The Phredde Collection (57 page)

A hairdresser ghost and a ghost with a passion for underpants. That explained a lot of things—like how 56 girls had been too scared to stay in this house for two whole nights. Had Annie stolen their underpants too? And had Jack the Clipper given them new hairdos?

Of course, I thought, with just a tiny shiver, I was used to things like that. Once you’ve faced trolls and cannibal phaeries, not to mention a teacher who’s a vampire, you’re not scared of a couple of ghosts.

Well, not very.

Hardly at all really.

I just wished that ghosts appeared during the day, when things were light and bright and SAFE-seeming, not at night when every creak made you think that another strange ghostly presence was going to…

How was I ever going to wear my piranha underpants again, knowing they’d once been haunted?

Stop it, Prudence
, I said to myself.
So you’ve met a
couple of ghosts! So what? This is a haunted house with two perfectly nice ghosts. And now you know what the mystery is, so there’s no reason at all to think that a cold ghostly presence is going to creep up on you and whisper in your ear…

Suddenly the room grew
cold
again…

‘How about some pizza, mate?’

I jumped about two metres and my heart went bong, bong, bong!

‘Raspberry ice-cream with chocolate sauce then,’ said the voice, a little desperately. ‘Orange fudge cake with cherries and cream? I make a wonderful chocolate fudge cake.’

My heart slowed down to a thud, thud, thud. I turned the light on, but there was no one there.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Show yourself! I know you’re there!’

Nothing happened.

I sighed. ‘Right. If you show yourself, I’ll eat a piece of your orange fudge cake.’

A vague white mist hovered by the dressing table. ‘With a cherry on top?’

‘With a cherry on top.’

‘It’s a deal!’ The mist became more solid, and more solid still—an arm, a leg, another arm. The arms and legs joined up, with a body in between and a head on top, with a chef’s hat above that.

‘Good to meet you, mate,’ said the face under the hat. ‘I’m Cookie.’

‘You were a chef?’

‘Nah, a shearer’s cook, mate. The best on the western plains,’ said Cookie. ‘They just loved my strawberry mousse out there. And my baked beans surprise.’

‘What’s baked beans surprise?’

‘Cheese soufflé,’ said Cookie and smiled.

‘But where are the baked beans?’

‘There aren’t any. That’s the surprise.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Look, mate, you won’t tell any of the other ghosts I’ve been here, will you? We’re not supposed to show ourselves, but I just couldn’t resist. It’s been so long since I had someone to cook for.’

‘Other ghosts!’ I said. ‘No, I won’t tell. But how many of you are—’

Too late. He was gone.

There didn’t seem much point turning the light off after that. So I just pushed my pillow into a more comfortable position and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

‘Knock, knock,’ said someone in my left ear.

‘Who’s there?’ I asked automatically.

‘Owl!’

‘Owl who?’

‘Owl I can say is knock, knock!’ the voice replied.

I sat up again. ‘That’s not funny! And it’s rude to tell people jokes when you’re invisible. Or it should be anyway. Come on, show yourself!’

Nothing happened.

‘Show yourself!’ I yelled—but softly, so Phredde and Bruce didn’t come in again and think I was crazy.

‘Wuff?’ said something near my ear.

I turned my head. A mist shaped like a puppy was hovering just above my pillow.

It wasn’t exactly a small puppy. Its legs and ears were long, but its tail was short and so was its body, and it looked like Jack the Clipper had just curled its hair and given it a ruff about its neck and ankles.

‘Wuff?’ the puppy asked hopefully.

‘Oh, you poor little thing!’ I exclaimed. He was
so
cute. Just the puppy I’d have loved to have at home, but Mum said I couldn’t have a puppy, ever, on account of my brother Mark being a werewolf and werewolves regard puppies as a snack food item. Like Mum said, it was just asking for trouble to get one.

But I so wanted one.

‘Come here, gorgeous,’ I crooned.

The puppy snuggled up to me. It didn’t actually have any substance, of course—after all, it was a ghost. But somehow it felt like it was there.

‘How did you become a ghost then?’ I whispered. ‘Did some nasty person run over you? Or did a big bad werewolf bite you? I think I’ll call you Snuffles—’

CRASH, BANG, WALLOP, ZOING!!!!!!!

A set of drums, an electric guitar and a bass, and three guys in leather and metal appeared in front of me, just as Snuffles squatted and left a ghostly puddle on my pillow.

I stared at the puddle, then at the rock band, then at the puddle again. Then I folded my arms and opened my mouth.

‘Okay, you lot, I’ve had enough!’ I roared. ‘How many ghosts are there in this place? I want all of you—the whole lot—here this second! Now!’

Suddenly the room was full of ghosts—Jack the Clipper and Underpants Annie and Cookie and the rock band and so many others that it looked like a fog had descended. And they were all talking at once—except for Snuffles who was woofing instead.

‘Knock, knock…’

‘Cinnamon toast with cream cheese and…’

‘Maybe funny underpants…’

‘A really lovely ponytail with a bit of a fringe…’

‘Hold it!’ I shouted. ‘Stop all talking at once! Now can someone, anyone, explain what’s happening here?’

Everyone was silent suddenly, except for a short dark man—or ghost—with oily hands and a big grin. ‘Knock, knock,’ he offered.

‘Shut up, Knock-knock!’ the other ghosts chorused.

‘Perhaps I can help.’ A big man stepped forward—well, a big ghost.

‘How can you help?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘Well, for starters,’ said the ghost, ‘I’m your Uncle Carbuncle.’

‘It all started with Wee Willie here,’ said Uncle Carbuncle, scratching Snuffles behind the ear. They were the only two ghosts left in my bedroom now—Uncle Carbuncle had sent all the others away. ‘And STAY away this time,’ he’d ordered. ‘No sneaking in with slices of banana pizza, Cookie. No new hairdos, Jack. Away!’

Now Uncle Carbuncle was sitting in the armchair—or almost, anyway, hovering just above it—and Snuffles, or Wee Willie, was sniffing around the room.

‘What sort of dog is Willie?’ I asked. ‘Apart from being a ghost dog, I mean.’

‘He’s a doodle,’ said Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Because he doo-doos all the time?’

‘Well, that too. But mostly because he’s a cross between a Doberman and a poodle. A doodle, see?’

I nodded.

‘When my dear little Willie died…’ explained Uncle Carbuncle. ‘Well, you know how close you can get with
your dog. I missed his little puddles on the carpet. And Willie didn’t want to leave me either. So he stayed as a ghost. Excuse him, won’t you,’ he added, as Wee Willie wee-weed next to my bed leg. ‘He died before I could toilet-train him. Ghost puddles don’t leave a stain, you know. They aren’t even wet.’

I’d noticed that already. My pillow was dry, with not even a faint wee stain to remind me of Willie.

‘The trouble is,’ continued Uncle Carbuncle, ‘that once you’ve accepted one ghost you keep seeing more of them. Everywhere I went there were ghosts. And what was worse, most of them had nowhere to go. What does a ghost do when their house is knocked down to make a freeway? You can’t haunt a freeway. Cookie’s favourite shearing shed was blown down in a cyclone. Jack the Clipper’s salon has become a video bar. And as for the Rolling Pebbles—’

‘The rock band?’

Uncle Carbuncle nodded. ‘Well, they never actually made it to a stage, so they had nowhere to haunt at all.’

‘So you started a haunted house!’

‘Exactly,’ said Uncle Carbuncle, pleased I’d caught on so quickly. ‘I bought this big house way out in the country where no one would be bothered by a few ghosts. And I set it up properly too: the theatre for the Rolling Pebbles, the kitchen for Cookie, the lake for Big Jan—he used to be a fisherman.’

‘What about the train tracks?’

Uncle Carbuncle grinned. ‘They’re for Knock-knock. He was an engine driver, oh, about 100 years ago now. Lost his brakes racing down a mountain and has been a ghost ever since.’

‘But there isn’t a train!’ I objected.

‘Knock-knock doesn’t need a real engine. He has a ghost one—his own engine that he was driving when he died. We were all having a great time, me and the ghosts. You’re never bored in a haunted house.’ Uncle Carbuncle suddenly looked sad. ‘Then I had to do something really stupid.’

‘What?’

‘I died.’

‘But…but why did that matter?’ I asked. ‘You’re a ghost now…and they’re all ghosts too…’

‘Ghosts can’t own a house!’ Uncle Carbuncle pointed out. ‘You can’t even touch things, except the things you loved most when you were alive, like Cookie with food and Jack with hair…’

‘And Annie with underpants.’

‘Exactly,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘That’s why I set up my will the way it is. I needed to find someone who could spend two nights in a haunted house without having hysterics. I thought girls would be…well, more tolerant of ghosts than boys. We ghosts would leave the girl alone for the first night, but we’d do everything we could to make her comfortable—the best food, her favourite furnishings.’

‘I think you overdid it a bit,’ I told him.

‘I think you’re right. The plan was that on the second night I’d introduce myself and explain our problem.’ He shook his head. ‘No one lasted even one night, much less two. As soon as any of the other girls caught even a hint of a ghost, they were out of here screaming.’

‘Except for me,’ I said slowly.

‘Except for you,’ agreed Uncle Carbuncle. ‘You must be a very special young lady indeed.’

‘Woof,’ agreed Willie, leaving a puddle by the armchair.

‘Not all that special,’ I said. ‘I’ve just sort of got used to…well, people who are different. Like phaeries. Or zombies. Or ghosts.’

Uncle Carbuncle looked at me shrewdly. ‘Maybe you were pretty special to have made friends with people like that in the first place.’

This was all getting
sooo
embarrassing. So I said, ‘What do you want me to do now?’

‘Just be the owner,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘There’s enough money invested to pay rates and taxes and repairs—I’ll still look after all that anyway. Ghosts can use a phone and email—well, I can, maybe because I used email so much when I was alive. You’ll just be the legal owner so we can go on living here. Or ghosting here, I mean.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I tried not to let my disappointment show. So much for renting out the house and using the money to go to uni. The house wasn’t even going to be mine, not really. But at least the ghosts would still have their home.

‘And visit us whenever you like, of course,’ Uncle Carbuncle added hurriedly. He sighed. ‘It does get boring, just haunting around. Being a ghost is like being permanently retired. Cookie has no one to cook for, Jack has no hair to cut, there’s no one to wear Annie’s underpants. And if you have any friends who’d like to visit too…’

I felt a bit better at that. ‘I’ve got lots of friends who’d really LOVE a haunted house,’ I offered. ‘Maybe we could have haunted parties.’

An idea was niggling at my mind. The ghost of an idea…but I was too tired to work it out properly.

Uncle Carbuncle brightened. ‘A few parties would make such a difference to us all!’

Tweet, tweet, tweet!

I glanced outside. The sky was turning grey instead of black between the curtains and the dawn chorus was beginning.

Uncle Carbuncle floated slowly towards the ceiling. ‘I’d better let you get some sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly morning. Time for all ghosts to vanish. Come on, Willie.’

‘Wuff,’ said Willie, leaking against the mirror as he floated past. A faint yellow puddle misted the glass and then was gone. And so were Uncle Carbuncle and Willie.

I switched the light off for the millionth time that night and snuggled down in bed. My pillow smelled very faintly of ghost wee. But I found I didn’t mind.

Tweet, tweet, twittle, tweet, said the birds outside.

‘Shut up,’ I muttered. ‘Why don’t you birds do the dawn chorus at lunch time instead? Then we could all…’

But I was asleep before I’d finished the sentence.

‘Toot-tooot! Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…’

The noise of the train woke me up. Knock-knock’s ghostly engine, I thought blearily, rubbing my eyes to try to convince them to open.

Had it all really happened?

I felt my long blonde hair. Yep.

It was hard to stay awake at breakfast, despite the fact my underpants itched. Annie had put them back again, as she’d promised, but with so many starched frills and bits of lace that I felt like scratching every two minutes. But I didn’t, because the places they itched weren’t the places you can scratch. Not at breakfast, anyway, in front of your friends.

Cookie had laid out scrambled eggs, fried eggs, cheese omelette, ham soufflé, sliced rockmelon, chilled pineapple, grapefruit cut in half with cherries on top, orange juice, watermelon juice, apple muffins, apricot pancakes, banana muesli and a giant lemon cheesecake
just in case anyone felt like dessert. Oh, and mosquito jam for Bruce. Even if I couldn’t see him in daylight, Cookie knew how to put on a breakfast.

‘Let’s get this straight,’ said Phredde, her wings fluttering slowly as she concentrated. ‘Your Uncle Carbuncle is a ghost?’

‘Yep.’ I put down my glass of watermelon juice and picked up my fork again.

‘And all his ghost mates haunt the place?’

‘Yeff,’ I said, my mouth full of omelette.

‘I think you’ve gone bananas,’ said Phredde flatly. ‘Totally peaches, watermelon and apricots too.’

‘There’s no such thing as ghosts!’ declared Bruce, spreading more mosquito jam on his toast.

‘Who made breakfast then?’ I demanded. ‘Who made my hair long and blonde?’

‘There has to be a rational explanation!’ said Phredde. ‘Maybe…maybe elves visited last night.’

‘Or aliens,’ put in Bruce. ‘Everyone
knows
there’s no such thing as ghosts!’

‘A couple of years ago I thought there was no such thing as phaeries,’ I said sharply. ‘Except in little kids’ books.’

There was silence at that.

‘Prove it,’ said Phredde at last.

‘Prove that there are ghosts in the house?’

‘Yep,’ said Phredde.

‘Look, they’re invisible if you don’t believe in them!’ I cried. ‘How can I prove that they exist if you can’t see them?’

I thought for a minute. ‘How about this? What if in the next ten seconds someone invisible puts a plate of hot pikelets on the table?’

‘With mango jam,’ added Phredde. ‘Because it’s my favourite.’

‘With mango jam. And someone gives Bruce a haircut.’

‘But frogs don’t have any hair!’ protested Bruce.

‘Shut up!’ I was really feeling grumpy, what with lack of sleep and everything. ‘And…and…’

A cold wind breathed across the room. Something ghostly whispered in my ear. I grinned.

‘I’m going to tell you a knock, knock joke about a mosquito, and as soon as I have, everything will be here. Okay?’

‘Well…maybe…’ said Phredde.

‘Okay. Knock, knock.’

‘Who’s there?’ asked Phredde suspiciously.

‘Amos.’

‘Amos who?’

‘Amos Quito! And there you are!’ I pointed triumphantly at the pikelets with mango jam on the table and then at Bruce—and then I doubled over with laughter because I had never seen anything so silly in all my life. I mean, have
you
ever seen a frog with a mullet
and
pink underpants? With lace?

‘What’s so funny?’ demanded Bruce. He raised his froggy hand to his head. ‘Hey! Who did this?’ he yelled.

‘Jack the Clipper,’ I choked. ‘He’s a hairdresser. Well, he was before he became a ghost. And Annie! She makes underpants!’

Phredde was giggling too. ‘Okay, I believe you!’ she choked. ‘I believe you!’

Bruce glared at me. ‘If I say I believe too, will you get him to take this thing away?’

‘Maybe,’ I said.

‘Pru!’ pleaded Bruce.

‘Well, all right. Hey, Jack, Annie,’ I called. ‘Can you lose the mullet? And the underpants?’

‘Sure thing, sweetheart,’ said a ghostly voice somewhere above the table.

Phredde stared. ‘I heard that!’

‘So did I!’ exclaimed Bruce. Suddenly his head was back to froggy normal. He gazed around. ‘Hey, where are you?’

‘Right here, lovey,’ said Jack’s voice. ‘You just can’t see us. And so are Annie and Knock-knock and Wee Willie—’

‘Wuff,’ barked Willie.

‘Knock, knock,’ said Knock-knock.

‘Who’s there?’ asked Phredde automatically.

‘Anna,’ said Knock-knock’s voice happily.

‘Anna who?’

‘Another mosquito!’

‘Shut up, Knock-knock. Sorry about that, he will keep telling jokes. And I’m here too,’ said the deeper voice of Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Then why can’t we see you?’ demanded Phredde.

‘You can’t see ghosts in the daytime,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘Even if you believe in them.’

‘Oh,’ said Phredde. ‘Hey!’ she yelled suddenly. ‘None of you were in my bedroom last night, were you? If any of you were in my bedroom you’d better have been girl ghosts, that’s all I can say!’

No one answered.

‘Are you still there?’ demanded Phredde.

‘Yes,’ said Annie’s voice. ‘Look, it’s okay, girls. I keep an eye on them.’

‘Well…’ said Phredde, subsiding. I think she’d just realised that there isn’t much you can do about a ghostly peeping tom. Kick him? I don’t think so. ‘Are you going to hang around us all day?’ she asked suspiciously. Phredde never likes being proved wrong. If she says ghosts don’t exist, she’d rather they stayed unexisted.

‘No, no,’ said Uncle Carbuncle soothingly. ‘We’ll stay right out of your way.’

‘We want Pru to feel comfortable here,’ added Jack. ‘It’s
really
important that she stays here the second night. We’ll just get on with our usual jobs.’

‘Usual jobs?’ asked Bruce.

‘I’ve got some wigs I want to touch up,’ said Jack.

‘And I’ve had an idea for leopardskin underpants with yellow ruffles,’ said Annie. ‘And Knock-knock wants to polish his engine.’

‘Knock, knock,’ began Knock-knock.

‘Shut up!’ chorused the other ghosts.

‘We’ve all got our hobbies,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘That’s all they can be now, hobbies,’ he added sadly. ‘But at least our home will be safe with Pru. Now if you’ll excuse us…’

A cold wind blew through the room, then vanished.

‘Hello? Hello?’ I said. But they’d gone.

We looked at each other.

‘You can’t help feeling sorry for them,’ I said.

‘Hmm, I suppose,’ said Phredde. She seemed thoughtful.

‘I’ve just realised something,’ said Bruce slowly. He nudged Phredde. They exchanged a look.

It was one of those meaningful looks like you see on TV, when you can tell that the murderer is about to
choose another victim, or the hero knows he’s saying goodbye for the last time to his dear old mum.

But why did Bruce and Phredde have to share a meaningful look in front of me? Meaningful looks are what you give when you can’t say something aloud. And there wasn’t anything Phredde and Bruce couldn’t say in front of me. I was their best friend.

Wasn’t I?

‘Well,’ began Bruce.

‘Well,’ said Phredde. ‘If you’re absolutely positively certain you’re safe…’

‘Of course I’m safe,’ I said. ‘I just explained. It was all a mistake—the ghosts were trying to make those other girls feel at home. They just got a bit over-excited.’

‘So you really don’t need us here,’ said Bruce. ‘Well, then…‘ He hesitated.

‘Well, then what?’ I asked warily.

‘Well, it’s just we have, er, all that homework,’ said Phredde.

I narrowed my eyes. ‘You don’t have any more homework than me. Remember? We’re in the same class!’

‘This is…um…extra homework,’ said Bruce. ‘Sort of phaery homework.’

‘I see,’ I said coldly. ‘The sort ordinary humans aren’t allowed to know about.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Phredde eagerly. Then she saw the look on my face. ‘It’s not that we don’t WANT you to know about it,’ she added.

I shrugged and took an apricot pancake. I didn’t really want it, to be honest. All that breakfast suddenly felt like a pile of overdue library books in my tummy,
with seven pancakes, a cheese omelette and four slices of rockmelon all muttering, ‘Hey, let’s get back out, where we came from.’ But I wasn’t going to show Phredde I was upset.

‘I’m quite all right here,’ I said coolly. ‘You go off and do your…’ I gulped, ‘phaery homework.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Phredde.

‘Quite sure.’ I took another bite of pancake and hoped I’d work out some way to swallow it over the lump in my throat.

‘We won’t leave if you’re still scared,’ added Bruce, looking at me with concern.

‘Me? Scared? What have I got to be scared about? It’s just a big old deserted mansion full of ghosts—friendly ghosts. And one of them is my uncle too. Well, sort of uncle. I’ll be fine.’

‘Sure?’ asked Phredde.

‘Sure I’m sure,’ I told her.

‘Well, okay then. If you’re sure you’re sure,’ said Phredde. ‘Come on, Bruce!’

‘You’re REALLY sure?’ said Bruce.

I nodded.

PING!

And they left me.