Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright Page 6

  179

  as Countess Pippi Shortstocking and Hands Christmas Andersen took their seats next to the ornately decorated fir tree. Lord Goth sat down next to Charles Cabbage and gave him a stern look. ‘You can get a better view from up here,’ came a whisper, and, looking up, Ada saw Bramble Vicarage halfway up a library ladder. Ada, Emily and William, who’d put his shirt back on, climbed up to join him. ‘I’m feeling a little odd,’ whispered Bramble to Ada. ‘I think all these people are making my shyness worse.’

  180

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Ada tried to reassure him. ‘You’re among friends.’ ‘Talking of which,’ said William, looking around the library anxiously, ‘has anyone seen Flushman?’ ‘I spoke to Kingsley and Arthur when they were fetching the chairs,’ whispered Bramble. ‘They said they saw him sneaking into the library with a squashed football and a bunch of bananas, but when they came back there was no sign of him.’ ‘Let the literary dog show begin!’ said Lord Goth in a loud but elegant voice. The contestants and their dogs, each with a capital letter attached to its collar, were standing by the bookcases that lined the far wall, facing the audience. As they waited, the novelists, poet and indoor gamekeeper brushed their dogs’ coats, fluffed up their fringes and combed their tails. ‘Round one,’ said Countess Pippi Shortstocking. ‘Fetching.’

  181

  Hands Christmas Andersen got up from his chair and walked to the far side of the library. He held up his hands dramatically. He was clutching six leather-bound volumes, one written by each of the contestants, which he proceeded to shuffle like a deck of cards before spreading them out on the floor. At the opposite side of the library, Countess Pippi invited Sir Walter Splott to sit in a wing-back chair which she had turned, effortlessly, to face the wall. Ivanhoe sat at his master’s feet. The audience shifted expectantly in their chairs. ‘Fetch!’ commanded Sir Walter Splott. Ivanhoe sprang to his feet and trotted over to the books, which he sniffed one by one. The Lanarkshire Lurcher gave a little sneeze, then picked up an extremely long novel about a poorly dressed Highlander and returned to the wing-back chair, only to have a sneezing fit as Sir Walter reached for the book. Drab Roy clattered to the

  182

  floor. The audience groaned and Countess Pippi Shortstocking and Hands Christmas Andersen exchanged a look. Sir Walter Splott dabbed at the cover of the book and then licked his finger. ‘Pepper!’ he muttered. Next Plain Austen crossed the floor and sat in the wing-back chair, Emma at her feet. ‘Fetch!’ she commanded. Emma loped over to the books and snuffled over each one in turn

  183

  before selecting a novel about an ambitious carriage driver called Northanger Cabbie, only for the book to slip out of her mouth and slide across the floor. Emma tried to pick it up, but again it slid from her mouth. The audience groaned. ‘The cover of this book has been greased with butter!’ Plain Austen protested, leaping up and attempting to grasp her novel, which slipped out of her hands, shot across the room and hit Dean Torville on the nose. ‘Poor loser,’ muttered Maltravers with a smirk.

  184

  William Timepeace Thackeray didn’t fare much better. ‘Fetch!’ he ordered Boodles, who raced over to the copy of Vanity Fete and picked it up. The audience was about to applaud when Boodles began to dribble uncontrollably and dropped the book. ‘Mutton fat,’ said William Timepeace Thackeray darkly, sniffing the book’s cover. ‘Fetch!’ commanded Georgie Eliot, who had danced over and sat down in the chair. Flossie gambolled over and picked up a novel about dentists in Lancashire. As she carried The Floss in the Mill over to her owner, Flossie began to foam at the mouth and spat out the book. The crowd groaned. Georgie Eliot picked the foaming book

  185

  up with a thumb and forefinger and inspected it. ‘Soap!’ she exclaimed. Homily Dickinson walked over to the wing-back chair and sat down nervously. Carlo the Yankee Doodle Poodle looked up at her with large, anxious eyes. ‘Fetch!’ Homily Dickinson said in a small,

  186

  books and gingerly picked up a slim volume of verse. He carried it over to the chair, trembling as he did so. Maltravers gave a sharp, explosive sneeze, and Carlo, startled, dropped Of What I Speak Thou Knowest Not on the floor. The crowd groaned. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ Maltravers shrugged and gave a dusty smile. He walked over to the chair flanked by Belle and Sebastian, their pompom tails wagging excitedly. Maltravers sat down and crossed his legs casually. ‘Fetch!’ he wheezed. Belle and Sebastian raced over to the other side of the library, picked up Lord Goth’s latest volume of poetry, The Pilgrimage of Harolde the Kid, each taking a corner,

  187

  and carried it back to Maltravers. The indoor gamekeeper picked the book up and held it aloft triumphantly. The audience applauded. ‘Round two,’ announced Countess Pippi Shortstocking. ‘Musical walkies.’ Beside her, Hands Christmas Andersen held his arms up to his head, fingers spread wide like antlers. At this sign, the Gormless Quire, who had

  188

  been waiting patiently by the fireplace, struck up a lively country jig. The six contestants with their dogs on leads began to walk in a circle, in time to the music, around a row of five wing-back chairs that Arthur Halford and the hobby-horse grooms had placed in front of the audience. Hands Christmas Andersen wiggled his fingers and the music stopped. Quick as a flash, the contestants flung themselves as elegantly as they could into the chairs. Homily Dickinson and Carlo both gave surprisingly loud yelps of frustration at finding all the chairs were taken. Hands Christmas Andersen’s fingers froze and the band resumed playing. A chair was removed. ‘I left my heart in Budleigh Salterton,’ sang the Ambridge sisters in harmony. William Timepeace Thackeray and Boodles swooned at the sound. The music stopped. ‘Blast!’ said the satirist when he found he was the only one left standing.

  189

  The music began again, another chair was taken away by Arthur Halford, and Ada waved to him from her vantage point on the library ladder. The music stopped. Plain Austen was left standing. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged

  that . . .’ she began, only for the band to start playing again. Plain Austen stomped over to Virginia Woolf of Willoughby Chase, who was covering her ears, and sat down huffily. The music stopped just as Sir Walter Splott was doing a Highland jig. ‘Our joust is done!’ he told his Lanarkshire Lurcher sadly. Only Georgie Eliot and Maltravers were left as the music began again. ‘I was only twenty-four hours from Salisbury,’ sang the Ambridge sisters. Georgie Eliot pranced balletically around the single remaining chair, Flossie galumphing after her on the end of a tight leash. Maltravers strode around the chair flanked by Belle and Sebastian. He reached into his pocket and stealthily dropped a clutch of Christmas baubles, sending them rolling across the floor. The music stopped and Georgie Eliot leaped high in the air towards the empty chair.

  191

  ‘Eek!’ she cried as Flossie tugged her in the opposite direction, chasing the baubles. Georgie Eliot landed inelegantly on the seat of her breeches as Maltravers sat down in the last wing-back chair. Belle and Sebastian leaped up into his lap and the audience applauded.

  193

  Ada, who didn’t like cheating, shook her head. She wasn’t the only one though. Lord Goth obviously shared his daughter’s feelings, because he got up and walked over to his indoor gamekeeper, speaking sharply to him in a low voice. He wagged his finger and Maltravers hunched low in the wing-back chair, scowling. When he had finished, Lord Goth straightened up and said in a loud, but elegant voice, ‘Round three will be the decider, and everyone –’ he gave Maltravers and the poodles his sternest look – ‘will abide by the rules!’ Out of the corner of her eye Ada saw a flash of movement, and turning her head she saw that the three monkeys had slipped into the library and were tiptoeing past the bookshelves towards her. Each of them was carrying a bundle of papers from Charles Cabbage’s desk in the Chinese drawing room, covered in calculations scrawled in green ink. As Ada watched, a hand emerged from a crack in the curtains.

  194
>
  It was holding a banana. ‘Round three!’ said Hands Christmas Andersen clapping his hands together. ‘Jumping!’

  195

  Chapter Thirteen he literary-dog-show contestants and their dogs lined up against the wall of the library, a look of intense concentration on every face. Countess Pippi Shortstocking raised her arm. ‘At my signal, each dog must jump over the little fir tree,’ she told them, ‘making the show queen’s head wobble as little as possible.’ She dropped her arm and Sir Walter Splott released Ivanhoe. The Lanarkshire Lurcher sprinted across the floor and leaped high over the little fir tree, the tip of his long tail just grazing the top of Elsa’s oversized head. The show queen gently nodded and Countess Pippi Shortstocking and Hands Christmas Andersen shook their heads. Plain Austen urged Emma the Hampshire Blue

  196

  Bloodhound forward, but she was so used to snuffling along with her nose to the ground that she just bumped into the wooden barrel and set the baubles bouncing. Elsa’s oversized head nodded furiously. When it had stopped, Boodles the Mayfair Bulldog bounded forward and leaped with all his might, only to hit the little fir tree on his way down. Hands Christmas Andersen caught the falling show-queen doll in an outstretched hand and put her back on top of the tree. Ada crept back down the library ladder, followed by William, Emily and Bramble. Her eyes were fixed on the monkeys, who had slipped, almost unnoticed, to the curtained window, their backs to the wall. The audience oohed and aahed as Georgie Eliot’s Old Middlemarch Sheepdog, Flossie, sprang over the little fir tree with surprising ease, her long shaggy coat just brushing

  197

  the show queen’s crown. Carlo the Yankee Doodle Poodle did his best, but misjudged his take-off and ended up clinging to a bauble while above him Elsa’s head wobbled in a blur of movement. Ada tiptoed towards the window as, one after the other, the monkeys slipped behind the curtains. With barks of excitement Belle and Sebastian bounded towards the fir tree from two different directions, crossing in the air high over Elsa the show queen’s head, which showed not a flicker of movement, the wide-eyed expression frozen on her oversized face. ‘Yes!’ cried Maltravers as the poodles landed and bounded back to his side. Ada gripped the curtains and pulled them aside. Flushman, carrying a squashed football stuffed with Charles Cabbage’s papers, was climbing out of the window. The three monkeys looked guiltily back at her, bananas in hand.

  198

  in her direction. With a shout of ‘Wizard wheeze!’ Flushman ran towards his curricle, which was waiting on the frozen drive. Countess Pippi Shortstocking sprang into action, charging across to the window and vaulting through it. Flushman reached the curricle, leaped into the seat and urged his horse on. ‘He’s getting away!’ cried William Cabbage, following the countess out of the window. ‘Not so fast!’ said Countess Pippi, striding over to the snowman in front of the west wing.

  200

  Seizing it by the arms, she lifted the snowman above her head and launched it high into the night sky. As Ada and the others watched, the snowman flew through the air and came down, smashing into Flushman and knocking him off the curricle.

  201

  Picking himself up, Flushman made a run for it, only for the countess to to tackle him around the legs. As he hit the ground, the squashed football was knocked from under his arm and sailed up into the air. William sprinted forward and caught it cleanly. ‘This has given me an idea for a game,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Bramble!’ came a shriek from behind Ada. ‘What’s happening to you?’

  ‘Make it stop!’ Ada turned. The audience had shrunk back to the corners of the great library and the Vicarage sisters had dropped their notepapers and were standing on their chairs shrieking in high-pitched voices. ‘Bramble!’ ‘Bramble!’ ‘Bramble!’ Bramble Vicarage was standing in the moonlight, which was streaming through the open window. His fringe was growing heavier, his nose was getting longer and his teeth sharper. He stared down at his hands, which were changing into claws, and behind him a long, wolfish tail was beginning to wag. ‘I don’t feel quite myself . . .’ he growled, then threw back his head and howled at the moon. ‘Oh, Bramble!’ wailed the Vicarage sisters. ‘You look a fright!’ ‘But I feel . . . wonderful!’ Bramble roared and

  206

  with another howl he leaped past Ada and out through the open window. ‘Stop him, please,’ the Vicarage sisters pleaded, ‘before he hurts himself!’ ‘You’ve found your voices!’ said Emily Cabbage, wide-eyed. Ada climbed out of the window, followed by the sisters, Emily and William. ‘Everybody stay calm,’ said Lord Goth in a loud but reassuring voice as he stepped through the window. ‘We have experts in canine ways present, do we not?’ ‘We certainly do,’ said Hands Christmas Andersen, stroking the head of Yorick, who’d popped up out of his pocket to see what all the commotion was. Halfway down the drive, Bramble was alternately howling at the moon and singing snatches of ‘I left my heart in Budleigh Salterton’ in a surprisingly tuneful voice. The village band and the Ambridge sisters

  207

  climbed out of the window and began to play along. ‘He seems happy,’ said Charlotte Vicarage, wiping her eyes. ‘The boy’s a little wild,’ said William Timepeace Thackeray, ‘but he has talent . . .’ Bramble leaped high in the air, did a somersault and landed on his furry feet. He turned to see Flushman standing next to Countess Pippi Shortstocking in the snow. ‘Flushman!’ Bramble roared, his fur bristling as he clawed at the ground. ‘I’m going to tear you limb from limb!’

  209

  ‘Save me!’ squealed Flushman, leaping into the countess’s arms. Just then a dark shape passed over the moon. Looking up, Ada saw a large bat-like shape swoop down. There was a swish, a glint of metal and the rattle of a chain as the figure landed. It bent over Bramble for a moment, then straightened up. There, standing in the moonlight, with Bramble straining at a silver leash, was Ada’s governess, Lucy Borgia. ‘Looks like I arrived just in the nick of time!’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before,’ said Lucy Borgia, settling into her wing-back chair beside the fire. The guests had all left and the hobby-horse grooms had tidied up in the library. Maltravers had taken the dogs to the kennels in the Whine Cellars and was now with the other dog-show contestants in Mrs Beat’em’s kitchen, showing off the purple sash the judges had presented him with.

  210

  Ada had never seen him so happy, and he had even apologized to the others for his ‘little tricks’ in the first two rounds. Hands Christmas Andersen and Countess Pippi Shortstocking had done a great job of calming Bramble down, and his sisters were now taking turns to comb his fur in front of the fire as they listened to Ada’s governess. ‘It is sometimes a bite from a werewolf, but often it can just be a stray bit of drool, accidentally touched while out on a ramble . . .’* ‘Bramble does love to walk on the moors,’ said Charlotte Vicarage, smoothing his fringe as he lay sleepily on the carpet. ‘We all have wildness within us,’ said Lucy Borgia, smiling at the sisters, ‘and it is often strongest in the shyest ones. Bramble now needs to learn to control his inner wolf and use it to his advantage. Hands and Pippi here can help him with that.’

  *While out for a walk on the moors, Bramble brushed past some werewolf drool on a gorse bush left by a hairy typographer called the Hound of the Baskervilles.

  212

  ‘We’ll do our best, of course,’ said Hands Christmas Andersen, and Countess Pippi Shortstocking nodded. ‘I had a boyfriend who was a timber wolf at weekends. Very well-behaved the rest of the time,’ she told Lucy. ‘They often are,’ said Lucy Borgia. ‘The Beast of Bodmin was in fact a well-mannered librarian, and the Horror of Hackney ran a respectable bookshop near Victoria Park. Unfortunately werewolves are often misunderstood and things can end very badly.’ She smiled at Ada, who was sitting

  213

  at her father’s feet. ‘Luckily for all concerned, we caught Bramble in time.’ ‘Will he remember anything in the morning?’ Ada asked. ‘Not at first. This might have been happening for a while wi
thout his knowledge.’ Ada thought of the chewed shoes and the howling in the night. ‘But the more he accepts his condition, the more he’ll remember, until, once every full moon, he’ll be able to fully express himself, safely.’

  214

  Lucy Borgia knelt down and ruffled Ada’s hair. ‘Now, there’s something I need to tell you,’ she began. ‘Your father and I have discussed it and—’ ‘My dear Lord Goth,’ said Charles Cabbage, striding into the library, William and Emily following behind him. Emily’s eyes were glistening. ‘I can’t apologize enough for my monkeys’ appalling behaviour. The love of bananas is no excuse. Flushman has confessed everything. It seems he wanted to get his father’s attention and believed he could impress him by passing off my inventions as his own . . .’ Dr Cabbage smiled. ‘He shows promise though – just needs to curb his enthusiasm a little. I shall offer him a job in my new workshop in London—’ ‘You’re leaving Ghastly-Gorm Hall?’ said Ada, leaping to her feet. ‘But you can’t . . .’ She turned to Emily. ‘I have imposed on your father’s hospitality for