Ghosts on Board (8 page)

‘So you're not going to help then?' I call after Tilly as she marches up the hill from the harbour.

‘Certainly not,' she says without even turning to look. ‘It's all your fault, Tom – everything about everything is your fault.'

Eric stares at her back, disappearing amongst the afternoon day trippers. ‘I'm quite glad I don't have a sister.'

I don't say anything. I expect that if Eric had a sister she'd be as clever as he is and I'd have two of them telling me how things work and that would be intolerable – especially if you added in Jacob and Tilly as well.

We lug the raft onto the beach. It looks ordinary – if really badly made. No one would know that the planks had once held spirits. Now they just seem to hold huge amounts of seawater.

‘We need to find Jacob and Victor,' says Eric as I squeeze water from my socks.

‘As soon as possible,' says Flora Rose from right behind me.

In the afternoon light, Flora Rose and Billy are barely visible. A couple of purple smudges move at the edge of my vision, but if I look at them, I can't really see them. It would be easy to forget that they were there.

‘Where do you suppose they are?' I ask.

‘Victor will want to get back into the castle  … ' starts Flora Rose.

‘But Jacob will want to eat something  … ' I make myself hungry thinking about this morning's chips.

‘Hm,' Eric interrupts me. ‘You have a point. But –'

‘There!' shouts Flora Rose. ‘There they are, by the castle.'

I swing round, possibly passing right through Billy but trying not to think about it, and look up at the castle. Strolling down the hill are Victor and Jacob. Victor is still hazy. He's obviously trying to look like a casual tourist, a borrowed straw hat on his head and what looks like a borrowed pair of Jacob's dad's shorts on his grey legs. In between, his long coat, tie and high-collared grimy shirt just make him look like a complete madman. One that's lost his trousers and tried to find a substitute at a jumble sale.

‘Gosh,' says Eric.

‘Shh,' I say, ducking my head below the sea wall. ‘I think we'd better follow.'

They take the long way down; we take the short cut and slip into the tunnel where we first saw the ghosts. Eric and I back into a dripping doorway. I try the door behind us and it opens but we can't get inside because it's full of hundreds of cartons of cocoa powder.

‘We'll just have to make do with the doorway,' says Eric.

We step back out and put our backs against the wooden door and in the gloom Flora Rose and Billy disappear completely.

‘What are we waiting for?' says Flora Rose from disturbingly close.

‘We're waiting for –'

‘Shh,' I say, as footsteps sound in the corridors.

‘Bet you wish you were still a proper ghost,' Jacob's voice echoes cheerily from the stones. ‘You could have slipped in and helped yourself.' I shrink back against the wall as Jacob stops outside the end cell, the one piled high with pots of the dust that come from the mine that Professor Lee dug. Like all the others, it's firmly locked.

Victor stares longingly through the bars.

‘Won't you help me?' says Victor, gently. ‘I mean, from what you say, this, in addition to your  …  remarkable power, would make us invincible. We could do anything, and who could stop us?'

‘Tempting,' says Jacob. ‘But not that tempting. I'm the most powerful person in the town just at the moment – I don't think I want to change that. Now I think it's time we investigated the tea shop. They do a lovely chocolate cake.'

‘Perhaps you could get me just enough to stop me fading in and out? Just a little?' Victor stretches his arms past the bars, but even though he's half ghost, he's not ghostly enough to get through and, as a half human, he's not going to be able to reach anything. ‘No, sorreeee. Not going to,' says Jacob, swinging back up the corridor. ‘C'mon upstairs to the tea shop. We need to get a table before all the day trippers turn up.'

I send up thanks for Jacob's selfishness. He could easily melt the bars, even with the danger that stray sparks could ignite the dust inside the cell.

‘Blast. Drat and blast,' says Victor, sighing, and he follows Jacob up the stairs towards the castle café.

‘So he does want the dust,' says Eric. ‘But he can't get it, not unless he gets the key to the cell – and he won't, will he, Tom? I mean, your grandma's got one but apart from that, who else?'

I shrug, imagining the key to the cell hanging in the key cabinet at home – marked END CELL CASTLE DUNGEON
in
Grandma's careful capitals.

‘He'll find a way,' says Flora. ‘He'll either find the key, or charm the key from your grandmother, Tom, or he'll find a way in without it. He's waited a hundred and fifty years for this. He's going to get what he wants.'

‘Not,' I say, ‘if we stop him first.'

‘Oooh,' whispers Flora Rose in my ear. ‘What pretty curtains. Is this what people do for fun? I like it.'

‘Shh,' I say, searching the castle café for Jacob and Victor. It's difficult to see anyone – the place is so busy and so full of flowers and flowery wallpaper.

Eric nudges me, pointing to a table against the window. On the top perches a huge cake stand, piled high with cupcakes, waffles and scones. Squeezed into the tiny amount of remaining space is a bottle of Go-Stiser fizz, a can of Verucazade and, seated on either side, Victor and Jacob.

‘So, anyway, I thought we could do a round of crazy golf next  … ' Jacob's voice rings through the tea shop.

‘You go and play golf, dear fellow. I'm happy here. I can sit in the sun outside the castle and wait for you,' says Victor, sniffing at a waffle in interest. ‘Are these curious things pleasant?'

‘D'ishous,' mumbles Jacob around a mouthful of cake. ‘And you should try this.' He holds up the can of Verucazade.

We take a table with three chairs at the side, sitting so that we can see what's going on at Jacob's table. The third chair trembles slightly as Flora Rose sits down.

‘We need to get them apart. We need to talk to Jacob alone,' says Eric, holding up the menu to hide his face, but completely failing to conceal his wild ginger hair. ‘We're going to need him for our plan to work.'

‘I could just shrink Victor,' I say.

‘What, here? In a tea room?' says Eric. ‘Your grandma would be furious.'

‘Shall I whisper to Jacob?' says Flora Rose. ‘Tell him the truth about Victor?' The purple goo's gone completely and now she's just an alarming voice from nowhere.

‘Victor would hear,' I say.

‘You could, Billy, but how?' says Flora Rose. The silver sugar bowl on the table shows the faintest purple reflection.

‘What's he saying?' asks Eric.

‘He says he could give Jacob a message.'

‘What? Write it in crumbs or something?' I say.

The vase of flowers in the middle of the table trembles in answer.

‘Well,' I say. ‘OK, if you really think it'll work.'

We watch as Jacob ignores all Billy's attempts to rearrange the cake crumbs. He brushes at the air as if there's a fly buzzing around him. ‘Thing about golf is, it doesn't really require any effort – go away, thing!' He flaps the cake stand with the back of his hand, sending cupcakes cascading across the café.

One rolls and stops at my foot. I look up across the room and catch Jacob's gaze.

His eyes open wide in recognition and he raises his arm to point at me, but I mime a mouth zip and, frowning, Jacob says nothing. I glance at Victor, but he's chewing a waffle and looking at something he obviously finds really interesting outside the window.

‘Would you like to order?' says a jolly waitress, bowling up to our table.

‘Could we just have –' starts Eric.

‘Could we choose from the cakes on the side?' I interrupt, smiling and hoping very much that Eric's got some money because I've got barely anything.

‘Of course,' says the waitress. ‘You have a good look and tell me what you fancy.'

‘Why are we doing this?' whispers Eric, rising from the table and trailing over to the large table of cakes. ‘It's going to cost a fortune.'

‘We're giving Jacob a message ourselves.'

I point to the signs on the cakes, widening my eyes and pointing again until Jacob's paying proper attention.

‘Custard pie, blackcurrant crumble cake?' he reads aloud, peering across the café at the cake table.

I shake my head and nod towards Victor, who is still staring out of the window.

‘Pineapple surprise, Victoria sponge,
maids of honour
 …  No – no maids of honour,
devils on horseback
.' Jacob wrinkles his nose in incomprehension.

Eric nods, measuring a short piece of air to indicate that Jacob should make the words smaller.

‘Pineapple, sponge, maids, horseback?'

I shake my head vigorously as the waitress piles our plates high with food, mixing sausages and cakes. I point at the labels and mouth, ‘Try again.'

Like the sun coming out after heavy rain, a look of intelligence crosses Jacob's face. ‘Oh, I get it.'

‘What do you get?' says Victor, a slight smile crossing his face. ‘Anyway, lovely tea – thank you, Jacob. I think I'll just nip out and get some air.' He springs to his feet, takes another glance out of the window and heads out of the main entrance of the tea shop, the one that leads to the castle courtyard.

‘Right,' says Jacob, his head nodding slowly. ‘Surprise, Victoria, no honour,
devil
. Yes, Victor, I'll join you in a moment. I just need to sort out one or two things.'

‘Well, it's just that we need to get rid of the dust,' says Eric for the third time to Jacob.

‘But I don't understand why?'

‘To stop Victor!'

‘But why would we want to stop Victor? He's the most interesting thing to happen to Bywater-by-Sea forever – and why do you think he's bad? I haven't once seen him stick his finger up his nose. Everyone knows that evil people stick their fingers up their noses.'

I leave Eric shaking his head and arranging cakes on the table to illustrate the plan, and race out of the café into the passage that leads to the courtyard.

‘So you think that between you, you can carry Grandma's key here to me?'

‘Totally,' says Flora Rose's voice from nowhere. ‘It's in the key cupboard, big label, huge piece of string. Billy and I'll be fine. And we'll be back in seconds. We can go so much faster than you can.'

‘Go carefully,' I say, and, for a moment, the sunlight of the courtyard is dimmed by the two spirits racing out of the passage. I almost see them, and then I spot Victor.

He's hiding behind the bins, watching the workmen cutting out an old metal drain cover in the middle of the courtyard. Eventually, the workmen wander off into the shade to eat their lunch, leaving their tools in a heap by the wall.

For a long time nothing moves except a crow. It flies down, pecks at the ground and takes a long slow look at Victor.

It hops towards him and stops by the bins, its head tilted to one side, watching.

I see Victor flap his hands at it, obviously trying to frighten it away, but the bird takes it as encouragement and hops a little closer, its black shiny eye fixed on Victor's furious face.

‘Buzz off,' he says, waving his arms, but the bird leans forward and pecks at his outstretched hand.

Flora Rose's voice sounds in my ear. ‘Here,' she says and right in front of my nose hangs Grandma's key.

‘Brilliant,' I whisper. ‘Can you take it to Eric? He and Jacob know what to do. I'm going to keep an eye on Victor.'

The key floats off down the passage. I only hope they don't give some passing tourist a heart attack.

I go back to watching Victor and the crow. Distantly, in the castle dungeon, I hear a series of booms and a light sprinkling of glitter falls on the courtyard. Good – they're destroying the dust.

I'm sure Eric knows exactly what he's doing and Jacob doesn't need much encouragement to blow things up, but I'm sorry to have missed the fireworks display.

‘Oh honestly,' says Victor, standing up and trying to look as if everyone always hides behind the bins talking to crows.

I stay in my hiding place and watch as he ambles over to the wall and pretends to look up at the tower above. There's no one there to see and nothing to look at. He looks up at nothing for about two minutes and then swoops backwards towards the workmen's tools.

It takes him a millisecond to steal the oxyacetylene torch and the cylinder. It's obviously very heavy so his progress across the courtyard is slow, but now I know what he has in mind, I race straight back through the tea shop, down the steps and reach the cell.

It's perfect. It looks exactly as it did before, except that there's a large pile of dust right in the middle of the room. It's slightly glittery, as it should be, and there's an almost imperceptible smell of burned chocolate powder.

There's no sign of Eric and Jacob.

‘Flora Rose?' I say into the air.

Nothing.

‘Billy?'

A sudden wind falls on my cheek and I have the odd sensation that I'm standing in a corridor with a spirit that I can't see or hear, but I know he's there.

‘Here, Tom.' The tiny voice springs out next to my elbow. It's not Flora Rose.

‘Billy?' I say, trying not to shiver. ‘Is that you?'

‘Me,' he says. ‘Just me.'

‘How amazing to meet you,' I say, and I throw a handful of dust up in the air. It drapes itself over a shape in the middle of the space, and I see a glimmer of a little boy with a hat and shorts and a mushroom sort of a nose.

But he doesn't manage to speak again.

‘Good,' I say. I can't think of anything else to say. A breath of wind falls on my cheek and a cold finger brushes over my palm.

Footsteps sound at the top of the passage to the courtyard, accompanied by the uncomfortable screech of a heavy, metal gas tank being dragged over flagstones.

A minute or two later and Victor appears, struggling and cursing. ‘Cretinous invention, impossibly unintelligent way to get through anything. Strewth but it's so heavy!' The cylinder breaks free and rolls down the passage, clanging into the bars of the cell, and bowling Victor over like a skittle.

‘Ow! Blasted thing.' He scrambles to his feet, dragging the rest of the torch over the cobbles and then stopping outside the cell. ‘Oh yes,' he says, gazing at the piles and pots of dust inside. ‘Oh yes – wonderful new world of shining sparkling things, you are so nearly mine.'

He stands, holding the tube and torch in one hand and the top of the gas bottle with the other.

‘So how do you two make friends then?' he asks. ‘Do you go in there? Or do you go in there?'

I realise that as a Victorian he might never have seen an oxyacetylene torch and that there's a distant chance he might not be able to make the two things go together, but no such luck, as it only takes him a couple of minutes to not only get it linked but also to get it fired up.

‘Oh la!' he says as the huge flame leaps from the torch and then focuses into something tiny and bright. ‘Now, you tiny little self-important bits of metal – feel my rage.'

The bars fall away from the flame like sticks of butter and within a minute he has cut a doorway and is standing inside the cell, pots and pots of dust arranged around him.

I panic.

Supposing Flora Rose and Billy dropped the key on their way back to Eric and Jacob? Supposing they haven't changed the dust for chocolate powder – supposing I've just failed to prevent him from being the most powerful evil genius in the world?

He empties a pot of dust over his head and begins to laugh. The dust flies up into the air around him, glittering and spinning in the draught. ‘I have it! I have it! This is it! I am invincible, unstoppable! Fire and water, come to me, make me strong!'

He dances, he whirls, he laughs, he shouts, and I'm more and more worried. He appears to be becoming more solid, less grey, but it's difficult to tell in the dull red glow of the bulb. It could just be that he's getting coated in chocolate, or it could be that there's still some magic dust left in there. ‘Yes, yes, yes! At last. Bow down, World, before me. I am the most powerful being of all time, the greatest man alive, or dead. Everything shall be mine – all mine,' and he giggles madly, tasting the dust on his tongue, rubbing it into his hair, his hands, his clothes. He pauses and licks his hand. ‘Mmmm, chocolate! Oh wonderful dust, you taste of chocolate. How appropriate! AWE-SOME! I am a god, a demigod, an all-things god, a superpower. I am that rare thing, a superhero with a brain – they will worship me!'

He's reached the stage of lying on the floor on his back like a dog, chucking handfuls of dust into the air, when quite suddenly the ground gives way beneath him.

It's my cue and I race out and up the passage, out of the castle courtyard and around the outside of the walls, tumbling and tripping over the tussocks and earthworks until I see Eric and Jacob standing staring at the bottom of the ancient medieval toilet chute.

Finding an extra burst of energy in my legs I race over the grass to join them.

‘Wow!' says Eric.

‘Awesome!' says Jacob.

An explosion of chocolate powder bursts from the wall – followed by a heavy thump.

There on the ground in front of us is Victor, pale and chocolatey in uneven patches. He gazes at his hand. Beneath the cocoa powder it's definitely faded to grey. ‘Oh no,' he says. ‘I'm turning back into a ghost. This is terri—' But before he's finished speaking, Eric turns on the sprinklers at the end of his fingers and drenches him with freezing cold water, washing off all the castle's magic dust and all the chocolate powder.

‘Chaps!' he manages to stutter. I form my thumb and forefinger into an O, step back so that Victor is right in the middle and  … 

Click.