by Jenny Nimmo
"Well, that's not so bad, Charlie. We'll manage, won't we? Don't look so upset."
"It's the boat." Charlie's throat was dry with fear.
"What about it?" Maisie turned the postcard over. "It's a nice little boat. I expect they've got someone to sail it for them. They wouldn't go out alone."
"It's going to sink," Charlie said with conviction.
"I've never heard such foolishness. They might not even be on this boat." Maisie jabbed a finger at the postcard. "It's just a picture, Charlie. What-ever's the matter with you? Anyone would think you begrudged your poor parents a little bit of time together."
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Charlie felt too wretched to reply. He walked out of the kitchen, went to get his bags, and left the house without even saying good-bye.
News of the "wicked weekend," as Olivia was calling it, had reached everyone who mattered in Bloor's Academy before the first break. Unfortunately, it had also reached a lot of people who didn't matter. Although Joshua, Dorcas, Dagbert, and the twins probably did matter, insofar as they made Charlie feel even worse with their sidelong smirks and snide remarks.
It all came to a head as they were filing down the corridor of portraits for lunch. Joshua sidled up to Charlie and whispered, "Where's your friend, the little white rat, Charlie? Has he been adopted by a nice mommy rat?"
Charlie shoved Joshua backward, grunting, "Shut up, you moron!"
Joshua had legs like pins. He lost his balance at the slightest shove. Charlie's small push sent him
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flying into the portrait of a rather disagreeable-looking woman. The very same woman who Dagbert had so tactlessly insulted.
This time Manfred's great-great-great-grandmother, Donatella Da Vinci, came tumbling off the wall. There was a scream of pain as the portrait landed on the already prostrate Joshua Tilpin.
"What's going on?"
Silent children parted like waves as the talents master came storming down the corridor. When he saw the portrait of his ancestor lying across Joshua Tilpin, Manfred's mouth fell open in horror. He uttered a strangled cry and then, turning in fury, bellowed, "Who did this?" It was clear that he was more concerned with the fallen portrait than the boy underneath.
"Charlie Bone, sir." Dorcas Loom tried not to smile, but the effort was too great.
"Do you think this is funny, Dorcas Loom?" Manfred demanded.
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"No, sir," answered Dorcas, instantly losing her smile.
"Someone help me!" Manfred lifted one side of the portrait.
Bragger Braine stepped forward and took the other side. A moment later, Donatella was back in place, but horror of horrors, there was a small hole above her right eyebrow. It had not been noticed while she lay on Joshua, probably because of the long wrinkle on her unforgiving forehead.
There was a chorus of gasps. Charlie caught Donatella's eye. She was cursing him in the most unpleasant language. He hoped, desperately, that he would never find himself in her century.
Manfred was turning from white to red and back again to white, all in the space of thirty seconds. Charlie didn't dare to move. He wanted to close his eyes but forced himself to keep them open while he awaited his fate.
The talents master uttered a crescendo of growls
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that ended in a very long roar. In one breath he screamed, "Charlie Bone, go to the headmaster this minute and tell him what you've done!"
"Yes, sir." Charlie was glad of the opportunity to escape Donatella's curses, but he would have preferred to visit the headmaster in different circumstances. He began to make his way back down the corridor, which was difficult because of the press of children who were trying to get to the cafeterias.
Fidelio, squeezing himself closer to Charlie, whispered, "Good luck." He passed a note into Charlie's hand. "Tancred ..."
Someone pushed Fidelio aside and Charlie failed to hear the rest of his friend's sentence. He quickly put the note in his pocket as Fidelio was swept away.
"I'm still going to ask him about Billy," Charlie said to himself as he walked to the door leading to the west wing. When Charlie opened the door, a small white caterpillar, hidden in a crack in the old wood,
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fell onto Charlie's shoulder. Slowly, it began to crawl down the back of his blue cape. By the time Charlie had reached Dr. Bloor's study, the caterpillar had tucked itself into the sleeve of his shirt.
Before he knocked on the door, Charlie glanced down the deserted hallway. There was not one empty space between the rows of doors on either side. Every inch was filled with shelves of books, glass cases holding skulls and ancient artifacts, upright leather trunks, carved chests, grandfather clocks, gilt-framed mirrors, and oddly dressed wax figures.
As if all this were not enough, the ceiling was hung with stuffed birds, dried plants, and mechanical toys, all moving slowly in a draft from the distant staircase; their tinny, rustling, creaking sounds competing with the melancholy ticking of the grandfather clocks.
Charlie wondered what went on in the many rooms behind the shiny oak-paneled doors. He
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decided that he would rather not know. Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath and knocked on Dr. Bloor's door.
"I'm coming," said an irritated voice.
This was not what Charlie had expected. He knocked again.
"For goodness' sake, what's the hurry? Will the soup get cold if I'm a minute late?"
Plucking up courage, Charlie said loudly, "It's Charlie Bone, sir."
"What the dickens?" Quick strides could be heard approaching the door. The next moment it was flung open and Dr. Bloor stood glowering at Charlie. "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "I don't see miscreants at this hour. It's lunchtime."
"I know, sir." Charlie swallowed the unwelcome lump that had arrived in his throat. "But the talents master sent me."
"For Pete's sake, why?"
Charlie ran his sleeve beneath his nose and sniffed.
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"Don't do that!" bellowed Dr. Bloor.
"Sorry, sir. I'm here because I knocked Joshua Tilpin over, and somehow, he banged into a portrait and... and... and ..." Charlie was finding it difficult to describe the hole in Donatella's forehead.
"AND?" shouted Dr. Bloor.
"And Donatella Da Vinci now has a hole." Charlie placed a finger above his right eyebrow and added, "Just here."
For what seemed like a very long time, Dr. Bloor could not speak. He just stared at Charlie, his gray lips working away beneath his neat mustache. At last, in a low, menacing voice, he said, "You stupid, insufferable, loathsome, detestable child. I knew it would come to this."
Charlie was going to ask what Dr. Bloor meant by "this," but just then Weedon emerged from a door farther down the corridor.
"Your lunch is served, Headmaster," the janitor announced, in a tone that suggested a feast had been prepared.
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Dr. Bloor grunted, "In a moment. Weedon. Take this boy to the Gray Room."
Charlie would never know where he got the courage to say what he did next. With Weedon thumping toward him, he knew he didn't have much time, so he just came out with it, all in a rush.
"Dr. Bloor, Billy Raven didn't come back here on Saturday, did he? I know he didn't, so why did you tell the police he did? I mean if he IS here, then where ..."
Charlie watched Dr. Bloor's face go through an amazing transformation. At first he looked astonished, as though he couldn't believe that Charlie had the temerity to ask such a question, and then his features hardened into a cold, forbidding mask. "Get him away from me," he shouted at Weedon.
Weedon had already grabbed Charlie's collar, and now he heaved him, half-choking, down the hallway.
"I know he's not here," Charlie spluttered doggedly. "I know ... I know ..."
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Weedon suddenly opened a door and thrust Charlie inside. There was a loud click. Charlie didn't have to try the door to know that it was locked. He found himself in a cold, gray room. There was nothing in it. Not one thing. The floorboards were rough and unpolished, the walls plain gray stone. There was no heating of any kind. At one end of the room a small, round window showed four quarters of a sky the color of lead. Charlie had no way of reaching the window. It was far too high, and there was nothing to stand on. But Charlie wasn't easily disheartened. He pulled his hood over his head, wrapped his cape tightly around himself, sat in a corner with his knees up, and prepared himself for what was obviously going to be a long wait.
In such a position, the slightest movement in any part of the room would have alerted Charlie, so when the caterpillar appeared on the floor beside him, he was immediately interested. He watched the tiny creature make its way across the floor and then begin to climb the stone wall. When it was a few
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inches above the level of Charlie's head, it began to twist and turn, releasing a thread of glistening silk. Around it went, up and down, the silk covering its body in a shining cocoon.
While the caterpillar was occupied in this way, Charlie suddenly remembered the note Fidelio had given him. Charlie pulled the crumpled paper from his pocket and unfolded it. The note read:
You dhaveyour moth hy tonight, Charlie. I'm meeting Dag Bert in the sculpture room before supper. Tonered.
"You're a star, Tanc!" Charlie quickly pushed the note back into his pocket. And then, for no reason that he could think of, he had a pang of misgiving.
What was wrong with him? He stared at the silk cocoon, its radiance increasing every minute, until the gray walls were bathed in a comforting glow. With a sudden explosion of light, the cocoon burst apart, and a white moth flew out in a shower of stars.
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"Claerwen!" breathed Charlie.
The moth settled onto his knee and spread her damp wings. But even as those white wings began to dry and shine with a greater brilliance than ever, Charlie was thinking of his friend.
If Claerwen was here, then what was in store for Tancred when he descended into the sculpture room, where Dagbert-the-drowner was waiting?
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CHAPTER 12
A DROWNING
Hide!" Charlie whispered.
The white moth allowed her wings to fade until they were the same color as the dull stones in the wall, and then she crawled into the pocket of Charlie's cape.
When the moth was safely hidden, Charlie began to bang on the door. "Hey!" he called. "When are you going to let me out? I'm sorry, OK? I didn't mean to damage the portrait."
He was answered by the half-hour chimes of five grandfather clocks. Charlie looked at his watch. Only half past three. Perhaps they would release him at teatime.
But no one came at four o'clock. Or five. At half past five, hungry and thirsty, Charlie began to bang on the door again. He had to see Tancred before he returned the golden sea urchin. Who knew what
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Dagbert could do, once he had all the sea-gold charms again.
At twenty minutes to six, hoarse from shouting and overcome by a terrible weariness, Charlie slumped to the floor and fell asleep. He had no way of knowing that a battle was about to begin.
In winter, the hours between the end of lessons and dinner were considered free time for the students of Bloor's Academy. Some were busy with rehearsals, of course, but Tancred and Dagbert were not gifted in music or drama, so half past five seemed a good time to meet.
Only Fidelio and Lysander were aware of Tancred's plan, but Fidelio had to rehearse with the school orchestra and Lysander was playing Ping-Pong in the gym.
The sculpture room could only be reached by opening a trapdoor in the art room and going down a steep spiral staircase. At the end of the school day, the trapdoor was always closed.
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Emma was surprised to see Dagbert Endless lifting the trapdoor at half past five. She had never seen him in the art room before. There was such a forest of easels in the room that Dagbert didn't notice Emma, working behind her canvas in a far corner. Tancred didn't see her either. Emma watched him descend into the sculpture room, only moments after Dagbert.
Everything Tancred did mattered to Emma, and when she saw him following Dagbert down to a room where an old tap dripped constantly into a stone trough as big as a bath, she was instantly alarmed.
For a few minutes Emma continued to add color to the group of birds in her painting, but she found it difficult to concentrate. She decided she must know what was happening in the room below. But if Tancred saw her looking in, he would regard her as an interfering girl, a busybody or, even worse, a spy.
There was another way. Emma could use her endowment. It was something she did very seldom. While some used their unusual talents almost every day,
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Emma preferred to keep hers for emergencies. Was this an emergency? Decidedly yes, she thought, remembering the dripping tap and the tomblike trough.
Putting down her paintbrush, Emma stepped away from her easel, took off her cape, and closed her eyes. She thought of a bird, very small, like a wren; a tiny, brown, speckled bird that would never be noticed perched, in shadow, at the back of a wrought-iron step.
While Emma imagined her bird, she began to dwindle; smaller, smaller, and smaller until she was the size of a fledgling wren. Her arms became brown speckled wings; her legs, black and needle-thin beneath the downy feathers that covered her body; and then came the head with its bright black eyes and sharp yellow beak.
The brown bird hopped across to the open trapdoor and dropped onto the top step.
White sheets covered the undefined shapes standing around the sculpture room like ghosts.
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Tancred had his back to a wood carving: a seven-foot-tall griffin. Dagbert sat on the edge of the stone trough. Behind him, the old tap dripped. The trough appeared to be half full.
"I like the carving," Dagbert said. "Is it yours?"
"Lysander's," Tancred replied. "It's a griffin. Have you brought the moth?"
"Have you got my sea-gold creature?"
"Of course. Where's the moth?"
Dagbert smiled. "Here." He drew a small glass jar from his pocket. At the bottom lay something white. Tancred couldn't see what it was. He had to step closer.
"The sea urchin!" Dagbert demanded.
Tancred peered into the jar. It certainly looked like Charlie's moth, lying at the bottom. How could he know that Dorcas Loom had made an excellent replica? She had even painted the wing tips a luminous, glowing silver.
Tancred put his hand inside his cape and withdrew the sea urchin. As Dagbert made to grab it,
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Tancred snatched the jar. Now that both boys had what they wanted, their meeting should have ended there, but Tancred stared uncertainly at the motionless object lying at the bottom of the jar.
In an instant Tancred pulled back, dropping the jar. The false moth slid out and lay motionless on the floor.
"You've tricked me!" cried Tancred, filling the room with a wind that blew the covers off every sculpture and carving. White sheets flapped in the turbulent air; tools, brushes, pots, and tins rolled about the floor; Emma huddled down on her step as the wind swept through her feathers.
The full force of the wind struck Dagbert in the face. He closed his eyes and with one hand clutched his seaweedy hair as though it might be torn
from his head. "I'm stronger than you, Tancred Torsson!" he screamed.
The dripping tap spun off the wall and water gushed out in a torrent. In a second, the stone trough had overflowed, and a bubbling stream rushed across
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the floor. Staggering against the current, Tancred slipped and crashed against the stone trough.
Emma heard a thump as Tancred's head hit the side of the trough. He lay unconscious, facedown in the water. The wind died, and hopping forward, Emma saw Dagbert standing over Tancred.
"You'll never get my sea-gold charm again," cried Dagbert. "Never, never, never."
Emma held back the shriek that she wanted to utter. If she were to help Tancred, she must stay alive, stay hidden.
Clutching his golden sea urchin, Dagbert leaped up the stairs. He never noticed the tiny bird sitting like a dried leaf in the corner of the top step.
With a juddering bang, the trapdoor closed, and Emma heard Dagbert's footsteps thundering above. There was no time to wonder if the trapdoor had been locked. Emma flew down to Tancred.
Perching on his head, she began to peck frantically at the blond hair, but the storm boy didn't move. She would have to roll him over, Emma realized, so
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that his nose and mouth were not beneath the water. For a tiny bird this was impossible. She would have to change.
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Emma urged herself as the feathers melted and her body grew. A girl, at last, she rolled Tancred on his back, put her hands under his arms, and dragged him out of the trough.
Tancred gave an enormous spluttering cough and sat up. "Aw, my head," he groaned. "Em, what happened? What are you doing here?"
"Dagbert," was all she said, before whirling up the steps.
It was as she had feared, the trapdoor was locked. It would be useless to scream; no one would hear them. The whole school would be in the dining hall by now. Emma tore back down the staircase and ran to the trough. Plunging her hand into the water she found the tap and tried to jam it into the wall, where water still gushed from an open pipe.
It was impossible. Time and again the tap dropped out. The trough was overflowing, and there were