The Phredde Collection (60 page)

I didn’t understand what it was at first. I mean, trains run on railway tracks, don’t they? They don’t roar through the sky and come zooming down to your garage door.

Not unless they’re ghost trains…

It was the same sound I’d heard the night before—the chug-chug-chugging and the distant scream of the whistle. It got closer and closer till, with a scream of its brakes, the ghost train stopped right outside.

‘Knock, knock,’ said Knock-knock’s voice cheerfully.

‘Er, who’s there?’ I asked.

‘Owl.’

‘Haven’t we had this one before? Owl who?’

‘Owl aboard!’

‘Wh-what?’ I stammered.

‘All aboard!’ repeated Knock-knock urgently.

‘Come on, niece!’ yelled Uncle Carbuncle. ‘Move!’

So I did. I sort of half jumped, half inched across the garage. My ankles felt as if they were about to snap,
and I bumped against so many things I was one big bruise.

‘What about Mr Nahsti?’ I puffed.

‘He can have a nice oozy snoozy till morning,’ suggested Uncle Carbuncle. ‘Then you can ring triple 0 and leave an anonymous tip-off—man trapped in slug ooze in garage. Come on, niece! Hurry!’

I hurried, bobbing and inching. I could just see the train now, a faint shimmer against the metal door of the garage. But when I bumped into it I could feel it all right. It was colder than any metal.

‘Where do I get on?’ I yelled. Ghostly glimmers are all very well, but it’s hard to make out the details.

‘The door’s another metre to the right!’ said Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Come on, Pru,’ urged Underpants Annie. ‘You’re doing fine!’

Another inch…and another…and another…Suddenly my ankles bumped against a step. ‘Ow!’ I said.

‘That’s it, mate! You’re at the door!’ cried Cookie.

But there was no way I could jump up the steps, not with my ankles tied. I tried to slither up them, but discovered that even though snakes can slither up steps, girls can’t.

‘Knock, knock,’ offered Knock-knock again.

‘Who’s there?’ I panted.

‘Grub.’

‘Grub who?’

‘Grub onto this with your teeth!’

‘Wha—’ I began, just as a cloth rasped against my mouth. I grabbed it with my teeth and held on hard.

Up, up, up I went. I could feel the steps even if I couldn’t see them—bump, bump, bump. And then
the floor of the train carriage under my head, my shoulders, and finally my legs as well. My teeth hurt. EVERYTHING hurt. But at least I was inside.

I opened my mouth and spat out the scratchy cloth ‘What was THAT?’ I gasped.

‘Underpants,’ said Annie’s voice cheerfully.

‘What? You mean I had someone’s underpants in my mouth!’ I spluttered.

‘This is no time to be squeamish, niece!’ ordered Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Anyway, they were new underpants,’ said Annie hurriedly. ‘Never worn. With lace on them.’

I swallowed, trying to get rid of the odd taste in my mouth.

Tooo-oooot! the whistle screamed.

And we were off.

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…

You know how a train goes choofa-choofa-choofa as it rides along the rails, and the scenery flows past outside so you can see into everyone’s backyards and sometimes their kitchen windows too, and sometimes there’s an attendant who brings you drinks or chips?

This wasn’t like that at all.

To start with, there were no rails.

‘Heeelpp!’ I shrieked as we soared up into the air and I rolled backwards and lodged against a seat.

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…

There’s only one thing worse than being in a runaway train soaring into the sky, and that’s being in a train you can’t even SEE soaring into the sky!

But there’s one thing even worse than that too! And that’s falling out of one!

‘Hold on!’ cried Annie.

‘How can I hold on?’ I yelled. ‘I’m all tied up!’

‘Well, um…’ began Annie.

‘Hold on a second, girl,’ shouted Jack the Clipper.

I felt my long blonde hair grow even longer (yes, you can feel hair growing when it’s as fast as that—trust me!)

‘There you are, lovey,’ said Jack proudly. ‘You’re tied to the seat by your hair. And it DOES look pretty. That colour really suits you.’

‘Thanks…I think,’ I said, my head was tugged by a thousand tiny ropes as we veered to the right. But it was better than rolling around the floor. Or falling out.

I wondered if anyone had ever been killed falling out of a ghost train. An emu might suddenly learn to fly if it fell out of a plane, but a kid like me didn’t even have wings…

Too-oooot!

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…

I tried not to look down. I looked up instead, but that was worse. Those clouds were awfully near. So I looked straight out. An eagle stared at me, eye to eye, then gave a startled squawk and flapped away.

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…

I could smell engine smoke, but I couldn’t see it. I could smell oil too, and the faint scent of old leather seats and thermoses of tea and picnic baskets with tomato sandwiches.

‘Next stop, haunted mansion!’ a ghostly voice shouted. ‘All change for the Tunnel of Fear!’

‘What Tunnel of Fear?’ I screeched.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ advised Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Don’t worry about it? I’m tied by my hair to a runaway ghost train filled with ghosts and headed
towards a haunted house and you say don’t worry about it!’

‘Wuff,’ said Willie, sitting on my back. At least I hoped he was only sitting.

And then I felt it…I was going to be car sick again!

Well, train sick. Ghost-train sick. I’d never been train sick before, but then I’d never been on a train that went swooping up into the sky…or dooooowwwwnnnnnnnnn!

‘Hel…ooop,’ I finished. ‘Sorry about that,’

I added.

‘No worries, my dear,’ said Uncle Carbuncle kindly. ‘It went right through me. One of the advantages of being a ghost, you know.’

‘Terrible waste of a strawberry milkshake though,’ muttered Cookie.

‘DON’T mention milkshakes,’ I warned him. ‘Oooo…off!’

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…ugga-ugga…uuuuuuu…Then the train noise slowed down to a mutter.

Suddenly I had more urgent things to think about than being sick! I stared down at the ground below. No sign of the mansion yet. Just trees…and more trees…

‘Ch-uu-ggggg…’

The engine noise was just a slow groan now. We were hardly moving.

‘Why are we slowing down?’ I yelled ‘We’re not there yet!’

‘Out of coal!’ cried Uncle Carbuncle.

‘But it’s a ghost train!’

‘And it runs on ghost coal. But there wasn’t time to load on more before we came to rescue you!’

‘But-but…’ I stammered. The train wasn’t just slowing down! it was losing height as well!

And so was I…

‘Do something!’ I screamed. ‘Can’t Knock-knock go and get more coal?’

‘If he vanishes, the train vanishes too,’ said Annie helplessly. ‘We’ll be all right. But you’ll—’

‘I know! I know!’ I yelled. ‘Can’t the train burn something other than coal?’

‘Well, wood, I suppose,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘But none of us are carpenters. We can’t touch wood!’

I could feel a sinking feeling…a REALLY sinking feeling. I tried to think. But it’s hard to think properly when you’re tied by your hair to a ghost train that’s about to fall out of the sky and you’re all chained up and…and…

Suddenly I had it.

‘Think what you CAN touch!’ I yelled. ‘Cookie, what can you cook that burns?’

‘Well, er, um, I don’t know, mate.’

‘Think!’ I screamed. ‘I’m too young to become a ghost! And if I’m a ghost, then you’re all homeless!’

‘Er…olive oil,’ Cookie said. ‘And…and lard. Lard makes great pastry—’

‘Great. Go and get some lumps of lard! BIG lumps! And olive oil! And Annie, go and get all the underpants you can!’

‘Of course!’ shouted Uncle Carbuncle. ‘We can soak the underpants in oil and fat. Then they’ll burn!’

A cold breeze filled the carriage.

You know what’s worse than being in a ghost train that’s falling from the sky? Being ALONE in a ghost train that’s falling from the sky.

I could hardly hear the engine now. The train was falling…falling…falling…

Ch-uu-g-g…ch-uuu-gggg-aaa…chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…

Suddenly we stopped falling. We were on the move again, through the clouds!

I looked again!

Those weren’t clouds! They were underpants! Pink ones, green ones, leopardskin; thongs and bloomers and a hundred styles I didn’t know the name of. Underpants with buttoned bums on long ruffled legs and other sort of underpants that I bet would make Amelia
sooo
jealous. I made a note to ask Annie to make me some…just as soon as I got out of here!

‘You alright, Pru sweetie?’ asked Jack’s voice.

‘I-I’m fine,’ I stammered.

‘Anything I can get you, mate? Nice chocolate ice-cream sundae? Tomato and eggplant quiche with caramelised onions and a green salad?’ enquired Cookie.

‘Er…no. Thank you,’ I said.

Suddenly we began to slow again. My heart went boom, boom, boom. But the train engine was still going chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga…cre-ar-arkkk!

It stopped.

We’d landed.

I could see the sun hovering on the horizon above the lake. I had maybe ten seconds, I reckoned, to get into the house by nightfall.

‘Jack!’ I yelled. ‘Get rid of the hair! Now!’

Suddenly the pressure on my scalp lifted. I sat up and wriggled across the floor till my legs found space, then slithered down the outside of the train. I bruised
the backs of my legs against the steps, but I couldn’t help that. Then I was bounding—well, bobbing—up the path to the front door. It opened with a proper ghost-house creak.

‘Turned the creak off last time,’ said Uncle Carbuncle beside me. ‘Didn’t want to frighten you.’

I forced my aching feet to jump up the steps. One step…two steps…and then I tripped. I landed on my nose and the world went green and black and red and HURT. But I pulled my legs up and into the house despite the pain, just as the sun slid down past the lake.

I was inside!

‘Knock, knock.’

‘Who’s there?’ I asked wearily, still lying on the floor by the door.

‘Termite.’

‘Termite who?’

‘Termites the night you get to keep the house,’ said Knock-knock.

But he was trying to keep my spirits up. And he’d rescued me.

‘Ha, ha,’ I said. I wondered how you thanked a ghost who only spoke in knock-knock jokes, then realised.

‘Knock-knock,’ I said.

There was a pause. Then,’Who’s there?’

‘Twip,’ I said.

‘Twip who?’

‘Thanks for the twain twip,’ I said. ‘Thanks for everything, Knock-knock.’

I wondered if there was any way the ghosts could
help me to my feet. I supposed Jack could haul me up by my hair, or Annie by my underpants. It seemed easier just to struggle up by myself.

So I did.

What now?
I thought. When your hands and ankles are handcuffed and you’re in a deserted ghost house, you don’t have many options.

Sleep was out. YOU try sleeping all tied up. So was dancing, learning to play the harp and playing Scrabble. I couldn’t even ring Mum. Even if I could have worked out how to push the numbers with handcuffed hands, Mr Nahsti still had Mum’s mobile which was presumably all slimed up now.

I wondered if Mum would be angry. Then I decided I was just too tired to think about that now.

Finally I inched along the corridor and into the living room, where I collapsed on the big sofa and tried to make myself comfortable.

None of the ghosts was able to turn on the DVD player. None of them had been into videos or DVDs when they were alive, nor TV either, not enough to be able to turn them on now they were ghosts. But Cookie fed me spaghetti Bolognese—with a spoon, in case you were wondering, like a little kid. He wasn’t able to clean up the splodges on my T-shirt though. And Annie pulled down my trakkie daks for me when I had to hop into the bathroom—it turned out she could do other clothes, not just underpants. Then she let me choose some new ones so cool Amelia would freeze with jealousy. A thong! Hah! Then the Rolling Pebbles sang for me until I very nicely asked them not to, and Knock-knock told jokes till the others told him to shut up.

Then Uncle Carbuncle and I talked.

Not about anything much, to be honest. Just school stuff—EVERY conversation with an adult starts with how you like school, even when they’re a ghost. But after that we got on to life generally, and death particularly, and how each of the ghosts had died, which made me a bit thoughtful actually and determined to be careful not to eat sushi that had been out of the fridge too long, to wear sunscreen, and avoid plugging my electric guitar into an overloaded circuit board or juggling jellyfish.

It was the first person-to-person, serious long conversation I’d had with an adult. Usually it’s just Mum and Dad’s friends being polite, or teachers telling you to follow your dreams (huh, I dreamed of a toe-chomping oyster last week and there’s no way I’m going to follow THAT dream). It was funny, I sort of got an idea of what it was going to be like when all my friends were adults and me too, and maybe one day I’d have a conversation with a kid like me.

You think of things like that, I suppose, when you’re chained up in a haunted mansion with a ghost.

Finally I did sleep a bit, though the cramps in my arms and legs kept waking me up. Willie curled up next to me with his comforting doggie smell. I woke up once, from a nightmare that my arms and legs had fallen off and Mr Nahsti was eating them for breakfast. When I woke up again, my arms and legs hurt so much that I wished they WOULD fall off.

But outside it was daytime. The dawn chorus was singing away in the trees.

The house was mine.

…

Mum and Dad banged on the door two minutes later.

‘Prudence!’ yelled Mum. ‘Prudence, answer me! Are you all right!’

‘Where are you?’ shouted Dad.

They must have been waiting around the corner for dawn, so they could arrive as soon as I’d legally stayed the night by myself.

Willie began barking madly and jumping all over my tummy, which, as he was a ghost, just felt a bit tickly.

‘I’m in here!’ I called out. ‘And I’m fine.’ Well, fine-ish, I thought, if you didn’t count the handcuffs and the pain in my legs and all the bruises.

‘Then open the door!’ shouted Dad.

I considered trying to jump down the corridor again. But my arms and legs were yelling ‘No way’ at me. And the rest of me agreed with them.

‘Can’t right now!’ I called back. ‘I’m a bit tied up at the moment.’ (That joke was getting pretty stale but I couldn’t think of another one.) ‘But there’s an open window in here.’

‘In where?’ demanded Mum.

‘The living room. Go round the house and past the petunias and…’

They found the right window finally. Dad climbed through and gasped a bit when he found me all tied up and bruised, then gasped a bit more when he found out he couldn’t unlock the handcuffs, and Mum was yelling through the window at the same time for him to open the door and…

Well, the rest is pretty boring. Painful too, as it took a lot of tugging for Dad to finally realise he couldn’t just pull my handcuffs off. (Don’t parents EVER watch useful stuff on TV?)

Finally Mum drove over to Mr Nahsti’s place and grabbed the keys and got him to sign a statement saying I’d ‘fulfilled all the conditions in Uncle Carbuncle’s will’ (with the pen in his mouth, as he was still gummed up). Then she sliced through the slime around his arms and legs, just enough for him to struggle into the shower to wash the rest off, then raced back to the mansion and unlocked my ankle and handcuffs and helped massage the cramps out of my arms and legs so I could walk again.

And then I burst into tears. Don’t ask me why, I just did, maybe because of what MIGHT have happened. And Willie snuffled round me and licked my face and I had to explain about him being a ghost dog to Mum and Dad
and
about Uncle Carbuncle and all the other ghosts…

It’s funny, a year ago I’d have made up some story for Mum and Dad, like Phredde and Bruce and I had been playing dress-ups and the handcuffs had slipped shut, just so they wouldn’t worry. But this time I told them the whole story—and you know something? Mum didn’t faint and Dad just said, ‘Well done, Prudence’ a few times. And I realised that maybe parents are tougher and can cope with things better than I thought.

They had to meet Uncle Carbuncle after that.

We couldn’t see him of course, because it was daytime. But the air sort of shivered a bit, then shivered a bit more, and got really cold again, and I guessed all the other ghosts had come in behind him. Willie was squatting at Dad’s feet—I could see a faint yellow pond around Dad’s shoe, though luckily Dad didn’t notice.

‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you,’ said Uncle Carbuncle’s ghostly voice.

‘It was nothing,’ I said awkwardly. Actually it had been a whole lot, but what are you supposed to say to something like that?

‘I wish there was some way I COULD thank you,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘But,’ he added sadly, ‘there isn’t much you can do when you’re a ghost.’

‘Wuff,’ barked Willie, and hopped up into my arms. Funny, he was feeling more and more solid every time he did that.

I bent down and kissed his nose, which was okay because I couldn’t get any dog germs from a ghost. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ I said to him.

‘Wuff,’ barked Willie again and licked my chin. I even felt the slobber that time too.

‘Take him,’ said Uncle Carbuncle suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Take Willie. As a reward for all you’ve done. He loves you anyway,’ he added.

‘Wuff,’ agreed Willie.

I turned to Mum. ‘Mum, please…?’

‘But you know you can’t have a puppy,’ said Mum helplessly. ‘You know what your brother is like with puppies! Even if he promises not to eat him, he’ll terrify the poor little thing!’

‘But this is a ghost puppy!’ I reminded her. ‘Mark CAN’T eat Willie. I bet even a werewolf can’t eat a ghost.’

‘Please,’ said Uncle Carbuncle. ‘It would mean such a lot to me to know that I was able to thank your daughter. Even if I am just a ghost,’ he added.

I wondered if ghosts could cry. Because Uncle Carbuncle’s voice sounded all choked up and funny.

‘Of course Pru can take Willie home,’ said Mum gently. ‘It’ll be nice to have a puppy around the castle again.’

‘Especially one who can’t chew up the chair legs,’ added Dad.

‘Thank you,’ said Uncle Carbuncle sincerely. ‘If it hadn’t been for her, we’d be homeless. It isn’t easy being a ghost sometimes,’ he added.

I’d been thinking a bit about that during the long night.

‘I’ve had an idea,’ I said.

‘What is it?’ asked Uncle Carbuncle.

‘Yeah,’ said Dad a bit nervously.

‘How about we turn this place into a ghost house? A REAL ghost house. I mean, if people—most people—can get used to phaeries and vampires maybe they can get used to ghosts too. And they could come here to…to get ghostly haircuts or eat one of Cookie’s lunches or have a ride in a really truly ghost train. And it would stop you being bored…’

‘It might even make a bit of money too,’ said Dad thoughtfully.

‘Which we’d give to Prudence,’ said Uncle Carbuncle firmly. ‘Ghosts don’t need money.’

‘I could give their underpants a makeover!’ said Annie excitedly. ‘You won’t believe the ideas I’ve got for new underpants!’

‘Girlfriend, you’re a genius,’ said Jack.

‘Menus! I have to plan menus!’ said Cookie. ‘Mate, this is going to be the most exciting thing that’s happened in all my life. Or death,’ he added.

‘Thank you,’ said Uncle Carbuncle again, softly. Suddenly I wished he wasn’t quite so ghostly so I could give him a hug. And Cookie and Annie and Jack and Knock-knock…

‘Wuff,’ barked Willie. I bent down and scratched behind his ear, then thought, well, if a ghost dog can feel his ear being scratched maybe other ghosts can feel a hug.

And I was right.