Beryl and the St. Botolph's Ghost

By Ian Wright

This is a story book for children. It is suitable for children between the ages of 6 and 12 years of age depending on reading ability.

Beryl Ramsbottom is being bullied by the horrible Piggy Sylvester and Slugs Mottram. One day, after running away, she hides under her favourite oak tree to tell it about her problems. Usually, the tree does not reply, but this time there are loud creaks and rustling from the branches. Just when Beryl has decided that the tree can talk back, there is a crash and a thud and Uzzi the goblin falls into her life.

However, Uzzi also has problems. His home in the graveyard at St. Botolph's church is haunted and his wife Klustia expects him to do something about it! Beryl and Uzzi decide to help each other and go their separate ways to get the information that they need.

After meeting again, this time at Uzzi's home in a mausoleum, it is Uzzi's wife Klustia who decides to use powerful magic to solve their problems. The magic is difficult to perform and the results are not what Klustia predicts. However, in the end, everyone including the ghost is happy with the results - except, perhaps, Piggy Sylvester and Slugs Mottram.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Wright
• Release date: May 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476063188

Ian Wright

After spending a lifetime writing technical items as an engineer, the chance to let the imagination run riot couldn't be missed. Bery Ramsbottom is Ian Wright's alter ego. If the had met many years ago there is no limit to where they might have been. Almost certainly in other worlds .....

Book preview

Beryl and the St. Botolph's Ghost

Ian Wright

Illustrated by Natalie Bates

Published by Ian Wright Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Ian Wright

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Piggy and Slugs

Chapter 2 - Uzzi Uzglug

Chapter 3 - Reverend Todd at St. Botolph's

Chapter 4 - The hidden room

Chapter 5 - Old Dick Postlethwaite

Chapter 6 - Klustia

Chapter 7 - Defeat for Klustia

Chapter 8 - Klustia's plan

Chapter 9 - Preparing for action

Chapter 10 - Griselda's big performance

Chapter 11 - A pretty good result

About the author

Other books by the author

Chapter 1. Piggy and Slugs.

‘Oh no! Not again,’ Beryl groaned as she turned into Cow Lane.

There, on the road ahead were Piggy Sylvester and Slugs Mottram. It was the third time this week that they had waited for her after school and Beryl knew there was going to be trouble. Nobody liked Piggy and Slugs. Like all bullies, they were cowards who couldn’t make friends with anybody. This didn’t make it easier for the person they were bullying who, right now, was Beryl Ramsbottom.

The short cut along Cow Lane meant that Beryl could be home in five minutes rather than the fifteen minutes if she went by the main road. Why, she thought, should I have to go the long way round simply to avoid all this trouble? Beryl moved to the left and hoped that, if she kept her head down and didn’t look at them, the boys might ignore her.

As she approached them, the boys started to dance around and make clucking noises.

‘Chicken,’ they squawked to her face as she drew level with them.

‘Stop it!’ demanded Beryl, as she ducked to avoid Piggy’s attempt to grab her hair.

‘Make me!’ mocked Piggy as he made another unsuccessful lunge.

Beryl, having now managed to get past the boys quickened her pace as much as she could without starting to run.

‘Looser,’ yelled Piggy as he stooped to pick a stone from a pile neatly arranged at his feet. Beryl ducked as the stone whizzed over her head.

‘Don’t!’ she shouted, looking over her shoulder and starting to run.

It was about time that someone taught those two a lesson!

The trouble was that Piggy was huge! Most of his hugeness hung around his stomach and face but everywhere you looked at him there was flab. If he were to sit on you, it would be the end; you would be flat. While Piggy was big, Slugs was thin and weedy. Beryl wasn’t sure how Slugs got his nickname but there was certainly something horrible and slimy about him.

‘Spotty face!’ he shouted in a nervous voice. Slugs remembered when he had tried to push Beryl into the pond on Squat’s Meadow and ended up with her holding his face in the mud until he apologised. Since then, he preferred to be brave only when Piggy was around. Usually, taking a position where Piggy came between him and whoever he was being nasty to.

Beryl ducked again as Piggy’s second stone flashed past her ear. It narrowly missed Growler, Mrs. Blenkinsop’s large and ferocious tabby cat who had been slowly ambling up the Lane. The cat glowered, hissed and scrambled through the hedge into the field on the other side.

By now, Beryl had managed to put some distance between herself and the boys. To avoid any further stones, she turned onto the narrow path leading to Scriven’s Wood and the river meadow.

At first, Piggy and Slugs followed, but Beryl knew that Piggy would soon get out of breath and look for something else to do that didn’t take as much effort. She entered the woods, took the left fork and cut through an area of brambles to the wall at the meadow’s edge. For a while, she heard them shouting insults and threats. Then, their voices became fainter and fainter until she knew that they were no longer following.

Beryl could not imagine why anyone would want to behave in such a way. It wasn’t as though they gained anything. All that effort, just to make someone else miserable!

Beryl was a nice girl. She had good friends; at least people whom she got on with OK. She had a younger brother called Wayne, a Mum who fussed too much and her Dad who only fussed when Mum told him to. Then there was Freddie, their brown mongrel dog who spent most of his time rolling in unspeakably smelly gunge such as muddy water or fox poo.

For most of the time, life in the Ramsbottom family was good. Good, that was, until Beryl’s best friend Amy Roberts had moved away from Mottlecum where they both lived. Amy had lived next door to Beryl and they had been friends for as long as they could remember. They had started School together and had been together ever since. Apart from a few squabbles and tiffs, they had always been at each other’s side, having fun and doing things together. Then, Amy’s Dad got a job many miles away and he and Mrs. Roberts had decided that they would have to move. Amy had moved away at Easter and a summer had never been as lonely as the one that Beryl had just experienced. She got on well with most people at school but the closeness that she had shared with Amy was missing. She felt empty as though a part of her had been lost for good.

Beryl had been pleased when the summer holidays were ending. At least there would be the noise and activity back at school. Even so, she realised that it wouldn’t be quite the same without Amy. Sadly, things turned out to be much worse than she had imagined. She felt left out of things and it was this feeling of loneliness that seemed to encourage the attention of Piggy and Slugs.

It had started with a bit of aggro in the classroom. Some of her schoolwork had gone missing. Then, Piggy and Slugs had started waiting for her after school, calling names and, more recently, throwing things at her. Others, who might have become friends, kept away to avoid being picked on themselves.

Her mother, realising that something was wrong had asked Beryl about it, but Beryl had said nothing. What was the use? The last thing she wanted was her mother dragging her