Wail of the Banshee Read Free Page B

he pulled a strange looking book from the back pocket of his jeans. It had a silver cover, with the raised image of a man’s face on the front. It was called
Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street
.
    But Luke didn’t open the book and flick through the pages to find what he wanted. Instead, he spoke to the face on the cover. “Mr Skipstone,” he said, “we need your help. Do you know anything about Calm Balm?”
    The face opened its eyes and blinked. “What’s that you say? Calm Balm?”
    I almost laughed. These kids had a talking book! With all the things I’d seen so far today, I don’t know why I was even surprised.
    The man’s eyes swivelled towards me and his silver features broke into a smile. “Hello there!” he said. Always nice to see a new face.”
    “Same here!” I grinned.
    “This is our new friend, Jamie,” said Luke.
    “And this is the famous author, Samuel Skipstone,” said Resus. “He’s a book now.”
    “He wasn’t always a book, though – he used to be a werewolf,” said Cleo.
    “Cool!” I replied. This place was getting better and better by the minute.
    “So, you want to know about Calm Balm?” asked Mr Skipstone.
    “Yes please,” said Luke. “Favel’s got a bad toothache, and—”
    “AAAYYYOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!”
    Clamping our hands to our ears, we quickly moved away from the house and hurried along the street until we reached some kind of town square.
    Luke addressed the book once more. “Dr Skully says Calm Balm is the only anaesthetic that will work on banshees,” he said.
    “Very true,” Mr Skipstone confirmed. “And I presume he also told you that it was banned after several cases of misuse?”
    Cleo nodded. “He said the goblins were using it.”
    Feeling rather strange that I was about to talk to a book, I took a step closer. “I don’t suppose you know what the ingredients are, do you?” I asked. “We wondered if we could make some. Just enough to help Favel, of course.”
    Samuel Skipstone smiled. “A worthy idea! Now, let me see…” The front cover opened, and the yellowing, handwritten pages began to turn. “Aha! Here it is!”
    The page showed an advertisement for Calm Balm. The ad featured a drawing of what looked like a toothpaste tube, complete with the slogan “When you want to feel nothing at all!”
    “That looks like it,” said Cleo.
    “And here’s the formula!” exclaimed Luke, reading through some scribbled notes beneath the advert. “It says there are three ingredients…”
    “Just three?” said Resus. “That’s not too bad.”
    “It depends how difficult they are to get hold of,” Cleo pointed out.
    Luke read the list out loud: “We need two teaspoons of griffin sweat, one drop of cleaver-tree sap, and three tablespoons of anti-honey.”
    “Anti-honey?” repeated Cleo. “What’s anti-honey?”
    “No idea,” admitted Resus. “But I’ve got an Auntie Wartcream. She’s in an old vampires’ home now. Her fangs fell out years ago and she has to drink her blood through a straw.”
    Luke closed the book. “Mr Skipstone,” he said. “What’s anti-honey, and where can we get some?”
    “Anti-honey is, as the name suggests, the scientific opposite of honey,” explained the author. “As for where you can obtain some – I would suggest that depends on whether young Master Negative here can locate a bottle of spinal fluid within his wondrous cape…”
    Resus plunged his hand into his cloak and fumbled around for a few seconds before producing what appeared to be a dusty bottle of wine – only the liquid inside was a shimmering white. “1783,” he read from the label. “Let’s hope it was a good year!”
    A few minutes later,
Skipstone’s Tales of Scream Street
was back in Luke’s pocket and we were standing at the door of number 28 Scream Street. I raised my hand to knock, but Luke stopped me. “No good doing that,” he said. “He won’t be in there.”
    I frowned. “If no one’s home, then why are we