A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE
Nicki Thornton’s masterful bestseller, The Last Chance Hotel, introduced eager readers to magic, mystery, a talking cat and an intriguing world of crime and sorcery. Now, our favourite sleuth, Seth Seppi, is back in this twisty-turny adventure with some familiar faces and another absolutely terrific setting, this time at the seaside. So – whodunnit? Can you guess? I love to try!
BARRY CUNNINGHAM
Publisher
Chicken House
Contents
Part 1
1. The Prospect of Magic
2. Unfinished Business
3. A Big Mistake
Part 2
4. The New Kitchen Boy
5. Lucky If We Are Still Standing
6. The Village That Died
7. The Storm
8. Something Nasty in the Bath Tub
9. A Dreadful Accident
10. Not the Best Weather for Cats
11. Blundering About in the Dark
12. Give Up This Insane Plan
13. Measles Across the Map
14. Strange Happenings
15. Surprised I Only Lost My Whiskers Once
Part 3
16. Dreaming of Tiffany Bunn
17. The Raw Salt of the Sea
18. Bringing Up My Breakfast
19. What Did the Builders See?
20. Not Exactly Popular
21. Alone at the Top of a Lighthouse
22. Expect Something Horrible
23. Closer to Solving the Mystery
24. What Is This Place?
Part 4
25. Seriously Impressive Magic
26. Is That Even Possible?
27. Skyscrapers of Books
28. You May Never See Her Again
29. Serious Doubts About That Story
30. A Star Dropped Out of the Sky
31. Multiple Unexplained Deaths
32. I Didn’t Come Here for a Picnic
33. Do Not Alert Your Suspect
34. What’s Frightening You?
35. Darkwitching Magic
Part 5
36. Still a Long Way from the Truth
37. A Notorious Sinister Sorcerer
38. Cover Blown
39. I Didn’t Expect Her to Die
40. Pretty Big Mice
41. Causing Chaos the Whole Time
42. What If He Was Wrong?
43. A Dangerous Mix of Magic
44. We Do What All Sorcerers Do
45. Forget the Rules
46. Case Over
47. She Was Already Gone
Acknowledgements
Copyright
To Mum, thank you for starting my journey with books, and in fond memory of my very lovely Dad. You are much missed.
1. The Prospect of Magic
In the Last Chance Hotel, Seth Seppi was listening anxiously to the sounds of Mr and Mrs Bunn handing over ham and egg sandwiches to two hairy walkers who had been staying. They were offering cheery wishes for the next part of their journey.
Seth used to listen for the sounds of guests departing, just waiting for the chance to sneak into the quiet kitchen and secretly practise cooking. Cooking was his great love, learnt from his father, before his father had disappeared. But his recent discovery that he didn’t work for Mr and Mrs Bunn at all, that they had been lying to him his whole life – and that the Last Chance Hotel belonged to him – had been astonishing. Seth could still hardly take in. It had changed everything.
But then he’d lately learnt so many astonishing truths that there was no part of Seth’s life that he felt he truly understood any more.
The hairy and unexpected guests had stumbled gratefully upon the remote hotel, located in the sleepy depths of the Last Hope Forest. They had joyfully rested their blistered feet on the furniture, cheerfully left a skim of beard trimmings in the sink (accompanied by much singing), snored loudly and hadn’t stopped eating everything put in front of them, including a very smelly goat’s cheese everyone else had rejected and a Christmas pudding Seth had been trying to get rid of since last December.
And now they were gone. As he finally heard Horatio and Norrie Bunn slam the front door, Seth reached to the highest shelf to do what he now did in secret. Among the sacks of flour he had tucked a book, one with a bright pink jacket, covered in silly doodles and decorated with fluorescent lettering.
A Beginner’s Guide to Really Easy-Peasy Magic.
It was only a few weeks ago that the arrival of a group of sorcerers had turned Seth’s whole world upside down, not least because he’d narrowly avoided being arrested for murder.
Seth had discovered that magic was real, and the sorcerers had brought the tantalizing promise that he might actually be one of them – someone born with just a spark of magic. But just a spark was enough, Inspector Pewter of the magical police, MagiCon, had explained. Since then, Seth had been awaiting his promised visit, but so far the only contact he’d had from the inspector was the arrival of a small package. He’d unwrapped it eagerly to find it contained the Easy-Peasy book and a breezy note saying the inspector was unavoidably delayed and encouraging Seth to give the book a try.
Seth’s shoulders slumped and his hands were shaking as he turned the pages.
Easy-peasy magic? Really?
The terrible smell of burnt, sour milk still hung about the kitchen as a constant reminder that his magic was an utter disaster.
Putting a very small wart on the end of a nose. After trying that one his nose had swelled to the size of an onion and had taken three days to return to normal, giving Horatio Bunn the best laugh of his life every single time he saw him.
He couldn’t do this. He was never going to be able to do magic.
At least he now knew a little of his true history. The Last Chance Hotel had been passed down to him from his mother’s family, and his mother had been a sorcerer.
Unfortunately, Seth had also had to stomach the seriously bad news that she had been a notoriously sinister sorcerer. And that she was wanted in connection with a grave event that had resulted in the deaths of countless magical people.
Now, as Seth stared at the book, he knew he was going to have to confront the most difficult truth of all. He was never going to be able to master a spell and be admitted into the magical world. He was never going to grow up to be a great and learned sorcerer.
And that meant he was never going to be able to discover if all they said about his mother was true, or look into a couple of other things that were troubling him.
To do all that he just needed to be able to perfect one spell. Just one. He pushed the book away. If there was easy magic, this was not it. He put his head in his hands and groaned.
Neither Inspector Pewter, nor his other new friend in the magical world, secret magical agent Angelique Squerr, had bothered to come and help. He felt all the powerlessness of being miles from anywhere, in the worst possible position of tantalizingly knowing about the magical world, but facing up to never being part of it.
He was growing desperate. Today, he had reached the last page. He was never going to get a spell right. Had he inherited any of his mother’s magic at all?
And as he stood there alone, facing nothing but his failure, he found himself thinking something he’d promised himself he never would . . . was it possible that there might be magic he could do? Could it be that the only magic he would ever be able to master would be of the ‘wrong’ kind?
With a quick and guilty glance over his shoulder, Seth reached into a handy inside pocket of the bright-blue tunic he wore and took out a small black book. It was so old that the pages were held together with a scarlet thread. As he turned the cracked and stiff pages Seth fe
lt, as he always did, that he was meant to use this book.
It was crammed with simple family recipes, mostly. There were weird instructions for creating perfectly innocent home-made boot polish and oven cleaner. OK, so it was sprinkled with the odd spell, and Pewter and Angelique had wanted to take this book away from him because some of it was ‘disturbing’ magic. Sure, there were banned spells in here and details of dark devices and sinister ideas. Yet it felt so right, so comfortable in his hand – reading it was like being close to a trusted friend.
Just looking at the book didn’t make him some sort of sinister sorcerer, did it?
He turned to a well-worn page and found himself staring at the picture of the firefly cage, a dangerous and powerful device that terrified sorcerers.
Uncertainty and fear mixed together and crept into his stomach.
He knew he shouldn’t even be looking at this book. But it had been his mother’s notebook and the magic in it seemed to whisper to him in a reassuring voice, telling him he could rely on it. Here was a picture of someone stretching out their arms, as if beckoning something to them. For capturing, read the text alongside it. You said the words Yma nam-well. That one looked all right. That couldn’t possibly harm anyone.
The magic seemed to whisper more insistently, it seemed to be saying that in a corner of the Last Chance Hotel, in the middle of the Last Hope Forest, all alone, you may have no one to help, but there was also no one to see or care if you dabbled in just a little dark magic. Seth stretched out his fingers to give it a try.
There was a rush of cold air and a slinky black shape slunk in and wound herself around his legs, bringing in the dank and furtive smell of the forest.
Seth’s black cat, Nightshade, was shimmying in from troubling the local wildlife. Seth hurriedly shoved the forbidden book back under his bright-blue tunic and tried to look at Nightshade with innocent eyes
‘Can’t leave you alone for a minute!’ she cried, nudging at him with her pink nose. It was the only part of her that wasn’t a glossy black. ‘Let’s see you do some tricks. Clean ones.’ She leapt onto the worktop and clawed the bright cover of Easy-Peasy Magic closer.
Not for the first time, Seth wondered if it was really such a great thing that he had discovered his cat could talk. Most of the time she relayed stories of the bloodthirsty battles she had with her sworn enemies – the crows that circled endlessly above the hotel – but now and again she would break off from those to scold him. She fixed him challengingly with her big green eyes.
‘I need a spell, Nightshade. Angelique explained it all to me. To join the magical world – the Elysee – you have to pass the Prospect. And to do that, you have to prove that you have the spark of magic inside you by demonstrating one spell done well. That’s all I need. Then I’ve got a chance to find things out.’
Nightshade moved so close her green eyes bored straight into his. ‘This isn’t the way, Seth.’
‘But—’
‘What about spoons?’ Nightshade clawed her way to the last page of the bright-pink volume. ‘I mean, spoons – what can possibly go wrong?’
‘You said that about boiling milk,’ muttered Seth darkly.
‘Well, show me something. Otherwise I’ve got a date with a particularly evil crow called Eric, who has a foul beak dirtier than a hare’s behind. He needs teaching a lesson or two. Come on. You can do it.’
‘It does look like a simple incantation,’ muttered Seth.
They both took a shifty glance at the door to the hotel lobby, which was buckled and blistered and burnt around the edges, a relentless reminder of how every simple spell Seth tried not only failed, but led to disaster.
Nightshade took a step backwards, looking as if she wanted to put on safety goggles and a crash helmet. ‘There won’t be any blood this time, will there?’
2. Unfinished Business
Seth stood over a pan of still-hot potatoes he’d cooked earlier, now waiting to be mashed. A spoon stood amongst them. All he had to do was make that spoon move.
‘Inspector Pewter told you it would be difficult,’ said Nightshade, plonking her behind on the counter-top at a safe distance. ‘It’s not enough to want to do it, you have to believe you can do it.’
‘Pewter’s too busy hunting sinister sorcerers and murderers for MagiCon to help me. And Angelique is too busy being a glamorous top-secret magical agent, working undercover somewhere cool and dangerous,’ Seth grouched. His hands hovered over the spoon as he readied himself.
His shoulders slumped.
‘Perhaps,’ he whispered, as he stared the spoon, ‘I was better off before. I mean, it’s worse knowing about magic, but not being able to do it. I might now be the boss of the hotel, but Mr and Mrs Bunn forget all the time and they still shout at me.’
‘Come on. At least she’s gone now – she was always the worst,’ said Nightshade gently.
Seth tensed at even the thought of Tiffany Bunn – daughter of Mr and Mrs Bunn. For years he had put up with her schemes to humiliate and taunt him. He shuddered and tried to concentrate on the spell in front of him. But the words for that capturing spell from the black book were seared into his brain. Yma nam-well.
He read out the words on the page in front of him loudly and clearly, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
‘Effergy protogy noblio orgatory.’
He swirled his hands around, trying his best to do it exactly as the picture showed. It felt good, actually. He got a waft of the soupy smell of the softening potatoes.
It felt somehow very magical. But the spoon didn’t move.
He read out the words again, a bit louder this time.
And the spoon did a full slow circle of the pan. All by itself.
Nightshade moved a little closer to investigate, her whiskers almost touching the spoon. It twitched again. The tiniest slop of potato landed on her cheek. ‘Seth! You’ve done it. You’ve got one you can show at the Prospect.’ But the spoon wasn’t stopping, it was gathering speed. ‘Is it supposed to do that?’ Nightshade got a splat of soft hot potato on her nose and miaowed in protest as she shook it off. ‘I think you should make it stop now.’
A dollop of half-mashed potato flew out the pan and slapped Seth on the forehead. He felt it burn. Another sizzled past his left ear.
He grabbed the Easy-Peasy book for advice.
There was nothing between the spell and the back cover. Unbelievable. A swirl of the now well and truly mashed potato flew across the room in a graceful arc and dripped off the refrigerator like a dollop of snow.
‘There’s a page missing,’ Seth said frantically. ‘There’s nothing here about how to make it stop.’
The mashed potato was bubbling up. Soon there were dollops on the ceiling and speckling the floor. Seth could only stare at it in futile panic – nothing was springing to mind except the certain knowledge that if all his previous disasters were anything to go by, there was about to be a terrible explosion.
‘Do something!’ cried Nightshade as she flew out of the door, narrowly dodging getting a large mash splatter on her rear end.
Seth did the only thing he could think of, which didn’t involve any sort of magic.
He grabbed a towel to wrap around his head to protect himself from blistering airborne potato. Then he grabbed the saucepan and followed Nightshade out of the back door.
He ran with the pan to the edge of the forest and hurled the spoon, the saucepan and what was left of the mash under a tree. The whole lot exploded in a soft pluming firework and every leaf, every blade of grass, had a light white coating of potato, like frost on an winter morning.
‘I can’t do it!’ Seth yelled at the top of his voice to no one in particular. Not Nightshade, as she had scarpered, nor the crows whose cries sounded exactly as if they were laughing at him.
He went back to the kitchen, mopped up everything, including himself, all the while muttering fiercely. Then he filled the sink with water, got a new pile of potatoes and started to peel aga
in. Stick to what he was good at. Stick to what he knew. Put all those ridiculous dreams about magic behind him. He thumped potatoes on to the draining board.
A voice behind him made him leap about a foot in the air.
‘What ho, young Seth.’
Seth swung around and was face to face with a tall, thin man in a shiny suit, with shoulder-length silvery hair, wearing glasses and a resolutely cheerful expression.
Inspector Pewter of MagiCon, the magical police, whom Seth had been convinced, not long ago, was going to arrest him for murder. The person who had led him to believe the impossible – that Seth himself might be magical. And had then left him to discover all alone what an utter failure he was.
At least Pewter hadn’t been here a few moments earlier to witness his humiliating run into the forest, clutching a saucepan of mad potato with a towel wrapped around his head. At least it was his secret, as the last thing he wanted to do was to reveal to someone of immense and effortless magical talents like Pewter, how truly, utterly terrible he was at magic.
Seth plunged his hands back into the icy water to finish scrubbing the last potato. ‘Hello, Inspector. What a surprise!’ he said brightly, glancing around to see if any telltale splots of potato lurked anywhere. ‘Are you on a case? Near here?’
‘You’d be surprised where my work takes me. Just last week I was staking out an old isolated barn for days because some folk had reported seeing fairies.’ Pewter shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his shimmering jacket. ‘For a world that no longer believes in magic, it’s incredible what people sometimes believe they’ve seen. Now, you haven’t got bad news for me, have you?’
Seth darted a suspicious glance at him.
‘It’s just that you haven’t offered me tea,’ said Pewter. ‘You’re not out of milk, are you? Or tea?’
Seth forced a smile and busied himself with the kettle.
‘Take this case I’m heading off to,’ continued Pewter. ‘Right up your street. A lighthouse hotel. Sun, sea, sand and on-tap room service; food and drink brought to your room any time, day or night.’
‘Sounds a small-fry sort of investigation for a MagiCon inspector,’ said Seth glumly, handing Pewter a mug before turning back to his potatoes. ‘In fact, it sounds more like a holiday.’
The Bad Luck Lighthouse Page 1