The Order of the Owls

by Elisa Puricelli Guerra

  “That I’ll never see Napoleon again unless I promise to take him on a vacation to Brazil,” sighed Miss Lavender. “But I don’t want to go to Brazil! It’s too far away! I want to stay in Pembrose!”

  “Um,” said Minerva. “Perhaps you could explain that to the . . . kidnapper. Maybe she’ll understand.”

  “Poor me! Poor, poor me!”

  Miss Lavender was a retired teacher who still tutored some of the local kids. Napoleon, her Brazilian parrot, was famous in the village for the rude things he’d say.

  The old woman glanced nervously at Minerva. She was so upset that she hadn’t even noticed that she was talking to the girl who lived up on the cliff. “Woe is me!” she continued to moan as she unhappily walked back home.

  A moment later, a blond head appeared from behind the bush. “Is the coast clear?” it whispered.

  “Yeah,” confirmed Minerva.

  The girl came out from behind the bush without a single hair out of place or mark on her coat. “Thank you,” she said. “You saved my life. My name’s Thomasina. What’s yours?”

  Minerva was delighted. She’d finally met the famous Thomasina Crowley! “My name’s Minerva,” she said excitedly.

  Thomasina smiled. “Oh, that’s who you are! Thank you for inviting me to your party!”

  Minerva’s face brightened. “Ravi’s asked you already?”

  “Yes! I’ve wanted to go inside Lizard Manor for ages! I’ve heard so many horrible things about that run-down . . . um . . . I mean . . . um. You know . . . er, excuse me.”

  “Oh, it really is run-down!” Minerva said.

  They were suddenly interrupted by a terrible squawking. Thomasina opened her coat, and Napoleon poked his head out of an inside pocket. The parrot’s feathers were ruffled and the bird looked annoyed. “Ugly old hag!” it said angrily. “Ugly old hag!”

  “Why did you kidnap him?” Minerva asked, surprised to have found that Thomasina Crowley was actually a kidnapper.

  “I didn’t kidnap him. I set him free,” Thomasina corrected her. “I’ve been planning this for ages. So, today, on my way home from school, I saw the cage on the windowsill and couldn’t resist. I’ll only take him back if Miss Lavender promises to take him to Brazil,” she said firmly. An embarrassed expression suddenly crossed her face. “But . . . um . . . could you look after him in the meantime? I can’t take him home. My parents wouldn’t let me.” Thomasina looked at Minerva with her big blue eyes.

  Minerva didn’t need to be asked twice. She looked after animals all the time, including rude parrots. “We’ve got plenty of room at Lizard Manor,” she said.

  “Thank you!” exclaimed Thomasina. “You’re a real friend.”

  Minerva blushed. No one had ever said that to her before.

  Thomasina gently picked up Napoleon and handed him to her.

  “Old witch! Old witch!” the parrot squawked angrily. “Fish face!” Minerva placed him safely in her coat pocket.

  “Thanks again,” Thomasina said with a smile. “See you at four o’clock!” She then blew a kiss to Napoleon and ran off to the perfectly perfect Crowley Hall, her blond curls and red ribbon bouncing as she went.

  Minerva gave Napoleon a scratch on the head to calm him down. She was quite sure that she was going to like having Thomasina as a friend.

  That afternoon, the wind grew even harsher. It was so strong that the people of Pembrose all stayed inside, afraid that a branch or roof tile might land on one’s head. Only two solitary figures could be seen trudging along the narrow cobblestone streets. One was pushing a very squeaky bicycle.

  Once they were out of the village, Ravi turned to Thomasina. “Hop on and I’ll give you a lift,” he offered shyly.

  “Wow, what a gentleman!” exclaimed Thomasina. She climbed gracefully onto the seat, paying no attention to the fact that it was sopping wet from the rain. It would certainly muddy her beautiful clothes.

  When she put her arms around him, Ravi turned as red as a tomato, but luckily she couldn’t see his face. Ever since the first day at school, when Ravi had shared a desk with Thomasina, he’d had an enormous crush on her. She was beautiful. Perfect. An angel. She was ten but looked much older. And she knew many things.

  Thomasina never paid much attention in class. Instead she secretly read books, never getting caught by the teacher. They were hidden in her desk. She chose books with interesting titles, like Treasure Island and The Witches. When Ravi had asked about them, she’d explained that they were adventure stories. And she’d used a tone of voice that made them sound like the most important things in the world. Thomasina absolutely loved adventure stories!

  With a sigh, Ravi pedaled boldly into the blus-tering wind. He tried not to look at the sea, which grew farther and farther away beneath them. There was no way he was going to let Thomasina know that he was afraid of heights!

  His mother had bought a big, stupid present to give Minerva, which he’d tied to his bike rack. He hoped it wouldn’t fall off along the bumpy road.

  For the umpteenth time, he told himself that he didn’t like Cornwall at all. His name, Ravi, meant sun. It was the sun in India that he missed more than anything. He hadn’t even seen the sun since he’d arrived here. But he imagined it as something pale and sad hanging in a gray sky.

  They’d only come to his place with the miserable sun because of an ad on the Internet. It had said, “General store and post office for sale in Pembrose, Cornwall. Bargain price!” His mother had never been able to resist a bargain, so she bought it. And now here he was, riding up the driveway of the most lonely and weird house he’d seen in his life.

  “We’re here,” he announced with a screech of his brakes.

  Thomasina gracefully hopped off. She didn’t have a single hair out of place, despite the furious wind. “Wow, what a place!” she exclaimed as she gazed at the enormous gray stone house. With its slate roof full of holes, ancient-looking walls, shutters falling off the windows, and crooked chimneys, it looked like a toothless old woman.

  Ravi looked nervously at the roof as if he expected a flock of snowy owls to swoop him.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that it was such a cool house?” Thomasina asked excitedly.

  “What?! You think it’s cool?” Ravi said in surprise. He was still unable to take his eyes off the chimneys.

  “Of course! It’s even better than I thought! I wonder what it’s like inside!”

  “Yeah, it must be . . . um . . .” Ravi shivered. The last thing he wanted to do was see what it was like inside.

  Minerva seemed to have a special radar to know when they’d arrived. The heavy front door had swung open the moment they’d stopped. She looked different without her hair up in her nightcap. Now her red curls stuck out in every direction like something gone crazy. On her right shoulder was a little parrot. Minerva ran to meet them. “You’re here at last!” she cried excitedly.

  The parrot, in a voice that was surprisingly loud for such a small creature, squawked, “Stupid idiot! Fish face! Stupid idiot!”

  “Napoleon seems really happy here!” Thomasina said excitedly. “I knew that he’d be a new bird when I set him free!”

  Ravi took the package off his bike and gave it to Minerva. “This is for you,” he said, a little embarrassed. “It’s a present . . . you know . . . for your birthday.”

  Minerva was delighted. “For me? Really?” she cried, grabbing the box.

  Mrs. Flopps was the only person who’d ever given her birthday presents. (This year it was a painting of Lizard Manor.) But she wasn’t as important as Ravi and Thomasina.

  The boy was growing more embarrassed by the second. “It’s . . . um . . . you know, nothing special,” he mumbled. “It’s just a sari. My mom said that you really liked hers.”

  “I’ve got a present for you, too!” Thomasina then announced, pulling a package out fro
m her raincoat pocket. “Happy birthday!”

  Minerva took the gifts and hugged them as if they were the most precious treasures in the world. “Thank you so much! Come inside!” she said, pointing to the door.

  Ravi hesitated. There was something he’d wanted to ask Minerva since the first time he’d been there: “How come the house is called Lizard Manor?” He then looked around nervously before adding, “I don’t like lizards very much.”

  “You’re lucky, then!” Minerva smiled. “There are no lizards here at all!”

  “So how come it’s called Lizard Manor?”

  “Who knows! This house is very mysterious,” answered Minerva. “But come on! Everything’s ready!” She was impatient to make a fuss over her new friends.

  Thomasina rushed inside, while Ravi came last, dragging his feet. Just before he went inside, he saw a beautiful fishpond in the garden near the front door with a stone lizard on the edge. It looked as if it had been magically turned to stone while it had been lazing in the sun.

  But he didn’t have time to get a proper look before Minerva dragged him through the door. She closed it behind him with a crash that echoed through the house like a cannon blast. “Follow me!” she ordered.

  Ravi immediately crashed into the huge suit of armor that was missing an arm and a leg. “I’m so sorry!” he said.

  “Don’t worry. It’s really dark in here. The bulbs are all burnt out.”

  “Why don’t you change them?” Ravi asked, rubbing his sore shoulder.

  “Because they just burn out again,” answered Minerva. “There must be something wrong with the wiring.” She opened a drawer in a massive dresser and pulled out three candles and three cups. “We can use these.” She lit the stubby candles off an oil lamp. Then she dripped a little wax into the cups to hold the candles and gave one each to Ravi and Thomasina. “This way,” she said, pushing the two along in front of her.

  No one could say that Minerva lives in a boring house, thought Ravi as he dodged the cobwebs full of huge spiders.

  “My room’s on the second floor,” said Minerva, pointing to the stairs.

  The three went up, making the stairs creak and groan as they went. Ravi looked up at the portraits staring back at him from the walls in the flickering light of the candles. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “Who are these creeps?”

  “My ancestors,” Minerva said.

  “Oh . . . sorry. I . . .”

  “No! You’re right!” Minerva agreed. “They do look like creeps!”

  Who knows if they really are my ancestors? she then thought. If only she could solve the mystery of who her parents were! Maybe her new friends could help her. She’d already decided to share the secret about the travel bag with them, and she was now dying to take them to her room. She could show them around the house some other time.

  At the top of the stairs, though, a surprise was waiting for them: A chubby badger with a black and white face suddenly jumped out.

  “What’s that!?” cried Ravi in alarm.

  “It’s Hugo,” Minerva said, bending down to scratch the creature on the head. Hugo had dug a huge network of tunnels under the house, which made it all the more likely that the house would collapse at any moment. The entrances were scattered everywhere. “He likes to surprise people,” Minerva explained.

  Napoleon, who apparently didn’t like surprises one little bit, squawked, “Stupid idiot! Fatso!”

  Hugo, who was apparently deeply offended, vanished into the darkness.

  Minerva tried to calm the parrot down as she led them to her room.

  Ravi was really impressed by the orange tent. Sitting in there with all the good things that Minerva had for them to eat (the exotic ginger and papaya cake and Mrs. Flopps’s hot scones with homemade strawberry jelly) was very cozy.

  They sat cross-legged in a circle, staring at the travel bag with its mysterious contents. They looked like members of some secret society. Their faces were glowing from the light of the oil lamp, and shadows danced all around them.

  Minerva had put on the sari right away. It was emerald green and very beautiful. It made her look like a little Indian girl. Although it did look a little odd with her rubber boots, which she almost never took off. She sat with Thomasina’s gift sitting in her lap: a compass. “Useful for adventurous expeditions,” her new friend had said.

  Minerva had just finished telling her story. She’d explained to them that every birthday she’d go through the things in the bag to try to figure out who she was and what had happened to her parents. “I figure that every year, I’m a little bit more intelligent,” Minerva said with overwhelming logic. “So, there is a good chance that I might work out something new that I missed the year before.”

  As he swallowed his last mouthful of scone with jelly and fresh cream (the first thing he’d liked about Cornwall so far), Ravi thought that it all made perfect sense.

  Thomasina stared at the big leather bag, covered with stickers from exotic places, with her sparkling eyes. “Wow! What an incredible story!” she cried. “What if you end up discovering that you’re really a Watutsi princess . . . or a Polynesian queen . . . or the daughter of the Emperor of China?”

  Minerva shivered with excitement. She’d thought the same sorts of things hundreds of times, but it was wonderful to hear them from someone else, too. It made it all seem more real.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen,” Thomasina finally said, “let’s examine the evidence!” She also loved mystery stories — the ones with detectives who can work out everything about everyone. She sat up straight and put on her detective face. Holding an imaginary magnifying glass, she inspected the initials on the shiny brass buckle. “MM” she read. She turned to Minerva. “They’re your initials. Minerva Mint. How’s that possible?”

  “Maybe Mrs. Flopps saw them and came up with a name that matched the initials,” Ravi suggested. He thought that the most obvious solution was always the best.

  “That’s just what happened,” confirmed Minerva. “But they still might be the initials of my mom or dad.”

  With her eyes half closed with concentration, Thomasina opened the buckle and the bag fell open. Holding their breath, they all leaned forward to look inside.

  Thomasina reached in and pulled out a piece of paper that was a little yellowed with age. It was covered with tiny handwriting. There was a green wax seal on the top in the shape of a lizard. “What’s that?” asked Ravi.

  “The deed to the house,” said Minerva. “The lawyer wrote my name on it,” she said, pointing to a spot down at the bottom.

  Ravi ran his fingers over the shiny wax lizard. It reminded him of the stone lizard on the edge of the fishpond. “You said there aren’t any lizards in this house?” he asked Minerva.

  “Not even one,” she said firmly. Ravi became thoughtful.

  Thomasina, who was feeling impatient, pulled out the big red book and turned it over in her hands. “The Universal Encyclopedia,” she read. “How come there’s only volume four?”

  “No idea,” said Minerva. “I looked for the other books in the library, but they’re not there.”

  “Maybe they only published this one,” Thomasina guessed.

  “But they would have begun with the letter A!” Ravi objected. “Not M. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Things don’t always have to make sense,” Minerva said, with a shake of her red curls. “That’s the beauty of it!” Ravi folded his arms as if he was defending himself against such nonsense.

  Meanwhile, Thomasina had opened the book. There was a label glued onto the first page. It looked very old and had a picture of an owl with staring eyes. Underneath was written, “Ex libris.” Then, in fancy handwriting, someone had written, “There’s much more to this world than meets the eye. It all depends on how you look at it.”

  Thomasina frowned. “I wonder if your parents wrot
e that?” Then something else caught her attention. “Hang on, there’s something else written here, too. ‘Count the letters of Blue Tiger.’” She looked up. “What does that mean?”

  Minerva was a little ashamed to admit that she had no idea. She’d thought about it a million times, but all she could come up with was that there was no such thing as a blue tiger. She’d made very little progress over the last nine years.

  Thomasina seemed to read her thoughts. “It must be some sort of riddle. We’ll solve it together!” she said optimistically.

  “Or maybe it means nothing at all,” Ravi muttered so softly that the other two didn’t hear.

  Apart from the blue folder with the newspaper articles, the only other thing in the bag was the letter addressed to Mr. Septimus Hodge. “I’ve never found this Septimus Hodge,” said Minerva. “The address is real, though. It’s just that no one with that name lives in London and never has.”

  They examined the envelope like real detectives. It looked like a normal envelope — the kind you could buy anywhere. There was also a stamp with the Queen’s head on it, only it had no postmark. The address was printed. Inside was a single sheet of paper on which was typed:

  A crescent moon (in the kitchen)

  Very ripe lightning-berries (count to five)

  Three medium eggs (tap three times)

  Two pints of molasses (turn to the right)

  Milk (handle with care)

  Mix (until your nose itches)

  And finally, snail slime (and lots of it!)

  All three sat in silence for a while, wondering what it meant. “They sound like instructions,” Thomasina finally murmured.

  “They’re pretty weird instructions,” said Ravi.

  “It could be a recipe . . . for a cake maybe,” Thomasina continued.

  “With a crescent moon in it?” asked Ravi. “What sort of cake has a crescent moon in it?”

  Thomasina was ready to argue. She wasn’t used to people disagreeing with her. It never happened at Crowley Hall. Everyone did just what she said — the butler, the maids, even the grumpy gardener. “What do you know about recipes?” she sneered.