The Curse of the Pony Vampires

Babette Cole's The Curse of the Pony Vampires is a silly, spooky pony school adventure for 8 year olds about a flock of very smelly bats and two school inspections that simply have to go well.

What happens

Penny is back at Fetlocks Hall with Patch, her brown and white pony. She can talk to him now, and the two of them can fly! So this isn't their first adventure together.

One sunny morning the King of the Unicorns steps out of a whirl of apple blossom with a warning. Despot Dragontail, the nasty king of the Devlipeds, has written to the school inspectors telling fibs about Fetlocks. And he's cursed the place with some "batty" friends.

Sure enough, there's a flock of pony vampires hanging upside down in the Fitznicely family tomb in the woods. They're the size of big dogs, their breath is revolting and their droppings are orange (LOTS of droppings). If they wake up and bite the ponies, the ponies will turn into vampires too.

Penny's best hope is Uncle Faustus. He's a sort of vampire himself, a Veggipire who lives on blood-orange juice, keeps pet wolves that love a tummy tickle and has no reflection in the mirror. The trouble is that his ghostly relatives up at the Hall have ignored his family for hundreds of years.

Meanwhile the whole school has to swot up before a surprise visit from the exam inspector, and the Health and Safety inspectors are due the very next day. Who works out when they're coming? Gig, the school's computer whizz, who simply hacks into the inspectors' computer (which the book treats as a very clever idea!).

It's daft in the best way. The inspectors are Dr Swottworm and Mr Snoop, the headmistress gets a polo ball in her mug of tea, and the Veggipire children want to join the new polo team. There's plenty of real pony detail too, like Penny explaining the rules of polo to Patch in their own language.

The vampire bats do feed on blood, and Penny peers through a window at a dinner table where a jug of what looks like blood is being poured into goblets. It's played for giggles rather than scares (it's squeezed fruit juice, as it happens). Readers who like a bit of spooky fun will be fine, but a child who hates bats and blood might wince.

What to read next

If they'd like more trouble at Fetlocks Hall, The Ghostly Blinkers finds the school in a very different kind of fix, with bills it can't pay.