Matilda

'Hello, hello, hello!' the bird called down to her. 'Hello, hello!'

'Shut up, you nut!' Matilda said, and she went out to wash the soot off her hands.

That evening while the mother, the father, the brother and Matilda were having supper as usual in the living-room in front of the television, a voice came loud and clear from the diningroom across the hall. 'Hello, hello, hello,' it said.

'Harry!' cried the mother, turning white. 'There's someone in the house! I heard a voice!'

'So did I!' the brother said. Matilda jumped up and switched off the telly. 'Ssshh!' she said. 'Listen!'

They all stopped eating and sat there very tense, listening.

'Hello, hello, hello!' came the voice again.

'There it is!' cried the brother.

'It's burglars!' hissed the mother. 'They're in the diningroom!'

'I think they are,' the father said, sitting tight.

'Then go and catch them, Harry!' hissed the mother. 'Go out and collar them redhanded!'

The father didn't move. He seemed in no hurry to dash off and be a hero. His face had turned grey.

'Get on with it!' hissed the mother. 'They're probably after the silver!'

The husband wiped his lips nervously with his napkin. 'Why don't we all go and look together?' he said.

'Come on, then,' the brother said. 'Come on, Mum.'

'They're definitely in the diningroom,' Matilda whispered. 'I'm sure they are.'

The mother grabbed a poker from the fireplace. The father took a golf-club that was standing in the corner. The brother seized a table-lamp, ripping the plug out of its socket. Matilda took the knife she had been eating with, and all four of them crept towards the diningroom door, the father keeping well behind the others.

'Hello, hello, hello,' came the voice again.

'Come on!' Matilda cried and she burst into the room, brandishing her knife. 'Stick 'em up!' she yelled. 'We've caught you!' The others followed her, waving their weapons. Then they stopped. They stared around the room. There was no one there.

'There's no one here,' the father said, greatly relieved.

'I heard him, Harry!' the mother shrieked, still quaking. 'I distinctly heard his voice! So did you!'

'I'm certain I heard him!' Matilda cried. 'He's in here somewhere!' She began searching behind the sofa and behind the curtains.

Then came the voice once again, soft and spooky this time, 'Rattle my bones,' it said. 'Rattle my bones.'

They all jumped, including Matilda, who was a pretty good actress. They stared round the room. There was still no one there.

'It's a ghost,' Matilda said.

'Heaven help us!' cried the mother, clutching her husband round the neck.

'I know it's a ghost!' Matilda said. 'I've heard it here before! This room is haunted! I thought you knew that.'

'Save us!' the mother screamed, almost throttling her husband.

'I'm getting out of here,' the father said, greyer than ever now. They all fled, slamming the door behind them.

The next afternoon, Matilda managed to get a rather sooty and grumpy parrot down from the chimney and out of the house without being seen. She carried it through the back-door and ran with it all the way to Fred's house.