Christine gave a shriek and darted forward to catch her friend as Beverley stumbled on the uneven flagstones beneath their feet and knocked her chin on the parapet.
“I bit my rotten tongue,” said Beverley indistinctly. A trickle of blood ran down her chin. “Have you got a hanky?”
“It’s gone on your collar,” said Christine dolefully, dabbing the blood away.
“Never mind,” said Beverley, smearing her mouth with the back of her hand. “Did it work?”
They peered over the parapet. The gargoyle sat hunched up below them, as disappointingly stony as ever, staring out over the distant hills just as it had done for the past six hundred years.
“Mr. Morris said it was only a story,” said Christine, heaving a sigh. “Oh well. Come on, let’s go.”
“Just a minute,” said Beverley. “See that?” she pointed to a dark splash that lay like a tear on the gargoyle’s gritty cheek. “That’s blood, look, my blood.” She smiled proudly, then stiffened with excitement as her eyes roamed past the statue to the road below. “Hey, there’s an ice cream van down there! Come on!”
The two girls ran like lightning for the door and within a moment the tower roof was empty and the gargoyle was left alone again to its silent vigil.
That night Christine’s mother asked Mrs. Riley if Beverley could stay overnight at their home. Mrs. Lee was working part of a night shift at the local factory until midnight. Christine’s grandmother, who lived with them, had been called away unexpectedly to visit a sick relative and her father was working in Scotland for a few weeks.
Beverley and Christine were delighted with the arrangement.
“Now don’t start fooling about just because you’re on your own tonight,” said Mrs. Lee, tying on her headscarf. “You’ve got the phone number of the factory, so ring me if anything happens. If Kevin wakes up you can bring him downstairs with you to watch television. Keep the fireguard up. There’s tea in the flask so you won’t have to boil the kettle or touch the oven, and there’s orange juice in the fridge. Don’t eat all the biscuits. Put the chain on the door when I go out and don’t open up for anyone but me. Mrs. Nelson next door is keeping an eye on you. If you aren’t both in bed by the time I get home there’ll be trouble. Give me a kiss now, there’s a good girl. And remember, Beverley, no messing about.”
The front door eventually closed behind Mrs. Lee.
“Goodbye Mum!” shouted Christine as the footsteps faded down the path, waving as if her mother could see her through the door. Beverley was already in the kitchen, opening the fridge.
They brought a tray loaded with orange juice, biscuits and cheese and sat nibbling in front of the fire, watching TV. During the first hour they went upstairs at ten minute intervals to check that Kevin was still asleep in his cot. He was, though Christine suffered from fears that he had stopped breathing and kept creeping forward to listen. They went into Mrs. Lee’s bedroom to try on some of her dresses, then got ready for bed and came back downstairs to bank up the fire. It was while Beverley was lifting the scuttle to hurl coal on the fire that they heard a kind of rumbling noise outside.
“What’s that?” Christine, terrified, clutched Beverley’s nightgown.
The noise came again, heavy crunching thuds as if someone were trying to climb the coal pile beneath the kitchen window outside.
“A burglar! Is the back door locked?” hissed Beverley.
“Yes. Oh Mum. I’m scared,” whimpered Christine, ready to cry. Beverley did not feel very brave herself but she wanted to be sure it wasn’t just boys fooling around before they phoned Mrs. Lee. After all, it was only half past eight; it was barely dark.
“I’m going to peep out of the back window,” she said.
Together they crept into the kitchen, and Christine trembled while Beverley hauled herself up on to the draining board to peer cautiously into the dark back yard. At first she could see nothing, but as her eyes became used to the dusk she gradually made out the coal pile, the clothes line, Kevin’s little car, and two dustbins.
Two dustbins?
“Chris,” Beverley whispered, “how many dustbins have you got?”
“One,” answered her friend in surprise.
Suddenly, what Beverley had taken for a second dustbin stirred at the sound of voices and shuffled awkwardly towards the window.
“Oh no,” said Beverley in horror. “Oh no.”
“What is it? I’m fetching the police,” cried Christine, backing away.
“You can’t call the police,” said Beverley. She turned round, her eyes big as saucers. “Chris, it’s the gargoyle.”
They stared at each other in panic, each thinking the same thing; whoever they called to help them would want to know what the gargoyle was doing there in the first place, and who had brought it . . .
“I don’t understand,” Beverley muttered. “It didn’t come alive at first. Why is it here now?”
Christine thought deeply for a moment and came up with the correct solution.
“It’s gone dark,” she said. “The spell only works while it’s dark. That’s why it didn’t wake up before now.”
Outside the kitchen window the gargoyle shuffled impatiently.
“But what does it want?” cried Beverley. “I didn’t tell it to come here!” On impulse, she tried a command. “Gargoyle! Go back!”
The gargoyle evidently took things literally. It began striding clumsily but firmly backwards, and if Beverley had not yelled “Stop!” it would undoubtedly have smashed clean through the wall and into the alley. One thing was obvious, however; it would do anything she said. She jumped down from the draining board and began to unbolt the back door.
“Don’t let it in!” yelped Christine. “Tell it to go home!”
“I just tried that, didn’t I?” snapped Beverley. “It nearly knocked the wall down!”
“Perhaps you didn’t say it right,” suggested Christine as Beverley opened the door. “Try saying, Gargoyle, go back to the church tower. In Church Milton. Cheshire,” she added as an afterthought.
“Gargoyle,” began Beverley in a quavering voice. Immediately the thing clumped forward and Beverley forgot to be brave and fled panic-stricken into the house with Christine almost trampling her down from behind. The stone monster followed them patiently, plodding across the kitchen lino and crushing the dog’s food bowl into a shapeless lump.
The two frightened girls backed into a corner of the living-room. There was a crash as the gargoyle knocked a geranium off the hall table, then it appeared in the doorway. As it entered the light the girls had their first good look at it.
The gargoyle was still stone-skinned and even had bird droppings in its carved hair, but the face had changed. The tongue was drawn back into its mouth, and although it was still amazingly hideous it had a more normal appearance. It was even grinning slightly, as if it was enjoying its trip down from the tower after all those centuries of stillness. Its bulging eyes rolled slyly round the room until it caught sight of the girls huddled in the corner, and then it lumbered across the carpet towards them.
“Stop!” yelled Beverley desperately. The gargoyle halted with one foot planted in the middle of the tray which had been lying in front of the fire. A puddle of orange juice, biscuit crumbs and broken glass slowly formed on the rug. “Oh, why don’t you go home?” said Beverley. “Can’t you speak?”