Horten's Incredible Illusions (22 page)
“You’ve got a problem?”
“Yes, a huge problem, and I’ve got to sort it out.”
“Don’t forget what I told you. If you’re rich enough, then problems just melt away.“
“It’s not that sort of problem. I could have fifty billion pounds and it wouldn’t solve this one. I’ve got to go.”
“No, you’ve got to stay and listen.” Her voice was suddenly fierce, and Stuart felt as if he’d been poked with a skewer. “I told you that my grandma said Tony Horten’s will was well hidden—he told her that himself—but what I’ve recalled now is this: she said you should use the male to find it. The male. Does that help you any?”
“No.”
“You sure? You haven’t put your mind to it for more than a single second. Take some time and see if you can figure it out.”
“Don’t you understand?” Stuart was almost shouting with exasperation. “I don’t have
time
to worry about the will—I’m trying to find something that’s loads more important than a piece of paper. I’m trying to find my
friends.
“
There was a short, sharp pause.
“Well now,” said Miss Edie coldly. “My grandma always said that you were nothing but trouble and sass, and I can see now that she was—”
There was another burst of static on the line and then nothing but an echoey hiss. Stuart stared at the receiver; his mouth was dry, and he felt as if someone had just dropped an ice cube down his back.
“Your grandma never met me,” he whispered into the silence. “She died years before I was born.”
The kitchen stool was awkward and surprisingly heavy to carry, and it was dusk by the time Stuart arrived back at the builder’s yard. A woman was walking her dog along the road, but once she’d gone past there was no one else to be seen. Stuart climbed onto the stool. Stretching to his full height, he was still nowhere near the top of the wall, and he could now see that there were pieces of glass embedded in the mortar at the top. He got down again, went over to the double gates, and fingered the enormous padlock. He took out the elf-sized screwdriver, compared it to the size of the screws in the gate hinges, and put it back in his pocket again. It was too small.
He
was too small. In frustration, he kicked at the base of the gates and heard the hollow boom of metal. He kicked at it again, and missed, his foot slipping into the gap between the gates and the ground.
“Ow,” said Stuart, rubbing his ankle. He knelt down to look. The road surface beneath the gates was heavily rutted and potholed, and near the center was a gap that was just possibly large enough for a small, thin person to wriggle through.
Just possibly.
Night was falling rapidly now. The street was still empty, but from the EL-ECTRIC garage opposite, a small yellow diamond of light shone through the only window. Odd sounds of hammering came from within.
Stuart lay down and started to inch forward, head first. The ground was rough beneath his cheek, and the lower edge of the gate scraped through his hair like a toothless comb. He wriggled forward a little further, and something tiny and painful and pointy dug into his cheek—a screw or a stone chip, perhaps—and he flinched and felt his opposite ear fold agonizingly beneath the gate. And that was it: he was stuck fast, panic bubbling through his limbs. His legs flailed helplessly across the sidewalk, and he must have cried out because he suddenly heard the noise of the garage door opening. He held his breath.
“Hello?” called a man’s voice that seemed somehow familiar. “Anyone in trouble?”
Stuart kept absolutely still.
“Close the door!” called another voice urgently—a woman this time. “You’ll let Gerald out!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Across the road, the door scraped shut again, and Stuart took a breath. He reached up with one hand and tried to unfold his ear, and he had almost managed it when he felt something climb onto his ankle.
Something small, with claws and whiskers and wiry fur, which paused for a split second and then shot up the leg of Stuart’s jeans.
Stuart yelled.
And Stuart yelled again.
The garage door opened again, more hurriedly this time, and loud footsteps crossed toward him. “Are you okay?” asked the vaguely familiar voice.
“There’s a rat!” screamed Stuart, head still stuck under the gate, one hand clutching the knee of his jeans to stop the creature from going any further. “There’s a rat up my pant leg.”
“Is that
Stuart
?” asked the man incredulously.
“Get it
out
of there.”
“Stuart
Horten
?”
“
yes.
“
“It’s Clifford!”
“It’s a
rat
!”
“No, it’s not,” said the woman’s voice reassuringly. “It’s a guinea pig. He ran out when the door opened earlier. I’ll catch him, and if Clifford fetches the jack for my car from the garage I’ll be able to raise the gate and get you out of there.”
It was only a minute or two before Stuart was sitting on an upturned crate in the garage, ear throbbing, cookie in hand, guinea pig on lap.
“He’s called Gerald after my father,” said Clifford. “They’ve both got ginger eyebrows, you see. Elaine and I were just practicing the guinea-pig disappearing act for our next performance—I really feel we’re starting to improve. The lighting’s still a great deal better than the trick, of course …”
“Have another cookie,” said the woman, Elaine. She was the small, pale-faced electrician who’d come to see Clifford’s first show, and this was obviously her workshop. It was highly organized: tools hanging on the walls, equipment neatly marshaled. In the center of the room stood Mysterioso the Magician’s cart, no longer looking shabby and makeshift, but glimmering with myriad tiny lights.
“I don’t really have time,” replied Stuart. “I have to get into Mr. Kingley’s builder’s yard. Somehow.”
“Why?”
And because it was Clifford who asked the question—Clifford who had seen
real
magic (who had actually been there, just inches away, when Stuart and the mayoress, Jeannie Carr, had disappeared into the Well of Wishes, dissolving into the past like a splash of water into a pond)—Stuart found that he was able to tell him everything.
Afterward, there was a long silence.
Clifford’s eyes were shining. “Wonderful things,” he said. “Even more wonderful than I realized. No wonder Jeannie was so desperate to get her hands on them.”
“Wonderful,” agreed Stuart, “but dangerous too.”
“Of course we’ll help you get into the yard, won’t we?” said Clifford, looking over at Elaine.
She nodded, her expression entranced. “And would you like us to come with you into the Book of Peril?” she asked.
“No,” said Stuart firmly. “There’d be too many people for me to keep track of. What if you got lost as well?”
Elaine stood up. “Just give me a minute or two to prepare,” she said.
Quickly and efficiently she filled a tool bag, folded a square rubber mat—”to get us over the glass”—and slung a lightweight set of ladders over her shoulder. “Ready,” she said.
Clifford nudged Stuart. “
She’s absolutely marvelous, isn’t she?
” he whispered.
Elaine blushed. “Let’s get going,” she said.
With Elaine organizing things, they were up and over the wall within five minutes, and into the shed in another three.
“The magic star …” said Stuart, peering at the floor.
“For that, I have a wand.” Elaine took what looked like a slender steel aerial out of her bag, pulled it out like a telescope, and waved it across the floor.
There was a series of clinks, and when she lifted it into the beam of Stuart’s flashlight, it was encrusted with small screws and nails. Right at the tip was the single remaining bar of the magic star.
“Not magic but magnetic,” said Elaine, grinning.
Stuart took the star. In the light, the dented cover of the Book of Peril was like the entrance to a dark passageway, the silvery letters—OPEN AT YOUR PERIL—floating in the air. Stuart tugged on the handle and the door swung wide, though it groaned as it opened, as if the dent had affected the hinges.
“Where does the star go?” asked Clifford.
By way of reply, Stuart crouched down and pried open the secret compartment where he and April had found Great-Uncle Tony’s message. April was the one who had spotted a single groove in the floor of the compartment, and at the time Stuart hadn’t known what it was for.
Now he did.
He took a breath to steady his nerves. His fingers were clenched around the star, but he could feel them trembling.
“How long will you be?” asked Clifford.
“As long as it takes me to find the Kingleys and bring them back,” said Stuart. “It might be hours and hours.”
“We’ll wait, don’t worry. And Stuart … ?”
“Yes?”
“Have you changed your mind? Would you like us to come along?”
Stuart couldn’t trust himself to speak, in case another “yes” slipped out. His skin prickled with fear, and he desperately wanted company, but he knew that two extra people might make things even more complicated, just as they had in the Cabinet of Blood. So instead of speaking, he smiled, shook his head, and quickly and carefully fitted the last spoke of the magic star into the Book of Peril.
And gasped.
