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    Araminta Spook: Gargoyle Hall
    Araminta Spook: Gargoyle Hall
    Araminta Spook: Gargoyle Hall
    Ebook161 pages2 hours

    Araminta Spook: Gargoyle Hall

    By Angie Sage and John Kelly

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When Araminta throws cold water over her best friend, Wanda, to disperse a crowd of panicked bats, it's decided Araminta has been 'helpful' one too many times, and she is packed off to boarding school. On arrival, Araminta is surprised to discover that Gargoyle Hall makes her home, Spook House, seems positively cosy. Strange moans and clanks echo down the corridors and the two head girls are equally creepy. Most of the other pupils have been scared away, but Araminta senses that something – or someone – is behind the menace.

    With the help of best friend Wanda and Uncle Drac's prize bat, she is going to do something about it!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 5, 2014
    ISBN9781408851296
    Araminta Spook: Gargoyle Hall
    Author

    Angie Sage

    ANGIE SAGE was born in London and grew up in the Thames Valley, London, and Kent. She loves the sea, spooky old houses, and time traveling (the easy way, by reading history books). Angie has created many books for children, including the New York Times bestselling series Septimus Heap and Araminta Spookie. She lives in England. Visit her online at www.angiesage.com and on Twitter @AngieSageAuthor.

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    Reviews for Araminta Spook

    4.5/5

    8 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Very quick read. Enjoyed it just as much as I have enjoyed the other Araminta spookie books
    • 5/5
      Gargoyle Hall: An Araminta Spookie Adventure by Angie Sage is a children's chapter book. It is the sixth in the series as after finishing it, I will definitely be looking for the rest for the family and school library.

      Araminta Spookie is a unique girl with a very special family. Uncle Drac keeps bats, there are three ghosts in the house, a knight, his page and his dog, two other aunts, her best friend and partner in the detective agency Wanda and her parents. Unfortunately, Araminta seems to be always getting in trouble, but it is not usually her fault. When a great aunt comes to visit it is decided that Araminta has had problems one too many times, so her family decides to send her to boarding school. On arrival, Araminta is surprised to discover that her best friend has stowed away in her trunk. She also meets up with the only other two students, sisters that she calls the Vultures. Strange noises echo down the halls at night and when Araminta and Wanda get up in the morning, they discover that Ms. Gargoyle is indisposed for the day. They get locked in the basement, but with the help of Araminta's cousin, and the ghosts from home, they find out who is causing the problems in the school and what has scared away the rest of the students.

      The writing is accessible to reluctant readers and avid readers alike and has a good mix of humour and spookiness to keep everyone entertained. Araminta is a strong willed, and slightly odd, young lady with good intentions. She is always trying to be helpful, but the majority of the time her 'help' causes more difficulty and chaos than expected. The series is illustrated by Jimmy Pickering with black and white artwork that adds to the story just enough to keep you entertained. The story has enough adventure to entertain reluctant readers that need high action books to hold their interest and for those that love a touch of the spooky.

      I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

    Book preview

    Araminta Spook - Angie Sage

    When I grow up, I want to be a detective and solve Mysteries. To get into training I have set up Spook’s Detective Agency. I am Chief Detective and my friend, Wanda Wizzard, is my sidekick. This means Wanda helps out in the detective agency and sometimes goes on Mystery-solving expeditions with me. Well, that is the idea, anyway.

    Running a detective agency is not easy, because first you need a Mystery to solve. In films and books, people go to a detective agency and ask them to solve a Mystery. But no one has come to Spook’s Detective Agency and asked it to solve anything yet. I don’t know why. So I have to find my own Mysteries to solve. Weeks can go by without any kind of Mystery and then, just like buses, a whole load of Mysteries arrive at once. This is what happened recently. The first to arrive was The Mystery of Uncle Drac’s Travelling Sleeping Bag.

    It all began after my uncle Drac came back from his holiday to see the giant bats of Transylvania. Suddenly he started acting strangely. Of course, most people would think that Uncle Drac acted strangely before he went on holiday. That is probably because Uncle Drac has a turret full of bats, where he sleeps in a flowery sleeping bag, which hangs from the rafters at the very top of the turret. I don’t think that many uncles do that. Well, not in a flowery sleeping bag anyway.

    Before he went on holiday, Uncle Drac used to spend all day happily sleeping in the bat turret surrounded by his bats. But when he came back from holiday that changed. He began to hang around the house—and when I say hang around, I mean it literally. One day I found him in his sleeping bag hanging behind the door of the ghost-in-the-bath-bathroom, the next day he was hanging from the balustrades on the top landing, and the day after that, I tripped over him because his sleeping bag had fallen off the coat hooks by the front door. It was very unsettling. I never knew where Uncle Drac would turn up next.

    When I told my sidekick about The Mystery of Uncle Drac’s Travelling Sleeping Bag, she did not look impressed. She said, But, Araminta, why don’t we just ask Uncle Drac why he isn’t sleeping in the bat turret any more?

    I sighed. Look, Wanda, I said. "A detective can’t go around asking people why they are doing mysterious things."

    Why not? Wanda asked.

    Because people would tell them the answers and then there wouldn’t be any Mysteries to solve, would there? So then there wouldn’t be any detectives.

    But later on, when I found Uncle Drac in his sleeping bag in the boiler room, I decided to take my sidekick’s advice and ask him why he was not sleeping in the bat turret any more.

    Uncle Drac groaned when I prodded him awake, and he poked his head up over the top of the sleeping bag. Wherrrsit, Minty? he mumbled. Uncle Drac always calls me Minty, which I really like.

    Uncle Drac, why aren’t you sleeping in the bat turret any more? I asked.

    Uncle Drac groaned and said, "Don’t ask, Minty. Just don’t."

    "But I just did ask, Uncle Drac," I said.

    I know you did, said Uncle Drac. And I would rather not say, if you don’t mind. Then he slid back down into the sleeping bag. As I was walking out of the boiler room, Uncle Drac popped his head up again. Minty … he said.

    Aha, I thought. This is what always happens. As the detective walks away, the suspect has second thoughts and calls her back to confess all. Not that Uncle Drac was a suspect—well, not at that point, anyway.

    Yes, Uncle Drac? I said nonchalantly. Being nonchalant is what you have to do a lot of when you are a detective. It means behaving as if you are not really bothered about something, even if you are. It is a very good way of getting people to tell you things. However, it didn’t work this time.

    "Do not go into the bat turret," Uncle Drac said.

    Oh. Why not, Uncle Drac? I asked, looking up at the ceiling at some spiders’ webs so that it seemed like I was still being nonchalant.

    Because I say so, said Uncle Drac sounding rather grumpy. And that goes for Wanda too.

    All right, Uncle Drac, I said, and I ran off to find my sidekick. I wanted to tell her that we now had another Mystery to solve—The Mystery of the Forbidden Bat Turret.

    But even that Mystery did not interest my sidekick. All she said was, "But, Araminta, you know we are not allowed in the bat turret. It is dangerous in there."

    Wanda does not like the bat turret. This is because Uncle Drac has taken all the floors out to give his bats lots of space to fly around. This means that when you climb in through the little red door at the top of the turret you look straight down to the very bottom, which is covered with bat poo. Wanda is afraid of falling all the way down, even though I think it would be quite a soft landing really as the bat poo is very thick. But Wanda does not like bat poo.

    Even though Wanda can be very boring about bats and turrets and bat poo, she is my best friend (most of the time). Wanda lives in Spook House with me and we share our bedrooms. We have a bedroom for every day of the week, which is fun.

    There are other people in Spook House too: Wanda’s mum and dad, Brenda and Barry Wizzard, and also Pusskins, Brenda’s smelly old cat (who is not a person, even though Brenda seems to think she is). There is my uncle Drac, who you have already met. Then there is my aunt Tabby, and you are lucky not to have met her yet; but you will, because no one escapes Aunt Tabby for very long.

    The best thing about Spook House is the ghosts. We have three. We have a ghost in armour called Sir Horace, his faithful hound called Fang and his weedy page called Edmund.

    As I said, once you have one Mystery, lots more start coming along. The next one arrived that evening—it was The Mystery of the Terrified Bats. It all began when I was downstairs in the hall playing with Fang, Sir Horace’s ghostly hound. In Spook House there is a very big entrance hall. It has a wide flight of stairs with a bannister that is really fun to slide down, it has lots of doors that go off into other rooms, a huge clock, some funny old chairs all around the walls and a lot of weird stuffed animals in cases that Wanda’s mum, Brenda, has started collecting. Most of the animals are cats wearing clothes. They are actually quite creepy, but I always look in the cases because I hope that one day I will see Pusskins in there too. I don’t think Aunt Tabby likes the stuffed cats either, because she does not even go near them with her duster, which means there are a lot of lovely spiders’ webs all over them.

    Fang was running to catch a ball—which he never can because he is a ghost—when the doorbell rang and kept on ringing, because our doorbell gets stuck. Aunt Tabby came scooting out of one of the doors to answer it. She pulled open the front door, banged the doorbell hard to make it stop and then said, Oh! She did not sound pleased. But I soon knew why, because the next thing she said was, Come in, Emilene. What a surprise.

    Bother, I thought. It was Great-aunt Emilene, Uncle Drac’s mother. Great-aunt Emilene is scary—even Aunt Tabby is a little bit scared of her. She always wears a long black coat and has a double-ended ferret around her neck. A double-ended ferret is actually two ferrets stitched together to make a kind of creepy ferret-scarf. It means that when you look at Aunt Emilene, two dead little ferret faces with glassy eyes stare back at you.

    Are you staying long? Aunt Tabby asked Great-aunt Emilene.

    Great-aunt Emilene sniffed, rather like Wanda does. And then she said, For as long as it takes, Tabitha.

    As long as what takes? I wanted to ask, and I think Aunt Tabby did too. But neither of us said anything.

    Great-aunt Emilene strode in and stopped beside me and Fang—who she can’t see because she does not believe in ghosts. So all she saw was me rolling the ball and then running to pick it up by myself. It is very sad, Great-aunt Emilene said to Aunt Tabby.

    What is very sad? Aunt Tabby asked suspiciously.

    That an excitable child like Araminta should be always playing on her own like this. It will lead to all kinds of trouble, mark my words. And then she swept off towards the big smart room that Aunt Tabby keeps (fairly) clean for guests to go into.

    Aunt Tabby did not look pleased. But she has Wanda to play with, I heard her say as she hurried after my great-aunt.

    Wanda. Huh! I heard Great-aunt Emilene say with another sniff as the door closed behind them.

    I listened at the door a bit but could

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