The next morning, Oz stayed in his bedroom as long as he could before going down to breakfast. He hoped that his mother had calmed down after a night’s sleep, but she had her back to him and didn’t turn around immediately as he walked into the kitchen. The calendar still showed the head of a roughly drawn black dog. Oz felt his heart sink in his chest and decided that another apology was probably the best way to start things off.
“Mum,” Oz began, “about last night…”
She wheeled around and threw him a withering glance. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve made my decision. Live with it.”
But her words were unnecessary. Any thought Oz had about trying to get her to change her mind about Sunday football, or Ellie and Ruff, had evaporated with that glance. She looked ragged, her eyes red-rimmed and raw, and he knew she’d been crying. Oz went through the motions of breakfast, the cereal tasting like cardboard, his mind like a clogged drain. He hardly spoke to anyone all the way to school and tried his best to put on as brave a face as he could when he met up with Ellie and Ruff, who were, as expected, in an exuberant mood.
“Look at them,” Ruff said gleefully as Oz joined them in registration. Ruff pointed at Jenks and Skinner, who were sitting with their backs to the class, huddled with their cronies, intent on ignoring everything that was going on around them.
“They’re pathetic,” Ellie said. “In the bus bay, I heard Skinner trying to wriggle out of the fact that we’d beaten them by saying that if you added up the scores from both weeks, they were still four-nil up.
Ruff chuckled and then said loudly, “Read the papers, Skinner. A W is a W.”
Skinner, unable to ignore the taunt, spun around in his chair and glared at them, much to Ruff’s delight.
But Oz could barely muster a smile.
“What’s up with you?” Ellie said, finally noticing Oz’s reluctance to join in.
“It’s my mum. We had a bit of a bust-up last night,” Oz said hollowly.
He started to explain, and had got as far as the police wanting to know what they’d bought, when Miss Arkwright breezed through the door. In a way, Oz was relieved, because he was dreading telling them that they were banned. It was all so unfair; his mother’s still-raw wounds over his dad were nothing to do with Ellie or Ruff. Why they had to suffer because of… Oz’s melancholic thoughts were interrupted by Miss Arkwright banging on the desk.
“Some important announcements this morning that concern all of you. Mr. Broughton says that the toilet block near the changing rooms is still out of order. Oh, and Marcus, Mr. Broughton also says that he will try and get your football boot down off the roof today. And,” she paused dramatically, “the date for the lower school Christmas party has been set for Friday, the 18th of December, at seven. So make sure it’s in your diaries.”
A buzz of eager conversation skittered across the room, mainly from the girls. Ellie turned to Tracy Roper, who was asking everyone if they knew what they were going to wear yet. But Oz couldn’t concentrate on anything. Even first lesson with Badger Breath couldn’t take his mind off worrying about what Ellie and Ruff were going to say when they learned that he couldn’t play for them anymore.
Maths these days was very different for Oz. Since the second maths test, Oz actually understood what Badger Breath was talking about, even if the way Boggs actually taught the subject seemed boring and rigid. Today was no exception, as he announced to the class at the beginning of the lesson: “End of term exams will be on Monday, the 7th of December. That will give me enough time to mark your papers and return them before the start of the Christmas holidays. Those of you who fail will re-sit at the beginning of January.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Give you all enough time to revise over Christmas.”
The whole class groaned, but Badger Breath scanned the pupils with the smile fixed on his face like a death’s head mask, lingering an extra leering few seconds on Oz.
“Before you ask, the exam will be on everything we will have done this term. Today, we begin transformation and congruent shapes.”
Badger Breath had taken to monitoring Oz’s behaviour in class very carefully, often picking up his work and studying it. More often than not, he would tut at Oz’s workings, but he never actually said anything. Oz had taken to not reacting, simply sitting and staring straight ahead until Badger Breath put his book back on the desk, at which point Oz would simply get on with it.
But today, Badger Breath was merely an irritating fly, barely buzzing at the edge of Oz’s awareness. The gut-churning anxiety over what he was going to say to Ellie and Ruff was far more bothersome. It stayed with him throughout the morning and he even forgot the name Madame Chang had given him in French.
“Oz, are you all right?” Ellie asked with a frown of disbelief as he trudged back to his desk after having been made to write “Marcel” ten times on the board, which was Madame Chang’s way of ensuring he wouldn’t forget it again.
“Fine,” he mumbled.
“You’re not ill or anything, are you?”
“No,” Oz said, but he knew it didn’t sound convincing, because he did feel a bit sick. And it was with a stone in his heart that he trudged after the other two to the refectory at break time. Ruff found a seat and began pointing animatedly out of the window, where Jenks and Skinner loitered in a thin drizzle. It was clear that the thought of having to face Ruff’s leg-pulling this break was not something they were prepared to contemplate.
“Look at them,” Ruff jeered, “like two lost, damp strings of—”
“Stop gloating, Ruff,” Ellie said, but it was a half-hearted protest. She was grinning, too, at the sight of the two class jokers having the tables turned upon them.
“But I am the Gloatmaster,” Ruff said loudly, standing up and giving Jenks a one-nil gesture with his fingers and sounding like a cheap voiceover merchant. Jenks sent back a very rude gesture with a face purple from suppressed rage, much to Ruff’s obvious delight. It was hilarious, but Oz just couldn’t bring himself to respond.
“Come on, Oz, the row with your mum couldn’t have been that bad, could it?” asked Ruff, seeing the look on Oz’s face
But as far as Oz was concerned, it was. He told them exactly what had happened after he’d got back from the match. Ellie and Ruff listened in stunned silence, but their horrified expressions spoke volumes. When he finished with describing how he’d picked up the shattered pieces of the trinket box, he looked up at them, knowing exactly how a guilty man in the dock must feel as he waited for sentencing. Ellie and Ruff exchanged a wordless glance, but it was Ellie who finally whispered in an awed voice, “Sugar. Are you saying that you’ve actually found the obsidian pebble?”
It was such a totally unforeseen question that Oz could only stare at her and nod. He’d been expecting her to say something about his being banned and no football. But she seemed much more interested in his find.
“That is so cool,” she said, grinning.
“Yeah, buzzard,” Ruff agreed, his eyes alight.
“But,” Oz protested, “didn’t you hear the rest of it? I’m grounded and Mum’s banned you from coming over.”
“That’s not going to stop us talking, is it?” Ellie said with a shrug.
“And there’s Skype and texting,” Ruff added.
“But what about Sunday soccer?” Oz said miserably. “She says I’m not to play.”
“League’s finished ’til after Christmas now, anyway,” Ruff said. “Cup matches. Different teams for that. We usually don’t bother.” He shrugged and Ellie nodded.
Staring at them as his brain tried to absorb this new information, Oz mumbled weakly, “But I thought…”
“Thought what?” Ellie asked.
“I thought that you would…that the two of you might say…” his voice trailed off.
“Say what, Oz?”
He forced the words out in a rush, eyes averted. “That me letting the Lions down and you not being able to come over… I thought that the two of you might not be bothered to hang about with me anymore.”
There was a moment of hanging silence as Ellie and Ruff regarded Oz with crumpled, bewildered faces.
“Are you stark raving bonkers?” Ellie said finally, with a little shake of her head.
“We can still practise football here at school,” Ruff reasoned. “And you can still practise goalie stuff at home, can’t you?”
“Yeah,” Oz admitted grudgingly.
“Why would your mum grounding you make any difference to us?” Ellie said with another shrug. “My mum’s always flying off the handle. They get over it.”
Oz sat back. It was as if a huge dam of relief had burst inside him, leaving him completely drained. But Ellie wasn’t finished.
“The three of us, we’re mates, Oz,” she said with a slightly cross, quizzical look. “And anyway, we’ve got two of Morsman’s artefacts. Two! We can’t give up on that now. I’m doing loads of research on Puffers, and the cipher is driving Ruff mad.”
“I’ll crack it. You wait,” Ruff said, his eyes narrowing.
Oz stared at them both, blinking rapidly. He pushed himself up from where he had hunched forward on the refectory table, utterly flabbergasted. He had dreaded telling them, and yet they seemed to be taking it all in their stride. He beamed at them both and they looked back at him with slightly puzzled, wary looks.
“You have to admit it, Oz,” Ruff said as he bit into a pasty, “sometimes you can be a bit weird.” But a smile was visible behind the pastry crumbs, while Ellie just kept shaking her head slowly with a “what are you like” look on her face.
“Your mum must have been really ballistic to throw the box out of the window,” Ruff said, cheeks bulging.
“Not funny, Ruff,” Oz warned him, but he was smiling, himself, now.
“Anything you can do to change her mind?” Ellie asked. “I can usually get around my mum, one way or the other.”
“One or two ideas,” Oz said happily. He’d had none up to a minute ago, but the others’ determination over Morsman was infectious.
Ruff turned back to the window, where Jenks and Skinner, hair plastered to their heads from the drizzle which had suddenly erupted into a downpour, glared in at them venomously. Suddenly, Ruff stood up and began chanting, “One-nil, one-nil, one-nil.”
The rest of the school turned to look and, amazingly, took up the chant, too, much to Jenks’ and Skinner’s horrified disgust. As they slouched away, sending off even more rude gestures than they had before, Oz doubled up in laughter. He giggled all the way through history and got a telling-off from Miss Lenon for finding the name of a fourteenth-century historian called Alanus de Cretyn hysterically funny. Of course, it was made ten times worse by Ruff, who whispered that having a name like that must have been a real bummer for the poor bloke.
* * *
The second half of the Christmas term slid busily by, as the weather turned colder and the days shorter. Oz had never had so much homework to do. The teachers had given up on the honeymoon period of the first half term, and were always on about how much work there was to get through. And what with trying to fit in research about alchemists and goalkeeping practise, Oz found that he was too tired to even dream about the grey-eyed girl anymore. But one morning in early December, Mrs. Chambers sat down at the breakfast table opposite Oz as he spooned cereal into his mouth and proffered a tired smile.
“Oz, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I’ve been a bit harsh.”
Oz stopped munching and looked up.
“I may have overreacted a little,” she added.
The cereal spoon remained halfway between the bowl and Oz’s mouth. But Mrs. Chambers was quick to quash Oz’s hopes.
“I’m not talking about that Morsman nonsense.” She held up a wagging finger. “I don’t want hear another mention of that rubbish in this house, is that clear?”
Oz nodded slowly. Mrs. Chambers got up and crossed to the calendar, which she repositioned over the head of the black dog before turning back to sit down opposite Oz.
“But I think that it’s a bit unfair of me to ground you for so long. So, and this depends on you making a real effort in your end of term exams, I think that you should go to the school party, and that Ellie and Ruff can come and stay afterwards.”
“Really?” Oz said.
“Really.”
Oz got up and kissed his mother’s forehead. Instantly, her smile became the wide and generous one he was used to seeing. “Mum, we didn’t mean for any of this to upset you,” Oz said with feeling.
“I know you didn’t and I don’t blame you entirely. Caleb should have known a lot better than to…” She hesitated, as if saying what she was about to say was suddenly unnecessary. Instead she changed tack. “So, when do your exams start?”
“In a week,” Oz said.
Mrs. Chambers nodded sympathetically and began clearing things from the table. “By the way, Lorenzo’s calling sometime this week to bring some of your dad’s stuff back.”
But Oz was only half-listening now. She’d just given him the best news he’d had in days. He couldn’t wait to tell Ellie and Ruff. He finished off his cereal and ran upstairs to clean his teeth and check his emails. But his laptop, which had almost run out of battery power just before breakfast and which he’d plugged in to charge, was now stone dead. And there was no light in the bedroom, either. Cursing, Oz yelled down the stairwell, “Mum, electricity’s off again.”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Chambers groaned. “That’s the third time this week. Right, I’m calling Tim.”
As Oz did his teeth, he wondered how they’d managed before Tim had moved in. Drains, central heating and now electrics—there wasn’t anything he seemed unable to turn his hand to. By the time Oz got back down to the kitchen, Tim was there with his toolbox.
“Thank you so much,” Mrs. Chambers was crooning. “The wiring in this old place is ancient, as you know.”
“Probably something to do with the fuse box. It’s in the basement, isn’t it?” Tim said sagely.
“Yes, it is,” Mrs. Chambers said. “I have a torch somewhere.” She rummaged in the utility room cupboard and emerged with his dad’s old rubber-handled work torch. “Tim is going to have a look, see if he can fix it for us once and for all,” she said, her eyes gleaming, confirming Oz’s conviction that she was halfway around the bend. Why anyone would get so excited about repairing a fuse box was a mystery to him. He watched as his mother led the way down into the basement, which was pretty big and damp and junk-laden.
“Did you do courses in school on house maintenance?” asked Mrs. Chambers, her voice getting dimmer as she descended.
“No. You’ll have to thank my dad,” Tim answered. “He was always dragging me along to fix things…”
Oz grabbed his bag and headed out of the door. It was a soggy, drizzly day, and the daylight seemed reluctant to make much of an appearance this morning. Oz pulled up the hood of his coat and kept his head down. He’d gone twenty yards when he remembered that he’d left his pencil case upstairs next to the laptop when he’d gone to check his email. The power cut had completely driven it from his mind. He wheeled about and ran back. Inside Penwurt, the kitchen was deserted, but Oz could hear voices drifting up from below. Quickly, he ran upstairs, but just as he reached the landing a door slammed on his left. There was nothing on that side of the stairwell other than Caleb’s apartment. Oz backtracked and crossed over. He walked quietly along the short landing and tried Caleb’s door. It was locked. Oz shrugged. Maybe he’d misheard. Perhaps the noise that his mother and Tim were making was being carried up to this side.
But he couldn’t for the life of him think of anything electrical that might make a noise like a slamming door. He went back to the stairwell and his own bedroom and stopped. The door to his dad’s study was open. He was sure it had been closed when he’d gone down to breakfast, because it was always kept closed. His mother’s reasoning was that there was no need to attract dust by keeping the door open, but really Oz suspected that she didn’t like being reminded of its emptiness.
Intrigued, Oz crept forward and pushed the door fully open. There was still the empty desk and a chair. On the wall, the clock still hung silent and inscrutable, the hands showing nine fifteen. But there was something different. Oz glanced around, and then he saw it. The indentations made by the legs of the desk in the carpet were clearly visible an inch behind where the legs themselves rested. Someone had been in here and moved the desk. But who? His mother and Tim were in the basement. There was no one else in the building except…Lucy Bishop. Quickly, Oz checked the secret drawer in the clock—everything was safe. He ran down to the kitchen and got the key to the study, then ran back up, grabbed his pencil case, locked the study door and dropped the key back off on its hook next to the fridge.
* * *
“So you think it was Lucy Bishop snooping, then?” Ruff asked over lunch, after listening to Oz fully recount his morning’s discovery.
“Who else could it be?”
“The ghost?” Ellie suggested. “Miss Arkwright did say that poltergeists can move stuff.”
“And open and shut doors?” Oz shook his head dubiously.
“What do you think she was looking for?” Ruff asked, spooning apple crumble into his mouth with alarming speed.
“Anything and everything, I expect. She knows we bought the dor from Eldred, don’t forget.”
Ruff nodded.
“You’ve got everything safely hidden, have you?” Ellie asked, chewing her lip.
“No one but us three knows about the clock. I can’t think of anywhere else that’s safer.”
And neither could the other two.
Not every day was damp and horrible that December. Occasionally, a proper winter’s day would turn up with a sharp morning frost and a clear blue sky, in which the sun tried vainly to warm the air. On these days, Oz would hurry home and make use of the thin afternoon light to practise goalkeeping. It was on one of these bracing days, as Oz hurried back to Penwurt, when he walked through the gates to find two extra cars parked in the driveway. One was a black Rolls Royce with blackened windows. The other was Lorenzo Heeps’ Jaguar.
Oz went straight to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk, and while he was pouring it his mother appeared, looking slightly flushed and a little apologetic.
“Hi, Oz. You’re back early.”
“No, I’m not,” Oz said. “I’m always back at this time.”
“Are you?” Mrs. Chambers said airily. “Must have lost track of time. We have guests.”
“I saw the cars,” Oz said.
“Then you ought to say hello.”
“Mum,” said Oz, fearing where this was going, “it’s not raining and I really need to get outside to practise.”
“Don’t worry. I just want you to say hello. Just to be polite,” Mrs. Chambers added, seeing the look of misery on Oz’s face.
Grudgingly, Oz followed his mother into the room where he’d spoken to Dr. Mackie and to the policemen. Heeps sat on the sofa, and it was he who spoke as soon as Oz walked through the door.
“Here’s my little man,” Heeps said, beaming.
Oz offered a toothless smile in the hope that they wouldn’t see his teeth grinding behind his lips.
“Oz, this is Mr. Gerber.” His mother waved her hand towards another man sitting in one of the armchairs.
Oz took in a tall, upright figure dressed in a black suit and highly polished shoes. His shirt was white and had a curiously high collar done up tightly with a black tie. Folded on the man’s knees was a heavy black coat, with a hat to match. He was very pale, and the contrast between his white skin and his oddly long, swept-back black hair was stark.
But it was the man’s face that drew Oz’s gaze. It was smooth and taut, except for around the eyes, where a hundred tiny lines spread out from sunken orbs that glittered between dark-rimmed lids that looked as if they’d been deprived of sleep for a long, long time. The face was expressionless and Oz got the strangest feeling he was looking at a waxwork, but those eyes stared back with a dark and calculating intelligence. Gerber stood slowly, like a thin, shadowy insect unfurling itself from a cocoon. He was taller than Heeps as he held out a hand to Oz. It was long and bony and felt cold in Oz’s palm.
“How do you do, Oscar?” said Gerber in a voice that was deep and devoid of any accent.
“Fine, thanks,” Oz replied, and stood regarding them.
“Lorenzo and Mr. Gerber called for some tea,” Mrs. Chambers explained, her expression an unconvincing grimace of a smile.
Oz nodded and gave her a scathing look. He wasn’t born yesterday.
An uncomfortable pause opened up and ended only when Mrs. Chambers let out an awkward little laugh and said, “Oz wants to get on with some football practise, don’t you, Oz?”
“Yeah. If I can.”
“Off you go, then,” Heeps said. “Don’t let us keep you. We’re just talking adult stuff here,” he added with a sort of donkey snort as he smoothed his beard with a thumb and finger.
As he hurried away, Oz heard Gerber say in his slow bass voice, “Charming lad.”
Oz practised hard, but couldn’t concentrate as much as he would have liked to because he kept thinking about how weird Gerber looked. And, more importantly, he kept wondering why he was here at Penwurt at all. Oz had seen a couple of overflowing cardboard boxes in the hall, which meant that Heeps had brought some stuff back. But he didn’t need Gerber’s help for that.
By half past four, it was getting too dark for Oz to see clearly and he missed a couple of saves. It was no good; he’d have to pack everything away until the weekend. As he replaced the mattresses against the wall in the unused garage that had become his storage space, he heard voices and saw a light flick on outside the front porch. It was dark in the garage, the single bulb long since blown, and he knew that no one would see him in this deep shadow.
Heeps and Gerber appeared with Mrs. Chambers behind them. Gerber took a step back to admire the building and Oz heard murmured words like “…magnificent,” and “imposing,” but despite his straining it was really difficult to hear anything clearly. Passing traffic on the street was loud enough to interfere with Oz’s hearing, and it was just about approaching rush hour in Seabourne so cars were annoyingly frequent. From somewhere in the house came the shrill noise of a telephone ringing and Oz saw his mother excuse herself to answer it. He heard the front door close, and then saw Heeps and Gerber exchange some words in low tones.
Straining, he managed to hear only fragments of what was being said. He heard Heeps say, “…bloody stubborn boy,” and “…come around eventually,” but Gerber’s deep, sonorous voice was more difficult to pick up. In a lull of traffic he heard, “…everyone has a price,” then a gap and something odd that sounded like, “…Rollins in the manger.” They were just isolated snatches which made no real sense at all to Oz. They clearly did to Heeps, though, who broke off and laughed uproariously at what Gerber had just said.
But then movement from the corner of the house caught Oz’s eye. Someone was hurrying towards the men. A slight, female figure strode purposefully forward. Lucy Bishop walked straight past a surprised Heeps and went right up to Gerber, who watched her approach without moving. She said something to him and although Oz didn’t catch it all, from her tone it sounded urgent and somehow imploring.
“Please…we can’t…only you…help him…”
Gerber spoke only once and it was too low for Oz to hear, but the effect it had on Lucy Bishop was to make her body turn rigid before sagging dejectedly. Gerber turned to walk towards the Rolls Royce, but Lucy Bishop put out a hand to grab his coat. Gerber stopped and looked down at the hand. He didn’t say anything, but the driver’s door of the Rolls Royce opened and Oz saw a figure half-turn as if to get out. Gerber didn’t move, but both Lucy Bishop’s and Heeps’ heads snapped up towards the car. Instantly, Lucy Bishop let go of Gerber’s sleeve and took an involuntary step backwards, while Heeps, too, let out a strangled bark of surprise.
Gerber didn’t wait any longer. Quickly, he moved towards the car, opened the back door and got in. With that, the figure in the driving seat turned back into the unlit darkness of the car and shut the door with a heavy click. Immediately, the engine purred into life and the car began to glide out onto Magnus Street.
When Oz looked back, Lucy Bishop had disappeared and Heeps was getting into his Jaguar, but Oz saw that he kept glancing about him, as if he was worried that he was being watched. There was nothing smooth about Heeps’ leaving, and the big car’s tyres squealed as rubber strained for traction against the tarmac.
Oz stood in the deep shadow of the garage, feeling his own pulse beat rapidly in his temples. What had threatened to leave the driver seat of Gerber’s Rolls had been more than a simple chauffeur. A shadowy shape had filled the space with the squat, bald-headed driver at its very centre, and that shape had sported dark, folded wings with clawed fingers and a wrinkled, flat-nosed face with huge ears. In the darkness of the garage, recalling it sent a shudder through Oz. He had never seen a six-foot-tall bat before, but suddenly he knew exactly what it might look like.
* * *
Oz told Ellie and Ruff later that night, as they chatted online.
“But what were Gerber and Heeps doing at yours?” Ellie asked.
“Bringing Dad’s stuff back, apparently.”
“Likely story,” Ruff said.
“So if it wasn’t a social call, either…?” Ellie left the question hanging.
“Probably looking at a nice property to buy,” Oz said grimly.
“But your mum, she—”
“Isn’t talking to me about anything anymore,” Oz cut across her bitterly. “I reckon she’s just ignoring what I think.”
“That’s buzzard,” Ruff said.
“What’s worse is that Lucy Bishop is obviously tied up with Gerber, somehow.”
“You think she’s spying for him?” Ruff asked.
“What else?” Oz said. “But the funny thing is, she was as freaked at seeing that bat bloke in the car as anyone.”
“So, what now?” Ruff said.
“Gerber,” Oz replied. “We find out as much as we can about him. Try and work out why he wants Penwurt so badly.”
Afterwards, Oz went up to the library to finish off an essay on a poem they’d read in class that afternoon, but he took his laptop with him. He’d emailed Caleb to tell him about Lucy Bishop and Gerber, but there’d been no reply. He’d just about given up at ten, as he finished off the essay and began collecting his books for the morning, when he heard the tell-tale tone telling him he had incoming mail. It was from Caleb, and it was a very strange and very short message.
Oz, thanks for keeping me informed. Best we don’t do this too often. Be careful, Oz. Be very careful. I suggest you delete this email once you’ve read it.
He did read it, several times in fact. What did Caleb mean? Be careful of Lucy Bishop, or of Gerber? Oz knew well enough to be careful of Heeps. Or was Caleb talking about something else altogether? He could try ringing him, but Caleb hadn’t picked up the last few times he’d tried. Oz suspected that his mum had made Caleb promise not to be in contact.
Frustrated, Oz got up, switched off the light and stared out the turret window at the night sky. He loved being up here when the stars were out, and there were stars tonight, millions of them, twinkling up there in the infinity of space. Oz knew that what he was seeing was light from hundreds of thousand of years ago. The farther away, the longer it took to travel. Chances were that some of those stars didn’t even exist in the here and now. It was a mind-boggling thought. The traffic had died and all was quiet on Magnus Street. Somewhere, he heard a dog bark. And, as he moved to pick up his books and go to bed, from deep in the orphanage behind the library wall Oz could swear he heard, faint but unmistakable, the sound of distant footsteps.