by Alesha Dixon
Alfred has always had a very interesting taste in fashion, especially for an ostrich.
“That’s enough, Alfred,” I instructed. “Mum’s going to be very cross.”
There was a moment’s pause before he turned around to stick out his bottom. Then he proceeded to wiggle his tail feathers defiantly at me before turning back to the mirror and attacking it with twice the aggression he had before.
“There’s no use, Aurora,” Aunt Lucinda said, amused. “Ostriches are very stubborn. He’ll stop breaking things eventually. He just needs to have his little strop.”
I winced as the mirror cracked in every which way it possibly could. Alfred stalked proudly over to the stairs and started work on the banister.
“So, darling, how have you been? I hear you had a run-in with the law.”
“How do you know about that?” I hissed. “That was supposed to be secret.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that your Nanny Beam knows everything, let me assure you. Imagine being her daughter! Mummy always knew about every time I got into trouble, no matter how well I did at hiding it or pretending it had been Kiyana. She always somehow knew. Don’t worry, I won’t leak a word to the press about your arrest and I have to say, quite frankly Aurora, I’m more than impressed. I’m very happy to encourage your little rebellious streak.”
I jumped at a banging sound coming from the hallway.
“How integral is your banister to the stairs?” Aunt Lucinda grimaced, before brushing her own question off with a flourish of her hand. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Where did Nanny Beam send you?” I asked, sitting down with her. “Did you find anything?”
“I did. And it would seem you have, too.”
I looked at her in confusion. What was she talking about?
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” She took a deep breath. “Aurora, why did you contact DI Bumble last night?”
My jaw dropped open. “H… How did you—?”
“DI Bumble rang me to let me know he’d received a voicemail from you.”
I was so stunned that I didn’t know what to say and sat in dazed silence, so Aunt Lucinda continued.
“The mission I was sent on was to go to Canada, track down DI Bumble and get as much information from him as I possibly could about the Blackout Burglar,” she explained. “Mummy was well aware that, since moving to Canada to set up his skateboarding business years ago, DI Bumble had refused to speak about his experience on the police force working on the cases involving the Blackout Burglar. He had tried so hard for so long to get someone to listen to him and received nothing but insults, that he felt it better to pretend as though none of it had ever happened.”
“You actually went to see him?” I asked in awe.
“Yes. With my knack for charming people into giving more information than they usually would and persuading them round to my way of thinking, naturally Mummy knew I was the best person for the job.”
“And what did you find out? What did he tell you about Mr Mercury? Any clues?”
She raised her eyebrows and leaned back in her chair, picking a bit of fluff off her tailored jacket.
“I was under the impression that after your little arrest, you had promised your parents to stop trying to look for Mr Mercury. Which was why I was very surprised to hear from DI Bumble that you’d contacted him.”
I gulped. “Are you going to tell Mum?”
She threw her head back and let out a high-pitched “HA!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Aurora, what do you take me for? Some kind of snitch? Please,” she snorted, as a wave of relief washed over me, “I’ve broken thousands of promises and most of them to your mum. When we were seven, she made me promise to stop stealing her homework and handing it in as my own, but I continued to do that right up until sixth form. Oh, and there was the time when she was learning to drive and she crashed the car into the lake. Mummy was very good about it and Kiyana made me promise not to tell anyone. Of course, thanks to me, it was front page of the local newspaper the next day and highly entertaining for everyone in the village.”
“So, if you’re not going to tell Mum on me, then how come you’re here?”
“I came to tell you to stop bothering DI Bumble. He has nothing more to say on the subject and, besides, he absolutely HATES the Beam family.”
“Hates us? Why? Surely we’re on the same side if he was always trying to arrest Mr Mercury.”
“Oh, it’s nothing to do with that,” she said breezily. “He hates us because Alfred came along with me, of course, and he was at the peak of his no-snorkelling strop. He snapped every single skateboard in DI Bumble’s shop in half, but one. The skateboard he didn’t break, he stole and went on to enter and win a very prestigious skateboarding competition, actually. The first ostrich to ever do so,” she added proudly.
There was a loud smash from the sitting room.
Aunt Lucinda chuckled. “Ah. Sounds like he’s done with the banister and has moved on to the family photo frames. I had better get him out of here before Kiyana gets back.” She checked her watch. “We have a very important brunch to get to with the Prime Minister. I think Alfred might be in the running for a top job in the Cabinet! He really does have marvellous judgement when it comes to that sort of thing.”
“Can’t you tell me anything about your mission?” I pleaded as she pushed her chair back and stood up. “What did DI Bumble tell you?”
She looked at me sympathetically. “I’m not keeping anything from you on purpose, Aurora. There’s no secrets here. He just didn’t tell me anything of interest. Only that he’d always had his suspicions that the Blackout Burglar had been working for someone else.”
“Why did he think that?”
“Simply because of a book they found during a raid on Mr Mercury’s flat. The book was apparently about legendary precious stones, including the Light of the World. It was covered with notes, but they weren’t in Mr Mercury’s handwriting. From that, DI Bumble assumed Mr Mercury was being instructed.” She put a hand gently on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Aurora. I didn’t get any new leads from him. Now”– she moved to the doorway and called down the hall – “come along, Alfred, we’ve got to go to your brunch.”
There was another loud bang and a crash in response.
“Are you staying in London for a bit?” I asked, following her as she glided down the hallway to the front door.
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll pop in for another visit soon. I hear you’re off to Paris on a school trip after half term! How marvellous, I just adore Paris. If you want any tips, let me know.”
“Thanks.”
She swung open the front door and Alfred came stomping through from the sitting room, bustling past me importantly.
“Aunt Lucinda, wait!” I called out, standing in the doorway.
She stopped in the drive just short of Nanny Beam’s pink flying sports car. She must have let Aunt Lucinda borrow it for her mission to Canada.
“Yes?” Aunt Lucinda said, while Alfred hopped into the front seat and began beeping the horn with his beak impatiently.
“When you said that DI Bumble found a book about legendary precious stones, like the Light of the World, did you mean to say, precious stones … plural?”
“Of course, I did! There are hundreds of precious stones in the world. Just look at Cartier! Or Tiffany’s!” she said wistfully. “Just hundreds of them.”
Alfred slammed his head against the horn and held it there, so that there was just one long very loud HONNNNNNNNNNNNNK. Aunt Lucinda sighed as neighbours began to appear in windows, looking disgruntled.
“Must be off, Aurora. Toodleoo!”
She slid into the driver’s seat and sped off down the road, just as Dad came wandering out of Mr Crow’s house looking very pleased with himself. As soon as he saw me he launched into a speech about how surprisingly good he was at assembling birdhouses. I stood where I was as he strolled back into the house, deep in thought abou
t what Aunt Lucinda had said until Dad appeared again behind me, the colour completely drained from his face.
“Aurora,” he said cautiously, holding up a bunch of wilted, stomped-on flowers and a photo frame that was completely broken in half, “any chance you can explain what has happened in there?”
8
We jumped to our feet and burst into applause, our clapping echoing loudly across the empty gym hall.
Suzie bowed modestly and broke into a wide grin. “So, what do you think?”
She had just finished a practice run of her gymnastics routine and the Bright Sparks had watched in awe at her leaping and dancing around the hall to music blaring from the speakers, her gymnastics ribbon swirling in perfect coils over her head.
“Suzie, it was BRILLIANT!” Georgie exclaimed, giving her a high-five. “If you don’t win then there is seriously something wrong with the judging panel. I’m going to make sure your leotard is absolutely perfect, so that it matches your routine!”
“Thanks, Georgie, I can’t wait to see it,” Suzie said, wiping her forehead before drinking thirstily from her pink water bottle.
“Wow,” Kizzy said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You looked amazing. So elegant and graceful … but at the same time, so strong! How do you do it?”
“How do you not get tangled up in your ribbon?” I asked, causing Suzie to burst out laughing. “If I attempted rhythmic gymnastics, I would definitely just tie myself up in knots. It’s seriously cool.”
“Thanks, guys.” She smiled proudly. “I’m glad you all liked it.”
Everyone turned to look at Fred expectantly. He stood with a pensive expression on his face, rubbing his chin.
“Weeeeeeeell?” Suzie said. “Any comments, Fred?”
He took a deep breath.
“OK, fine. I admit it. That was awesome.”
“Yes!” Suzie grinned. “You all witnessed that, right? A compliment from Fred! But there’s still so much to work on. The tiniest slip-up or mistake could cost me the championship title. I don’t think I’ll have much free time to work on anything else.”
Kizzy grimaced. “I know what you mean; I’m going to be holed up in my room all week with the homework I’ve got. There’s so much reading to do. I’ve had to put up an extra bookshelf in my room to fit my books from my extra classes.”
“And I’m going to be stuck in the drama department,” Georgie said excitedly. “It’s so much fun working on these costumes for the school play. And of course, I’ve got your leotard to finish, which is my main priority,” she added quickly after receiving a stern look from Suzie. “It’s going to be very sparkly.”
“At least you’re all doing things you’ve chosen to do for half term,” Fred said grumpily.
“Why? What are you doing?” Suzie said.
“I’m grounded.”
“For what?”
“I had a little incident. I don’t want to talk about it.”
We stared at him.
“All right, FINE. I’ll tell you,” he relented with a long sigh. “I had a slight issue with some plumbing.”
“Plumbing? What were you doing plumbing?” Georgie asked curiously.
“I was trying to help, but I made everything worse,” he explained with a shrug.
“I know how that feels,” I admitted. “At least you didn’t end up in prison. What did you do?”
He glanced at us nervously. “Don’t. Laugh.”
The corner of Suzie’s mouth twitched as she attempted to suppress a smile in anticipation.
“I tried to fix the sink and accidentally flooded the house.”
“YOU WHAT?” Kizzy cried, as Suzie shrieked with laughter.
“It’s not that funny,” he grumbled, glaring at Suzie and Georgie who were both bent over in fits of giggles. “My mum told me to leave it when the sink was blocked and went off to call the plumber. I thought I’d give it a go myself because I didn’t think it would be that hard, but I must have loosened the wrong pipe or something. Anyway, the whole downstairs flooded so I’m not exactly in my family’s good books right now.” He sighed again. “Especially after my half-term report, as well.”
“So, you’re grounded for the whole week?” Suzie asked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
He nodded gravely. “But they say to seize every opportunity, so I’ll spend the week researching some new pranks to play on certain people. By the time half term is over, I’ll probably be a pro.”
Suzie instantly stopped laughing. “I’m warning you, Fred, if you switch my hairspray can for green hair mist again…’
“One of my more brilliant ideas,” he interrupted mischievously.
“It was the day my gymnastics teacher was seeing my routine for the first time!” Suzie snarled. “And I turned up looking like a FROG.”
Fred grinned. “More like a goblin in my opinion.”
“All right, you two,” Kizzy said, holding up her hands as Suzie opened her mouth to argue. “Aurora, what are you up to for half term? Are you going to see Nanny Beam in Cornwall?”
“No, she’s too busy with … everything,” I said, as everyone’s attention turned to me. “I’m going to be spending my half term in the library.”
“Studying?” Kizzy asked, her face lighting up. “I can join you! We can have STUDY GROUP!”
Suzie rolled her eyes dramatically. “Honestly, no offence, but sometimes I really wonder how it’s possible I ended up as part of this nerdy friendship group.”
“Actually, I’m not too bothered about homework right now. I wanted to head to the library to research precious stones,” I told them.
Kizzy and Georgie shared a glance.
“Like the ones your dad has on display in the Natural History Museum?” Kizzy asked. “Are you helping him out with a new exhibition or something?”
“Oooooh, is there going to be another exhibition launch party that we can go to? A black tie one like last time?” Suzie said excitedly, clapping her hands together. “Because Georgie’s mum has just started doing the PR for the most amazing new dress designer and we could ask her if—”
“It’s not for my dad. I’m doing this in secret. And I’m not talking about those kinds of precious stones. I’m talking about really rare ones. Precious stones that might not even exist…” I took a deep breath as they looked at me in confusion. “I wanted to talk to you about something Aunt Lucinda mentioned. She said that she went to see DI Bumble in Canada – you remember the detective who’d worked on the Blackout Burglar cases years ago?”
“I remember reading all about him in that excellent criminal history book,” Kizzy said. “That was such a good holiday read. Shame it was only 968 pages long; I feel like there were a lot of historic cases they could have expanded on. And I wish there had been more about the detailed workings of criminal law.”
Suzie sighed, lifting her eyes to the ceiling and speaking to no one in particular. “How did I end up here?”
“Anyway,” I continued, “apparently, in Mr Mercury’s apartment a long time ago, they found a book about legendary precious stones. Like the Light of the World.”
“You mean” – Georgie’s eyes widened – “there might be others out there with powers?”
I shrugged. “There could be. If there are other stones out there in the world that are just as precious as the Light of the World, then surely this mysterious criminal will be after those too. But” – I hesitated – “I could be completely wrong and when DI Bumble told Aunt Lucinda about the book, he may have meant it was about the kind of precious stones my dad researches.”
“It’s worth looking into,” Kizzy said. “Are you going to talk to Nanny Beam or your mum about it? Maybe they could shed some light if they already know something, or if they haven’t thought of that yet, I’m sure they’d be happy to get their teams on it.”
“No, I can’t tell them. It will only make them cross that I’m still working on finding the Light of the World, and I want to do this myself. Though,
do any of you want to help me?” I asked hopefully.
They shared guilty looks and my heart sank, already knowing the answer before they spoke.
“I’ll try my best, Aurora, but I’ve got all this extra homework…” Kizzy said, trailing off.
“And I’ve got the routine to perfect,” Suzie pointed out.
“And I’ve got to mop the floors at home from now until the end of eternity,” Fred said, wrinkling his nose.
“And—” Georgie began.
“You’ve got the school play’s costumes to sew,” I finished for her. “Don’t worry, I know you’re all super busy. I’ll look into it and let you know what I find.”
“Aurora, we’re never too busy to help you. We’re the Bright Sparks,” Georgie said. “It’s just that, while we have to trawl through library books, Nanny Beam could find whatever information you need at the drop of a hat with her kind of resources. So, it might be best to leave it with them. What can the Bright Sparks do that MI5 can’t?”
“Remember what your mum was saying about all of this being dangerous,” Kizzy continued gently. “Whoever has the Light of the World is very powerful. It doesn’t make sense for you to take this responsibility on while MI5 is working on it.”
“I know,” I nodded, taking a deep breath and smiling as best I could. “You’re probably right. I’ve got lots of homework to be getting on with, anyway.”
“Enough of this work chat,” Fred groaned. “It’s officially half term and we’re still standing in the smelly school gym talking about HOMEWORK.”
“I don’t like to admit it, but Fred’s right,” Suzie said, flicking her hair behind her shoulder. “Let’s get half term off to a good start and have an evening of pizza and movies.”
“Yes!” Georgie grinned. “Who’s hosting?”
Fred glumly raised his hand and pointed at himself. “It has to be me as I literally cannot leave my house.”
Kizzy smiled. “Perfect. Thanks, Fred!”
“I’ll just call my mum and let her know,” he said, getting his phone out of his pocket before looking back at us. “Oh, and you guys might want to bring wellies for when we get indoors.”
