The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane by Sam McBratney Page A

making everybody feel rotten.
    Charlie lay on the lawn, playing Muldoon a tape of himself barking at the moon. Everybody was upset but Charlie. It was as if he lived in a different world from other people. She suspected that if Charlie wasn’t her brother, she might find a number of things to admire about him.
    The recording changed and Bonnie started to howl.
“The big clock is gone and Charlie they’ve got your juggling balls but I only put them there because you said she doesn’t use toilet paper and she wants to marry a duck.”
    Zoe squatted beside Charlie, suddenly thinking. She turned off the machine.
    â€œCharlie, are you listening to me?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhen you put Lulubelle into the clock, what else did you see in there?”
    â€œSome things all wrapped up and a big gun. I didn’t see the lead soldiers, but they must have been there because the spook in the big wide skirt saw the Moag person put them there. I can’t figure out why, though.”
    So Charlie had been thinking too. Why hide things in a grandfather clock? And why make an extra plate of tongue sandwiches when the things gave her heartburn? Why a cabbage and not a turnip? Did she buy stamps? Had she even left the house at all?
    â€œAnd was the clock ticking?” Zoe asked.
    â€œNope. The big pendulum was pushed to one side and all tied up.”
    Slowly Zoe came to her knees as she imagined the brass pendulum swinging lazily to and fro through all the years, until one day—it was stopped. Deliberately.
    â€œCharlie. Why would you tie up a pendulum?”
    â€œTo stop it swinging about.”
    â€œAnd why would you want to stop it swinging about?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œI do. If you knew you were going to be moving it!”
    Muldoon, stirred by the excitement in Zoe’s voice, sat up and scratched murderously at the neat bandage on his right ear.
    â€œCharlie! That Moag woman is in this deep, up to her fat elbows!”
    â€œYou’re right! The only time we were out of the house, we got done by burglars. She tipped them off.”
    â€œBut how would she do that, Charlie?”
    â€œBy phoning her sick mother.”
    This had to be a wild guess, of course, but Zoe couldn’t help thinking how brilliant it was. It made everything clear.
    â€œSo she puts the lead soldiers into her apron pocket, then into the clock, ties up the pendulum and the clock disappears. And the robbers know when to come because she’s right here. Come on, Charlie!”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œTo search her room for incriminating evidence, of course. And don’t say there won’t be any, because if criminals never made mistakes none of them would ever get caught, would they? What we need are clues!”
    When you are not used to creeping uninvited into the bedrooms of strangers, it can be quite an ordeal to do so for the first time. Charlie took off his shoesin case the floorboards creaked, while Zoe nibbled at her bottom lip and reminded herself that they were dealing with dirty rotten crooks and so had every right to be fighting on the side of justice. However, only Muldoon was really at his ease. He picked a fight with a pink slipper, for experience had taught him that slippers never fight back.
    â€œCharlie! Look what I’ve found under the window,” whispered Zoe.
    She’d found some ivy clippings.
    â€œWhat do those prove?”
    â€œI don’t know, but they might fit into the overall scheme of things. Muldoon, you moonbeam, leave that slipper alone!”
    There was nothing in the wardrobe but clothes. A suitcase rattled when Zoe dragged it from under the bed, but there was only a hairbrush inside. From the bedside table a boy within a silver frame smiled out at Charlie.
    â€œThere’s a book here,” he said. “It says
Antiques and How to Recognize Them.
”
    â€œOh, well done!” Zoe flicked through the