Granny by Anthony Horowitz Page A

can’t hurt me anymore. I know about you. And one day…”
    â€œOne day what?” Joe had been too kind, even now, to say what he was thinking. But now Granny said it for him. “One day I’ll be dead? Is that what you’re thinking?” She smiled toothlessly in the moonlight. Smoke from the ruined building curled around her legs. “Oh, yes. Even I won’t live forever. But don’t you see, Joe, you’ll never be rid of me. Because, you see, when I die, I’ll come back. I’ll come back and haunt you and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do.”
    â€œYou’re lying,” Joe whispered. The fire engines were getting nearer. He could hear the engines now, racing up the hill.
    â€œOh, no! The grave won’t keep me lying down for long. I’ll come back, you’ll see. Just when you least expect it …” Her eyes blinked, black in the white light of the moon. “And then…oh, yes, what fun we’ll have.”
    Half a minute later the firemen arrived with the police right behind them. They found one old lady waiting for them in the garden. She was standing next to a twelve-year-old boy lying flat out on the grass.
    â€œYou’d better look after my grandson,” she said in a feeble, tearful voice as they wrapped a blanket round her and led her away. “He seems to have fainted. I suppose it must have been the shock.”

9
    GOOD-BYE, GRANNY
    M r. and Mrs. Warden returned from the South of France a few days later. They had not had a good vacation. Mr. Warden had fallen asleep in the sun and was horribly burned. The top of his bald head was a glowing red and three layers of skin had peeled off his nose. He couldn’t sit down without crying. Mrs. Warden had been bitten by three hundred mosquitoes. Attracted by her body spray, they had invaded her bed and bitten every inch from her ankles to her ears. Her face in particular was dreadfully swollen. When Mr. Warden had woken up beside her the following morning, he had actually screamed.
    Wolfgang and Irma returned from Hungary the day after. They had enjoyed their vacation so much that in the four weeks they had been away they had forgotten how to speak English. They had brought everyone souvenirs of Hungary: a beet for Mr. Warden, a book of Hungarian poetry for Mrs. Warden, and furry hats for Joe and Granny.
    As for Granny herself, Joe had seen little of her after the events in Bideford. They had been released from the hospital after one night’s observation and had traveled back to London on the first train. The police had asked them a lot of questions, but both of them had pretended they were asleep when the hotel exploded. Joe had hated doing it, but he knew he had no choice. He was only twelve. Nobody would have believed him.
    Even so, he got grim amusement from reading the newspapers the following day. He had always suspected you couldn’t believe half the things you read in the papers, but now he knew it was all a pack of lies.
    300 GRANNIES PERISH IN HOTEL HORROR
FAULTY FUSE BLAMED FOR BIDEFORD BANG
BRITAIN GRIEVES FOR GRANNIES—
QUEEN SENDS MESSAGE
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    He had stayed with Granny at Thattlebee Hall for five days, but in that time he had barely seen her. When his parents got home, she had left without saying good-bye.
    However, she had managed to play one last mean trick on him.
    On Sunday, a new nanny arrived. Apparently Granny had interviewed and selected her personally before she had gone. The new nanny was a short, plain woman wearing no makeup and a dress that seemed to have been fashioned out of a potato sack. Her hair was gray, as indeed was the rest of her. Her name, she said, was Ms. Whipsnade.
    â€œMiss Whipsnade,” Wolfgang announced as he opened the door to her.
    â€œI said Ms!” the new nanny exclaimed, dropping her suitcase on Wolfgang’s foot.
    It turned out that Ms. Whipsnade had worked for sixteen years as a social worker