Dial a Ghost by Ibbotson Eva

Author:Ibbotson, Eva [Ibbotson, Eva]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Published: 2008-04-08T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

The ghosts whom the kind nuns had adopted had been at Larchford Abbey for several days and the nuns were just a little bit disappointed and hurt. They knew that people needed time to settle in to a new place and they had made it clear to the ladies at the agency that they wouldn’t bother the ghosts and that they didn’t expect the ghosts to bother them.

All the same, a little friendliness would have been nice. They had looked forward to a glimpse of the child in her nightdress playing merrily in the bell tower or the old lady floating about in the rose garden, and having heard that Mr Wilkinson was fond of fishing, they had half expected to see him by the river, casting with a fly or tickling trout.

But there had been absolutely no sign of the family. Not one wisp of ectoplasm in the orchard, not a trace of a voice singing to itself in the dusk.

The ghosts were there all right. Oh yes, they were definitely there. Blood had oozed through the old abbey floor and they had found several sets of footprints with three toes. From time to time, too, there came the smell of frying meat – rather strong meat which did not seem to be absolutely fresh – and now and again they heard a gurgling moan, but no one had come forward to introduce themselves or to thank the nuns for giving them a home.

‘One must do good without thinking of the reward. One should not need to be thanked,’ said Mother Margaret.

‘Do you think we ought to write to the agency?’ asked Sister Phyllida. ‘I mean, there may be some little thing they are too shy to mention. Something we could put right?’

But Mother Margaret thought they had better wait a bit longer. ‘After all, we don’t know very much about... ectoplasm and that sort of thing. Perhaps there are changes when people travel, which have to right themselves.’

‘Like air sickness. Upset stomachs and so on. Yes, that could explain a lot. Some of those bloodstains do look a little disordered,’ said Sister Phyllida, who was the one that had been a nurse.

It wasn’t just the Shriekers’ bloodstains that were out of order. The Shriekers themselves were in a ghastly state. They were lying on the floor and kicking the air with their mouldering feet, and every time they thrust their legs out, they bellowed and whooped and howled and squealed.

They had remembered that it was the anniversary of their Great Sorrow. On an April day just like this one, the terrible thing had happened which had driven them mad with guilt and turned them into the ghastly, tortured and revolting creatures they now were.

‘Oi! Oi! Oi!’ moaned Sabrina. ‘How could we have done it? How could we have been so cruel to our flesh and blood?’

‘It is right to punish,’ whined Pelham. ‘People must be punished for doing wrong.’

‘But not like that. Whipping would have been all right, taking food away would have been all right.

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