Dial a Ghost

Chapter Ten

The nuns of Larchford Abbey were very excited. It was the morning of Saturday the 14th and they knew that their ghosts had come. The owls had screeched horribly, the field mice had scuttled for shelter, and the bell in the ruined chapel had given a single, deathlike clang. Moreover when they woke at dawn they saw that a strange, chill vapour hung over the old buildings which they had offered to their guests.

‘Oh, it is a real adventure, having proper spooks!’ Mother Margaret said.

‘Yes, indeed. What is better than being able to share our lovely home with others,’ said Sister Phyllida.

Larchford Abbey was certainly a most beautiful place. Set in a green valley with a little burbling stream, it was surrounded by gardens and orchards. Bees flew up from the hives; the apple trees were coming into blossom; a herd of pedigree goats gambolled in the meadow.

‘I wonder if we shouldn’t just go and see if they have settled in all right,’ said Mother Margaret in her kind and caring way. ‘We wouldn’t bother them of course, but there may be some little thing they would like to make them comfortable.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Sister Phyllida, who had been a nurse before she became a nun and was very practical and sensible. ‘The first few days in a new place are so important.’

They waited till the evening and then made their way over the wooden bridge towards the ruined part of the abbey.

‘We must remember that this is their breakfast time; they will only just have woken up. Sometimes people are not very friendly first thing in the morning.’

‘Oh dear, I hope they’re not in bed,’ said Mother Margaret. She remembered that there had been a gentleman, a Mr Wilkinson, and it was a long time since she had seen a gentleman in bed.

When they had crossed the stream they saw, on the path leading to the door of the ruined building, a set of footprints. They were truly horrid footprints, made by a spectre with only three toes, and they stopped suddenly as though the ghost who made them had got bored with walking and had suddenly become airborne.

‘Oh, isn’t this thrilling!’ said Mother Margaret, clapping her hands.

‘I wonder what happened to the other two toes?’ said Sister Phyllida. Nurses are interested in that kind of thing.

Before they reached the door of the Abbey they had another treat.

‘Look, Sister — bloodstains. I’m sure they are.’ Mother Margaret bent down and dipped her finger in the red pool and sure enough her finger came away with a sticky dark spot.

‘They must have settled in,’ said Sister Phyllida. ‘People don’t make bloodstains, I’m sure, unless they feel at home.’

But when they reached the door of the bell tower, and pushed it open, the noises they heard did not seem to be those of a contented family of ghosts at breakfast.

The Shriekers were quarrelling as usual.

‘And what exactly is that?’ Sabrina yelled at her husband, throwing something soft and furry at his face.

‘It’s a dead shrew, you loathsome grub-pot,’ screeched her husband.

‘Oh ha ha, you’ve frightened it to death I suppose! Why don’t you frighten something your own size? Don’t lie to me — that shrew has been lying there for days. It stinks.’

‘Of course it stinks. And you stink too. You’ve got rotten egg yolk oozing out of your ear hole.’

‘I should just hope I do stink. I swore I would stink from the day of our Great Sorrow. I swore I would stink and suffer and claw and kill!’

Fortunately the nuns down below could not hear the actual words that the Shriekers were saying. They did, however, get the idea that their new guests were not completely happy and relaxed.

‘Of course it’s often like that with married people before breakfast,’ said Mother Margaret, who knew that a lot of couples are best not spoken to before they have had their early morning cup of tea.

‘And the journey may have been a strain,’ said Sister Phyllida. ‘Larchford is rather low-lying, it takes time to get used to the damp.’

So the kind nuns decided they would leave their new guests to settle in and call back on the following day. ‘Though I would have loved to see the little girl. She sounded such a dear thing in her nightdress with her sponge bag and the fish.’

When the nuns had gone, the Shriekers went on quarrelling and pelting each other with foul things they had found on the floor of the ruined abbey. Then suddenly they got bored and decided they were hungry.

The ghoul lay on a tombstone, quivering in his sleep.

‘Wake up and cook something, stenchbag!’ screeched Lady de Bone, twitching his rope.

‘And be quick about it or we’ll nail you up by your nostrils,’ yelled Pelham.

As they screamed at their servant and jerked his rope, the ghoul became madder and madder, uttering his weird cooking cries and waving his frying pan to and fro.

‘Fry!’ he gabbled. ‘Sizzle! Burn!’

As he ran about, the pan became less grey, more reddish… hotter. Suddenly it burst into flame and he scooped a dead owl from a rafter, tore its feathers off and threw it into the fire. Then he tossed two burnt thighs at the de Bones and collapsed again on to the slab.

Back in the convent, the smell of cooking came quite clearly to the Sisters.

‘That’s their breakfast now,’ said Mother Margaret. ‘They’ll soon feel better.’

‘There’s nothing like a nice cooked breakfast to settle the stomach,’ agreed Sister Phyllida. ‘So many families just start the day with nothing but a piece of toast, and it’s so unwise.’

They felt very relieved, sure now that the ghosts they had invited were going to lead a sensible life, and then they said goodnight to each other and went to bed.

But the Shriekers, tearing the flesh off the roasted owl, were not exactly being sensible. Mind you, they had had a very difficult journey. The mouse had not agreed with the python, who had been sick, and the ghoul kept passing out at the end of his rope like a log. And when they had at last lost height and come down where the instructions had told them to, they had seen none of the things they had been promised. No great hall with towers and battlements, no writhing statues, no suits of armour or stone pillars or iron gates. Instead there were a few tumbledown buildings and a ruined abbey with the most awful feel to it — the feel of a place where people had been good.

And then when dawn broke they saw something that made them stagger back in horror: a row of nuns on their way to the chapel to pray!

‘I’m not staying here!’ Sabrina yelled. ‘I’m not having that awful gooey goodness clogging up my pores. I can feel it between my teeth. Ugh!’

But they had been too tired to glide back at once. Now they decided to wait for a few days and gather up their strength.

‘There might be a child we can harm,’ said Pelham.

‘How could there be? Nuns don’t have children.’

‘No. But they might run a school.’

The idea of scratching and strangling and smothering a whole school full of children cheered Sabrina up a little.

‘Well, all right. But I won’t stay for long.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Pelham. ‘I’m all set to make those women in the agency wish they’d never been born!’