The Beasts of Clawstone Castle by Eva Ibbotson Page B

pit: he was proud of helping the vets get rid of the infected beasts. But the pit was fifteen kilometres away, on the other side of the hill to Trembellow Towers.
    ‘It’s too far to walk there and back,’ said Ned. ‘But there’s a bus one way at least. If the ghosts don’t mind being invisible there shouldn’t be any trouble.’
    They decided to go on their own without saying anything to the grown-ups, and their chance came two days later when the Percivals were asked out to dinner with the Lord Lieutenant of the county, who lived in a mansion which was an hour’s drive away from Clawstone. Both George and Emily hated going out to dinner, which meant changing out of their usual clothes and eating things which disagreed with them and staying up late.
    But they went, and as soon as Uncle George’s Bentley was out of sight, the children and the ghosts hurried down to the bus stop by the church.
    The sun had gone down by the time they reached the road leading to pit Number Five. There were traffic cones in rows across the path, and a notice saying ‘Out of Bounds’ and another one saying ‘No Admittance’.
    When they got to the entrance to the pit itself, they found it roped off. The windows of the workmen’s hut were boarded up. The hillside with its gashes looked threatening and sinister; flood water from the recent rains had collected into large puddles; old tin cans floated on the oil-stained water.
    Rollo shivered and Madlyn looked at him anxiously. Had it been a mistake to come?
    Certainly it made everything seem worse, seeing where those warm-blooded, lovely creatures had ended up.
    The ghosts had glided on ahead. Sunita was looking very purposeful as she searched for the burial site. The Feet followed her, keeping close to her heels.
    The rough track, with its churned mud and heavy wheel marks, veered round to the left and led into a wider piece of waste ground.
    ‘There,’ said Ranulf. ‘That will be where they’re buried.’
    They had come to a large patch of flat ground, covered with recently turned-over earth. Diggers and crushers stood nearby, like great dinosaurs.
    Sunita nodded. ‘Yes. This must be the place.’
    She began to move backwards and forwards over the burial site. Her arms were stretched out, her head was bent intently over the earth.
    ‘It’s strange,’ she said after a few moments, ‘I can’t seem to—’
    She broke off suddenly and clutched Brenda. The children drew closer to each other; the other ghosts took a step backwards.
    ‘Oh heavens, what is it?’ said Madlyn.
    The pit had suddenly filled with the most appalling sounds … sounds like none they had heard before: horrible, troubling, somehow not decent.
    First, a ghastly gurgling sort of grunt … Then a rasping, squawk-like screech … and lastly a kind of honking hoot which changed halfway into a croaking squeal.
    ‘Who’s there?’ shouted Ned.
    The noise stopped abruptly. The silence was absolute.
    ‘Maybe it was an animal?’ suggested Rollo.
    But what kind of animal? And there had been more than one.
    ‘I’m not going to let it stop me,’ said Sunita. ‘If it’s werewolves, we can deal with them. They can’t hurt ghosts.’
    She began once more to glide round the patch of freshly dug earth, trying to make contact with the spirits of the creatures who lay below. Madlyn had brought a bunch of flowers; she held them in her hand, waiting till Sunita should give the signal and the ceremony begin.
    But Sunita kept gliding steadily round the edge of the burial ground, then across it, and they could see that she was becoming troubled and uncertain.
    ‘I don’t understand it,’ she murmured.
    Five minutes passed, and then ten. It grew darker and colder, and Sunita became more and more bewildered and unsure.
    Then the noise came again. It was louder than before, and even more horrible, and it died away in a hopeless kind of gurgling splutter.
    And from behind a large digger there emerged … three