The Beasts of Clawstone Castle Read Online Free

looks like a pickle, all sour and vinegary – but snobby with it.’
    ‘Well, I’m not snobby and I’m not a pickle.’
    ‘No,’ said Ned. He had never seen a less pickled-looking girl.
    ‘Why is she the Honourable Olive?’
    ‘Her father’s a lord. He didn’t used to be – he used to be just an ordinary bloke, but he made all those traffic cones they have on motorways to tell people they can’t go there. He made millions of them and he got very rich and they made him a lord and he bought Trembellow Towers.’
    ‘Yes, I see.’
    Even in the few days she had been at Clawstone, Madlyn had heard about Trembellow Towers.
    ‘You could come to my house this afternoon if you like,’ said Ned. ‘There’s a programme about whales for your brother. And you could email your parents if you wanted to.’
    Madlyn’s face lit up. If there was one thing she wanted more than any other it was to make contact with her parents, and she knew that she’d been right about Ned. He was going to be a true and proper friend.
    The children felt at home straight away in Mrs Grove’s bungalow. It was a small modern house, with just three rooms and a tiny garden, and it was marvellously warm and clean and comfortable. The TV chuntered away to itself quietly in the corner, there were geraniums on the window sill and from the kitchen came the smell of unburned scones and flapjacks baking in the oven.
    Mrs Grove’s husband had been killed two years earlier, when a drunken lout in a Jaguar had run into his delivery van, but if she was sad she kept the sadness inside – and she still had Ned.
    While Rollo settled himself down in front of the whales, Ned took Madlyn off to his room and sent a message to New York, and they were lucky: by the time they had finished tea there was a reply saying all was well.
    When they got back to the castle they found Aunt Emily riddling the kitchen range. There was a smudge of soot on her nose and her hair was coming down.
    ‘Isn’t it the dearest little house?’ she said wistfully when they told her about their afternoon. ‘I’ve always wanted to live in a house like that. No stairs and you just turn a knob and the fire comes on.’
    ‘Well, couldn’t you, Aunt Emily?’ asked Madlyn. ‘Do you have to go on living here?’
    Aunt Emily sighed. ‘I’m afraid we do,’ she said. She rubbed her nose, spreading the soot a little further. ‘One has to do one’s duty.’
    There were now only two more days to Open Day. Mr Jones in the village had sent another jigsaw puzzle; it was a picture of a town councillor on a platform making a speech. Aunt Emily stayed up till midnight finishing the tea cosy, and Madlyn sprayed fresh disinfectant into the toilets and arranged a posy of wild flowers to put on the table in the entrance hall.
    But on the morning of the actual day, Sir George came down from the battlements holding his telescope and looking grim.
    ‘Cars streaming off to Trembellow,’ he said. ‘Dozens of them. Hardly a one coming this way.’
    Sir George was right. By eleven o’clock only four people had bought tickets and made their way up the front steps of the castle.
    Madlyn was sitting beside Mrs Grove at the table where the tickets were sold, ready to help with giving change and handing out booklets. She had taken over from Mrs Grove’s sister who now had a morning job in the village shop.
    Now, as the big clock in the courtyard ticked up the minutes, she turned to her and said, ‘Mrs Grove, why does it matter so much that people come to the castle? Couldn’t Uncle George sell it and he and Aunt Emily go and live in a bungalow? Then they wouldn’t need nearly so much money for themselves.’
    Mrs Grove turned to her. ‘Why, bless you, it isn’t the castle they want the money for and it isn’t for themselves. I’ve never met two people who spent less.’
    ‘Well, what then? What do they have to have the money for? Why is the money so important?’
    Mrs Grove patted her hand. ‘I