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“London is the capital,” Mr. Kilgraw replied. “It is polluted, overcrowded and dangerous. A perfect arena—”

“Here, here!” Mrs. Windergast muttered.

“You agree?” Mr. Kilgraw asked.

“No. I was saying that the trial ought to take place here, here . . . on the island.”

“No.” Mr. Fitch rapped his knuckles on the table. “It’s better if we send them out. More challenging.”

“I have an idea,” Mr. Kilgraw said.

“Do tell us,” Mr. Fitch gurgled.

“Over the last year we have tested these boys in every aspect of the magical arts,” Mr. Kilgraw began. “Cursing, levitation, shape-shifting, thanatomania—”

“What’s thanatomania?” Mr. Creer demanded.

Mr. Kilgraw ignored him. “I suggest we set them a puzzle,” he went on. “It will be a trial of skill and of the imagination. A meeting of two minds. It will take me a day or two to work out the details. But at least it will be final. Whoever wins the contest comes out top of the line and takes the Unholy Grail.”

Everyone around the table murmured their assent. Mr. Fitch glanced at Mr. Helliwell. “Does it seem fair to you, Mr. Helliwell?” he asked.

The voodoo master nodded gravely. “I think that David Eliot deserves the Grail,” he said. “If you ask me, there’s something funny about the way he’s lost so many points in such a short time. But this will give him a chance to prove himself. I’m sure he’ll win. So I agree.”

“Then it’s decided,” Mr. Teagle concluded. “Mr. Kilgraw will work on the tiebreaker. And perhaps you’ll let me know when you’ve set something up.”

 

 

Two days later, David and Vincent stood in one of the underground caverns of Skrull Island. They were both dressed casually in jeans and black, open-neck shirts. Mr. Kilgraw, Mr. Helliwell and Miss Pedicure were standing opposite them. At the back of the cave were two glass boxes that could have been shower cubicles except that they were empty. The boxes looked slightly ridiculous in the gloomy setting of the cave—like two theatrical props that had wandered offstage. But David knew what they were. One was for Vincent. The other was for him.

“You are to look for a needle in a haystack,” Mr. Kilgraw was saying. “Some needles are bigger than others—and that may point you in the right direction. But the needle in question is a small statue of Miss Pedicure. I will tell you only that it is blue in color and two and a half inches high.”

“It was taken from my mummy some years ago,” Miss Pedicure sniffed. “I’ve always wanted to have it back.”

“As for the haystack,” Mr. Kilgraw went on, “that is the British Museum in London. All I will tell you is that the statue is somewhere inside. You have until midnight to find it. And there is one rule . . .” He nodded at Mr. Helliwell.

“You are not to use any magical powers,” the voodoo teacher said. “We want this to be a test of stealth and cunning. We have helped you boys a little. We have arranged for the alarm system at the museum to turn itself off tonight and we have opened one door. But there will still be guards on duty. If you’re caught, that’s your own problem.”

“It’s seven o’clock now,” Mr. Kilgraw said. “You have just five hours. Do you both understand what you have to do?”

David and Vincent nodded.

“Then let us begin. Whichever of you finds the statuette first and brings it back to this room will be declared the winner and will be awarded the Unholy Grail.”

David glanced at Vincent. The two of them hadn’t spoken to each other since the results of the exam had been announced. The tension between them almost crackled like static electricity. Vincent swept a blond lock of hair off his face. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back,” he said.

“I’ll be back here first,” David replied.

They stepped into the boxes.

“Let the tiebreaker begin,” Mr. Kilgraw commanded.

David felt the air inside the box go suddenly cold. He had been standing with his hands pressed against the glass, looking at Mr. Kilgraw. Then, slowly at first but accelerating quickly, the glass box began to turn. It was like an amusement-park ride except that there was no music, no sound at all, and he didn’t feel nauseous or giddy. Mr. Kilgraw spun past him, a blur of color that had lost all sense of shape, blending in with the walls of the cave as the box turned faster and faster. Now the whole world had dissolved into a wheel of silver and gray. Then the lights went out.

David closed his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, he found he was looking at a street and a hedge. Swallowing, he pulled his hands away from the glass, leaving two damp palm prints behind. The box was illuminated from above by a single yellow bulb. A car drove past along the street, its headlights on. David twisted around. Something bumped against his shoulder.

He was in a telephone booth. Not a modern kiosk but one of the old red telephone booths with a swinging door that stood in the middle of Regent’s Park, London. It took him a moment to open it, but then he was standing on the pavement, breathing the night air. There was no sign of Vincent. He looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. He had traveled a hundred and twenty-five miles in less than a second.

But he was still a long way from the museum. Vincent would already be on his way. And this was his last chance . . .

David crossed the road and broke into a run.

 

 

In fact he took a taxi to the museum. He caught one in Baker Street and ordered the driver to go as fast as possible.

“The British Museum? You must be joking, buddy! There’s no point going there now. It’s closed for the night. Anyway, aren’t you a bit young to be out on your own? You got any money?”

David had no money. Neither of the boys had been given any—it was part of the test. Quickly, he hypnotized the driver. He knew he wasn’t allowed to use magic, but Mr. Kilgraw had often told him that hypnosis was a science and not a magical power, so he decided it wouldn’t count.

“The British Museum,” he insisted. “And put your foot on it.”

“Foot on it? All right, pal. Whatever you say. You’re the boss.” The driver shot through a red light, zigzagged across a busy intersection with cars hooting at him on all sides and accelerated the wrong way down a one-way street. The journey took them about ten minutes and David was relieved to get out.

He paid the driver with a leaf and two pebbles he had picked up in the park. “Keep the change,” he said.

“Wow! Thanks, buddy.” The cabdriver’s eyes were still spinning. David watched him as he drove off across the sidewalk and into a store window, then slipped through the open gates of the British Museum.

But why were the gates open?

Had Mr. Helliwell arranged it for him? Or had Vincent gotten there first?

Feeling very small and vulnerable, David crossed the open space in front of the museum. The building itself was huge, bigger than he remembered. He had once heard that there were more than two miles of galleries inside, and looking at it now, its classical pillars arranged in two wings around a vast, central chamber, he could well believe it. His feet clattered faintly across the concrete as he ran forward. A well-mowed lawn, gray in the moonlight, stretched out as flat as paper on either side of him. There was a guardhouse next to the gate, but it was deserted. His shadow raced ahead of him, snaking up the steps as if trying to get into the building before him.

The main entrance to the museum was locked. For a moment David was tempted. A single spell would open the door. He could simply move the tumblers inside the lock with the power of thought or else he could turn himself into smoke and creep in through the crack underneath. But Mr. Helliwell had said
no magic.
And this time David was determined not to cheat. He would play by the rules.

It took him ten minutes to locate the side door that Mr. Kilgraw had opened. He slipped through and found himself standing on a stone floor beneath a ceiling that was so far above him that, in the half-light, he could barely see it. Doors led off to the left and right. Straight ahead there was an information desk and what looked like a souvenir shop. A grand staircase guarded by two stone lions swept up to one side. Which way should he go?

It was only now that he was here that David grasped the enormity of the task that faced him. Miss Pedicure had lived for three thousand years. And she had lived in just about every part of the world. So this statue of her—which had once belonged to her mother—could come from anywhere and any time. It was two and a half inches high and it was blue. That was all he knew.

So much for the needle. But what about the haystack?

The British Museum was enormous. How many exhibits did it hold? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Some of them were the size of small buildings. Some of them, in fact,
were
small buildings. Others were no bigger than a pin. The museum held collections from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia, China; from the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Middle Ages, every age. There were tools and pottery, clocks and jewelry, masks and ivory . . . He could spend a year in the place and still get nowhere close.

David heard the rattle of a chain and pressed himself back against the wall, well into the shadows. A guard appeared, walking down the stairs and into the main hall. He was dressed in blue pants and a white shirt, with a bunch of keys dangling from his waist. He paused in the middle of the entrance hall, yawned and stretched his arms, then disappeared behind the information desk.

Crouching in the dark, David considered. As far as he could see, he had two choices. One: search the museum as quickly as he could and hope for a lucky break. Two: look for some sort of catalog and try to find the statuette listed there. But even if a catalog existed, how would he know what to look for? It was hardly likely that Miss Pedicure’s name would turn up in the index and there were probably statuettes in just about every room in the building.

That left only the first option. Straightening up again, David crossed the hall and climbed the staircase that the guard had just come down. He would have to hope for a little luck.

Three and a half hours later he was back where he’d started.

His head was pounding and his eyes were sore with fatigue. The stairs had led him up past a Roman mosaic and on into Medieval Britain. He had backtracked into the Early Bronze Age (dodging a second guard) and had somehow found his way into Ancient Syria . . . which was indeed seriously ancient. He must have looked at about ten thousand objects all neatly laid out in their glass cases. He felt like a window-shopper in some sort of insane supermarket and he hadn’t found anything remotely like Miss Pedicure’s statuette. After a while, he barely knew what he was looking at. Whether it was a Late Babylonian jug or an Early Sumerian mug no longer made any difference to him. David had never been very fond of museums. But this was torture.

Standing once again in the entrance hall, he looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. Less than two hours of the challenge remained . . . assuming that Vincent hadn’t found the statuette and left with it long ago.

Another guard crossed the entrance hall. “Who’s there?” he called out.

David froze. He couldn’t be found, not now. But then a second guard, a woman, appeared from the door on the right. “It’s only me.”

“Wendy? I thought I heard someone . . .”

“Yeah. This place gives me the creeps. I’ve been hearing things all night. Footsteps . . .”

“Me too. Care for a cup of tea?”

“Yeah. I’ll put the kettle on . . .”

The two guards walked off together and David ducked back through another open door just opposite the main entrance. It led into the most amazing room he had ever seen.

It was vast, stretching the entire length of the museum. It was filled with a bizarre collection of animals, people and creatures that were both. Everything looked Egyptian. Huge Pharaohs carved in black stone sat with their hands on their knees, frozen solid as they had been for thousands of years. On one side, two bearded men with lions’ feet and dragons’ wings crouched, staring at each other in grim silence. On the other, a gigantic tiger stood poised as if about to leap into the darkness. Farther down the gallery there were animals of all shapes and sizes, facing in different directions like guests at a nightmare cocktail party.

David froze. He had seen Vincent before he had heard him. The other boy was moving incredibly quietly and would himself have seen David had he not been looking the other way. David noticed that Vincent had taken his shoes off and was holding them in his hand. It was a good idea and one that David should have thought of himself.

Vincent was looking as lost and as tired as David. Crouching down behind a brass baboon, David watched him pass. As he went, Vincent rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand and David almost felt sorry for him. He had never liked Vincent and he didn’t trust him. But he knew what he was going through now.

A minute later Vincent had gone. David stood up. Which way now? Vincent hadn’t found the statue yet, and that was good, but it didn’t help him. He looked once more at his watch. There was a little over an hour left.

Left or right? Up or down?

At the far end of the gallery he could see a collection of sarcophagi and several obelisks—some carved with hieroglyphics like Cleopatra’s Needle—plus four gods with the heads of cats.

And that was when he knew.

In fact he should have known from the start. This challenge was all about skill, not chance. Mr. Helliwell had said it himself:
a test of stealth and cunning.
What he and Mr. Kilgraw had said, what Miss Pedicure had said, and what he had just seen . . . put them all together and the answer was obvious.

David knew where he was going now. He should have known hours ago. He looked around him for a sign, then ran off down the gallery.

He just hoped he wasn’t already too late.