The Twins, the Ghost and the Castle Read online

  For Joan and David

  Contents

  Chapter One The castle

  Chapter Two ‘You can’t be serious!’

  Chapter Three A deep, thunderous voice

  Chapter Four Hide and seek

  Chapter Five Harry Parkin

  Chapter Six Mrs Crank

  Chapter Seven Verruca fish

  Chapter Eight Ghost hunter

  Chapter Nine ‘Up, Guards, and at ’em!’

  Chapter Ten Like a snake

  Chapter Eleven A wild-ghost chase

  Chapter Twelve ‘Get what’s coming to you!’

  Chapter Thirteen Stonyheart meets his Waterloo

  Chapter Fourteen Things turn out well

  A Note from the Author

  Footnotes

  Chapter One

  The castle

  On the outskirts of a seaside town, right next to the beach, there is a mighty castle facing the sea. On a clear day if you stand at the water’s edge, you can see the shadow of the continent in the distance. It really is that close, which is probably why Henry the Eighth built the castle there in the first place – to keep out any nasty invaders. (If there was anyone being nasty in England, thought Henry, then it was going to be him alone.)

  So, for nearly five hundred years the castle has been guarding the beach, and its grey stone ramparts are as strong and solid as the day it was first built. It has a deep moat lined with high, mossy walls, cannons bristling in all sorts of directions, and a tall white pole on which flutters a proud flag. Around the castle there are acres and acres of the most wonderful gardens and woods. If you hover above the fortress in a helicopter (and you won’t catch me in one of those things), it looks like a Tudor rose: made up of four half-circle towers around a circular keep in the middle. (A keep is the stronghold of the castle, right in the centre. And in the bottom of the keep is the castle well – which gives you some idea just how important it is to have water to drink.) To get in you have to clomp across a heavy, wooden drawbridge and pass through the gatehouse.

  The heroes of this story, however, weren’t anywhere near the drawbridge. They were hiding in the bushes by the gardens looking for a way to sneak in. To buy an entrance ticket costs money, and Stella and Tom didn’t have any money. In fact the twins had nothing at all to their name except the clothes on their backs, and those were grey and scratchy and joyless.

  Stella and Tom were totally alone in the world without anyone to look after them. We shan’t discuss how they came to be so alone and without their parents, and why they were running away, as that would be completely grim, and this is meant to be a happy story.

  Perhaps...

  The castle towered above them, immense and cold, and, peeking through the bushes, they both felt very small and insignificant.

  ‘Do you really think we ought to?’ asked Stella. ‘I mean, sneak in round the back.’ She looked worried.

  Tom gave his sister a hug. Stella was a bright and clever girl, who drew the most amazing pictures of imaginary underground kingdoms, and Tom loved her more than anything else in the world. It broke his heart to see her unhappy.

  He smiled at her. ‘It is a bit naughty, but we shan’t cause any trouble, and perhaps we could help by picking up some litter or something. Besides we won’t be staying for long.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see what it looks like inside. Do you think there’s a dungeon?’

  ‘Probably loads,’ said Tom. ‘You know what kings are like, always clapping prisoners in irons and throwing them into jail.’

  ‘If we get found out, do you reckon we’d get thrown in the dungeon?’

  ‘Nah,’ Tom chuckled. ‘Anyway, they’ll have to catch us first.’

  He lifted up a bit of the thin wire fence, making a gap. ‘Come on, in you go.’

  The twins managed to get through the fence, and found themselves on the edge of the kitchen gardens, between the greenhouse and the cabbage patch. Not far away was a little cottage, probably the caretaker’s.

  The twins hid inside the greenhouse amongst the palm trees and waited to see if anyone was coming. When they were sure they were alone, they crept out and headed down the path towards the castle.

  ‘We should walk slowly,’ said Stella with a smile, ‘that way we don’t look suspicious. And if anyone asks, we just tell them our parents are in the garden.’

  Tom grinned at her. Was Stella getting her spark back?

  They walked down the garden path and over the bridge that crossed the moat at the back of the castle. There was a courtyard in the middle of the fortress and they found some stairs leading up to the battlements.

  ‘Let’s go up there,’ said Stella. ‘I have to climb on one of those cannons! And from up high we can get a good look.’

  The castle was everything they had hoped it would be. Sitting on top of one of the big guns in the sun, you could see across the moat to the great gardens, the sea, and even France in the distance. Behind them were sets of windows and glass doors leading to the stately rooms. Though the inside of the castle looked inviting, as it was such a lovely day Stella and Tom decided to go back and explore the grounds first.

  They ran around the main garden with its giant trees and long, grassy meadows. Some families had laid out picnic blankets and were lounging in the sun. Next to the lawn was another garden that had a big, rectangular pond running down the centre of it. The pond was full of carp whose scales flashed in the light. They tried counting them, but there were too many, and the fish kept hiding under lily pads.

  The twins were feeling hungry by this point, and went to the kitchen gardens. Earlier they had passed some apple trees heavy with fruit – the ground below was piled high with them. The label on one of the trees said ‘Newton Wonders’.

  ‘I wonder if these are the sort that fell on his head,’ asked Stella in between mouthfuls.

  ‘Whose head?’

  ‘Sir Isaac Newton – the man who discovered gravity when an apple dropped on his nut.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I knew that.’

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ Stella teased.

  ‘I know I can beat you to the end of those woods,’ said Tom, bolting off down the path. Stella chased after him.

  They ran through the trees, Stella a little way behind Tom. From in here, the trees were so thick you couldn’t see the castle at all. They stopped and listened to the creaking of the branches and the calling of the birds.

  ‘How about we pretend we’re in a fairy tale?’ said Stella. ‘We’re lost in the wood a long way from home...’

  ‘And then we find a path and come across an enchanted castle,’ Tom added.

  With that, they found the path again where it looped through the woods, and raced back to the castle, past fields of purple crocuses straining for the sun, and a statue of the god Mercury standing in the paddock with his winged sandals.

  Chapter Two

  ‘You can’t be serious!’

  The inside of the castle was like nothing they had seen before. (And having lived pretty much their entire lives without a real home, you can imagine what the grand rooms of a castle might have seemed like to them.) It wasn’t a draughty, freezing sort of a castle – though it did have some dungeons – but more like a stately home.

  There were quite a few rooms – the bedrooms each had a four-poster bed, and the elegant dining room had places set for twelve. There was a painted blue hallway with a glass domed ceiling in the centre of it, and several different sitting rooms with antique furniture. The walls were hung with gold-framed portraits of annoyed-looking men in white wigs (and you’d probably be annoyed too if you had to wear a scratchy hamster on your head). Indian carpets lined the wooden floors; t
here were statues and chandeliers everywhere.

  ‘Wow,’ whistled Tom. ‘What a place.’

  Stella was staring at a glass case in one of the smaller rooms that had been set up a bit like a museum. The case had some brightly coloured military jackets, fancy hats, and a pair of shiny black boots. ‘Look, Tom,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Real Wellington boots!’

  Tom read the card: ‘“The famous boots, designed and worn by Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, hero of the battle of Waterloo.” This used to be his home,’ said Tom. ‘The Duke of Wellington’s.’ He shook his head. ‘I wish it were our home.’

  Stella looked around the room and thought for a moment. ‘Well, why don’t we make it our home then?’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘If we’re clever about it, and find good places to hide, no-one need ever know we’re here. It’s big enough, after all.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Tom laughed.

  ‘Perfectly serious,’ said Stella.

  And he could see that she was.

  The first thing they had to do was to find somewhere to hide. It had to be somewhere quite secret but comfortable. Like their own little mouse hole. After walking through the castle from top to bottom again, they found a little stairway off one of the landings that they hadn’t noticed before. The staircase had a purple rope across the front of it. The sign said: ‘No admission, Lord Warden’s apartments.’ They checked the guidebook in the gift shop. It turned out the castle was the Lord Warden’s official residence, which he only used once a year.

  ‘Let’s have a peek,’ said Tom.

  When no one was looking, they ducked under the purple rope and tiptoed up the stairs. The Lord Warden’s apartment looked very comfortable. It had a massive four-poster bed to sleep in, a bathroom with a deep, claw-foot bath, and a living room. The living room had lots of armchairs, books, board games and even a television. It had heavy red curtains that could be pulled shut, so even at night Stella and Tom wouldn’t have to worry if someone could see the light.

  ‘Perfect!’ said Stella. ‘We can hide here. They probably only check it once a day at closing time – if that.’

  Sure enough at closing time they heard the sound of footsteps up the stairs. The twins quickly shuffled under the bed and held their breath.

  A pair of shoes entered the room (attached, of course, to the legs and body of a castle keeper), clumped around a little, and then clumped out again.

  Shortly after, the castle went silent. Through a crack in the curtains the twins saw the staff leave and get into their cars. All except one man who went round the back towards the cottage – probably the head caretaker.

  The twins grinned at each other. They had done it.

  The first few days of hiding away without getting caught were the trickiest, but after that, Stella and Tom got the hang of the place and how the staff worked – when they opened, when they cleaned, what time they went home in the evening.

  They soon solved the problem of food. The castle had a café on the ground floor that served up cream teas, scones, sandwiches, fruit, crisps – you know the sort of thing. The cook prided herself on serving only the freshest of food, and so each afternoon she would throw out a perfectly good selection of things that had absolutely nothing wrong with them, apart from being a little stale.

  The twins quickly worked out that if they could get hold of the bag before the rubbish was taken out then they could have as much food as they could eat. Carrot cake with lemon icing was Stella’s favourite, while Tom liked bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches.

  At bedtime, for pyjamas they borrowed some costumes from the gift shop that were printed like armour – which made them look like crusaders. They would then jump into their enormous bed and snuggle under the thick covers.

  Each morning they would make the bed carefully, and put the room back exactly the way it had been the day before.

  Not wanting to draw too much attention to themselves, the twins spent much of their day lounging in the apartment, playing games or reading books. When they felt like it, they could easily sneak outside to the gardens for a run around. They soon built a little, secret hut out of sticks in the wood which they christened ‘Leafage’. It had a carpet of soft leaves for the floor, and little cushions made out of dried grass.

  They were delightfully free. Free to do whatever they pleased, and with their very own home. Their very own castle.

  But it wasn’t before long, that they discovered they weren’t the only ones hiding during the day, and coming out at night.

  The castle had a secret.

  They were not alone.

  Chapter Three

  A deep, thunderous voice

  One evening, after five o’clock when the staff had given the castle a last inspection and had gone home, Stella and Tom came out from hiding under their four-poster bed and went exploring, knowing that no-one would be back until eight the following morning.

  ‘Tray race?’ Tom suggested.

  ‘You’re on.’

  They ran down the stairs, through the courtyard, and into the café. Grabbing two trays, they made their way back up to the main staircase, and placed them on the top of the landing. Then they stood at the far end of the corridor, near the dining room, feet behind an imaginary line.

  ‘On your marks, set... go!’ Tom shouted, and they were off, arms pumping, legs flying.

  They reached the trays in a blur. Both twins leapt onto the plastic, crouching down, and the trays took off.

  Down the stairs they flew, clattering loudly. Stella was in the lead, but only just – her tray totally out of control. She tried to take the turn down the stairs – wham! She was going too fast to make it. Stella collided with the wall side-on. Blam! Tom clattered into her. The marble bust on the recess above them wobbled, and shook, and wobbled... then stopped still.

  ‘Owww!’ Stella complained. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  ‘Watch where you’re going yourself!’ Tom groaned. Stella punched him on the arm, Tom hit her back. They glared at each other.

  Then, from the top of the landing came a sound that sucked the breath out of their lungs, froze their limbs stiff, and sent a shock through them as if they had stuck their finger in a socket. It was a voice. A deep, thunderous voice. It boomed down from above, cutting through the air like a blade.

  ‘You’re lucky you didn’t knock down that sculpture – break that, and the game would really be up!’

  Stella and Tom yelped, hearts jolting.

  Towering above them, his arms folded, his dark eyes piercing and cold, stood a ghost.

  He stood there, just slightly flickering, his outline clear, the room behind visible through his body.

  The ghost held himself proudly, chest out, poised. He had a shock of silvery-white hair. Silver sideburns crept across his cheeks towards a hawkish nose that dominated his face. He wore a dark jacket of an old-fashioned sort, with a white waistcoat, the buttons done up all the way to the top. Above the waistcoat was a smart cravat.

  Stella and Tom couldn’t speak. Their jaws hung down helplessly.

  The ghost continued. ‘That bust of my head was made by Turnerelli, the finest sculptor of his day.’ He frowned. ‘He sculpted kings and princesses, and I would be sad to see it broken.’

  Tom managed to find some strength in his legs and stood up, keeping his eye on the ghost. He briefly turned and read the inscription on the base of the statue. His eyes widened. He looked down at Stella in amazement then back at the ghost.

  ‘You’re the Duke of Wellington,’ he gasped.

  The old man gave a snort. ‘But of course I am.’ He spread his arms wide. ‘And this is my castle.’

  Stella and Tom glanced at each other uneasily. Stella got to her feet and reached for her brother’s hand. Both were trembling.

  The Duke rubbed his chin while he looked them up and down. ‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘Now if you two have had enough of tray races for one evening, I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you. In my room
, if you please.’

  The ghost entered a doorway just off the landing. Tom and Stella stayed still, not brave enough to follow.

  The Duke came back to the landing. ‘Well, come on – I won’t bite.’ A hint of a smile passed over his lips. ‘At least, I’ll try not to.’

  The Duke’s room was sparsely furnished. One wall was lined with bookshelves, full of dusty books. There was a small pair of writing tables, and a large, oval-shaped window that faced out onto the moat. It was getting dark outside now. On one side of the room was an old camp bed with a faded blue cover, next to which was a high-backed armchair.

  The Duke sat down in the armchair, disappearing into it a little bit, and told the twins to sit on the bed. The bed creaked, and felt like it was going to collapse.

  ‘Don’t worry about that old bed of mine, she’s been on many a campaign with me and survived. Never could stand sleeping in those four-poster monstrosities like the one you use.’

  ‘So, you know we’ve been staying here then?’ Stella found her voice.

  ‘Oh yes,’ beamed the Duke. ‘From the very first night you arrived.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you show yourself to us then?’ Tom asked.

  ‘And scare you off straight away?’ The ghost wagged his finger. ‘No, no, no. That wouldn’t have done at all. A good soldier should always reconnoitre first before deciding on action, I learned that in India.’

  ‘Recon-a-what?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Investigate. Scout. I needed to see what you were made of – whether you were good sorts. The sort of people I would be willing to have in my castle. Some of those tourists who come through here are quite rude.’

  The Duke tried to drum his fingers on the armrests, but his fingers disappeared into the cloth so he stopped.

  He looked down at his hands with a smile and a shake of his head.

  ‘Even after all these years of haunting, I still can’t get used to the fact that I can’t really touch things.’

  ‘And are we good sorts?’ asked Stella, dreading the answer.