The Minivers Fight Back Book 2

by Natalie Jane Prior

  The sound of an approaching car engine interrupted Rosamund’s thoughts. There was so much traffic noise overhead that it took her a moment to realise that a vehicle was driving down the gravel service road from the road above. Rosamund dropped flat among the clumps of grass. A dark van swung off the driveway under the bridge and pulled up outside the blue door at the foot of the pier. The engine died, the headlamps switched off, and two men got out. Rosamund clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. One of the men was Ron Burton, whose sandy hair and weather-beaten face she had last seen on television. The other was Titus, the former Vice-President of the Minivers Fan Club.

  Ron reached into the van and took out two or three folded blankets. Titus had a rope over his shoulder, a thin rolled-up cord that for some reason frightened Rosamund more than any weapon. As she watched, Ron took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door at the foot of the pier. It opened inwards and the two men went inside.

  Rosamund’s head bobbed up among the clumps of grass. She was so panic-stricken that when she tried to stand up, her foot caught in her long T-shirt and she almost fell over. Rosamund picked herself up and ran to the door. It was shut, and the handle was far too high for her to reach. She gave it a useless shove, and immediately realised that she was being extremely stupid. If Emily was trapped inside the Bridge House, the last thing Rosamund wanted to do was attract attention to herself. If she was going to help her sister, she would have to think, and think fast.

  Rosamund put her hand into her pocket. There was a penknife in there that Gibraltar had given her when she and Emily were hiding in the cave. Rosamund flipped out the biggest blade and ran down the steps to Ron and Titus’s van. For someone as small as she was, Rosamund was unusually strong. Part of this was due to the enormous amount of dancing she had done since she was very young, but part of it was simply the way that Minivers were made. Rosamund was much tougher and fitter than an ordinary child of her height and weight, so it was no trouble at all for her to plunge her knife into the van’s tyres. The air hissed out of the cuts in a satisfying way, and the van began to tilt and settle as the tyres flattened. Whatever else they did, at least Ron and Titus would not be able to follow her and Emily when they drove away. It was a poor sort of insurance, but it was better than nothing.

  Rosamund crept back to the door. She was wondering again how she could get inside when a hand came down unexpectedly on her shoulder.

  ‘I don’t think going in there would be very wise,’ said Gibraltar.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ said Emily. Her hand was still holding Millamant’s under the door and she felt Millamant’s fingers begin to shake. Emily could tell she was very frightened.

  ‘It’s the downstairs door. Someone’s come; Emily, you must go. Find Rosamund and get away, or they’ll catch you!’

  ‘No.’ Emily was not going to leave now. It was because she had left Millamant behind in Miniver House on the night they had gone on the run that Milly had been taken prisoner in the first place. Hoping that Rosamund had been able to keep out of sight, Emily let go of Millamant’s hand and slid into a crack between some wooden packing crates full of papers that were stacked against the wall. There was a small space there, just big enough for a Miniver to turn around and crouch in. It was terribly dusty and dirty, and a splinter grazed her leg, but with luck nobody would think to go looking.

  Emily sat listening. Two people were talking in low voices as they came up the stairs. When they reached the top, there was a rattle of keys and Milly’s door creaked open.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ said a man’s voice. ‘We left you on the other side of the room.’ Emily could not quite hear Millamant’s reply, but when a second voice spoke, she felt a chill drop straight to her stomach and stay there.

  ‘You were talking to someone,’ said Titus. ‘We heard your voice.’

  ‘I was talking to myself!’ Millamant’s voice raised anxiously. ‘I’ve been here on my own all this time. I’ve got nothing else to do.’

  ‘Then you must be going mad from being locked up.’ Titus sounded as if the prospect pleased him. He had not entered Milly’s cell, but had been talking to her from the doorway. Now he stepped back out onto the landing and Emily almost stopped breathing. From within her hiding place she could see Titus’s sneakers and the leg of his shabby jeans. His feet took a few steps towards the crates where she was hiding and she pressed back, willing herself to disappear into thin air, oblivious to the splinter that was sticking into her side. Then she heard the flick and rustle of paper, and realised that Titus was not looking for her. Instead he had been distracted by the contents of the crates, and was looking through some of the papers.

  ‘She can’t walk, Titus,’ called Ron from inside the room. ‘Shall I carry her down to the car?’

  ‘Better tie her up first.’ To Emily’s enormous relief, Titus shoved the papers back in the crate and went into Millamant’s prison. There was some low conversation which Emily could not hear, but from the groans that followed she guessed that Milly was being tied up, and that Titus and Ron were doing a thorough job of it.

  ‘All right, that’ll do,’ said Titus. ‘We ought to dope her, too, just to be on the safe side. The kit’s in the car, isn’t it?’ The two men moved away, and Emily heard them going downstairs again. It would only be moments before they returned, but it was a chance Emily had to seize. Without a moment’s hesitation, she wriggled out of her hiding place and ran through the open door into the tower room where Milly was being held.

  It was horrible beyond anything she had imagined. There was no bed, no running water, not even the ghost of a breath of air. Milly was lying in the middle of the room where Ron and Titus had left her, like a little caterpillar in a roll of blankets. Emily gave a cry of distress and started clawing at the swathes of cloth.

  ‘Milly!’

  ‘Emily, what are you doing here?’ White and haggard, Milly’s face emerged from the folds of blanket. ‘I told you to leave, and I meant it. It’s too late to do anything for me now. Even if I wasn’t tied up, I’m too weak to walk.’

  Emily burst into tears. ‘How could they do this to you? I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.’

  ‘None of that,’ said Millamant sternly. ‘Turn the other cheek: that’s what I’ve always taught you. Now, you must go, Emmie. Kiss me, quickly, and give my love to Rose.’

  Emily flung her arms around Millamant’s neck.

  ‘You always were a good girl,’ Millamant said. ‘I’m proud of you. And this isn’t goodbye, you know. I will try and get away, and when I do, I will come and find you. Where should I look for you?’

  ‘With friends.’ Emily struggled to remember Livia’s address. ‘Seventeen Daventry Street, Artemisia West.’

  ‘Seventeen Daventry Street,’ Millamant repeated. ‘I’ll remember. Bless you, Emmie, and goodbye.’

  Emily nodded. She knew she could not linger, so she blinked back her tears, gave Millamant a kiss and slipped back out onto the landing.

  Emily ran lightly down the stairs. There was no sign of Ron or Titus, but she kept a watchful eye out, fearful that they might return. At the bottom of the stairs was the trapdoor she had entered by. Emily had intended to go out the same way, but she saw now that the front door was open, too, and the sound of shouting told her that something outside was going very wrong.

  The voice was Titus’s. Emily ran to the open door, and to her astonishment, she saw Gibraltar and Rosamund. Gibraltar was fighting off Ron and Titus, doing his best to keep them away from Rosamund with a branch ripped from a tree, but he was outnumbered, and Ron was a trained security guard who knew how to fight. He was dodging every swing of Gibraltar’s branch and making careful feints that were getting closer to him with each step. Aghast, Emily stared at them, and then suddenly Rose darted over, grabbed her viciously by the arm and dragged Emily down the painted concrete steps.

  ‘Come on!’ Rosamund hissed.

  ‘But what about Gibraltar?’

 
; ‘We have to leave him. He told me to find you and run. I know how to do what I’m told, even if you don’t!’

  Her fingers gripped Emily’s wrist so tightly there was no resisting. Together, the Minivers darted around the pier into the long grass, running so fast for the car that Emily almost stumbled over her own feet. She managed to pant, ‘But what’s Gibraltar doing here?’ and then they reached the car and Rosamund was wrenching open the door and shoving her inside.

  Rosamund answered, as she jammed the keys into the ignition. ‘He came to rescue Milly, of course. Only you wrecked everything. Milly’s still a prisoner and probably Gibraltar is too by now, and it’s all your fault. Sit still and shut up. I’m driving this time, and if you dare say anything else to me I think I’ll hit you!’ She shoved Emily onto the floor, jumped onto the seat and slammed the door. Rosamund’s hard little foot came down on Emily’s right shoulder. Almost blinded with tears, Emily pushed down on the accelerator pedal, and the car shot forward crazily onto the street.

  Rosamund had always been a terrible driver. In their Miniver House days, she had crashed her special Miniver-sized car more times than either she or Emily cared to remember, and back then she had not been terrified and furious. Livia’s car sped dangerously down the back streets by the river, veering around bends, its engine rattling like a rocket about to take off. Emily could only pray that they would not crash. Then Rosamund’s left foot came down on her shoulder and she jammed on the brake, bracing for the impact as her sister swerved to the side of the road. Sure enough, there was a jarring bump, and the car came to a standstill. But Rosamund had merely driven off the road into a grassy ditch. A moment later she had pulled on the handbrake and grabbed Emily roughly by the shoulder.

  ‘Get up. I want to speak to you.’

  Emily clambered out of the foot-well, dishevelled and slightly breathless. Rosamund gave her a shove and she landed on the passenger seat.

  ‘What do you think you were doing back there? You promised me – you promised me – that we were only going to look.’

  ‘But Milly was in there –’

  ‘We knew that before we even left Livia’s. That was why we went there. To have a look, you said. You went in, when I had no way of following you or getting you out if something went wrong. You could have got both of us killed or caught. I told you not to do it, and you went ahead and did it anyway.’

  ‘Since when have you told me what to do?’ demanded Emily hotly. ‘I don’t have to do what you want. Just because you’re older than me doesn’t make you the boss, you know.’

  ‘I’m the one Papa King gave the key to. I’m the one who’s going to be queen –’

  ‘Well, you’re not queen yet!’ Emily yanked her arm out of Rosamund’s grip. ‘Let me go! You reckon you’re so grown up and clever. What makes you think you can rule Artemisia when you can’t even drive a car?’

  ‘I can drive!’

  ‘You can’t. You can’t do anything for yourself. From the moment you left Miniver House, you’ve had people to look after you. I had no one. I had to hide from Ron and his team, and Titus and Madame, all by myself. And I did it, because I wasn’t afraid to take risks. That might have been our one and only chance to rescue Milly –’

  ‘It was our only chance, and you blew it!’ yelled Rosamund. ‘I told you, that was why Gibraltar was there, you idiot! He was trying to get Milly out, and if you hadn’t been there, he would have. Now Milly’s been taken away, and Gibraltar’s probably a prisoner, and it’s all your fault.’ She burst into a storm of weeping. ‘If they’ve caught Gibraltar, I shall never forgive you, ever!’

  The violence of her outburst shocked Emily into silence. In all their lives, Rosamund had never spoken to her like this before. It was as if some stranger was unexpectedly inside her sister’s skin, struggling to get out. Emily watched the tears rolling down Rosamund’s cheeks and felt suddenly frightened. If Rosamund, too, was abandoning her, then what was left? An unseen future, in which the Minivers were no longer sisters, but two small and lonely people who no longer thought and acted as one?

  Her voice came out as a whisper. ‘I’m sorry, Rose. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re not sorry.’ Rosamund was still crying. ‘And I don’t want your apology. Not unless you mean it. I always knew you were cleverer than me, but I never thought you’d treat me as if I was stupid.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Rose, I do mean it,’ began Emily, but before she had a chance to finish what she was saying, a bicycle pulled up beside the driver’s window. The door opened and Rosamund, who was leaning against it, almost fell out onto the ground.

  ‘Need a driver, ladies?’ asked Gibraltar.

  8

  The Minivers Underground

  ‘This isn’t good enough, Livia. This just isn’t good enough,’ said Madame. ‘You’ve been searching for the Most Secret Room for months. Do you really mean to tell me you still haven’t got a clue where it is?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Cousin Karen,’ said Livia. ‘I know it’s taking a long time, but the Archives building is very big. I’m sorry. I just haven’t been able to find it.’

  The two cousins sat on either side of Madame’s desk. Livia hunched her shoulders and lowered her eyes meekly. Somehow it was always easy to underestimate Madame when she was not in front of you. There was something ludicrous about her constant preening and primping, and her desperate desire to be famous. It was a different matter when Madame was actually there. Then you realised that underneath the faintly ridiculous surface was a cruel and ruthless woman who would stop at very little. Livia was sure Madame knew she was deceiving her. It was clear she was starting to run out of patience.

  ‘Stop pretending, Livia,’ said Madame. ‘You’re not sorry at all. Personally, I think you’re not even trying. If you had been, by now you would have produced some results.’

  ‘Perhaps the Most Secret Room isn’t even there,’ suggested Livia. ‘We don’t know for certain, after all. Perhaps it never even existed.’

  ‘It exists, all right,’ said Madame coldly. ‘Our grandfather had the key. He knew where it was, and so did my mother.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you where it was, though,’ said Livia, with a flash of the spirit that Madame found so annoying. ‘If it’s so important, I wonder why you didn’t ask her.’

  ‘By the time I needed to know, she was too ill to explain,’ said Madame. The fact that her mother had been as mad as a hatter after the experience was a family secret she had no intention of sharing. ‘I didn’t want to distress her. It’s up to you now, Livia. The time for messing about is past. You’re going to have to search in that bottom basement.’

  Livia blanched. ‘The ninth basement?’

  ‘You heard me,’ said Madame. ‘You should have started there in the first place. It’s the obvious place to look.’

  ‘But it’s horrible down there.’ For the first time, real anxiety filled Livia’s voice. ‘It’s dark. There’s no electric light. Nobody ever goes down there; nobody. They don’t even keep any records in it. It’s empty.’

  ‘Then it won’t take you long to make a thorough search,’ said Madame. ‘No more excuses, Livia. You’ve held me up for far too long already.’

  Livia bit her lip. She knew that Madame was probably right. An empty basement that nobody visited was the obvious place for the Most Secret Room to be hidden. Nevertheless, Livia knew that she could not go down there. The ninth basement was the deepest and most horrible of the Archive’s underground levels. She had heard stories about staff who had strayed down there, got lost, and never returned, or who came back, days later, as gibbering idiots. Livia was scared of the dark, and so afraid of being shut up that at work she had regular panic attacks. She dared not say so to Madame, but she could not, would not, obey her. She would think of some excuse, and if necessary she would lie.

  ‘Very well, Cousin Karen,’ Livia said at last. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Your best so far has been pretty h
opeless,’ said Madame. ‘Come back next Tuesday with a full report. If you don’t, I’m warning you, there’ll be consequences.’

  Livia drove home to Daventry Street in a taxi. I wish I knew how to get out of this, she thought, as the cab sped westwards. I can’t fob Cousin Karen off forever. She’s already suspicious, and if she finds out I’m helping the Minivers, she’ll probably kill me. If she was prepared to murder her own father, Papa King, why would she think twice about me? Livia closed her eyes in near despair, but there was no easy answer. In two days time she was going to have to go back to Madame and pretend she had searched for the Most Secret Room in the bottom basement. That meant more lies, more secrecy and more fear.

  The taxi pulled up at her address and Livia paid the driver and got out. The lights inside the house had been switched off, which rather surprised her, for it seemed far too early for Emily and Rosamund to have gone to bed. Livia went up the front path and climbed the steps. Without her keys, she could not get in, so she rapped smartly on the door and waited for an answer. There was none. Something was clearly very wrong.

  In rising panic, Livia ran down the steps to the driveway. She knew she had left the garage open, and that there was a spare house key hidden beneath the laundry tubs. Livia fumbled for the light switch. The fluoro blinked into life and she reeled back against the wall, horrified.

  Her car was gone. One of the house stumps had been almost smashed in half, and there was an ominous scrape of yellow paint along its broken edge. Livia stood for a moment, so shocked she could scarcely take it in. Then she took a step forward, and her foot nudged against a small object lying on the ground beneath the broken stump. Livia picked it up. It was a small tin, very old, that had once held sweets of the sort her Grandfather Kennedy had been fond of, and that he had often given her when she was a little girl. There was something else inside it now, a metal object that rattled when she gave the tin a shake. Livia started to take off the lid, but at that moment a car with a familiar-sounding engine turned into the driveway, and she mechanically put the tin away in her pocket.