Read Online The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online Page B

hallo, or is she letting me know my socks smell?”
    â€œYou are stupid!” said Fenella.
    Ned Jenkins said awkwardly, “Julian’s coming. He went to scrounge some buns from Perry’s.”
    Cart turned round from plugging in the electric kettle, beaming. Sally could see this was good news to her. “Let’s have that coffee here,” she said. “I saved enough milk, I think.”
    â€œI brought some powdered milk, too,” said Ned. “By the way, where’s Sally?”
    â€œGone to visit a friend,” Fenella said, grinning up at him from under the table. She looked like a green goblin in a cave.

CHAPTER
5
    This was another thing Sally had forgotten, it seemed—these almost nightly visits of the boys. She watched Imogen stumbling over her trouser legs to draw the curtains, even though it was not dark yet. Nobody switched on the light until the windows were covered because the boys were here quite illegally. Will and Ned both had a slightly guilty look and kept grinning at one another like conspirators, while Cart stirred mugs of coffee and Fenella, with great dignity, crawled out from under the table. Everyone settled round the table with their mugs.
    Now Sally knew who did the pictures signed WH and N. The spaceships were Howard’s, of course. And it was no wonder Ned Jenkins had done his surprisingly good bad drawing of Oliver. He really liked him. Oliver was rolling amiably and hugely from person to person, joining in the sociability, but he kept returning to Ned. Ned rubbed his back energetically each time, as if he was scrubbing a hearthrug, and chuckled.
    â€œThat dog is so ridiculously huge that I have to laugh every time I look at him,” he said.
    â€œI know. Something went wrong with his genes, and he turned out nearly twice as big as he should be,” Cart said. “He ought to have been an Irish wolfhound really.”
    â€œYou’ve told him that before,” said Fenella. “Why is Filbert mad?”
    â€œHe thinks he’s got two heads,” said Will Howard. Everybody looked incredulous, even Imogen, who did not care for coffee much and was not being very interested in anything. “Really,” Howard assured them. “Stinker started it yesterday. ‘Nutty,’ he said, with an absolutely straight face, ‘Nutty, we think you may not have noticed your other head. We thought we ought to tell you because you forgot to comb its hair. It looks a sight.’ And Nutty says, ‘What do you mean? I haven’t got another head.’ ‘Oh, yes, you have,’ says Stinker. ‘You mean you’ve gone all these years and not noticed?’ And Nutty says, all puzzled, ‘If I’d got two heads, I’d have seen them in the mirror, wouldn’t I?’ ‘Oh, no,’ says Stinker. ‘The one behind’s behind the one in front, you see.’ And Nutty, being Nutty, believes him! Ever since then he’s been turning round suddenly about once a minute, trying to catch a glimpse of his other head before it dodges out of sight. Honestly—I swear it!”
    â€œBoys are all mad,” said Fenella.
    â€œAh,” said Howard. “Is that so? Girls only do sane things like lying under tables eating paper, don’t they?”
    There was silence, while Fenella turned her most phenomenal glower on him. Out of it, Imogen said violently, “I think that’s a very cruel and barbarous story!”
    The silence deepened uncomfortably. Imogen would not look at anyone. She sat leaning forward stiffly in her chair, with her head bent at an odd, listening angle, staring into her mug of coffee. Sally found herself saying, Imogen really is terribly unhappy! Imogen’s face, with its strong angel features, was somehow bloated from behind, with tears she was waiting to cry. The boys could see it, too. They could not understand it, and it embarrassed them. Sally wondered, Is that how