
Ahhh, Baby. Now there's a strange one. The youngest ghost child and the most puzzling because nobody knows if Baby is a girl or boy and no one is foolish enough to try to find out.

 
We know that on Ravenbreath Island the children are wasting away, some faster than others. Baby's thumb had vanished several decades earlier from sucking it down to the bone!
 
In the workhouse, when the children were all alive, Baby was looked after by the Sisters who knew how to keep such an unusual child content.
Once dead the ghost children were left to copeon their own.

Fortunately Baby managed to survive quite nicely on rat and bug visera, which was good as the others abhorred those parts, perferring straight rat meat and bug antennae.
Unfortunately eating the insides of vermin affected Baby's insides in a way that made the others want to run for the nearest hill. On the plus side Baby could be used as a lethal weapon when necessary.

Baby enjoyed the other children immensely but always seemed to be lurking in the room one had to pass through so the trick was to hold one's breath, make funny faces and sing this silly ditty between gasps. Baby loved it:
Be cordial to Baby,
hum a cheery tune,
sing a merry song,
do not dawdle long,
or you will smell the pong,
carry on, carry on and be gone!'
That always left Baby giggling with glee.
  
Some of the children took more time with Baby, like Molly, Toby and Tinker. Molly would sing lullabies while Toby made up nursery tales and Tinker rocked Baby's cradle with his tentacles - extended from where they sat across the room. Baby would soon fall asleep, happy and content.

Not much bothered Baby. Baby was a survivor. Baby was Baby.

As already mentioned, Baby could cause quite a stink which was sometimes a good thing.

If you want to find out what I mean then watch Annabel's nightmare movie'The Bogey Monster of Ravensbreath Castle', if you haven't yet. It may be just Annabel's silly dream, but Baby was handy for those sorts of things and in some of the other stories of Ravensbreath Island.
 
The same could be said of young Tinker who used his tentacle fist to get the children out of jams. Many situations called for reeling out the coils and twisting them this way and that to take care of business. Saving a ghost orphan or fixing a drain pipe was all in a day's work for Tinker the fix-it boy.

There is much more to Baby's story, as with all the children and will be told in time.

Baby will haunt you forever. |