Dial a Ghost by Eva Ibbotson Read Free Book Online Page B

like that is not a good idea at all.

Chapter Eight
     
    In the knicker shop, the Wilkinsons were having a party. It was the day before they were due to leave for their new home in the country and they had invited their friends to say goodbye. Mr Hofmann had come from the bunion shop, sniffing a little because he was going to lose Grandma, and a lovely Swedish phantom called Pernilla, with luminous hair and gentle eyes, had drifted in from the music store. There was a jogger who had jogged once too often, and various children Addie had picked up: the son of a rat-catcher who came with a dozen of his father’s phantom rats, and a pickpocket called Jake who knew everything there was to know about living off the land.
    It was a good party. Though the ghosts were sad to see such a nice family leave the district, they tried hard not to begrudge the Wilkinsons their good luck.
    ‘Aaah... imagine... to breathe again the fresh clear air,’ sighed Pernilla, who was dreadfully homesick for the pine forests of her native land.
    ‘And living with nuns,’ said the jogger, who had been a curate before he dropped dead of a heart attack on the A12. ‘Such good people!’
    Aunt Maud was everywhere, filling glasses with her nightshade cordial, making people feel comfortable.
    ‘If only you could all come with us,’ she sighed.
    ‘Maybe you can,’ said Adopta. ‘If the nuns are so kind, maybe they’ll make room for you all!’
    She had filled Grandma’s gas mask case with the ghosts of beetles and woodlice which she meant to re-settle in the country and was so excited that she found it impossible to keep still.
    Everyone had been very well behaved up to then, but perhaps Aunt Maud’s drinks were stronger than she realized because Eric, who was usually so quiet, suddenly said, ‘No more knickers!’ and sent a box of mini-briefs tumbling to the floor.
    ‘No more Tootsies and Footsies and Bootsies,’ shouted Grandma, who had been particularly annoyed at the silly names that people nowadays gave to socks, thwacking at the display stand with her umbrella.
    ‘And down with tummy buttons,’ yelled Adopta, and a pile of polka-dot bikinis tumbled from their shelves.
    At first Aunt Maud and Uncle Henry tried to stop them, but it was no use. The relief of getting away from all that underwear was just too great, and soon even Mr Hofmann, who could hardly glide, was thumping a see-through nightdress with his crutch, while Pernilla zoomed to the ceiling with a box of body stockings which she draped like streamers round the lamp.
    But when the clock struck eleven, they quietened down. Mr Hofmann was led away by Grandma, the jogger jogged back to the A12, the rat-catcher’s son called to his rats – and the host and hostess, as is the way with parties, were left to clean up the mess.
    There was only one more thing to do. Sober and solemn now, the Wilkinsons filed out into the street and called to Trixie.
    ‘We love you, Trixie,’ they said, bowing to the north.
    ‘We need you, Trixie,’ they said, bowing to the east and the west and the south.
    ‘And we shall never forget you,’ they promised.
    Of course if Trixie had come just then it would have been a miracle, but she didn’t. So they went back to pack and cover the budgie’s cage, while Uncle Henry made his way to the Dia l A Ghos t agency and the office of Miss Pringle.
    The folder with all their instructions and the maps was exactly where she had said it would be, on the window sill beside the potted geranium. Uncle Henry took it and passed it backwards and forwards across his chest so as to cover it with ectoplasm and make it invisible.
    And an hour later, the Wilkinsons were on their way.
    The Shriekers did not have a farewell party. To have a party you need friends and the Shriekers didn’t have any. All the same, in their dark and nasty way they were excited.
    ‘A place that’s fit for us at last,’ said Sabrina. ‘Statues... suits of armour . . . a tower!’
    Mrs