Read Online The Beasts of Clawstone Castle by Eva Ibbotson - Free Book Online

Clawstone decorated and garlanded, with jewellery on their horns. What would Sir George say if that was to happen? Something rude, that was certain!
    But Sunita had shown the ghosts something bigger than themselves. A world where animals mattered, where living things were worshipped. A world where there was work to be done and one’s own troubles set aside.
    ‘We have been selfish,’ said Ranulf. ‘We have not been brave. We will help you and we will stay.’
    And the other ghosts nodded, and said, ‘Yes, we will stay.’

C HAPTER E LEVEN
     
    T he first Open-Day-with-Ghosts began quietly – but it did not go on quietly. It did not go on quietly at all.
    It had been decided that visitors should be shown round in a group rather than wander about all over the place, and Mrs Grove was appointed as the guide. She had worked in the castle so long that she knew it like the back of her hand.
    As for the children, they were going to keep out of the way but watch from a hiding place in the upstairs gallery in case anything went wrong.
    Because of the posters and the notice in the paper, rather more people than usual were waiting to buy tickets. There was a couple with three little girls: Lettice and Lucy and Lavinia, who chewed toffee bars and giggled as though the idea of ghosts was the funniest thing they had ever heard of.
    There were two hikers: a tall thin one called Joe and a small fat one called Pete. They were on their way to a climbing trip in Scotland and had seen the notice about the ghosts and called in.
    There was a sulky youth called Ham, who was on holiday with his parents and hated the country, where there was nothing to do except sit on windy beaches or walk up dripping hills, and a lady professor of architecture with her assistant, a pale girl called Angela. The professor had not come to see ghosts but to look at groynes and buttresses and mouldings.
    Then there was someone who worried the children badly as they looked down from their hiding place: a delicate elderly lady called Mrs Field, who walked with two sticks and was in the charge of a muscular and bossy nurse.
    ‘Suppose she has a heart attack?’ whispered Madlyn.
    ‘Well, we did warn people,’ said Ned. ‘It wouldn’t be our fault.’
    But the most important person in that first batch of visitors was Major Henry Hardbottock, who was a famous explorer and gave lectures and talked on the telly. Major Hardbottock had walked to the North Pole and lost two fingers from frostbite and bitten off a third when it went gangrenous; and he had walked across the Sahara without a single camel and with a raging fever. He was on his way to Edinburgh to give a lecture on ‘Survival and Hardship’ when he saw the notice and turned in at Clawstone just for a joke.
    There was not a single person in that first group of visitors who believed in ghosts.
    Mrs Grove led the party across the Inner Courtyard and into the building.
    ‘We are now in the oldest part of the castle,’ she began. ‘It dates from 1423 and’ . . .
    She went off into her patter while Ham yawned, the little girls chewed their toffee bars and Henry Hardbottock sat on his shooting stick and looked superior.
    Then: ‘Eeh, look!’ said Lavinia, and her mouth fell open, letting out a stream of treacly goo which ran down her chin. ‘Look there at that chest!’
    The lid of an old oak chest had opened slowly . . . very slowly. A hand came out. An unusual hand . . .
    It was the hand of a skeleton – but it was not completely bony. Small pieces of muscle still clung to it. A blob here, a strip of tissue there . . .
    Not only Lavinia but Lucy and Lettice began to shriek.
    ‘It’s a skeleton!’
    ‘It’s a trick,’ said Ham, sneering.
    ‘This isn’t good for you,’ said the bossy nurse to little Mrs Field. ‘I’ll take you home.’
    ‘No, no, it’s interesting,’ said the old lady, clutching her sticks. ‘I don’t want to go home.’
    ‘What you are seeing is the famous Clawstone