At that moment, the garage doors smashed open.
“AAAHHHH!” Stella took a sharp intake of breath.
Was there someone or something out there?
There was a blizzard raging outside, and snow swirled inside. Stella ran to the doors, and with all her weight battled to fight the strong gusts of wind. Soot followed her, and together they managed to close and bolt them shut.
“There’s no way ya can try and run away again tonight, m’lady,” said the ghost. “You’ll have to wait until the storm dies down. But for now it looks like it’s here to stay.”
Panic flashed across the little girl’s face. “But I don’t dare wait another moment. My aunt has already tried to poison me and Mama and Papa, who knows what she will try next?! I have to call the police!”
“Don’t ya fink we need some more evidence first?” suggested Soot.
“No! I have to call right now!” exclaimed the girl. “But it’s very dangerous.”
“Why?”
“There are only two telephones in the house. One in Alberta’s room, but she keeps the door locked at all times. The other is in Papa’s study, and my aunt is convinced the deeds to Saxby Hall are in there. She is spending day and night in that study, turning the whole place upside down.”
Soot thought for a moment. “Maybe I can try and cause a diversion.”
“Like what?”
“Oh I dunno. Throw some plates around? Us ghosts love doin’ stuff like that. It normally works a treat.”
“But what if you get caught?” asked Stella. In the short time she had known this little chimney sweep, she had become rather fond of him.
“Aunt Alberta is a grown-up, she’s not going to be able to see me, is she?”
“Yes of course,” replied the girl, still struggling to remember all these ghost rules. “What about Wagner?”
“We’ll have to pray he is sleeping. That is one scary owl!”
Stella and Soot tiptoed along the corridor. The grandfather clock gave them both a fright, as it chimed midnight.
BONG!
BONG!
BONG!
BONG!
BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
Soon they reached the entrance to the grand dining room. They peeked their heads around the open door and saw Alberta and Wagner enjoying a midnight feast. No doubt the woman thought her niece was still safely locked up in the coal cellar where she had left her. How could she have known that Stella was in fact just a few steps away.
The woman sat at one end of the endless dining table, her pet owl was perched at the other, a napkin tied around his neck. A huge candelabrum with twenty or so candles burning on it illuminated the room.
The table was piled high with desserts – that’s all Aunt Alberta ever ate. She never had a main course. Or a starter. No, Aunt Alberta went straight to the pudding. She would scoff desserts for breakfast, lunch and dinner, which was why she was as wide as she was tall.
There were desserts galore!
– A giant apple strudel, made from at least a hundred apples.
– A towering pyramid of chocolate balls.
– Eclairs the size of pillows.
– A huge chocolate cake oozing with buttercream.
– Cream puffs piled up to the ceiling.
– A trifle so big you could swim in it.
– Deep-fried doughnuts pumped full of jam.
– A mouth-watering Black Forest gateau. You only had to look at it to double your body weight.
– A huge vat of salted caramel, still bubbling from the stove.
– A life-sized owl made entirely of marzipan.
– A deep bucket of cream that had a huge dollop of cream on top for good measure.
– All-butter biscuits that had been double dipped in chocolate.
– A wobbly jelly so ginormous it could break the fall of a hippopotamus.
Stella’s mouth watered when she saw all this glorious food. The poor girl hadn’t eaten for days. For a moment she thought she might faint at the sweet smell of it all. Aunt Alberta was tucking in greedily, making loud slurping noises…
…and belching between mouthfuls.
Alberta could have won bronze, silver and gold at the Burping Olympics.
Meanwhile Wagner was helping himself from a cold buffet of dead woodland creatures. There were mice, squirrels, hedgehogs, sparrows, even a badger. All his favourite treats.
As the woman ate she sifted through a large box of papers from the study, hurling documents angrily over her shoulder.
“Where are those blasted deeds?” she muttered to herself, between gobbling down huge mouthfuls of Black Forest gateau.
“Come on, m’lady,” whispered Soot. The girl had become mesmerised by the cakes.
The pair sank down to their hands and knees, and crawled past the door.
The very next room was Papa’s study. Stella’s father had always kept the room in perfect order. It was Lord Saxby’s little sanctuary. Now documents, photographs, boxes, folders and books were strewn across the floor. The desk had been upturned, glass smashed on the cabinets, and Papa’s large leather chair had been ripped open with a knife. It was as if a bomb had exploded in there. Aunt Alberta had clearly been looking EVERYWHERE for the deeds.
The telephone usually sat on the desk, but now the study had been ransacked it was nowhere to be seen. Stella went over to the wall and found the end of the cable. Then she traced her hand along it until she found the telephone, hiding under a huge pile of papers. With the telephone safely sat on her lap Stella signalled over to Soot, who was waiting just outside in the corridor keeping a lookout.
“Go!” she whispered.
“Wot?” replied Soot.
“Go!” she said, louder this time.
The ghost nodded, and went off to create his diversion. It was to be a pretty standard ghost-throwing-plates-around-the-kitchen routine, but hopefully enough to make Alberta come running and win Stella some time.
You may be interested to know that the spookiest tricks favoured by the British Society of Poltergeists (BSP) include:
– Knocking on doors and running away.
– Putting records on the player and turning the volume dial up very loud.
– Hurling books around in the library.
– Pushing over large items of furniture.
– Jangling chains in the middle of the night.
– Making two chairs dance together.
– Levitating the cutlery.
– Flushing the toilet when someone is still sitting on it.
– Prancing around the bedroom with a bedsheet on the bed
– Moving objects around the house randomly, such as putting someone’s underpants in the fridge.
– Doing an evil laugh into a jar, to make it echo around a house.
– Drawing a rude picture of a bottom on the bathroom mirror and waiting for the mirror to steam up for it to be revealed.
If any of these have happened to you, perhaps your house is haunted. Or it could be just your annoying little brother.
The girl listened as far along the corridor plates started crashing on to the floor of the kitchen. Within moments Stella could hear Aunt Alberta shouting, “Wagner! Wagner!” from the next room. Then there was the unmistakeable sound of the large woman thundering down the corridor.
This was Stella’s chance.
She had to take it.
Now.
Right now.