AFTER SPENDING AN HOUR THAT AFTERNOON looking for her Doris de Ville’s Street Cleaning Crew tee-shirt, Molly remembered that she’d left it at Lowry’s and headed to Little Valley Drive, where she found Frances’s birthday garden party in progress. Lowry was in the kitchen wearing a party hat, drinking lemonade through a straw shaped like a treble clef and looking bored.
“If you’ve come for some of the cake I made, I’d strongly advise you not to bother,” she told Molly. “It’s literally worse than death.”
“Actually, I left my Doris de Ville tee-shirt in your room.”
Lowry’s dad tramped into the kitchen. “Hi, Molly. Cripes, you look like one of the undead. Do you want a job with the tourist board?”
“Dad!” Lowry scowled. “Instead of coming in here and insulting my friend, you should be in the garden, eating the hideous cake that Mum and I made with our own hands.”
“That’s why I came in here – to get away from the cake,” said Mr Evans, removing a chocolate éclair from the fridge and walking to the hallway with it. “None of the guests wants to eat the icing picture of Frances’s face. It just sits there staring at everyone with its big googly eyes.”
“Rather like Frances herself,” Lowry reflected. “You do look a bit peaky actually, Molly. What was going on last night? I rang you, and Mr Banderfrith told me that you didn’t want to speak to me.”
“That fibbing fiend! I asked him to tell you that I was ill! Except I wasn’t ill, I was…”
“Molly, you’re quivering. Has something happened?”
Molly put her shaky hands over her face. “You could say that.”
“Let’s go to my office,” said Lowry. “You need to tell me everything.”
Lying on Lowry’s bed like a patient on a therapist’s couch, wearing Mrs de Ville’s tee-shirt and clutching Wetherill’s almanac while her friend listened from her gingham armchair, Molly told the whole story of Furlock’s threat, the ghoul attack, and her visit to Mr Wetherill’s. When she’d finished, Lowry sighed and shook her head.
“Tangletree spores, eh? I never knew they could make a person go loopy.”
Molly sat up. “Loopy?”
“You know, imagining ghouls and stuff.”
“I didn’t imagine the ghoul, Lowry! It really happened! A ghoul probably scared Mrs Fullsway to death, and one nearly scared me to death. For all I know, ghouls scared my dad to death too.”
Lowry looked confused.
“But you told me that Mr Wetherill said—”
“I didn’t say I thought he was right! Don’t you see, we’ve got four days to convince him to stop people from voting for Furlock and to create a special ghoul-slaying team. Otherwise, Furlock’s going to take control of our town. He’s got something horrible planned for us! He said that the moment he becomes mayor, everything’s going to change!”
“But, Molly, Mr Wetherill could be right about the tangletree spores, couldn’t he?” Lowry ventured. “I mean, what’s more likely – that corpse-eating decorators were summoned to attack you in the night or that you had a funny turn after falling through a tree?”
“Lowry, it’s always made sense to me that there might be something dodgy going on in this town,” said Molly. “And I’ve always believed that my dad didn’t just die of some random illness.”
“I know.” Lowry chewed her lip. “And I’ve always wondered if you’re just torturing yourself for no reason.”
An uneasy silence stretched.
“Torturing myself?” Molly said at last.
“Yeah, torturing yourself trying to see plots and conspiracies everywhere.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Lowry tutted and crossed her arms. “Hey, stop getting so uppity,” she said. “How come you’re allowed to never take me seriously when I ask you to investigate my family’s connection with the Kroglin Werewolf, but I’m not allowed to have even the slightest doubt about whether you’re right?”
“Because I know about werewolves, Lowry, and I know you’re not even the least bit wolfish. You don’t even have a temper! You’re the most laid-back person I know.”
“Yeah, and why do you think I’m laid-back? Huh? Why don’t I get annoyed when you fill up my room with your rubbish or when you say you’ll read my research and then break your promises again and again? I’ll tell you why. It’s because every time I start to get angry, I feel something nasty and wolf-like rising up in me – so I force myself to calm down and smile and act like everything’s hunky-dory. You never take me seriously, Molly, but you expect me to agree with everything you say.”
“Wait, is that what this is about? Are you getting your own back on me for not believing you?”
Lowry was red with annoyance by now. “Yeah, Molly, that’s it exactly,” she said. “If I ever dare question the wisdom of the great, all-knowing Molly Thompson, it must be because I’m spiteful. Obviously. Because it’s impossible that sometimes you might just be plain wrong.”
Molly looked at her watch. “Well, thanks for clearing that up,” she grumbled. “I’d love to stay, but on second thoughts I’d rather go and pick up rubbish with Felicity Quick.” She hoisted herself off the bed.
“Don’t forget your book.”
Molly squirmed. “Can’t I leave it here?”
“Might as well,” said Lowry, laughing bleakly. “Everything else of yours is here. But you can flipping well collect it afterwards – I’m not taking in any more of your stuff. This isn’t your personal storage room any more.”
“Fine,” snapped Molly. She left the book and started to climb through the window. “I’ll pick it up when I’m finished – unless I get attacked by ghouls on the way and I let them devour me, because obviously I’m too stupid to know if they’re real or not.”
Feeling wretched, and definitely not in any mood to deal with Felicity Quick, Molly stalked in her silly tee-shirt to the town square.
“Molly Thompson, I’m pairing you with Felicity Quick.”
Molly couldn’t believe her bad luck. Neither, it seemed, could Felicity. Both girls groaned.
The early sun had heated the town square, known locally as the dance square (though dances were no longer held there), and a lid of cloud had slid over the day to seal the warmth in. To one side of the square reared a giant gallows from whose beam hung a mighty bell known as Old Mercy. The pupils had been sorted into pairs and were assembled in their grey Doris de Ville’s Street Cleaning Crew tee-shirts next to the large white bandstand in the centre of the square, on which sat a set of wooden stocks. Doris had handed out bin liners, mechanical litter-grabbers, gloves and route maps.
“Your route map will show you the roads you’ll be cleaning,” called Doris. “Each route ends at a drop-off point. A friend of mine from the council will be picking up your full bags in a lorry. Don’t pick up anything sharp, dead or explosive. We’ll meet back here at four o’clock. Now go and beautify our town!”
Felicity gave Molly a look of disgust. In pairs, the pupils sallied through the fence of tall, ancient street-lamps, which hemmed the dance square in.
With four days to stop Benton Furlock from becoming Mayor of Howlfair, Molly felt she had more important things to attend to than picking up litter. But up in the nest of streets towards the northern hills, a discovery was waiting for her.