The back end of the Rolls Royce was thrown high up into the air with the force of the impact, before coming down with a colossal thud. The car sat still on the icy drive. It would take a tank to smash through the huge iron gates to Saxby Hall.
A short distance behind them, Alberta brought her motorcycle skidding to a stop. The woman lifted up her goggles and smiled gleefully as she surveyed the scene.
“Are ya all right, m’lady?” asked Soot, looking up from the footwell of the Rolls Royce.
Stella was still sat in the driving seat. But she had hit her head on the steering wheel and now all she could see was stars. “Yes. I am just dazed that’s all.”
Astride her motorcycle, Alberta looked devilishly pleased with herself. “It looks like the end of the road for you, young lady,” she called out. “Now, I think it’s time you came back inside, and finally signed the deeds to Saxby Hall over to me. There’s a good girl.”
Stella whispered to Soot, “We can’t give up now. There must be another way out. Has the Rolls got any power left?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” he replied. “Throw it into reverse.”
The girl did so and the motor car wobbled backwards. The collision had crumpled the entire front section of the Rolls even more than before. The grille stayed lodged on the gates, but the engine was still coughing and spluttering away.
Alberta’s smile turned to a scowl as she realised that her niece still had some fight left in her.
“First!” shouted Soot. Stella changed gear, and the Rolls rattled off, with Alberta in hot pursuit.
VROOOOOOOM!
The Rolls sped across the vast grounds of Saxby Hall, with the motorcycle not far behind. The thick covering of snow was now being thrown up in the air by the spinning wheels of both motor vehicles. Stella tried twisting the steering wheel from side to side, in an effort to spray snow into Aunt Alberta’s path. However, this did very little to stop the evil woman from gaining on them. Alberta’s motorcycle had special snow-spikes fitted to the tyres, which kept it dead on course.
“STOP HER!” ordered Aunt Alberta. Wagner clambered out of the sidecar and on to his mistress’s shoulders. For a moment they looked like a motorcycle display team, before Wagner launched himself into flight.
The Great Bavarian Mountain Owl can reach speeds of up to one hundred miles an hour. Wagner shot off high into the sky. As the motor car sped on, Stella looked up out of her window to see where the owl had gone. Then Wagner landed with a thud on to the bonnet of the Rolls, his huge feet denting the metal. The owl looked straight at Stella, his wide chest completely blocking her view.
“I can’t see where we’re going!” shouted the girl.
“Hold tight! I’ll put the brake on!” replied Soot.
But they were going too fast, and instead of stopping the car started spinning and spinning around.
Wagner wobbled and launched himself back into the air. Now Stella could see the car was spinning uncontrollably towards the frozen lake at the end of the lawn.
“Brake!” she screamed.
Soot had both hands on the pedal, pushing down as hard as he could. “I am braking!” he cried.
Time seemed to both slow down and speed up as the battered Rolls Royce spun out on to the ice. As it reached the middle of the lake, the motor car finally stopped gliding, and the engine cut out with a final splutter. Desperately Stella tried to restart the car, but the trusty Rolls Royce was finally dead.
Alberta stopped her motorcycle at the bank, and switched her engine off. Wagner flew back on to her leather glove. The silence was like thunder. For a moment it was incredibly peaceful. Then came the sound of a crack.
Quiet at first, then becoming louder and louder and multiplying into the sound of thousands of cracks.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK.
Stella looked out of the window. The huge sheet of unbroken ice covering the lake below them was now an elaborate pattern of interconnecting lines. The heavy motor car jolted to the side, as the section of ice it was resting on started to break up under its titanic weight.
“Help!” screamed the girl, as the icy water began to flood the car.
Soot climbed up from the footwell. “Yer in grave danger, m’lady,” he cried. “You ’ave to save yerself.”
But as the icy water rose from her feet to her ankles to her knees to her waist Stella became frozen with fear. As much as she wanted to she couldn’t move, and soon her eyes glazed over and all she could see in her mind’s eye was her body floating beneath the ice.
“M’lady!” shouted the ghost. “Climb on to the roof!”
Shivering uncontrollably with the cold, Stella just managed to pull herself out of the car and on to its roof. Still barefoot, she started slipping and sliding, very nearly toppling into the icy waters below. She could see her aunt laughing to herself from the safety of the bank.
“I am frightened, Soot. I don’t want to die,” said the girl.
“Nah, I wouldn’t recommend it,” replied the ghost.
“And what about you?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about me, m’lady. Ya have to save yerself.”
“So, child. I win again! Are you finally ready to sign those pesky deedy-weedies?” bellowed the evil woman, her deep voice soaring over the ice.
The battered Rolls Royce was sinking at an alarming rate, and now was just a few inches away from being completely submerged. The ice surrounding the car was broken into tiny pieces, there was no way Stella could run across it to safety. If she tried to dive in and swim, the water was so cold she would die within moments.
“Ya have to do wot she says,” said Soot. The ghost was going under fast with the car, and within seconds only his head, leaning out of the Rolls window, was above the surface of the water. As the cold water rose up his body, his ghostly form almost seemed to evaporate into the water. “It’s yer only ’ope!”
Stella, still balanced on the car’s sinking roof, was up to her knees in icy water.
“Well, Stella?” bellowed Alberta. “What’s it to be?”
“I’ll sign the deeds!” Stella shouted back.
“Now that wasn’t too hardy-wardy, was it?” mused her aunt. “Wagner! Bring her to me!”
The giant bird took off from her hand once more and swooped over the ice. Just as Stella was up to her chest in the frozen lake, the owl’s talons lifted her upwards by her shoulders. Soon they were flying through the freezing morning air.
“Be careful, m’lady!” called the ghost. The girl looked back as Soot and the once-beautiful Rolls disappeared into the lake, until his little ghostly cap floating on the water was all that she could see of him.
“Nooooo!” cried the girl.
Wagner dropped the tearful girl on the lake shore at his mistress’s feet. Freezing, dishevelled and broken, Stella lay on the ground. There was no point fighting any more. She didn’t have the strength. Aunt Alberta had won. The wicked woman looked down at this wretched creature, shivering in her soggy nightdress, her face stinging with tears, and chuckled to herself cruelly.
“I knew you would come round to my way of thinking in the endy-wendy.”
