The Ghastly Gerty Swindle With the Ghosts of Hungryhouse Lane (5 page)

Madness, thought James. Mayhem and utter madness! Was there peace anywhere on Earth—was it true what Amy Steadings had said, could a fellow nowadays go to the moon?

Fortunately it was a calm day outside, and by taking reasonable precautions he made it to the hayloft. There was a plague of blasted mice in the hayloft, of course, but right now he regarded the beasts as the lesser of two evils. They only squeaked.

Toothbrushes and toilet paper. Modern inventions! If that's progress, thought James, you can jolly well hang me in the morning. “Time is my enemy,” he cried, while drawing his sword in a way that helped him to relieve his feelings. “Time itself! Why don't they learn how to stop time instead of pussyfooting about with toothbrushes and toilet paper? Now,
that
would be progress!”

After some minutes of prancing about in the hayloft, he returned to the house, fearful that a storm might come up and leave him stranded among mice. On easing his Presence through a landing window, he saw something that made him pause for a pinch of imaginary snuff. The youngest of the three horrors was fiddling with the door of the grandfather clock.

What was she up to now? How nice it would be, thought James, if the door closed and the clock somehow ate her. This thought, and the snuff, made him feel more like himself as he levitated toward the attic.

7 …

Tongue Sandwiches

Although it was half past twelve in the middle of the day, Bonnie sneaked along the first landing like a thief in the night. She had Lulubelle with her. Hidden down the front of her jogging suit she also had Charlie's juggling balls.

She had things to do. Important things. And she didn't want anybody to see her doing them, because that would spoil her special plan to pay Charlie back for being beastly to Lulubelle.

The list of Charlie's crimes against Lulubelle was now too long to be ignored. Last week at bathtime he'd said she wanted to marry a duck, and he had also made her float in the soap dish with a sign around her neck saying
SHARK BAIT
. And how dare he say that she never used toilet paper! He was getting far too fresh, and Bonnie knew just what to do about that.

With a quick dart she made it to the door of the grandfather clock. Her second favorite ghost—the
one dressed like Cinderella at the ball when the clock struck twelve and she had to run away leaving the sad prince holding her lovely little sparkling slipper—had given her a wonderful idea for a hiding place. Imagine a clock with a door! Even her teacher at school didn't know that clocks had doors—she would certainly have told Bonnie if she did.

For just a quick shivery moment, Bonnie had the funniest feeling that someone was watching her, so she checked again that all was clear before opening the clock to pop the balls inside. Charlie would never guess!

There wasn't much room in there. The big swingy brass thing had been tied to one side to make space for lots of other objects, including a gun that looked like a trumpet. Bonnie tiptoed away from the clock as carefully as she had arrived.

Twenty minutes later the clock on the landing had another visitor. Charlie, too, remembered what Lady Cordelia had said that morning, and his curiosity had been aroused for three reasons: One, he wanted to tape the clock ticking; two, he wanted to see the lead soldiers; and three, he just wanted to look in and see clock guts.

But when he arrived, the clock had stopped ticking. As he discovered on opening the door, this was because the pendulum had been tied up. And the lead soldiers couldn't be seen under a pile of other things—including his own juggling balls.

There was no mystery here for Charlie. He knew how those balls had gotten there. He knew why, and he knew by whom.

Okay. So she wanted to play rough.

He went looking for Lulubelle.

Down in the kitchen Gerty glanced anxiously at her watch as she wrapped up the egg-salad sandwiches, and then the tongue ones. It was getting late. How in the name of goodness did it take them so long to get organized for a stupid picnic?

“Eew. I'm not eating tongue sandwiches,” said the littlest Sweet. “How can the moo-cow say moo if it hasn't got its tongue?”

“Look, the cow is
dead
,” snapped Gerty. “Somebody somewhere else in the world is eating the rest of it. You might as well say how does a sheep walk if we roast a leg of lamb.”

String me up, thought Gerty. For breakfast they'd gobbled down bacon and
pâté de fois gras
, and they had the nerve to turn up their noses at tongue sandwiches!

“You didn't whack the crusts off,” said Charlie.

“And I like my sandwiches cut into equilateral triangles, actually,” said Zoe.

“Oh, please excuse me,” cried Gerty. “I didn't know you needed geometry lessons to make proper sandwiches.”

A distant cloud seen through the window made
her even more impatient. What if it rained and they cancelled the picnic? As Amy Steadings struggled into the room with a green blanket, Gerty clapped her hands in a let's-be-busy way.

“If you don't all hurry up, it's going to rain. Come along now; the grass will be wet and horrible and you'll have to eat your picnic standing up. Off you go!”

“What are we going to drink?” asked Zoe.

“The lemonade is in the fridge. Fetch it like a good girl, if you can carry it, that is—do you really have to bring your first-aid case to a
picnic
?”

“Of course. Someone might rip their flesh on barbed wire.”

“Oh, my gawd, charming,” muttered Gerty.

When Zoe opened the fridge door, she saw a plate of tongue sandwiches sitting on the second shelf. They were bound in plastic wrap and they had been sprinkled over with heads of fresh parsley. That wasn't all. They had been cut into neat equilateral triangles.

Huh, thought Zoe.

Muldoon led the picnic party out of the front door. Then, on her cane, came Miss Amy, who was helped by Zoe, who passed her first-aid case to Charlie, who passed the plastic cups to Bonnie so that he could have one hand free to tape interesting sounds if he heard any. And so Bonnie couldn't run back for Lulubelle
because her arms were too full to carry anything more.

“Could you open the garden gate for us please, Gertrude,” said Amy. “What are you going to do with yourself all afternoon?”

“I must walk into the village, dear. I need some stamps.”

“Dear me. I'm sure I must have stamps you can have.”

“Oh, stamps isn't all, duck. I've got to get a turnip and bread.”

“Enjoy the tongue sandwiches,” said Zoe.

“Never eat them! If I let tongue past my lips it gives me heartburn. Cheers!”

How mean could you get, Zoe thought as the picnic party moved on. Imagine making triangle sandwiches for herself and squares for everybody else! And then telling lies about it! Because if Gertrude Moag wouldn't eat those sandwiches in the fridge, who were they
for
?

8 …

Alexander the Grate

A white van traveled along the highway toward Tunwold village.

It was a new van, but rather inclined to show the dust as white vehicles sometimes do. An anonymous finger had written
WASH
on the left rear door and
ME
on the right rear door. Along the side, in bold blue letters, were these words:

Alexander himself was driving on this particular day—the day of the Sweet kids' picnic. He was dressed in a leather jacket, slate-blue trousers and gray running shoes. Over the bald spot that had given him so much misery in life he wore a jaunty yachting cap. His shades had mirrors on the outside, so that
when you looked at his eyes you saw two segments of reflected sky under the crescent-shaped peak of the cap. All in all, he had a sort of crumpled-but-quality look that went awfully well, he thought, with antiques.

A glance at his watch confirmed that he was on time. The plan was to arrive sometime after three and leave shortly after four with the van stuffed to the gills. He was looking forward to making a good bundle out of this trip.

Even as a child, Alexander had been very interested in other people's property. If someone in his class lost a pencil, the lost pencil had a way of being found in Alexander's schoolbag. His teacher used to say, “Now, children, Alexander only
borrowed
this pencil I found in his bag,” because she was a nice person and didn't want people to think that he was a thief. She didn't even want Alexander to think that he was a thief.

Another year brought a new teacher. Somebody lost a Mickey Mouse watch and it couldn't be found anywhere, not even in Alexander's schoolbag. (Although the watch
was
in his schoolbag.) Unfortunately, little Madeline Jaffir brought tongue sandwiches to school that day. Alexander had never tasted tongue, so he swapped one of his mushy banana sandwiches for one of little Madeline's.

She nearly lost a tooth that day, because the
Mickey Mouse watch was in there, all slimy with banana. It had been a brilliant hiding place—only, Alexander's greed had let him down. Strangely enough, tongue became his favorite sandwich filling after that.

“It's those ads on TV,” his mother complained to the teacher. “They'd make anybody steal, they would. I heard the Archbishop of Canterbury say so with my own ears! The poor boy sees all those lovely things he can't have.”

But Alexander went on to steal other things that weren't advertised on TV—such as cases of candy sweets from supermarkets and coal from moving trucks. At sixteen years of age he was almost shot out of a tree by a bunch of furious bird-watchers for trying to rob the nest of the last osprey in the British Isles.

After the rare-egg trade, Alexander had gone into the antiques business. By buying low and selling high (and telling outrageous lies), he had managed to do quite well for himself. And of course he was prepared to commit downright robbery. Like right now.

Tunwold village was a little tucked-away place that seemed quite promising through the van window. Horse country, by the look of it. And horses meant money.

Alexander brought the van to a halt at the end of Hungryhouse Lane before getting out. Now he
needed just a little care. One must not be seen, of course. He crawled through a hole in the hedge, and from there to a shrubbery. Beyond a rose arch he watched the old lady set off on her stick with three kids and a dog. Enjoy your picnic, Alexander thought with a grin. This was going to be like taking candy from a baby—although, strangely enough, taking candy from an actual baby was one thing that Alexander had never tried. He waited just a few moments more, in case they forgot something and came back to the house, before bringing the van to the front door.

“Hello, Mom.”

“Alex! Come inside, duck, I've got everything ready. How is your chest? Did you rub it with oil of eucalyptus like I told you to? A summer cold is the devil to get rid of, you know.” Swinging his shades by one leg, Alexander followed his mother into the house. Silly old cow! Of course he hadn't rubbed his chest with oil of eucalyptus; the fumes would knock people off their feet. Did she think his customers had all lost their noses?

Alexander didn't speak these thoughts aloud, however. When he needed people, he could be quite charming to them, and he needed Gerty for a few months yet. One more job. Perhaps the stately home of an earl or a duke….

“Nice house, Mom,” he said. “Do I see a genuine
oak-beam ceiling? Man, look at that fireplace. Pity I can't take it with me. Let's load up the heavy stuff first.”

“First you'll eat,” said Gerty. “You can't go to work on an empty stomach.”

Saying which, she set out the plate of triangular tongue sandwiches. “Your favorites, duck!”

Alexander gave her an affectionate and charming little peck on the cheek. Gerty just smiled. She was ever so pleased.

Then they went to work. The Victorian lounge-sofa was a lump of a thing, and the grandfather clock didn't exactly feel like a feather, either. Then they shifted some items from the attic, including a large and ancient bottle Gerty had wrapped in a velvet curtain for protection. The Edwardian baby carriage and the old teddy bear would certainly bring a pretty penny, thought Alexander. And the elephant's foot. No doubt about it, Mumsy-wumsy sure knew what stuff to pick.

This was the third big house they'd done in two years. Soon Alexander hoped he'd have enough cash to live the high life in some flashy spot like the Bahamas, or maybe even Rio. The climate was very good in Rio, he'd heard. No need for oil of eucalyptus there! Or Mother, either. Gerty played no part in his long-term plans.

They filled the van in thirty-five minutes.