Lucy stamped her foot. “But you have to! I–– Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”
“What’s wrong?” the Mr Paiges cried.
Lucy collapsed to the floor. She curled herself into a little ball, clutching her head. “I think it might be too late. All this talk about magicians. It’s too much to take in. I think my brain is going to explode. I have a terrible headache.”
The seven Mr Paiges crowded round her. They shouted for Mr Turner, who raced in, almost dashing his own brains out as the door was still Lucy-sized not Mr Turner-sized.
“Oh, Mr Paige, what’s happened?”
“She says we’ve overfilled her brain!”
“What exactly have you been telling her? Have you overdone it?”
“Overdone it! Of course not! We hardly told her anything! We’re always very careful about how much information we impart!”
“Well, you’ve done something to the poor child!”
The seven Mr Paiges surrounded the one Mr Turner and they all started shouting at each other. And while they bickered, snapped and argued, Lucy uncurled herself, crawled through the legs of the Mr Paiges surrounding her and sped out of the Reading Room, back into the library. Silently, she closed the door behind her and turned the key in the lock before taking it out of the keyhole and dropping it in her jacket pocket.
She leaned against the door, shaking.
“Lucy, let us out!” shouted Mr Turner. “Please, miss!”
“Will not!” Lucy shouted back.
She had to hurry. Paige and Turner were clearly magical in some way and could probably deal with a locked door. If only it was mouse-sized again. Even in their fireplace form, Turner and Paige were almost a foot high and too big to get through it. At the very least, it might slow them down.
As she was thinking this, the door wobbled.
Became Bathsheba-sized.
Dog-sized.
Smell-sized.
Mouse-sized!
Lucy watched, amazed and delighted. Locking the door must have automatically triggered its size-changing magic.
Now all she had to do was find the Wish Book and take it to the raven.
Lucy pushed one of the leather sofas against the mouse-sized door, underneath the shelf that held the metal books. This also helped to muffle Turner and Paige’s shouts. The sofa had a high back and by perching on it and stretching up as high as she possibly could, Lucy’s fingertips reached the edges of the books. Now she was up closer, she could see there were five of them. Four metal books, one gold, one silver, one copper, one iron, and one book that wasn’t metal, but made of glassy, see-through material.
Lucy eased out the book with the iron cover. Everything inside it was black, including the pages. She shook it to see if it would do anything, tell her anything. But it remained dark and silent so she dropped it on the sofa. She pulled the gold book out next, but the pages inside were in a language she didn’t understand. Lucy slung it on the sofa in disgust. How was she supposed to know which book to take when she couldn’t even read their contents? She tried the silver book next. It was tucked further back on the shelf than the others and she couldn’t quite reach it. She stood on her tiptoes, wobbling dangerously. Still not near enough. She gave a little leap and just managed to snatch the silver spine before losing her balance and toppling backwards. She tumbled off the sofa and on to the floor, the book falling with her. One of its pointy metal corners struck her on the head.
She lay dazed for a few seconds. When the library stopped tilting giddily around her, she sat up and grabbed the book. It was very heavy and had a sharp metallic smell. She opened it carefully and peered at the thin silver pages. Engraved on the very first page were the words:
For Wishes, Spell.
She’d found it!
But those were the only words in the whole book. The other pages had holes punched in them, just big enough for Lucy to be able to stick her finger through. The first page had one hole, the second two and so on. How could this strange object possibly free the raven? It seemed impossible to imagine.
Lucy stuck her finger through the first hole on the first page. The edges of the hole were as lethal as one of Mrs Crawley’s chopping knives and she had to be careful not to slice off her fingertip.
“I wish I was at home at Leafy Ridge,” she said firmly.
Nothing.
She was still in the library. No need to panic, she told herself. The raven would know how to use it. She’d better stop dithering and get it to him.
But as she was shoving the Wish Book inside the bag she’d brought with her, there was a rattling noise in the library fireplace. Lucy watched, horror-struck, as a figure appeared in the tiles. It had prominent eyebrows and a miniature black panther at its side.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SNIFFED OUT
Lucy dived behind the library curtains and drew them closed, leaving a small gap to peer through. Seconds later, Lord Grave and Bathsheba slid from the tiles, changing from the miniature ceramic version of themselves to full-sized flesh, blood, fur and teeth. Another figure appeared in the tiles. A figure wearing a beard, a flowery dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers.
“Where on earth have those two got to?” Lord Grave said, frowning in his bushy-eyebrow way. “They’re as bad as Smell. None of them have kept a proper eye on the girl, despite my instructions. Now look at the mess we’re in.”
“If only she hadn’t found Caruthers,” said Mrs Crawley, who was now her full six-foot-three-and-a-quarter-inches self.
Lucy almost cried out in anger and sorrow. It was horrible to discover that the housekeeper-cum-cook was in on Lord Grave’s wicked activities. She must have only been pretending to be upset about Violet. Although she’d put on a most impressive act. Even now, her eyes were still rather red.
“If we don’t find her, we’re all at risk, Mrs C. Ma’am most of all. Imagine if Lucy goes to the authorities. Or the Penny Dreadful, come to think of it. If people begin nosing around …”
“I don’t think she’ll have got far,” Mrs Crawley said.
Bathsheba suddenly leaped on to the sofa Lucy had shoved against the wall and started growling and clawing at the leather.
“That sofa’s not usually there,” Lord Grave said in a soft voice.
“And those books are normally on that shelf,” Mrs Crawley replied.
Lord Grave and Mrs Crawley hurried forward and rolled the sofa away from the wall. While they were distracted, Lucy attempted to open the library window. But the handle was stiff and bound to make a harsh grating noise that would be overheard. She’d have to wait for the right opportunity.
“Turner, Paige, are you in there?” Lord Grave was shouting.
“Your Lordship, is that you?” Mr Turner replied weakly. “We’re trapped! The girl, she tricked us!”
Lord Grave gave the mouse-sized door the briefest of glances. It grew Lord Grave-sized in an instant. The handle jiggled and rattled and then the door lurched open. Mr Turner and Mr Paige fell into the library, red-faced, choking, clasping their throats, as though they’d been struggling to breathe.
“The girl, your Lordship,” said Mr Turner raspily. “She did this.”
“The books,” said Mrs Crawley. “One’s missing.”
Mr Turner looked at the books on the sofa and then at the shelf. “It’s the Wish Book.”
“Why would she take that? How would she even know about it? Did you tell her, Turner?” Lord Grave demanded.
“Most certainly not. We did exactly as you asked. Gave her a little information each time.”
“She’s a clever girl. She’ll work out how to use it anyway,” Lord Grave said.
“But how could she have left the library?” Mr Turner asked.
At that very moment, Bathsheba began growling again. Then Lucy heard a snuffling noise.
Lucy quivered in her hiding place behind the curtains. Any second now, Bathsheba was going to sniff her out. Moving as quietly as she could, she took the scarf and the tin from her bag. She
wound the scarf over her mouth and nose and loosened the lid of the tin before flinging the curtain aside.
“Lucy!” Lord Grave bellowed and stepped towards her.
“Dear girl,” Mrs Crawley chimed in.
“Keep away from me, all of you!” Lucy lobbed the tin she was holding at Lord Grave. The loosened lid flew off and a bright orange cloud of Extra Violent Mustard Mix immediately engulfed Lucy’s enemies. Lucy turned away to avoid any stray puffs of the mustard, but even so, her eyes began to water. With tears streaming down her face, she yanked the library window open and climbed outside. Behind her, she could hear Lord Grave and the others coughing, spluttering and sneezing. Good. They deserved to suffer.
Lucy crouched on the stone windowsill for a few seconds. She pulled the scarf down round her neck and breathed in the fresh, clean air while planning her next move. The ivy growing past the window was her only hope. Would it hold her? Maybe not with the added weight of the Wish Book. So she threw the bag containing the book on to the grass below, hoping that it wouldn’t get damaged. Then she began climbing down the ivy.
But the ivy had other ideas.
Lucy was halfway down the ivy when it began to poke into her ears and nose and mouth and generally make a nuisance of itself. But she didn’t panic. She’d suspected the ivy might be one of the measures Mr Turner had said were in place to protect the library and so she had come prepared. Blinking away tears (the ivy’s exploration of her nostrils was making her eyes water again), Lucy hung on to the ivy with one hand and fumbled around in her pocket with the other, taking out the shears she’d stolen from Vonk. She began hacking away at the creeping plant, which hissed and wriggled like an angry snake and began to shrivel. It loosened its hold just long enough for her to climb further down and then leap the last few feet to the ground.
Sounds of coughing and sneezing and raised voices were still coming from above. Lucy looked up. A few drops of rain fell on her upturned face. No, not rain. A fine mist of water was drifting down from the library window. Lord Grave must have magicked up some sort of shower in the library to damp down the Extra Violent Mustard Mix. She had to get going before he, Bathsheba and Mrs Crawley recovered enough to pursue her. Lucy raced across the grass, the bag holding the Wish Book banging painfully against her hip. She sped round to the back of the house and into the kitchen where Becky and Smell were having a sly nap.
“What’s going on?” Becky said, jerking awake. But Lucy didn’t reply. She whizzed past and out again, up the stairs and off towards the Room of Curiosities.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
HAVOC CREATED
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” Lucy shouted, when she’d hurriedly taken the glass cover off the raven.
“The Wish Book? You managed it?” the raven said, stretching out his metal wings in triumph. “Brilliant girl!”
“But he knows. Lord Grave knows I’ve stolen it. He’ll work out where I am, any second!” Lucy’s words came out in a frantic tumble.
“Open the book,” the raven said, hopping to the ground.
Lucy sat on the cold marble floor and did as the raven said.
“But how does it work? Oh no! You can’t tell me, can you?”
The raven stared at Lucy. “Drat it! That’s right!”
“You can write it though, like last time?”
“Of course I can!” The raven darted over to a dusty corner of the room as before. Lucy followed him, carrying the Wish Book. Again using his beak as a pen, the raven wrote:
26 pages. Page 1=A
Lucy gazed at the raven and shook her head, not understanding.
“Think. Think about the pages. What else has twenty-six parts?” The raven said urgently.
Lucy put her hands to her head, willing her brain to think fast. “The alphabet. I see! The first page is A, the second B and so on like that!”
“Yes! What do the words on the first page say?”
“To Wish, Spell. So I have to … spell out the wish?”
“Yes! Yes!” The raven took flight and flew around the room, cawing wildly.
“What should I wish for exactly?” Lucy shouted up at him.
The raven landed and scuffed over the dust with his claws before writing in it again. This time he wrote:
CREATE HAVOC.
“That’s what I have to wish for? Create Havoc? What will that do? Cause a distraction so we can escape?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“But what about wishing I was back with my mother and father? What about Violet and the others?”
“We can attend to all that afterwards. Think, Lucy, think. If you wish yourself back home with your parents, then that’s where you’ll be, not here. How then will I get free? How will we help the other children?”
“Can’t you make your wish afterwards?”
“No. I’d still be raven-formed. The Wish Book only works with a human’s touch. Please, Lucy. We need to hurry. If we don’t … we may not be in time to save your little friend.”
Lucy sat down again and opened the Wish Book. She ran her fingertips over the three holes that represented the letter C. After that, she turned to the eighteenth page, R, then continued back and forth over the pages, the cold metal growing warm under her fingers.
At last, she reached the final C of CREATE HAVOC and was about to run her fingers over the corresponding three holes when something needle-sharp plunged into her shoulder. It was Smell. He was clinging to her, digging his claws in.
“Arrgh! Where did you come from? Get off me!” she cried. “Get off!”
“The last letter! The last letter!” shrieked the raven, flapping its wings. It launched itself at Smell and grabbed the cat’s tail in its beak, dragging him off. Lucy shrieked in pain as Smell’s claws raked the back of her neck. The two animals fell to the floor in a snarling tangle of metal and fur.
Eyes watering in pain, Lucy used her sleeve to wipe away the blood trickling down her neck. Then she brushed her fingers over the three holes that stood for C. In the same instant that her fingers touched the final hole, Smell and the raven stopped fighting.
“Cccccckkkkkk!” said the raven, before keeling over backwards. It lay motionless, legs pointing towards the ceiling.
Lucy dropped the Wish Book in shock.
“You killed him, you stupid, stupid animal!” she shouted at Smell.
Smell was backing away from the dead raven, growling, belly low against the ground, his one and a half ears flattened against his skull. Black smoke began billowing from the raven’s chest, as though its heart was on fire. Before Lucy could fathom this, the smoke filled the Room of Curiosities, blinding her and making her throat burn and itch. She staggered about, coughing. The smoke grew even thicker and swirled around her. So did horrible thoughts.
I’m going to die here.
I’ll never get home to Leafy Ridge. Never see Mother or Father again. Violet will meet a horrible end. And no one will ever discover what happened to all the other stolen children. Lord Grave and Ma’am and the others will have got away with it.
She shook her head to clear it. Thinking of her father had reminded her of something. Because he so often nearly set the kitchen alight when he was scorching pies, Lucy had taken the trouble to learn some basic fire safety. So she knew that she should keep as close to the ground as possible where the air was fresher. She dropped to the marble floor and began to crawl along. But the smoke quickly blackened and thickened even more. She heard Smell wail pitifully. The smoke gathered itself into a thin whirling tube, like a hurricane. Light flickered and crashed at the centre of the hurricane, growing brighter and brighter. The light swallowed the smoke and then flashed hard and fast and loud, dazzling Lucy and making her ears ring.
When the light faded and she could see again, the last of the smoke was drifting in dark wisps towards the ceiling.
In place of the whirling hurricane stood a tall thin man.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A COMPLETE DISASTER
Smell leaped at the man’s face, teeth bared, claws unsheathed. But the man was ready for him, grabbing the scruff of his neck before flinging him away. Smell crashed into some of the other curiosities in the room and lay motionless where he fell, amongst shards of glass.
As for Lucy, before she could do anything, the man reached down and whipped the scarf from round her neck, using it to tie her hands together behind her back. Then he forced her face down on the ground and used the trailing ends of the scarf to tie her ankles together before taking a handkerchief from his pocket and tying it round her mouth. Lucy hoped that the handkerchief was at least clean.
With Lucy safely trussed up, the man bent over the charred remains of the raven. What was left of the bird’s metal casing was melting away, leaving a skeleton behind. Small black buds sprouted from the bones, blossoming into glossy black feathers. When it was fully restored, the raven struggled back to its feet, real feet now with real claws. It opened its beak and cawed before fluttering on to the man’s shoulder.
“Nevermore, we are ourselves again. Free,” said the man. His voice was that of the clockwork raven. He straightened the very old-fashioned three-cornered hat he wore and retied the blue ribbon fastened at the end of his long pigtail, which was black, threaded with grey.
The bird on his shoulder replied in a creaky, cackling voice, “Indeed, but we mustn’t stay here. What are you planning to do with the girl?”
“Take her with us,” the man replied.
“No!” Lucy shouted. “You can’t! You said you’d get me back home! And what about Violet and the stolen children? We need to tell someone what’s happening!” But of course her mouth was stuffed with handkerchief, so this just came out as, “Mmmph!”
“I think little Lucy is upset,” said the man. Then he bent down, his dark brown eyes meeting hers.
“I lied, I’m afraid,” he said.
“One of his many bad habits,” Nevermore remarked from her perch on the man’s shoulder.
The man straightened up and strode over to the Wish Book, which Lucy had left lying on the floor, but he didn’t pick it up.
Goodly and Grave in a Bad Case of Kidnap Page 8
