Deep Amber (7 page)

Simon and Cat looked at each other, and then sat down at the table. Ever since he had found the sword, Simon felt as if the world around him had shifted. It felt as if he suddenly had extra senses he'd never needed to use before.
Albert Jemmet seemed to have some connection to all this weirdness, and Simon wanted to hear what he had to say.

There was a pause, while Albert got stuck into his own eggs. In what seemed like a very short time he had polished them off and wiped the last piece of toast round his plate. He sat back, produced a wooden toothpick from his overall pocket, and started to chew the end absently.

“So,” he said at last. “Let's get a grip on what's been happening here. How many things have gone missing, exactly?”

“Missing?” said Cat.

“Yes. Lost, disappeared, can't put your hand to them, sure you left them just there in plain sight but they've gone. You know – annoying stuff. How many?”

Simon and Cat exchanged glances.

“Your camera,” Simon said triumphantly. “I
told
you it wasn't my fault.”

Albert guffawed. “Well now. That depends. Not
entirely
your fault, I think we can agree. Anything else?”

“Yes,' said Simon. “My DS. Yesterday. I'm sure I left it on the kitchen table.”

“Nothing else?” said Albert.

“I don't think so,” said Cat. “Not that we've noticed.”

“So,” said Albert, tapping his teeth absently with the toothpick. “A couple of things from your side, plus maybe one or two other small bits you haven't noticed… Then there's the two baby red dragons I've had to send home this morning. Found them hanging around your garden.”

“Baby
dragons
?” said Cat, not quite sure she'd heard right.

Simon gulped. So the creatures in his room
were
real after all. They were dragons!

“Yes,” said Albert. “Caused me no end of trouble trying to catch them. Claws like knives. But I know there's at least one other thing that's appeared in this house that's not meant to be here… Care to tell me what?”

Simon looked at Albert's shrewd expression and nodded. If they were going to find out anything more, they needed to trust this odd little man with his blue overalls and funny contraptions.

“A sword,” he said. “I'll get it.”

He slipped down into the cellar, brought up the sword, and placed it on the table.

“Well now,” said Albert, impressed. “There's quite a bit of workmanship in this little beauty. That's not just any old sword… An interesting thing to have come through and no mistake.”

“What do you mean,
come through
?” said Cat. “Come through from where? We showed it to Mum, and she said the sword used to be our dad's.”

Albert Jemmet's expression didn't change, but his blue eyes suddenly looked more alert, and Simon could tell that he had become very interested. He pointed his toothpick at Cat.

“Your dad's,” he said lightly. “Really? That would be Irene's nephew, then?”

Cat nodded and Albert chewed his toothpick thoughtfully for a moment.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “I thought we just had an ordinary rift on our hands to start with. And it might still be. Even with the sword. A big one, but then you do get things like that occasionally… But now there's Smith and Jones stalking about, which is not a good sign.”

He looked at Simon and Cat with a frown.

“And then there's you two. Something a bit odd about you… Not surprising, really, given your great-aunt, but still. And energy readings
are off the scale around the whole house. Is there anything else you'd like to tell me? Anything I can help with?”

Cat hesitated. She was feeling slightly faint, as if she were standing on the edge of an abyss. Dragons in the garden? Rifts? Nothing was making sense in terms of ordinary, everyday reality.

She raised her eyebrows at Simon, who shook his head slightly – he clearly didn't want to tell Albert about the box. Cat nodded. They would just have to see what they could find out for themselves.

“Look, Mr Jemmet,” she said, in her taking-charge voice. “Thanks for the eggs, and the fumigation and all. But we're really not sure what you're talking about, and I probably ought to phone Mum to check that she did ask you to come round and, well, maybe you'd better go, we need to be getting ready for school.”

Albert Jemmet smiled at her serious face.

“All right, young lady. I don't want to confuse you too much. I'll just say this. You've a bad case of electrical energies gone haywire here, and I'm guessing there's something else in the house that might explain it. Because the one thing that can
set off those sort of energies is deep amber… and I'm beginning to wonder if that's what you've got here. A piece of deep amber.”

He looked hard at Simon, who shrugged. “Never heard of it,” he said. “What does it look like?”

Albert Jemmet went back to chewing on his toothpick.

“Dark yellow-orange stone,” he said, watching Simon carefully. “Probably locked up safely in a box.”

Simon, in the most neutral voice he could muster, said, “Well, I don't think I've seen anything like that, but I'll look out for it, I promise.”

“You do that,” said Albert, looking at him with his piercing blue eyes. “And let me know when you find it. Dangerous stuff, deep amber. Really very dangerous. Not for those who don't know what they're doing.”

He got up, and put the fumigator away in his capacious canvas bag.

“I'll let myself out. Just do your doors for you first – should stop any more pest problems.”

He pulled a small packet out of his bag, and scattered a little white powder on the floor in
front of the back door, then headed down the hallway and did the same at the front door. They followed him out, and as he put the packet back in his bag they thought they heard him muttering some strange foreign-sounding words. But then he looked up, touched his forehead in a quick salute and grinned.

“All sorted for you now. No more infestations, guaranteed for a month. Don't forget to call me if you have any worries, or if you find that deep amber.
Especially
if you find the deep amber…”

He waved, and shut the door with a huge bang, which made the glass rattle.

Cat turned to her younger brother.

“Was he… was he doing a
spell
?”

Simon grinned. “It sounded like it, didn't it?”

Cat shook her head. “This is mad,” she said. “I don't know what to think any more.”

They returned to the kitchen, where Cat sat down rather heavily at the table and put her face in her hands.

“Deep amber,” she said after a few minutes. “Do you think that's what's in the box?”

“Yes,” Simon answered, “I think it must be.”

There was a pause, while they thought about it.
Then Cat sat up, took a deep breath, and seemed to gather herself together.

“We need to get it open,” she said. “And I think those symbols are a clue. You see if you can find anything about them on the internet at school today – I'm going to grab one of Mum's books to take with me. I suddenly realised this morning where I'd seen symbols like those before – it was in that big blue book in her study.”

Leaving Simon in the kitchen she set off purposefully down the hall to the room their mother used as a study. Once inside the small boxroom, she pulled a large faded dark-blue book from one of the overstuffed bookshelves. It had a gold sun embossed on the front cover and the title, in faded gold lettering, was:
Ancient Runes and Symbols of the Lost Age
.

Chapter Seven

The Great Forest was silent and still except for a few leaves that fluttered to the ground. All Dora could see was the splintered fingers of broken trees reaching up out of the trampled undergrowth. Had the creature thrown Jem aside before her spell had turned it small? Had she somehow magicked both of them to another place entirely? Or had Jem managed to scarper into the nearby bushes?

Dora moved tentatively towards the spot where Jem had stood. When she got there it soon became clear that, whatever her spell had done to the monster, it had certainly worked a treat on Jem. He was standing in the middle of the path with his hands on his hips, looking extremely cross, and he was approximately the height of a dandelion.

“Are you all right?” said Dora, anxiously,
kneeling next to him on the path.

“Apart from being extremely short, do you mean?” said Jem, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I'm fine. But if you could see your way to restoring me to my proper height, that would be marvellous. Or better still,” he added, brightening, “a hand's width taller.”

“What happened to the monster?” said Dora, looking around. There was no sign of any creature, small or large.

“It disappeared,” said Jem. “Just before you blasted me with your wretched spell. It just winked out. Maybe it wasn't actually real in the first place.”

Dora looked doubtfully round at the flattened bushes and the torn branches of nearby trees that were now sticking out in all directions.

“It must have been real. Look at the way it's smashed the trees.”

“Well – anytime you feel like turning me back to my proper height…” said Jem. “Sometime this year would be nice.”

Dora gave Jem a hard stare. She was tempted just to leave him small. But she dutifully raised her arms and pointed at him, saying the words of the reversal spell.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, and tried again, but still nothing happened. She tried to look as if she'd meant this all along, and adjusted the magic a tweak to account for the rather frantic casting of the spell in the first place. But it was no good. Jem was completely unchanged.

“What?” he said, as he saw her expression. “Is there a problem?”

The crease between Dora's eyebrows deepened.

Jem looked at her sternly. “Are you saying you can't do it?”

Dora hesitated, then she said, “I'm sorry, Jem. I think it's because I was a bit rushed. I must have put a strange twist in the magic, and I can't seem to unravel it.”

Jem looked at her in silence for a full minute. Dora felt as if she were the one who'd been shrunk.

“Wonderful,” he said eventually. “Stuck in the middle of the Great Forest with any number of dangerous creatures, and no bigger than a frog. Brilliant work, Dora. Remind me never to go on a trip with you ever again. You're the worst witch since mad Maud Appleby turned all the castle cows into snails. At least
she
managed to turn
them back again. Now I'm going to have to travel in your pocket till we find a
real
magic user who can turn me back.”

Dora stopped looking apologetic and went red in the face. If Jem hadn't been so tiny she'd have punched him. All her frustration at being forced along a non-existent path thanks to Jem's stupid decision, and having to follow him through a forest that seemed less and less like a real solid place with every step, just burst out in one big rush.

“Well, I'm very sorry you've been shrunk, Mister High and Mighty Escort, but I never wanted you along in the first place, and it's thanks to your stupid decision we're here in the middle of nowhere with whatever it was charging us, and how was I to know it would just disappear of its own accord? You're
lucky
to be small and not actually dead! And if you think you're travelling in
my
pocket, you can think again!”

They glared at each other, and then, to Dora's surprise, Jem laughed, and looked a little shamefaced.

“OK. Maybe you're right, it
was
my fault we took the wrong path. I'm sorry. And you did try and save my life. So… thanks.” He grinned at
Dora, and thumped her on the knee. “You know, you can be quite fierce when you decide to be.” His tone was rather admiring. “I tell you what – lift me up on your shoulder and then at least I'll be able to see where we're going. I dare say we'll find someone in the city who can turn me back.”

Dora took a deep breath. Wasn't that just typical of Jem. She'd finally got angry with him – and he seemed to like her better for it!

Dora grinned, and decided that she was not going to take any of Jem's nonsense any more. Especially now that he barely came up to the top of her boots.

She bent down to lift Jem up, but as she did so, something small and blue fluttered into sight. It settled on a tree branch close to her head and folded away its wings. Without them, it looked like a furry blue caterpillar.

“Sorry I'm so late,” it said, not sounding the least bit sorry. “Took me for ever to find you. You've been dipping in and out of the real forest, that's the trouble.”

Dora blinked, and looked again, but the blue caterpillar was still there, looking faintly put upon.

“Umm…” was all she could say, before the
caterpillar waved an imperious antenna at her.