by Laura Wood
Also by Laura Wood:
Poppy Pym and the Pharaoh’s Curse
Poppy Pym and the Double Jinx
Contents
Cover
Also by Laura Wood
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Back Ad
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
My hands were clammy, and I could hear my heart thump-thump-thumping away like the persistent beat of a catchy dance number. I glanced up and down the corridor for the hundredth time, making sure that no one was going to catch me. All was quiet and, taking a deep breath, I turned my attention to the lock on Miss Susan’s door.
How had it come about that I, Poppy Pym, found myself breaking into my chemistry teacher’s room? I hear you wonder. Well, that is an excellent question and you obviously have a keen detective mind yourself, to be wondering such a wonder. There is, of course, a perfectly logical explanation. In fact, I had actually broken into Miss Susan’s room once before, when I had accused her of being a dastardly jewel thief and it turned out she was completely innocent. (As every detective knows, a red herring or two is sure to send you in the wrong direction before you capture a criminal mastermind, but I’ll admit my run-in with Miss Susan was not my finest moment.) However, this time the break-in was a very different beast. For one thing, I didn’t have the help of my best pals Kip Kapur and Ingrid Blammel (this particular mission was definitely something that I needed to do alone), and for another thing I wasn’t trying to prove Miss Susan was a desperate criminal. No, this time I was trying to prove something much more serious … that she was my mother.
Yes, it was all a bit loopy and if I thought about it too hard then my brain began to twirl like lots of spinning plates precariously balanced on spindly sticks.
You see, when I was a baby I was left at a travelling circus with a note from a mysterious person called “E”. Then I was adopted by a fantastic and funny circus family led by ringleader, trapeze artist and psychic Madame Petronella Pym. My life was totally normal until I was eleven when I was sent to Saint Smithen’s boarding school. That’s when things got pretty strange, and not just because I had to eat cornflakes for breakfast instead of candy floss, and learn to juggle numbers in maths class rather than flaming tennis balls with BoBo the clown. That was when I started to wonder about who had left me behind at the circus all those years ago, and Pym had given me an envelope of “clues” that had been left with me as a baby – clues which I was sure would point me towards my real mother. One of these clues was a necklace, a very distinctive necklace – a silver chain threaded with tiny pearls and a fancy engraved silver heart charm.
The thing was, I had seen this unusual necklace once before – around the neck of my chemistry teacher, and occasional nemesis, Miss Susan.
See? Pretty complicated stuff. I mean, it could be a coincidence, and she just happens to have the same antique necklace as my mother gave me. But as I know from all my reading of detective novels, coincidences that big are pretty rare.
It had been months since Pym had given me the necklace and I still hadn’t told a single soul about Miss Susan. It was just too big and everything was so uncertain, I didn’t even know how to start telling anyone. Saying the words out loud might make everything real, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted any of this to be real. Did I really want Miss Susan to be my mum?
I wasn’t sure how I felt, but I knew that I needed to start investigating. My favourite books are the Dougie Valentine detective novels by H.T. Maddox and they’re all about this kid detective Dougie and his dog, Snoops. Since starting at Saint Smithen’s I had become a pretty excellent detective myself – you can check out my previous cases if you want – and so I had put my top-class detective brain to work on the problem, trying to find out more about Miss Susan and her necklace. Unfortunately, almost immediately after I had been given the necklace, Miss Susan disappeared for a whole term to lecture at a fancy university in Switzerland and, let me tell you, it is definitely much harder to undertake covert surveillance on someone if they decide to leave the country and you’re a twelve-year-old girl who lives in a boarding school.
While Miss Susan was away I pored over all the clues I had to work with – the necklace and the other two items that had been left with baby me. The first was a receipt for a pair of shoes (pink trainers, size six) from “Sal’s Shoe Shop” in a place called Snardwell (so far I had been unable to find Snardwell on any map, despite many hours in Saint Smithen’s library), and the second thing was an envelope containing a small piece of card. In the same curling handwriting that had written the note pinned to my baby blanket were the words “For Emergencies” and underneath that a long line of numbers: 09325691502763902751. I had looked at the message so many times now that I knew the long chain of numbers off by heart. But what could it mean? It was obviously some sort of code, and I had spent months trying to break it without success. By the time Miss Susan arrived back at school it was a relief to get stuck into some real, stealthy snooping and I began keeping notes of my observations of her movements. I kept my coded notes in a small, red notebook. Unfortunately so far they mostly consisted of things like:
Tuesday 1st March
Subject ate grapefruit for breakfast. (Yuck.)
Or:
Thursday 14th April
Break time: subject had whispered conversation with Mr Grant. Attempt at closer surveillance failed due to KK’s noisy accusations that people were “hogging all the biscuits”. By the time I had silenced KK by stuffing chocolate digestives in his mouth, subject’s conversation was over.
One useful thing that I had observed, though, was that Miss Susan ate her dinner at 6.30 p.m. precisely and that she remained in the dining hall until 7.15 p.m. Every single day. And so I had formulated a plan, one that could get me into a LOT of trouble, but one that might be worth the risk. It was time to do some first-rate investigating. And that brings us back to me breaking into Miss Susan’s room. (See… I told you there was a perfectly logical explanation!) With a satisfying click my lock-picking wigglings succeeded and I pushed the door open. It looked like any other bedroom – although admittedly a freakishly neat and tidy one – but I knew better. This room may well be the key to unlocking the mystery of my past and I wasn’t about to waste such an opportunity. My hands were shaking as I pressed the buttons on my wristwatch. There was no time to lose.
I looked at my watch: 6.36. By my calculations, Miss Susan would be sitting down with her tray of food right no
w. Taking a deep breath, I crossed the threshold of her room and closed the door behind me: I was in.
Miss Susan’s room was predictably spotless, her bed was smooth and the sheets were tucked around the mattress in very precise corners. There wasn’t much else to see, just a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and a little dressing table, and a small bookcase with a cosy armchair next to it.
Time to begin. I tiptoed around to the drawers beside the bed and my heart was skittering all over the place like a tambourine falling down the stairs. I knew that what I was doing was technically wrong and for a moment I hesitated, with my hand on the handle to the top drawer. Just do it! a voice cried inside my head. You need some answers and they might be in this very room! I felt the thrill of chasing a clue zap through me and I yanked the drawer open in one quick movement before I had time to talk myself out of it. There wasn’t much in there – just a pen, a blank notepad, and some fancy hand cream. Silently and speedily I checked the other drawers, the dressing table and the wardrobe. Nothing suspicious in any of them. I looked at my watch again: 6.56 p.m. I was running out of time. With a frustrated sigh I sank into the armchair and stared despondently at the bookcase.
There were a lot of boring-looking books on chemistry, and something called Dancing on Air: the True Art of Ballroom Dancing, and … hang on… A shock ran through me as I spotted a group of familiar spines on the bottom shelf. Who knew Miss Susan was a Dougie Valentine fan? Maybe we did have something in common after all. I spotted all of my favourites: Dougie Valentine and the Lost Sock of Terror, Dougie Valentine and the Ham Sandwich of Doom, Dougie Valentine and the Alligator of Destiny. Miss Susan even had the very first Dougie Valentine book, Dougie Valentine and the Handkerchief of Horror, and it looked almost as battered as my own copy. Pulling the book from the shelf I flicked through the well-thumbed pages – and watched, frozen, as something fluttered to the floor.
It was a photograph – an old-looking photograph. With a trembling hand I picked it up, and turned it over. The world wobbled around me, and all the air felt like it had been sucked out of the room as I read the words that were written there.
CHAPTER TWO
In my hand was a slightly faded polaroid photograph and looking out at me from this photograph was Miss Susan. She looked like she was in her early twenties and her expression was quite serious as she stared into the camera. Around her neck was the now familiar necklace with the heart charm, and in her arms was … a baby.
A small, squishy, red-faced baby wrapped in a soft yellow blanket. The baby’s arm was reaching up towards Miss Susan’s face, its little pudgy hand waving in the air. On the back of the picture in smudged green ink were the words “Me and my daughter”.
So it was true. Miss Susan was my mother.
I was gaping silently at the picture, my mind as empty as a cracked bucket when a shrill beeping noise filled the room. In a daze I realized that the sound was coming from my wrist, or more accurately from the alarm on my watch, which I had set to go off at 7.10 p.m. I jumped clumsily to my feet, discovering that my knees were having a good old wobble, and shoved the Dougie Valentine book back on to the shelf with fumbling fingers, tucking the photograph into my pocket. I ran to the door and pressed my ear against it, listening hard for any sound in the corridor outside. All was silent and I opened the door a crack, listening again before slipping out and pulling it shut behind me, the lock clicking back into place. With a sigh I slumped against the door. I had done it.
“No running in the hallways, Callum!” A familiar, chilly voice reached my ears and I snapped to attention. Darting around the corner, in the opposite direction to the voice, I tried to be as silent as possible. As the sound of footsteps got nearer I held my breath to prevent even the teensiest hint of a sound escaping me, and when I could feel my face going purple I tried to take short, quiet little breaths instead. Unfortunately, to my ears I sounded like a wheezing accordion and I fully expected to feel an angry hand on my shoulder at any moment. Inching towards the end of the wall I peeked back around the corner. There she was. Miss Susan.
My mother.
Because, as my jittery brain was shouting at me very loudly and not very calmly, that is who she must be, and the proof was burning a hole in my pocket. (Metaphorically of course, I don’t mean I had accidentally set the photograph on fire because then I really would have been failing to remain inconspicuous, what with standing in a hallway while flames burst from my shorts.)
I peeped at Miss Susan, trying – as I had for the last few months – to see any similarities between us. Miss Susan is quite short and she has blonde hair. I am tall for my age and have hair that is more of a light mousy-brown colour. Miss Susan is very neat and dainty. She usually wears white clothes that anyone else would spill chocolate ice cream down immediately, but which always look like she has just come back from the dry cleaners. I looked down at my own outfit. I had changed out of my school uniform and into my own clothes before dinner and the effect was far from pristine. A favourite cosy green jumper with holes in the elbows, and a pair of blue shorts over pink-and-black stripy tights finished off with battered trainers, one with yellow shoelaces and one with orange. The orange shoelaces were untied.
But, I told myself, there are the eyes. Miss Susan’s eyes are pale green, just like mine. Also we both have a scattering of freckles across our noses. These were two things I must have inherited from her.
It felt strange seeing Miss Susan standing just a few metres away after my latest discovery. I had suspected that Miss Susan was my mother since I had made the connection between the necklaces, but having real proof was a whole other thing. I thought I would feel happy or excited or angry or something, but I just felt sort of empty like a hollowed-out pumpkin.
As I scuttled through the winding corridors back towards my room the empty feeling started to be replaced by a very full feeling, a feeling of uncertainty as my mind positively erupted with questions. If Miss Susan was my mother, why hadn’t she ever told me? Why had she left me at the circus? Was it just a coincidence that I had ended up at the same school where my mother was a teacher?
I arrived at a door with a gleaming sign that read GOLDFINCHES 3 on it, and pushed it open. It seemed that I would need to squish these questions down for the time being because I was not alone – both of my roommates were there.
Ingrid was occupying her usual position, sitting on her bed, her nose stuck firmly in a large book. It was more unusual to find Letty in our room – she was usually off at one of her clubs because she seemed to be in charge of every activity that took place in the school. Letty had her back to me but she was dressed all in white with some sort of strange headgear over her dark curls. When she heard me come in she swung around, almost stabbing me in the chest with a long thin sword.
“Oof. Sorry, Poppy!” Letty’s muffled voice came from behind the mask she was wearing. “Just off to fencing club!” She waved the sword around a bit.
“I didn’t know we had a fencing club,” I managed, dodging to the side to avoid Letty’s enthusiastic sword wielding.
“Well, it’s a small one – people keep leaving although I don’t know why,” Letty said cheerfully, knocking over a stack of books with her sword.
“Riiiight,” I said. “Well, have fun!” With another sweep of her sword Letty charged out of the room in search of a duel.
At that moment Ingrid emerged, all big blinking eyes and dazed expression, from behind her book. “Poppy!” she exclaimed. “When did you get here?”
“Only just.” I grinned. “In time to see some of Letty’s sword-fighting skills.”
“Oh.” Ingrid blinked again. “Was Letty here too?”
I shook my head. Once Ingrid’s brain was in a book she was totally lost to the rest of the world and there was nothing you could do about it. She seemed to be waking up from her reading daze now, though, and had jumped to her feet, her cheeks pink and her eyes blazing with excitement. “Where have you been?” she asked, but luckily didn’t giv
e me time to answer. (Because, really, what could I have said? “Oh, sorry, Ingrid, but I was just breaking into our chemistry teacher’s bedroom where I found evidence that she’s my long-lost mother who abandoned me as a baby. Nice weather we’ve been having, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been dying to tell you!” Ingrid continued breathlessly. “Have you heard?”
“Heard what?” I asked, puzzled.
“It’s all over the school.” Ingrid practically hopped on the spot. “We’re going on a school trip … for a whole week … and we’re going … to the seaside!”
CHAPTER THREE
“The seaside?!” I exclaimed. “Really?” A tiny seed of excitement appeared in my very confused and swirling mind.
Ingrid nodded. “Yes, and it’s all Miss Susan’s doing. Miss Susan of all people, can you believe it?”
“Miss Susan? What’s she got to do with it?” I managed, my voice only sounding slightly squeaky.
Ingrid didn’t seem to notice. “Some friend of hers has just inherited a CASTLE by the sea! A real castle. Stuffed full of history.” Ingrid’s eyes were shining but I didn’t get a chance to respond before she continued. “Apparently they’re opening a campsite and they needed people to come and do a trial-run holiday and Miss Susan volunteered us!”
“What … me and you?” I asked blankly.
“No, dummy!” Ingrid laughed. “The first years. We’re going for a whole week and there’s going to be rock climbing and surfing and abseiling, which sounds awful, but it doesn’t matter … because there will also be a real life historical marvel. It’s called Crumley Castle – doesn’t it sound brilliant?”
I thought all the activities sounded pretty great, but I knew Ingrid wasn’t the biggest fan of things that required good coordination – she always says she has two left feet. The hamster wheel of my mind was moving at warp speed and I could feel the familiar tingling of a plan coming together.
“Are you all right, Poppy?” Ingrid asked, peering closely at my face. “You’ve gone a strange, blotchy pink colour.”