by Frognapped
I felt like saying that I didn’t know why she thought it had anything to do with me either. But I didn’t. Sometimes it is better not to argue with Aunt Tabby about things like that. Especially when she is almost right.
Sir Horace stayed grumpy all the way home. He sat on the treasure chest without even noticing it and did nothing but complain. He grumbled about his arms being on the wrong way, even though we put them back really carefully; he moaned about the mud and the leaves inside him; and he went on and on about rust. But at last I got my chance.
“Sir Horace,” I said. “What are you sitting on?”
“Something rusty, I expect,” he said gloomily. “Just my luck. Rust is catching, you know.”
“We know,” said Wanda grumpily.
And then Sir Horace’s head drooped and he started snoring. And when Sir Horace snores, there is no way you can wake him up. You just have to stuff your fingers in your ears and sing very loudly to drown out the noise. Which is what Wanda and I did. All the way home.
“That was nice singing, dear,” said Brenda as she let us out of the van. Brenda thinks everything that Wanda does is nice, unlike Aunt Tabby, who thinks nothing I do is nice at all.
Aunt Tabby was not pleased about having to lift Sir Horace out of the van as well as his treasure chest, even though I told her how important it was. We propped Sir Horace up beside the big clock in the hall, and he suddenly woke up. The first thing he saw was the chest.
“My treasure!” he said, and his voice had a really happy sound to it. “Miss Spookie, Miss Wizzard, you have been as good as your word. How could I ever have doubted you?”
“The Spookie Detective Agency always keeps its word, Sir Horace,” I said.
“You mean the Wizzard Detective agency,” Wanda butted in.
“No I do not,” I told her.
“Yes you do,” said Wanda. “Who found the frogs? Who solved the mystery of the shark? Who got Nosy Nora to let us have the treasure chest?”
“I did,” I said.
“No you didn’t—I did.”
“May I suggest,” boomed Sir Horace, who sounded much better now that he was back inside his armor, “may I suggest a compromise. The Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency has a very good sound to it.”
“Okay.” I sighed an Aunt Tabby sigh. “The Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency it is.”
“Wizzard-Spookie Detective Agency sounds better,” said Wanda.
“Sometimes,” Sir Horace told her, “it is best to stop while you are ahead. I would advise that at this particular moment, Miss Wizzard.”
“All right, Sir Horace.” Wanda smiled. “Are you going to open your treasure chest now?”
Sir Horace bent down with a horrible grinding noise, unscrewed his right foot, and took out a big brass key. Sir Horace keeps all his keys in his feet. It’s an odd place to keep keys, but I suppose he always knows where to find them.
The key turned easily and Sir Horace lifted up the lid. Wanda and I peered in; we were both really excited at the thought of seeing real buried treasure.
It was a big disappointment. It was nothing but moldy old papers, a battered whistle, and some funny little leather bags. It was very boring.
“Pooh,” said Wanda, holding her nose. “It smells horrible.”
It did. It smelled like a mixture of Brenda’s gherkin soup and the cat’s litter box. Not nice.
“Where’s the treasure?” asked Wanda, who does not mind asking nosy questions, which I suppose will come in useful in the Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency.
“This is my treasure,” boomed Sir Horace. “All my precious letters and keepsakes. Even my lucky rabbit’s foot.” He bent down and lifted out a disgusting lump of fur.
“Eurgh,” said Wanda. “That’s what smells so horrible.”
“What about the coins?” I asked.
“And the precious jewels?” said Wanda.
“And the silver plates?”
“And the doubloons?”
“The what, Wanda?”
“Doubloons. Old gold coins.”
Sir Horace shook his head. “Never had much in the way of that,” he said, rummaging in the chest. “Oh look, here’s my old knight school report….”
We left him to it and went to find Barry. We still had a bucket of frogs to deliver.
We passed Uncle Drac on our way out. He was sitting in the broom cupboard in his favorite armchair with his feet up. He had already started on one of Mabel’s—or was it Vera’s?—hats. “Hello, Minty, hello, Wanda,” he said. “It’s nice to see you back. Oh, my feet are killing me but it was worth it. Ho-ho.”
“What was worth it, Uncle Drac?” I asked him.
Uncle Drac chuckled. “I bet old Watkins that I could walk all the way to Old Morris’s mushroom farm. She said she’d eat her hat if I could. But I did it. Ho-ho.”
“Wow. How long did it take her, Uncle Drac?”
“How long did what take her, Minty?”
“To eat her hat.”
Uncle Drac laughed. “I told her that I’d let her off if she told Tabby that I didn’t need her anymore. Which she did. Spookie House is now a Nurse Watkins–free zone.”
We left Uncle Drac knitting happily and went to find Barry.
Barry was wandering around the garden, poking under rocks with a stick in a miserable kind of way.
He looked up and saw us, and guess what he said? Yes, you’re right. He said, “Araminta, where have you put my frogs?”
This was the moment I had been waiting for. “In the bucket,” I said, and I handed him the red frog bucket.
Barry lifted off the lid a little suspiciously. I don’t know what he expected to find in there. But when he saw his frogs he smiled a huge smile. And then do you know what he said? He said, “I knew you had them.”
Well. That was all the thanks I got.
Wanda winked at me. “Come on, Araminta,” she said, “they’re only boring old frogs. Let’s go and do something fun.”
Sometimes Wanda can be really nice, like a real best friend.
Later that night, when we had used up all of Wanda’s bike oil on Sir Horace getting him moving again, put his arms on properly, and cleaned off all the leaves and mud from the ditch, we were talking in bed in our Tuesday bedroom.
We were deciding what would be the next job for the Spookie-Wizzard Detective Agency, although now that I am going to run fish shows I must admit I was not quite so interested in the agency as I might have been. I was feeling tired and I leaned back on my pillow. There was something hard underneath it. I put my hand under the pillow to see what it was and pulled out a small leather pouch. It smelled of Brenda’s pumpkin soup and the cat’s litter box.
“Look what I’ve found!” I showed it to Wanda.
Wanda lifted up her pillow too. I really hoped there was something there for her as well. And there was—another little leather pouch that looked just the same. “What do you think it is?” she whispered.
“I don’t know—open it and see,” I said.
“No, you open yours and see.”
“We’ll both open them together, okay? One…two…three!” We tipped the pouches on top of our pillows.
“Wow,” breathed Wanda. “Look.” She held up a thick gold disc threaded onto a leather cord. It was just like mine.
“There’s writing on it,” I said.
“Oh yes.” Wanda screwed her eyes up and squinted at the words.
“It’s Sir Horace’s funny spelling again,” I told her. “He must have climbed all the way up the attic stairs and given us these. You did a good job with your bike oil, Wanda.”
“For a…True and…Faithefull…Frende,” said Wanda very slowly. “That’s what it says.”
And it did. It said that on mine, too. Which is not such a bad description of Wanda Wizzard, when you come to think of it. Or Sir Horace. Or me, I think.
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 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
SEPTIMUS HEAP, BOOK THREE:
Physik
ARAMINTA SPOOKIE 1:
My Haunted House
ARAMINTA SPOOKIE 2:
The Sword in the Grotto
Credits
Cover art © 2007 by Jimmy Pickering
Cover design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
ARAMINTA SPOOKIE 3: FROGNAPPED. Illustrations Copyright © 2007 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.
EPub © Edition JULY 2008 ISBN: 9780061975516
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