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  First published 2015 by Macmillan Children’s Books an imprint of Pan Macmillan 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Associated companies throughout the world www.panmacmillan.com ISBN 978-1-4472-7789-7 (HB) ISBN: 978-1-4472-7790-3 (Ebook) Copyright © Chris Riddell 2015 The right of Chris Riddell to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  and the Wuthering Fright

  CHRIS RIDDELL

  MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  THIS BOOK CONTAINS cogwheel FOOT NOTES WRITTEN BY a calculating machine invented by charles cabbage

  Chapter One itting in one of the wing-back chairs in the library of Ghastly-Gorm Hall, Ada Goth was reading her father’s latest book. She smiled to herself as she turned the page. Leather-bound volumes lined the carved mahogany bookcases that were built into the walls of the library, and each bookcase had a ladder on brass wheels, for reaching the higher shelves. Busts of Roman emperors with interesting haircuts looked down from the very top, the firelight glinting on their curls and ringlets. Not that Ada noticed. She was engrossed. Ada was the only child of Lord Goth, England’s foremost cycling poet. He was away in London, giving a talk and having his hair styled at the literary hair salon of Scribble and Quiff’s, but he would be back for Christmas.

  Christmas at Ghastly-Gorm Hall was usually a quiet affair. The bells of the little church of Gormless St Hilda’s were rung and the local shepherds gathered for the ancient ceremony of the washing of the socks while the inhabitants of the little hamlet of Gormless exchanged gifts of stockings containing small oranges and lumps of coal. Ada wanted to finish her father’s book before he returned. It was a very exciting story written in verse, called The Pilgrimage of Harolde the Kid, about the travels of a young goat. Ada had just got to the part where Harolde climbs the Alps to nibble

  mountain moss when she heard the squeak of little brass wheels. Looking up from the book, Ada saw a ladder moving past Hairy Hadrian and towards Big-Eared Augustus. A small monkey in an even smaller hat was gliding past the bookshelves, holding on to the ladder with one hand and pulling himself along with the other. As Ada watched, the monkey brought the ladder to a halt and carefully selected a book from the top-most shelf. It then pushed the ladder on to the end of the bookcase, scampered down the rungs and hurried out of the door. How curious, thought Ada. She was about to return to The Pilgrimage of Harolde the Kid when she

  caught sight of a movement out of the corner of her eye. Ada peered around the wing of her wing-back chair. A second monkey was pushing a second ladder along the bookcase just behind her. Ada watched as the monkey, who had a three-volume survey of Ireland under his arm, came to a stop and carefully replaced the heavy books on the shelf, one after the other, before sliding down the ladder and skipping out of the library. Curiouser and curiouser, thought Ada, and returned to her book. There was an illustration of Harolde having a conversation with a

  wild-looking mountain goat with curly horns. She smiled – this was just the sort of book she liked. After all, thought Ada, what’s the use of a book without pictures or conversations? It was what one of her governesses had told her. Ada couldn’t remember which one.* Ada had been taught by seven governesses . . .

  *In fact Jane Ear, Ada’s third governess, had overheard a former pupil called Charlie Dodgson saying this as he drew a comic strip in the margin of his mathematics book, and liked to repeat it as if it was her own idea.

  Ada turned the page and continued reading.

  The Pilgrimage of Harolde the Kid

  rom lofty crag oft tipped with misty fog, To lowland vale steeped deep in bog, Harolde his vertiginous pilgrimage did make, Stopping only for tea and cake. ‘Baa!’ quoth he, and ‘Bleat!’ he blew, For these were the only words he knew . . .

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  Just then, a third monkey walked past Ada’s chair clutching a book almost as large as itself. ‘Catalogue of Public Nuisances’ it said in gold letters on the spine, ‘by Charles Cabbage’. When Ada caught the monkey’s eye, it stopped and looked a little awkward. Then it reached into the waistcoat it was wearing and took out a tiny tin cup which it held out towards Ada with a little shake. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Ada politely, ‘but I don’t have anything to give you.’ The monkey shrugged, put the cup away and tipped its little hat before walking on, balancing the book rather elegantly on its head.

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  It reached the door and slipped out. ‘And curiouser!’ exclaimed Ada, putting down her book. She walked across the library and was about to follow the monkey out of the door when she glanced through one of the tall windows. Ada gasped. Outside, the wintry sky was a deep, dark grey and snow

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  was falling. Large snowflakes danced and swirled as they fluttered down to land, covering the house and grounds of Ghastly-Gorm Hall in a carpet of white. In the distance, the elegant outline of the Sensible Folly was being softened and blurred while the surface of the lake of extremely coy carp was stiff with ice. The dear-deer park was completely covered and the Venetian terrace and Overly Ornamental Fountain had all but disappeared. Ada pressed her nose up to the glass of the window and watched winter descend on her home. It was a magical sight and she would have watched the snow falling for the rest of the afternoon if one of the monkeys had not returned a few minutes later. When it saw her the monkey politely lifted its hat. Then it climbed a ladder, selected a book on writing secret codes and left the library. This time Ada followed. The monkey made its way through several drawing rooms . . .

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  Ada picked up a periodical that the monkey had accidentally knocked off one of the coffee tables.

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  Journal of Literary Hair Salons and Sporting Life

  ANNOUNCEMENTS

  RUGBY SCHOOL ANNOUNCES THE NEW SPORT OF ‘MUDDY FIELD WRESTLING’ DETAILS PAGE xxxiii

  SCRIBBLE AND QUIFF TO EMPLOY HAIr-cOMBING CATS AT THEIR MONTHLY POETRY READINGS DETAILS PAGE xxi

  LORD GOTH TO HOST THE GHASTLY-GORM LITERARY DOG SHOW ENTRANTS BY INVITATION ONLY – DETAILS PAGE xii

  DISTINGUISHED NOVELIST MR CHRISTOPHER PRIESTLEY ESQ. SPORTING A CAMBRIDGE QUIFF WITH HIS FENLAND SCHNAUZER ‘UNCLE MONTAGUE’ DETAILS PAGE viii

  IN THIS ISSUE – HOUSE TRAINING & QUILL SHARPENING

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  ‘So you’ve seen the announcement, young mistress,’ said a wheezing voice as dry and dusty as chalk. Ada looked round to see Maltravers standing in the other doorway. Beside him two large poodles, one white and one black, strained at the end of their leashes.

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  ‘Your father got the idea for the literary dog show when I told him how well Belle and Sebastian were getting on with their training . . .’ The indoor gamekeeper (who was also the outdoor butler) smiled, his long grey face creasing into a thousand wrinkles and his lips spreading to reveal a jumble of tombstone teeth the colour of tea. He patted the luxuriant pompom on each poodle’s head. Ada didn’t like Maltravers very much. With his habit of creeping silently through the hous
e listening at doors and peering through keyholes, he made Ada shudder whenever they met. But ever since Lord Goth had given him the poodles, Maltravers had been a changed man. He still looked strange, but now he smiled a lot and even whistled little tunes when he took the poodles for their indoor walks. Ada looked at the announcements column on the cover of the periodical. ‘A dog show?’ she said. ‘Exciting, isn’t it, young mistress?’ Maltravers

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  wheezed happily. He tugged the poodles’ leashes. ‘Come on, my darlings! Lots of work to do.’ The indoor gamekeeper and outdoor butler set off towards the Whine Cellars beneath Ghastly-Gorm Hall, where the poodles had their kennel. Ada went over to the door the monkey had run through and knocked on it. It was the door to the Chinese drawing room. ‘Come in,’ said a harassed-sounding voice.

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  Chapter Two harles Cabbage was sitting at a large desk in the middle of the Chinese drawing room. The desk was piled high with books from the library and the floor was littered with sheets of paper covered in calculations written in green ink. At the far end of the room, taking up the entire wall, was a complicated-looking machine with cogs and gear wheels and cranking handles. This was the calculating machine that Charles Cabbage was making for Lord Goth. He called it the Cogwheel Brain and he’d been working on it for such a long time that Ada suspected her father had forgotten all about the machine and its inventor. Ghastly-Gorm Hall was an extremely large house, and visitors were always turning up with invitations of one sort or another, or to paint the ceilings, landscape the

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  gardens or install the latest household appliances. Usually these visitors stayed for a few days or a week or two at the most. But Charles Cabbage was taking far longer than that to build his calculating machine. Not that Ada minded, because the longer he took, the more time Ada could spend with Emily, his daughter, who was Ada’s best friend and an extremely accomplished watercolourist. Emily and her brother William were away at school, but they came to stay at Ghastly-Gorm Hall in the holidays. ‘Why, Miss Goth, how nice to see you,’ said Dr Cabbage, without looking up from the sheet of paper he was writing on. He moved to the other side of the desk and Ada saw that he was sitting on a chair whose wheels were powered by clockwork. Dr Cabbage came to a stop and picked up a book from the top of a precarious pile. ‘Do you know how many

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  broken factory windows there are in Manchester?’ he asked, turning the pages. ‘I don’t think I do,’ said Ada. ‘Too many!’ said Dr Cabbage, shutting the book and trundling back around the desk, knocking sheets of paper to the floor as he did so.

  ‘As for small boys rolling hoops through the streets,’ he muttered, ‘it’s a public nuisance of the worst kind.’ ‘It is?’ said Ada, looking for any sign of monkeys. Apart from the desk and the half-built calculating machine, the Chinese drawing room had been cleared of its furniture. The forbidden footstools, willow-pattern divans and great stall of China – a sideboard for displaying crockery – had all been moved to the broken wing for storage. The broken wing at the back of Ghastly-Gorm Hall was Ada’s favourite part of the house. Its rooms were full of interesting things that had been put there and then forgotten about. ‘Hoop-rolling in public should be stopped,’ said Dr Cabbage, getting off his chair and rummaging beneath the desk. ‘I propose a perfectly simple solution . . .’ He emerged with a metal hoop in his hands, then slipped it over his head and began to do a strange gyrating dance, spinning the hoop around and around his ample waist.

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  ‘Instead of rolling one’s hoop down the street, getting in people’s way, a small boy can have hours of fun standing in one spot spinning it around his middle!’

  ‘It does look fun,’ said Ada. ‘I’ve named it the hooligan hoop after some unruly children I met while inspecting empty factories – they could have benefited from this exercise,’ said Dr Cabbage sternly, ‘instead of breaking windows!’* Just then three monkeys popped their heads up from beneath the desk and began clapping excitedly. ‘There you are!’ exclaimed Ada. Dr Cabbage let the hoop drop to the floor and stepped out of it. He sat down on the clockwork chair and jotted down a quick note. The monkeys surrounded Ada, waving tiny tin cups at her. ‘William! Heath!’ said Dr Cabbage firmly, still without looking up, ‘and you, Robinson! Put those cups away!’ The monkeys did as they were told. ‘Now fetch the first three books on the eighth shelf of the ninth bookcase!’

  *Noel and Liam promised not to break any more factory windows and learned to play musical instruments instead.

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  William, Heath and Robinson skipped out of the Chinese drawing room. ‘What are the books about?’ asked Ada, impressed by how well trained the monkeys were. ‘I’ve absolutely no idea,’ said Dr Cabbage, gliding around his desk, searching for a fresh sheet of paper, ‘but they’re sure to be fascinating. They always are, and my library monkeys do enjoy fetching and returning them. It’s a much more useful job than their last one.’ ‘What did they used to do?’ Ada asked. ‘They were organ-grinders’ monkeys,’ said Dr Cabbage with a shudder. ‘The music of organ grinders in the streets is the worst public nuisance of them all!’ he declared. ‘My friends and I in the Extractors Club are dedicated to disrupting organ-grinders’ music by persuading their monkeys to seek more useful employment.’ ‘How do you persuade them?’ asked Ada doubtfully. ‘Bananas help,’ said Dr Cabbage. ‘The

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  Extractors Club sent William, Heath and Robinson up from London yesterday and they seem to be adjusting well to life in the country. There’s only one problem.’ He shut the book he’d begun reading, adjusted his spectacles and looked at Ada for the first time.

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  ‘I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, Miss Goth –’ he nodded towards the shuttered windows of the Chinese drawing room – ‘but the weather has turned awfully cold and the monkeys don’t have any winter clothes.’ ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Ada. ‘I almost forgot, Miss Goth,’ he added as Ada turned to leave the room. ‘My daughter sent you a letter – so good to see my ideas for a postal system are catching on.’ Dr Cabbage handed Ada a letter with a green stamp on it before returning to the desk, which now looked even untidier. Ada opened the letter . . .

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  Chapter Three da climbed the grand staircase past the portraits of the previous Lord Goths. She was thinking about Emily’s letter, which had made her a bit sad. She would have loved to go to school with her best friend, but that would have meant her governess, Lucy Borgia, leaving Ghastly-Gorm Hall and Ada didn’t want that. Reaching the first-floor landing, Ada looked around to see if there were any early-evening ghosts about. Being so old and so big, Ghastly-Gorm Hall was home to quite a few ghosts who were all careful to appear at different times. The Beige Curate liked to slide down the banisters of the grand staircase around about teatime, while the Thinly Veiled Lady wandered the Venetian terrace sneezing softly at ten minutes to twelve on moonlit nights. Ada had found out about her in an

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  old book in the library.* It was almost six o’clock, which was when the two Annes generally played ghostly Tudor cricket on the first-floor landing, but this evening there was no sign of them. Ada made her way down the long gallery and along the corridor to her room. Ada’s bedroom was enormous, with an eight-poster bed on one side and a magnificent

  *Ethelberta Enormousfeet was an Anglo-Saxon fell-walking princess who caught a fatal chill while wading in the water meadow that once existed on the site of the Venetian terrace. Ada had read all about her in The Chronicles of the Vulnerable Bede, a tear-stained history of England.

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  fireplace on the other. Unfortunately it was a bit of a mess. Shoes, dresses, bonnets and hatboxes lay around on the Anatolian carpet, together with unfurled umbrellas, opened parasols and decorative fans. Ada tidied up, folding the dresses and putting the bonnets back in the hatboxes, lining the shoes up neatly in pairs and propping the umbr
ellas and parasols against the wall. She then took a pile of clothes through to her dressing room next door, where she found her new lady’s maid lying on the Dalmatian divan. Ada’s previous lady’s maid had been called Marylebone. She was a spectacled bear from Bolivia who had left Ghastly-Gorm Hall to get married. She now lived happily in a beautiful house in the Andes with her husband, General Simon Batholiver, and their newborn cub, Lucy. Marylebone

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  had been an excellent lady’s maid, laying out Ada’s clothes for her each day on the Dalmatian divan and keeping the bedroom and dressing room organized and tidy. The same could not be said of her replacement. But Ada didn’t mind. Fancyday Ambridge lived in the little hamlet of Gormless and sang in the Gormless Quire. Although she was forgetful and rather untidy, she was kind and cheerful and Ada had liked her from the moment they’d met. Fancyday was also musical and creative, and wore spectacles that reminded Ada of Marylebone. Each morning Fancyday would drive up to the Hall in her donkey and trap and spend the day looking through Ada’s clothes and reading novels before driving home again. ‘Why, Miss Ada!’ Fancyday exclaimed. ‘Is it six o’clock already? I quite lost track of the time on account of this book I’m reading.’ She jumped up from the Dalmatian divan and raised the back of her hand to her forehead in a dramatical gesture. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that