Physik

by Angie Sage

Chapter 24 The Boarding Party

  The dragon on the deck did not stir despite Queen Etheldredda's piercing stare. Spit Fyre lay snoring. A large bubble of gas floated to the top of his stomach and made a break for freedom with a loud pop. Queen Etheldredda recoiled as if struck, and the Royal Barge drew away from the noxious dragon fumes. Queen Etheldredda leaned over the side, staring at the Alfrun with narrowed eyes. Something, the ghost decided, was going on in that boat and she was going to find out. Delicately, like a heron picking its way through shallow water, the ghost of the Queen stepped from her Royal Barge and, as if walking across the Palace lawns, she sauntered over the surface of the water and stepped aboard the Alfrun.

  "She is here!" Snorri gasped in her own language. Jenna, who did not understand what Snorri had said, but understood the tone well enough, ped under a large woolen blanket, dislodging Ullr, who had been sleeping after his previous night on guard. The cat darted out of the cabin and rushed up on deck, his tail a great sausage of indignant fluff. Ullr was not only a Night Creature, but he was also from a long line of Spirit-Seer cats, which are, of course, much more common than Spirit-Seer humans. As he emerged on deck he decided he did not like the look of the visiting ghost at all. He didn't like the look of the two rats up the mast either, but they could wait. They would make a good supper that evening.

  At the sight of Queen Etheldredda advancing, Ullr threw himself at the ghost, yowling as only a Spirit-Seer cat can. It was a terrible sound, a mixture of banshee and Brownie with a touch of Marsh Moaner thrown in. Queen Etheldredda gasped at the shock of being Passed Through in such a violent way and collapsed onto the deck, coughing and spluttering, feeling as if she had swallowed a whole cat - fur, claws, screech and all.

  Along the riverbank, Wolf Boy heard Ullr's yowl. He came running through the orchards to see what was going on. He arrived at the Alfrun to see the strangest sight: the Trader girl and her cat had gone crazy, totally and utterly crazy. The cat - a nasty, thin orange thing - was hurling himself backward and forward as though running through something over and over again. The girl was waving her arms and yelling something in her own language, which sounded to him like shouts of encouragement. And then suddenly the cat stopped. The girl punched the air in triumph, scooped up the cat and ran to the side of the boat where she gazed down at the river, laughing.

  Wolf Boy jumped aboard and rushed down to the cabin. "Jenna? Jenna?" he said in a hoarse whisper.

  "Yes?" came the reply from underneath the blanket.

  "What are you doing under there?"

  "Hiding," came Jenna's muffled reply. "Shh. She'll see you. "

  "It's no good hiding, Jen, she's nuts. Let's get out of here while we can. Quick, before she - oh, bother. "

  Snorri's grinning face appeared in the hatchway. "The UnQuiet One has gone," she announced. "She fell overboard and disappeared underwater. She is back on her barge now with riverweed on her crown. " Suddenly Snorri's smile disappeared. She clambered through the hatchway and sat down at the top of the steps, shaking her head.

  Wolf Boy shook his head too. Their escape route was blocked. They should have gone when they had the chance.

  "There are things," muttered Snorri, "that I do not understand. "

  "What things?" asked Jenna, extricating herself from the extremely itchy blanket.

  "One thing is that the Queen has not been on my boat in her Living Time - so why was she not Returned?"

  "What?" asked Wolf Boy. Why did the Snorri girl talk in riddles?

  "A ghost may only tread once more where, Living, he has trod before," Snorri recited.

  "That's just a kids' rhyme," scoffed Wolf Boy.

  "It is no kids' rhyme," retorted Snorri, offended. "It is a Rule of Ghosthood. "

  Wolf Boy snorted.

  "It is. I know," Snorri insisted. "All Spirit-Seers know them. "

  "Huh," muttered Wolf Boy.

  "Shh, 409," said Jenna, shooting Wolf Boy a warning glance. Jenna believed Snorri, for Snorri had clearly seen Etheldredda, and she wanted to hear more. "What are the other things you do not understand?" she asked.

  "I do not understand why the riverweed stuck to her crown. A Spirit has no substance. It should not be possible. "

  Wolf Boy sighed; it was all too weird. Give him the Forest any day, where at least you knew where you stood with most of the inhabitants: potential supper.

  "So - so what is she?" asked Jenna in a hushed voice, as though Queen Etheldredda was eavesdropping outside the cabin.

  Snorri shrugged. "I do not know. She is Spirit and yet . . . she is more than Spirit - "

  Thump . . . thump . . . thump. Someone - or something - was knocking on the hull. Snorri leaped to her feet. "What is that?" she gasped.

  Jenna and Wolf Boy, who were both feeling rather spooked by now, went pale. The sound echoed eerily through the cabin, "thump . . . thump. . . "

  "Etheldredda's come back," whispered Jenna.

  Bravely, Snorri stuck her head out of the hatchway. "Hello?" she said, in her singsong Northern Trader accent.

  "Hello!" replied a cheery voice. "Did you know you've got an escaped dragon on your deck?"

  "Escaped? From where?" asked Snorri.

  "The Castle. It belongs to my brother. He'll be looking everywhere for it. "

  "Your brother?" Snorri hurriedly scrambled up on deck and saw a boy with laughing green eyes tying up his boat to the Alfrun. She looked at his salt-stained seafaring tunic and his tangled, curly hair, which was almost as fair as her own, and she knew she could trust him.

  "Yeah. 'Fraid so," said Nicko. "I'd offer to take him back with me but he's too big for my boat. Bit too big for yours too, if you ask me. Hey - Jen!"

  "Nik!" Jenna emerged from the cabin and laughed. "What are you doing here?"

  "Been sent out collecting Rupert's blasted paddleboats. Someone broke into his store last night and he figures he's lost loads. But I've only found one so far. " Nicko indicated a small pink paddleboat that he was towing. "Waste of time if you ask me. "

  Jenna noticed Snorri's look of confusion. "It's Nicko. He's my brother," she explained.

  "Your brother?" asked Snorri, who felt that the brother tally was stacking up a little too fast. "The one who fell through the Glass?"

  "What glass?" asked Nicko.

  "Oh," said Jenna, her feelings of excitement at seeing Nicko draining away, as if she had suddenly sprung a leak. "You don't know about Sep, do you?"

  Nicko saw the tears now welling in Jenna's eyes. With a heavy heart, he clambered aboard the Alfrun.

  Wolf Boy left Jenna and Nicko together and slipped away. There was someone he wanted to check up on. He found Lucy Gringe where he had left her, sitting on the riverbank under a willow tree.

  "You again?" she said, grumpily. "I told you to leave me alone. I don't need the stupid paddleboat anyway. " Lucy sat with her blue cloak wrapped around her, arms hugging her knees, her pink ribbon bootlaces soggy with the wet grass. She was holding a crumpled and much-folded and -unfolded piece of paper, her lips moving slowly as she read the words that she knew inside out and upside down. It was a note from Simon Heap, and she had found it in the hem of her blue cloak that Jenna had returned to her. It was headed simply with the words The Observatory, and it read:

  My own Lucy,

  This cloak is for you. I will be back soon and we will be together at the top of the Tower. I shall make you proud of me. Wait for me.

  Your only,

  Simon

  But Lucy was tired of waiting, and she now knew that Simon could never return to the Castle, so she had set out to find him. And so far all she had done was fall asleep and wake up to find her boat gone. It was not a good start. Wolf Boy's voice broke into her thoughts.

  "I found your boat," he said, breathless.

  "Where?" asked Lucy, hastily folding the precious note and jumping to her feet.

  "Nicko's got it. "

 
"Nicko Heap? Simon's brother?"

  "Yeah. Suppose he is. He can't help that though. " Wolf Boy, who had been on the receiving end of one of Simon's StunFlashes, had a poor opinion of Simon Heap.

  "What do you mean he can't help that, you rude boy!" Lucy's brown eyes flashed angrily.

  "Nothing," said Wolf Boy, who could see that Lucy was trouble. He was beginning to wish that he hadn't bothered to ask her if she was all right earlier, when he had seen her tearfully searching the riverbank.

  "So where is Nicko Heap?" demanded Lucy. "I shall go ask him just what he thinks he's doing stealing my boat. The nerve of it.

  Knowing that he probably shouldn't, Wolf Boy waved an arm in the general direction of the Alfrun and watched Lucy stomp off along the riverbank toward the Trader barge. He followed at a safe distance, which, with Lucy Gringe, was a long one.

  As Wolf Boy neared the Alfrun he heard the sound of raised voices.

  "Give me back my boat!"

  "It's Rupert's boat, not yours. "

  "Rupert says I can use his boats anytime, so there. "

  "Well, I - "

  "And I'm using it now, Nicko Heap - got that?"

  "But. . . "

  "Excuse me. Get out of my way, will you!"

  Wolf Boy arrived just in time to see Lucy Gringe running across the deck of the Alfrun and tripping over the sleeping Spit Fyre's tail. But nothing put Lucy Gringe off her stride for long. She picked herself up, held her nose as another bubble of gas erupted from Spit Fyre and lowered herself over the side of the Alfrun.

  Nicko followed her. "Where are you going in that?" he asked, concerned.

  "None of your business, nosy boy. Are all Simon's brothers such irritating busybodies?"

  Snorri added Simon to the brother count. How many did Jenna have?

  "That paddleboat is not safe on the river," Nicko persisted. "It's no better than a toy. They're only meant for fun on the Moat. "

  Lucy jumped into the paddleboat, which rocked alarmingly. "It got me this far and it'll get me to the Port, just you see. "

  "You can't go to the Port in that!" said Nicko, aghast. "Have you any idea what the tide race is like at the mouth of the river? It will spin you around and drag you out to sea - and that's only if you haven't already been sunk by the waves that run in off the Great Sandbar. You're crazy. "

  "Maybe. I don't care," said Lucy sulkily. "I'm going anyway. " She untied the rope, took up the paddle handles and began turning them furiously.

  Nicko watched the little pink boat wobble its way out into the river until he could stand it no more. "Lucy!" he yelled. "Take my boat!"

  "What?" Lucy shouted above the clattering din of the paddles.

  "Take my boat - please!"

  Lucy felt relieved, although she was not going to show it. She had a terrible feeling that Nicko was right about the paddleboat. With some difficulty - and only by rapidly turning one paddle and then another for at least five minutes - Lucy steered the boat around and arrived back at the Alfrun, breathless and hot and still in a bad mood.

  Jenna, Snorri, Wolf Boy and Nicko watched Lucy Gringe set off once again, this time in Nicko's deep and seaworthy rowboat.

  "But how are you going to get back now?" Jenna asked Nicko. "You're not going in that paddleboat, are you?"

  Nicko snorted. "You must be joking. I wouldn't be seen dead in one of those, especially one that stupid color. I'm coming with you to find Sep, silly. "

  Jenna smiled for the first time since Septimus had disappeared. Nicko would make everything all right. She knew he would.