Ghosts on Board (9 page)

‘Chaps - this is not fair!'
Victor squeaks.
‘Not fair at all.'

‘Now what?' asks Jacob, crouching down to look at the curious little grey figure squirming in the puddle. ‘Did I look like this when you shrank me?'

‘Yes, kind of, but redder and  …  rounder,' I say, taking a small, yellow, plastic capsule out of my pocket. ‘Let's put him in here for now.'

‘He'll suffocate in there,' says Eric.

‘He's only half human,' I say.

‘Exactly,' says Flora Rose from nowhere. ‘The minute he gets more ghostly he'll be out of there. You can't imprison ghosts. And you won't be able to see him.'

We stumble down the long grass slope until we reach the path that winds up the hill towards the model village.

‘Couldn't we keep him underwater?' asks Jacob, panting along at the back.

‘What about a metal box? A lead box?' says Eric. ‘Even radiation can't get through that.'

‘No, it won't work – we can go through anything. We can fly, float. We're indestructible,' says Flora Rose from above.

Jacob screws up his face in thought. ‘How do you get to be a ghost?' he asks.

Sometimes the depths of Jacob's lack of intelligence astonish me.

‘So what do we do with him?' asks Eric. ‘We can't let him go – he's dangerous.'

He holds open the gate at the bottom of the model village and we pass through. I look at the capsule in my hand. I hope Victor's still in there – I wouldn't want him to fall out here and haunt the model village. That would go down really badly with Grandma.

‘Yes,' says Flora Rose. ‘Billy, you're right.'

‘What did Billy say?' I ask.

‘He says you're going to have to offer Victor something he really wants. You've got to make it worth his while to stay away. In fact, you're going to have to bribe him. There's no point in appealing to his better nature – he hasn't got one.'

We wander up to the house and I push open the front door. There's no sign of Grandma so we pile into the kitchen and settle on both sides of the table. Actually, there's only me and Eric and Jacob – the other two are completely invisible. You could almost imagine they didn't exist.

I take a jam jar from the window sill and open the yellow pod. Victor's still visible, slumped on the bottom, his head resting on his hands.

‘Oh, it's you,'
he says dismally and goes on staring at the plastic walls.

Gently, although I'd love to be more enthusiastic, I pour Victor from one container to the other.

‘He needs some food in there.' Jacob snaps off a piece of exploding chocolate volcano and drops it into the jar. It immediately pops, chasing Victor round and round the bottom of the jar in a random series of tiny explosions.

‘Oops,' says Jacob, reaching back inside the jar to get it out.

Victor cowers at the bottom, his hands over his head.
‘Leave me alone,'
he wails.
‘I never did anyone any harm. I'm an innocent creature – honestly, believe me.'

‘Don't,' says Flora Rose. ‘Don't believe him. He's lying.'

Eric balances a copy of
1,000 Quite Difficult Recipes for Tea Shops
on top of the jar and we stare through the glass.

Victor's almost invisible.

‘Flora Rose is right. Given another twelve hours we won't be able to keep him,' says Eric, ‘unless we expose him to dust, and if we expose him to dust who knows what powers he'll develop.' He heaves a long sigh and I think back to what Billy said.

‘You need, says Billy, to improve the island,' says Flora Rose. ‘So that it's a home rather than a prison.'

‘Really?' says Jacob. ‘Like a makeover?'

Eric nods wisely.

‘So if we improve the island, what do you all want?' I ask wearily, my hand poised over a sheet of paper with a stump of Grandma's shopping-list pencil. ‘I mean, bearing in mind we're only human.'

‘Billy wants friends,' says Flora Rose. ‘He wants people to come. Children to play with. He's only little, and I must say, it gets pretty dull talking to skeletons all the time. I'd like some nice people, day trippers who go away at night. I'd like street lights, someone to remove all the rotting houses where the ghouls hang out. I'd like cheerful gardens, a vegetable patch, an orchard, and tea shops like you have here, with pretty wallpaper, and a house of my own with soft beds and nice clean sheets. I'd like  … '

‘You can't even lie in a bed, you stupid creature. You're a ghost!'
squeaks Victor from his jam-jar prison.

Something brushes against my leg. ‘Yow! What was that?'

‘Shipwreck James,' says Flora Rose. ‘OOOOWWWW, you lovely creature, come to Mummy, oh yes, cuddles, and boojiboojiboojums, yes, yes  … '

I find myself shuddering, not sure whether it's the overload of cat love or the idea of a ghost girl and a ghost cat having a mutual love-in which we can hear but can't see.

‘Oh do shut up, Flora Rose,'
moans Victor.

‘OH!!!! Was that Victor talking? Tom! You shrank him, how perfect. He's so cuuuuuute!' says Tilly, wandering into the kitchen. ‘Can I have him? Keep him with the Woodland Friends? Please Tom, please?'

‘No!' I echo with Victor.

‘You're no fun,' says Tilly. ‘You've finally shrunk someone worth having and you won't let me have him.'

‘He's a dangerous lunatic,' says Flora Rose. ‘Believe me, you don't want him. You'd lose all your little furry creatures within days. He'd do something horrible to them.'

‘Like, dismember them? Cool,' says Tilly. ‘Please, Tom.'

‘No,' I say. ‘And that's final.'

‘He'll grow back anyway,' says Eric. ‘You'd only have him small for a few days.'

Tilly leaves the kitchen, slamming the door behind her. She stamps her way up the stairs and into her bedroom, making absolutely everything vibrate so that a swathe of cobwebs that have so far clung to the ceiling over the stove float gently to the floor, releasing a cloud of dead flies.

‘And what do
you
want, Victor?' asks Eric, staring hard at a shadow caught in the cobwebs that might possibly be Flora Rose, or Billy.

‘Power, I just want power,'
Victor says.
‘But it's all been ruinnnned.'
He sinks to the bottom of the jam jar and hides his head in his hands.

‘Like electricity?' says Jacob.

‘Well, apart from power, what would you like? What would keep you on the island?' I ask.

‘I want a castle,'
Victor mutters.
‘And I do want electricity, and light, and comfort, and one of those screen things with a shooty thing and controls.'

‘He means a games console,' says Jacob. ‘He's got his priorities right.'

‘But there is no electricity on the island,' says Eric. ‘It's four miles off shore – no one's ever put so much as a single lighthouse on it.'

‘Well, you're going to have to solve it, or I won't go away. I will stay here forever and ever and make everyone do what I want one way or another. I will make your lives a misery.'

‘OK,' I say.

‘That's too much. Ridiculous. You'd need to spend thousands,' says Eric. ‘Maybe millions. We can't possibly do that. We can't possibly do any of it. It's all utterly unrealistic. It's as mad as trying to move the bird sanctuary – it just can't be done. And while we're thinking of you, Victor, can we have our meteorite back, please?'

‘Oh honestly,'
squeaks Victor, and I hear the ping of the meteorite clattering down the wall of the jam jar. Outside the kitchen window Grandma's in full swing painting her placards that are arranged around the garden:
Turn back for the Little Tern
.
Roller coasters are not fun for everyone
. And other snappy slogans.

‘So you would actually like Mystery Smoke Island developed.'

‘Yes,' say Flora Rose and Victor.

‘Who on earth would want to do that?' says Eric, flicking a stray piece of volcano chocolate back up into the air and down into the jam jar.

Victor hides his head in his hands as the popping candy explodes.

I stare into the jar, imagining something mad – something totally crazy and brilliant.

‘I've an idea – but I need to talk to Grandma.'

‘What?' says Eric.

‘I'm still working it out,' I say. ‘But when I've solved it, you'll be the absolute first to know, I promise.'

‘Tom,' says Grandma, placing her rubber-gloved hands on either side of my head and jerking me forwards so that the inevitable kiss lands somewhere between my hair and my nose, ‘I'm so proud – what a fantastic solution. But I'm not going to come with you. You'll have to work it out on your own.'

‘Oh, Grandma!'

‘It'll be so much better coming from you. I'm just an old battleaxe on a bandwagon. They're sick to the back teeth of me – and the Worthies. They want someone different, and your idea's brilliant.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes, go on. The mayor's all right really, even if he is a money-grasping so and so.'

I turn to run and then remember something. ‘Grandma, you know when you told me about ghosts being unpredictable. How did you know? Has this happened before?'

‘Oh – well, only sort of. Years ago one Halloween, a couple of drunken ghosts blew over to the mainland. They caused the most awful chaos – salt in the milk, holes in boats, fish in the water tanks, that sort of thing. There was an old woman who could see them. She took them back to the island. I imagine when they sobered up they had no idea what had happened.'

‘So who was she?'

‘Your great-grandmother, Tom. Now get on with it, before the bulldozers move in.'

Grandma keeps everything. Cardboard, tinfoil, chocolate boxes, plastic things in the exact shape of a banana – and she keeps them all in the shed in the garden.

‘Take anything, build it here,' she says, sweeping a city of paint pots to one side.

I gaze at the huge pile of recycling and try really hard to believe that we can build something fantastic.

‘So – we need a roller coaster for a start.' Jacob picks up a shoebox and cuts it in half. It looks like a shoebox cut in half.

‘And a ghost train,' he says, plonking a tinfoil takeaway box on a piece of cardboard. ‘And a tower of fear, a plunge of terror, and a pit of doom, and we can have those arcade games where you shoot things, like jelly eyes, and –'

‘No.' Eric's face crumples as if he's in pain. ‘Surely no one will want to go to something like that?'

‘Everyone will want to go to something like that,' says Jacob.

They both look at me. I'm tempted to say nothing, but in the end I open my mouth and mumble, ‘I suspect Jacob's right. People like being scared, a little, when they think things are under control.' Eric sags. ‘And remember – this is about saving the bird reserve. Although we might have to keep an eye on the ghost train.'

‘Billy and I will keep an eye on the ghost train,' says Flora Rose.

‘Would you stop doing that!' I say, jumping and tipping an entire bucket of milk-bottle tops over the floor.

‘Sorry, I thought you knew I was here,' she says. ‘Anyway, I was always rather good at making things when I was alive. I'll help you. Well, I'll tell you what'll work and what won't. Now, is there any glue?'

There are hundreds of people in the town hall, all milling about, all chatting, and nearly all adults. Our model is standing on one side of the stage, and Whizzo's model is under a perfectly placed sheet on the other. Ours, even with Flora Rose's help, looks like a table heaped with household recycling and glue. Theirs looks as if it's going to be spectacular. It's bigger than it was in the library.

Everyone sits down and stares at us, expectantly.

The suit couple from the library step forward from behind the Whizzo table. ‘Shall we go first, before the children?' Mrs Suit looks towards the mayor.

The mayor waves his hand airily, and goes back to checking messages on his phone.

‘So,' says Mr Suit, smiling. ‘We'd like to present Whizzo's updated plans for the upgrading of the current bird reserve.'

A photograph of the bird reserve appears on the screen behind. It's been carefully taken so that an empty drink can looms large at the front, along with globs of tar and half a plastic bottle. You wouldn't know it was a bird reserve – you'd think it was a recycling centre.

‘An eyesore, I think you'll agree,' says Mrs Suit.

‘Which is why we're pretty sure you're going to like this  … '

As they speak, Eric goes pale and sinks back onto a chair. At first I think he's eaten something bad, and then I realise he's watching the woman peeling back the sheet over the model.

The entire audience gasps.

‘Awesome, isn't it?' says the woman.

It's pin-drop silent in the hall as we all stare at the thing on the table.

It is awesome, but not in the way she means. There are the perfectly made white cardboard models you'd expect, like little buildings, and a roller coaster and trees, but then there are all these plastic birds. The kind of things that they sell in the toy shop: puffins and seagulls and robins and owls, all different scales and sizes.

Next to me Eric groans.

‘So, welcome to Birdy World,' says Mrs Suit briskly. ‘Yes, you're not going mad. We have changed the plan. Bunny World has become Birdy World! We thought, as you were so keen on your seabirds here, we'd transfer the theme to something more in keeping. Seagulls and – those sorts of things. So here,' she points at a white blob with wings, ‘we have the Sandwich Tern serving sandwiches, and here the Puffin Play Club, and over here the Curlew Club for older  … '

Some of the audience are shuffling in their seats. I can't work out if they're really enthusiastic and would like to get up and see more, or if they're appalled.

‘So the other important issue is the relocation of the birds from this  … ' – another picture of the bird reserve flashes onto the screen, this time showing a rusty anchor and some bed springs – ‘ …  to this!' A picturesque, possibly airbrushed, photo of the Bywater Regis Lighthouse fills the space, seagulls wheeling above it in a blue sky and waves gently breaking over the rocks.

‘As you know, the lighthouse is no longer manned, and is on its own rocky outcrop – perfect for the birds – although it is a little smaller than the area they have now. We –'

‘It's tiny!' shouts someone. ‘They wouldn't all fit on there – and there's no beach.'

‘Ah, yes, we know there's no beach, but I'm sure the birds will adapt.'

‘Adapt??!' shouts Mr Worthy. ‘The Little Tern has been nesting on shingle for thousands of years – why would it adapt?'

‘Any questions?' says Mr Suit.

‘There were twenty-seven nesting pairs of Little Terns on the reserve last summer!' shouts Mrs Worthy. ‘They're endangered, and there's no way they'd live on that rock.'

Someone else shouts, ‘They can only nest in shingle! It would be a gross act of environmental vandalism!'

The mayor holds out his hands for silence. ‘Please,' he says and turns to the Whizzo pair.

Mrs Suit is sweating now. ‘And the ordinary seagulls will probably find somewhere to live quite quickly. We envisage the link road passing through this piece of marsh –'

‘Where the Marsh Harriers live!' mutters Eric.

‘And the car parks could be constructed on this piece of derelict swamp land –'

‘The home of the Black-tailed Godwits!' shouts Mr Worthy.

‘Thank you,' says Mr Suit. ‘I think you should have a look at the model. It's self-explanatory.'

‘Look!' says Mrs Suit, glancing towards the mayor. ‘If you want your lido, you're going to have to put up with this.'

‘The lido's great but we don't want to have it at the expense of the birds,' says Mr Worthy.

Mrs Suit raises an eyebrow and looks towards the mayor. ‘Really? I thought the lido was very important.'

The mayor looks confused and drops his phone. ‘Yes  …  no. I mean, obviously  … '

‘Admit it! You want the lido refurbished because you share a roof with it!' shouts a man from the back.

A murmur goes around the audience. ‘Of course,' says Grandma, standing up and addressing the mayor. ‘It's all for your benefit, isn't it?'

‘One hundred thousand pounds to restore the lido – and how much of that is the roof?' asks Mr Worthy.

Mrs Suit is smiling, although I don't totally understand why, and then she speaks. ‘But the deal is signed,' she says, taking a piece of paper from her inner jacket pocket. ‘Like it or not, Bywater-by-Sea is going to have a theme park – it says so here, signed, witnessed and contracted.'

Everyone stares at the piece of paper, and then, a millisecond later, everyone stares at the mayor.

He goes red, then white, then red again, and sinks his head turtlewise into the top of his jacket, so that only a pair of bright-red ears are visible.

We continue to stare at him.

‘So everyone,' says Mrs Suit, brightly, ‘I think Birdy World is going to replace bird reserve – which is obviously a bit of a pity, but  … ' She shrugs.

‘Not necessarily.' Eric stands up.

Mr Suit stares in amazement. Whether at Eric or Eric's hair is not clear.

Eric pokes me, and I poke Jacob. We all stand, reddening, as all the faces that were staring at the Whizzo couple stare at us.

‘Instead of the bird reserve, we'd like you to use Mystery Smoke Island.'

The audience mutter, as if they don't know where we're talking about.

‘The island about four miles off shore – the abandoned, haunted island?' says Eric.

People nod and look at us, waiting for something. I wish we had some photos.

‘Well, Mystery Smoke Island is quite big,' says Jacob. ‘And in a shocking state.'

‘Much bigger than the bird reserve,' I say.

‘Yes,' says Eric, unfolding a crumpled map and pointing to it. ‘And it's already got lots of the things we need to –' He stalls, as if he's just noticed that everyone's looking at him.

‘Build a ghostly theme park,' says Jacob, pushing the egg box that represents the Lilac Lake back into position and nudging me.

‘It would make Mystery Smoke Island THE attraction in the South West. It would put Bywater-by-Sea on the map as a serious tourist destination AND it would prevent any development in the town itself,' I say – slightly too loudly.

‘Yes,' says Jacob, butting in. ‘And it could have its own sweet shop selling scary sweets, like headless jelly babies and screaming gobstoppers.'

‘It would help the ferry companies and ensure the preservation of the existing, very satisfactory, bird sanctuary,' says Eric.

‘It could open all night on Halloween,' says Jacob. ‘We could have boats with pumpkins crossing the channel to the island.'

We look into the audience. People are screwing up their faces in doubt, sighing, checking their phones, picking their nails.

‘It would be the only haunted-house themed park anywhere around. We could rename it Nightmare Island,' I say desperately. ‘And if you've been there, you'd know how convincing it would be.'

‘Oooooooooh,' comes a long slow wail from nowhere.

Most of the audience jumps. The rest blink and turn up their hearing aids.

‘Aaaaaaaahhghghghgh.' A strangled cry echoes across the ceiling and the lights flicker.

‘Goodness,' says a woman in the front row, pulling her husband a little closer.

‘Miiiiiaaaaooowwwwwwww.' Shipwreck James lets out a long mournful yowl.

‘Oh woe is meeeeeeeeeeee  … ' Flora Rose races around the chairs, leaving a shiver in her wake and the lights go out properly.

‘Aaagh!' screams a woman from the back. ‘Something just brushed my leg and there's nothing there!'

‘I say!' says Grandma. ‘Very good.'

The jam jar on the table turns silver and wobbles violently.
‘Listen to them  … '
squeaks Victor.

The audience gasp and stare upwards as a purple blobby light appears in midair over their heads. It shimmers and flickers, wafting back and forth just below the ceiling. I can just make out Billy's hat and a big smile. It hovers for five whole seconds before he turns his mouth to a scream and swoops down over the seats.

‘AAAAAAArghghghgh!' Mrs Suit grabs her bag and races for the exit.

‘Aaaarghghghg!' chorus the front row, scrabbling over each other to get to the back of the hall – but before they get out of the doors, the lights flick on and the noises stop.

The escapees pause, look around at each other and no doubt feel foolish.

‘Good show!' says Grandma, clapping furiously.

‘Bravo!' shout Mr and Mrs Worthy. Slowly all the people find their seats and laugh and clap each other on the back, red faces all round.

‘So?' I say when the chattering dies down. ‘What do you think?'

The mayor puts it to a vote. ‘Yes, yes, a vote then, everyone,' he says, looking up from his phone. ‘We'll start by asking: who would like to see the development of Mystery Smoke Island as Nightmare Island theme park?'

I close my eyes. I can't bear to open them – in spite of Flora Rose's best efforts, they've probably all voted for the Birdy World park on the bird sanctuary.

A ripple of laughter runs through the room and I crank one eye slightly open.

They've all got their hands up, every single one of them. Grandma's got a huge smile on her face and is nodding at me.

Next to me, Eric's standing with his mouth open.

I feel 100 per cent good.

‘Can it have a hall of mirrors?' whispers Flora Rose.

‘I'm sure it can,' mutters Eric. ‘Especially for you.'

We celebrate with Grandma's curdled cocoa and some slightly soft biscuits that Jacob jams into his mouth all at once.

Victor sits on a cotton reel and eats tiny slices of biscuit. He reminds me of a mouse, not just because of the way he eats, but also because of his colour. He's grey all over – his face and hands are grey, he might almost be covered in grey fur.

‘So do we live on the island with the builders?' asks Flora Rose. ‘Or stay here with you?'

‘Island,' I say.

‘Yes, island,' says Eric.

‘Here,' says Jacob, prodding Victor with a cocktail stick. ‘Hey – can you feel that? Are you still not quite a ghost?'

‘Yes I can. Stop it, you imbecile!'
says Victor, grabbing the end of the cocktail stick and giving Jacob a shove back.
‘What about my castle? How do we know they're going to put one in? And how do we know it'll accommodate us as well as all the  … '
– he winces and flaps his hands dismissively –
‘tourists.'

‘Don't worry,' says Grandma, landing a warm fruit cake on the table. ‘I've been asked if you can advise on the plans.'

‘Yes, and we can be there every weekend and every evening, talking to the men who are building it,' I say. ‘AND they've said we can put all the scary things in ourselves.'

‘So we can use real skeletons?' asks Jacob.

‘And real blood?' asks Flora Rose.

‘Um,' says Eric. ‘We'll see.'