Gretel’s eyes flew wide.
“Where in the world,” she asked, in a low, warning voice that sounded nothing like her usual apologetic mumble, “did you hear the expression in the name of Diabolica?”
“What? Oh… It was in Mrs Tabitha Cattermole. That musty old book that’s caused all this fuss.”
To be precise, it had been written on page one hundred and sixty-two, halfway through CHAPTER THE NYNETEENTH: EPITHETS, SLANDERS AND OBLOQUYS FROM ONE TUESDAY MORNING IN 1489 TO 8.33 a.m. (OR THEREABOUTS) ON THE 9th OF AUGUST, 1743:
And in the towns and villages, when something bad occurred, “In the name of Diabolica!” was very often heard…
“For. The. Very. Last. Time –” Gretel, now a lot less “mole” and a lot more “fire-breathing dragon”, banged out every word on the door with the flat of her hand – “It. Is. Not. A. Ridiculous. Fuss. It. Is. Not. Even. A. Sensible. Fuss. It. Is. As. Far. From. Any. Kind. Of. Fuss. As. It. Is. Possible. To. Be. And. If. You. Keep. Asking. These. Kinds. Of. Questions. I. Will. Lose. My. Job. And. We. Will. Have. Nowhere. To. Live. So. You. Will. Have. To. Go. Back. And. Live. With. Dad. And. His. New. Wife. Even. Though—”
Gretel stopped herself, just in time.
“Even though Dad and Mindy don’t want me,” said Roxy, but so quietly that she couldn’t be sure Gretel had even heard.
There was another short silence.
“I just need to know,” said Gretel, tightly, “that you’ve understood what I’m saying.”
“OK, OK!” said Roxy. The whole Diabolica thing had really freaked her sister out. “I get it. I’ll stop asking questions!” She reached for her phone and headphones, crammed onto Gretel’s tiny bedside table, and pulled the headphones on.
Just as swiftly, Gretel pulled them back off.
“You can’t just hide behind your music, Roxy. You have to actually listen to me on this.”
“I’m listening!” Roxy held up her hands.
“And you won’t go sneaking into underground tunnels beneath the Ministry ever again?”
“I won’t go sneaking into underground tunnels beneath the Ministry ever again.”
“Because there’s nothing to look for…”
There was a sudden sharp bleep from Gretel’s overalls. She grabbed her phone from the pocket.
What she saw on the screen made her face turn from its usual pallid grey to white.
“I have to go,” she mumbled. “Work. An emergency.”
“A cleaning emergency?” Roxy stared at her. “At one thirty in the morning? Two nights in a row?”
Gretel’s working hours were weird, yes, and super-long, double yes, but this was ridiculous. Roxy had been woken by the ping of Gretel’s phone last night, too, at which Gretel had sprung out of bed like a sunburnt penguin, disappeared into the darkness and not come home until almost sunrise.
“Yeah. There’s been a really, really bad spillage. Stuff everywhere.”
Seeing as Gretel’s cleaning responsibilities were mostly toilets, Roxy decided that she really didn’t want to hear any more about this.
“I have to go.” Deep lines were etched in Gretel’s forehead. “I could be a while.”
Roxy said nothing. She simply watched as Gretel flung off her bunny slippers and yanked on her ugly rubber work-clogs, then pulled on her overalls and wrapped her striped scarf several times round her neck.
“You go to sleep, Roxy. I’ll see you in the morning. Oh –” Gretel paused by the door. “NO LEAVING THE MINISTRY, ROXY. No exploring. And absolutely no tunnels.”
“OK, OK!” said Roxy, putting her headphones back on and scrolling through her phone to her playlists. “Deal.”
Gretel let out the longest and dreariest sigh of all the long and dreary sighs Roxy had ever heard her utter. Then she pushed her pebbly glasses up to the bridge of her nose and closed the door behind her.
4
When Roxy awoke, to a ping from her phone, there was a Proon Puff up her nose.
Her head felt soggy, as if someone had snuck in during the night and filled it with quicksand, and it took several sleepy minutes to work the stray Puff out of her left nostril. She had only just succeeded when she noticed the note stuck to the door: Came back at 8 a.m. but you were still asleep, it said, in Gretel’s neat handwriting. Heading off for usual shift now. Get your lunch in staff canteen – fish pie today! And if you insist on having pudding, please avoid the custard – the stuff’s absolutely loaded with sugar!!!
Here Gretel had drawn an awkward smiley face that was – Roxy knew – her way of saying sorry that Roxy would be on her own all day.
And remember what I said last night, the note went on, the pencil line thickening for emphasis. No going into that tunnel. And do not leave the Ministry grounds, Roxy, or there will be big trouble.
There was a short PS: But get a bit of fresh air, will you? Please don’t just sit around in your pyjamas listening to loud music all day.
Roxy stared at it, wishing she could shake off the quicksand feeling in her head.
“Fresh air,” she muttered, pulling on random clothes and then reaching for her phone and her headphones. “She’s right. That’s what I need. Fresh air. And loud music.”
A quick glance at the phone showed her that the pinging had been Dad. He’d sent one of his guilty flurries of messages:
8.18 a.m. – Hey, kiddo! We’re back from honeymoon! Promise we’ll get that guest room ready soon, and you can spend the weekend! Dad xx
8.22 a.m. – Mindy says it definitely won’t be before Christmas, though. Dad xx
8.23 a.m. – Actually, Mindy’s just told me there’s a good chance it won’t be before Easter. Dad xx
8.27 a.m. – Oh, btw, check out our new family SelfSpace page, tons of good honeymoon pics on there! I’ll send the log-in. Dad xx
8.42 a.m. – Actually, Mindy would prefer you didn’t have the log-in. Privacy and stuff, you know? Dad xx
8.56 a.m. – Actually, Mindy thinks it might be more useful if we turned the guest room into a nice home gym. Or just somewhere she can paint her toenails. Still, there’s always a comfy sofa for you to crash on, if you ever fancy a quick visit! Dad xx
9.04 a.m. – Actually, Mindy says she has strict rules about people sleeping on the sofa. Dad xx
9.54 a.m. – See you around, kiddo. Dad xx
Roxy deleted them all. It would be the last she heard from him for weeks. More, probably, if he and her new stepmother set off on another luxury cruise.
Mindy was Stepmother Number – Roxy often lost count – Eleven? And she was even more fond of spending Dad’s considerable fortune than her predecessors.
As she went outside, Roxy shoved on her headphones and turned up the volume on her phone.
Some Parvenian hip-hop, she decided, from the brand-new playlist her brother had sent her. Music would clear the fog in her head. It always did.
And lo and behold, as soon as the super-loud hip-hop blasted into her ears, last night’s unanswered question popped back, clear as crystal: Why oh why oh why had a boring old snore-fest of a book like Mrs Tabitha Cattermole caused such panic at the Ministry?
(Not that it would ever cause a panic anywhere ever again. The book had been taken away. Roxy had overheard a high-ranking SMOG ordering it to be destroyed. Burnt, in fact. The Minister thought it had been done years ago, so this time he actually wants to see the pile of ash. All right?)
“I don’t care what Gretel says,” she muttered. “Something is going on around here. Weird stuff. Freaky stuff. Secret stuff the Ministry for Soup is trying to hide.”
“… if you’d all like to follow me this way,” came a voice, loud enough to slice through the hip-hop. “We are now entering the exquisite courtyard garden of the Soup Ministry.”
It was the 10 a.m. Royal Rexopolis Guided Tour.
Since Roxy had moved in with Gretel, she had seen a great number of these hourly tours trooping their way around this part of town. They began at Mrs Kettleman’s Traditional
Custarde Doughnut Emporium on Mulligatawny Square, crossed the Square to visit the Soup Ministry gardens, then headed back out again to see the artworks in the King’s Gallery, before finishing with selfies on the steps of the gilded Royal Palace at the other end of the Square.
This morning’s tour was a school group: fifty bored-looking kids meandering through the Ministry courtyard, taking photos with their phones and dripping Traditional Custarde all down their “I Rexopolis” T-shirts.
Roxy pulled up her hoodie – school groups always made her self-conscious – and made her way to her favourite spot: the stone step at the bottom of the gold-plated statue of Atticus Splendid. Here it was always dry and protected a little from the breeze, thanks to the size of the statue above.
“Yeah, so that’s a statue of Minister Splendid,” the tour guide was saying through a wireless microphone. “Best Soup Minister Illustria has ever had, if you’re one of those weird people who actually think soup is important. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s the only Soup Minister Illustria has ever had. So every time you tuck into a hearty bowl of chicken-noodle broth, you can thank your lucky stars that Minister Splendid has worked tirelessly to pass some law to ensure there’s enough of the chicken and not too much of the noodle.”
Roxy glanced up, startled. The tour guides usually adopted a particularly reverential tone for the statue. She’d certainly never heard any of them talk this way about the Minister.
“Um, excuse me?” one of the girls in the group was asking as they all filed past, clicking their camera-phones in the vague direction of the statue. “Is Minister Splendid’s daughter the one that does B’s Buzz? Because I love her vlog on MeMeMeTeeVee, she’s so stylish and—”
“Abigail!” This was from the teacher at the back. “We’re here to find out about history. And culture. Not silly celebrity nonsense.”
“Yeah,” said the tour guide. This came out more like a “Ymmuumph…” (Roxy couldn’t actually see the guide at the front of the group as she was so short, but it sounded like she was midway through a Traditional Custarde Doughnut herself.) “History and culture. Which is why I’m thinking: we should’ve got more doughnuts.”
As the group shifted, Roxy finally caught a glimpse of the tour guide. She was smaller than most of the schoolchildren, and she was muffled up against the brisk weather in a huge scarf that hid most of the lower part of her face. The rest of it was hidden by a tour guide’s baseball cap, which was pulled down almost to the tip of her nose.
“Excuse me!” The teacher sounded appalled. “This tour is supposed to be educational! Didn’t you just agree that the children are here to learn the history and culture of our great capital?”
“But Mrs Kettleman has been selling those custard doughnuts for years,” said the tour guide. “That’s historical as far as I’m concerned.”
Roxy laughed. She couldn’t help it.
At the sound of the laugh, which rang out rather loudly in the square, the tour guide’s baseball cap swivelled towards Roxy.
She was staring.
Staring HARD.
“You know what,” the teacher said, glowering down at the tiny guide, “I think I’ll just give your office a call and see if they’ll send out a different tour guide. You seem awfully young, to be frank, and—”
“No!” The tour guide’s attention moved swiftly back to her group. “Don’t do that! Don’t call them! You want history? You want culture? Then go take a good old look at … uh, I dunno … that tree.”
“What tree?” asked the teacher.
“That one right over there.” The guide waved her microphone. “Big, oaky-looking thing, near those Keep off the Grass signs. Fascinating tree, that. Very historical. And cultural! And … that vlog person, B, or C, or whatever her name is, she hangs out beneath that tree all the time. I think she might even have carved her name into it.”
“OK, this is getting ridiculous,” began the teacher. “Children, do not go over to that tree. We need to return to the bus. Children!”
But the schoolchildren, phones at the ready, were already stampeding across the cobblestones towards the random tree on the far side of the courtyard.
As the teacher jogged after them, the tour guide made for the statue.
Roxy got to her feet.
“Sorry, I’m probably not even supposed to sit here. I’ll find somewhere else…”
But the tour guide wasn’t listening. She was pulling off her baseball cap and scarf to reveal the face beneath.
She wasn’t a tour guide at all. She was just a girl.
And not just any old girl.
She was the cupcake-delivery girl Roxy had met five days ago in the vault.
5
“Oh, wow … it’s you! The girl in the buttercup costume.”
“No. Well, yeah. But not any more, thank goodness.” The girl pulled off the microphone. “Call me Jones.”
“Jones?”
“Yep.” The girl – Jones – regarded Roxy coolly, with bright cornflower eyes. She had dyed her blonde hair – it wasn’t clear why – a shade that was not quite black but more of a midnight blue. “So. It’s you. Question Girl. From the vault.”
“Yes. I’m Roxy. Roxy Humperdinck. Sorry, I’m confused. Are you … a tour guide now?”
Jones let out a ppffft noise. “Course not. I borrowed this uniform. Wait a minute. Does it count as borrowing if I didn’t ask the owner first?”
“Um, that sounds a tiny bit more like stealing?”
“Right. Did you know you’ve got something on your face?”
“My face?” Roxy put up a hand, self-consciously, and felt two dry lumps beneath her left eye – it was a couple more Proon Puffs. The box must have spilled over in her bed after she’d dropped off: the blasted Puffs had ended up everywhere. “Proon Puffs,” she said, feeling her face redden. “Breakfast cereal.”
“I’m starving! Can I try one?”
Jones took a Puff from Roxy, popped it in her mouth and spat it straight out.
“It’s like rock! What do they make them from?”
“Yeah, they are a bit dry,” agreed Roxy.
Though, as she peered more closely at the grey-ish object Jones was handing back to her, she realized that this one wasn’t, in fact, a Proon Puff at all. It might indeed have been made of rock – though a tough ceramic was more likely – and it looked more like the dreary, educational free giveaways that came in the Puffs packet. The last box had contained a plain, practical eraser; in the last-but-one box there’d been a plain, practical pencil. This time around, the gift appeared to be mathematics-themed: an isosceles triangle that you were probably meant to use your plain, practical pencil to draw around, or something. Roxy didn’t know, and couldn’t care less. She shoved the little rocky shape into her pocket.
“I don’t think that was actually a Proon Puff,” she mumbled, embarrassed.
“Either way,” said Jones, “I’ll stick with Honey Nugz, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s … it’s good to see you again,” Roxy blurted out. “I didn’t think I would.”
“Likewise. And I didn’t plan to come back to the Ministry, trust me. I’m only here today because…” Jones lowered her voice. “OK, we have to be careful. But you remember that book I was looking for, the night we met?”
Roxy’s stomach plummeted. “You know, it’s funny you should mention that book, because—”
“Well, I somehow managed to drop the blooming thing somewhere, didn’t I? And one of my trainers – though, to be honest, I didn’t notice that until I got home. Happens quite a lot. I’ve got one foot smaller than the other. Anyway, the reason I’m back, brilliantly disguised as an official Ministry guide –” Jones was whispering so softly now that she was really just mouthing the words – “is so I can try to get past the SMOGs, sneak down to Vault C again and get that book back.”
Roxy’s stomach plummeted a little further.
She laughed from nerves.
“The thing is,
Jones, that … well, the book isn’t there.”
“What?”
“Mrs Tabitha Cattermole. It’s not in the vault any more.”
“Then where is it?”
“Well, I kind of have it…”
Jones opened her eyes extremely wide.
“You’re joking me,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“Then can I have it?”
“No. I mean, not exactly.”
“What in the name of Diabolica,” Jones said, “are you blithering about?”
“Hey!” Roxy was diverted. “What was that? About Diabolica?”
“It’s just an expression,” Jones grunted. “Forget it.”
“But I’d never heard it before, and now that’s twice in one week! From you, and in Mrs Tabitha Cattermole.”
“You’ve read Mrs Tabitha Cattermole?”
“Yes. Which is why I’m trying to tell you, it doesn’t matter that it’s been destroyed, burned actually, because I have it all…”
Roxy stopped. But not soon enough.
This was not how she had planned to tell Jones the tragic fate of her precious book.
Jones’s face was now a shade of grey similar to the miserable educational isosceles triangle from the box of Proon Puffs.
“What,” she croaked, “did you just say?”
“It’s kind of a funny story…”
“MRS TABITHA CATTERMOLE’S CHRONICLE OF THE CURSED KINGDOM has been BURNED?” Jones yelled.
Then she seemed to remember that they were standing right out in the open, in the heart of the Ministry.
She grabbed Roxy by the elbow and, with surprising strength for someone so tiny, dragged her round to the other side of Atticus Splendid’s statue. This put them way, way closer to the Minister’s gold-plated bottom than Roxy cared to be, but she wasn’t about to say so.
“How in the name of Diabolica did that happen?” Jones hissed. Her cornflower-blue eyes were wild. She looked somewhere between incandescently angry and tremendously distressed.
“OK, it got kind of … confiscated. And then Minister Splendid came along – to this special Decontamination Zone I’d been dragged off to, when they found I had the book – and he told them to destroy it. Apparently he thought it had been destroyed years ago. But if you just listen to me for a minute,” Roxy gabbled, “you’ll realize that it doesn’t matter if the actual book has been destroyed. Because I still have the book!”
Roxy & Jones Page 3