The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale Read Free Page A

Hilbert. “No response.”
    “Just like the rest.”
    “Indeed.”
    Slowly, the image of the girl began to fade, until finally there was only a hint of vapor to indicate that she had ever been thereat all, If, in fact, she had ever been there at all. Oh, she was certainly somewhere, of that Professor Hilbert was sure. He just wasn’t convinced that the somewhere in question was a laboratory in twenty-first-century Biddlecombe.
    Brian had managed to struggle to his feet, and was now picking pieces of Jammie Dodger from his hair. He stared at the corner where the girl had been.
    “I thought I saw a ghost,” he said.
    “Yes,” said Professor Hilbert. “Well done, you. And on only your second day, too. You can’t go around fainting every time you see one, though. You’ll end up on the floor more often than you’re upright if you do.”
    “But it was a ghost .”
    “Just make a note of it, there’s a good chap. See that big hard-backed notebook on the desk over there?” He pointed to a massive black volume, bound in leather. “That’s our record of ‘ghost sightings.’ Write down the time it began, the time it ended, what you saw, then sign it. Professor Stefan and I will add our initials when you’re done. To save yourself some time, just turn straight to page two hundred and seventy-six. That’s the page we’re on now, I think.”
    Brian looked like he might faint again.
    “Page two hundred and seventy-six? You mean that you’ve filled two hundred and seventy-five other pages with ghost sightings?”
    Professor Hilbert laughed. Even Professor Stefan joined in, although he was still disturbed at the loss of so many perfectly good Jammie Dodgers.
    “Two hundred and seventy-five pages!” said Professor Stefan. “Young people and their ideas, eh?”
    “Two hundred and seventy-five pages!” said Professor Hilbert. “Dear oh dear, where do we get these kids from? No, Brian, that would just be silly.”
    He wiped a tear of mirth from his eye with a handkerchief.
    “That’s volume three,” he explained. “We’ve filled one thousand two hundred and seventy-five pages with ghost sightings.”
    At which point Brian fell over again. When he eventually recovered himself, he added the sighting to the book, just as he had been told. He noted down everything he had seen, including the hint of black vapor that had hung in the air like smoke after the ghost had disappeared. Had Professors Hilbert and Stefan taken the time to read Brian’s note, they might have found that black vapor very odd.
    • • •
    Outside, the statue of Hilary Mould stared, solid and unmoving, at the old factory. A cloud passed over the moon, casting the statue in shadow.
    When the moon reappeared, the statue was gone.
----
    4 . For those of you reading in American instead of English, a Jammie Dodger is a popular English biscuit consisting of two pieces of shortbread with jam in the middle. And a biscuit is what you call a cookie, even though a cookie is just a cookie (a flat biscuity thing) everywhere else, and what you call a biscuit we call a scone, except we use butter and cream, and you use shortening or milk. And, while we’re on the subject, aluminium is spelled with two i ’s, not one, although actually your American spelling is arguably the more correct since that’s the one that the British inventor Humphry Davy adopted for it in 1808, although you’re still wrong about changing words ending in –re ( centre, spectre ) to –er. In fact, even words like minister, monster, and November used to be spelled with an –re at one point, so it’s no use arguing. And it’s pronounced “Wooster” sauce although it’s spelled Worcestershire. Don’t ask me why. I’m Irish.
    5 . It was, to put it simply, the stuff that made stuff stuff.
    6 . Again, if you’re reading in American, we call them “sweets” and you call them “candy.” I’m not going to argue about it as long as you let me have one of yours.
    7 . There is