The Vanishing of Billy Buckle

by Sally Gardner

  “You know,” Edie had once said to Betty, “I hadn’t a clue what a Wurlitzer was before I came to Puddliepool-on-Sea. I mean, I thought it was a fairground ride, not an organ with buttons and pedals.”

  “Ha!” said Betty. “You weren’t far off the mark, love. It sounds to me like a merry-go-round playing the waltz.”

  * * *

  It was after several whirls around the dance floor that they sat down to have their tea.

  “How’re things going at the hotel?” asked Edie.

  “Fully booked,” said Betty. “And with only one guest, a gentleman.”

  “No—never! And he’s taken all five of your rooms?”

  “The whole caboodle.”

  “Who is he?” asked Edie.

  “His name’s Mr. Belvale,” said Betty. “He’s taken over the Starburst Amusement Park.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I tell you this, Edie love—the man gives me the creeps.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” said Betty. “But there’s something about him. He keeps leaving the windows wide open in the master suite. The rain came in and ruined the carpet. It had to be replaced. I told him politely what had happened, and he just said to add it to his bill! Then the other day, I found a blooming seagull perched on top of the camels—it gave me the fright of my life.”

  The Mermaid Hotel was known for its themed bedrooms. The Oasis Suite, as Betty called it, had been decorated with palm tree curtains, a sandy-colored carpet, and a cluster of three wooden camels next to the bed.

  “That seagull had pooped everywhere. It took hours to clean up,” said Betty.

  “Sounds to me as though Mr. Belvale’s just absentminded,” said Edie.

  “No,” said Betty. “There’s something else.”

  Morris Flipwinkle started to play his last number. At the end of his set, he and the famous Wurlitzer would sink below the stage.

  “Come on,” said Betty. “Let’s have this dance. It’ll be that stuck-up Johnny Carmichael on next.”

  Johnny Carmichael played the second shift. None of the regulars liked him much. Morris Flipwinkle was, without a doubt, their favorite.

  Edie stepped on Betty’s toe.

  “Ouch,” said Betty. “Edie, your heart’s not in it today.”

  “It’s because the sea is flat,” said Edie.

  Betty looked worriedly at her friend. It wasn’t like Edie to go all mystic on her.

  “We live in Puddliepool-on-Sea. The sea is often flat,” said Betty. “It has to do with tides, the moon, that sort of thing. Are you all right, love? The sea being flat has never worried you before.”

  “No, Betty, don’t be daft. I’m not talking about the waves and the sea. I’m talking about the Wurlitzer. Listen … the C note. I think…,” said Edie, but Betty couldn’t hear what Edie thought.

  A loud rumble and muted screams came from under the floor, where every ten minutes the ghost-train ride rattled the old ballroom.

  “You what?” said Betty.

  It was then, to her friend’s horror, that the strangest thing happened: Edie Girdle vanished into thin air.

  * * *

  “I was left cha-chaing with no one,” Betty later told Mr. Trickett, the owner of the ballroom. She snapped her fingers to show him just how fast her friend had disappeared. “We have to find her.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mr. Trickett.

  But Mr. Trickett hadn’t been called from his office to discuss the sudden disappearance of Edie Girdle. No, he was there for a much more serious matter. His Wurlitzer player Johnny Carmichael had just been found with a knife sticking out of the back of his dinner jacket, dead as dead could be. And Morris Flipwinkle was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter Four

  A little earlier that afternoon, the shop door of Wings & Co. had silently opened, and the fairy detectives were free to explore. The sign on the side of a tram told Emily and Fidget where they were. WELCOME, it said, TO PUDDLIEPOOL-ON-SEA.

  “How far is Puddliepool-on-Sea from Podgy Bottom?” asked Primrose, her eyes welling with tears.

  “Search my catnip,” said Fidget.

  “Not all that far,” said Emily, giving Primrose’s hand a little squeeze. “Is it, Buster?”

  But Buster wasn’t listening—or looking, for that matter. He was staring up at the shop and into the sky beyond, his eyes glazed in wonder.

  “Wowzer!” he said over and over again. “Wowzer! Listen to them scream!”

  Emily, Fidget, and Primrose turned to see exactly what it was that Buster was looking at. Behind the shop was a sculpture of twisted metal rails. On it ran the lozenge of an open-topped train filled with shrieking humans.

  “What is it?” asked Emily as the train went whizzing up the rails to the highest point. To Emily’s horror, it then hurtled ever downward, followed by a trail of screams.

  “It’s a big dipper,” said Buster. “A glorious big dipper. Better known as a roller coaster—and I am going to ride on it forever and ever.”

  “Hold on, my old minnow, you can’t go swimming off just like that,” said Fidget.

  “I can. And I will,” said Buster, unfolding his wings.

  He began to rise up from the pavement and nearly hit a low-flying seagull.

  “Oh, really,” said Emily. “Primrose—stop him, please.”

  Primrose quickly raised her hand and pulled Buster down by his ankle. On the other side of the street, a family had stopped to stare at them.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” said Emily.

  A little boy watched Buster with his mouth open.

  “Look, look, Mum,” he said. “There’s a real fairy.”

  “I know, love,” said his mother. “You see all sorts by the seaside.”

  “Oh dear,” said Emily.

  “Don’t worry, my little ducks,” said Fidget. “We’ll fit in here like piranhas in a goldfish bowl.”

  “You need to loosen up, Emily,” said Buster. “We’re on holiday.”

  “No, we’re not. We’re in the middle of an investigation, and we have no leads. And now we’re somewhere we don’t know.”

  “You have a point, my little ducks,” said Fidget. “But in all its years, the shop has never got up and moved without a good reason. What the reason is this time, I don’t know, but I have a tail fin of a feeling that we are about to find out.”

  At that moment, the magic lamp popped its spout out of the shop door.

  “Oh, do come quickly, dear mistress,” it said. “There are shenanigans going on, and they are messy.”

  Buster seized his chance and flew away while Emily, Fidget, and Primrose rushed back inside the shop.

  The keys were flying around wildly, knocking things over and upsetting the pictures on the wall. Doughnut was hiding under the counter, his tail between his legs.

  “I have tried to make them stop,” said the magic lamp, throwing up its hands in one of its many theatrical gestures. “I have tried, but will they listen to me? No. Only you, dear, dear mistress, can bring order to this chaos.”

  Just then, the keys drew up in formation near the curious cabinets.

  “Get down, Fidget,” shouted Emily. “I think they mean to attack us!” Fidget and Primrose hid behind the door that led to the stairs. Emily and the magic lamp found safety with Doughnut under the counter.

  “What the tuna paste is going on?” said Fidget as the keys gathered like a swarm of bees in the corner.

  For one dreadful moment, Emily thought they were about to fly out of the shop. She crawled across the floor and slammed the door shut as low-flying keys swooped down on her.

  There was nothing to do but tackle the problem head on. She was, after all, the Keeper of the Keys. Emily stood up.

  “Stop this,” she said firmly. “Behave yourselves!”

  With a great clatter, the keys fell to the wooden floor, not one of them moving, their metal all floppy. From behind Emily came the sound of breaking glass.

  “Oh no
!” shouted the magic lamp. One of the keys had thrown itself at the window and broken through. “Come back! Leave it! It’s not worth it!”

  The key seemed to be aiming at something outside. Emily rushed to the shop door just in time to see a fluttering of feathers and the key lying on the pavement. It looked in a bad way.

  “Cyril, what have you done?” wailed the magic lamp.

  “Cyril?” said Emily, opening the door. “How do you know that key is called Cyril?”

  The lamp ran out and collected Cyril, lifting the floppy key in its little arms and bringing it back into the shop.

  “You may be the Keeper of the Keys,” the lamp said to Emily, “but to me they are more than just a bunch of ironmongery. They are my friends.”

  The magic lamp screamed. All its dear friends were out cold. It knelt down and laid Cyril next to them.

  “Don’t leave me!” the lamp cried to the keys. “Don’t leave me on my own!”

  “Rollmop me a herring,” said Fidget. “I’ve never seen the keys do that before.”

  Emily thought afterward that if the magic lamp hadn’t been having one of its more dramatic turns, she might have noticed then that two of the curious cabinet drawers were open. But at that moment something went whiz-bang-wallop, and the shop filled with thick bluish smoke. Fidget and Emily couldn’t see a thing. Snatches of music wafted in and out, and sparks of color flashed on and off.

  “Betty? Where are you, love?” a woman’s voice said.

  “What’s going on? Where am I?” said a man’s voice.

  “Only one … after all this time,” said the woman.

  “Who are you?” called Fidget, still unable to see a thing.

  There was a crashing of china, a scurrying of feet, a tinkling of a bell, and the shop door slammed shut.

  “Well, lean on a limpet,” said Fidget. “Whatever next?”

  Chapter Five

  James Cardwell was sitting in his office on the top floor of New Scotland Yard, trying to piece together exactly what had happened during the Bond Street jewelry robbery.

  It had taken place the previous week in broad daylight at twelve thirty, when the street had been packed with shoppers. The sheer scale of the robbery had stunned onlookers and the police alike. From the eyewitness accounts that Detective Cardwell had collected, and from security cameras and video taken on cell phones, the culprits appeared to be two old ladies, both on mobility scooters. They had been spotted earlier that morning near the Oxford Circus tube station before heading toward Bond Street. Witnesses said they’d been wearing colorful scarves and sunglasses, and from the back of each mobility scooter flew a flag. On their baskets at the front were arrangements of plastic flowers.

  Bond Street had been busier than usual on account of the Galaxy Diamond. For one week only, it was being displayed in the shop window of Myrtle & Finch Jewelers. The store had hired its own security guards, and special reinforced glass had been installed in the shop window. The jeweler’s owners, who lived in Dubai, were certain that the Galaxy Diamond—worth seven million pounds—was as safe there as it would be in a bank vault.

  But they hadn’t taken into account the little old ladies on their mobility scooters. The women arrived at the shop and pushed their way through to the front of the crowd to stare at the diamond, which was mounted on a velvet cushion.

  It was at this point that one of the old ladies started to wave her umbrella above her head, shouting at the top of her voice for everyone to clear off. The two security guards rushed forward to see what the hullabaloo was about. But neither man remembered a thing after being jabbed in the leg with the end of the umbrella. The other old lady stood up, and swinging her handbag as if it were a ball and chain, smashed it through the shop window, shattering the reinforced glass with ease and setting off the alarm system. Then the first old lady grabbed the Galaxy Diamond, and in the chaos that followed, the two culprits escaped on their blinged-out mobility scooters.

  So far the security footage had given no clues about the true identities of the two thieves. It had shown them going off at forty miles per hour in the direction of Piccadilly Circus. After that, there was no trace of them. And no trace of the diamond, either. The mobility scooters had eventually been found abandoned in Poland Street Car Park, along with a lead-lined handbag.

  It was one of the toughest cases Detective Cardwell could remember in a long time. He swiveled around in his chair as a smartly dressed woman with blond, bobbed hair popped her head through the doorway.

  “Here they are,” she said, handing him a USB stick. “Files on nearly all the jewel thieves in the world for you to go through.”

  James smiled weakly. “By any chance are there two little old ladies among them?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Poppy. “No breakthrough, then?” she asked kindly. “I suppose no one suspects little old ladies of doing anything wrong.”

  “No,” said Detective Cardwell. Poppy was new on his team, and whenever she came into a room, he felt his heart flutter a little bit faster. It was the first time in a long, long while that had happened.

  “If anyone can catch them, I’m sure it’s you,” she said, and she closed the door behind her.

  James sighed. He knew he could never go out with Poppy. She wasn’t like him. It just wouldn’t work.

  The phone rang.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” said a voice with a Northern accent. “This is Sergeant Binns, Puddliepool-on-Sea police station. We have apprehended a youngster by the name of Buster Ignatius Spicer. He says you know him.”

  “What’s this all about, Sergeant?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “The lad in question has been arrested due to an incident involving the roller-coaster ride at the Starburst Amusement Park.”

  James Cardwell sighed again. “I’ll be there as quickly as I can,” he said.

  He made sure that the office door was closed before opening the window. London looked hot and gray below. Detective Cardwell took off his jacket and climbed carefully onto the window ledge. He unfolded his wings and stretched them out. It was good to feel the wind in them. Then he pushed himself off the top of New Scotland Yard and flew into the sky, heading north to Puddliepool-on-Sea.

  Chapter Six

  Buster was in a terrible grump by the time he and James Cardwell arrived back at Wings & Co. Life, he had decided, was unfair—very unfair indeed. James had read him the Fairy Code of Conduct. There was, he thought, no need for that. Who did James think he was? A hundred years ago, he had been Buster’s best friend. Now, just because he’d grown up, wore a suit, and was a detective at Scotland Yard, he thought he had the right to tell him, Buster Ignatius Spicer, how to behave. Buster was so lost in the red fog of his own bad temper that he didn’t notice the shattered glass in the front door of the fairy detective agency.

  Inside the old shop, it looked as if a troop of elephants had taken up dancing lessons. A chair knocked over, books lying open on the floor, Fidget’s favorite tea mug broken. Detective Cardwell had never seen the shop in such a state.

  “Buddleia. It’s that enormous girl again,” said Buster. “She only has to do a hop and a skip and all the pictures fall off the walls. That’s the trouble with girls—always messing things up.”

  The magic lamp hurried out from behind the counter, carrying a first-aid bag.

  “It’s a calamity, I tell you,” it cried. “A terrible calamity!”

  “What’s going on?” asked James Cardwell.

  “No time,” said the lamp, and skedaddled.

  “Hello,” called James. “Is anyone here?”

  Fidget came down the stairs, followed by Emily, who rushed up to James and gave him a hug.

  “I’m so pleased you are here,” she said. “We’re in a terrible mess.”

  “Jimmy, my old cod,” said Fidget.

  “Have you been robbed?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “Sort of,” said Emily. “But we can’t be sure. The shop went walking and—�
� Seeing Buster, she stopped. “So you decided to come back? I thought you were going to ride on the roller coaster forever and ever.”

  “He’s grounded,” said James Cardwell firmly.

  “Grounded as in, not allowed to fly?”

  “Correct,” said James. “For the time being, at least.”

  “Why?” asked Emily. “What’s he done?”

  “Don’t answer that, James,” said Buster. “It’s none of her business. And anyway, a century ago, you would’ve been up there with me. Now you’re so grown up and boring. I’ve had enough of all of you.”

  “All right, old sprat,” Fidget called as Buster went stomping upstairs. “So are you resigning from being a detective?”

  “No,” said Buster.

  “Then wake up and smell the fish fingers,” said Fidget. “If you can be bothered to look around you, you might notice that we are in a bit of a predicament.”

  “A what?” said Buster.

  “A pre-dic-a-ment,” said Fidget. “A pickle, in other words.”

  The red fog began to clear. Buster sighed and turned around, nearly tripping the magic lamp.

  “Watch where you’re going,” said the lamp. It was carrying one of the keys in its arms. It hung down, all floppy. “Can’t you see that Rory is at death’s door?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Buster. “I got carried away. But I’m here now.”

  “About time, too,” said Emily.

  “What’s happened? And what are you all doing in Puddliepool-on-Sea in the first place?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  Emily wished she knew the answer to that question. And she wished she knew what was wrong with the keys. There was no manual on how to be Keeper, and Buster had once told her that it came naturally to those who were chosen. She was beginning to feel that everything was out of control.

  So it was Fidget who explained to James how the shop had moved in the night, then gone into lockdown. How the keys had turned on them, how one—Cyril—had broken the glass in the front door and flown out. How, when the smoke cleared, another—Rory—was found in a drawer …

  “… just hanging there, all droopy, not like metal at all,” said Emily. “And that’s not the worst of it.”