by Angie Sage
Wow.
“Do you really like it here?” I asked Wanda as we walked back to our little cabin.
“Yes,” said Wanda, “I do.”
And then we heard it for the very first time.
Raaaaaaaargh!
A loud roar drifted up from the floor below. We stopped and stared at each other. I think I must have looked as googly-eyed as Wanda did.
“What was that?” whispered Wanda.
“A lion?” I suggested. “Or maybe a tiger? Or possibly even a—”
Raaaargh! Raaaaaaargh!
But Wanda was not listening. She raced up the corridor, threw open the door of our cabin and hurtled inside. I was not far behind, but as I scooted in, the sweet little blue bat fluttered out at the same moment that the door slammed shut. Bother.
Raaaargh! Raaaaaaargh! The roar echoed up from somewhere deep in Gargoyle Hall.
Wanda looked at me with big, googly eyes. “What is that, Araminta?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” I told her. “But whatever it is, I don’t think I want to find out.”
“Do you think the whatever-it-is will come and get us in the night?” Wanda breathed.
“Crumbs, Wanda, how do I know?” I said. I wished that Wanda wouldn’t ask such scary questions.
“We could barricade the door,” Wanda said. “Then if the whatever-it-is tries to get in, it wouldn’t be able to get in right away, would it? So it might get fed up and then even if it had a little rest and it tried again it still might not be able to get in and then maybe it would go away and—”
“Stop!” I said. “I get the point.”
So we dragged my trunk in front of the door, and then we went to bed. I lay there listening so hard that I felt like my ears were going to fall off, but even though everything was really quiet, I couldn’t get to sleep.
After a while, Wanda said in a whisper, “Araminta.”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Can I come in with you?”
“Yes.”
So we scrunched up together in my bumpy little bed and I was so glad Wanda was there. Even though she kept me awake all night with her knobbly knees sticking into me.
We were woken up by someone banging on the door so hard that the cabin walls shook. “Wakey-wakey!” a screechy voice yelled. “Rise and shine.”
Wanda sat up with her hair sticking out on end. “Shine what?” she mumbled. “Where?”
The door handle rattled and someone gave the door a shove. I was pleased to see that the trunk did not move.
“Open the door!” yelled the voice outside.
I got up and dragged the trunk out of the way. The Blue Vulture fell in.
“What are you doing?” she asked when she had picked herself up off the floor. “New girls are not allowed to lock their doors.”
“It wasn’t locked,” I told her. “It had my trunk across it.”
She folded her arms and said, “New girls are not allowed to put their trunks across their doors either.” Then she stopped and looked at Wanda. “Hey,” she said. “You weren’t here last night.”
“Yes, she was,” I told her, which was quite true.
“No, she wasn’t,” said the Blue Vulture.
“I was,” said Wanda. “You just didn’t see me, that’s all.”
The Blue Vulture looked at Wanda in a puzzled kind of way. “Huh,” she snorted. “Are you trying to tell me you were invisible or something?”
“Well, if you didn’t see me then I must have been invisible,” said Wanda. I was impressed. Sometimes Wanda manages to sound quite intelligent.
The Blue Vulture went up to Wanda and glared at her. “Don’t get clever with me,” she said, “or you might regret it. Something might come and get you. Something that roars. In the night. Know what I mean?”
Wanda looked like she was staring the Blue Vulture down, but I could tell that really she was too scared to even blink. Actually Wanda was too scared to talk either, but the Blue Vulture didn’t know that. She turned on her pointy little metal heel and marched out, slamming the door behind her so hard that I thought the cabin walls might actually fall down.
“Wow,” I said. “That was really good. Now we have the advantage.”
Wanda swallowed hard and blinked. “The what?” she squeaked.
“I’ll explain later,” I said. “But first we have a brand new Mystery to solve.”
Wanda frowned. “But we left all those Mysteries at home. We are at boarding school now and we don’t do Mysteries here. What we do here is play games and practical jokes and eat midnight feasts.”
You can tell that Wanda is not a true professional. “Wanda,” I said, “a Chief Detective is always on duty, even if her sidekick isn’t. We have The Mystery of the Monster In The Night to solve.”
Wanda looked unhappy. “Do we have to? That Mystery was really scary, Araminta.”
Suddenly a loud bell rang and I heard Matron’s door unbolting and the sound of heavy boots marching down the corridor. She banged on our door and yelled, “Downstairs, girls! Breakfast!”
So Wanda borrowed my spare school uniform and we both went downstairs wearing our funny black tunics with the red sashes and the gargoyle badge. Across the entrance hall was a door with a sign on it saying: Dining Room. And in front of the door stood the Blue Vulture looking at her watch.
“You’re late,” she said. “You’ve got five minutes to eat your porridge lumps.”
Wanda, who likes food—even porridge lumps—pushed open the door and pulled me inside. There were lots of long, narrow tables with benches along either side, but the place was completely empty. All the other girls had gone home for the weekend. The room smelled of boiled cabbage and potatoes with a whiff of burnt porridge. There were two bowls of porridge on the table nearest the door, so we sat down and stared at the porridge lumps. They were cold and there wasn’t even any brown sugar to make patterns with. But Wanda looked really excited. “Wow, Araminta, this is amazing. It’s just like boarding school porridge should be! I knew it would be so I brought supplies…” She rootled in her pocket and brought out a packet of cheese and onion crisps and a packet of gummi bears. So we both had our favourite breakfast.
We had hardly finished when the Blue Vulture marched in. She had a nasty smile on her face. “Come with me,” she said. “You are on cleaning duties.”
“Cleaning?” I said. “But we are at school. We are meant to be learning.”
“And playing games and having midnight feasts,” Wanda chimed in.
“Don’t get clever with me,” she said. “It’s the weekend. So you don’t learn, you clean.”
“But I am going to see Miss Gargoyle soon,” I said. And then I thought that it would not be fair to leave Wanda alone with the Vultures, so I said, “And Wanda is too.”
The Blue Vulture laughed as if I had made a joke. “How cosy,” she said. “But unfortunately, Miss Gargoyle is, er, indisposed this morning.”
“In the what?” asked Wanda.
“Indisposed. Not well, dumbo,” the Blue Vulture snapped. “And she will be indisposed this afternoon. And indisposed this evening too. Ha ha.”
The Blue Vulture pushed us out of the dining room and marched us across the big entrance hall. As we went behind one of the columns we nearly bumped into the Yellow Vulture. She was standing outside a door with a sign on it saying: Headmistress, and it looked to me like she was on guard. It was weird, because there was a big, shiny bolt on the outside of the door, which I was sure I had not seen the night before. The Yellow Vulture glared at us, and as we walked past I saw the handle of Miss Gargoyle’s study shake like someone was trying to get out. The Blue Vulture quickly pushed us past and shoved us into a dark, narrow corridor. There was a little door at the end and outside was a mop and bucket. The Blue Vulture took a big key out of her pocket and opened the door. The smell of damp spiders wafted out and I knew this was a cellar.
She flicked a switch. A dim yellow light bulb lit up some ri
ckety wooden stairs and showed lots of thick black cobwebs with some lovely big spiders in them. I like spiders but Wanda is not so keen, even though I have introduced her to some really nice ones. She stared at a huge spider with hairy legs that was dangling down from the middle of the doorway. The spider stared back. Wanda gulped.
“You,” the Blue Vulture pointed at Wanda, “pick up the bucket.”
Wanda picked up the bucket very slowly, not taking her eyes off the spider.
“And the mop, stupid.”
“You didn’t say to pick up the mop,” Wanda said, getting picky like she does when she is nervous.
“I told you, don’t get clever with me,” the Blue Vulture snarled. She leaned down and her beak touched Wanda’s little squashy nose. “Did you hear something last night?”
Wanda nodded. She was staring at the tip of the Blue Vulture’s nose—she had gone cross-eyed and looked really funny, but I didn’t feel like laughing right then.
“They call it the Beast of Gargoyle Hall. And do you want to know where the Beast of Gargoyle Hall lives in the day?” the Blue Vulture snarled.
Wanda shook her head. “No,” she whispered.
Blue Vulture stood up straight again. Wanda’s eyes swivelled back into the right place and she stared up at the Blue Vulture like a small rabbit looking at a very big snake. Not that I have ever seen a rabbit looking at a snake but I know if I did it would look just like Wanda did then.
“Get cleaning,” the Blue Vulture snapped. “You’re not coming out until every single spider has gone.” She shoved us inside, slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.
“Excuse me,” I said to the spider very politely, because you should always be polite to spiders. “Excuse me, we just want to squeeze by.” I steered Wanda around the spider and prodded her gently down the wooden stairs.
The cellar was very gloomy and so full of cobwebs that you could hardly see the old beams in the ceiling at all. It had bare brick walls and a brick floor and along one wall big cardboard boxes were stacked. Another light bulb hung from the ceiling and a whole load of spiders stared down. They did not look very pleased to see us, but I expect that was because they had heard what the Blue Vulture had said. Spiders do not like having their homes demolished, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. I would not like having my home demolished either.
“It’s all right, spiders,” I told them. “There is no way we are going to get rid of your beautiful webs.”
“But, Araminta,” Wanda whispered, “if we don’t get rid of them we won’t be allowed out and we will have to stay here for ever and ever.”
“No we won’t,” I told her. “We will find a way out.”
“But we are locked in a cellar,” said Wanda, staring at the dirty brick walls and the stacks of old boxes. “We are under the ground and there are no windows. How can there be a way out?”
“There is a way out of everything,” I told her. “All you have to do is think about it hard enough and make a plan.” I didn’t actually have a plan right then, even though I was thinking about it quite hard, but I decided not to tell Wanda that.
Wanda didn’t say anything. She put her hand in her pocket and took out a crumpled packet. “Do you want a gummi bear? They help you think.”
So I took a gummi bear and began to think.
I hadn’t been thinking for very long when we heard something scrabbling behind the boxes. Scritch … scratch …
Wanda grabbed hold of me. “What’s that?” she whispered.
“It’s probably a little rat,” I said.
“I don’t think it is very little,” Wanda said. “Look—the boxes are moving.”
Wanda was right, the boxes in the middle of the stack were slowly being pushed forward towards us. Wanda grabbed hold of me. “It’s the Beastly,” she breathed.
“The what?” I asked.
“You know—the thing that the Vulture said. The Beastly of Gargoyle Hall. This is where it lives in the day. And now it is coming to get us …”
Now, you will know that I don’t always take a lot of notice of what Wanda says, especially when she has her googly-eyed expression, but just then I reckoned she was probably right.
“We will have to get it first,” I whispered back. “Here, take the bucket.” I shoved the bucket into her hands.
“Why?” asked Wanda, staring down at the bucket.
“As a shield,” I said. “I will keep the mop as a spear.”
“I’d rather have a spear than a shield,” Wanda hissed.
“Well, you can’t. I am good with spears. I have practised a lot.”
Wanda got picky again. “When? I’ve never seen you.”
“You don’t see everything I do, Wanda Wizzard.”
But Wanda would not give up. “It’s not fair,” she said. “You can’t do anything against a Beastly with a bucket.”
“You can’t do much with a mop,” I said.
“More than with a bucket!” Wanda can be quite strong when she is in a panic and suddenly she wrenched the mop from my hands and shoved the bucket into them. There was no time to get it back. With a loud thud, one of the middle boxes crashed to the ground. For a moment there was a box-shaped hole and I could see something black moving behind it. Then the boxes above fell down, there was a horrible squeal and the hole disappeared.
“Let’s get it!” I whispered to Wanda. I held up my bucket as a shield and Wanda pointed the mop. We were ready.
A surprisingly small black Beast covered in spiders’ webs pushed its way out from the boxes. Wanda leapt forward and shoved it with her mop. The Beast yelled and fell back into the boxes. Wanda was about to thump it on the head when I shouted, “Stop!”
Wanda swung around with the mop. “Why?” she said. “I am just going to finish it off.”
“No!” yelled the Beast. “No! Please stop! It’s me.”
I knew that voice at once. “Mathilda!” Mathilda is my cousin who I told you about. She is very nearly grown up and is really cool. She wears black and the most brilliant dead-mouse hats and always looks amazing. But right then, lying on the floor covered in spiders’ webs and boxes, Mathilda was not looking her best.
“Help me up, you two,” Mathilda said crossly. “It’s the least you can do.”
Wanda and I each grabbed hold of one lacy fingerless-gloved hand and pulled Mathilda up. She brushed some of the mess off her long black coat and looked at us with a frown. “Well,” she said. “I go to all this trouble to rescue you and this is the thanks I get.”
“We thought you were a Beastly,” said Wanda.
“Thank you, Wanda,” said Mathilda crossly. “That’s very nice. Not.”
I thought Mathilda was not being fair and so did Wanda. “But the Vultures made us think there was one down here,” she told her.
Mathilda stopped looking cross and giggled. “Vultures! That’s very good. Hee hee. I know exactly who you mean.”
Even though I was really, really pleased to see Mathilda, I did not understand why she was there—or how she had got there. And as Chief Detective I thought it was my job to ask some questions. “It is very nice to see you, Mathilda,” I said politely, because something I have learned from Mathilda is if you are polite you often find out a lot more things than if you are not. “But why were you hanging around behind a pile of boxes in a cellar in a horrible school? It’s not something I would want to do in my spare time.”
“Duh,” Mathilda scoffed, like I had said something really stupid. “I wasn’t hanging around. I came to see Miss Gargoyle with a message from Grannie—I mean your aunt Emilene—and I heard Vile and Foul cackling about locking you in the cellar. So I came to get you out.”
“Who are Vile and Foul?” Wanda asked. But I had already guessed.
“Your two Vultures,” said Mathilda, with a giggle. “Violetta and Philomena. Come on, let’s get out of here before they hear us.”
The boxes had been stacked up in front of a little window, which was high up and had
shutters across it. That was where Mathilda had got in. We very quietly put the boxes back how they were, so that when the Vultures came down to let us out (if they ever did) they would think we had disappeared like a pair of ghosts and get really ‘weirded-out’, as Mathilda put it. Then we squeezed behind the boxes, wriggled out through the little window, and closed the shutters.
We found ourselves in a ditch full of weeds. In front of us was an overgrown garden with tall grass sloping down to a big hedge. Mathilda told us to follow her, so we did. We climbed out of the ditch and crawled through the grass. It was fun; it felt like we were tigers stalking our prey. I was really good at it because when I was little I used to practise stalking Aunt Tabby in the garden at Spook House. It annoyed her but I did it anyway because I knew it would be useful one day—and now it was.
We would have easily got away without anyone noticing if Wanda hadn’t crawled into a patch of stinging nettles. Suddenly there was a loud screech and Wanda leapt up like one of those annoying toys on springs that jump out of boxes and manage to be boring (because you know exactly what they are going to do) but scary (because you don’t know when they are going to do it) at the same time.
“Aarrgh!” Wanda yelled. I should have expected that Wanda would find the only stinging nettle patch in the entire garden, but I didn’t expect it, so it was a big surprise. So I jumped up too and yelled, “What? What is it?”
“Shush! Get down, you two!” Mathilda hissed.
I got down but Wanda didn’t. She was hopping about, clutching her knee. “Ouch-ouch-ouch-ooh-ooh-ooh!”
Mathilda grabbed hold of Wanda and pulled her down into the long grass, away from the stinging nettles. Then she very slowly looked up to see if we had been spotted. “Bother!” she whispered.
“Have they seen us?” I asked.
Mathilda threw herself back into the little space of flattened grass that we had made. “The Vultures haven’t seen us,” she said, “but Miss Gargoyle has. She’s waving at us through the window. Bother.”
