Ghosts on Board Read online

  The raft is lumpy. It’s not watertight and it turns out that it’s impossible to steer.

  ‘Try pushing again,’ says Eric, watching the tiny gap between us and the crumbling jetty get even smaller. ‘I’m sure if we can get out into the open sea it’ll be easier to get some forward motion.’

  ‘It’s raining,’ says Tilly, helpfully.

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘and I’m trying as hard as possible but it’s just not easy. You could help, you know.’

  Tilly suddenly finds something in her bag really interesting.

  ‘If I just … ’ Eric wedges a long tree branch in the gap and puts his weight on it, pushing us away from the jetty until we begin to drift out through the fog and there’s a tantalising glimpse of the open sea. ‘Give me a lever long enough and I will move the world,’ he says, frantically dabbing with his branch to increase our speed.

  ‘Eh?’ I say, paddling with a section of shed door on the other side of the boat.

  ‘Archimedes,’ he says. ‘Give me a lever long enough and a pivot on which to place it and I will move the world. δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω. It’s Greek, you know.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Of course.’

  We splash at the water, slowly finding a rhythm, until we’re deep in the mist, a fine drizzle coating Eric’s glasses.

  ‘You’re doing frightfully well,’ says a voice above us in the fog.

  ‘Flora Rose,’ says Eric. ‘Are you coming with us?’

  ‘Naturally,’ she says. ‘We can’t leave you without help – and anyway, who’d want to stay there on the island when there’s so much fun and warmth on the mainland?’

  There’s almost silence as our makeshift oars plip in the sea, moving us forward little by little.

  ‘Victor wouldn’t have helped you rescue Jacob, you know. He was just trying to get that rock to do its thing.’

  ‘Why’d you say that?’ I ask.

  ‘Because,’ says Flora Rose, ‘I just wanted you to know what he’s really like. He’d have let Jacob drown.’

  ‘So what changed his mind?’ I ask.

  ‘I reminded him … ’ She pauses. ‘That Jacob’s the one with the spark.’

  ‘What?’ says Tilly. ‘Are you saying I’m boring?’

  ‘No,’ says Flora Rose. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean, he gives off sparks and that’s the thing that Victor wants. He’s never seen the rest of you do anything – well, anything useful – except for the inflatable oar this morning.’

  ‘Is Billy there with you?’ asks Eric, staring vaguely upwards.

  ‘Oh yes, he’s the one who insisted we come. He’s really very sweet – such a shame you can’t hear what he says.’

  ‘Surely you could just fly over? Couldn’t you?’ asks Tilly, dangling her fingers in the water alongside the raft.

  ‘Not really,’ says Flora Rose. ‘We need something to hang on to. We might just blow away if there wasn’t something solid nearby.’

  ‘Interesting,’ says Eric. ‘You need a corporeal mass for anchorage.’

  No one quite knows how to reply so we struggle on through the mist in more silence.

  It’s raining hard now, possibly getting dark, and I’m completely tired with the rowing lark.

  ‘Tom,’ says Tilly, creeping across the raft. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ says Flora Rose. ‘I can see the harbour.’

  ‘Really?’ Tilly stands up, rocking the raft until I nearly drop my piece of shed-door oar in the sea. ‘Where? Where? Hurry up you useless pair! We could be home in time for lunch.’

  ‘Well, more like tea,’ says Flora Rose. ‘It’s quite a long way, and I’m quite high up.’

  ‘Yes – triangulation can give a deceptive sense of distance,’ says Eric from the darkness on the other side of the raft.

  ‘But it’s so wet,’ moans Tilly. ‘I don’t like it.’

  Slowly, above our heads, something like a huge jellyfish appears, glowing against the thunderous sky.

  ‘Oh Billy, how sweet,’ says Flora Rose.

  The sky jellyfish wriggles and bounces and I see that it’s surrounded by the faint purple outline of a boy.

  It is comforting, if completely useless as an umbrella.

  Chapter 17

  ‘So you’re not going to help then?’ I call after Tilly as she marches up the hill from the harbour.

  ‘Certainly not,’ she says without even turning to look. ‘It’s all your fault, Tom – everything about everything is your fault.’

  Eric stares at her back, disappearing amongst the afternoon day trippers. ‘I’m quite glad I don’t have a sister.’

  I don’t say anything. I expect that if Eric had a sister she’d be as clever as he is and I’d have two of them telling me how things work and that would be intolerable – especially if you added in Jacob and Tilly as well.

  We lug the raft onto the beach. It looks ordinary – if really badly made. No one would know that the planks had once held spirits. Now they just seem to hold huge amounts of seawater.

  ‘We need to find Jacob and Victor,’ says Eric as I squeeze water from my socks.

  ‘As soon as possible,’ says Flora Rose from right behind me.

  In the afternoon light, Flora Rose and Billy are barely visible. A couple of purple smudges move at the edge of my vision, but if I look at them, I can’t really see them. It would be easy to forget that they were there.

  ‘Where do you suppose they are?’ I ask.

  ‘Victor will want to get back into the castle … ’ starts Flora Rose.

  ‘But Jacob will want to eat something … ’ I make myself hungry thinking about this morning’s chips.

  ‘Hm,’ Eric interrupts me. ‘You have a point. But –’

  ‘There!’ shouts Flora Rose. ‘There they are, by the castle.’

  I swing round, possibly passing right through Billy but trying not to think about it, and look up at the castle. Strolling down the hill are Victor and Jacob. Victor is still hazy. He’s obviously trying to look like a casual tourist, a borrowed straw hat on his head and what looks like a borrowed pair of Jacob’s dad’s shorts on his grey legs. In between, his long coat, tie and high-collared grimy shirt just make him look like a complete madman. One that’s lost his trousers and tried to find a substitute at a jumble sale.

  ‘Gosh,’ says Eric.

  ‘Shh,’ I say, ducking my head below the sea wall. ‘I think we’d better follow.’

  They take the long way down; we take the short cut and slip into the tunnel where we first saw the ghosts. Eric and I back into a dripping doorway. I try the door behind us and it opens but we can’t get inside because it’s full of hundreds of cartons of cocoa powder.

  ‘We’ll just have to make do with the doorway,’ says Eric.

  We step back out and put our backs against the wooden door and in the gloom Flora Rose and Billy disappear completely.

  ‘What are we waiting for?’ says Flora Rose from disturbingly close.

  ‘We’re waiting for –’

  ‘Shh,’ I say, as footsteps sound in the corridors.

  ‘Bet you wish you were still a proper ghost,’ Jacob’s voice echoes cheerily from the stones. ‘You could have slipped in and helped yourself.’ I shrink back against the wall as Jacob stops outside the end cell, the one piled high with pots of the dust that come from the mine that Professor Lee dug. Like all the others, it’s firmly locked.

  Victor stares longingly through the bars.

  ‘Won’t you help me?’ says Victor, gently. ‘I mean, from what you say, this, in addition to your … remarkable power, would make us invincible. We could do anything, and who could stop us?’

  ‘Tempting,’ says Jacob. ‘But not that tempting. I’m the most powerful person in the town just at the moment – I don’t think I want to change that. Now I think it’s time we investigated the tea shop. They do a lovely chocolate cake.’

  ‘Perhaps you could get me just enough to stop me fadin
g in and out? Just a little?’ Victor stretches his arms past the bars, but even though he’s half ghost, he’s not ghostly enough to get through and, as a half human, he’s not going to be able to reach anything. ‘No, sorreeee. Not going to,’ says Jacob, swinging back up the corridor. ‘C’mon upstairs to the tea shop. We need to get a table before all the day trippers turn up.’

  I send up thanks for Jacob’s selfishness. He could easily melt the bars, even with the danger that stray sparks could ignite the dust inside the cell.

  ‘Blast. Drat and blast,’ says Victor, sighing, and he follows Jacob up the stairs towards the castle café.

  ‘So he does want the dust,’ says Eric. ‘But he can’t get it, not unless he gets the key to the cell – and he won’t, will he, Tom? I mean, your grandma’s got one but apart from that, who else?’

  I shrug, imagining the key to the cell hanging in the key cabinet at home – marked END CELL CASTLE DUNGEON in Grandma’s careful capitals.

  ‘He’ll find a way,’ says Flora. ‘He’ll either find the key, or charm the key from your grandmother, Tom, or he’ll find a way in without it. He’s waited a hundred and fifty years for this. He’s going to get what he wants.’

  ‘Not,’ I say, ‘if we stop him first.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘Oooh,’ whispers Flora Rose in my ear. ‘What pretty curtains. Is this what people do for fun? I like it.’

  ‘Shh,’ I say, searching the castle café for Jacob and Victor. It’s difficult to see anyone – the place is so busy and so full of flowers and flowery wallpaper.

  Eric nudges me, pointing to a table against the window. On the top perches a huge cake stand, piled high with cupcakes, waffles and scones. Squeezed into the tiny amount of remaining space is a bottle of Go-Stiser fizz, a can of Verucazade and, seated on either side, Victor and Jacob.

  ‘So, anyway, I thought we could do a round of crazy golf next … ’ Jacob’s voice rings through the tea shop.

  ‘You go and play golf, dear fellow. I’m happy here. I can sit in the sun outside the castle and wait for you,’ says Victor, sniffing at a waffle in interest. ‘Are these curious things pleasant?’

  ‘D’ishous,’ mumbles Jacob around a mouthful of cake. ‘And you should try this.’ He holds up the can of Verucazade.

  We take a table with three chairs at the side, sitting so that we can see what’s going on at Jacob’s table. The third chair trembles slightly as Flora Rose sits down.

  ‘We need to get them apart. We need to talk to Jacob alone,’ says Eric, holding up the menu to hide his face, but completely failing to conceal his wild ginger hair. ‘We’re going to need him for our plan to work.’

  ‘I could just shrink Victor,’ I say.

  ‘What, here? In a tea room?’ says Eric. ‘Your grandma would be furious.’

  ‘Shall I whisper to Jacob?’ says Flora Rose. ‘Tell him the truth about Victor?’ The purple goo’s gone completely and now she’s just an alarming voice from nowhere.

  ‘Victor would hear,’ I say.

  ‘You could, Billy, but how?’ says Flora Rose. The silver sugar bowl on the table shows the faintest purple reflection.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asks Eric.

  ‘He says he could give Jacob a message.’

  ‘What? Write it in crumbs or something?’ I say.

  The vase of flowers in the middle of the table trembles in answer.

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘OK, if you really think it’ll work.’

  We watch as Jacob ignores all Billy’s attempts to rearrange the cake crumbs. He brushes at the air as if there’s a fly buzzing around him. ‘Thing about golf is, it doesn’t really require any effort – go away, thing!’ He flaps the cake stand with the back of his hand, sending cupcakes cascading across the café.

  One rolls and stops at my foot. I look up across the room and catch Jacob’s gaze.

  His eyes open wide in recognition and he raises his arm to point at me, but I mime a mouth zip and, frowning, Jacob says nothing. I glance at Victor, but he’s chewing a waffle and looking at something he obviously finds really interesting outside the window.

  ‘Would you like to order?’ says a jolly waitress, bowling up to our table.

  ‘Could we just have –’ starts Eric.

  ‘Could we choose from the cakes on the side?’ I interrupt, smiling and hoping very much that Eric’s got some money because I’ve got barely anything.

  ‘Of course,’ says the waitress. ‘You have a good look and tell me what you fancy.’

  ‘Why are we doing this?’ whispers Eric, rising from the table and trailing over to the large table of cakes. ‘It’s going to cost a fortune.’

  ‘We’re giving Jacob a message ourselves.’

  I point to the signs on the cakes, widening my eyes and pointing again until Jacob’s paying proper attention.

  ‘Custard pie, blackcurrant crumble cake?’ he reads aloud, peering across the café at the cake table.

  I shake my head and nod towards Victor, who is still staring out of the window.

  ‘Pineapple surprise, Victoria sponge, maids of honour … No – no maids of honour, devils on horseback.’ Jacob wrinkles his nose in incomprehension.

  Eric nods, measuring a short piece of air to indicate that Jacob should make the words smaller.

  ‘Pineapple, sponge, maids, horseback?’

  I shake my head vigorously as the waitress piles our plates high with food, mixing sausages and cakes. I point at the labels and mouth, ‘Try again.’

  Like the sun coming out after heavy rain, a look of intelligence crosses Jacob’s face. ‘Oh, I get it.’

  ‘What do you get?’ says Victor, a slight smile crossing his face. ‘Anyway, lovely tea – thank you, Jacob. I think I’ll just nip out and get some air.’ He springs to his feet, takes another glance out of the window and heads out of the main entrance of the tea shop, the one that leads to the castle courtyard.

  ‘Right,’ says Jacob, his head nodding slowly. ‘Surprise, Victoria, no honour, devil. Yes, Victor, I’ll join you in a moment. I just need to sort out one or two things.’

  Chapter 19

  ‘Well, it’s just that we need to get rid of the dust,’ says Eric for the third time to Jacob.

  ‘But I don’t understand why?’

  ‘To stop Victor!’

  ‘But why would we want to stop Victor? He’s the most interesting thing to happen to Bywater-by-Sea forever – and why do you think he’s bad? I haven’t once seen him stick his finger up his nose. Everyone knows that evil people stick their fingers up their noses.’

  I leave Eric shaking his head and arranging cakes on the table to illustrate the plan, and race out of the café into the passage that leads to the courtyard.

  ‘So you think that between you, you can carry Grandma’s key here to me?’

  ‘Totally,’ says Flora Rose’s voice from nowhere. ‘It’s in the key cupboard, big label, huge piece of string. Billy and I’ll be fine. And we’ll be back in seconds. We can go so much faster than you can.’

  ‘Go carefully,’ I say, and, for a moment, the sunlight of the courtyard is dimmed by the two spirits racing out of the passage. I almost see them, and then I spot Victor.

  He’s hiding behind the bins, watching the workmen cutting out an old metal drain cover in the middle of the courtyard. Eventually, the workmen wander off into the shade to eat their lunch, leaving their tools in a heap by the wall.

  For a long time nothing moves except a crow. It flies down, pecks at the ground and takes a long slow look at Victor.

  It hops towards him and stops by the bins, its head tilted to one side, watching.

  I see Victor flap his hands at it, obviously trying to frighten it away, but the bird takes it as encouragement and hops a little closer, its black shiny eye fixed on Victor’s furious face.

  ‘Buzz off,’ he says, waving his arms, but the bird leans forward and pecks at his outstretched hand.

  Flora Rose’s voice sounds in my ear. ‘He
re,’ she says and right in front of my nose hangs Grandma’s key.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I whisper. ‘Can you take it to Eric? He and Jacob know what to do. I’m going to keep an eye on Victor.’

  The key floats off down the passage. I only hope they don’t give some passing tourist a heart attack.

  I go back to watching Victor and the crow. Distantly, in the castle dungeon, I hear a series of booms and a light sprinkling of glitter falls on the courtyard. Good – they’re destroying the dust.

  I’m sure Eric knows exactly what he’s doing and Jacob doesn’t need much encouragement to blow things up, but I’m sorry to have missed the fireworks display.

  ‘Oh honestly,’ says Victor, standing up and trying to look as if everyone always hides behind the bins talking to crows.

  I stay in my hiding place and watch as he ambles over to the wall and pretends to look up at the tower above. There’s no one there to see and nothing to look at. He looks up at nothing for about two minutes and then swoops backwards towards the workmen’s tools.

  It takes him a millisecond to steal the oxyacetylene torch and the cylinder. It’s obviously very heavy so his progress across the courtyard is slow, but now I know what he has in mind, I race straight back through the tea shop, down the steps and reach the cell.

  It’s perfect. It looks exactly as it did before, except that there’s a large pile of dust right in the middle of the room. It’s slightly glittery, as it should be, and there’s an almost imperceptible smell of burned chocolate powder.

  There’s no sign of Eric and Jacob.

  ‘Flora Rose?’ I say into the air.

  Nothing.

  ‘Billy?’

  A sudden wind falls on my cheek and I have the odd sensation that I’m standing in a corridor with a spirit that I can’t see or hear, but I know he’s there.

  ‘Here, Tom.’ The tiny voice springs out next to my elbow. It’s not Flora Rose.

  ‘Billy?’ I say, trying not to shiver. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Me,’ he says. ‘Just me.’

  ‘How amazing to meet you,’ I say, and I throw a handful of dust up in the air. It drapes itself over a shape in the middle of the space, and I see a glimmer of a little boy with a hat and shorts and a mushroom sort of a nose.