Tom is hard-pressed to behave normally around his parents and at school when his Invisible Friend Grey Arthur places an ad in the ghostly Daily Tell-Tale for ghosts who want to become invisible allies to human children. Tom’s house is suddenly home to a sampling of ectoplasmic personalities: one chilling Screamer, one dramatic Thesper, one imitative Faintly Real and one sock-stealing Poltergeist. The latter arrives with a collection of Tom’s stray socks from babyhood on. Just as Grey Arthur’s school for ghosts gets underway, the news that supernatural beings from around Britain are disappearing draws Tom and his companions into a spine-chilling mystery. Arnold’s catalogue of ghostly behaviors is fascinating and rings with authority, while her humor is broad enough to weaken the solemnity surrounding contemplation of these spooky beings. A few allusions to an earlier story are unexplained, but this won’t bother those new to the series. Tom and his ghostly companions travel through ley-lines by way of the switching station at Stonehenge—a nice detail among many in this reasonably complete otherworld. Light and likable. (Fiction. 9-12)
