My Haunted House (4 page)

E
dmund glowed really brightly, so I switched off my flashlight to conserve the batteries. Conserving your batteries is something you should always think about in a secret passage, as you never know how long you might be there, and it is the worst disaster ever to be in a secret passage with no light.

I followed Edmund floating along the
passage, and I thought about Aunt Tabby on the other side of the wall and how she would have a fit if she knew what I was doing right then—but not as much of a fit as she was going to have when I sprang my Awful Ambush from the balcony.

Soon I was climbing back up the rickety old ladder while Edmund just floated up in front of me. I thought how much easier it was for a ghost to go up ladders than a regular person. It didn't seem fair somehow, especially as I had to carry my flashlight
and
wind up my ball of string as I went.

When we got to the top, Edmund stopped outside the door.

“Go on,” I told him. I couldn't see why he had stopped, as everyone knows that ghosts can go right through doors.

“This door is difficult,”
he said.
“I should not come here. It is not my room.”

“It's all right,” I said. “I've got the key.”

Edmund sounded surprised.
“You have the key?”
he kind of murmured, and he began to shimmer and flicker. Then suddenly he was gone—straight through the door. And I was left stuck at the top of a horrible old ladder in the dark. Great. After fiddling around with the key for ages, I unlocked the door and kind of fell into the room. Edmund was floating there, just looking at me in a really unhelpful way.

“So where exactly
is
the balcony then?” I asked as I picked myself up.

Edmund pointed to the fireplace.
“It is through there.”

“Well, that's just stupid,” I told him.
“How do I get through a fireplace? It's all very well for
you.
You're a ghost, but I can't just walk through a sooty old fireplace just like that—”

“You talk just like the Tabitha,”
said Edmund.
“You make my ears hurt. Where is the key?”

“What key?” I asked crossly.

“The key to the balcony,”
he said as though I was really stupid or something.
“The one you carry upon your person.”

“Upon my
what
?” I said, and then I realized what he meant and fished the key out of my pocket. “Here you are,” I said, and gave it to him. Of course, it just dropped straight through his hand and fell onto the floor. Duh. I had forgotten for a moment that Edmund was a ghost, since he was being just
as irritating as a real boy.

“Place the key in the keyhole,”
said Edmund, and he waved his hand at a small keyhole in the middle of the fireplace that I hadn't noticed before.
“For it opens the way to the balcony. Farewell.”
Then he shot off through the door and disappeared.

I put the key in the keyhole and turned it. It worked! The fireplace slid sideways, and a brilliant beam of sunlight pierced the room. I squeezed through the opening and there I was at last—on the balcony.

It was weird standing miles above the hall.
Everything looked so small and far away. I suppose that is what birds feel like all the time when they hang around in the big old trees out in the garden. I was so pleased that I was on the balcony at last that I very nearly yelled out to Aunt Tabby to come and see where I was—luckily, I stopped myself just in time.

But the best thing of all was that when I looked down, I could see the balcony was right above the floor in front of the doormat where people who have never been to the house always stop and stare. They often have their mouths open too, although they never seem to say much—and I have known them to stay like that for quite a long time.

It was perfect. Araminta's Awful Ambush was going to be the
best
.

I zoomed back up in the dumbwaiter and along the secret passage, but when I pushed open the little door under the stairs, someone was waiting for me.

G
uess who it was? No, not Aunt Tabby. No, it wasn't Uncle Drac, either.

It was Sir Horace
.

“Good morning!”
he said in a really strange, booming voice that came from somewhere inside his suit of armor. It sounded so spooky that I got covered in goose bumps all over and my knees felt funny.

“Ger-good morning, Sir Horace,” I gulped.
I considered making a run for it back down the secret passage, but I didn't think my legs would work very well.

Sir Horace loomed over me and looked very wobbly. I edged away, as I didn't give much for his chances of staying in one piece for very long—since it was me who had put him back together—and I could do without a rusty chunk of armor landing on me just then.

I thought that perhaps I had better try and explain things. I know explaining things doesn't always help, especially if the person you are explaining to is Aunt Tabby, but I thought Sir Horace might be different. So I said in my best polite voice, “Er…I'm very sorry, Sir Horace. But I…er…I thought you were just a…um…”

“A moldy old rust bucket,”
Sir Horace finished my sentence for me, which Aunt Tabby says is very rude.

“Ah…” I mumbled, trying to remember what else I had called Sir Horace when I was putting him back together. In fact, I still thought he
was
a moldy old
rust bucket, but I hadn't expected him to be a
talking
rust bucket.

I thought I had better check out the ghost situation with Sir Horace, so I asked him, “Are you a ghost as well?”

“As well as what?”
he boomed.
“Ah—as well as being a knight of the realm, you mean. Why yes, Miss Spookie, indeed I am a ghost. The ghost of Sir Horace Harbinger of Hernia Hall, at your service.”
He made a sweeping bow. Three bolts fell from his neck and rattled down the stairs.

Wow. That meant he was my
second
ghost that morning—what were the chances of that? Of course, it was typical, I thought. I spend years looking for a ghost and then two come along at once, and just as Aunt Tabby is about to throw me and Uncle Drac
out of the house, too.

But it all made sense to me now. Sir Horace never stayed in the same place for very long, and I had always thought that Aunt Tabby moved him around at night as a sort of joke. It would be just the sort of stupid joke that Aunt Tabby would like. But now I understood—Sir Horace moved
himself
around.

“I'm really sorry about your helmet—er…I mean, your head,” I said, trying not to remember how I had kicked it all the way down the stairs. I hoped he didn't remember either.

“Got a terrible headache,”
said Sir Horace.

“Oh. Yes, well I suppose you would have,” I said sympathetically.

“Walking's not too easy either,”
he said. We both looked down at his left foot, which was
still jammed on back to front.

“Er…no, I can see it might not be,” I said in my best helpful voice.

“But”
—he boomed and kind of rattled at the same time—
“that is not what is bothering me. What is bothering me is this house-selling business.”

“Oh, good,” I told him, “because that's bothering
me
, too.”

Sir Horace swayed a bit, and I dodged an old spring as it flew off his neck and pinged onto the floor.
“And this…cycling thing,”
he said.

For a moment I was confused, as I was sure I had never seen Sir Horace out on a bike. And then I realized what he meant.

“You mean
re
cycling,” I told him.

“Do I?”
he boomed.
“Well, don't like the
sound of it whatever it's called. Never did care for tins myself. Impossible to open. Can't stand cat food.”
And then, with a horrible teeth-on-edge creaking noise, Sir Horace stood up as straight as he could—which was not very straight at all—and took a deep breath.
“Something,”
he boomed so loud that I was afraid Aunt Tabby would hear,
“something must be done. This house must not be sold!”

“Exactly!” I agreed. “And I've got a really
great
idea. I'm going to do my Awful Ambush from the balcony and—”

“From
my balcony?”
he interrupted.
“In
my
room?”

Oops—so it was
Sir Horace's
room. And it seemed like he didn't like anyone going in there. I could understand how he felt, as I don't like Aunt Tabby going into any of my
bedrooms either. She always manages to mess something up.

I thought I ought to explain. “I'm sorry, Sir Horace, but I found the key in your foot, and—” but he interrupted
again
.

“I know,”
he said, wiggling his left foot about as though he had pins and needles in it—which I knew for sure he didn't, as I had already emptied it out and all I had found was the key.
“I remember that very well. I had my head back on by then.”

“I'm
really
sorry,” I said. “Would you like your key back?”

Sir Horace shook his head very slowly, and it made a horrible grinding noise, like a pepper mill.

“Please keep the key, Miss Spookie,”
he said.
“I would be very pleased for you to use my balcony for your Awful Ambush. I myself have done many Awful Ambushes from there in years gone by. They can be very effective. I will ask my faithful page, Edmund, to assist you.”

Aha. So
that
was who Edmund was, I thought. “Thank you very much, Sir Horace,” I said.

“You are most welcome, Miss Spookie,”
he replied, and bowed low.

“Careful!” I shouted, but it was too late. Sir Horace's head fell off and rolled along the corridor. I caught it just as it started bouncing down the stairs, but unfortunately Aunt Tabby saw me as she was attacking some spiderwebs on the landing below.

“Haven't you put Sir Horace back together
yet
, Araminta?” she snapped at the same time as she made a hundred spiders homeless. Aunt Tabby likes making spiders and people homeless.

“Nearly finished, Aunt Tabby,” I told her, and I rushed back to find Sir Horace. He was sitting on the bottom step looking surprised. Well, I think that was how he was looking, although it was hard to tell. I put his head
back on. I was more careful this time, and I could tell it had gone on the right way as there was a little click when it settled onto his shoulders.

“Ooh, that's better,”
he said.
“That crick in my neck has completely gone.”
He moved his head about, and it didn't make the pepper mill noise any more. I felt pleased.

Then he hung on to the banister and heaved himself up, so that he was standing almost straight, and he said,
“Well, jolly good, then, Miss Spookie. You do your ambush and leave the rest to me.”

“Great,” I said.

“Right ho. And tell young Edmund I said to provide you with all necessary assistance. Until we meet again, Miss Spookie.”
He started to bow, but then he changed his mind. He
walked away, kind of lurching from side to side until he reached a dark corner on the landing and propped himself up in it.

This was turning out to be good day after all—a secret passage, two ghosts, and one Awful Ambush coming up. What could be better?