Eloise Read online

  ‘Maybe I’d better call PRISM,’ she fretted. ‘Maybe they can help.’

  ‘They didn’t help us, Mum,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘We’ll just be doing research,’ I said. ‘Like we did with Eglantine. Maybe, if we work out who this ghost is, and what it wants, we can make sure it’s satisfied and send it away. Ghosts,’ I added, ‘are always hanging around because they want something. We know that by now. Don’t we?’

  When Mum sighed, I knew I’d won.

  CHAPTER # seven

  The next day, when I arrived at the Beriches’ house, Bettina had some exciting news.

  ‘Guess what happened?’ she exclaimed, as soon as she had opened the front door. I waved to Ray (who was pulling away from the kerb), and he beeped his horn. Then I turned back to Bettina.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Josie slept in my room last night, and she ate all the cheesecake!’ Bettina’s eyes were as round as marbles; her voice was breathless. Ushering me into the living room, she informed me that Peter wasn’t there, yet. ‘I didn’t want to sleep in my room again,’ she went on, her words tumbling out, ‘and I told Josie why, and she said I was stupid, and she said she would prove there was nothing wrong with my room. So we swapped beds, and this morning the cheesecake was gone! And the olives, too! And the almonds!’

  ‘So, hang on.’ There was too much information. I couldn’t absorb it all. ‘Are you saying Josie got up in the middle of the night and ate a whole cheesecake?’

  ‘Half a cheesecake. And a whole jar of olives, and a packet of almonds.’

  ‘Has she ever done it before?’

  ‘No!’ Bettina said triumphantly. ‘It’s what I used to do!’

  ‘Really?’ I studied her with interest, and she flushed. ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she mumbled. ‘I was so hungry.’

  Then a knock on the door announced Peter’s arrival, and Bettina had to tell her story all over again. This time, she also described how Josie had tried to pretend that Bettina was the culprit, until her mum found crumbs in the bed that was usually occupied by Bettina. ‘And Josie couldn’t pretend that I’d dropped them,’ Bettina crowed, ‘because the sheets were changed last night. She said she wouldn’t sleep on my smelly old sheets. She had to have her own.’

  ‘So in other words, this is proof that your room makes you hungry,’ said Peter.

  ‘Yes! That’s right!’ Bettina beamed. She was heading into the kitchen, where her mother was washing lunch dishes. ‘It’s not my fault after all, is it, Mum?’

  Mrs Berich looked up from the sink. Her hair hung in wisps around her face, and there were dark circles under her eyes.

  ‘Hello,’ she grunted, nodding at me, then at Peter.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Berich,’ we replied.

  ‘It’s not my fault, is it Mum?’ Bettina pressed. ‘It was the room that made me greedy.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It was! You said!’

  ‘I said I’ll try it myself tonight,’ Mrs Berich retorted. ‘See if I get hungry.’

  ‘You will,’ said Bettina, in accusing accents. ‘Everyone does.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Peter cleared his throat.

  ‘We think there might be a ghost in the room,’ he announced. ‘Perhaps even the ghost of a hungry dog.’

  Scrubbing furiously at a baking pan, Mrs Berich rolled her eyes.

  ‘It’s true, Mum!’ Bettina blurted out. ‘Peter and Allie know about ghosts! They’ve seen them before!’

  ‘We can’t be sure what this is, until we do some research,’ I admitted, cautiously, ‘but it could be an animal. That’s why it’s probably worthwhile putting out a bowl of dog food. Just in case the spirit wants something to eat. I mean, it can’t hurt.’

  Mrs Berich put down her pot scrubber. She turned to look at me, placing a wet, red hand on her hip.

  ‘You think Bettina’s room is haunted?’ she queried.

  ‘Maybe.’ I didn’t want to be too definite.

  ‘By a dog?’

  ‘Well, it’s one possibility.’

  ‘By a hungry dog,’ Peter interjected. ‘Delora was saying that the energy in that room is very primitive. So it could be an animal. And if it’s hungry, it will want to be fed.’

  Mrs Berich cocked her head, a wry expression on her face. ‘But dogs like cake,’ she objected. ‘They like chips and sausage rolls and chocolate biscuits, don’t you think?’

  Peter and I exchanged glances. ‘I – I guess so,’ said Peter. ‘Some dogs.’

  ‘Well, Bettina is always leaving these things in her room, hidden about the place, and it never seems to make any difference,’ Mrs Berich pointed out, causing her daughter to wince and change colour. ‘Why should a bowl of dog food satisfy this hungry ghost when the other food does not?’

  It was a good point. Peter, however, wouldn’t be discouraged.

  ‘Michelle’s cat will only eat beef hearts,’ he said firmly. ‘This dog might only eat dog food.’ To my astonishment, he suddenly produced a paper bag from his backpack. ‘I brought some dog biscuits with me – we’ve got plenty, at home. But perhaps we should try cat food, as well.’

  I was hugely impressed. How clever he had been, to have thought of dog biscuits!

  ‘Oh, all right,’ groaned Mrs Berich. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll buy cat food. Just stop bothering me.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum!’

  ‘But only a little, little tin. The smallest. The cheapest.’

  ‘Okay!’

  ‘And if the ghost doesn’t eat it, we can feed it to Josie,’ Mrs Berich grumbled, returning to her suds and her pot scrubber. ‘She’s eaten everything else in this house, today.’

  Later, on our way out the door, I congratulated Peter on the dog biscuits. ‘It was a smart idea,’ I said, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it myself. Because of Dad, probably. He was distracting me. I was still turning the whole business over in my head. I was still trying to work out whether Dad would want us to live with him.

  I had asked Mum, cautiously, if Dad had mentioned moving. It was the best I could do without alerting her to what I was really worried about. ‘No. Why?’ was her answer.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s going back to Thailand, Allie. Not any time soon.’ A penetrating look. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No, no.’ It hadn’t been a lie, either. Not entirely. Nothing was wrong, and nothing would be unless Dad started wanting Bethan and me to live with him.

  I didn’t want to live with Dad. I didn’t even know him.

  ‘So where are we going first?’ Peter asked. ‘Bettina? What do you think?’

  We stood at her front gate, glancing from side to side. Bettina’s high spirits seemed to have deserted her. She looked apprehensive.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered. ‘Like I said, we haven’t been here long.’

  ‘What about them?’ I pointed at the white house to our left, which was bigger than Bettina’s, but less tidy. Dead pot plants and dilapidated furniture were strewn across the front yard. A torn and faded awning flapped over one window. Someone had painted half a wall, then stopped; dry paint tins were piled near a ladder. ‘There’s a bike over there, look. They might have kids.’

  ‘They do,’ Bettina conceded. ‘Boys.’

  ‘Let’s start with them.’

  So we trotted over to number twenty-nine, with Bettina bringing up the rear. As soon as I pushed open the squeaky front gate, a very small dog began to bark hysterically from somewhere behind a big stack of cardboard boxes. I could tell it was small, because its voice was so high. Even so, I hesitated.

  ‘It’s locked up,’ Bettina reassured me. ‘Don’t worry, they keep it locked up.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘And all night.’ Her tone was grim. ‘That’s why it’s so noisy.’

  I wondered if the former occupants of her own house had done the same thing with
their dog. Cautiously I advanced down the front path, which was littered with lolly wrappers and cigarette butts. The grass looked pretty sick, I thought. The stuffing was coming out of a big orange couch on the shady verandah, but the rollerblades sitting by the door looked brand new, and very snazzy.

  I knocked, before noticing that there was a doorbell.

  ‘Try the buzzer,’ Peter advised, so I did. It was a bell, not a buzzer; the chimes were faintly audible. After a minute or so, I heard footsteps. Someone fumbled with a deadlock on the other side of the door.

  Suddenly I was looking at a sour-faced high-school kid in an oversized T-shirt.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry to bother you. We just wanted to ask about next door – your former next-door neighbours. Did you know them?’

  The kid immediately turned on his heel. ‘Mum!’ he yelled, and retreated into the shadows of the hall. I suppose it was a bit much to expect that any teenage boy wearing a rude T-shirt and a black woollen beanie rolled down to his nose would take time to converse with a twelve-year-old girl.

  From somewhere at the back of the house, I could hear a baby crying.

  ‘They’ve got a toddler, as well,’ Bettina offered. ‘Two big boys and a little one. They fight a lot.’

  ‘Do you hear them from your place?’ asked Peter.

  ‘All the time. Especially the boys.’

  ‘Our neighbours are like that too,’ said Peter gloomily. ‘Once they cracked their kitchen window with a dumbbell.’

  The flap-flap-flap of rubber thongs alerted me to someone’s approach. I stepped back as the screen door was pushed open by a woman in grey trackies and a red cardigan. She had lots of curly brown hair, but that was the only perky thing about her. All the rest sagged and drooped.

  ‘What is it?’ she snapped. ‘We’re not buying anything.’

  ‘We’re not selling anything,’ Peter replied. ‘We want to ask about next door.’

  ‘This is Bettina Berich,’ I added, pointing. ‘She lives next door. She was wondering if you knew anything about the people who used to live there.’

  ‘Next door?’ said the woman, frowning. She squinted at Bettina. ‘You live in number twenty-seven?’

  Bettina nodded, clearly too nervous to speak.

  ‘Then you can tell that other girl to stop shooting her dirty mouth off at my boys!’ the woman growled. Before we could do anything but gape at her, she turned on her heel and slammed the door in our faces.

  It was quite a shock.

  ‘What a miserable old cow,’ Peter grumbled, as we hastily withdrew. ‘People always think they can be as rude as they like to children.’

  ‘What did she mean?’ I asked Bettina. ‘Has Josie been swearing at the boys who live here?’

  ‘Probably.’ Bettina sounded resigned. ‘Like I said, they make a lot of noise. Especially at night.’

  ‘I bet they aren’t even human,’ Peter proposed. ‘I bet they’re aliens disguised as humans, and they eat their prey at night, after they capture them in alleys and things.’

  ‘Pee-ter,’ I groaned.

  ‘You could tell that she was an alien,’ Peter went on, shooting a vicious look over his shoulder. ‘Her skin didn’t fit her properly.’

  The next house we tried was on the other side of Bettina’s place. It was small, and made of bruise-coloured brick. All the paint was peeling off the woodwork, and the windows were shut tight. Behind their dusty panes hung yellowing lace and gauze curtains. The grass needed mowing.

  ‘Are you sure someone lives here?’ I asked doubtfully, surveying the secretive facade of the place. ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘I’ve seen a car outside,’ Bettina assured me. ‘There’s a man who visits, and someone always puts out the garbage bin. There’s a cat, too.’ She indicated a bowl of water near the front steps. ‘The cat looks pretty fat, to me.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Here goes.’ This time I spotted the doorbell, but it didn’t seem to work, because I couldn’t hear it chime. No one answered my knock, either.

  ‘I don’t think anybody’s home,’ was Peter’s conclusion. ‘Either that, or they don’t want to talk to us.’

  ‘Let’s try across the road,’ I suggested.

  The house across the road had been fixed up. It had new aluminium windows, a tiled front yard, a satellite dish and a brand new brick fence. The two ladies living there would have helped us, I’m sure, if they had spoken any English. But I think they were both Vietnamese, and we didn’t understand each other. The people living next to them understood us, but couldn’t help. They were two young guys trying to fix a car, and they could tell us only that Bettina’s house had changed hands a lot.

  ‘People coming and going,’ one of them said. ‘Mostly women and their kids.’

  ‘Like the kid with the face,’ said the other.

  ‘Oh, yeah. That was bad. Poor kid had a face like it was all mashed up. Couldn’t walk, either.’

  ‘Didn’t stay long, but.’

  ‘Nup. No one ever does.’

  ‘We will,’ said Bettina stiffly, but her neighbours just laughed.

  ‘Do you know if any of them had a pet?’ I asked. ‘A dog or a cat or something? A guinea pig?’

  The two men looked at each other. One shrugged.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Never can tell whose dog’s barking, round here.’

  ‘Bloody dog across the road never shuts up.’

  ‘Oh, well. Thank you,’ said Peter, but I had one more question.

  ‘That house over there,’ I remarked, indicating number twenty-five. ‘We knocked but nobody answered. Do you know who lives there?’

  ‘Ha!’ The bigger guy threw back his head and guffawed. ‘Her!’

  ‘She never comes out,’ the other one revealed. ‘Too old.’

  ‘Little old lady.’

  ‘Italian. What’s her name? Fanciulli?’

  ‘You prob’ly gave her a heart attack.’

  ‘Her son, Livio, he’s been trying to sell that house for ages, but she won’t leave.’

  ‘You mean she won’t come out at all?’ I exclaimed. ‘Ever?’

  ‘Not since the old man died last year.’ The bigger brother wriggled under his car again. ‘She’s not gunna come out of there till she comes feet first, y’know what I mean?’ he finished, his voice sounding muffled.

  In that case, I thought, she probably doesn’t know much about her next-door neighbours. But when we passed the house again, on our way to Bettina’s, I was surprised to see Peter head down Mrs Fanciulli’s garden path.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.

  ‘Hang on.’

  ‘What are you doing? Peter?’

  By the time I had caught up with him, he was already rapping on the front door. ‘Signora!’ he said. ‘Scusi, Signora Fanciulli!’

  ‘What’s that you’re speaking?’ I hissed. ‘Peter? What are you up to?’

  ‘Italian,’ he replied quietly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Italian. She’s Italian. She might not speak anything else.’

  I had forgotten that Peter’s parents were Italian. It’s not something that I normally think about.

  ‘Mind you,’ he added, as Bettina joined us, ‘she might be from the south. She might only speak some kind of Calabrian dialect, or something, so don’t get your hopes up.’

  Then he began to spout Italian again; I couldn’t tell you what he was saying. It sounded pretty persuasive, though. After about ten minutes, when we were all ready to give up, there was a click from behind the door.

  Slowly, cautiously, on creaking hinges, it opened a fraction. Hugely enlarged by a very thick pair of spectacles, two watery green eyes peered at us through a narrow crack.

  ‘Chi siete?’ a quavering voice demanded.

  ‘Il mio nome é Pietro,’ Peter replied. ‘Questa ragazza é Allie, é l’altra é Bettina. Bettina abita nella casa vicina alla vostra.’

  This, he told me later, was his way
of introducing us. He then launched into a long explanation of what we wanted, all in Italian, so Bettina and I could only stand there grinning, looking dumb.

  After a while, the little old lady began to respond. She pulled her door open a bit wider, allowing us to see how incredibly small she was. She started to nod, and mumble. ‘Si … si …’ she said. ‘Si, capisco …’ She was wearing a black dress, and her thin, silvery hair was pulled back in a bun. Most of her teeth seemed to be missing. ‘Li conosco,’ she said. (I think.) ‘Molto triste … povera femmina. Povera bambina.’

  Finally she began to gabble away excitedly, plucking at Peter’s sleeve, waving her hand in the direction of Bettina’s house. I saw Peter’s expression become intent. He asked a couple of questions (‘Quando?’ ‘Perché?’), and listened to her reply at great length and in great detail. She kept clicking her tongue and shaking her head; I got the impression that something really shameful had happened next door.

  ‘What does she say?’ I murmured; but Peter flapped a hand at me. I sighed, and waited. Finally, Mrs Fanciulli began to run out of steam. She had to catch her breath, giving Peter a chance to interrupt. He thanked her several times. She responded with another burst of Italian, but it was a short one. He flushed, and stammered: ‘Vicenza.’

  ‘Ah! Vicenza!’ she exclaimed, while he backed down the stairs. ‘Sono Napolana. Napoli hai visitato?’

  Peter shook his head. ‘No,’ he mumbled, and thanked her again.

  ‘Prego,’ she said.

  ‘Arrivederci,’ he replied.

  He marched back up the path so briskly that I only drew level with him when he reached the street.

  ‘Well?’ I questioned. ‘What was that all about?’

  He stopped, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Well,’ he said, glancing at the Fanciulli house. ‘That was interesting.’

  ‘Why?’ gasped Bettina, hurrying to catch up. ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘Plenty,’ Peter rejoined. He looked a bit red and ruffled. ‘That lady knew the people who used to live in your house two years ago,’ he informed Bettina, speaking quietly. ‘There were two sisters, called Alice and Terri Amirault, and Alice’s boyfriend, and Terri’s baby. The baby’s name was Eloise.’