by Susan Moore
The very word made her taste buds tingle.
“Popko? There’s one here in London?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, of course. Not in this area of town. Here it’s all posh Victorian lemonade shop rubbish. It’s over in my gaff, in the East End. I board here in the week, but can get out at weekends.”
“Saskia’s poodle has just contacted me. She wants you to hurry up!” announced Fizz.
“You know her?” said Zixin, frowning.
“No, but I’ve got to go home for tea with her today.”
Zixin wrinkled his face up as if a nasty smell had wafted in on the breeze.
“She’s the princess in WarZworld.”
“WarZworld?”
Her mind was racing. Saskia played WarZworld? The rival games company to SPIN.
“Yeah, her mum owns it. If you go into the game you’ll find Miss Sassypants and her mates in there. They’ve built their own medieval kingdom. They like to torture all who enter.”
“But you’ve got to be eighteen to play it.”
Zixin shrugged. “Her mum’s the boss. I get in it through a back door. Nasty place though. I prefer the games your dad built.”
“She asked me earlier if I had my sword with me.”
Zixin laughed. “She’s been hanging out too long in WarZworld. You’d better get moving. Sassypants doesn’t like to wait.”
She smiled. His forked tongue might be weird, but he was the first, and only, person who’d been nice to her the whole day.
It was mayhem at the main entrance. Kids were pushing and shoving to get out through the double doors. Robots were barking, squawking and squeaking, while their owners jostled each other. Nat slipped into the flow around the side and was about to step out of the school when Fizz tapped her with his claw.
“Hat must be on. Vesperetta said you’ll get a warning if a security guard or teacher sees you. Zixin received two warnings and then got a detention. Vesperetta said he had to wear his top hat in lessons and while he was playing football for a whole week.”
She groaned, and crammed it on to her head. “Zoinks, please just cut the ‘Vesperetta said’ thing.”
Fizz snorted. “I am only trying to assist you.”
Out in the road a long queue of Grooveriders and Overriders had formed. They were all high-end with mirror-polished paintwork and blacked-out windows.
The low-slung Grooveriders fitted into the cityscape with their crouching, panther-like design. But the massive, all-terrain Overriders with over-sized knobbly tyres looked out of place. They were great for places in the wild, like on the Steppe in Mongolia, but in a very busy city, with narrow streets, they looked like elephants in a mouse maze.
A gust of wind rustled the leaves in the trees overhead. Nat felt her hat start to tug away. She gripped on to the brim to stop it flying off.
“Where is she?” she said.
Fizz’s eyes flashed red as he scanned the crowds.
“Saskia and the poodle are in the carriage,” he said, pointing his snout over to the far side of the square.
“Zoinks!” said Nat, spotting a massive black carriage decorated with golden swords.
Four gleaming grey horses were harnessed up to the front with plumes of scarlet ostrich feathers in their headbands. A driver wearing a suit of armour was standing holding the reins. Nat had never seen anything like it in real life.
She dodged through the crowd and hobbled across the square in her heavy skirt.
“About time,” grumbled Saskia, who was sitting inside on a royal-blue velvet seat, her poodle lying next to her.
“Sorry,” said Nat, climbing in.
She took a seat opposite Saskia. The door closed automatically and immediately the hum of the city vanished. The carriage was a soundproof box on wheels.
“Good day?” said Saskia.
Nat wasn’t sure how to reply. If Wen or her cousin Henry were asking she’d say, “Ai yah! Worst day ever. Worse than being bitten by a giant centipede.” But she didn’t know Saskia, and so far the other girl wasn’t being very friendly.
She wondered again why she’d been asked to tea. Most likely it was Mr Limpet who’d set it up.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said.
Saskia nodded. She was staring at Nat, her arctic-blue eyes boring into her.
“Your dragon is unusual. Who made him?”
Nat’s hand shot up to where Fizz was perched on her shoulder.
“My dad. He designed him for me. Fizz was activated when I was born.”
“How long have you been an orphan?” Saskia continued to stare at her.
How Nat hated that word! It lived in the dark shadows of her mind. She looked out of the carriage window. They were rolling along the street now at a fast clip. It was surprising how quickly four horses could pull such a big carriage along.
“Since I was two. Mum and Dad died in a plane crash.”
“Who looks after you then?”
More Miss Nosy than Sassypants.
“Jamuka.” She wouldn’t give any more detail than that.
“Ah…” Saskia trailed off. “Did you know that my mother and your father were at Boxbury together?”
Chapter Ten
SHIVERSAND TOWERS
The carriage pulled off the street through a massive set of wrought-iron gates and into a circular driveway. Nat looked out of the window. A huge horse statue with a bronze warrior queen on its back was rearing up in the centre of a stone fountain, frozen in time. In her hands she held a spear and shield. She had long hair down to her waist and was wearing some sort of warrior-queen bikini. Water was spurting out in a high arc from the end of the spear.
If Wen had been there, she’d have giggled and called it “unding”.
“That’s Mater when she started WarZworld,” said Saskia. “She was Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni tribe. William Duncton made her sit for two days while he sculpted her.”
Saskia hadn’t said anything more about their parents being at school together. She said Mater would want that pleasure, but if this statue was anything like the real Ivy Shiversand, Nat was officially dreading meeting her.
The carriage came to a stop. The door swung open automatically and Saskia led the way down. Nat followed, her lace-up leather boots pinching her toes as she landed on the gravel below. In front of her, at the top of a wide flight of marble steps, loomed a building that looked more like a hotel than a house. The words “Shiversand Towers” were carved into the stone above a double-fronted glass doorway.
“Hurry. Mater doesn’t like to be kept waiting!” said Saskia, snapping her fingers.
Nat had a sudden urge to take a flying kick through the air to the back of Saskia’s head. Better not.
Their boots echoed across the marble entrance hall. Saskia removed her hat and tossed it on to an eagle sculpture that was suspended from a wall. A heavy crystal chandelier hung from a central pendant, throwing bright light across the room.
Nat glanced up and gawped. The ceiling was covered in an oil mural of Saskia’s mother in her warrior bikini, this time at the reins of a golden chariot.
“Zoinks! Film this and send it to Wen,” she whispered to Fizz.
Fizz lifted his snout up and started to scan across the ceiling.
“STOP!” barked the poodle, making them both jump.
It came trotting over, growling. Nat took a step backwards but Fizz leapt into protect mode. He swooped down off her shoulder, blasting a plume of smoke right into the poodle’s eyes.
It snarled, curling back its lips to reveal a full set of pristine “Sharper Than The Sharpest Samurai Sword” teeth. Nat gulped. She’d only seen teeth like that in a kung fu movie where the hero had had to fight off a crazed rat robot. The hero won, but not before the rat had nearly bitten off his arm, its sword-edged teeth slicing through the skin with ease.
“Poxo, stop it! Come!” shouted Saskia from down the hallway.
The poodle narrowed its eyes, snapped its jaws shut and obey
ed her command. Nat turned to leave. She’d had enough. She didn’t need Miss Sassypants or her sword-teeth poodle. She’d find a taxi and go home to the Junko.
“Miss Walker, how nice to meet you. Please follow me.”
She looked around her, searching for the owner of the squeaky voice.
“Down below,” Fizz whispered in her ear.
The beetlebot that had delivered the invitation at the dock the day before was standing at her feet. Its compound beetle eyes were flashing, its antennae twitching. Even though she knew it was a robot, it still made her skin crawl.
“This way, please.”
It scuttled off across the marble floor in the same direction as Saskia. Nat hesitated, wondering what to do – should she leave or not?
“It would be impolite not to follow,” said Fizz.
“Zoula!” said Nat. “We’re not staying long though. If I tap you on your wing, you must announce in a loud voice that you’ve had a message from Jamuka saying we are needed back at the Junko straight away.”
“That would make me a liar.”
A wave of tiredness washed over her. Sometimes she wished Fizz was how he used to be before his upgrade – a yes/no, “do as I command”, typical robot.
“Please, just do it for me this once.”
“Yes, my lady.” He swept a wing across his chest and made a short bow.
They followed the beetlebot into a hallway lined with glass cases filled with ancient weapons – swords, bows and arrows, daggers and axes. A low, constant drumbeat was playing through hidden speakers.
At the end they entered a large wood-panelled room lit by flickering candles. An old oil painting of a castle covered one wall and lattice-paned windows let in the grey light of the afternoon. A pair of suits of armour flanked a fireplace. It was like walking into an ancient castle.
Towards the centre of the room stood a golden throne. Nat gasped. A large woman with a chalk-white face and a mass of jet-black, gold-streaked hair, dressed in armour, was occupying it. The beetlebot was crawling up the woman’s arm, coming to rest on her shoulder plate.
“Scary,” whispered Fizz.
“Natalie, welcome! Come and say hello,” said the woman, her voice low and booming.
“Ooh! That’s a very posh English accent.”
Fizz was leaning in so close that his snout was sticking in Nat’s ear. She twitched and made her way over. Saskia was standing near the windows, arms crossed, watching Nat’s progress, her menacing poodle sitting to attention at her side.
Nat reached the throne. She wasn’t certain whether to bow, kneel or what to do. Ivy extended a sweaty hand.
“I am delighted to meet you at last,” she said. “I am Baroness Shiversand, but do call me Ivy.”
They shook hands. Zoinks! How could this be the same warrior queen of the fountain and hall ceiling? It was as if she’d been inflated with a balloon pump to five times her normal size. She was spilling over the sides of her throne. Her Spiderwire armour was stretched thin at the seams. It had to be really uncomfortable to wear.
A suffocating waft of stale sweat hit Nat’s nostrils, along with something else that she couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t the perfume-fug that Aunt Vera emitted. It was more like mothballs. She wrinkled her nose. Mothballs and sweat.
Ivy waved at a small footstool at her feet.
“Please, do take a seat.”
She obeyed. This wasn’t the kind of woman you said no to. Tiger’s teeth, the woman’s skin was waxy! Maybe she was really dead. Maybe she was a robot.
A loud farting sound came from the throne.
“That’s better,” said Ivy, not apologising.
A smell like a hundred-year-old egg spread out from the throne. Nat wrinkled her nose again. OK, Ivy was definitely alive.
“Mater, where’s the tea?” said Saskia.
Nat looked from Saskia to the baroness. It was like they were both out of history books but ones on completely different eras. Saskia was Victorian; her mother medieval.
She wondered how her dad could have been at school at the same time as Ivy. Surely if he was alive he wouldn’t look like some bloated, worn-out warrior – he’d be strong, young and tiger-like?
“Tea is on its way, Saskia. Now, Natalie. We have much to—”
A butler walked in pushing a three-tier tea trolley. China teacups rattled as he wheeled it across the polished floor. There were enough cakes and sandwiches to feed a dozen people. He parked it next to Ivy’s throne.
Saskia hurried over, grabbed a slice of cake and made her way swiftly towards the door.
“Back soon, going to get changed,” was all she said before disappearing, leaving Nat alone with Ivy.
Ivy handed Nat a plate.
“Do help yourself,” she said, smearing jam and a huge dollop of clotted cream on to a scone and cramming it into her mouth.
Nat took a slice of cake. The yellow icing was so thick her fingers sank into the sticky mass.
“You are so like your father,” said Ivy, her left eyelid flickering as if she was trying to wink.
Chapter Eleven
THE SWORD
Nat put the cake on her plate. She looked at the gloopy icing that had glued itself to her fingers and wondered what she was meant to do. There were no napkins, and she didn’t want to lick her fingers because Ivy was doing the very same thing with the jam and clotted cream, and it was putting her off.
All the time she was thinking about her dad, of the photo of him standing in uniform outside Boxbury.
Apart from her dad’s half brother, Uncle Fergal, who never talked about him, she’d never met anyone who knew her dad from so long ago.
“Were you friends?” she asked.
Ivy snorted. “More rivals than friends. We were Boxbury’s champion geeks. I was faster at coding; your father was better at system design.”
She nodded at Fizz, who was perched on Nat’s shoulder.
“My guess is that he designed your robot. I assume it flies, blows smoke and flames, and used to hum ‘Flower of Scotland’ to you when you were a baby.”
The plate fell out of Nat’s hand and crashed to the floor. How could Ivy know about that tune? That was her secret, not to be shared with anyone, especially Ivy Shiversand.
She reached down to pick up the smashed plate but two beetlebots were ahead of her, sweeping bits of cake and plate into a pile. At least she wouldn’t have to eat it now.
“How do you know all that?”
“Because he designed a dragon robot for a year-end project. Just like the one on your shoulder. He was always fascinated by dragons. He’d spend hours drawing what he considered to be the perfect one. He won the Boxbury computer prize for it, beating me for once. Mine was for a poodle robot. I had it created for Saskia when she was born.”
Rats’ tails, she was lucky her dad had liked dragons. She could have ended up with a scissor-teethed poodle.
“We went on to UCL together,” said Ivy.
“Where?”
“University College London. We were on the virtual reality science degree course.”
“Did you know my mum then?”
Ivy jolted in her throne as if she’d been given an electric shock. Her eyes popped wide and her lips pursed up.
“It was after that when your parents met.”
Nat frowned. She thought they had still been students when they met.
“I was told they’d met here in London.”
Ivy took a loud slurp of tea and burped.
“PhD, both of them. Cath—” She stopped and coughed, unable to get Nat’s mum’s name out. “—erine, your mother, was at SOAS. That was after we’d graduated.”
So Ivy did know her mum. “What were they like?”
Ivy grabbed a sandwich and ate it in one gulp.
“It was a long time ago. I hardly knew her at all.”
The butler cleared his throat noisily from the doorway.
“Excuse me, ma’am. The Bateleys man is here.”
>
Ivy waved her hand.
“Perfect timing. Bring him in.”
A man in a long brown apron with a blue and gold “B” embroidered on the pocket walked in carrying a long wooden crate. A second later Poxo came flying through the door behind him, skidding on the floor, growling and snapping at the man’s heels, teeth glinting. The Bateleys man froze on the spot.
“Poxo, go back upstairs!” roared Ivy.
The poodle stopped, whimpered and retreated.
“Thanks,” said the Bateleys man. “My mate said to watch out for him.”
“Come. Bring it here,” said Ivy, pushing herself up off the throne.
Nat decided to stand up too and move out of the way. The man reached Ivy and went down on one knee, offering the crate up from gloved hands.
“Baroness Shiversand. Lot two hundred and eighty-three,” he announced. “Would you like me to open it for you?”
Ivy grabbed it off him. “That won’t be necessary. You can take your leave.”
He was up and out of the room in a flash. Nat was thinking she’d like to do the same thing.
“Sit, Natalie.”
It was a command. Nat scowled, but took her seat again at Ivy’s feet.
“She thinks herself a queen,” whispered Fizz. “Shall I announce that we must leave?”
Ivy flopped back down on her throne with the crate across her vast lap. She unfastened the clips and lifted the lid.
“This is over three thousand years old,” she said, lifting out a red silk-covered box.
“Not yet. I want to see what’s inside,” said Nat, so softly only Fizz could hear.
Ivy took a deep breath, opened the box and pulled out an ancient, rusty sword by the handle. She swept it up into the air.
“I presume you are familiar with this kind of thing, Natalie?” said Ivy, running a sweaty finger across the surface of the blade.
Nat shook her head. Why did Saskia and Ivy think she had a sword?
Ivy narrowed her eyes, bringing the blade of the sword down to Nat’s eye level. Fizz snorted out a plume of smoke, lifted a talon and with a clang of metal-on-metal pushed the blade away from Nat.