Chapter Eleven THE RING
We picked up the pieces of Sir Horace and took them into the keep, which was a funny old round tower covered with ivy. Inside were piles of old junk. It was also very smelly because it was stuffed full of sacks of old bat poo left over from the days when it was part of the mushroom farm. Morris FitzMaurice used to buy Uncle Drac's bat poo to feed the mushrooms, but he was scared of Uncle Drac and always bought more than he needed.
We put all the pieces of Sir Horace on the ground and then, in the beam of my emer gency flashlight--which I always carry with me--Wanda and I began to put Sir Horace back together. It was a bit scary too, as every now and then we heard Old Morris FitzMaurice and his daughter, Nosy Nora FitzMaurice, walk past, showing people around before the auction. "Best knock this rubbish down and start again, " we heard Old Morris say to someone. "I left it standing because some people actu ally like this old stuff. Could be a castle theme park, I suppose. " "Huh, " said the other person. "I shall knock it down and make a parking lot.
There's money in parking lots. What's in there?" Suddenly the rotten old door to the keep creaked open. I had switched off my flashlight just in time. Wanda and I dived behind a pile of moldy old bat poo sacks. Luckily the keep was so full of junk that Old Morris and Mr. Parking Lot did not notice the pieces of Sir Horace. It took forever to put Sir Horace together again. By the time we had finished, the wings on Wanda's pink fairy watch looked weird. They were both almost at her little pointy pink toes. I guessed it meant that it was half past five--nearly time for the auction. "Come on, Sir Horace, it's time to go, " I told him. Sir Horace was sitting on one of the squishy bat poo sacks.
He got up and groaned. "Indeed, you are right, Miss Spookie. I shall make my way to Catheter Cottage. " He bowed stiffly. "No!" I said quickly. "No, I didn't mean it was time for you to go to Catheter Cottage. I meant that it is time to go to the auction. It is time, Sir Horace, " I said very dramatically, "to get back what rightfully belongs to you!" "What rightfully belongs to me, Miss Spookie?" Sir Horace sounded puzzled. This was the moment I had been waiting for--the moment when I would tell Sir Horace my Big Plan. But sometimes Plans do not happen the way you plan them. Sometimes there are things that someone has not told you, so you make your Plan without, as Uncle Drac says, having all the bat poo on the shovel.
But right then I didn't know that. I pulled out the deed from my pocket and said, "Soon it really will be your home, Sir Horace. Because we are going to go to the auction and we will show them this! It proves that all this"--I waved my arms around like they do on airplanes when they tell you how to escape--"still belongs to you!" "If only that were true, " Sir Horace groaned. "But it is true, " I told him and waved the deed in front of his visor just in case he had not seen it. Sir Horace groaned and put his head in his hands, which I found very annoying since Wanda and I had just spent a very long time putting it back on. It is a bad habit that Sir Horace has gotten into; he says it helps him think. But it doesn't help anyone else think. "This deed is worthless, " boomed Sir Horace's head. "No it's not, " I said. "It's your castle. The deed says so. " "Alas, it is not. It belongs to FitzMaurice. It is his. " The head let out a horrible moan. "
He paid me for it. " Now I was really mad at Sir Horace. "You have been telling me lies, Sir Horace. " I looked at him sternly. "That is not what you said before. " "I only discovered the truth yesterday, " said his head with a big sigh. "Yesterday?" asked Wanda. "What hap pened yesterday?" Which was exactly the question I was going to ask. "I am chief detective here, Wanda, " I told her. "So I ask the questions. " And before she could disagree I said, "What happened yester day, Sir Horace?" "You know what happened yesterday, Miss Spookie. The ring that you are wearing. That happened yesterday. "
"Yes, where did you get that ring, Araminta?" asked Wanda suspiciously. "What have you been doing?" "It's nothing to do with me, " I said, feeling like someone who suddenly realizes they are the prime suspect when they thought they had only been asked to the police station for a friendly chat over a cup of tea. "It's always something to do with you, " said Wanda. "It is not!" "Stop!" boomed Sir Horace's head, which sounded horribly like Nurse Watkins. "I will explain. " So we sat in that smelly old ruin, with one of the pink fairy's wings slowly ticking its way toward her right knee and six o'clock, and we listened to the terrible story of what had happened five hundred years ago in the caves far below us.
Sir Horace put his head next to him on an old bat poo sack, then he leaned against the wall and his head began to speak. "I shall tell you the terrible tale of how I became a ghost. " His voice echoed around the keep and sounded really spooky. Wanda and I shivered and I got goose bumps all over. "The FitzMaurices were brigands and thieves, " Sir Horace began. "They lived in a huge castle in the next valley, but that was not enough for them--they wanted my castle too. One night Fang ran off, which he often did at a full moon. Edmund and I went out looking for him and we were ambushed by a party of FitzMaurices. They were a nasty bunch, Miss Spookie. Armed to the teeth with cudgels, swords, pikestaffs, and fierce hunting dogs.
Edmund and I fought but we were outnumbered. We escaped to the grotto beneath my castle. I was sure we would be safe there, but in our haste we sprang our own portcullis trap and trapped ourselves. " "I bet it was Edmund who sprang it, " I whispered to Wanda. "Shh!" said Wanda sharply. "That is not nice, Araminta. " "Trapped in our own grotto . . . " Sir Horace's head moaned. "I was struck down by the dastardly Jasper FitzMaurice, the leader of the gang. As I lay injured, he laughed and told his gang to pile up the rocks to stop our escape and to leave us to drown. He said my castle was his now. But I told him that if he took my castle he would be not only a murderer but a thief. So he took off his ring and threw it at me, saying he would buy my hovel--as he called it. "
"Ooh, " gasped Wanda. "That was so rude. " "Indeed, Miss Wizzard, " sighed the head on the bat poo sack. "The FitzMaurices have never had any manners. " "So what happened then?" asked Wanda. "I threw the ring back because in those days you could offer a ring for anything. " "Even a rubbish old ring?" asked Wanda. "Yes. Its value did not matter. If you put the ring on your finger, it meant that you agreed to the deal. I told Jasper FitzMaurice that his worthless junk would not buy one brick of my castle. That is the last thing I remember. Now, Edmund--" Edmund jumped up and stood to atten tion. "Yes, Sir Horace, " he squeaked.
"What happened next? Tell me. " Edmund coughed. "Um . . . The big FitzMaurice, he, um, picked up the ring. He took off your gauntlet and pushed the ring onto your little finger and, um . . . He said: `I am no thief. This is payment. The castle is mine. ' " "Ooh!" gasped Wanda. "That is so naughty. " "It was very naughty, Wanda, " said Edmund dolefully. "Then the big FitzMaurice, he climbed up the rocks, and his men rolled the last one in place . . . And we were trapped, and after that it was really scary and the water kept coming in and, Sir Horace, you wouldn't wake up, so I stayed with you and . . . " "Oh, Edmund, don't cry, " said Wanda, try ing to put her arm around him--which is not possible with a ghost. "How horrible. You were so brave. "
"Thank you, Wanda, " sniffed Edmund. "You are very nice. " "Edmund was brave, " said Sir Horace's head. "And he was loyal. But he did not tell me about the ring. " Edmund stared at his feet like he had done something wrong--which he had. Aunt Tabby says that not telling about something is as bad as telling a lie. "All these years I have thought I owned my own castle and I did not. " Sir Horace's head let out another groan. "It is a terrible shock. " I stared at my finger. So this was the horrible Jasper FitzMaurice's ring?Yuck. I wasn't so sure that I liked it anymore. Wanda was staring at my finger too. "So how come Araminta has the ring?" she asked, sounding a little bit jealous, I thought.
"Never mind that, " I told her. "The point is that Sir Horace does own his castle. He never accepted the ring--Jasper FitzMaurice pushed it onto his finger. That is totally different. Now, excuse me, Sir Horace, Wanda and I are just going to get your
castle back for you. " "Are we?" said Wanda. "Yes, Wanda, " I said, "we are. " Sir Horace stood up and put his head back on. "Tonight there is a full moon, " he said. "Who knows what may be out there? You will not go alone, Miss Spookie. "