21

In which a house becomes a home

‘Don’t go in there!’ shrieked Blimp.

The rats stood side by side at the top of the spiral staircase, Wordsworth barring Olive’s way with an outstretched crayon. Of course, she could easily have stepped over it, but that would have been rude. And Olive would not offend her three precious friends for all the lamingtons in the world.

Personally, I would sell my own grandmother for one bite of a lamington. I suspect, however, that Olive was made of finer stuff than I.

Wordsworth’s eyes boggled. His tail twitched. Chester clutched a large brass button so tightly that his little paws had turned white. Blimp was showing his teeth in that alarmingly aggressive manner once more.

‘What’s wrong?’ gasped Olive, dropping to her knees. ‘Is it Pig McKenzie? Oh, what has that Wicked Swine done this time?’

‘It’s worse than the pig!’ squeaked Chester.

Olive shuddered. What on earth could be worse than the pig?

She swept the rats into her arms and rubbed her cheek against their faces.

Now, Olive was a practical girl. She understood that real problems need real solutions. But she also knew that the first course of action in any crisis should be the delivery of a hug. A hug comforts, calms and fortifies the heart.

‘Whatever it is,’ she whispered, ‘we can get through this together. Tell me! Spare no terrible detail.’

Blimp pressed his lips together.

Chester shook his head.

Wordsworth whispered, ‘It’s a . . . a . . . a ghost.’

Olive stifled a laugh. She was about to say, ‘There is no such thing as a ghost!’ but then remembered that three months ago she would have said, ‘There is no such thing as a talking rat, a time-travelling dinosaur or a magic rabbit.’

Olive set the rats down on the floor and stood up. ‘Right!’

She squared her shoulders, swept her hair out of her eyes and said, ‘Right!’ three more times.

Taking a deep breath, she turned the brass handle. Slowly, cautiously, she pushed the door open. She popped her head inside and peered around the turret. It looked exactly as she had left it before lunchtime. Except, perhaps, that the spiders on the ceiling had changed position. There was neither sight nor sound of a ghost.

Olive flung the door open and walked inside.

‘Aaaargh!’ screamed Blimp. He scuttled up Olive’s leg and dived into her cardigan pocket. ‘The ghost . . .’ he whimpered. ‘The ghost . . . the ghost of Groves is here to get us!’

Wordsworth and Chester, loving and brave, dashed in front of Olive’s feet. Wordsworth waved the crayon about, jabbing and slashing at the air. ‘Yah! Yah!’ he squeaked. ‘Be gone, vile spirit!’

‘What are you doing with my crayon?’ asked Olive.

‘It’s a weapon,’ explained Wordsworth, ‘to protect us from the ghost. My Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings declares that the pen is mightier than the sword. I couldn’t find a pen so I grabbed one of your crayons . . . a red one . . . because it looked more dangerous than the pink or the yellow one.’

‘And this button is my shield,’ added Chester. ‘In case the ghost flings himself at me.’

What ghost?’ asked Olive.

All three rats pointed to the white quilt draped over our heroine’s special project.

Olive slapped her hand over her mouth and swallowed a giggle.

Keeping his eyes on the quilt, Wordsworth whispered, ‘It has been making strange and mysterious sounds.’

‘Ghost sounds,’ squeaked Blimp.

‘Banging . . . screeching . . . thumping,’ whimpered Chester.

And immediately, a whining sound cut through the air, followed by three thumps.

‘See?!’ gasped Chester.

The thumping sound continued.

Wordsworth clutched his crayon a little tighter. The hair stood up on the back of Chester’s neck.

Olive frowned. She tilted her head to one side and listened carefully. She walked back out the door, down the spiral staircase and along the corridor towards the source of the sound. Blimp cowered in her pocket. Chester and Wordsworth scuttled along at her heels.

The banging stopped.

‘Odd,’ said Olive.

She looked around, opened the little door in the wall labelled Laundry Chute and stuck her head inside.

‘How dreadfully peculiar,’ she said. ‘The whining and thumping have stopped. But now there is a different sound . . . clip-clopping. It sounds like –’

KABOOM!

The windows rattled, the floor rumbled and her ears were filled with a ringing that would have done the Notre Dame Cathedral proud.

Olive slammed the laundry chute door shut, ran down two flights of stairs and leaned over the bannister of the first-floor landing. Chester and Wordsworth ducked between her feet and peered down over the entrance hall. Smoke puffed from the cracks around the cupboard door beneath the grand staircase. The door swung open and Carlos tumbled out onto the Persian rug. He coughed, wiped his arm across his brow and looked upwards.

‘Olive!’ he gasped. The whites of his eyes showed brightly against his sooty face. He scrambled to his feet and dashed away. Without even waving or saying a proper hello!

Pig McKenzie sauntered out of the cupboard wearing a gas mask. He pulled it off and tossed it aside. He plucked a splinter of wood from his coat and stared up at Olive. ‘Object!’ he sang. ‘How lovely to see you.’

‘My name is Olive, not Object!’

He smirked and dusted some flakes of plaster off his shoulder.

Thistlebloom popped her head around the side of the office door, a frown etched into her forehead.

‘Francine!’ snorted the pig, spreading his front trotters wide. ‘Forgive me! A little accident! I was just having a lovely chat with Object. She is not terribly smart, but I do like to spend time with those less fortunate than I. Object talked on and on and on. All rubbish of course. The world is flat. Babies come from Easter eggs. Trees are made from wood. On and on and on until I was almost comatose with boredom and forgot about the broth. The nourishing vegetable broth that I was cooking for the soup kitchen. You know how it is. Forget the stove for a moment and KABOOM! Now everything is ruined. Better go and chop some more turnips. Adiós!’ He bowed to Thistlebloom, blew Olive a kiss and disappeared back into the cupboard.

‘A tireless, charitable pig!’ sang Thistlebloom. She nodded and slammed the office door shut.

Olive sighed and headed wearily back upstairs.

‘Did you see that disgusting kiss?’ squeaked Chester. ‘Do you think we’ll get pig germs?’

‘No, we’ll be fine,’ said Olive.

‘What about the ghost?’ asked Wordsworth.

‘I’ve got it covered,’ she replied. ‘Trust me.’

And because Olive was brave and clever and precious and had never let the rats down thus far, they did trust her. They followed her back into the turret and pressed their trembling bodies against the wall opposite the ghost. They watched, astonished, as she reached forward, grabbed the ghost by the head and ripped it aside.

‘Ta-da!’ Olive pointed at a wonky doll’s house – a twelve-room, four-storey mansion built from cardboard boxes, complete with a toffee-tin turret. The roof was shingled with savoury biscuits, the floors carpeted with squares of Olive’s red cardigan custom-cut to size.

The rats stared.

Chester dropped his button.

Blimp clasped his hands before his chest, his eyes sparkling with delight.

Wordsworth sat his crayon on the floor and scampered right on up to the doll’s house. He turned towards Olive and said, ‘May I?’

‘Of course,’ she replied.

Wordsworth stepped inside the little lounge room. He stopped and sniffed at the air. He held his cheeks in his paws and smiled. ‘This chair is carved from cheese!’

Blimp and Chester followed. Together, the three rats explored the house, room by room, ooh-ing and aah-ing at all they saw – the clever chest of drawers made from matchboxes, the bed that was a sardine can lined with cosy shredded paper, the toilet made from an egg cup, the attic room carpeted in knotty knitted blobs, the walls covered in magazine pictures of puppies and chocolate bars, the cushions scattered on the lounge that were not really cushions but Scrabble letters. But most of all, they were impressed by the thoughtful piles of filth – the apple cores that filled the bathroom, the mouldy sock in the corner of the kitchen, the cockroaches stacked three-deep on the bookshelves, the dirty tissue tossed with stylish abandon on the dining table, the clump of drain sludge stuffed beneath the cardboard stairs.

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‘It’s magnificent!’ sighed Wordsworth. ‘Superb, luxurious, brilliant, opulent, breathtaking and –’

‘Tonsillitis!’ cried Blimp.

Wordsworth rolled his eyes, but he was too overwhelmed to be truly exasperated.

‘I wish we had a house like this,’ said Chester. ‘I suppose it belongs to a millionaire mouse or an aristocratic guinea pig.’

Olive squatted before the rats. ‘It’s yours,’ she said. ‘I made it especially for you . . . because I know how sad you were to lose your rats’ nest . . . and because I wanted to make you happy . . . and because . . . well . . . I love you.’

‘Aw, nice,’ said Blimp.

‘But what about the ghost?’ whispered Chester. ‘I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’m not sure I can live in a haunted house.’

Olive leapt up, grabbed the white quilt and threw it out the window. ‘All gone!’

‘My hero!’ cried Chester, wrapping his front paws around her ankle.

‘She loves us!’ sang Blimp.

‘Home!’ sighed Wordsworth. Then, quoting from his Little Blue Book of Wise and Witty Sayings, he added, ‘Home is where the heart is.’

‘And the cheese,’ squeaked Blimp. ‘Home is where the cheese is!’

And he dived onto the cheese chair and gobbled it all up.