by Alesha Dixon
I nodded, checking it on my phone. “This is the address Alexis gave me.”
“Do you really think Mr Mercury lives here?” Suzie asked, admiring the perfectly arranged flower beds lining the edge of the front garden.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Kizzy answered, marching down the drive to the front door. “Come on.”
“What happens if he’s in there?” Georgie said, glancing up at the windows. “What do we do?”
“I’ve told Nanny Beam we’re following a lead,” I assured her, holding up my phone. “If we see him, I’ll call her straight away and MI5 will be here within minutes. We can stall him until then.”
We surrounded Kizzy as she pressed the doorbell and stood back as we heard footsteps. The door swung open. It was her. Mrs Silicon. The resemblance was uncanny. It was as though Mr Mercury had just shoved a wig on his head and put on some lipstick.
“Hello,” she said brightly. “Can I help you?”
“Does … does Mr Silicon live here?” I asked timidly.
“Yes, he’s my son.”
I stared at her, hardly daring to believe that this was Mr Mercury’s mother. This was the biggest lead we could possibly have found.
“We’re old students of his,” Georgie said, jumping in to help me as my brain floundered. “We were in the area and we wanted to drop by and say hello.”
Mrs Silicon’s face lit up and she placed her hands over her heart.
“Oh, how wonderful!” she exclaimed, standing aside to usher us past her and into the house. “Come in! Come in! What a pleasure to meet some of his students. You come in and make yourselves comfortable. And what a lovely dog! You’re very welcome too, little darling. What’s her name?”
“Kimmy.”
“Hello, darling Kimmy.”
She crouched down to give Kimmy a pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears. Kimmy wagged her tail and got that dopey expression on her face that she gets whenever she knows she’s about to have a good fuss. Mrs Silicon may have looked like Mr Mercury, but she was so warm and genuine, it seemed strange that she was related to him.
She instructed us to make ourselves at home in the sitting room and went to put the kettle on. The house was lovely and cosy, and particularly neat. I sat down on the sofa and took in the room, trying to picture Mr Mercury growing up here.
“What do we do?” Suzie whispered.
“Just keep asking questions about Mr Mercury… I mean, Silicon,” Kizzy instructed in a low voice. “We need to get as much information out of her as possible. She might give away a clue as to where he is.”
“What if he’s in this house right now?” Georgie said. “We’d have him cornered!”
The door opened and we all quickly sat back, pretending to be innocently looking around the room.
“Here you go, everyone, help yourselves,” Mrs Silicon said, bringing in a tray of tea mugs and some biscuits. As we all reached for a mug, Mrs Silicon handed everyone a biscuit and snapped off a little bit of hers to give to Kimmy.
“Kimmy, sit!” Mrs Silicon instructed in a firm voice.
Kimmy sat perfectly.
“Clever, clever girl,” she cooed, giving her the biscuit and then sitting down in the armchair, with Kimmy settling at her side.
I was amazed at how Mrs Silicon had turned so authoritative and then all warm and smushy again when Kimmy had done what she was told. She reminded me of Nanny Beam a lot. Just without the bright pink hair.
“So, is Mr Silicon upstairs?” Kizzy asked, squished into the sofa next to me.
“He’s away, I’m afraid,” she answered, before misinterpreting our collective disappointed expressions. “How lovely that you’re so fond of him; I’m so sorry he’s not here! I’m sure he would have been delighted to have seen you. He loves to talk about his teaching days.”
“This is a nice room,” Suzie commented, glancing around the shelves. “If you don’t mind me asking, you don’t seem to have any photos of Mr Mercur— I mean, your son.”
“I know,” she said sadly, taking a sip of tea. “He won’t let me keep any of them up anywhere. It’s such a shame as he really is a handsome boy. From the right angle, anyway, and when he tucks in his shirt and shines his shoes. But he burned most of the photos I had.”
“Has he always been a teacher?” I asked. “He was … so good at it.”
“Yes, it was his calling,” she said wistfully. “He’s done a few jobs here and there, you know, while he was working out what he wanted to do with his life. I always knew he’d end up in something to do with science. That’s where he really stood out.”
“Did he make any friends when he was in prison?” Fred asked. “Anyone he might contact in times of need?”
Suzie kicked him in the shin and he yelped, looking at her in confusion.
“Prison?” Mrs Silicon recoiled in horror. “My goodness, my boy has never gone to prison! He may be, well, a little useless but he’s certainly not a criminal. Whatever put that idea in your head?”
“Oh … um … now that I think about it, that school rumour was about a different teacher,” Fred said, flustered.
“Yes, Fred, you’re thinking of someone else,” Suzie said through gritted teeth.
“My goodness, they had teachers at your school who had been in prison?” Mrs Silicon tutted and took another sip of tea. “Things have changed since my day, that’s for sure.”
“It’s nice that your son has always been into science,” I said, steering the conversation back into focus. “Is he still teaching now?”
She let out a tired sigh. “No, he gave it up for some reason. I think he’s very down about it. Whenever he’s home, he spends all his time in his room. I don’t know what he’s up to in there; moping, I assume. I asked him to do the dusting last week, you know, to keep him busy, and did it get done? No. I’ve tried to encourage him to take up new hobbies, but he’s got very lazy. And he’s not musical like myself. I’ve just taken up the recorder. Another instrument to add to my impressive repertoire.” She took a sip of tea and shook her head before continuing. “He just doesn’t have quite the same drive as his sister.”
“Sister?” I blurted out. “He has a sister?”
“Yes, an older sister,” she said proudly. “She’s very high-achieving, but I’m afraid I can’t say another word about what she does. It’s top secret. Anyway, I do wish they’d get on, but you know what siblings can be like! Always in competition with each other. They’ve been that way since they were small.”
“They don’t get on?” I asked. “As in, Mr Silicon wouldn’t … I don’t know… be with her right now, wherever she lives?”
She chuckled. “Oh no, absolutely not. They can’t stand each other. And anyway, she travels a lot with her job. She hasn’t seen him in years.”
She took a sip of tea and then her face brightened as she gestured to the two framed certificates above the mantelpiece.
“I’m proud of both my children’s achievements, even if they pretend the other one doesn’t exist. You can see that Selena, my eldest, won an award for her dedication to, and excellence in, sports. She was always remarkably strong and agile. And next to it is the award Desmond got for his extraordinary talent in theatre make-up and costume design.”
“Mr Silicon is trained in theatre make-up,” Georgie said, nodding as she stared at the certificate. “That makes sense.”
“Growing up he was always very talented at transforming faces and dressing up. I thought he might go into the theatre, you know, work in the West End, but then he decided on teaching.” Her face brightened. “I have some more of his certificates upstairs if you’d like me to go get them for you to see?”
“Yes, please,” Georgie enthused.
Mrs Silicon looked delighted and bustled out of the room and up the stairs. I waited until she was gone and leaned forward, the others huddling round. Kimmy continued to stare intently at the plate of biscuits just in case one jumped off.
“I need to get
into Mr Mercury’s room,” I whispered. “She said he spends all his time up in his room when he’s at home; there might be something important in there. I need to try to sneak in.”
“We’ll distract her when she comes back down so you can have a good look around without her getting suspicious,” Georgie said firmly, the others nodding with her. “I have an idea as to how we can, too.”
We heard Mrs Silicon’s footsteps coming back down the stairs and hurriedly returned to our relaxed poses on the sofas.
“Here we are!” Mrs Silicon came bumbling in with some certificates and rosettes. “A long time ago, he was a high achiever. I don’t know what happened.”
“Mrs Silicon, would you mind if we rearranged the room a little bit?” Georgie asked cheerily. “We’d like to put on a show for you and we need to push back the furniture.”
Mrs Silicon looked at her with a stunned expression. “A show?”
“Yes,” Georgie nodded. “You’ve inspired me with those certificates of Mr Silicon’s achievements in theatre costume. You see, I put on a fashion show earlier this term and I would have loved Mr Silicon to have seen it. You’ll need to imagine all the costumes, but would you like to see the performance?”
“I would LOVE to see it!” Mrs Silicon said, clapping her hands. “Des would be so proud of you!”
The Bright Sparks jumped into action, pushing the furniture back to create space for a catwalk. Fred went to stand by the light switch and practised switching it on and off again, before asking Mrs Silicon to borrow a torch for the spotlight. Georgie took Suzie into the back corner of the room and got some accessories out of her bag, giving them to Suzie to put on, before styling Suzie’s hair with her trusty can of hairspray. Whilst being preened, Suzie did her breathing exercises, ready to launch into her cartwheels. Kizzy pushed back Mrs Silicon’s armchair and then led her to her seat, before pulling up another seat for Kimmy to hop up on to next to her, creating the audience.
“I’m just going to pop to the bathroom,” I said breezily, heading out of the room.
I hurried up the stairs and heard music come on from the sitting room and a round of applause from Mrs Silicon. I knew they wouldn’t be able to keep the fashion show going for too long; I had to be quick. Ignoring Mrs Silicon’s bedroom, which I assumed was the bigger one with floral wallpaper and a vase of roses on the dressing table, I darted into the second biggest bedroom with the unmade bed and a chemistry textbook resting on the bedside table.
My eyes immediately fell on the computer in the corner of the room, sitting on an empty desk. I switched it on and the last thing that he’d been looking at popped up on the screen: it was a website about the Vatican City. It seemed an odd thing to be googling. Mrs Silicon hadn’t mentioned anything about going to Italy.
Hearing the music still playing downstairs and Mrs Silicon’s cheers and shouts for an encore, I got my phone out and called Nanny Beam.
“Hello, Aurora,” she said, picking up. “I can’t be too long as I’m in a crucially important meeting. Anything interesting about this new lead you told me about?”
“I’m not sure, maybe,” I replied, clicking through the Vatican website. “Does the Vatican City have anything to do with the precious stones?”
There was silence the other end.
“Nanny Beam? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” she said finally, her voice suddenly serious and urgent. “And yes, the Vatican City does have something to do with the precious stones. How did you know?”
A feeling of dread washed over me as I scrolled down the web page that included maps of the Vatican and tourist information about its treasures.
“Because I think Mr Mercury is planning a trip there. He may be there already. Why is the Vatican—”
“I believe the Heart of Love is set into the papal tiara. Aurora, the Pope is its guardian.”
My breath caught in my throat. “I need to get there right now. He’s in danger.”
“Stay where you are,” Nanny Beam instructed. “Your transport is already on its way.”
9
“Seatbelt, please.”
I did as Aunt Lucinda instructed, clipping in my seatbelt and making myself comfortable in the front seat of a bright turquoise-blue car. I looked out the window to wave goodbye to the Bright Sparks standing outside Mrs Silicon’s house. Aunt Lucinda slammed her foot on to the accelerator and we sped away from them at great speed. Alfred was in the back, strapped in and wearing a cloth napkin around his neck for some reason.
When Nanny Beam told me transport was on the way, I’d expected a shiny black car full of MI5 agents to show up to take me to the airport. The Bright Sparks and I had been a little stunned when Aunt Lucinda had shown up, tooting the horn and telling me to get in.
“New car?” I asked. “What happened to the pink one?”
“Nanny Beam gave me an upgrade,” she said, placing her sunglasses on and switching gear.
“Does it fly?”
Aunt Lucinda caught Alfred’s eye in the rear-view mirror.
“Does it fly?” she repeated, smirking. “Let’s see, shall we?”
I braced myself as she pressed the large red button on the dashboard and wings sprang from the sides of the car. Automatic over-the-shoulder restraints came down over us, strapping us to the seat like we were on a rollercoaster.
A robotic voice spoke out of the car’s surround-sound system: “Flight mode engaged. Prepare for take-off.”
Aunt Lucinda, Alfred and I were slammed back against our seats as the car accelerated and took off, soaring into the air. Aunt Lucinda calmly took the wheel and a map came up on the screen, displaying the route to Vatican City.
“Whoa.” I breathed out, the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I peered down at the houses below that were getting smaller as we flew higher. “That was awesome.”
“Alfred is a big fan of the new car, aren’t you, darling?” she called back to him.
I swivelled in my seat to see that he was fast asleep. He was also wearing an eye mask that he hadn’t had on earlier. I was impressed that in the short time slot of our take-off, he’d managed to find and put on an eye mask AND fall fast asleep. It had barely been a minute.
“He can sleep anywhere,” Aunt Lucinda told me, looking at him affectionately in the rear-view mirror. “It’s quite a talent.”
“Why is he wearing a napkin?”
“I told him we were off to Italy and he put it on straight away. He is SUCH a fan of Italian food, but he’s always getting pasta sauce down his front.”
One of the screens on the dashboard started flashing green and a robotic voice announced, “Incoming Call: Kiyana Beam.”
“Accept,” Aunt Lucinda said.
Mum’s worried face popped up on the screen. “Aurora! Are you all right? Nanny Beam just called.”
“Yes, Aunt Lucinda and I are heading to Italy.”
“I’m going to try to join you, so you don’t have to do this alone. I’m in the middle of a mission and I … ah, wait one second—”
Mum ducked, and something strongly resembling a giant fireball went soaring past the screen.
“Mum! What was that? Are you OK?”
“Yes, nothing to worry about,” she said, her hair slightly frazzled at the top. I watched as she held up her hands and shot several light energy blasts out.
“Kiyana, WHAT is going on?” Aunt Lucinda asked.
“Like I said, I’m in the middle of a mission.” Mum rolled her eyes. “Someone has tried to fix the lack of light in Berkshire by inventing a machine that shoots fire up into the sky. He said he thought it would hold the darkness at bay. Unfortunately, the machine has taken on a mind of its own and gone ever so slightly out of control.” She sighed. “I hate robots. Anyway, I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
“Mum, listen, I can handle this. Aunt Lucinda and Alfred are with me and it looks like your hands are full.”
A fireball went flying past her left ear. “But—”
“And I’ll be here to watch over her, Kiyana!” Aunt Lucinda trilled.
Mum looked terrified. “That’s hardly a comfort, Lucinda.”
Aunt Lucinda rolled her eyes and I smiled at the screen. “You stick with that mission and we’ll keep you updated on ours.”
“All right, if you’re sure,” Mum said. “Good luck and call me if you need to.”
“Good luck with the fire robot!” Aunt Lucinda said cheerily, before hanging up.
I sat back in my seat. “How long will it take to get us to Italy?”
“Not long. On the way, you can tell me everything you know because Nanny Beam didn’t exactly give me much detail. She just told me to pick you up and get to the Vatican.” She steered slightly to the left, gliding over the clouds. “She told me you think Mr Mercury might be hoping to add another crown to his collection?”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “I think he’s going to steal the papal tiara.”
“Which one?”
“What?” I stared at her. “There’s more than one papal tiara?”
She looked at me as though I was mad. “Of course! The pope has been given many tiaras and such exquisite gifts throughout history.”
“Argh!” I quickly googled it on my phone and started scrolling through the results, hoping for something to leap out at me. “This is when I need Kizzy! She’d probably know all the facts off by heart or have a book that had all the information.”
“Excuse you,” Aunt Lucinda said, sitting taller in her seat, “but you happen to be sitting in a car with two of the most brilliant jewel thieves in the country.”
I raised my eyebrows at her, glancing up from my phone.
“Don’t look at me like that, Aurora,” she said defensively. “I borrow the jewels and always give them back. And I only keep the ones that are rightfully mine in the first place.”
“Still, I don’t think that’s really something you should be bragging about.”
“I’m not bragging, Aurora; I’m telling you that I may be able to help,” she huffed. “Of course, Alfred is really the expert on these things, but I’d rather not wake him to ask. I have learned never to wake an ostrich in the middle of a nap on a flight. I did it once on our way to Dubai and he was so upset that I’d disturbed his dream about being the first ostrich to land on the moon that he stomped up and down the airplane, knocking everyone’s drinks over on to their laps. Honestly, the dry-cleaning bill I was given was quite something.”