andââ but he interrupted again .
âI know,â he said, wiggling his left foot about as though he had pins and needles in itâwhich I knew for sure he didnât, as I had already emptied it out and all I had found was the key. âI remember that very well. I had my head back on by then.â
âIâm really sorry,â I said. âWould you like your key back?â
Sir Horace shook his head very slowly, and it made a horrible grinding noise, like a pepper mill.
âPlease keep the key, Miss Spookie,â he said. âI would be very pleased for you to use my balcony for your Awful Ambush. I myself have done many Awful Ambushes from there in years gone by. They can be very effective. I will ask my faithful page, Edmund, to assist you.â
Aha. So that was who Edmund was, I thought. âThank you very much, Sir Horace,â I said.
âYou are most welcome, Miss Spookie,â he replied, and bowed low.
âCareful!â I shouted, but it was too late. Sir Horaceâs head fell off and rolled along the corridor. I caught it just as it started bouncing down the stairs, but unfortunately Aunt Tabby saw me as she was attacking some spiderwebs on the landing below.
âHavenât you put Sir Horace back together yet , Araminta?â she snapped at the same time as she made a hundred spiders homeless. Aunt Tabby likes making spiders and people homeless.
âNearly finished, Aunt Tabby,â I told her, and I rushed back to find Sir Horace. He was sitting on the bottom step looking surprised. Well, I think that was how he was looking, although it was hard to tell. I put his headback on. I was more careful this time, and I could tell it had gone on the right way as there was a little click when it settled onto his shoulders.
âOoh, thatâs better,â he said. âThat crick in my neck has completely gone.â He moved his head about, and it didnât make the pepper mill noise any more. I felt pleased.
Then he hung on to the banister and heaved himself up, so that he was standing almost straight, and he said, âWell, jolly good, then, Miss Spookie. You do your ambush and leave the rest to me.â
âGreat,â I said.
âRight ho. And tell young Edmund I said to provide you with all necessary assistance. Until we meet again, Miss Spookie.â He started to bow, but then he changed his mind. Hewalked away, kind of lurching from side to side until he reached a dark corner on the landing and propped himself up in it.
This was turning out to be good day after allâa secret passage, two ghosts, and one Awful Ambush coming up. What could be better?
9
AMBUSH KIT
Y ou need a lot of stuff for an Awful Ambush. And most of the things I needed wereâ bats. Lots and lots of bats.
So I went off to Uncle Dracâs turret to catch as many as I could. Iâm pretty good at catching bats, as I always help Uncle Drac with them whenever they escape. Aunt Tabby hates bats. She thinks that they are going to nest in her hair, but no self-respecting batwould want to go anywhere near Aunt Tabbyâs hair, as it is stuffed full of hairpins. They would be bat-kebabs in five seconds flat.
Anyway, I found my bat sack and soon I was crawling very carefully along a rafter at the top of the turret. Uncle Drac was fast asleep, snoring in his sleeping bag, which hung from the rafters and swayed with each snore. There was a crowd of bats fast asleep all around him, although I donât think the bats were snoring. Or perhaps I just couldnât hear them. Maybe bat snores are too high-pitched for humans to hear.
âHere, bats,â I whispered, and scooped up as many as I could and stuffed them into the sack. The bats didnât mind; they liked my bat sack. Well, all except Big Bat, who does notlike anything , as he is a grumpy old bat. But I really wanted to have Big Bat in the ambush since I figured he would be pretty scary.I grabbed