Dial a Ghost by Eva Ibbotson Page A

in our school have been unhappy without us and there has been some trouble which we have to put right. I know you will not mind being alone. After all, the master of Helton Hall has got to get used to being by himself. Miss Match has left your supper on the kitchen table; it is her day off and she is going to spend the night in the village, but there is plenty of food in the larder. We will be back as soon as possible... Your affectionate Cousin Fulton.’
    Oliver looked up, straight into the sinister marble face of the god Pan crouching on top of a clock. It was true then. In all the thirty rooms of Helton, he was the only living soul.
    I won’t panic, he told himself. I’ll manage. He drank his milk and went outside. It was less frightening out of doors, but no more cheerful. He walked round the dark lake with its drowned farmer, through the grove of weeping ash trees, up the hill where the two hikers had died...
    The cold drove him in at seven, and he went to fetch his supper. The kitchens were down in the basement. He made his way through the maze of dank stone corridors, sure that at every corner something was waiting to pounce... past a pantry where dead birds hung by their legs... past an iron boiler chuntering like an evil giant...
    The kitchen was huge, with a scrubbed wooden table. On the table was a tray with a salad, slices of bread and butter, a glass of lemonade. He ate it there, and when he had finished, carried his empty dishes to the sink. It was then that he noticed the calendar hanging on the wall. It was a pretty calendar with views of the countryside, and the day’s date ringed by Miss Match.
    Friday the 13th . The unluckiest day of the year! The day that ghosts and ghouls and vampires like best of all!
    At that moment Oliver knew that it would happen this very night – the thing he waited for every time he crawled into the great bed and pulled the covers over his head. It might be the flesh-eating phantom at the window, it might be the wailing nun who strangled people with their sheets, or the skeleton looking for his skull – but one of them would come.
    And when they did so, he would die.

Chapter Nine
     
    The Wilkinsons travelled by train.
    The 1 a.m. from King’s Cross goes direct to York, where you must be sure to leave the train , said the instructions in the folder.
    So the Wilkinsons, who were all invisible of course, settled themselves down and had a very pleasant journey. The one o’clock was a sleeper, the kind with cubicles and bunk beds, and people were already lying in them, but the ghosts were used to mucking in. Grandma stretched out on the luggage rack, Addie and Eric lay down on the floor, and Uncle Henry and Aunt Maud took the budgie to the deserted dining car.
    Travelling by train is always enjoyable, and when you don’t have to pay fares there is an extra glow, but Uncle Henry, as the train raced through the night, was troubled. He was so sure that Miss Pringle had said the nuns lived in the West Country, and there was no doubt that York was in the north. Several times he checked the instructions in the folder but what they said was perfectly clear.
    ‘I must be getting forgetful,’ he said worriedly. ‘It’s a good job I’m not a dentist any more. I’d be pulling out the wrong teeth.’
    At York they got out, stretching their limbs in the cold dawn, and made their way to the station buffet.
    Your next train, which leaves from Platform Three, is the 11.40 for Rothwick. You must, however, get out at Freshford Junction, which is the fifth station after York.
    ‘Well, nothing could be plainer than that,’ said Henry. ‘And yet I was sure Miss Pringle said that the nuns lived in the west. I remember her mentioning the gentle climate.’
    ‘It certainly isn’t very gentle here,’ said Aunt Maud, for a fierce draught was whistling in at the door of the refreshment room.
    They decided to say nothing to the others for fear of worrying them and, punctual to the minute, the