“Hey! Look at that!” Sally said from over Oscar’s shoulder, jabbing at the very last page. The edge in Sally’s voice made Oscar jump and grab the railing of the platform that hovered over the endless abyss of files.
“Here’s our Jessie Mur, at it again,” she said.
The page that recorded Oscar’s dad’s birth and death was sliced in half, just like Oscar’s had been.
Oscar’s cheeks burned. He felt a deep fury far stronger than when seeing his own file sabotaged, or finding out the name of the person who had tried to kill him.
Now this Jessie Mur had messed with his dad, and he was going to pay.
“We’ve got to get him!” Oscar said. “Or her. Can we take these folders with us?”
“We’d need approval from the Ministry,” Sally said, “and that can take some time.”
“A few days, right? We can wait that long.”
Sally chuckled. “Try a few decades—if we’re lucky. Ghost business moves slow. Of course, things are faster if the bigwigs are on your side—but we’re not exactly Lady Margaret’s cup of tea right now, are we?”
“All right, then we steal them,” Oscar said. “Simple.” He felt surprised at his own daring.
Sally looked a little worried. “I’m all for bending the rules when it gets the job done, but you have to be careful when messing with the rules round here. That Archivist is a powerful being—he’s more than a regular ghost. How else can you keep the names of a hundred billion dead souls in your head? Apparently he was around with Mortis in the beginning. What I’m saying is, that old Archivist loves his files more than anything—and if he catches us, he might trap us in here forever, or turn us into a shelf or a potted plant, or worse.”
“We have to, Sally. I can’t wait a few decades.”
Sally tapped her chin. “I hear you. But, still, it’s a big risk.”
Oscar had a sudden thought about how he could convince her. He sighed. “I guess you’re right. Lady Margaret wouldn’t want us doing it, and we should probably obey her orders.”
Sally’s brow crinkled. “Hold on! We can’t let that old bag tell us what to do! Right, we’re doing this! But we need a very good plan.”
Oscar thought fast. “How about if I pretend I’m feeling ill…so I need to leave…and then you try to distract the old coot, ask for some more papers, keep him occupied.”
“Right—and then you make a run for it while I’m talking…” Sally’s brow furrowed. “You know, that’s not bad at all! Might just work. You ready?”
“Yes.” Oscar patted the folders inside his jacket. “You go first.”
Sally moved over to the desk and began asking for a long list of folders. With every request, the platform swooped up and down across the shelves. Oscar didn’t have to pretend too hard that he was feeling nauseated. It was like traveling on the world’s most intense roller coaster.
“I think I’m going to be ill,” he moaned.
“Careful, young ghost,” the Archivist said. “Not on my files! For Mortis’s sake!”
“Oh no!” Oscar gasped. “I can feel it coming up! Urkch!” He dry-heaved and clapped a hand over his mouth, as if he could barely hold his stomach down.
“For Hecate’s sake, hold it in!” The Archivist turned pale, and the platform sped across the shelves faster than ever. It came crashing to a halt in front of the door that they’d first come in.
“Out! Out! Through there!” the Archivist cried, pointing to the door.
Oscar stumbled outside, doubled over as if locked in mortal combat with his stomach. He found himself back on Euston Road with cars and buses streaking past. A faint light in the east showed that dawn was coming.
About ten minutes later, Sally emerged as well. She was grinning broadly.
“Good job!” She clapped Oscar on the back. “You really sold that—and once we’d chatted for a while and talked about turban care, he forgot all about you. I think he’s lonely.”
“We really did it!” Oscar said.
“You did! That was a great plan.” Sally gave a long, low whistle. A moment later, their horse and carriage trotted up obediently to meet them.
“Oh, I asked him a few questions too.” She climbed up and took the reins. “Tried to look at Jessie Mur’s file. Doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up name.”
“Of course it is!” Oscar said, surprised once again at how angry he felt. “But he could have used that alias before.”
“Let’s hope so, eh?” Sally reached under her seat and pulled out her typewriter again. Her fingers clattered quickly across the keys.
“I’ll send a message to Sir Cedric asking him to run the name,” she explained. “Won’t take a minute.”
Oscar watched as she ripped the sheet of paper from the machine and held it up in the air. After a few seconds, it disappeared.
“That goes straight to his desk?” Oscar asked.
“Exactly! Right on top of a big pile of papers I imagine. Bet you living folk wish you had such an easy way to send messages back in your world, eh?”
For a second, Oscar debated explaining the internet to Sally—but then decided it would be a waste of time.
“Instant messages!” he said. “Wow! You ghosts really have it all.”
Sally gave him a funny look.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Oscar said. “Can you send one of your amazing messages to Mr. Mortis? We could ask him why he saved me.”
“No, it’ll definitely be blocked.”
“Then let’s go see him. Surely he’s the best person to clear this up.”
“He’s not really a person—more of…a god, I suppose. But I imagine he would. Only problem is very few ghosts get to see him. I don’t know anyone who’s actually met him—apart from the Archivist and a few other hotshots. And Northcote, of course—he’s Mr. Mortis’s private secretary.”
Oscar remembered the small stressed-out man with all the pocket watches who had come into the room when Lady Margaret was questioning them. Mr. Mortis sounded almost impossible to get to. But there had to be a way.
“We’ll get into his office somehow,” Oscar said. After his success at burglary, he felt full of purpose—like they could do anything they wanted, no matter how impossible. Besides, he had his powers. He could turn back and forth from ghost to bone—and that had to be a help.
“My, you’re really getting into this, aren’t you, Oscar?” Sally shook her head. “Maybe we can’t fail? Let’s give it a shot!”
With a flick of the reins, the carriage shot off down the road. Oscar was feeling so determined he didn’t even flinch when they drove straight through the oncoming number 73 bus.
The head offices of the Ministry were near Bank Underground Station, right in the heart of the oldest parts of London.
The entrance, which bulged from the side of a tall, modern glass skyscraper like the architect had suddenly gone mad, was an ancient Roman temple with thick columns and creepy, blank-eyed statues glaring down.
Inside, long corridors and winding staircases led Sally and Oscar up through London’s history. They passed Viking shields and silver death masks, faded tapestries with medieval hunting scenes, gilded pillars and highly detailed models of ancient ships, mighty castles and long-forgotten temples. Gradually, as they rose through the building, the decoration got more modern and they began to see more ghosts too: clerks bustling about with more piles of those ever-present manila folders, porters dragging tea urns the size of tugboats, and frown-faced secretaries taking dictation from speaking tubes.
The building was like a maze, but Sally moved through it confidently. So confidently, in fact, that no one challenged their right to be there until they were just outside Mr. Mortis’s office.
The most eccentric-looking receptionist that Oscar had ever seen sat at a desk. She had spiky glasses like butterfly wings, purple hair, and a lemon-sour smile.
“What are you doing here?” she sneered.
“We’d like to see Mr. Mortis,” Sally explained. “It’s very urgent.”
“Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked.
“No,” Oscar said. “But—”
“No one sees Mr. Mortis without an appointment.” The receptionist opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out an enormous leather-bound book. It must have weighed about the same as a small car, but she handled it deftly, slowly turning the thick parchment pages and running her finger down the list of appointments.
She carried on through her tome for a very long time, and none of Sally’s coughs or Oscar’s nervous foot-tapping had any effect on her speed at all. Oscar could feel Sally’s frustration rising with every page.
At last, after about ten minutes of scanning, the receptionist tapped her finger on a line and looked up.
“Ah, yes! You’ll be pleased to know I’ve found a space where we can fit you in.” She smiled wide, like a crocodile inviting a small fish into its mouth.
“Great!” Oscar exclaimed. “When? Today?”
“You’ll have to wait a little longer than that.” The receptionist’s smile broadened. “Not too long, though…I’ve an opening on the last Tuesday afternoon in March 2058….The twenty-fifth, I think. Does that work?”
“Forty years! No, it absolutely doesn’t!” Sally growled. “You onion-swilling old trout! You prancing old prune! You made us wait all that time for that!” Oscar had to hold her back from going for the receptionist’s throat.
The receptionist’s smile glittered even more brightly. She had clearly died just for the joy of moments like these. With a discreet nod, she called security.
“Show these two the way out, please,” she murmured, slamming her book shut and placing it back in the drawer.
Oscar was about to argue, until he saw the two men who had emerged from the shadows. One of them was a Viking warrior with a necklace of skulls around his neck. The other was a vast sumo wrestler, whose glistening rolls of oiled fat wobbled as he waddled toward them. They were both the largest men, or ghosts, that Oscar had ever seen.
Sally looked like she was ready to fight them too.
“Let’s go, Sally,” he whispered, tugging her away before she was flattened.
Outside, day was finally breaking on what had unquestionably been the longest night of Oscar’s life. The sun was rising just behind the tall church nearby, but Oscar realized he couldn’t feel the warmth on his skin. It was an odd feeling.
There are things you miss being dead.
He didn’t feel tired either, which was odder still, because he had been running around all night. Even so, the aura of invincibility that he’d been enjoying had definitely slipped. There was clearly no easy way to get to Mr. Mortis. Their investigation had hit an obstacle.
“Forty years!” Sally yelled, still fuming. “It’s ghosts like her that make me wish there really was a hell. She’d fit in perfectly. Did you see how much she enjoyed that?”
Oscar didn’t answer. The morning sun glinted off the marble tombstones in the churchyard. Oscar remembered that Mr. Jenkinson’s funeral was going to start in three hours. He still hadn’t finished dressing his body.
“Sally, I should go home. My mum’s going to be really worried if I’m not there when she wakes up.”
“No problem.” Sally whistled for the carriage. “Won’t take a minute. But I’m not letting that old trout beat me. We have to try something else. There must be a way to get Mr. Mortis’s attention. We can carry on the investigation later. In the meantime, I will try to come up with some other leads.”
Oscar was quiet for most of the trip back home. The night’s madness was catching up with him at last.
Sally kept on cursing the receptionist. She got even angrier the more she thought about it.
“That’s the problem with being dead. We’ve got too much time to waste. It’s ridiculous….”
Oscar tuned out her complaining. The carriage was moving so quickly that the whole world blurred around them. That was kind of how he felt too: everything was happening so fast that he couldn’t come to grips with it. Maybe if he had a sleep—or even better, a cup of tea—his life would start making sense.
Before he knew it, they were rolling up Marigold Street. The solid little houses looked as cheerful and quiet as ever. It was hard to believe that they were real. Now Oscar was in ghost form, the living buildings had become dulled in color, and everything seemed as thin and flimsy as a stage set.
“Righto, here we are.” Sally hadn’t stopped plotting for a second. “I’ll pick you up in the evening. And I’ve had a thought about what I can do to help the investigation. I’ll pay a visit to every ghost milliner in town. That’s a hat shop to you. There’re only three or four in London, and maybe one will tell me all about the ghost that bought a big floppy hat. You still with us, Oscar?”
Oscar blinked and nodded. “Yeah, sorry. Um, it’s all just a little bit overwhelming. Thanks for…thanks for everything, Sally.”
“Don’t mention it.” She gave him a wink and watched as he climbed down from the carriage.
As Oscar searched his pocket for his keys, he saw his crutch lying on the ground behind the bush where he’d chucked it away.
That moment felt like years ago.
With a deep sigh, he picked it up. Then, with a rising sense of dread, he turned himself back from ghostly form into his human body. Instantly, the buildings grew more vivid and the sounds of the living world returned: wind through the prim bushes and the blare of televisions.
Oscar felt like the sky had fallen in on him, and his bones had turned to lead—all at the same time. He took a step forward and stumbled. His bad leg was aching, but that was nothing compared to the tiredness he felt. His bed was very far away. It felt like a colossal effort to get there.
It was at this moment that the person Oscar least wanted to see in the whole world came running toward him—Gary Stevens, out for an early morning jog.
Oscar was too tired to move, and Gary was too much of a bully to care.
“Out of my way, limpy,” he muttered as he elbowed past Oscar, shoving him to the pavement. It hurt.
Oscar suddenly realized that he didn’t have to take this anymore. He turned ghostly. The tiredness fell away. Gary Stevens gave a gasp of utter terror as Oscar disappeared.
Gary backed away slowly, looking round to try to see where Oscar had gone. “What’s happening?” he muttered. “What’s this? Some kind of trick?”
“Haunt him, Oscar!” yelled Sally, who’d seen the whole thing.
Oscar crept around behind Gary. He turned bodily just long enough to whisper, “Boo!” then turned into a ghost.
Gary Stevens’s head whipped round. He screamed like a frightened child and ran away.
He sprinted right through where Oscar stood in ghost form. Once again, Oscar caught just a sniff of his thoughts as their bodies were together. There was a large dose of terror, a sort of purple wash of complete panic, and something else, very strange.
Oscar was certain that Gary Stevens hadn’t recognized him. Maybe he just didn’t notice who I was, Oscar wondered. And it is pretty dark. But Oscar felt uneasy—like something wasn’t right.
He and Sally watched the bully sprint away down the road.
“Good work, Oscar!” Sally said. “If an examiner had seen you, they’d give you a pass in your Haunting exams on the spot.”
Oscar frowned. Not being recognized by Gary had rather taken the shine off his victory. They’d only seen each other nearly every day for twelve and a half years.
“You look dead tired, Oscar,” Sally said.
“Ho, ho,” Oscar said.
“Have a kip! We’ll get to the bottom of this or my name ain’t Sally Cromarty.”
“Hope so. See you later, Sally.” Oscar turned bodily, and the tiredness came crashing down once again.
He tried to turn the front door key quietly, but the latch squeaked all the same. As he opened the door, he reached for his spare crutch, which he always kept in the umbrella stand by the door. If he was feeling as bad as this, he’d need two crutches to get up the stairs.
Weirdly, the crutch wasn’t there. Oscar groaned before dragging himself upstairs, trying to tread softly and keep his heavy breathing as quiet as he could. As he passed his mother’s room, he heard her talking on the phone.
Great, he thought. That means she hasn’t heard me.
He almost collapsed as he slipped into his room and didn’t bother switching the light on, instead feeling his way toward his bed in the corner of the room. He had never ever needed his bed as much as he did right now, and couldn’t even be bothered to get undressed. He just wanted to lie down and sleep forever. In fact, he was so tired that he didn’t notice what was wrong until he tried to pull back his quilt. His hand brushed thin air.
What?
Oscar hobbled back to the light switch and flicked it on.
His bed wasn’t there anymore.
He blinked, closed his eyes, counted to ten, and looked again.
It wasn’t just his bed. Everything was gone.
There was a bed, but it was in the other corner of the room. And it wasn’t Oscar’s bed. It was someone else’s—someone super lame. The cheerful skeleton-decorated bedcover he’d had since he was ten had been replaced by an ugly flowery comforter and starched white sheets. All his horror film posters were gone too—even his Ghostbusters II original—and the red wallpaper had been changed to match the red carpet, which hadn’t even been there before.
All the photos of his mum and dad and Granny Grimstone had vanished from the dresser. The room was empty and soulless, a room for nobody.
A spare room.