Read Elspeth Hart and the Perilous Voyage Online
Authors: Sarah Forbes
Elspeth Hart and the Perilous Voyage (8 page)
The next day, the
HMS Unsinkable
pitched and lurched on a dark and stormy sea, as Elspeth and Rory made their way along the ventilation shaft above Miss Crabb and Gladys Goulash's cabin. Elspeth's heart was banging so loudly that she was worried it would give them away. She tried not to think about what Miss Crabb would do if
she caught her. Take her prisoner? Lock her in a cupboard? Or something truly terrible, like throwing her into a sea full of hungry sharks? Elspeth took a deep breath to calm herself. She thought about Miss Crabb getting away with her parents' secret recipe and narrowed her eyes. She
couldn't
let that happen.
Elspeth raised the panel gently and peered down. The cabin was empty. Just like before, there were plates of half-eaten food lying around and lots of dirty clothes. This time the heating was on full blast, too, and the cabin was horribly hot and stuffy.
Elspeth dropped into the room and paused at the foot of one of the beds. She thought back to Miss Crabb's secret diary.
âWhere nobody would dare to look ⦠too many spying eyesâ¦'
Where haven't I looked?
Elspeth asked herself. She quickly opened up Miss Crabb's suitcase, but it was empty. She peered under the bed, but could only see banana skins and dirty socks. And then she spotted something that she recognized â Miss Crabb's sweetie jar. It used to sit in a dark, sticky corner of the pantry in the Pandora Pants School for Show-offs. Miss Crabb loved to eat big gobstoppers, and she used to scare the smaller children by threatening to steal their eyes and turn them into sweets.
“Spying eyes!” Elspeth murmured to herself. “Could it beâ¦?”
She reached under the bed and pulled out the glass jar. The eyeball gobstoppers stared up at her as Elspeth turned the jar upside down and shook it hard.
Sure enough, there was a piece of paper wedged in there, folded up very small. Elspeth took the lid off the jar and poured the gobstoppers out on to the bed. She pulled the paper out and opened it up, hardly daring to look. But she recognized her own handwriting at once.
She finally had the recipe back.
Just at that moment, the storm quietened down. The ship stopped rocking from side to side and Elspeth stood still for a second, clutching the recipe tightly in her hand. It was the most wonderful feeling.
But then the spell was broken by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the corridor.
“Elspeth! Hurry!” Rory hissed.
Elspeth shoved the recipe into her trainer, pushing it down as far as it would go, and hurled herself up on to the bed. She jumped up and grabbed Rory's hands. He pulled as hard as he could, and Elspeth kicked and squirmed to get her legs inside the hatch.
“Quickly!” Rory cried.
But Elspeth wasn't quick enough.
Her feet were still dangling down when the door flew open. And Miss Crabb spotted her at once.
“You little varmint, what are you doing here?” shrilled Miss Crabb at the top of her lungs. She launched herself across the room and grabbed Elspeth's ankle.
Elspeth struggled, clinging on to Rory, but it was no use â Miss Crabb was stronger. She hauled at Elspeth's foot with her claw-like hands until Elspeth couldn't
hang on any more, and she tumbled down on to the bed.
Rory's terrified face peeked out of the hatch and Miss Crabb reached up and grabbed him, too, dragging him out by his jacket and chucking him on to the bed with a bump.
“You little snotrags,” sneered Miss Crabb. She spotted the gobstopper jar lying on the bed. “Thought you could steal back that recipe? No chance. What have you done with it?”
It's not your recipe, it's mine,
Elspeth thought angrily. She pretended to look down sadly, but as she lowered her head, she sneakily glanced left and right. Was there anything she could use to escape? There was a huge pile of disgusting pants lying on the bed next to her.
“Right, I shall just have to search your pockets myself!” Miss Crabb shrieked.
But as Miss Crabb reached out to grab her, Elspeth ducked to the side, picked up the biggest pair of pants she could see, and flung them over her enemy's head. Then she shoved Miss Crabb as hard as she could.
“Aaaarf!” shouted Miss Crabb, toppling over and struggling to get the pants off her head.
“RUN!” Elspeth shouted to Rory.
They raced out of the cabin and along the corridor. Elspeth could hear Miss Crabb's voice behind them.
“Follow me, Gladys Goulash!” she was shrieking. “Help me catch those little brats!”
Elspeth didn't dare look over her shoulder. She ran as fast as she could.
Elspeth knew Miss Crabb would stop at nothing to get the recipe. She and Rory launched themselves up three flights of stairs and into the kitchens with Miss Crabb behind them. She was so close that they could hear her wheezy breath.
“What the heck do you kids think you're doing?” hollered Jimmy McScoff, as Elspeth and Rory raced through, knocking over a big vat of orange jelly.
“What's the plan, Elspeth?” gasped Rory.
“Just keep running!” Elspeth said.
Miss Crabb wasn't far behind. She ran into the kitchen, skidded through the orange jelly and landed right in a huge chocolate cake.
“I just iced that cake, you idiot woman!” cried Jimmy McScoff.
“Gah!” Miss Crabb shouted. She
clambered to her feet, shoved Jimmy McScoff out of the way, leaving a big chocolatey handprint on his chest, and hobbled on.
Ahead of her, Elspeth and Rory burst into the empty dining room, swerving round chairs and tables, and skidding on the polished floor, as they weaved their way to the other side and out into a wide corridor.
They hurtled up another flight of stairs and ran towards the ballroom. They couldn't hear Miss Crabb any more, but they knew she couldn't be far behind.
“Faster!” cried Elspeth.
Then Rory gave a shout. “Lazlo! No!”
There was a loud miaow from further down the corridor, and they could hear Lady Spewitt speaking to Tinkiewinks. Lazlo leaped from Rory's shoulder and shot
across the corridor into the ballroom.
“Lazlo! Come back!” cried Rory and, before Elspeth could stop him, he raced into the ballroom after Lazlo.
“No!” Elspeth hissed. “We have to keep going!”
But it was too late. Rory was gone.
Elspeth stared through the window in the double doors, her heart racing. The ballroom was full of elegant people twirling and swaying at the daily tea dance. Most of the passengers fancied themselves as rather good dancers, and the dance always went ahead, no matter how choppy the sea was. Even if you think you
are an excellent dancer, dear reader, you would find it quite a challenge to dance on a floor that keeps tilting from side to side. But since the storm had calmed down, the ballroom was full.
Rory raced after Lazlo, right on to the dance floor. Before he knew it, he was swept around in a circle by Petunia Galoshes-Gallop, who was wearing an enormous peach ballgown. She screwed up her eyes as she looked down at Rory.
“I say. I don’t have my glasses on, so I’m afraid I don’t recognize you,” she said. “You’re a bit of a blur. Are you one of Lord Spewitt’s friends?” She twirled Rory around again at top speed before he could answer. “You’re rather short, aren’t you?”
Petunia Galoshes-Gallop was spinning Rory so fast that his feet were hardly
touching the ground.
Elspeth couldn’t wait a second longer – she could hear Miss Crabb coming up the stairs. She ran in after Rory, swerving through the couples on the dance floor. There was a long table at the far side of the ballroom and Elspeth flung herself under it, hiding behind the tablecloth before anyone noticed her.
She peeked out from under the tablecloth and spotted Lazlo instantly. She reached out and grabbed him. He bit her twice before she managed to wrestle a piece of chocolate from her pocket and offer it to him, which seemed to calm him down. Then Elspeth froze. A pair of feet in huge orange high-heeled shoes had appeared next to the table. Elspeth recognized the shoes: they belonged to Lady Spewitt.
Elspeth could feel Lazlo trembling with fear … which meant only one thing – Tinkiewinks. The orange high heels were so close that Elspeth could have reached out and touched them.
Elspeth knew she had to make a run for it before Lazlo escaped, but what if Miss Crabb had followed them into the ballroom?
She shuffled her way back to the other side of the table and peeked out. She couldn’t see Miss Crabb anywhere. The double doors to the corridor were at the far side of the dance floor. She could see Rory near them, still being whirled around by Petunia Galoshes-Gallop.
Here goes
, thought Elspeth. She clung on to Lazlo and darted out from under the table, snatching Rory’s hand as she passed him and shoving him in front of her through the double doors. They went flying off down the corridor before anyone could get a proper look at them.
“Thanks, Elspeth!” Rory puffed as they raced along the corridor. “It looks like we’ve lost Crabb for now—”
BOOF! Before he could finish his sentence, Elspeth and Rory turned a corner and banged into something. Something knobbly and pointy and tall.
Elspeth looked up in horror.
It was Miss Crabb.
