Upstairs in Aunt Alberta’s bedroom, Soot was crouched in the corner. The ghost had come into the room down the chimney because the woman always kept her bedroom door locked at night. Soot’s mission was to keep watch over Alberta as she slept, and tell Stella the moment she stirred. If she woke up and caught her niece talking to a detective, there would be hell to pay.
A huge oil painting of Stella’s aunt and Wagner dominated the bedroom in a huge gold frame. On tables and plinths all around her four-poster bed were glass tanks with stuffed owls in them. Owls of every colour and size known to man:
– The miniature Japanese Owl.
– The One-eyed Owl of the Himalayan Mountains or ‘Cyclops Owl’, thought only to exist in legend.
– The Longbilled Amphibious Owl of Antarctica, which can dive to depths of hundreds of feet in search of fish.
– The Prickly Owl, or ‘Owlos Hedgehogius’ to give it its proper Latin name.
– The half pig/half owl ‘Pigowl’.
– The flightless Small-winged Owl of Fiji, ‘Owlus Smallwingius’.
– The Conjoined Twin Owl, or ‘Two-headed Owl’.
– The featherless Welsh Owl, ‘Owlus Baldius’.
– The three-footed ‘Tripod Owl’.
– The Furry Arctic Owl, not to be confused with an Arctic roll.*
It was a deeply sinister sight, even for a ghost, all these magnificent creatures suspended forever in death. The tanks also depicted various woodland scenes, and the birds were all arranged in dramatic poses. One was perched on a branch stretching its wings to fly. Another had a stuffed mouse in its talons. Others were increasingly bizarre:
– An owl playing the xylophone.
– Two owls enjoying a game of badminton.
– One in ice skates.
– Owls fencing.
– Two owls riding a tiny tandem.
– Another in lederhosen performing a traditional Bavarian beer-festival dance.
– A miniature owl astride a pony in a full jockey’s outfit.
– An owl dressed as the World War One German flying ace, the Red Baron.
– A pair of owls ballroom dancing.
– An owl breakdancing. This was especially peculiar as breakdancing wasn’t invented until the late 1970s.
It would have been clear to anyone who visited Aunt Alberta’s bedroom that this woman was completely loopy. In fact not just ‘loopy’, more ‘loopy-loo’. Perhaps even ‘loopy-loo-loo’*.
From the far side of the room, Soot could see a figure tucked up under the covers of Alberta’s gigantic four-poster bed. Poking out from under the blankets was a head, still sporting the woman’s distinctive deer-stalker hat. The sound of snoring was so loud it made the furniture shudder.
After Soot’s eyes had roamed around the room they returned to where the figure was sleeping. Just then, he noticed something very strange. Where the woman’s foot should have been poking out from under the covers, was a set of talons.
Soot tiptoed over to the bed. Slowly and gently he lifted the blanket, to reveal a huge feathered beast.
It wasn’t Aunt Alberta lying there.
It was Wagner!
