Sophie Spirit and the Perilous Plot at Chedham High: Sophie Spirit, #3

By Sam Scott

Sophie, now almost fourteen, has enrolled in school full-time, and Humphrey has left to attend his boarding school in London, which leads Sophie to make new friends.

On hearing an old folk tale, Sophie investigates the school bell tower only to discover a ghostly monk named Erig, who warns of a perilous plot at the school.

Suddenly, Sophie and her friends are drawn into another spooky adventure. Although, unable to handle the situation on their own, they call upon 'The Forest Knights of Suffolk' for assistance.

Join Sophie in her final and most dangerous adventure yet. Will she, along with the knights, be successful in their mission to save the school ... ?

And will Sophie survive the impending danger ... ?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanhope Books
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781909893580

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Copyright © Sam Scott 2023

All rights reserved

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner

The right of Sam Scott to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This Edition Published by Stanhope Books, Hertfordshire, UK 2023

www.stanhopebooks.com

Cover format by Lewis Brown © 2023

Cover design and illustrations by James Tiffin © 2023

ISBN-13: 978-1-909893-58-0

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For

Pip  Dan

&  &

Cat  Cait

May true love be with you always.

Sam

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CONTENTS

Chapter One

Paragraph Squiggle with solid fill Life Without Humphrey

Chapter Two

Paragraph Squiggle with solid fill High School 101

Chapter Three

The Bell Tower

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Chapter Four

Discovering Erig

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Chapter Five

Four Forests

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Chapter Six

Accidents Will Happen

Chapter Seven

Paragraph Squiggle with solid fill Poor Mr Veraley

Chapter Eight

Sophie’s Detective Agency

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Chapter Nine

The Evoking Ceremony

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Chapter Ten

The Forests Knights of Suffolk

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Chapter Eleven

My Greatest Discovery

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Chapter Twelve

Battling Mr Abaddon

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Chapter Thirteen

The Best Day Ever

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CHAPTER ONE

Life Without Humphrey

As I lay on my bed watching the first of the early autumn leaves fall to the ground from my window, I shivered as a chill ran over me.  If I had let my suspicious mind run wild, I might have thought that a supernatural presence may be about to enter my room but since the day we had moved to our homely, pretty cottage on the green no such incident had occurred.  Hauntings were non-existent - some might say, thankfully - and life in Great Batting was ticking along in exactly the same way as it always had.

There had been changes.  Of course, there had - and the biggest one was the loss of my best friend, Humphrey.  Goodness, he hadn’t died or anything.  He had finally gone off to live his life in London, attending Westminster Boarding School, and having a ball by all accounts.  He had left a month ago on the thirtieth of August which gave him the weekend to find his feet before the term started.  He had been very nervous about it, although after his trip to the open day earlier in the summer he had kept in touch with a couple of the boys that he had met from the house he had been placed in, which gave him a little reassurance, and according to his letter, which he sent to me after just five days there, he was loving every second of it.  He had made many new friends, was enjoying the lessons and all the sport, and said he hadn’t really had time to even think about Great Batting and home.

That, sadly, was not what I had wanted to hear.  Yes, I was happy he was happy, but I missed him terribly, and I knew from his parents that Bella was missing him too.  We’d had an incredible summer and suddenly with him gone there was a huge hole in my life.  He would, however, return for five weeks at Christmas for the holidays and I would cling to that, and thankfully the hole, I’m glad to say, was very short lived as I now had a new friend in my life.  Arianne Templeton had moved into Old Oak Farm just before the start of the new school year and we hit it off immediately.  It had been a very quick move as they had already sold their house and were in rented accommodation when they viewed Old Oak Farm and, as Aunt Hilda was already set at the post office, the swap happened in record time. The fact that I had also lived, however briefly, at Old Oak Farm gave us something in common.  She too had moved from London with her parents and four cats and was in the same school year as me.  I had not seen much of her socially when she had first arrived as she and her mum were busy getting the house straight and they seemed to have an endless stream of relations visiting.  Yet, by a couple of weeks into the new term, we were both happily getting settled at Chedham High.

Before that though, during the summer holidays, I had visited Batting Manor on several occasions and Mrs Webster had done her best to prepare Humphrey for his education at Westminster and me for life as a deaf student in a comprehensive school, although most of the time we played games and walked our dogs as Mrs Webster had taken on a new role at the manor and was spending a couple of hours each day finding her feet with that.  A role that, from August, became her new life as her full-time tutoring had come to an end.  She had been with the Beaumonts for as long as anyone could remember, and it would have been such a wrench to them all if she’d had to seek employment elsewhere.

Thankfully, due in part to my dad, that did not happen.  Dad had unexpectedly been promoted to branch manager of his bank when the old manager decided to take early retirement, which was wonderful for us as the extra income allowed Mum to work fewer hours in the store and post office.  More importantly than that, he had been able to help Lord and Lady Beaumont arrange a low interest mortgage and with the money, the builders that had re-built Lady Beaumont’s tearoom in the spring, built a specialist menage next to the manor stable block, which allowed Lord and Lady Beaumont to offer horse riding lessons to deaf and blind children.

The opening of the facility, the week before Humphrey left for London, had been the greatest thrill for Lady Beaumont especially, as it gave her something to focus on with her son away and it allowed His Lordship and Her Ladyship to keep Mrs Webster on after all her years of service to the family.  She had agreed to take care of the day to day running and organisation, taking bookings, managing the staff and greeting the children and their parents.  Two new riding instructors had been taken on too and between them the place ran like clockwork and in the few weeks it had been open, it was already proving a huge success with riders making bookings from all over Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex.  So much so that Lord Beaumont and my dad were already in talks to increase the mortgage with the hope of building accommodation so that families could stay over and make a holiday of their visits from the following summer.

Not only that, but the other new addition to our village had also made his mark and immediately began helping out at both the stables and village shop.  Mr Franklyn had arrived around the same time as the Templetons, having sold the old town house in London in a couple of weeks after Humphrey’s and my escapade at the Tower of London just two months before.  He left the sale in the hands of the solicitors and moved into a section of the apartment behind and above the store and post office.  He had his own bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor, as did Aunt Hilda on the first floor, and they shared a kitchen and lounge.

He had proved an immediate hit with Aunt Hilda as he had with Lord and Lady Beaumont and Mrs Webster, and in both jobs he was helpful and enthusiastic.  He had never looked better and, apart from the occasional stutter, had recovered fully from his stroke earlier in the summer and it seemed the country air was better medicine than any of us had ever dreamed possible.  It was wonderful to have him around and the relationship that I’d had with him before we left London was now back on track and I was happier than ever to have my grandfather figure back in my life on a permanent basis. 

It was not just with Mr Franklyn that the riding school proved a huge success in giving a new lease of life, but for everyone in Great Batting as well.  It was also a lot of fun for Arianne and me: we helped to feed and muck out the horses on weekends.  Bonnie often came with me too and seeing Humphrey’s parents and Mrs Webster made me feel closer to him.  Before he left he had been so excited when the facility opened, and he bragged that as well as telling his new friends he lived in a haunted house he would take pleasure in telling them about the riding school too.

In Humphrey’s absence, my new friend, Arianne, was proving a lot of fun to be around.  She had come from Finsbury Park, which was just a few miles north of where I had lived in Farringdon and had moved when her grandmother died and left a large inheritance to her father.  It had always been their dream to live in the country and the windfall had provided the funds to do just that.

She was a few months younger than me, with her birthday at the beginning of August, and her parents had given her a belated riding party at the manor stables with her family and friends who came to visit from London.  It was a fun afternoon, and they were all overwhelmed at the grandeur of the place.

We had only known each other a month but when we got together it was mostly at my house on the green, as I found it rather peculiar going into Old Oak Farm these days.  I had told Arianne a little of what had happened to Humphrey and me the year before, giving mostly details of what occurred at the manor not wanting to upset her too much, and as she had now made the bedroom that used to be mine her own, the whole situation seemed a little surreal.  She also had four cats living at her home that she and her parents were very fond of and as I had quickly discovered I had developed an allergy to cat fur, it provided the perfect excuse for me not to spend too much time there.

Aside from the difference over our preference of pets - hers for cats and mine for dogs -  we had many other things in common.  As a couple of thirteen year old girls, we suddenly discovered a love of pop music, make-up and fashion.  We shared clothes and gave each other make-overs and spent hours listening to the bands that we liked.  Then, of course, we had the bus ride to school in common too, and for the last three weeks the two of us had shared the bus journey together every morning and afternoon.

I awoke on the morning of Monday the ninth of September 2013 filled with a sense of excitement.  I was awake and dressed even before my dad and managed to get some toast inside me between the bouts of smiles and giggles.  I had been attending the school since the beginning of the year one day a week but now the prospect of attending full time was the most thrilling moment of my life.  For about ten years I had been home tutored between hospital visits and now finally my life was about to change.  For the next five years, until I applied for university, I would live life the same as every other normal child.  A life I had longed for and suddenly it was happening.  I had always considered myself to be normal Sophie Spirit, and this proved it.  I had been fortunate to have the years of tutoring from both Mr Franklyn and Mrs Webster, but nothing would give me greater pleasure than being accepted and included, even if I was deaf, in a mainstream school full-time.

Now I was three weeks in and loving every minute of it.  As well as Arianne, I had made a few friends and all the teachers seemed pleasant.  I still worked with Mrs Robertson one afternoon a week and my year nine form tutor, Miss Speck was incredibly sweet.  All in all I had settled beautifully and was finding my feet much easier than I could have ever imagined.  Life was calm and joyous, and I hoped it stayed that way.

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CHAPTER TWO

High School 101

So, here I was three weeks in and what had I learnt about attending a comprehensive school all day, every day, Monday to Friday?  The basic answer ... that it is nothing at all like being home tutored.  School starts at eight forty-five in the morning and finishes at three thirty in the afternoon.  That means, with the bus journey of half an hour in each direction, my day out of the house is almost eight hours – much longer than the five hours I have grown used to at the manor and much more tiring.

With the exception of our driver, Bob, the empty school bus collects me on the opposite side of the green just in front of the duck pond at ten past eight in the morning.  Once on board I am the first of five passengers who are collected en route to Chedham High School.  I