I looked up and saw it was Princess Viscera Von Tangle on her balcony. She was waving frantically, but I pretended I hadn’t heard her over the music. I wasn’t about to start off my evening with a bunch of complaints from a pompous piskie.

  ‘Young man, you must listen!’

  The busiest part of the amusement stands were the snack carts and game stalls and I headed straight for them, leaving the princess chirping behind me.

  I love going to Brighton Pier with Nancy on the odd occasion she has a bit of free time from the kitchens and can glimmer herself for a morning. It’s always noisy and bustling and jam-packed with rides and things to see, but this was so much better! I swear to you, my reader friend. Magicals seriously know how to have a good time.

  ‘Get your lucky charms!’ I heard a scratchy voice yelling as I turned the corner next to a food cart where a giant purple octopus was flipping seaweed pancakes.

  I wandered past a game stall with the words, ‘DUNK THE DUGONG’ written above it, and an open tent where a reef-nymph was reading the palm of a nervously twitching dolphumble, and then … I found the owner of the voice.

  ‘Got callouses on your crustaceans? I can fix ’em!’

  It was Maudlin. Somehow, she’d got her entire lepre-caravan and all her chickens down here and was selling her wares to a frantically jostling crowd that had gathered around the front stoop.

  ‘Suffering with ninkumplump neighbours? Why not hex the blighters? I’ve got curses, bad luck tinctures, and jinxes that’ll turn an urchin’s spikes into spaghetti!’

  I ducked low and started to squeeze through the group of shoppers.

  ‘Down on your luck? How about a bottle of this Fail-No-More Formula?’

  Almost every creature standing thre was waving its arm, or flapping a flipper, or swinging a tentacle in the air. At this rate, Maloney would be rich by morning.

  ‘Are you uglier than a bog-bonker? You could be gonktious in seconds with one blow of this beauty-toot whistle!’

  I struggled through to the front of the crowd and tried to catch the ancient leprechaun’s attention.

  ‘Got a lazy husband? Prickle his bottom with this Get-Up-Ya-Ejit spell!’

  I tapped Maudlin on her foot, but the grizzly old thing was on a roll and ignored me, flicking away my hand with the toe of her curly shoe.

  ‘Got a quarrelsome wife? Turn her into a pleasantly clucking hen! That’s what I did!’

  Maloney’s chickens all squawked and flapped their wings from the rusted-penny roof of the lepre-caravan.

  ‘Settle down, ladies!’ she croaked.

  ‘Maudlin!’ I poked her foot again. ‘Maudlin!’

  ‘WHAT?’ the grizzly old grunion snapped.

  ‘Mum says we all need to get together ready for Grandad Abe’s speech.’

  The leprechaun rolled her eyes and wedged her stumpy fists against her hips.

  ‘Oh, blunkers! Why do I put up with you bunch of Banistumps?’ she moaned. Then she turned to the gaggle of shoppers and yelled, ‘Be off wit’ yer! I’ll be back in a munkle-minute or three, so I will.’

  Maudlin fetched a ring of keys from her apron pocket and set about locking up her little home.

  ‘How did you get all this down here?’ I asked as she turned the lock with a rusty CLUNK!

  ‘Ain’t nothing Manky Old Maloney can’t do,’ she cackled, giving me a mischievous wink. ‘Just your average shrinking charm, dontchaknow? I popped the whole thing into my coin pouch and away we went. The girls didn’t like it much, but hey ho!’

  We set off down the alley of stalls and carts, heading for the Under-Oak.

  ‘This is the stuff of nonsense,’ Maudlin mumbled to herself as we shuffled through the bustling merfolk.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘This! All this!’ Maloney said, waving her hands around at the party. ‘There’s no way Mistress Glump is going to let that old spook hang around the hotel. A welcoming party? It’s all a waste of tinkery time.’

  ‘I think it’s brilliant!’ I shot back at her. By now I couldn’t have felt gladder that Abe was back. I’d spent all afternoon imagining the amazing things he could teach me now he was here and there was no way I was going to let Maudlin spoil it.

  ‘You think THIS is brilliant?’ she jeered, waving her hands at the PIN THE TAIL ON THE SEA SLUG stall and a whole bank of wobbly mirrors. ‘You’re bungled in the bonce, Frankie Banister.’

  Maudlin caught sight of her reflection in the row of looking glasses and stopped in her tracks. Everyone else who was standing in front of them appeared hilarious and twisty, with giant heads or long and loopy legs, but the grizzled bad luck fairy looked pretty much the same.

  I stifled a giggle, but she caught me and scowled.

  ‘I hate mirrors!’ she barked. ‘Cruel things, they are! Strange and secretive and sneakerish!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, patting her on her tiny shoulder. Who knew leprechauns could be sensitive?

  ‘You’re not the only one with a weird reflection. Grandad Abe had one green eye in his—’

  ‘WHAAAAAAATT!?’ Maudlin grabbed me by the lapel of my jacket and yanked me towards her until our noses were touching. ‘WHAT DID YOU SAY?’

  ‘It’s fine!’ I grunted, pulling myself free from her gnarled hands. ‘He said it was history showing through the cracks or something. That it was reminding him never to forget Oculus.’

  ‘Abe’s reflection had one green eye in the mirror? You’re sure?’ Maudlin hissed in my face with wild eyes.

  ‘Yes!’ I said, feeling a knot of worry and fear tie itself up in my belly.

  ‘FRANKIE!’ Maloney’s face creased up in horror. ‘GHOSTS DON’T HAVE REFLECTIONS!’

  THE SPEECH

  My brain swirled with panic as Maudlin took hold of my wrist and pulled me through the throng of partying magicals.

  We darted this way that, heaving between bustling bodies until we reached the edge of the dance floor and…

  TING! TING! TING! TING!

  The noise echoed around the bubble and silenced the speedily plucking anemenonk orchestra. We all turned towards Mum and Dad, who were standing on the balcony where the swelkies had been tap dancing earlier. Mum was dinging a teaspoon against a bluebottle brandy glass and smiling sweetly down at everyone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Dad shouted over the room. ‘We are thrilled…’

  ‘And tooth fairies!’ three lisping voices called from somewhere in the crowd.

  ‘Yes, and tooth fairies,’ Dad said.

  ‘And werepoodles!’

  ‘And impolumps!’

  ‘And merfolk! Fish have feelings too!’

  ‘EVERYONE!’ Mum butted in, very familiar with how long these interruptions could go on. ‘ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE!’

  ‘We are thrilled to welcome you ALL to the grand re-opening of the Briny Ballroom and Pleasure Gardens,’ Dad continued, as goblin reporters from the Observerator and Daily Grimes newspapers took photographs with old-fashioned clockwork cameras, flashing and clicking like thunderbugs.

  ‘We have to tell them something’s wrong,’ I whispered to Maudlin.

  She looked at me with worried eyes.

  ‘Wait…’ she said.

  ‘As the managers of the Nothing To See Here Hotel,’ Mum yelled, taking over from Dad, ‘we couldn’t be happier to be throwing a shindig in a dance hall so grand it makes us the envy of all magical hotels everywhere. And it’s all thanks to one man … well … ghost!’

  Mum gestured to the Under-Oak in the middle of the dance floor and everyone looked up to see Grandad Abe floating on the veranda of his treehouse office.

  ‘ABRAHAM BANISTER!’ Dad shouted. Even from this far away, I could see he was brimming with pride.

  ‘H-hello!’Abe said to the silent sea of upturned faces. ‘It’s nice to see you all. I … ummm … I don’t have too much to talk about. It gives me great pride to know you’re all waltzing and whirling in my honour, and I’m so happy to announce…’

  I held my breath and waited for what the ghost/not-ghost was about to say. If this man wasn’t a spook, what was going on? He couldn’t be alive, could he?

  Abe was about to finish his sentence when a tiny burst of ectoplasm exploded in the air above the fountains and… Grogbah materialised! ‘AAAAAAAGH!’ The little ghost reeled backwards in disgust as he instantly saw the hundreds of magicals staring at him. ‘GET OUT, YOU INTRUDLES! ALL OF YOU!!’

  ‘Oh, not again, Grogbah!’ Mum called to the pumpkin-shaped prince.

  Grogbah turned in the direction of her voice and screamed again.

  ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?’

  ‘I might ask you the same question,’ Dad shouted back.

  ‘This is my private snoozle room, where I come to rest and relax in peace!’ Grogbah whined. ‘It’s mine and you’re not allowed in!’

  ‘It’s not your snoozle room!’ Mum called. ‘This is the hotel ballroom. We’re in the middle of a party and you’re not invited.’

  ‘YOU CAN’T BE IN HERE!’ Grogbah wailed in his annoying little voice.

  ‘Well, we are!’ Dad replied. ‘Now slunkle off … you’re spoiling Abe’s speech.’

  ‘WHO?’ Grogbah looked like he was about to burst.

  ‘HIM!’ Dad shouted, pointing to the Under-Oak.

  Grogbah spun around again.

  ‘Oh! It’s you…’ he said, looking surprised when he spotted Grandad Abe. ‘I thought you were all frosted up.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ Abe snapped at the goblin-ghost.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that, you rottly skwonker!’ Grogbah jabbed a chubby finger at Abe. ‘You swungled me good and proper before! I demand apologiffies!’

  ‘I’m not saying sorry to the likes of you,’ Abe spat. ‘You nearly spoiled everything last time and now you’re ruining my speech!’

  ‘What do you mean “last time”?’ Dad yelled, silencing the argument. ‘Do you two know each other?’

  ‘NO!’ Abe blurted.

  ‘Of course we do!’ Grogbah sneered. ‘That’s—’

  Suddenly another explosion of ectoplasm erupted in the air above the staircase and … my jaw practically hit the ground.

  There, floating on the other side of the dance floor was a second figure of … of … GREAT-GREAT-GREAT GRANDAD ABRAHAM!

  SEEING DOUBLE

  The crowd gasped in unison as the second figure of Abe turned to face the first.

  ‘You!’ he barked. ‘I might have known!’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, you slithering idiot,’ the first Abe spat from the balcony in the tree. ‘You’re not stopping me now!’

  ‘You can’t do this!’ the second Abe cried. ‘It’s madness!’

  Watching the two identical ghosts yelling at each other was completely noggin-bonking. I started to wonder if I’d accidentally drunk some frog-grog by mistake, until I realised that everyone else could see them too.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Maudlin shrieked above the commotion. She grabbed my arm and we pushed through the crowd together. ‘Explain yourself, ghost!’

  The second Abe by the stairs turned to glance at us and his face lit up when he spotted Maudlin.

  ‘Miss Maloney!’ he said. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right. I’ve been very worried about you and my relatives.’

  ‘What are you rambling on about?’ the leprechaun snapped. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Abraham Banister!’ the ghost blurted.

  ‘No, he isn’t!’ the other Abe yelled from the treehouse. ‘I’m Abraham Banister!’

  ‘Maudlin, you must believe me!’ the second Abe pleaded from the stairs. ‘I was so happy when you called last night, I truly was. What you may not realise, however, I was still on the other end of the line when I heard you all start screaming and the sound of lightning and chaos. Then I listened in horror as someone started speaking with my voice. That’s when the skell-a-phone went dead and I knew you were all in grave danger.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him!’ the first Abe shouted. ‘He’s lying!

  ‘I’m not!’ Abe number two replied. ‘I hurried straight here from the Land of the Dead. The road is dark and dangerous. I’ve been journeying for hours!’

  I watched as Maloney’s face creased in concentration.

  ‘PROVE IT!’ she finally hollered at the identical spooks.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ the second Abe said excitedly. ‘Ask me anything.’

  The ancient leprechaun glanced at both the figures and scratched her chin. I could practically hear the cogs going around inside her head.

  ‘I’ve known you for a long time, Abraham Banister. Well … Banisters.’

  ‘Yes!’ they both replied.

  ‘So, I want you to tell me about your favourite time we strolled along the river in Dublin together.’

  ‘There are so many wonderful memories,’ the first Abe chuckled from the tree house. His face twitched like he was desperately wracking his brains. ‘There’s the time we watched the sunset, and the time you tried human ice cream. We loved feeding the swans!’

  ‘Mmmmm,’ Maudlin grunted with a nod. She turned to the second ghost and pointed at him. ‘And you?’

  ‘We never walked along the river!’ he laughed. ‘You hate humans, and you hate strolls, and you hate sunsets!’

  ‘AH HA!’ Maudlin guffawed. In a flash, she grabbed the wand from the hand of a nearby murkle-witch, pointed it at the Abraham in the Under-Oak and bellowed ‘UN-DIS-COM-BUMP-U-LATE!’

  Lightning burst from the tip of the wand and split the air in two, streaking across the ballroom and exploding right in the centre of the first Abraham’s chest.

  It fizzed and crackled all over the old ghost, sending fingers of blue electricity snaking along the veranda railings and up into the branches of the Under-Oak.

  Screams erupted from around the ballroom and magicals dropped to the ground, trying to avoid the blast.

  Then…

  Silence.

  The blinding light vanished as quickly as it had appeared and we all glanced up to where my great-great-great-grandad had been floating only seconds before.

  Sure enough, the ghost was still there in the tree, only now he was shimmering and rippling like we were looking at him through water. I watched with wide eyes as the figure started to shrink and pulsate.

  ‘CLEAR THE WAY!’ Maudlin screeched, and the crowds of creatures backed away in all directions, leaving me and the leprechaun in the middle of a large circle.

  ‘Frankie!’ Mum yelped when she saw us. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Not now, Mrs Banister,’ Maudlin shouted, lifting the wand again. ‘We’ve got bigger things to worry about.’

  Everyone in the ballroom held their breath.

  ‘Unless my papery old mind has been scrunkled, we’ve got ourselves a spectril!’

  ‘A what?’ I said. I knew it was a bad time for questions, but I couldn’t help myself. Something about that word seemed strangely familiar.

  ‘Regular ghosts come from humans who have popped their clonkers,’ Maloney replied, squinting one eye as she aimed the wand again. ‘But a spectril is the ghost of someone who’s still alive.’

  ‘Whose?’ I gasped, remembering reading about spectrils in my room earlier in the day.

  ‘Who do you think?’ Maudlin huffed sarcastically. ‘Look!’

  I glanced up again to see black hair sprouting from the floating figure’s head and an eye patch materialise over his right eye.

  ‘BLUNKERS!’ I heard myself yelling over the crowd’s cries of alarm.

  Grandad Abe’s old explorer suit transformed into a black jacket with knee-high trousers, and a piercing beam of light reflected around the ballroom as the spectril’s left eye flared with a green glow.

  My heart rose up into my throat and I realised with terror gurgling around my belly that I was staring at my scowling, hate-filled great-great-uncle, Oculus Nocturne.

  It wasn’t him completely, but a yellow-grey apparition, like the photographs we’d seen earlier. The only thing of real colour on him was that piercing green eye.

  ‘YOU!’ Maudlin cried, as the boy floated back down to the balcony. ‘I should have known!’

  The real Grandad Abe’s ghost stared up with a look of abject terror at the boy, and the boy slowly turned and leered back at him.

  ‘Hello, Daddy!’

  The real Abe turned to the throng of partygoers.

  ‘A spectril can rifle through the old thoughts of the person it’s changed into!’ he howled. ‘You’re all in terrible danger!’

  ‘Oh, shut up, you snivelling worm!’ Oculus hissed at his father. ‘It’s too late!’

  ‘What do you want, boy?’ Maudlin yelled. ‘Why have you come back here?’

  Oculus glared down at me and Maloney and laughed a chilling, shrill laugh.

  ‘Ah! My old friends!’ he snickered. ‘I can’t tell you how much it warms my heart to see your putrid faces.’

  ‘Answer the question!’ I yelled. ‘WHY ARE YOU HERE?’

  ‘That’s just it. I’m not here,’ Oculus fumed. ‘I’m frozen in a block of ice, stored away on top of a glacier in THE HIMALAYAS where you all TRAPPED ME!’

  He clutched at the veranda railing and the entire Under-Oak suddenly bristled with great spikes of frost.

  ‘DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW UNBEARABLE IT IS TO BE STUCK LIKE THAT? WELL, YOU WILL WHEN I’M FINISHED WITH YOU!’

  Mum and Dad came running through the crowd and joined me and Maudlin in the clearing of creatures.

  ‘The only good thing about being frozen solid and left to be forgotten by your own relatives,’ Oculus continued, ‘is you have plenty of time to think, and plan, and plot your revenge! And, oh ho ho, have I come up with a spine-jangling punishment. I was just hanging around in the ice, daydreaming about how lovely it would be to hear you all screaming, when the idea just came to me . . . I might be stuck in the middle of nowhere, but I could go wherever I wanted using my spectril. So I let it wander all the way back here, and who should I interrupt your skell-a-phone conversation with? My daddy-kins! What a WONDERFUL coincidence. It seems it was all meant to be.’

 

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