Dial a Ghost Read Online Free PDF Page A

decent when you think that if it wasn’t for Oliver, Fulton himself would be master of Helton Hall.’
    Which just shows how simple-minded lawyers and bank managers can sometimes get.
    Because Fulton wasn’t kind at all; he was evil, and so was his sister Frieda. The school that they ran was called Sunnydell, but no place could have been less sunny. The children were beaten, the food was uneatable and the classrooms were freezing. The sweets the parents sent were confiscated, and the letters the boys wrote home to say how miserable they were never got posted.
    But you can only run a school like that for so long. The inspectors were getting wise to the Snodde-Brittles, and so were the parents. At first they had liked the idea of their boys being toughened up, but gradually more and more children were taken away, and as the school got smaller and smaller the Snodde-Brittles got poorer and poorer.
    So when they heard that the last owner of Helton had had his head bashed in by a fierce old lady, their joy knew no bounds.
    ‘I’m the new master of Helton!’ yelled Fulton.
    ‘And I’m the new mistress!’ shouted Frieda.
    ‘We’ll Set Our Foot Upon Our Enemies!’ shouted Fulton.
    ‘Both our feet!’
    And then came the letter from the lawyer saying that Oliver had been found and that he and not Fulton was the rightful owner of Helton.
    For two days the Snodde-Brittles nearly choked themselves with rage. They prowled the corridors muttering and cursing; they practised every kind of cruelty on the pupils, twisting their arms, shutting them in cupboards; they shook their fists at the heavens.
    Then Fulton calmed down. ‘Now listen, Frieda, there must be something we can do about this boy.’
    ‘Kill him, do you mean?’ asked Frieda uneasily.
    ‘No, no. Not directly. The police would get on to that; they’ve got all sorts of scientific equipment these days. But there’ll be something. We’ve just got to show that he’s unfit to take over... that he’s mad or ill. There’s bound to be bad blood in him somewhere. Now listen; we’ve got to pretend to be his friends... his loving relations,’ said Fulton with a leer. ‘We’ve got to show everyone that we’re on his side – and then...’
    ‘And then what?’
    ‘I don’t know yet. But I will soon. Just leave it to me.’
    So they wrote to the lawyer and two weeks later they were on their way to London.
    ‘What a shabby house,’ said Frieda disgustedly as the taxi drew up in front of the Home. ‘The curtains are patched and the plaster is peeling. Really, I don’t know what the council is doing to allow such a place.’
    Both the Snodde-Brittles were dressed in black; both were tall and bony, and both had moustaches. Fulton’s moustache was there on purpose – a dung-coloured growth on his upper lip. Frieda’s was there by mistake.
    ‘One could hardly expect anything else in this part of London,’ said Fulton, not giving the taxi driver his tip and sneering at an old lady shuffling to the corner shop in her slippers. ‘It is given over to beggars and the Poor. People who are shiftless and don’t work.’
    The door was opened by a cheerful girl in a pink overall which Frieda disapproved of: maids should wear uniform and call her ‘Madam’. She also disapproved of the rich smell of frying chips, the sound of laughter from the garden and the children’s paintings tacked to the walls of the corridor.
    ‘Matron will be along in a minute,’ said the girl, and showed them into an office with two sagging armchairs and a large desk almost completely covered in photographs of children who had been in the Home throughout the years.
    ‘It’s quite extraordinary that a true Snodde-Brittle should have been living in a place such as this,’ said Frieda.
    ‘If the brat i s a true Snodde-Brittle,’ said Fulton, biting his moustache.
    Matron came in. She wore a woollen skirt and a hand-knitted cardigan, and clinging to her hand was a small boy.
    ‘Good