‘No, no, no.’

Basti’s changed completely again – staring at the front door, shaking his head like he’s stuck. Like he was when he was outside, in the middle of the street; a roo in headlights, lost.

‘Kicky?’ Pin begs. ‘Do something.’

‘What do I say?’ I whisper fiercely to an uncle now clutching my arm in panic.

‘Say . . . say you’re Lady Holland’s niece. From Australia. She’s gravely ill –’

‘And cannot be disturbed under any circumstances,’ I finish calmly for him.

He looks at me, astounded. ‘Why yes.’ As if I may be of some use after all.

I stride to a front door now shaking with the thumping of police batons. Everyone clusters behind me. Deep breath.

‘Could you please be quiet,’ I admonish through the wood in my most grown-up of grown-up voices. The batons abruptly stop. ‘I am Lady Holland’s niece. She is gravely ill and demands absolute silence. And why on earth are you doing whatever you’re doing? At such an ungodly hour.’

‘Sorry, ma’am. We’re just trying to find some . . . intruders . . . in the neighbourhood.’

‘Intruders?’

‘Of the, er, reptilian variety.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Have you gone quite mad?’

‘Er, yes, ma’am, quite . . . I mean no. Of course, no. Nothing to worry about. Apologies. Good evening to you, and give our regards to Lady Holland.’

‘Good evening. And please do not disturb us with this commotion ever again. Reptiles, in this neighbourhood? Ridiculous. We’re not in the jungles of Rangoon.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I mean, no, ma’am. Good evening, ma’am.’

They trudge away. I slam my back hard against the front door in relief.

‘Magnificent,’ Basti whispers, looking at me afresh, ‘quite magnificent, Miss Kick.’

Footsteps return outside. We freeze.

‘Ah jist think we should try again with this one,’ says a different younger-sounding voice with a Scottish accent. ‘There’s something about this place . . . would Lady Holland really be in this . . . Ah jist don’t know . . .’

‘Come on!’ yell the rest of them.

‘My tea’s waiting . . . it’s cheese rarebit.’

‘Lucky you, I’ve got Potato Jane.’

‘I’ve got Tomato Charlotte tonight!’

‘Oooooh, Tomato Charlotte,’ and off they all go, laughing like it’s the funniest joke.

Basti taps his head. ‘Did anyone mention feeding time?’

‘Yeeeeeeeeeeees!’ Scruff yells.

Basti pushes imperiously through two mirrored doors, turns back to us and winks. We lick our lips, shuffle forward. Food at last!

‘I do believe there are some extremely hungry mouths to be fed,’ Basti declares.

We smile in anticipation.

The doors snap shut behind Basti with a horrible finality.

Oh. Right. The truth dawns: it’s not our mouths he’s talking about. Basti is all rusty with other people, yes.

Scruff goes deathly pale, clutches his stomach, whispers, ‘I’m going to die, sis, if I don’t eat something right now, I mean it,’ and falls to the ground.

Bert screams.

I drop to my brother, slapping his cheek. ‘Basti!’ I cry. ‘Quick!’

‘I’m busy,’ comes the voice from the kitchen.

‘This is an emergency.’

‘I don’t do emergencies. You’re on Reptilarium time now, and that means nothing is hurried. It feels like we’ve been in the midst of a tornado since you lot arrived and now I need some blessed routine, and peace.’

Scruff moans, he’s sweaty and pale.

‘Scruff’s in pain. You have to come.’

Deathly silence.

‘Food . . .’ Scruff moans.

‘He needs something to eat right now.’

‘I do not take to being ordered about. In my day children were seen and not heard. Oh yes, word has travelled about your pranks, Miss Kick.’

‘Come here. Now.’ It’s my Aussie nurse voice. ‘I’m getting an ambulance immediately if you don’t.’

A blanket of silence falls over the house.

Stand-off.

Bang! The double doors are flung open with a dramatic slap. Uncle Basti emerges wearing a crisp white apron. Behind him is a magnificent, many-tiered trolley crowded with silver trays holding all manner of delicacies.

I venture over, reel back. Nothing for humans, in any way. Splendid porcelain tureens of such things as . . . ‘What?’

‘Oh, grasshopper legs, fried mouse tails, worm soup.’

Great. Scruff’ll be thrilled at all that.

‘What about my brother?’

Basti examines the problem. Examines his trolley.

‘Hmm. My top-secret Bolivian paste may just do the trick.’ He indicates a purple goo piled high in a silver bowl. Scoops up a spoonful, holds it under Scruff’s nose. ‘Dried spiders,’ Basti adds helpfully.

Scruff flurries back in alarm, fully awake now.

‘Go on, Master Scruff!’ his uncle urges. ‘It’s a hundred times more effective than chocolate.’

Scruff looks at him dubiously.

‘It’s good for you.’ Basti moves closer, drops his voice. ‘Man to man, my boy. It’ll put hairs on your chest. Come on.’

Our hearts tighten, tighten at something Dad said to Scruff all the time. I bite my knuckle, bite away tears. Why did Dad never speak of Basti? Why are we really here?

‘Daddy used to say that,’ Bert ventures. ‘Hairs on your chest . . .’

‘Sssh, yes, now eat, boy, eat.’

Gamely, gingerly, Scruff dips in a finger. Licks it, makes a horrible face, and swallows. Basti spoons some more into his mouth, quick smart. Scruff gulps. Holds out his tongue for more. More. And more. Until the purple goo is quite, quite gone.

‘I bet you feel like a million pounds now. Pay attention to your uncle and you’ll go far, young man.’

Scruff springs to attention and gazes ravenously at the rest of the trolley.

Basti’s all too happy to oblige. ‘Dried mice, crushed ants, pureed cockroaches, grasshoppers. Yes! Grasshoppers. That’ll do the trick. You’ll have your energy back in no time.’

Scruff lifts up a spindly green leg and with a grin throws it whole into his mouth. And another. Falls into grasshopper-agonies on the floor.

‘Right, that’s breakfast, lunch and dinner for you, then.’ Basti steps breezily over him, slapping his hands at a job well done.

Scruff sits up, giggling. Pulls down his singlet and examines his chest. ‘Any sign? Am I a man yet?’

‘Oh, we’ll toughen you up in no time,’ Basti laughs. ‘Now come, troops, there’s work to be done. You’ve barely begun the test.’ He looks us dubiously up and down. ‘The desert, eh?’ Shakes his head. ‘They breed ’em tough out there, so I’ve heard. Well, we’ll just see about that. Some fortification first.’

Basti picks up a silver spoon, scoops out a lavish portion of orange mash streaked most alarmingly with green and plops it straight into his mouth. Indicates to the rest of us, with a wink. None of us take him up on the offer.

‘Hold him, behind the head, like this,’ Basti instructs, handing me a glow worm. We’re in the Lumen Room, according to a plaque outside its door.

‘Quick, I’ll just turn off the lights. Now . . . watch!’

We gasp as the animals’ skins come thrillingly alive in the dark. Spin around . . . the black painted walls are filled with the creatures . . . hundreds and hundreds of them . . . all softly, magically glowing.

‘You could read in here, Miss Kick. I hear you’ve always got your head in a book – when you’re not throwing woomeras at people.’

I turn, laughing, mouth wide. It’s magnificent, wondrous.

Basti catches my expression. ‘It’s my favourite room too, you know.’

‘Can I sleep in it?’

‘Oh, I’ve got something else in store for you. Now, to the ladders! Third floor. Green door on the right. Quick!’

Real life’s intruding. It’s time to ask him about food and clothes and beds as mouths yawn and little bodies slump but Basti’s so madly, crazily enthusiastic, sweeping us off as if there’s not a second to be wasted, like a big kid with the keys to the secret kingdom and only for a night!

‘Quick, my little girlies are hungry!’ he cries.

In a lime-green room he coos at four goannas then throws them eight mice in bunches by their tails. ‘Don’t worry, freshly dead, easy to handle.’

In the room next door he holds a tiny, almost transparent gecko and explains that its tail will detach if it’s being chased, it will twist and cartwheel – ‘to throw its predator off the scent. This dear little chap is a complete wonder of nature.’

Hang on.

My back prickles up.

Because everything, suddenly, is quiet. Too quiet. Well yes, there’s noise: but crucially, no sister-noise.

‘Bert?’

No answer.

‘Albertina?’ Still no answer and it usually makes her come.

I launch myself onto a ladder. ‘Come on, everyone, Bert could be wrapped in the coils of a twenty-foot python by now!’

‘This is why I don’t allow children in the house,’ Basti says, slipping his gecko reluctantly into his pocket, ‘because they most inconveniently get swallowed and eaten and bitten and lost.’

My heart’s thudding. Because with Bert something’s only ever wrong . . . when she’s very, very quiet.

Well well well.

It doesn’t take long.

Perdita’s cage, of course. The hospital one. Trying her hardest to work out the combination of its tiny padlock, all the while blowing chirpy little kisses to its disgruntled inhabitant. Perdita’s crouched at the back, her eyes cool and unmoving, watching her rescuer like it’s the last thing she wants in her life.

Basti firmly propels her away. ‘Now, what was I saying about not having children in the house? Perdita is deadly. For everyone here but myself. Please take note, young lady. Please. She will not make a good scarf.’

He extracts another snake from a cage near the sink.

‘Milking time,’ he instructs, ‘and this is why you have to be careful in this place. This dear little taipan, as you may know, is the deadliest inland snake in the world. One drop of its venom can kill two hundred men.’

The snake lashes out as Basti attempts to milk its fangs over a glass jar. The powerful tail wraps around his arm, trying to derail him; he wrestles with the reptile and firmly brings it under control, smartly clamping its head over the lip of the lid.

‘You’re really brave,’ Scruff observes.

‘Selectively brave, Master Scruff, selectively. And certainly not with things like . . . people. Or buses. Or horns or batons or policemen. Or children.’ He shuts his eyes in pain. ‘My nerves . . . quite shot, you see. Quite shot indeed. Not good with the world, any more. You may have noticed. Still trying to work it all out.’

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘Oh, it’s a long story.’

‘Were you in the war? With Dad?’

‘The Great War.’ He sighs. ‘Indeed I was, Miss Kick.’ He puts the snake back in its cage.

‘Where?’

‘Not the same place. Your father was in Gallipoli, I was in Northern France. It’s a toss-up which was worse.’

‘What happened to you?’

Basti’s silent. He bows his head as if the weight of it is too much to bear.

I come close. ‘Please?’ I put my arm around his back. He doesn’t shrug it off. Faintly, ever so faintly, I can feel him trembling under his velvet coat. I squeeze, ever so slightly. ‘Sometimes it’s good to talk,’ I say softly. ‘Dad’s always saying that. When we’re clogged up . . . with Mum and things.’

Another sigh. The trembling is getting stronger. ‘They strapped me to the wheels of a gun carriage, if you must know. A cannon. On a cart. My own people. “Field Punishment Number One,” it’s called. I was chained to this cart while it was firing. In the middle of a battlefield. Boom, boom . . . the whole thing would lurch, pound, shake . . .’

He’s silent, I squeeze him firmer; Bert comes up the other side and puts her arm around him, too.

‘I, I couldn’t do a thing . . . the sounds, smells, mates getting blown up in front of me, horses screaming, everyone in agony, crying for their mothers, for hours it seemed. Hours and hours.’

‘Gosh, what did you do to deserve that?’ Scruff asks. ‘It must have been something really naughty. Did you steal a car? Like Kick? She took Dad’s ute once and drove it into a dam. She’s the naughtiest person I know. But now it might be you.’

I’m now giving my brother the Number One Look-of-Death: tonight, bedtime, you’ll keep.

‘Naughty? Me?’ Basti laughs. ‘Well, I certainly didn’t think so, Master Scruff. But others did. You see, I slipped off to a French village one afternoon. Got lost, as you do. Stupid really, absolutely stupid . . . that’s what happens when you venture into a world you don’t know.’

Bert gives him a squeezy cuddle and he hovers his hand gently over her back.

‘The ridiculous thing is, Miss Albertina, that before my bit of silliness I’d been quite the war hero. Oh yes. Everyone in the square here knew about it, they were preparing for a hero’s welcome home. You see, I’d dragged four mates from the battlefield under heavy fire, all wounded. Three made it, one didn’t. Quite the hero, yes. But then a little sojourn in a French village completely ruined it. Changed my life. So. Now. Everything is much quieter. Nothing disturbs my little world. It’s very peaceful here and the crucial thing is, I am completely in control of it. I always know what’s around the corner. No one orders me about, punishes me unfairly, forces me to do anything I don’t want to –’

‘Except for us!’ Scruff reminds him. ‘We’re here now!’

I give him a swift kick. Basti does not need any reminder at this point as to why his life has suddenly galloped from his control, and I’m worried about that Scottish policeman who may come back. I also now know that this reptilarium has to be kept intact by any means, not just for its reptilian inhabitants but its human one, too. This is a refuge, of the most vital sort, and Basti’s sanctuary cannot be destroyed under any circumstances.

Because it would destroy him.

‘Yes, you lot,’ Basti sighs, holding the yellow taipan venom up to the light. ‘All I can say is, thank goodness for Charlie Boo. Between Perdita and my butler I don’t have a need for anyone else.’ He looks down at us, arches an eyebrow. ‘Certainly not four children from Woop Woop who are far too . . . smiley . . . for their own good. And who frankly –’ he peers in distaste, as if he’s only just realised it ‘– haven’t a clue how to dress.’

We gaze at our mishmash of Horatio-clothes . . . but have nothing else . . . are tired . . . starving.

‘My tummy’s got a headache,’ Pin announces as if on cue.

Basti looks bewildered.

‘Meaning “he’s still hungry”,’ Scruff explains.

‘Ahh, food. But no one’s dressed properly. And in this house, one always dresses for dinner. Because one must.’

We look at each other in despair. Right. Well, that’s that then.

Basti claps his hands. ‘But wait, there’s an army of people upstairs, in the attic. They can help! Of course.’

Our heads turn skyward.

So we’re not alone in this place?

My back prickles up again. Bert’s coffin’s up there somewhere, and goodness knows what else in this madly eccentric, endlessly surprising house.

I look back at Basti. Not good with people, yes, and quite dangerously erratic. Do we want this help or not?