Aren’t seals rather tough?’

  ‘Thanks to you she will,’ said Susie, and her evil, bloodsucking face was soft with gratitude. ‘She’s so much stronger. I shall never be able to thank you enough. And I want you to know that if ever you need help, the boys and I can be with you in no time. We’re usually very careful feeders as I’ve told you but if you do want anyone killed or slowly torn to death or anything, just say the word.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rick. He was really very touched. For a moment he thought of asking them to call on Mrs Crawler one night, but then he decided against it and just put out a hand to stroke the top of Rose’s downy head where it poked out of her mother’s pouch. He was going to miss her horribly.

  The Mad Monk was as happy as the rest of them. He had found a small, ruined chapel – nothing more than four walls open to the sky with a mound of stones where the altar had been but it suited him beautifully. ‘Oh, the quiet, oh, the peace,’ he mumbled. ‘I shall be able to pull myself together here. Look at my ectoplasm! It’s looking healthier already, don’t you think?’ And he wandered off to show his muscles (which certainly looked less like cold porridge than they had done) to Aunt Hortensia.

  Only Walter the Wet had been a bit doubtful. ‘It’s with it being sea water, you see. Salty like. I’m not used to salt water. What if I curdle?’

  So they all came down to the shore to watch and very, very carefully Walter the Wet put his left big toe into the water and took it out again. Then they all crowded round and poked it and held it against the light and it seemed to be all right. So he put his whole foot into the water and when that was all right too he gave a sudden whoop and plunged into the sea.

  ‘Smashing,’ he said, surfacing. ‘But tingly-like. But bracing. I feel years younger. What I reckon is,’ said Walter the Wet, ‘water’s water when all’s said and done. That’s what it is. Water.’ And he disappeared again beneath the waves.

  When everyone was settled in they had a party. It was a celebration party because they’d found their sanctuary but also a farewell party for Rick who was going back to school in a few hours so that happiness and sadness were a bit mixed up. The Hag hadn’t had much time to get things ready but she’d done wonders all the same. The old Banqueting Hall was decorated with cobwebs and the crossed thighbones of dead rats which made a delightful pattern on the slime-covered walls. Everyone had a roast toad wrapped in henbane leaves and the Hag had made an excellent drink by mixing the scum of an old water barrel with crushed Mugwort. (Rick had to do with sardine sandwiches and chocolate biscuits which the lorry driver had given him, but he didn’t mind.)

  Then the Gliding Kilt made a beautiful speech about Rick, calling him all sorts of things like ‘brave’ and ‘resourceful’ and ‘clever’ and said he thought the sanctuary should be called the Henderson Sanctuary because Henderson was Rick’s second name. And he said that ghosts all over the world would come to know Rick’s name and be grateful to him for the rest of eternity.

  ‘To Richard Henderson,’ said the Gliding Kilt, raising his glass of scum, and all the ghosts stood up and said: ‘To Richard Henderson.’

  After this everyone felt quite het up with emotion so they played games. They had Vanishing Races to see who could vanish quickest and Aunt Hortensia won which put her in an excellent mood. Then they played something called Curse as Curse Can to see who could make up the best curses and the Gliding Kilt won that. though Rick had second
prize with one which began ‘Cursed be the Creepy Crawlers, Cursed be their Son...’ After that they played Hunt the Slipper only instead of a slipper they used Aunt Hortensia’s Head. It was great fun but after a bit her head got so giggly that you could hear it even when it was hidden.

  And then at last it was time to say good-bye to Rick. It was a bad moment for all of them but for Humphrey it was almost unbearable.

  ‘Humphrey,’ said the Hag sternly as they all clustered round Rick to see him off. ‘Ghosts groan. Ghosts wail. Ghosts moan and scream and gibber. But ghosts never, never cry.’

  It was the sort of stupid remark that even the nicest grownups make sometimes because Humphrey quite obviously and plainly wasn’t just crying, he was practically floating away on his tears. ‘I’ll come back often and often,’ promised Rick, who wasn’t feeling too dry-eyed himself.

  The last few moments after the lorry driver hooted down on the causeway, were just a flurry of handshakes, hugs, curses and thumps from the Shuk’s three tails. Then, with a last pat of Baby Rose’s head and a whiff of rotten sheep’s intestines which the Hag had been keeping specially for the occasion. Rick, squeezing Humphrey’s skeletal little fingers for the last time, was gone.

  For the first few miles of the drive through the bleak Scottish countryside Rick’s eyes were too misted up for him to see anything at all. Then, as they drove over an old stone bridge and came in sight of a small copse of hazel trees, something caught his attention.

  ‘Would you mind stopping for a moment?’

  He got out and walked over to the wood. It was as he’d thought. A wavering bit of ectoplasm which, as he spoke to it, became fully visible...

  ‘Cursed be your name,’ said Rick politely. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Cursed be yours,’ said the ghost, pleased to be addressed correctly. He was a knight in armour and looked fagged to death. ‘I was wondering – you don’t know anything about a new sanctuary in these parts? A ghost sanctuary? I’ve had a dreadful time – my place has been turned into a hotel and—’

  ‘You’re on the right road,’ said Rick. ‘Just keep gliding till you come to a causeway across a strip of beach and then there you are.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m most grateful. It’s a good place they tell me?’

  ‘Not bad,’ said Rick carelessly, and then he turned and went back towards the waiting lorry.

  He had only gone a few steps, however, when the spook glided after him and tapped with his withered hand on Rick’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ve just realized who you are,’ he said, raising his visor. ‘You must forgive me. What a pleasure! What an honour!’

  ‘Who am I?’ said Rick. surprised.

  ‘Why the boy who has saved the ghosts of Britain. Don’t tell me I’m wrong? Surely you must be Rick the Rescuer?’

  ‘Goodness,’ said Rick, waving to the driver to show that he was coming, ‘Rick the Rescuer! Well,’ he said, blushing and feeling much less gloomy, ‘I suppose I am!’

  Eleven

  Rick had been back at school for nearly three weeks. At first the Crawlers had fawned all over him and he could do nothing wrong. But as the days passed and no present arrived from Rick’s rich godmother (who naturally could not send a present because she did not exist) the Crawlers went back to being their own nasty selves.

  Nothing seemed to have changed while he was away. The boys still played silly tricks on Matron like putting the school hamster inside her knitting bag or pouring bubble-bath mixture in her tea and everyone went on making the same old jokes about Maurice Crawler’s feet. They should have smelled the Hag’s feet, Rick thought – then they’d have something to talk about.

  At night, when the new boy called Peter Thorne who slept beside him, sobbed into his pillow, Rick was much nicer to him than he used to be. He really knew now what it was like to miss people so much that you just ached with wanting to see them. Peter might be homesick but Rick, he realized himself, was ghostsick.

  ‘You really do miss those ghosts of yours awfully, don’t you?’ said Barbara when she found him sitting gloomily under a beech tree with his arms round his knees, just staring into space.

  ‘Well, they were so interesting. I mean, compared to this lot.’ He waved his hands at a group of boys dribbling a football and bickering about whether Smith Minor was, or was not, offside. ‘And I can’t help worrying a bit. Supposing seals are too tough for Baby Rose whatever Sucking Susie says. And I don’t honestly think Humphrey is getting any Horribler. What if the new ghosts that come to the sanctuary start teasing him?’

  ‘Oh, Rick, it’ll be all right. You’ve done a smashing job on them.’

  ‘I suppose so. I hate things to be over. You know, you have an adventure and then it’s all flat.’

  ‘How do you know it is over?’ said Barbara. ‘I’ve a feeling it may just be beginning.’

  Rick just looked at her and shook his head. He had forgotten that Barbara was an extremely clever girl.

  Meanwhile the ghosts settled down very happily at Insleyfarne. The Hag soon had the castle really nice and homelike. Jars of bottled rats’ blood, and addled owl eggs, and maggot jam stood neatly on the larder shelves. She trained ivy over the gaping windows so that it made a sinister noise with its loose, tapping branches and she brought up the old torture instruments from the dungeons and hung them very prettily against the slime-green walls.

  While the Hag was making the castle lovely, the Gliding Kilt planted a splendid kitchen garden. There was Henbane and Deadly Nightshade, Skullcap and Stinking Hellebore and a fine crop of turnips to make frightful lanterns out of on Halloween.

  Mind you, now that they were peacefully settled in their own place, the ghosts did have time for those little, niggling worries that disappear so completely in times of danger. For example there was, as Rick had foreseen, the business of Humphrey’s Horribleness. Although he was very good and went on repeating ‘Every day I’m getting Horribler and Horribler,’ each morning when he woke up at the bottom of his well, even a newborn baby could see that Humphrey wasn’t, in fact, getting Horribler at all. His eye sockets continued to twinkle, his ectoplasm still looked like fleecy summer clouds, his ball and chain went on sparkling like a Christmas cracker.

  Of course the new ghosts which kept arriving at the sanctuary didn’t make things any better. They didn’t mean to be rude but they’d say things like, ‘Well, well!’ or ‘You can never tell how children will turn out these days,’ – and as everybody knows, words like that can wound.

  But on the whole, those first days at the sanctuary were wonderfully busy and happy. Baby Rose had taken marvellously to seal’s blood and as she grew bigger she started following Humphrey about which helped him to feel less lonely without Rick. No one saw much of Walter the Wet who spent his time under a pile of treacherous rocks trying to lure sailors to a Salty Death Beneath the Waves which was difficult because absolutely no ships passed that way, but he came up in the evenings sometimes, splashing into the castle and telling them tall stories of what he had done. The Mad Monk felt so much better that he got quite giggly, saying Latin prayers backwards and hiccuping as he floated up and down his chapel, and Aunt Hortensia took up Art and made a collage out of driftwood and seaweed which she said was two werewolves eating each other up.

  And of course there were the new ghosts to be settled in. Almost every day some poor, weary ghost arrived and asked for sanctuary. There were two soldiers called Ugh-tred and Grimbald who had fought with King Alfred, the one who was supposed to have burnt the cakes. They used to haunt an old, crumbling cow-byre under the Malvern hills until it was rebuilt and turned into a Factory Farm, and they had to glide up and down uttering hoarse war cries between three hundred squawking battery chickens laying eggs. They were rough, uncouth fellows, but everybody liked them. Soldiers are often very gentle and good-hearted when you get to know them.

  Then there were the Ladies. Ladies kept arriving all the time. There was a Green Lady who was looking for the key to her trea
sure chest, and a Blue Lady who was looking for her dead husband. (She had smothered him with a pillow and forgotten where she put him.) And when they’d been at the sanctuary for about a fortnight, their old friend the Grey Lady arrived, the one that used to haunt the churchyard at Craggyford and she, of course, was still looking for her teeth.

  Soon word of the sanctuary spread so far afield that ghosts came from other countries. Most of them fitted in very well but there was a musical ghost from Finland who was rather a trial to them. It wasn’t just that she liked to play the harp on the cliff top by the light of the moon, it was that she got very offended if everybody didn’t come and listen.

  ‘Not ghostly, I call it, but ghastly,’ said Aunt Hortensia crossly. She was not musical and sitting on a cliff by moonlight made her bunions shoot.

  Still, on the whole the ghosts were very, very happy. Best of all they liked the evenings when they all sat in the Hag’s kitchen and talked about their adventures, and about Rick.

  ‘What was he like, this great Rick the Rescuer?’ one of the new ghosts would ask.

  ‘Oh, he had sort of big eyes and a thin face and sticking-out ears,’ Humphrey would begin, and the Hag would clout him with her wings and say: ‘Humphrey, what are you saying. Rick’s ears were absolutely straight.’

  Because Rick, you see, was becoming a hero in their minds and heroes don’t have sticking-out ears. And they would tell and re-tell how Rick had fed the vampire bats from his own wrist and led them to the Prime Minister of Britain, and even Poldi, a rather mischievous poltergeist who had come up from Putney, would stop chucking things about and listen.

  ‘And now here we are, thanks to him, safe and sound for ever,’ the Hag would end, her whiskers twitching with emotion.

  But she was wrong.