The Merlin Conspiracy (23 page)

I had meant to knock, but the door opened inward under my fist. “Hallo?” I called out. No one answered, so I went cautiously into the dusky corridor inside. It smelled wonderfully of new wood, and it was very warm and quiet. There was a door to my right. “Hallo?” I said, and I opened it and looked in.

There was an empty ultramodern kitchen in there. This smelled of new bread and coffee, which, since I could still taste nipling inside myself, made me feel slightly ill. I shut that door and went on to the next one, straight ahead.

I opened that door on a blaze of sunset from big windows looking over the waters and on a splendid smell of leather, wood, and clean carpet. This room was a long, low, elegant living room—really
beautiful
, just the kind of room I'd like for myself—full of interesting comfortable sofas, low tables that caught the light, a long shelf of books, nice cushions, and almost no ornaments. Lovely. But there was no one in there either.

The corridor turned a corner then and ran through the middle of the house, with light coming in through slit-shaped windows in the roof. My feet went
splonch, splonch, splonch
on polished wooden floor as I walked down to the next door—broom cupboard—and the next, a very nice bathroom that was so up-to-date I didn't understand most of the fitments. The next door was on the other side. I opened it, and it was pitch black inside. And I don't think I could have gone inside it even with the scornful cat after me.
Keep Out!
it said, like a smell boiling out of the darkness. Somehow, I knew it was Romanov's workroom. I knew I had no business going in there. I backed off quickly and shut the door on the darkness.

That left just the one door, facing me at the end of the corridor. By this time I was fairly sure Romanov was out, away in some other world, but I opened the door just to check.

There was a big, graceful bedroom beyond, where everything was square and white. Thin white curtains blew inward from the window just beyond the square white bed. Clothes had been dropped on the white carpet, a leather jacket nearest to the door, a shirt beyond that, a pair of soft boots almost on the shirt, and socks after those. Then came underclothes, a towel, and a wallet, and these led to suede trousers not quite draped over the white chair beside the bed. By the time my eyes had been led to the bed, I realized that Romanov was in it, asleep. I could just see a piece of his dark hair on the pillows.

I was horribly embarrassed and nearly backed straight out. You could see that Romanov had come home tired out and just thrown off his clothes and fallen into bed. I couldn't go and shake him awake and say, “I'm sorry, I've got a starving elephant outside.” Could I? But that made me think of poor Mini standing outside in a crowd of hungry hens. I did know elephants needed a lot of food. I didn't know when she'd last had any.

All right, I thought. And if he turns me into a frog, I suppose she'll have to eat the trees. I swallowed, all the same, as I stepped over the suede jacket and on past the line of clothes. I leaned over the bed. I put out a finger, but I didn't quite dare touch the hump that was probably Romanov's shoulder. Turn me into anything you like, but please don't
kill
me! I thought.

“Er, excuse me,” I said.

Romanov rolled over. I jerked back. We stared at one another. He looked a bit more than just tired to me. He looked ill. An unhealthy sort of smell came off him. “Oh, not
you
again!” he said, thick and groaning.

“Are you all right?” I said.

“A touch of flu, I think,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I came here with a starving elephant,” I said. “Is it all right if I let her eat the trees?”

“No!” he groaned. He pushed his hand across his zigzag of a face, obviously trying to pull himself together. “An elephant? Seriously?”

“Yes,” I said. “I met her stuck in those dark paths. Her name's Mini. I think her circus got hit by a tornado or something.”

“Oh, God!” He held both hands to his face. “Just assure me you're not another of these bad dreams, will you?”

“I'm real,” I said. “Honestly. So's the elephant.”

“You keep turning up in my dreams with a parcel of children,” he said.

When Dad had flu last Christmas, he kept calling people in to tell them about the latest weird dream he'd had. I understood that. “That was flu,” I said. “This is me for real. Have you got anything I can give Mini to eat?”

“I've no idea what elephants eat,” he said, and then pulled himself together again. “All right. Third shed along at this end of the house. Ask for elephant food while you're opening the door.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And your hens?”

“Bin of corn in the same shed,” he said. “One bucketful poured on the ground.”

“What about the goat?” I asked. “She need milking?”

I was not happy about that idea, and I was very relieved when he said, “Helga? No, she's dry at the moment. Just find her some sweet corn.”

“And, er,” I said, coming to the dreaded part, “what about your big cat?”

“In the forest over on the mainland,” he said. “Takes care of herself.”

I felt such a gush of relief at this that I went all considerate and helpful. I get like this with Dad, too, when he says I can have a day off school. “How about you? Can I get you anything? I know how to cook pasta.”

Romanov shuddered. “No. I'll be fine. All I need is some sleep,” he said, and he rolled over and pulled the covers across his face.

I tiptoed away out of the airy white bedroom and along to the front door. Mini loomed in front of me there, jigging anxiously inside the crowd of cackling hens. I'd forgotten how huge she was.

“Did you find any food?”

“Yes. It's under control,” I said. “Follow me, troops, here comes the cavalry.” I went marching away along the side of the house, and the hens, like I'd hoped, rushed after me in a fussy gaggle—stupid things!—and left Mini free to follow me, too.

The sheds were all new and clean and kind of stacked against one another and against the end of the house. When I got to the third, it was just a big garden shed, really, and I had a moment when I thought that Romanov had said the first thing that came into his head in order to get rid of me. But I pushed the door open and said, “Elephant food?” and almost got trampled in the rush. The hens stormed inside yelling. Mini went, “
Oh
, thank goodness!” and nearly trod on me, hauling out an immense bundle of leafy stuff with her trunk and then some sort of hay bale, while I was edging among hens to get to the wooden bin wedged in there among the stack of fodder. While I was unhooking the bucket from the wall and scooping up grain and Mini was going, “
Sugar
cane! My favorite!,” the goat came dancing up, too, and helped itself to sugarcane more or less out of Mini's trunk.

I took the bucket and spilled it a fair distance off, away from Mini's feet, and looked up to see that goat chomping cane and staring at me like one of Dad's demons, while it made for the corn, too. I had to bribe it with its own pile of grain. By that time Mini's trunk was going out, curling round a bundle of fodder, pushing it into her funny triangular mouth and then going out for more, like clockwork. She really had been starving. Maybe the hens were, too. They were all beak down, tail up and busy.

“Enjoy your feeding frenzy,” I said, and went along to snoop in the other sheds. There was a powerful-looking motorboat in one that smelled piercingly of something that wasn't petrol. Garden stuff in the other. Then I noticed a door in the brick wall up the hill, so I went to take a look inside it.

Mini had said there were vegetables, but that hadn't given me the least idea of the garden that was behind that wall. It was vast. It was laid out in oblongs, with gravel paths between them, and there must have been every kind of fruit and veg there was, growing there, from every world there ever was. Just standing at the gate, I could see strawberries and apples and oranges, leeks, marrows, melons and lettuces, green, droopy stuff I didn't know, and okra, and yellow things that weren't tomatoes. There were even flowers, away in the distance.

That was all I saw before the goat came romping up and tried to barge in past me. One thing I knew about goats: they eat anything they can get near, and I didn't think Romanov would be happy to find I'd let her into his garden. So I tried to shut the door on her. She pushed back. It must have seemed like Christmas to her, that garden. And she was strong. We had a mighty pushing match, me heaving from inside with my back to the door, the goat shoving madly from outside. It took me five minutes to get that door shut on her, and once I had, I was exhausted.

I did wander down a gravel path, but not far. I ached all over from the various things that had happened to me. My clothes were still damp and beginning to smell of mildew, and now the sun was almost down, I felt clammy. I felt as if I'd been without sleep for a week. So when I came to a tall stand of sweet corn, I broke off a few heads for the goat, and I ate a few of the strawberries, because they were there, but they tasted of nipling to me, and then I gave up.

The goat was waiting outside. I had to slam the door and throw the corn at her in self-defense. She snatched up a cob and stood doing her chomp-with-demon-stare act at me.

“I love you, too,” I told her.

Down by the sheds, Mini loomed with her trunk curled round leafy stuff and her eyes shut blissfully. The hens had guzzled and gone.

“I think I've done my bit,” I said, and I went into the house to find somewhere to sleep. There was one particular sofa I had my eye on. I felt about it the way that goat felt about the garden.

A telephone started to ring somewhere down the corridor.

I raced off to stop it ringing. I know the things Dad had said about what telephones did to his head when he'd had flu, and Romanov could probably
do
all those things that Dad had only threatened.

It was pretty dark in the corridor by then. It took me a minute to find the phone on a table down by the wall. I almost panicked before I found it. I kept imagining Romanov storming out of his bedroom casting spells to left and right and blaming me for not answering the thing.

I found it at last—it was an old-fashioned dial phone—and I fumbled up the receiver.

“
And
about time, too!” said a woman's voice before I could say a word. “I don't know where you've been, Romanov, and I don't care, but I want you to
listen
to me for once!”

It was not a nice voice. To tell the truth, it reminded me of my mother's. Like Mum's, it had sweetness on top and beastly, grinding undertones beneath that made you squirm and want to get away. I could tell that this woman was in a really bitchy mood. And, as I always did with Mum, I tried to shut her up. “I'm sorry, madam,” I said. “Mr. Romanov is not available at this moment.”

“But I'm his
wife
!” she said, cooing and grinding. “Fetch him at once.”

“I am afraid I cannot do that, madam,” I said. “Mr. Romanov will not be available at all tonight.”

“What do you mean, not available?” she demanded. And while I was wondering what I should say to that, because I could tell she was the kind of person who wouldn't let a little thing like someone having flu stand in her way, she luckily went on, “Who are
you
anyway?”

Then I was home and dry. “I'm just the caretaker, madam,” I said. “Mr. Romanov called me in to look after the elephant.”

“Look after the
elephant
!” she exclaimed. “Is he starting a
circus
?”

“There do seem to be a number of animals here,” I said, “but Mr. Romanov's plans for them are a sealed book to me, madam. Perhaps you would like to call back when Mr. Romanov can answer your query in person.”

“I certainly will,” she said. “Just tell me when that's going to be.”

I said, “That's a little difficult to do, madam, but as he has only hired me for a week—”

“A
week
!” she said, and then,
“Doh!,”
just the way my mother used to when I'd got her really mad. I heard her end of the line go
clash, click, whirr
....

I couldn't help grinning as I laid the receiver quietly down beside the phone, so that she couldn't bother me or Romanov again, and crept off to the strange, futuristic bathroom. After that, I remember taking my clothes off and hanging them over warm pipes to dry, but not much else beyond the fact that the sofa I'd been eyeing up was even better than I'd hoped.

I
seemed to be dreaming about Roddy all that night. It must have been something to do with that house. Romanov said he'd dreamed about me in a crowd of kids, and in my dreams, Roddy was always with a whole bunch of children, too. “I have to talk to you alone!” I kept saying to her, and she would give me a worried look and say, “Don't you understand? There's nobody else to look after them.” Then I told her, “If we don't talk, the whole thing is going to overbalance.” And she said, “It's the salamanders doing it.” Over and over, in front of all kinds of scenery. It was crazy.