by Ally Carter
April looked around the room again. There were clothes in the closets. Two toothbrushes in the bathroom. A pair of high-heeled shoes lay discarded by the bed. It wasn’t hard to imagine a grief-stricken ten-year-old ordering that his parents’ room be boarded up like a capsule. And now, even twenty years later, it was still frozen in time, waiting for a ship that was never going to make it back to shore.
‘Like I said.’ Colin shrugged. ‘No one’s gonna come looking in this room.’
There were framed photographs on every surface. Kids playing in the water. A man and woman in love. A family gathered around a Christmas tree, all of them – even Smithers – in ugly sweaters. Well … everyone except Evert, who stood awkwardly behind them in his dark suit, glaring at the camera.
The dust danced in the light that streamed through the windows, and when Sadie spoke, she sounded different than April had ever heard her. ‘OK, April, tell us everything.’
‘Me? I don’t know anything!’
‘We know why Colin’s here. And me. And Tim. And presumably Violet’s here because of Tim,’ Sadie went on. ‘But there’s nothing in Ms Nelson’s notebook about you, so haven’t you wondered why you’re here?’
April hadn’t wondered, actually. ‘I just assumed someone called her. I mean, she’s the head of the Winterborne Foundation, right? So they would have told her about the fire. And about me. I didn’t think too much about it. Ms Nelson was just there when I woke up in the hospital, and—’
‘You were in the hospital?’ Sadie’s voice was too loud, and April was suddenly grateful for the sheer size of Winterborne House.
‘Yeah. I sort of … um … burned down the museum.’
‘You burned down the museum?’ If possible, Sadie’s cry was even louder.
‘It wasn’t a big deal.’ (It was totally a big deal.) ‘I thought my key might open a box in the Winterborne collection, but it didn’t. And then I knocked over a candle, and the whole place went … poof. I didn’t mean to! It just happened so fast. And …’
For some reason, April didn’t want to tell them about being saved by a Gabriel Winterborne-shaped figure – about the way her key tumbled out of her hands and then ended up back around her neck.
‘Why should I be in the book? The fire was the night before she got me. No one ever cared about me before then. And I never told anyone about my key. Not until Evert broke in here and stole it.’
‘We have to get Gabriel to go public,’ Sadie said.
But Colin only laughed. ‘Good luck with that, love. You might find out if he’s got a bite to go with that growl.’
‘Wouldn’t help anyway,’ Tim added.
‘Why not?’ Sadie asked.
‘Because a Dead Gabriel isn’t our problem. A Live Evert is.’
Tim wasn’t suggesting they kill him.
Probably.
Almost definitely.
Surely Tim wasn’t suggesting they kill him? April wondered, but Sadie was looking at him like she wouldn’t rule anything out.
‘So how do we stop Evert?’ Sadie asked. ‘What are his weaknesses? What does he want? What—’
‘My key.’ April’s hand went to her neck again and came up empty. Again. ‘He broke into our room to take it. So it must be important.’
‘What does it open?’ Violet sounded so young when she said it. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know that was the question that had pretty much dominated April’s entire life and she still didn’t have any answers.
‘I don’t know,’ April admitted.
‘How’d you get it?’ Tim asked.
‘My mum. She left it when she … when she left me. And before you ask, no. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how she got it or why or when, but I know Evert was willing to break in here to steal it. So I know that Evert must need it.’
‘No, love.’ Colin shook his head. His eyes twinkled. ‘He needs whatever is behind the lock that that key opens.’
April thought about her first morning at Winterborne House – about how she’d been nervous and tired and covered in porridge when Evert just appeared in the corridor after everyone had thought he’d gone home.
‘Sadie, remember when you told me that Evert shows up here sometimes and wanders around?’ April asked, and Sadie nodded. ‘What if he’s been looking for something?’
‘Like what?’ Sadie asked.
‘I don’t know. But Colin’s right. Evert needs something that’s locked up in this house. And if he needs it …’ April trailed off, and Tim finished.
‘So do we.’
April was out of breath when they finally reached the cellar, but she still managed to blurt out, ‘What does it open?’
‘Hello to you too,’ Gabriel said, looking around at the group. ‘I’m still alive, as you can see. A little hungry. Perhaps—’
‘Evert broke into our room and stole my key. He risked us seeing him or being caught by Smithers and Ms Nelson. Why?’
‘Because it’s pretty? Because it drove him crazy to see our illustrious family crest around the neck of an orphan? Because he’s insane? Take your pick,’ Gabriel said. ‘It’s not like it matters.’
‘But what if it does?’ Sadie asked. ‘If we could get April’s key—’
‘And how exactly are you going to do that?’ Gabriel challenged, and at first, Sadie recoiled a little, but then she grew braver. ‘We’re gonna steal it.’
‘Yeah!’ Colin cried out. ‘Now we’re talking.’
‘No! I can’t keep all of you safe if you go—’ But he stopped when he realised April was actually, literally, laughing at him. ‘Something funny?’
‘We don’t need you to keep us safe. I don’t even need you to get into Evert’s house. I can climb up, shimmy through a window and—’
‘No!’ Gabriel’s shout echoed around the big stone room, and when he leaned down, she could look into his eyes, past the pain and the sorrow. She saw the little boy from the paintings, and she remembered that Gabriel Winterborne had been sharpening his swords since he was ten years old.
‘That man killed my entire family – his entire family. So tell me this … What do you think he’d do to the likes of you?’ The words weren’t a threat. They were a warning.
But April had already seen Evert’s men working on the dock. April had already worn Evert’s precious key around her neck for years. April and the other kids were already in too deep, and as far as April could tell, they had two options: drown or start swimming. So she didn’t have time to be afraid.
‘You don’t get it, Gabriel …’ April said. ‘I never had a family. I’m not afraid of yours.’
‘He’s dangerous!’
‘So are you,’ April told him. ‘And you’re not alone any more.’
HOW TO STOP AN EVIL UNCLE
IN THREE EASY STEPS
TO DO LIST:
1. Get key.
2. Find lock.
3. Win.
That was it. It was just that simple. But, sadly, simple didn’t always equal easy. Because Winterborne House was still huge. And Gabriel was still surly. And at the end of the day, they still didn’t know how to get the key or where to find the lock, and ‘winning’ depended entirely on what Evil Uncle Evert was so desperate to get his hands on. Plus, it was a concept that April didn’t have a lot of experience with. But there was a first time for everything. Or so she told herself.
So instead of focusing on the things she didn’t know, she decided to focus on the things she did. Like how Sadie Marie Simmons was, in fact, a genius, and how if Violet stood on a chair and screamed, ‘Mouse!’ at the top of her lungs, Smithers and Ms Nelson would both be distracted for at least an hour.
She thought about the ten jewellery boxes, nine music boxes, and four wall safes they’d found – not to mention the three abandoned suites in the family wing that you could access via secret passage.
And, finally, April remembered that even though most people feel better once they start sleeping in r
eal beds, eating real food, and taking real showers, Gabriel Winterborne was not most people.
‘April!’
The shout echoed off the stone walls and hard floor, and April had to wince. And force a smile. And remind herself that she’d spent days hoping he would wake up, so it would be wrong for her to wish him unconscious again. Very wrong. So, so wrong. But April did it anyway, because Fever Gabriel never yelled, and in that sense, he was April’s favourite Gabriel by far.
‘What is all this?’
The floor was covered with cords and cables. TVs leaned against the wall while Colin stood atop a ladder, a cordless drill in his hands and a very Sadie-ish gleam in his eye.
‘Did you have a nice shower?’ April asked. His hair was wet, and his clothes were clean, and April had thought he’d be in a good mood when he got back from the bathroom in the family wing where they’d left not one, not two, but three kinds of bubble bath and a brand-new razor (which he hadn’t even used). But instead he was pointing at the screens that Tim and Colin were mounting on the wall.
‘What are those?’
‘Monitors,’ April said simply.
‘Why are there monitors in my cellar?’
‘Because it turns out Evil Uncle Evert uses the same security system as Winterborne House, and Sadie was able to hijack the feed. That way we can keep an eye on him from a distance because, as you like to remind me, we’re just kids. Or would you prefer not to have eyes on your murderous uncle?’ When he didn’t answer, she had to smirk. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Aren’t you worried Smithers will come looking for you?’
Colin hopped down from the ladder. ‘Oh, he’s watching that British cooking show he’s so into. It’s trifle night. The house could burn down, and he wouldn’t notice on trifle night. But just to be safe, Violet’s keeping a lookout.’
‘And what about …’ He couldn’t even say the word Isabella.
‘She left an hour ago,’ Tim said.
‘She’s looking for a new house,’ April added. ‘For us to move into. When you’re dead.’
Gabriel probably didn’t even realise he was glancing towards his swords. And the cliffs. But he was winded just from going to take a shower. He had no business tracking Ms Nelson – not when he couldn’t even keep himself safe at the moment.
When he said, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ he didn’t even sound angry any more. Not even disappointed. He just looked … sad.
‘We want to do this,’ April told him.
‘No. You don’t know what you’re getting into.’
‘Do I need to remind you who it was who dragged you out of the water and saved your life?’ April asked.
‘I wouldn’t have been in the water if you hadn’t been there! I would have …’
‘What?’ April asked. ‘What would you have done?’
Then, for the first time since April had known him, Gabriel Winterborne looked guilty.
‘I wouldn’t have had to save you.’
She didn’t say what she was thinking: that he’d needed saving a long time before he went into the water.
He walked to the other side of the cellar and the narrow bed they’d found in the attic. He pushed aside the stack of clean clothes Colin had pilfered from the things Smithers was going to give to charity. He didn’t look all that happy to be wearing a T-shirt that said BUTLERS BUTTLE BETTER. It was too small and pulled tight across his chest, but it was soft and clean, and he didn’t complain as he pulled an old threadbare sweater on over that and tossed his towel over the back of a chair.
He looked grumpy, and April couldn’t entirely blame him. After all, in the two days since he’d woken up, his very quiet, very dull cellar had become … crowded.
Half of Sadie’s lab had been moved to one of the passageways. Tim and Violet had found a doll’s house that looked exactly like Winterborne House, and they’d turned it into a model of the mini mansion, complete with stickers for cameras and action figures for guards.
The dark and dirty cellar was part lab, part playroom, part bedroom, part … home.
But that was before the explosion.
‘What in the …’ he shouted as dust fell from the ceiling and the cellar shook. Smoke filled the air as Sadie emerged from the haze.
Her hair was sticking up, and dust covered her face, and she was shouting, ‘I’m OK!’ a little too loudly – like her ears weren’t working right.
‘Are you sure? Your hair is kind of … smoking,’ Colin said, patting one of Sadie’s signature topknots.
But Sadie just grinned and shouted, ‘I got it!’
‘Got what?’ Colin sounded concerned as a low hum filled the air. Then there was movement on one of the monitors, and April realised that it wasn’t showing the feed from Evert’s security system. It was showing the feed from …
April looked up and saw a drone the size of a shoebox hovering overhead.
‘I call it the SadieSeer 200!’
Sure enough, SADIESEER 200 was painted right on the side in big white letters.
‘Uh, maybe don’t put your name on the thing that we’re going to use to plan a heist?’ Colin told her.
Sadie considered it for a second, then nodded. ‘Good note, Colin!’ She used the remote, and soon the drone was dropping down and hovering right in front of the group. ‘It has a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotating camera. Night vision. A two-mile range, and … uh … let’s call it stealth mode.’
‘Stealth mode?’ Tim asked.
‘Yeah. I can make it … uh … explode. Just a little. If we need to cover our tracks.’
Gabriel was looking at her like she was the scariest thing he’d seen in ten years of life on the lam. The other kids were looking at her like she was … Sadie.
A moment later, Colin asked, ‘You just blew up the SadieSeer 100, didn’t you?’
And Sadie cried, ‘For science!’
But April was inching closer to the SadieSeer and saying, ‘Sadie, you’re a genius!’
Sadie beamed. ‘I know. I’ve been tested.’
PREPWORK MAKES PERFECT
And so it began – the watching and the waiting, the planning and the worrying.
They split into groups and took turns watching the mini mansion on the monitors and scouring Winterborne House for a lock that could have been anywhere or looked like anything. But their biggest job might have been keeping Smithers and Ms Nelson from becoming suspicious.
By the end of the first week, they’d searched the entire first floor except for Smithers’s room and the butler’s pantry (which wasn’t technically Smithers’s room, but try telling him that).
They’d looked in bathrooms and closets, behind suits of armour and under potted plants. They spent a whole rainy day scouring library shelves and a whole night going through row after row of fencing trophies and polo trophies and a spelling bee trophy that was placed right beside an Olympic medal that Gabriel’s father had won before Gabriel was born.
But no little boxes. No chests. No drawers. No secret compartments. And absolutely no locks.
The good news was they still had a lot of places to look. The bad news was they had soooooo many places to look!
When they weren’t looking for the lock, they were keeping an eye on Evert and trying to figure out how to resteal the key.
You might think that spying on a murderous, villainous, utterly evil uncle would be interesting. Well, April admitted later, you’d be wrong. If anything, Evert was boring.
Every morning he ate the same breakfast: oatmeal.
Every day he wore the same thing to work: a black three-piece suit.
Every night he went to bed at the same time: 10:45.
And when he was all alone – when he thought no one else was watching – he’d bring out April’s key and hold it tight, just like she used to do. It made April feel sick. And it made her want to climb through the screen and claw his eyes out.
The good news was that they knew where the key was. The bad new
s was that it was on Evert. Like literally on him. Almost all the time. He wore it on a chain that he kept in his pocket, and he only took that off when he was sleeping. April wanted to break into his room with a knife – just to see how he liked it. But …
‘He has bodyguards. Big, scary ones,’ Colin said for what must have been the hundredth time a week after they’d first started their vigil.
Gabriel bristled and mumbled something that sounded like they aren’t that scary, but April wasn’t really listening. She’d heard it all before.
‘How many guards on the perimeter?’ Tim asked.
‘Four,’ Sadie said.
‘We can handle four. Can’t we?’ April asked, but Sadie glanced nervously around.
‘Plus dogs. I don’t do dogs,’ Colin said, but Tim just crossed his arms.
‘I’ve got the dogs,’ Tim said, and April kind of didn’t want to know what he meant by that, so she didn’t ask any questions.
‘We could do an Avon Lady,’ Colin said. ‘That’ll get us past the gates.’
‘I don’t know what that is,’ Sadie admitted.
‘For you we’d make it a Girl Scout. But he knows us. Darn it. Ooh! How about the Three Horned Dragon?’ Sadie looked at him like he was crazy, so Colin rolled his eyes and said, ‘Cons are in my blood, love. You’ve got to trust me. All we’d need is a hot-air balloon, a blowtorch, and three monkeys.’
‘Colin—’
‘OK, Sade. Two monkeys. Tops!’
‘Colin!’
‘One monkey and a larger-than-average ferret?’
‘Enough!’ Gabriel snapped. ‘Go to bed.’
‘It’s seven o’clock,’ Colin complained, and April couldn’t exactly blame him. She didn’t want to go to bed, either. She wanted to steal her key back and find the lock. And she was just starting to say so when something on the monitors caught her eye because, for once, Evert was doing something different.
She got up and eased closer to the screens. She didn’t even realise Gabriel was behind her until he said, ‘It’s poker night.’ On the screens, Evert sat around a table with five other men. There was a deck of cards and stacks of chips. ‘He plays every month. Has for years.’ Then he looked at April. ‘You’re not the only one who does homework.’