The Ghost at the Point by Charlotte Calder Read Free Book Online

route to Jasper’s Cove: Old Mrs Pettigrew, the wheelchair-bound Nobby Duckfeather, and then there was only scrub and sandhills for miles until the next farm.
    By the time she reached the road, she knew she didn’t have a choice. She’d have to go the other way, towards Redcliff. Head for their nearest neighbours on that side.
    Old Caleb Pearce and his son, Jacky.
    She braked momentarily alongside the mailbox, dread filling the pit of her stomach. Then she thought of Gah, lying there grey-faced with pain, and she let out the clutch. Too quickly – the truck stalled. She cursed, pushed the starter button again and turned into the road.
    The Pearces lived down the other end of the back beach, in a shack in the scrub near the mouth of the lagoon. Dorrie had never been there, but from out on the lagoon you could sometimes see a glint of the tin roof, nestled into the sandhills. And their ancient, yellowing dinghy, pulled up in the mud flats.
    The rare times that the Pearces were seen, Caleb’s hunched back, ragged clothes and glowering, silent glare had earned him the status of ogre in the eyes of the local children. It was also said that Jacky was a halfwit. Ned Brown and a couple of the boys at school maintained it was because Caleb had beaten him when he was a kid.
    Gah, on the other hand, said Caleb and Jacky were harmless.
    Once or twice when Dorrie and Gah were manoeuvring the dinghy through the tricky sandbars at the mouth of the lagoon, Dorrie had seen Jacky standing as still as a rock out on the flats, his hat pulled down over his ears, staring at them. Gah had raised a hand, and Jacky had waved back.
    And now here she was asking for their help.
    She wondered if they ever got any mail; there was no box that she could see.
    The track was overgrown and barely there in places – a couple of times she nearly got stuck in the encroaching sandhills. She clung to the wheel, keeping a steady pressure on the accelerator as the wheels spun and the truck fishtailed about. At last, she rounded the final bend and there was the rusted tin hut, overhung by a gnarled blue gum.
    Before she’d even pulled up, a cattle dog came tearing around from the back, barking ferociously. She shrank back in her seat, barely breathing. The shack windows consisted of hinged tin flaps propped open with sticks and the front door was ajar, but she couldn’t see any lights through the gloom inside. The dog barked and snarled and started flinging itself against the side of the truck, teeth bared. She glanced around for something to clobber it with if it made it through the open window. Surely the Pearces must be able to hear it! Or were they out on the boat?
    She was about to sound the horn when a roar came from around the side of the hut.
    “
Brutus
! Giddown!”
    It was old Caleb himself, wild-eyed and unshaven. Jacky plodded closely behind, as big and round-faced as his father was bent and gaunt.
    Brutus dropped low to the ground and slunk back to his master, ears and tail down, only to be rewarded with a cuff and a curse. Dorrie sat quite still; the father and son approached.
    “Yair?” Caleb stopped at her window, his eyes boring into her. Jacky’s face floating behind him was like a big, pink moon under his ancient felt hat.
    “My grandpa …” Dorrie’s voice came out as a croak. She started again. “My grandpa – George Jose – he’s fallen off a ladder, and I think he’s broken his leg and he needs to go to hospital.” Then she ran out of breath and swallowed, choking on her words.
    The Pearces stared at her. She felt sure they must be able to hear her heart pounding.
    “And you can’t lift ’im,” said Caleb at last, his words coming short and sharp. He motioned over his shoulder to his son. “Carn, she needs help. Git in the truck.”
    Jacky’s mouth dropped open; he made a kind of “ah” noise. And then without any more to do – even shutting their front door – the father and son stumped around to the passenger