Which is what we did. And we were. Free.
12
EDMUND
We may have been free, but we were still stuck. We were now sitting high up on the ledge inside the cave—the same ledge where we had stood that morning and looked down at the sword. But of course the cave was still full of water.
“You are safe,” said Edmund. “Now you must wait for the tide to go out.”
“How long will that take?” we both asked.
“It will take two hours and fifteen minutes,” said Edmund. “Farewell, I must be gone.”
“Gone?” squeaked Wanda. “You can’t go and leave us here all alone.”
“But Wanda, you are safe. The sea does not reach up here. All you have to do is wait for the water to recede. I have left my post for too long. I must return to my duties in the tunnel.”
“What duties in the tunnel?” I asked him, wondering what on earth Edmund had to do that was so important. Polish the dust? Vacuum up the spiders?
“I guard the way. I must stop anyone from passing from the house and suffering the same fate that Sir Horace and I did so many years ago. But today,” said Edmund sadly, “I failed in my task.”
“No you didn’t,” I told him. “You came and saved us. Thank you, Edmund.”
“Thank you, Edmund,” said Wanda. And then, because she is nosy, Wanda asked, “But what were you and Sir Horace doing in that horrible grotto?”
“We were escaping our enemies, the FitzMaurice family. It was a cowardly attack. There were more than twenty of them and two of us.”
“One and a half, more like,” I said. “You’re only a boy, Edmund. And quite weedy.”
“No he’s not,” said Wanda. “I think he’s really strong. What happened then, Edmund?”
“We fled to the grotto beneath Sir Horace’s castle. Many years before, Sir Horace had placed a portcullis trap to keep our enemies from the caves under his castle, and he had fashioned a cunning maze to confuse them. But the trap sprung on us, leaving us at the mercy of our pursuers.”
“Oh, Edmund, how awful.” Wanda sounded thrilled.
“Indeed it was, Wanda. We fought hard but Sir Horace was injured. Then our enemies piled up the rocks and trapped us in the grotto, leaving us at the mercy of the sea.”
“Oh, Edmund,” breathed Wanda.
Edmund bowed. “Farewell Wanda. Araminta.” But as he began to disappear, I remembered something I wanted to ask him. Something that had been bugging me ever since he told us that he had drowned in the cave.
“Edmund,” I said.
“I must be gone….”
“Edmund—I just want to know—you knew the way out, so why didn’t you escape when you were trapped?”
“Sir Horace was injured. He could not climb to the top of the rocks,” he said. “And a good and faithful page stays by his master. At all times.”
“Even if he will drown?” I asked.
“He will stay at all times,” Edmund repeated solemnly. And then he was gone.
“Wow…” said Wanda after a while. “He’s so brave.”
I didn’t say anything. I tried to imagine what it must have been like all those years ago for Edmund, stuck in that ghastly grotto with Sir Horace and deciding not to escape—but I couldn’t even start.
It was dark when Wanda and I at long last got out of the cave. The full moon was rising over the sea and the beach was empty. I was glad, as I didn’t want anyone to ask stupid questions about how come we were soaking wet and dragging a great big rusty sword behind us. I had a feeling that once we got home, we were going to be asked enough stupid questions to keep us going for quite a while.
As we walked up the steps from the beach, Wanda suddenly yelled out, “Dad!” and shot off. I slowly dragged the sword up the rest of the steps. I didn’t believe that Barry was there. I mean, how would he know where to find us?
But he was there!
Good old Barry gave a loud whoop and ran toward us. He scooped Wanda up in his arms and swung her around, then he rushed over to me and did the same.
“You’re here!” he gasped. “I don’t believe it. You really are here—just like it said.”
“Like what said, Dad?” asked Wanda.
“Well, you won’t believe this,” said Barry with a big grin, “I didn’t believe it either, but I knew it was worth a try.”
“What was worth a try, Dad?” asked Wanda.
“Well, about half an hour ago, Tabitha found some writing in the coal dust on top of the boiler. Which was odd, as you know how clean Mom keeps the boiler. Anyway, the writing—which was very peculiar and hard to read—said ‘W & A Be Upon the Beach.’ Tabitha had a screaming fit, as she thought it was a ransom note, but I calmed her down and said I would go and find you. And here you are….” Barry shook his head as though he did not believe it.
Wanda and I were both in the van and Barry was about to drive off when I remembered something. “The sword! We’re not going without the sword. Not after all the trouble we’ve had getting it.”
So Barry got out and picked up the sword. “Where did you find that rusty piece of junk?” he asked as we drove past the mushroom farm and took the road home.
“You don’t want to know that,” I told him.
“Oh, yes I do,” said Barry. “And I can think of a few other people who do, too.”
13
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
It was fine back home, once the police had gone. Even Aunt Tabby was nice to us, and Uncle Drac was so happy to see us he just couldn’t stop smiling.
Aunt Tabby brought in some hot chocolate and everybody sat in the broom closet while Wanda and I told them what had happened. When we got to the bit about the water coming into the grotto, it went very quiet—then CLANK! Sir Horace lurched out from underneath the pile of coats and everyone yelled in surprise. At the same time the clock in the hall struck midnight. Brenda’s cat shot out of the room, and we didn’t see it again for a week.
I could tell that Sir Horace was about to start on a long lecture about how we should never have gone down the secret tunnel, how dangerous the grotto was, and generally boring stuff like that—which I knew we would be hearing from Aunt Tabby for months anyway—so I shouted out, “Happy early five-hundredth birthday!” and everyone looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
“Well, it is almost his birthday,” I told them. “And he’s five hundred years old tomorrow. Aren’t you, Sir Horace?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Sir Horace boomed. He didn’t sound very pleased about it. I didn’t know why, because I always love my birthdays.
“Five hundred is very old,” said Wanda, trying to cheer him up. “You must be so excited, Sir Horace.”
“Not really,” he replied gloomily. “Five hundred is indeed very old, Miss Wizzard. It seems so much older than four hundred and ninety-nine.”
Well, they both sounded pretty old to me, but I didn’t say so. Instead I dragged the sword in and said, “Here’s your present, Sir Horace. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to wrap it up. Happy Birthday!”
Sir Horace took the sword. He didn’t say anything at all. He just held on to it really tightly.
“Don’t you like it?” Wanda asked, after a few minutes of everyone waiting for Sir Horace to say something.
“I have always liked this sword,” he said in a peculiar voice.
“What does he mean—
‘always’?” Wanda whispered to me. “He just got it.”
Sir Horace made a kind of gulping noise and carried on, “My dear father gave this sword to me on my twenty-first birthday. And you have returned it to me on my five-hundredth birthday. Thank you….”
I was disappointed. It’s not a proper birthday present if you give someone something that already belongs to them.
But Sir Horace didn’t seem to mind. “This…is the best present I could possibly have,” he said. He sat down on a chair in the corner and carefully propped up the sword beside him. I am sure I heard him sniff, although
Wanda says he can’t have, because ghosts don’t cry—but I don’t see how she is such an expert.
On the way upstairs to our Sunday bedroom, we saw something really odd. A long trail of our green string came out from under the secret passage door and went all the way downstairs and into the broom closet.
“That’s our string,” yawned Wanda. “I wonder what it’s doing there?”
But I was too sleepy to answer.
The next morning we followed the string down to the broom closet. We wanted to say a proper happy birthday to Sir Horace.
“Good morning, Sir Horace,” we said. “Many happy returns of the day.”
Sir Horace sounded puzzled. “But it is you who have had the happy returns,” he said.
He was still sitting in the corner with the sword propped up beside him, but now there was a big pile of rust by his feet. We hardly recognized the sword from the night before—it was gleaming. The handle was shiny, and the patterns that we had seen under the rust looked beautiful and shone with inlaid gold. There was a huge ruby set into the top (which Sir Horace called the pommel) and two smaller ones set into the sides. The blade was a bit jagged, though—you could tell that Sir Horace had done a lot of fighting with it—but he had polished it so well that it was now smooth, glittering steel.
“’Morning Minty, Wanda,” said Uncle Drac, yawning. “Sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you, Uncle Drac,” we said.
“Good,” said Uncle Drac, “because I didn’t. That ridiculous sword. I told Sir H to go and scrape the rust off somewhere else, but he sat here all night, scrape, scrape, scrape. Set my teeth on edge something rotten.”
“Sorry, Uncle Drac,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it, Minty.” Uncle Drac smiled. “It’s worth it just to have you both home safe and sound. Pass me my knitting, will you?”
I gave Uncle Drac his long green scarf. It was just as I had thought. Uncle Drac was knitting our green string.
“Do you know why your yarn feels really scratchy, Uncle Drac?” I asked him.
“I blame Big Bat,” Uncle Drac grumbled. “I was knitting so fast yesterday—after you and Wanda disappeared—that I ran out of wool. I told the dumb bat to find me some more green wool and he came back with this old stuff. Don’t know where he found it.”
“We do,” we said.
That afternoon, Sir Horace had his birthday party. It was a great party, even though it wasn’t a surprise. Wanda had gone down the secret passage all on her own to find Edmund and ask him to the party. I was amazed, as I thought she didn’t like the secret passage because of all the spiders. But Wanda said that she didn’t care what was in there anymore, as long as it wasn’t seaweed.
We all squeezed into the broom closet and sang “Happy Birthday to You,” then Sir Horace bowed and sang “Happy Birthday” back to us. Barry’s frogs did what Barry called their famous frog pyramid, which just looked like a pile of frogs to me. Then Barry tried to make Uncle Drac disappear—but all that happened was Uncle Drac got covered in blue disappearing dust and started to sneeze. Brenda did a weird tap dance while spinning some plates on sticks, but all the plates fell off when Uncle Drac gave a really big sneeze and everyone went “Eurgh!” But the best part was when Aunt Tabby and Brenda brought in the five-hundredth birthday cake. It was huge—it had to be to fit all the candles. The candles were so hot that the icing melted, but the cake tasted great all the same. After that Sir Horace fell asleep, so we all tiptoed out and left Uncle Drac to listen to his snores.
Sir Horace was happy after his birthday. He stopped hiding away and even started humming as he walked through the house, which was not such a good thing, as we got a little tired of Sir Horace humming “Happy Birthday to You” all the time—but at least we could hear him coming now.
Uncle Drac carried on knitting while his legs got better. Wanda and I got Uncle Drac a whole pile of new green yarn, and now we both have really weird, lumpy green scarves.
It took Barry a whole week to get brave enough to tell Uncle Drac about Old Morris and the bat poo, and he was really surprised when Uncle Drac said he didn’t care—he was going into the scarf-knitting business. Wanda snorted and said, “Lumpy scarf-knitting business, you mean.”
Brenda let us keep the green string, as it was all ragged from where Big Bat had chewed it off the door. So we wound it up and hung it on the inside of the secret passage door—ready for the next time.
About the Author
ANGIE SAGE, the celebrated author of the Septimus Heap series, shares her house with three ghosts who are quite shy. Two of the ghosts walk up and down the hall every now and then, while the other one sits and looks at the view out of the window. All three are just about the nicest ghosts you would ever wish to meet. She lives in England. You can visit her online at www.septimusheap.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
About the Illustrator
JIMMY PICKERING studied film and character animation and has worked for Hallmark, Disney, and Universal Studios. He is the illustrator of several picture books. You can visit him online at www.jimmypickering.com.
ALSO BY
ANGIE SAGE
SEPTIMUS HEAP, BOOK ONE:
Magyk
SEPTIMUS HEAP, BOOK TWO:
Flyte
ARAMINTA SPOOKIE 1:
My Haunted House
Credits
Cover art © 2006 by Jimmy Pickering
Cover design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
ARAMINTA SPOOKIE 2: THE SWORD IN THE GROTTO. Copyright © 2006 by Angie Sage. Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Jimmy Pickering. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Mobipocket Reader July 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-170483-3
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