by Frognapped
But I had forgotten about Pusskins. As soon as we stood up, Pusskins let out a loud yowl. Aunt Tabby sat up with a start and saw us creeping away.
“Are you going for a swim, Araminta?” she asked suspiciously.
“Er, yes, Aunt Tabby.”
So we had to go for a swim.
The one good thing about swimming was we did not have to wear Uncle Drac’s hats, because, as I pointed out to Aunt Tabby, they would only get wet and then they would fall off and sink. Which would have been a good idea, come to think of it.
It was quite fun in the sea really. I splashed Wanda and pretended to be a sea monster and then she tried to splash me but I was too fast for her and she got mad. Then she yelled, “Shark!”
Wanda has a very loud voice, and all the little kids who were busy jumping up and down in the waves screamed and ran for the beach. I grabbed hold of Wanda’s arm. “You shouldn’t do that,” I told her. “It’s not fair frightening the little ones like that.”
“Let go!” Wanda yelled at me. She wriggled and tried to pull her arm away, but I can pull harder than Wanda, so I won.
Wanda was still yelling, “Let go of me, Araminta! Let go! There’s a shark!”
Now I am not stupid—I know about sharks and stuff like that. I did a project on sharks once and I know that sharks do not live in the sea near Spookie House. They would not dare. But from the way Wanda was yelling you would think we were surrounded by sharks, and that that creepy music that always starts up when a shark circles someone was playing full blast.
It was only when Wanda inhaled a mouthful of water and had to stop yelling for a moment that I noticed how quiet it had become.
And how everyone was standing on the beach pointing at us.
Then I noticed Aunt Tabby and Brenda pushing through the crowd and heading for the water waving their arms, and I wondered why since neither of them likes swimming.
And then I saw the shark fin.
It was really close. It didn’t look like I expected a shark fin to look somehow—it was much bigger—and all I could think was that if the fin was that big, then there must be an awful lot of shark attached to it.
Which was not a nice thought.
“Shark!” I yelled.
“I know,” Wanda yelled.
Wanda has much shorter legs than I do and I usually beat her in any running competitions. But she won this one with miles to spare. I watched her shoot past me, her little legs churning up the water and kicking salty spray into my face. She did not even bother to look around to see whether I was being eaten by the shark or not—anyone would have thought that she did not care. By the time I had made it to the beach Wanda was sitting under the beach umbrella wrapped up in a towel and eating a cheese sandwich.
Aunt Tabby squashed me in a big bony hug while all the other people on the beach stared out to sea and watched the shark fin. They did not seem as excited as they had been when Wanda and I had been in the sea with the shark. In fact I thought they all seemed a bit disappointed, and I definitely heard one of the little kids say, “But, Mom, it’s not fair. I always wanted to see someone eaten by a shark.” And then his mother said, “Never mind, dear. Maybe next time.” I do not know what small children today are coming to. Or their mothers.
There was no chance of us sneaking off after that. Brenda, Aunt Tabby, and Pusskins kept their beady eyes on us all afternoon. The beach got even more boring since the shark did not hang around for long after his lunch had disappeared. We all watched his fin swim off down the coast until it was out of sight behind the rocks, and then people began to pack up and leave as no one wanted to go in the water again. Soon we were the only ones left.
Aunt Tabby and Brenda started building a sand castle. “Come on, you two,” said Brenda. “Help us fill the moat with water.” But Wanda and I had more serious things to think about.
“I wonder what has happened to Sir Horace?” Wanda whispered when Aunt Tabby and Brenda were too busy trying to stop the bridge into the castle from falling down to eavesdrop on our conversation like they usually do.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back. “Old Morris has probably taken him to pieces by now and thrown him in the sea. Or sent him off to be recycled. Or melted him down. Or—”
“Stoppit, Araminta,” hissed Wanda. “Stop!”
Brenda glanced up. “Are you girls fighting again?” she asked.
“No, Mom,” said Wanda sulkily. “We’re bored.”
“How can you be bored on a beautiful day at the beach?” asked Brenda as she turned her bucket upside down and made another tower on the sand castle. “What more could you possibly want to do?”
Wanda did not say anything but I could tell that she was thinking. And then she said something brilliant. It was so brilliant that I am surprised I did not think of it first.
“We want to go to Water Wonderland,” she said.
7
WATER WONDERLAND
Aunt Tabby does not approve of paying to see things that it is perfectly possible to see for free—like fish and turtles and frogs—and I was sure she would not approve of going to Water Wonderland. Which she didn’t.
So I asked her when she had last seen a real fish—one that was swimming around and not just lying on her plate covered in bread crumbs. Aunt Tabby sniffed and said that that was the way she preferred to see her fish, thank you very much.
That gave me an idea. You never know with Aunt Tabby—she likes eating really weird stuff. Who knows, maybe the frogs in Old Morris’s bucket were not Barry’s frogs but a coincidence—coincidences happen to detectives all the time and it is something you have to watch out for. Maybe what had really happened was that Aunt Tabby had snuck downstairs and fried up Barry’s frogs as a midnight snack. I added the fried-frog theory to my list of possibilities.
“But what about frogs in bread crumbs, Aunt Tabby?” I asked.
As a detective you have to learn to notice when people look guilty. But Aunt Tabby looked like she normally does when I say stuff—kind of amazed and irritated at the same time—and said, “Don’t be silly, Araminta.” I decided to cross the fried-frog theory right off.
Then Aunt Tabby amazed me. She said, “Very well, we’ll go to this Water Wonderland place if you really want to.” I think the shark must have made Aunt Tabby go a bit peculiar.
Wanda and I had to wear our hats. I pointed out to Wanda that they were a really good disguise, as everyone would look at the hats and no one would notice who was stuck underneath them, not even Nosy Nora.
Before long before we were all at the ticket office in the old gatehouse to Water Wonderland with Aunt Tabby saying in a loud voice, “How much?”
The man selling the tickets was none other than Old Morris. His little beady eyes stared at Aunt Tabby and he growled, “You heard, lady. Take it or leave it.”
“Leave it,” snapped Aunt Tabby. “Rude man.”
Wanda gave a mournful wail and Brenda—who was also being a bit peculiar since the shark incident—quickly opened the new bat purse that Uncle Drac had knitted for her. “Two adults and two children please,” she said.
“All tickets cost the same,” growled Old Morris. I looked at Old Morris carefully. He was soaking wet and was dripping water all over the tickets. I thought it was very suspicious. He saw me staring at him and stared back. Then he said, “Although I am considering charging more for kids since they are nothing but trouble.”
I am sure I heard Aunt Tabby mutter “How true” under her breath.
Water Wonderland was packed. All the people from the beach were there, which was strange as earlier the place had been totally empty. But I suppose the shark had scared them all so much that they only wanted to see safe fish.
Aunt Tabby looked around in disgust. “This is a ghastly place,” she said. “I can’t think why you want to come here, Wanda.”
“Neither can I,” I told Wanda. “It’s horrible.”
“Don’t be silly, Araminta,” hissed Wanda. “You know why we
want to come here.”
“I am laying a false trail,” I hissed back. “I don’t want Aunt Tabby getting suspicious.” A good detective has to think ahead, but I do not know of any detectives who first have to get rid of their aunt and their sidekick’s mother before they can go detecting. But I had to.
“Why don’t you and Brenda go and have a cup of coffee?” I asked Aunt Tabby.
Aunt Tabby looked at me suspiciously. “Why?” she asked.
See what I mean?
The nearest mushroom shed had been turned into something called Squid Café. It was painted with a picture of a giant squid with its tentacles wrapped around a massive doughnut and a picture of an octopus drinking eight cups of coffee. Brenda was already on her way. Brenda’s homing instinct for doughnuts runs a close second to the Wanda homing instinct.
Soon Brenda and Pusskins had sat down with three doughnuts and a milk shake; Aunt Tabby was reluctantly sipping a cup of black coffee.
“Can Araminta and I go and see the fish, Mom?” Wanda asked.
Brenda nodded and shoveled another doughnut into her mouth.
“You’ve got sugar all over your nose, Brenda,” said Aunt Tabby disapprovingly. She looked at her watch and said, “Don’t be long. Fish Frolics—whatever that is—starts in half an hour.”
So we had half an hour to find Sir Horace, rescue him, find the frogs, and rescue them. It was a tight schedule, but I knew Detective Spookie could do it.
Water Wonderland was a strange place. It was just a track with three long and very decrepit old mushroom sheds on one side of it and a scruffy green circus tent on the other side. Outside the tent there was a sign that said:
“We’ve found the frogs!” said Wanda. “They’re here!”
The next thing I knew she had wriggled underneath the canvas and disappeared inside the tent. I followed her.
It was weird inside the tent. It was filled with a strange green light and smelled of a mixture of crushed grass and fish. There were three tiers of wooden benches arranged in front of a huge glass tank, which was full of water and a few bored fish. Around the edge of the tank was a wide wooden ledge with a ladder propped up against it and there was a big striped curtain hiding the back of the tank.
“I bet the frogs are behind that curtain,” whispered Wanda. We climbed up the ladder, walked around the ledge, and peered behind the curtain. They weren’t. There was nothing there—no frog bucket and no Sir Horace. Just a big empty ledge like a diving board and one lonely hat stand.
“This is a weird place,” whispered Wanda. “I prefer mushrooms.”
But there weren’t any mushrooms left in Water Wonderland.
Now we checked out the old mushroom shed opposite the tent. It had pictures of weird fish painted on the side and someone had written “Akwarium Aquarium” across the corrugated iron roof. A little kid and a big kid were coming out with their parents, and the little one was saying, “But why were the fish floating upside down, Dad?” and his dad said, “I expect they were just a bit tired.” Then the big kid said, “Just a bit dead you mean,” and the little kid burst into tears.
We peered into the Akwarium Aquarium but there was no sign of Sir Horace or the frogs. There was just a great big dripping tank lit with a few dim light bulbs swinging from frayed wires. The tank was green and very murky. The only fish I could see were a few yucky suckerfish with their heads stuck to the glass—and even those were upside down.
The next shed had pictures of turtles all over it—at least I think that was what they were meant to be, although Wanda thought they were rocks with legs. It was quite dark inside as only one light bulb was working; all we could see were old mushroom boxes and a few of Uncle Drac’s bat poo sacks—which was why all the kids in there were holding their noses. In the middle of the floor there was a small dirty yellow plastic pool, and a few people were standing around it. Since Wanda and I were on important business we pushed our way through to check it out.
It wasn’t worth it.
One small turtle sat on an upturned bucket in the middle of the pool. Personally I do not see the point in staring at turtles but there were a lot of people there who obviously did. The turtle stared at them and they stared at the turtle. Fun.
We left them to it.
Outside the turtle shed I found our first clue. I picked it up and showed it to Wanda. “Look!” I said. “A clue!”
“No it’s not, it’s a rusty old bolt,” she said.
“Exactly. From Sir Horace’s helmet.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. When you’ve fixed Sir Horace’s helmet as many times as I have you know every single bolt.”
And then we found another one. And a bit further along the track we found another.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Wanda.
“I know I’m right,” I said. “We are on a trail now. All we have to do is follow the bolts and we will find Sir Horace.”
The trail led us away from the mushroom sheds, past a smelly old pond to the back of the mushroom farm. Suddenly I guessed where it was going. “It leads to the old ruins,” I told Wanda. I felt really excited and just like a real detective.
“What old ruins?” she asked.
This is why Wanda Wizzard will never make chief detective. She does not look properly. The old ruins were staring us in the face. I very helpfully pointed them out to my sidekick, who was not appreciative. “That’s just a pile of boring old rocks,” she said.
But when I showed her the old door with Sir Horace’s crest on it she changed her mind.
8
OLD RUINS
I could see why Wanda thought the old ruins were just a pile of old stones because that’s exactly what they looked like, but of course I wasn’t going to tell her that. The only reason that I knew they weren’t a pile of stones was because once, as a special treat on Halloween, Uncle Drac had let me come with him when he delivered the bat poo to the mushroom farm.
Uncle Drac used to sell organic bat poo but he lost a lot of customers because he would only deliver it at night. I think he scared people too, although I don’t know why, because Uncle Drac is the sweetest person you could ever wish to meet. But the night that I helped Uncle Drac deliver the bat poo Uncle Drac really scared Old Morris because he and I were both wearing our vampire teeth and we had a lot of fake blood on as well. Old Morris yelled and ran away when he saw us. We waited forever in case he came back but he didn’t, so we left the bat poo by the gate and then Uncle Drac whispered, “Would you like to see the old ruins, Minty? They are very spooky.”
Well, of course I had said yes. Uncle Drac was right, the ruins were extremely spooky—almost as spooky as Spookie House. It was as if all the knights and ladies and princesses and pages from hundreds of years ago were still floating around and had nothing better to do than stare at you. But I didn’t tell Wanda that because I needed her help to lift up the heavy iron bar that someone had put across the door since Uncle Drac and I had been there. Although Wanda is small she is quite strong and together we managed to lift off the iron bar.
“It’s a bit like a prison—or a dungeon,” Wanda whispered as we crept inside.
“It’s not a dungeon, silly,” I told her. “That is underneath the ticket office—in the old gatehouse.”
Uncle Drac had told me that the ruins were the keep, which is the little round part in the middle of a castle that you retreat to if your enemies have knocked down your walls and are swarming all over the place. I suppose the idea is you can keep safe there.
I switched on my flashlight and Wanda switched on hers because she is a copycat. We shone the light all around the keep and Wanda kept going “Ooh” and “Aah,” as if she had seen something interesting. But it wasn’t interesting; it was full of junk. Old Morris had put all the stuff from the mushroom sheds in there, and there was a huge pile of Uncle Drac’s bat poo sacks piled up against the far wall. They were beginning to fall apart and the bat poo was falling out, which is why the place
smelled so horrible. Personally I think old bat poo smells more disgusting than new bat poo, and that is saying something.
Then Wanda screamed—right in my ear.
“Shh!” I said. What Wanda does not understand is that if you are a detective you can’t go screaming all over the place. I mean, when did you last hear a detective scream?
“But something poked my leg,” she hissed.
“What poked your leg?”
“I don’t know,” wailed Wanda.
“Shh! Well, have a look and see.”
“I don’t want to, it might be horrible,” Wanda whispered.
“I’ll look then.” I swung my flashlight around, and there it was. “Great!” I said. “You just walked into Sir Horace’s wheelbarrow.”
Sir Horace did not look happy in his wheelbarrow. His arms were jammed in along the sides and his top half had come away from his bottom half.
“Sir Horace, are you okay?” I asked.
He did not reply.
“Hello, Sir Horace,” said Wanda. “We’ve come to rescue you.” But there was still no reply.
It was most odd because Sir Horace is a well-mannered ghost, which is why Aunt Tabby likes him, and he would never ignore you like that, even when he was in pieces. Something was wrong.
“Something has happened to him,” whispered Wanda. “Something horrible.”
I flipped open Sir Horace’s visor and looked inside. It felt a bit rude really, like looking inside someone’s head.
“Is he there?” whispered Wanda anxiously.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure how you can tell.”
“Why did you look then?” Wanda said grumpily. But all the same she peered inside too. “He’s not there,” she said, sounding very sure.
The thing is that Sir Horace is not the kind of ghost you can see, not like his page, Edmund, who is a weird sickly-green color and shimmers in an irritating way. Sir Horace lives inside his armor and that is all you see of him, just his shell.
