The Case of the Vanished Sea Dragon Read online

  ‘You were here when Minertia was convicted thirty years ago?’

  ‘Old Shute’s been here for coming up to two hundred years now. Still, I don’t mind. As I say I’ve got to like the stuff,’ said Shute taking another ladleful, pouring it into a flask and taking a swig. After reappearing from the cloud of steam in a fit of giggles, he said, ‘All I know is that no Sky Dragon has been down here for a long time.’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ said Dirk.

  ‘No problem,’ said Shute. ‘Here, take one if you like.’ He held up a flask with a top on.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Dirk, his mouth still burning.

  Alba grabbed the flask and said, ‘I will take it as a souvenir. Thank you.’

  ‘Keep up the good work,’ said Dirk, turning away.

  ‘Hey, thanks, dragon,’ said Shute. ‘It’s been a blast talking to you. Good luck finding that Sky Dragon.’

  ‘I told you he was peculiar in the head,’ said Alba, as they left.

  ‘None of this makes sense,’ said Dirk. He was beginning to feel frustrated.

  ‘If only we knew more about the Sky Dragons,’ said Alba.

  Dirk looked at Alba. ‘Great rats of Grimsby!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What is what?’ she replied.

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier. The book, Dragonlore. Ivor Klingerflim had written an entire chapter on Sky Dragons. He felt behind his wing but it wasn’t there. He must have left it in his office, which meant one thing. He was going back to London.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Holly slipped behind the security man’s large legs, through the doorway and pushed herself against the inside wall, turning the same colour white.

  The security guard pulled the door shut and walked down the corridor.

  Once he had gone round a corner, Holly reappeared and made her way cautiously in the opposite direction. She didn’t know what her plan was, but she had to do something. She knew her dad wasn’t a bad person. He wouldn’t want to hurt anyone but she wondered whether he sometimes mixed up right and wrong.

  She felt something brush against her leg and looked down to see a tabby cat.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, bending down, but the cat ignored her and continued walking down the corridor.

  Holly followed it, walking past a window that looked into a room full of cages with mice, cats and other animals inside. A door on the far side of the room opened and a young woman in a lab coat entered. She carried a plastic container with air holes in the top. Holly blended her head with the window, turning as transparent as the glass. The lab worker placed the container on the counter and opened one of the cages. A white mouse walked out of the cage into the container. The woman shut the cage door, picked up the container and left the room.

  Holly continued down the corridor, ever prepared to stop, freeze and blend if necessary.

  The cat passed a stairwell on the left then stepped through a cat flap in a door on the right. Holly stopped outside the door and looked through a pane of glass into a small room. The cat was sitting in a basket in the corner. By its side were two bowls, one of milk, another of cat food. The cat must have been very well fed, because it didn’t seem at all interested in either bowl. Willow would have greedily emptied both bowls no matter how much she had already eaten.

  Holly tried the door handle, half expecting it to be locked, but, to her surprise, the door opened. She entered the room, bent down and stroked the tabby. The cat made no response. It didn’t purr or tilt its head so she could scratch it behind the ear, like Willow did. Nor did it flinch or move away. In fact, it showed no sign of noticing, let alone enjoying the attention.

  Holly examined the collar around the cat’s neck. It was metallic and reminded her of her dad’s watch strap. She twisted it round and saw on the underside the letters G and S, formed into a circle: the Global Sands logo.

  Behind her she heard an electronic whirring, a noise she recognised immediately. The last time she had heard that sound she had been planning an escape from William Scrivener School. She spun round to find a security camera pointing at her. She ran to the door and desperately tried the handle, but it was locked. She tried to find a blind spot, where she could vanish, but the camera followed her every move. She couldn’t risk being seen blending. There was nowhere to hide. All she could do was sit and wait to get discovered.

  ‘This is your fault,’ she said to the cat, but the animal remained perfectly still except for the gentle movement of its breathing.

  When the door opened she looked up at the security guard. She recognised the black bushy moustache instantly. It was Hamish Fraser, the same guard she had encountered while trying to escape from William Scrivener’s.

  ‘It is you. Ah wasn’t sure from the picture on the monitor,’ he said in his familiar Scottish accent. ‘What a wee world it is. What brings you here, Ah wonder?’

  Holly thought fast. ‘I came to find a toilet. I must have gone through a wrong door.’

  ‘Nice try,’ said Hamish, a grin spreading beneath his moustache. ‘You accidentally stumbled into a maximum-security building looking for the lavvy? You’ll have to do better than that, lassie.’

  ‘Why aren’t you at the school?’ asked Holly.

  ‘The school’s shut for summer. Ah work here for a few months of the year. Ah’m on the late shift. Ah’m noh so keen on being locked up with all these wee animals, but thanks to you, it’s already proving more exciting than I’d expected.’

  ‘Where’s Bruno?’ asked Holly, remembering how Hamish had tried to train his poodle to be more aggressive.

  ‘Bruno? In this place?’ said Hamish, gesticulating towards the cat. ‘He’d have a field day.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this cat?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about the cat, come on.’ The security guard tightened his grip on Holly’s shoulder and frogmarched her out.

  ‘Can’t you just let me go for old time’s sake?’ she pleaded.

  Hamish laughed a loud throaty laugh and said, ‘The last time Ah saw you Ah was trying to stop you breaking out. This time you’ve broken in. You’re a right wee criminal in the making, aren’t ye?’ He led Holly up the stairs. At the top he said, ‘In you go,’ and pushed the door open.

  The room she walked into was a stark contrast to the rest of the building. Instead of white walls and a tiled floor, it had dark grey walls and a plush green carpet. In front of her was a desk, made entirely from glass, behind which Brant Buchanan was sitting. At first she thought he was alone, but she turned to see, at the other end of the room, her dad sitting on a purple sofa, staring at her, his anger evident in his eyes.

  ‘The irrepressible Holly Bigsby,’ said Mr Buchanan, standing to greet her.

  She avoided eye contact with her dad but could feel his furious glare burning a hole in the back of her head.

  ‘Your father is angry with you, but I am impressed,’ said Mr Buchanan. ‘When I designed his laboratory I knew that ill-informed animal activists and prying investigative journalists would try to get in. So there are no windows on the ground floor and these on the upper floor only open a couple of centimetres. Both entrances, front and back, are under constant surveillance. The roof is made out of a synthetic material too strong to be cut by any conventional tool. No one has ever got further than the silver gates without my say-so. Except you.’

  Holly said nothing.

  ‘What really annoys them, you see,’ continued Mr Buchanan, ‘is that for all their protests and leaflets and slogans, they have absolutely no idea what we do here. For all they know we’re making marmalade.’

  ‘You don’t make marmalade,’ interjected Holly. ‘You experiment on animals.’

  ‘Everyone experiments on animals,’ said the billionaire dismissively. ‘When NASA sends an astronaut into space or when a country sends a soldier off to war. When a politician tries out a new policy or a teacher tries a new lesson on his class. These are all animal experiment
s. Only, the animal is man. Why should our furry friends be excluded just because they can’t sign a piece of paper?’

  ‘I don’t care how cleverly you say it, you’re still hurting animals.’

  ‘You’re too young to understand,’ said Mr Buchanan dismissively. ‘Now, I need to check that you haven’t taken anything from my laboratory. Empty your pockets.’

  Holly did so, hoping he wouldn’t notice the bulge in her coat pocket made by the book Mrs Klingerflim had given her.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just a book,’ she replied casually.

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Holly Bigsby,’ boomed her father, finally breaking his silence. ‘You have trespassed on Mr Buchanan’s property, you have insulted him. I can’t begin to tell you how … how disappointed I am in you. Do as you are told.’

  Holly pulled out the book and handed it to Mr Buchanan across the desk. ‘It’s just a stupid book about dragons, anyway,’ she muttered under her breath.

  He took it, but his gaze remained on her open palm.

  ‘Your hand has healed remarkably quickly,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t that bad after all,’ replied Holly, whipping it away quickly.

  ‘Once again, I am sorry, Brant,’ said Mr Bigsby.

  ‘Not at all, Malcolm. Weaver will drive you back.’

  Buchanan pressed a button and spoke through the intercom. ‘Weaver, prepare the car, Mr Bigsby and his daughter will be exiting through the back door.’

  ‘Can I have my book back?’ said Holly, trying to sound casual, not wanting them to know how important it was.

  ‘You’ll get your book back when you’ve learnt your lesson,’ replied her father.

  ‘I’ll hang on to it if you like, Malcolm,’ offered Mr Buchanan, ‘I’ve always had a soft spot for mythical creatures.’

  He slipped it into the top drawer of his desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr Bigsby.

  As the desk was made entirely of glass, Holly could see it easily enough but Buchanan locked the drawer and her dad took her hand and led her out of the room. She felt bad. She had promised Mrs Klingerflim she would look after it and now it had been confiscated.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Archie felt himself picked up by the armpits and hauled to the end of the alleyway. He looked up to see a man in a collarless grey suit, with jet-black hair that looked as though it had been sprayed on. The man must have moved very quickly and quietly to have snuck up on him like that without being heard.

  Archie had been leaning against the wall outside the door, just out of sight of the camera, listening to the angry animal activists shouting slogans, eating jelly beans straight from his pocket, wondering how Holly was getting on.

  Now he had got to know her he felt bad about all the horrible things he had said to her over the past few months. He had started calling her names because she was new and it made his friends laugh, and Archie lived to make people laugh. Holly seemed so immune to his teasing, that he thought it didn’t bother her that much. If he had succeeded in following her home straight away he would probably have lost interest but, every time she lost him, it became more of a challenge.

  ‘Oi, you can’t go picking up people and moving them,’ protested Archie.

  The man didn’t respond. He had his back to Archie, blocking the way to the alleyway.

  The door opened and Holly appeared with her dad behind her. The grey man marched towards them. ‘Mr Bigsby,’ he said, ‘I’m Weaver. The car is just up here.’

  Holly’s dad said, ‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’

  ‘Is this child anything to do with you?’ asked Weaver, indicating Archie.

  ‘Hey, Archie,’ said Holly miserably.

  ‘Hey, Holly,’ he responded cheerfully.

  ‘Yes, I think we better take them both back home if that’s all right, Mr Weaver,’ replied Holly’s dad.

  ‘It’s just Weaver,’ said the strange man, pointing the keys at the car, unlocking it, and opening the back door.

  ‘Wow!’ said Archie.

  ‘Wow!’ said Holly.

  Mr Bigsby didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that he was thinking wow! too. Stepping into Brant Buchanan’s Bentley was more like entering a top-of-the-range, high-tech, futuristic living room than getting into the back of a car. It had soft black leather seats, tinted windows, a plasma TV screen, a DVD player and rows of glowing red buttons along the doors, each one screaming out to be pressed. Weaver closed the door behind them and soft lighting came on.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Mr Bigsby to Holly.

  He was sitting facing backwards to keep his eye on her. Holly had never seen him look so angry. She wanted to tell him why she had followed him but she couldn’t let on that she knew about the AOG Project. If she said anything that led to Dirk being discovered she would never forgive herself.

  The plasma screen behind the driver’s seat flickered to life and Weaver’s unsmiling face appeared. He was sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘Could I take the young man’s name, please?’ he said.

  ‘Archie Snellgrove,’ said Archie, pulling the seatbelt chord. ‘Why?’

  ‘To find your address.’

  ‘I’ll walk back from Holly’s house,’ said Archie anxiously,

  Weaver’s face, which had been full-screen, shrunk into a small box in the corner. Archie’s name appeared one letter at a time as though being typed out. The cursor flickered and a map of London appeared. A series of small flags sprung up. The picture zoomed in on south London, where a small red car was flashing. There was a flag nearby with an address on it.

  ‘Number seventy-eight Sidney Clavel Estate,’ read Weaver.

  ‘How did you do that?’ said Archie, impressed.

  ‘If you would like a drink, the third button on your door is for orange juice,’ said Weaver. As he started the car and set off, the little car icon on the screen moved towards the flag.

  ‘Cool,’ said Archie. He pressed one of the glowing red buttons and a panel opened next to the plasma screen.

  ‘That’s the photocopier,’ Weaver said. ‘You want the button above that one.’

  Archie pressed another and instantly the armrest between Holly and him twisted around. The flat surface, which had been underneath, slid away to reveal a hole, out of which appeared a glass of orange juice.

  ‘I told you not to touch anything,’ said Mr Bigsby, leaning forward and taking the glass.

  Classical music filled the car. With the gentle melody of the strings, the smooth running of the car and the tinted windows, it was as though they were gliding invisibly through the world. Holly wondered what it was like, always travelling like this, never having to fight your way on to crammed buses, and sit next to someone with a bottom so big that it took up both seats, or someone really smelly, or someone listening to rock music on their headphones so loudly you could sing along.

  When the car arrived at Sidney Clavel Estate Holly understood why Archie thought she was posh. With flaky paint and crumbling brickwork, the grey blocks of flats were in a similar state of neglect to Gristle Street. Almost every square inch was covered in graffiti. Not the colourful kind in big bubble writing but scrawled swear words, spray-painted tags, insults and threats. The walkways outside the flats were littered with old rusty bikes and rubbish. On the grassy communal area a gang of lads threw stones at a three-legged dog.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ said Archie as the car pulled in.

  Weaver dived out and opened the door.

  The gang of lads noticed the car and lost interest in the dog.

  Holly thought Archie looked nervous, but he smiled and said, ‘See you tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Holly won’t be seeing anyone,’ replied her dad. ‘She’s grounded.’

  ‘Grounded?’ she exclaimed. ‘How long for?’

  ‘For the rest of the summer.’

  ‘Oi, nice car,’ shouted one of the boys on the grass. ‘C
an I have a drive?’

  Archie stepped out.

  ‘Hey, that’s little smelly-grove,’ he yelled.

  The others joined in.

  ‘Yeah, I see your old man’s nicked a new car?’

  ‘Nah, his dad’s still behind bars, eh, smell-growth?’

  ‘I’ll see you later, then,’ said Archie, suddenly dashing across the lawn towards the block of flats on the far side.

  The gang of boys took chase. Archie was quick and he beat them to the building, through the outer door and to the central staircase that led up to the flats. The gang followed him up the stairs, closing in.

  Weaver slammed the car door and jumped into the driver’s seat. As they drove away, Holly twisted round to look out of the back window. Archie ran along the top walkway to a green door. She could feel his panic as he pounded on the door until it opened. He dived inside and the door shut, leaving the gang of boys outside. She didn’t like to think what would have happened if they had caught him. Archie’s heart must have been beating fast, but watching the scene from the car, with the gentle classical music playing, Holly felt distanced, like she was watching it on TV.

  ‘Sit down properly,’ snapped her dad irritably.

  Holly did as she was told and neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey.

  Outside her house, Weaver opened the door and Holly climbed out. Her dad led her back to the house. She glanced round to see Weaver disappear into the car and drive away.

  ‘Go to your room,’ said her dad.

  Holly walked up the stairs miserably, her dad behind her. This wasn’t the first time he had been upset with her. Every time she had been suspended or expelled from school, he had been upset with her. But this felt worse. This time she had embarrassed him at work. She opened her bedroom door and went in.

  ‘There’ll be no television, no computer and no leaving the house. You’ll stay in your room and think about what you’ve done. You’re out of control,’ said her dad, unplugging her computer and wheeling it out. He stopped in the doorway. ‘You know, it’s not just me. You’ve let your mother down too,’ he said.