Steve Cole Middle Fiction 4 Read online

  No, not someone. An animal. It sounded like a horse.

  It was the ghostly clatter of a ghostly horse’s ghostly hooves!

  And it was also the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  The combination of ghostly bean tins, phantom phones, spooky swords and now a zombie death-horse was finally enough to tip me over the edge from ‘fairly terrified’ into full-on ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK-wibble-wobble-I-am-a-teapot’ mode.

  In a blind panic, I ran to the front door.

  I threw open the front door.

  I sprinted from the house, into the night, down the winding drive.

  I charged out into the road and kept running.

  Until suddenly I skidded to a stop.

  Because a Seerblight Solutions van was parked in front of me.

  An empty Seerblight Solutions van.

  Which meant that if Mr Butt had been inside the van, he was now out of it.

  Three guesses where he must be headed. (Guess 1: Luxembourg? No. Guess 2: A transport café on the M4? No. Guess 3: My house? Yes! Oh, yes!)

  Oh, no.

  I hadn’t passed him on my way here, so he must’ve been hiding. Waiting for his chance to get inside . . .

  And what doofus had just run out and left the front door wide open, leaving Mum alone in the basement?

  (Guess 1: You got it. Me!)

  “Mum!” I ran back the other way, as fast as I could go. What should I do? Phone the police? Yes – however crazy things sounded, they would have to help, right? That’s what I told myself. But when I got back, breathless, the front door was closed – and locked.

  I felt sick. This isn’t happening! None of this can be happening! I banged on the door, but of course no one opened it. I thought I could hear someone shouting. “Mum?” I whumped the wood so hard I thought my fists might fall off. “Are you—?”

  The latch rattled and the door suddenly swung open. Maybe the ghosts were back on my side? I didn’t much care; I just wanted to find my mum. The door to the basement was standing wide open. The strong light from the lab below sent struggling shadows dancing on the hall wall.

  Mum was in trouble.

  There was a loud crash and a man’s shout. It sounded like Mr Butt. Maybe he was the one in trouble? Mum used to do self-defence classes – until she got thrown out for excessive violence . . .

  I knew I had to do something. I should’ve gone straight to the cordless phone in the living room. I should’ve called for help and then gone down to check on Mum.

  Coulda, shoulda— Didn’t.

  “MUMMMMM!!!” I ran down the stairs two at a time and charged into the lab. What an action hero!

  An action hero stopped in his tracks by a dazzling red light that was being shone in his eyes.

  “Noah, get out!” I heard Mum bellow. “This madman’s scanned you with the BRIAN™!”

  Which isn’t something you hear every day. Blinded by the scan-light, I froze in panic. Should I dive for cover, or turn and try to get out before ‘this madman’ pulled the trigger?

  Too late. My ears rang with the same heavy-duty ZAP I’d heard back in the kitchen. The BRIAN™ had been fired again!

  This time, I was the target.

  I fell over, but it was like I didn’t hit the floor.

  It was as if my senses had switched off. I couldn’t see, hear, smell, taste or touch a single thing. The dark silence swamped me until—

  “NOAHHHHHHHH!” I heard Mum sobbing. “You blasted him! He’s gone!”

  “I’m not gone, Mum!” I blinked, wishing my sight would return along with my hearing. “I’m here!”

  No one took any notice of me. “I needed to test your zapper, didn’t I?” Mr Butt snarled. “Now we know we’re not wasting the boss’s time.”

  “Hey!” I tried again. “Right here! Hellooooooo?”

  “Well, big congrats, Professor Deer,” Mr Butt went on. “All these years and no one else has come close to controlling the Salt of Igneous so well—”

  “NOOOO­OOOOO­OOOOO­OOOOO­OOOOA­HHHHH­HHHHH­HHHHH!” Mum wailed, ignoring him. “Where are you?”

  “I’m right in front of you!” Sitting up, dazed and dizzy, my sight was slowly returning. I could see Mum, blearily, and Mr Butt beside her clutching the BRIAN™ in one hand.

  But there was something that I couldn’t see.

  Something I couldn’t see at all – because it was no longer there.

  ME.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Like a Ghost!

  (PS actually, I HATE a ghost!)

  I couldn’t see myself! How crazy-dumb was that? I closed my eyes for longer, then opened them again. I still hadn’t come back. I could feel my arms, my legs, my face. I could feel my stomach churning. But my vision was blurred. I couldn’t see myself at all.

  And Mum . . . ?

  Mr Butt was steering her away up the steps, along with the BRIAN™ and the jar of pow-powder. “Mum!” I shouted. “I’m invisible!”

  “Alas! That is not all you are,” came a voice from behind me.

  I turned dizzily. A woman dressed in white was kneeling on the floor. “W-W-W-Where’d you come from? Can you help me?”

  “I’ve been trying to help you, Noah,” she said, her voice deep and rich as a Christmas pudding. “As for your mother, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do just now.”

  “Thanks, anyway!” I had no time to listen to this. I tried to run up the steps – but instead I just went THROUGH them. My mind told me I was knee-deep in stonework, but I couldn’t see myself, couldn’t feel the steps at all. I just felt dizzy, in shock.

  Of course, the steps were there. It was ME who wasn’t.

  “Your vision will be fuzzy for a time,” said the mysterious woman, “but fret not! You’ll soon see things as they truly are. Yourself included.”

  Even as she spoke, a mist seemed to form around me. I looked down and saw my jeans, suddenly pale and ghostly white. I couldn’t see my feet in their trainers because I seemed to be standing inside the bottom step. My T-shirt appeared and I saw my arms, sprouting from the sleeves. I held one hand to my chest.

  There was no ba-dump of a heartbeat.

  There was nothing.

  NOTHING.

  “No, no, no, no!” The woman was standing now. She had a round face and neat features, and like me she was slightly see-through, glowing like starlight. “You are not a ghost, Noah. Once you have adjusted to the shock of transmogrification—”

  “Transmogri-what?” My brain and tongue were struggling in a freaked-out tangle. “Wait. I recognise your face.” I gasped with fear. “You’re B-B-B-Baroness Jemima Smyth.”

  “Indeed I am, Noah. In the flesh!” She frowned. “Um, sort of.”

  I felt scared stiff – or as stiff as you can be when you have zero substance. The baroness looked just like her portrait on the wall. She was wearing an old-fashioned checked cloak and a man’s shirt and dark trousers. Her legs ended in a pair of ghostly leather boots.

  “You’ve been haunting me! YOU’RE A GHOST!”

  “I’m not, you know.” With an awkward tinkle of a laugh, the ghostly woman did a small curtsey. “And I’d rather you addressed me as Lady Smyth.”

  “My mother told me never to talk to dead people!” Panic was returning. “Help! I’m dead! My mum’s been kidnapped and I’m too dead to do anything about it!”

  “Really, Noah! Such a preoccupation with death! It’s not healthy.”

  “Healthy? I’m DEAD! Totally dead!” I was desperate to get upstairs, but nothing was happening – it was like I was trying to race up a down escalator. “And don’t pretend you’re not dead, too! You ARE dead. Dead as a dead maggot!”

  “Well, really!” huffed Lady Smyth. “Look, if you want to move in this condition, you have to will it. Your brain will adjust in a short time and anchor your form to the floor as usual because that’s what it’s used to seeing. In the meantime, really focus on where you want to go. Picture yourself standing on those steps and . . .”r />
  I tried, but it wasn’t easy. I wobbled like crazy. Some of my steps fell through the stairs, others just above them. And when I reached the top I stumbled – and plunged straight through the closed door.

  “I walked through solid wood,” I groaned. “That’s proof! I really am deaaaaaaaaaad!”

  “Nonsense!” I saw the ghost of Lady Smyth gliding up the stairs towards me.

  “Nooooooooo! Keep away!” For a moment, I thought she was obeying me, rising into the air. Then I realised that I was sinking through the floorboards, like I’d got into some ghostly lift back down to the lab. “Ugh!” It gave me such a shock I rose back up again. Desperately, I willed my feet to stick to the ground, waddled into the kitchen – and stared in amazement.

  I could see them now: the beans (and their can) that Mum had zapped with the BRIAN™. Only now they were pale and see-through beans (and their can).

  GHOSTLY beans (and their can).

  What did it all mean? My brain felt overloaded. I couldn’t think straight. I floated weightlessly through the kitchen wall and outside, onto the dark driveway, just as I had about five minutes ago. Only this time everything was different. I couldn’t feel my heart pounding. There was no scrunch of footsteps on the gravel path, and my trainers left no mark. I couldn’t feel the cold of the night air, couldn’t smell the conifers’ Christmas smell as I turned onto the main road. There was no saliva in my mouth, nothing to swallow. And I wasn’t out of breath. I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing at all . . .

  Then I heard an engine start, up ahead: the Seerblight van pulling away from the kerb and rumbling off down the road.

  “Mum!” I realised with a jolt that even if I caught up with her – what could I do? She couldn’t see me. Or hear me. I would go right through her – or anything else for that matter.

  “Don’t be afeared.” Lady Smyth had caught up with me. “Seerblight won’t hurt your mother: he needs her genius. She’s no use to him dead.”

  “Dead like me, you mean!”

  “YOU’RE NOT A GHOST, Noah. Try touching your arm.”

  I did. My arm felt squashy under my fingers. I could hardly feel the pressure, but at least it was something.

  “Now,” said Lady Smyth, “the truth, in fact, is quite simple: the Salt of Igneous – pow-powder I believe you call it? – has transformed you into a state of being not typical of life on this planet.”

  “But very typical of death on this planet.” I looked at her suspiciously. “You look just like a ghost. All old-fashioned and stuff.”

  “Old-fashioned? I’ll have you know this ensemble was thrillingly modern for a girl in 1869!” Lady Smyth sighed; she really did sound uber-posh. “Alas, when I was zapped by pow-powder, my clothes became as insubstantial as I. One cannot change one’s attire in this condition. In fact, one is properly lumbered with it.”

  “So it was pow-powder that made you disappear?” I nodded slowly. “Like the beans.”

  “Good lad. Now you’re using your brains.” She looked at me solemnly. “We are beyond human perception now, existing on a higher etheric plane.”

  I wasn’t using my brains that much. “Huh?”

  “Put simply, the pow-powder has turned us invisible and untouchable – at least as far as the real world is concerned.” She sighed. “In this intangible state, you can no longer age or decay with the passing of time.”

  I chewed over this information like it was a salad – with zero enthusiasm, pulling a face. “You mean, from now on I’m never going to change? Never get any older?”

  Lady Smyth gave a decisive nod. “Never.”

  “Then . . . I’m NOT dead!”

  “Hallelujah! He grasps it at last!”

  “It’s more like . . . a LIVING death. An eternity of death!”

  “Oh, dear.” She groaned. “Here we go again.”

  She was right. There I went again.

  I pegged it like the fastest zombie you ever saw, trying to keep his feet on the ground, racing off into the woods!

  CHAPTER NINE

  If You Go Down to the Woods Today, DON’T.

  (Just dont.)

  I ran and ran, through the trees – literally, whoosh!, right through the trees, like they were holograms! My brain had the brakes on while my feet were speeding up. I just couldn’t get my head round everything. Kidnap! Zap! Invisible! Ghost! Not-a-Ghost! Victorian pow-powder powwow! Other stuff!

  I raised my head to the night sky and yelled words I knew no one normal would be able to hear: “This . . . is . . . a . . . nightmare!”

  Things were moving so fast. Even the heavy broadsword floating in front of me was moving fast.

  WAIT. What—?!

  I stopped running. Stopped dead, in fact. Even though, apparently, I wasn’t dead. I stopped undead – sort of. Oh, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

  “‘This is a nightmare,’ the boy says. Ha!” A big French-sounding voice boomed over a clopping clatter of hoofbeats. “When really it’s a KNIGHT on a MARE – eh, Maloney? Not that you are a girl, of course. Ha ha ha!”

  Who the heck is Maloney, you may ask? Well, I didn’t at the time. All I could produce was a frightened “EEEEP!” as the pointy end of the sword sped towards me. It looked just like the one I’d seen in my living room, only this time I could see what was holding it: a pale, ghostly giant on the back of a ghostly horse, galloping through the woods towards me.

  I should have wet my pants – you totally couldn’t blame me. And yet I found that I couldn’t even if I’d wanted to (which I didn’t. Obviously). In fact, I didn’t need the tiniest wee – another side effect of being powed by pow-powder! The realisation distracted me for at least 0.23 of a second as the giant raised his sword higher into the air . . .

  And then dropped it to the ground.

  “GAHH!” the man yelled. “A pox on these insubstantial fingers!” He pulled on the reins and his horse reared up heroically, perhaps six metres from where I stood. The big, fine-looking animal (aside from being a bit (a lot) on the see-through side) had apparently stood in some tin cans recently; its fetlocks were ghostly, but the cans on its hooves were real, like the sword. “That was a most excellent wheelie, Maloney! You’re getting good.”

  So the horse was Maloney. But who was the man? He looked like a mountain on legs, with a beard as big as a hillside. He was dressed in a stained linen undershirt-and-pants combo and thick woollen stockings, which was nearly as upsetting as the sword.

  Things got weirder. The giant swung himself down from his horse. “Lift a leg, Maloney!” The horse obliged and the man wearing underclothes carefully pulled a crumpled Coke can off the hoof. “We shall get this gun-hungering block-twizzle yet, eh, boy?”

  What?! I was still holding myself motionless. Who was this guy? What was he—?

  “Wherrrrrrrrrrrrrre is the boy’s mother, varlet?” The big man held the Coke can to his mouth, wailing in a ghostly fashion. “Whaaaaaaat hast thou done with herrrrrrrrrrrr?”

  “Whaaaaaaaaat are you on about?” I found my voice in anger and frustration. “It’s MY mother and I don’t know where she is. Don’t come shouting at me in your pants!”

  The ghostly giant was so shocked he dropped his can. “Zut alors! You can see me?”

  “Yes, he can, Sir Guy.” Lady Smyth had arrived behind me, not out of breath in the slightest. “And, if you had scared away the intruders instead of threatening the boy I asked you to protect, this woeful affair might have been avoided!”

  “That was him in the lounge, then? And he was meant to protect me?” I spluttered. “He tipped over my TV while I was playing a game and nearly chopped my hand off!”

  “You execute ugly green men trapped in a flat window and call it a game?” Sir Guy’s beard bristled as he turned back to Lady Smyth. “You hear? The lad stands condemned by his own words. He deserved all he got! Or would’ve gotten if I hadn’t dropped my sword!”

  I looked at Lady Smyth; her neat features were pinched with sympathy. “I’m so sorry about him,�
� she said to me.

  “Is he really a knight?” I asked.

  “Of course I am!” cried the knight in his fruity French voice. “I am Sir Guy deYupp!” (He said ‘Guy’ as ‘Geeee’ (with a hard G).)

  “Sir Guy deYupp?” I echoed.

  “The same! I am the finest swordsman in the whole of France . . . Although, it is possible that better fighters have been born in the last 500 years, I don’t know. I cannot really compete these days, in my condition. Eh, alors.” He puffed out a breath, looking sad – then threw off his mood and started beaming again. “Anyway! This is my pony, Maloney.”

  Maloney whinnied and reared up again heroically in his fizzy-drink-can slippers.

  I stared. “How come he can wear those things?”

  “For the same reason that I can hold a sword!” Sir Guy fumbled for his weapon on the ground, but his fingers went through it. “For a time at least.”

  Lady Smyth smiled. “And for the same reason I can manipulate your free-roaming telephonic communication device, and hurl pins at the fundament of that beastly rogue.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “I took control of your mobile and stuck pins in that man’s bum. Better?” Lady Smyth tutted. “You see, the only substance with which we can interact is metal – and even then not for too long at a time. Something in the atomic make-up of metallic elements forms a bridge between our insubstantial state and the physical world . . .”

  “But you made words appear on the phone’s screen.”

  “By manipulating the solder and silicone in its workings. I’m terribly clever, you know.” She looked quite pleased with herself. “Of course, it helps having nothing to do but practise for decades at a time. Just because I’m a formless Victorian phantom doesn’t mean I can’t keep up to date with the latest technology.”

  “Nor I!” swore Sir Guy. “For instance, the biro, eh? I bet the scribes in their monasteries didn’t see THAT coming. And what about the hot-air balloon? Fantastique! The patterns! The hot air!” He caught our looks. “Oh. Only me, then? Not fans of the big flying balloon-with-a-basket thing?”