The Girl Who Stole A Planet (Amy Armstrong Book 1)

by Stephen Colegrove

  Philip pouted. “The emotions of those who live at Clarence House aren’t buried deep within a vault––they simply don’t exist.”

  Sunflower sighed. “Amy wasn’t talking about feelings, you boob. She was talking about gold coins and jewelry.”

  “My family does have more money than God, and glittering piles of gems.”

  Amy shrugged. “Not important. Don’t really care.”

  “Miss Armstrong, I know you and Sunflower are thieves. Don’t look at me like that! It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’m on your side.”

  The opening of the tunnel behind them glowed sapphire.

  “Oh, no,” whispered Sunflower.

  Amy sighed. “More running?”

  “There’s always running,” said the cat. “Don’t you know anything about operations? Running, running, and more running. Hey, lover boy! You said your parents have a house in London. Where is it?”

  “In Kensington. I’ll take us there.”

  “No, no. I’m the one it’s tracking, so we have to split up. I’ll get rid of the inspector drone or get rid of the dope controlling it while the two of you go to Kensington.”

  “Don’t go to the house directly,” said Philip. “We’ll meet in Hyde Park at the north end of the Serpentine. That’s the largest body of water in the park.”

  A gout of orange flame burst from the darkness with an ear-piercing roar. The steel rails of the underground line shrieked and the gravel below Amy’s feet shook like flour in a sifter.

  “Later, gator!” yelled Sunflower.

  The cat raced down the tracks like a streak of orange lightning and disappeared into the dark mouth of the railway tunnel.

  Amy and Philip jumped to the wall of the underground trench and began to climb a vertical line of narrow stones that seemed designed for the purpose. Amy moved faster than she thought possible up the stone ladder, and her limbs burned with effort. She rolled over the top ledge and pulled Philip up only a second before the tentacled silver ball of the inspector floated out of the tunnel and into the night air.

  The pair lay on their bellies as flat as lizards, wide-eyed and with cheeks pressed to the greasy dirt. The electric hum of the inspector grew louder and louder, and the evil sapphire beam flashed over the top of the wall.

  Amy watched the blue light cast shadows over Philip’s face. The whites of his eyes were showing. He must have been scared, but his jaw was clenched and his mouth pressed into a thin line.

  The look reminded Amy of Lucia and her face on the hospital bed. It was also the same expression of grim determination the first time Amy had made her foster mother angry, years ago, when they’d all gone to the Monterey aquarium. Amy had ducked out a side door and spent a few hours wandering around Cannery Row stealing purses from careless tourists. Tony had found her and dragged her back to the shark display at the aquarium. Lucia had stood in front of the huge glass window, the blue light playing over her face as she stared at Amy, her jaw set.

  Amy closed her eyes and bit her lower lip, but the wooly ball of emotion had already started to unwind inside her chest. She burst into tears and rolled onto her back in the blue aquarium light, her hands over her face.

  “Miss Armstrong, please be quiet,” whispered Philip.

  “I can’t! It’s absolutely horrible!”

  Philip touched her shoulder. “Steady on there. We’ll get through this.”

  Amy wiped her eyes. “I’ll never see my mother again,” she whispered. “I thought this was a dream or a nightmare or whatever, but it’s not. This is real and I’ll never see her again.”

  The hum grew louder and the inspector’s scanning beam flicked back and forth like a blue flashlight in the hands of a child. Philip ignored this and slid closer to Amy, his face only inches away.

  “Miss Armstrong,” he said quietly, “you’re the bravest and smartest girl I’ve ever met. If anyone can cross space and time to find her mother, it’s you.”

  Amy sniffed. “You haven’t met that many girls, have you?”

  “Perhaps not. I don’t think my female relatives should count as human. Having been to the future, I’d have to say they have more in common with sauropods.”

  Amy held a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles. It didn’t work, and she shook with laughter.

  “Here we go,” sighed Philip. “Hysterics of a different sort.”

  Amy wiped her eyes after a moment and sighed. Stars sparkled in the night sky, and the buildings around her had returned to inky darkness. The electric hum had faded.

  “It’s leaving,” she whispered.

  Philip lifted his head and peered down to the tracks.

  “It’s gone! We did it!”

  Amy looked down to the other railway tunnel, where a faint sapphire beacon flashed back and forth.

  “You mean Sunflower did it.”

  “No matter.” Philip stood and helped Amy to her feet. “To the Kensington house!”

  Chapter Ten

  The conflagration caused by the inspector had shaken the East End and the entire city of London from their beds. This was not surprising, given the ever-present rumble of fire engines through the streets, with the clang of their brass alarm bells and the clatter of teams of iron-shod horses.

  Amy and Philip fled west away from the fire and smoke. They had escaped the crush of people fleeing the monstrous robot, but now faced crowds of excited Londoners running toward the disaster, each one eager for a bit of news and excitement. Amy’s injured feet were needled with pain, but she kept up with Philip’s rapid jog.

  “I’m sorry I gave away all that money!” she yelled.

  Philip grinned. “Don’t be. Those urchins needed it more.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I think I cut my feet on the rocks. A cab would be great right now.”

  Philip slowed to a walk and watched her carefully. “I doubt we could find one now, even if we had money. It’s far too early in the morning and we’re dressed like a pair of workhouse tots.”

  An orange tabby crossed the street. Amy thought for half a second that it was Sunflower, but the cat had a crooked tail.

  “London sure has a lot of cats,” she said.

  Philip nodded. “In greater number perhaps than people. They’re very useful in keeping the rat population down.”

  “Yuck. I didn’t even think about that.”

  “One tries not to.”

  “How far is it to Hyde Park?”

  Philip thought for a moment. “I haven’t spent much time on this side of London, so I can’t say precisely. It’s at the very least a few miles, straight as the sparrow flies.”

  “A few miles?!!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll carry you if necessary. You can’t weigh more than a few stone.”

  “How much does a stone weigh?”

  Philip laughed. “More than a feather.”

  The teenagers plodded southwest out of the slums and into a different world. The sidewalks were swept clean and not a scrap of rubbish blew under the light of the hissing, gas-powered street lamps. On stout granite and brick facades were fixed the shiny brass nameplates of respectable-sounding companies such as “Bishopsgate Brokerage,” “Lee & Wilson Solicitors,” and “Oriental Trading and Investments.”

  The pair walked a dozen blocks to a star-shaped intersection of five avenues. Philip stopped and pointed at a massive edifice of classical granite columns.

  “There she is. The woman my father loves more than anything else. He’s probably spent half his life with her and the other half at the Royal Exchange behind us.”

  Amy squinted up at the building. “I don’t see anyone. It looks like a library.”

  “It’s not a library, it’s the Bank of England. Haven’t you heard of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street?”

  “Does she sell sodas? I’d kill for a Diet Pepsi right now.”

  Philip shook his head. “The Old Lady is the Bank of England. It’s the center of finance for the entire British Empire. The w
orld turns not by the minute but by the pound, as my father says.”

  “Well, I’ve never heard of a bank with a nickname.”

  “It’s an old story.”

  “Let me guess: a poor old woman didn’t pay her bills, so they locked her in the basement until she died, blah, blah, blah. Now she haunts little children who don’t shove their tuppence in a piggy bank or something silly like that.”

  Philip held a finger over his lips and shushed her. “A ghost is involved, Miss Armstrong, but it’s not silly at all. A clerk at the bank was caught forging banknotes and hanged for the crime. For the next twenty-five years his sister came to the front desk and asked for her brother. When she died, she was buried in the old churchyard behind the Bank. The Bank was extensively remodeled years later, and the churchyard was purchased for use as a garden. The Lady’s ghost appeared soon after, wandering along the shrubbery and asking any unlucky souls the fateful question.”

  “What question?”

  “Where her brother was, of course!”

  “I still think it’s silly to believe in ghosts.”

  Philip shrugged. “Life is full of oddities we don’t understand. I’ll wager that until yesterday you probably didn’t believe in space travel or machines that could fly through the air.”

  Amy took a sip from a bubbling public drinking fountain and wiped her mouth.

  “Um, no. You’re getting your centuries mixed up, Phil. I’ve been to Houston and seen the moon rockets.”

  “In any case, you’ve seen the amazing machines on the Lady’s ship; creations that would be magical to normal people. London is two thousand years old and absolutely chock full of ghosts. You can’t say that a thousand stories about the spirit world aren’t true simply because we don’t have the right spectacles.”

  Amy pointed at her eyes. “Oh, I’ve got the spectacles to see them, Phil, and the talk-talk box is right below that. Let’s go see this ghost.”

  “That’s perfectly absurd! We’re on our way to Hyde Park.”

  Amy grabbed the teenager’s arm and pulled him down the sidewalk. “I think we can afford a tiny little detour.”

  A thick fog had swept in from the south while they had been talking, covering the Old Lady in a gown of opaque white and transforming the street lights into a fantastical string of bluish-white moons. The giant columns of the Royal Exchange disappeared, along with the bronze statue of a man on a horse. Even the orange glow and distant clamor of the East End fires was silenced. The world had been rubbed away by nature’s foggy brush, and only the gray stone below their feet was left.

  Philip let Amy pull him along the pavement with a sort of half-smile on his face, but when she turned the corner and strode along the west face of the massive, fort-like building, he let go of her hand.

  “Miss Armstrong! I can’t believe you’re serious.”

  “I’m always serious.”

  “But it’s the Bank of England, not someone’s back garden! To get to the center we’d have to climb five floors and cross the roof. Not to mention the guard regiment!”

  Amy locked her arm with Philip’s and strode forward into the fog.

  “I’ve done worse.”

  A moan sounded over the shuffle of their steps.

  “Don’t whine,” said Amy. “It’s childish.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  The pair of teenagers stopped and stared at each other.

  An inhuman sound pealed in the fog behind them; the gurgling, desperate wail of an animal who’d suffered a fatal, horrible wound and now sobbed in pain.

  “Sounds like a goat,” said Amy. “Do you have goats in London?”

  Philip’s face drained of all color, and he covered Amy’s mouth with his hand.

  “Please,” he whispered. “Don’t speak.”

  Amy brushed the boy’s fingers away. “You think it’s the Old Lady, don’t you? I bet it’s just a poor animal that’s been run over.”

  “No! We must flee!”

  The sickening howl of grief came again, louder this time and definitely closer. Amy squinted but couldn’t see a thing through the white fog.

  “I’m sorry, Amy!”

  Philip jerked his arm out of her grasp and sprinted away from the gurgling moan. He quickly disappeared into the fog and the slap of his boots faded away.

  Amy shook her head and watched the direction he’d gone.

  “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” she muttered. “What was all that crap about the bravest and smartest girl he’d ever met?”

  She sighed and pulled the pigtail from her back pocket.

  “I’ll put this poor animal out of its misery,” she said, slapping the tiny crowbar in her palm. “Then I’ll catch up to that posh twerp and do the same to him.”

  Amy crept forward, hand with the pigtail raised and the fog dotting her face and neck in cold pinpoints of moisture. The mist gradually revealed the shape of a brown and white terrier plodding along slowly, his head drooping almost to the pavement.

  “Betsy?”

  The dog raised his head and scampered up to Amy, his tail wagging furiously.

  “Amy! I thought I’d lost you!”

  Amy bent down and hugged the terrier. “What are you doing here? How is that even possible?”

  “Well … I … uh … the Lady caught us,” said Betsy. “She sent me here to find you and Sunflower and Philip and trick you into coming back, but I tricked her instead! I found you but I’m not going to trick you into going back! Or am I? I’m so confused!”

  “So you’re going to stay here forever?”

  “Of course not! Old Earth smells bad and the food is awful.”

  “You’ll have to go back to the Lady at some point. She’s going to be mad because you didn’t do what she said.”

  Betsy jumped in the air and barked. “Right, but the Lady is great and I love her!”

  Amy sighed and patted the terrier on the head. “I don’t think you’re very good at making plans, Betsy.”

  “Not really. Hey, can I ask you something? You haven’t seen three humans running around with a video headset and a little backpack, have you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Just asking. Absolutely no reason at all. I don’t even know why that question popped into my head. Forget I asked. Please don’t tell Sunflower.”

  Amy straightened up. “Speaking of the devil, we’d better get moving. We’re supposed to meet the cat in Hyde Park.”

  Betsy gaped at her. “Sunflower’s not with you? Is he okay?”

  “I hope so. He’s trying to get rid of an inspector drone that’s on his tail. It’s tracking him, and not us, so we split up.”

  “That’s smart,” said Betsy. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” said the dog. “Well, let’s get a trot on. Hyde Park is miles away.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve got a map in my knowledge implant. I can find pretty much any place with an address. Just don’t ask me to deliver pizza.”

  “Why not?”

  Betsy stared at her. “Because I really hate pizza!”

  The Jack Russell terrier crossed the street, tail wagging, and headed west. Amy jogged after him.

  “Where’s your friend, Philly?”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Really? I think he liked you. I’m friends with anyone who likes me.”

  Amy sniffed. “My friends don’t run away.”

  Amy and the terrier kept walking west along the wide, fog-covered Cheapside Street, keeping a close eye on early-morning strangers and hiding in dark corners from the occasional policeman in brass-buttoned uniforms. The few officers they met were more interested in running to the conflagration at the East End than harassing a dog and a teenage vagrant in a brown skirt and wool jacket five sizes too big.

  Jewelry shops dominated the ground floors of the five-story brick and granite buildings on Cheapside, selling the type of jewelry men either bou
ght for themselves or received as gifts. Watches, tie chains, masculine rings, and cuff links dominated the goods on offer, along with men’s tailors, shirt and sock makers, and tobacconists.

  A limestone church spire broke the mercantile parade of buildings, proudly standing on a street corner like a white rook. A rectangular black clock with roman numerals and golden hands projected from the tower over the sidewalk, where a group of a dozen men stood around in conversation. A sign next to the door said “St. Mary-le-Bow.”

  Amy covered her face with the lapel of her jacket as she passed the arched stone entrance of the church.

  “Oy, lass!” yelled one of the men. “Did you hear about the Jeremiah?”

  Amy turned and spread her hands. “The what?”

  “The fire, you moppet!”

  “Hear about it? My dog started it!”

  Betsy watched the group of men point at him and laugh wildly. The terrier scampered after Amy.

  “The fire wasn’t my fault! That thing has a mind of its own.”

  “Don’t get excited; it was just a joke.” Amy stopped walking. “What ‘thing’ are you talking about?”

  Betsy pointed his nose to the sky and trotted away.

  “Nothing. I said nothing!”

  The fog brightened as they continued their trek through the city. Men in tan or brown trousers with the determined, head-down attitude of early risers walked briskly along the sidewalks to their shops. Carriages full of fresh produce rattled over the cobblestone, followed by long horse-drawn omnibuses full of working men. Two-wheeled hansom cabs pulled by a single horse snapped and clopped toward the railway heads at Waterloo, Broad Street, or London Bridge to catch the morning rush of City workers. Gulls screamed and spiraled above the fog, waking gray pigeons in the eaves of the great basilica of Saint Paul’s, who fluttered down to the wet streets and waited patiently for a dropped biscuit.

  Amy sat on the eastern steps of Saint Paul’s, chewing on an apple that had fallen from a passing cart. Patches of blue sky showed through the fog and the city hummed with activity. The bells of St. Paul’s tolled for morning worship and parishioners walked up the steps with bowed heads and the scrape of shoes. A constant stream of men in smart bowler hats and black wool suits poured from the Underground exits and stepped down from omnibuses, adding the squeak of thousands of leather shoes to the slam of greengrocers opening their shops. Old women and girls wandered through the crowds with pails of quick breakfast for sale: meat pies, roasted potatoes, or coffee. Public transport omnibuses, heavily loaded carts, and all manner of horse-drawn wagonry filled the streets, adding the slap of reins and crack of horse shoes to the touts of tobacconists and boys standing beside huge stacks of newspaper. These young drummers beat the air with the morning papers and screamed themselves hoarse on last night’s horrible events in Aldgate.