‘He’s doing it deliberately,’ says Eric under his breath.
‘Who? What?’ I say. We’re lying on the roof of Eric’s house, using the telescope and a pair of powerful binoculars to watch the village. I’m watching Tilly. She’s got the new, plastic box that the shrunken snake was imprisoned in after the episode at the castle. The snake was still pretty big when we caught it, but once we’d used Grandma’s hosepipe to wash off the dust, it began to shrink so that it was an ordinary small-knotted-snake size by the time we saw Mum and Dad.
They gawped and Mum said, ‘Don’t some funny things happen in this village?’
‘Quite extraordinary,’ agreed Dad, mopping his brow as if he’d captured the knotted snake himself.
I sometimes wonder if my parents have any idea what’s going on.
Dad then hid the snake in the crazy golf hut, so that he could return it to the Animal Rescue Centre tomorrow, but Tilly’s like a bloodhound when she’s looking for something. It took her ten minutes to find it.
I imagine she also discovered that I’ve found my meteorite. I get a curious feeling somewhere between smug and terrified. While Tilly thought she had the meteorite, she probably thought she had the upper hand. Now she knows I’ve got it back, she might start all over again.
Even the thought makes me feel tired.
‘The Professor,’ says Eric, eventually. ‘He’s distracting everyone with the dust so that we can’t see what he’s really up to.’
‘Ah,’ I say, not really listening. I’m watching Tilly. With these binoculars I can see her hands really clearly. I’m worried that she’s going to open the lid. But there’s nothing I can do to protect her from her own stupidity – there isn’t time for us to get down the stairs, along the road and into the model village before she opens it.
Sometimes I wish I had a mobile phone.
A flurry of wings, and the cockatoo lands on the chimney pots beside us. ‘Boys!’ it squawks, before flying off again.
Tilly sinks to the ground next to the model village lake and pokes a stick under the edge of the lid.
‘Don’t,’ I say aloud.
‘What?’ says Eric, his telescope trained on the castle.
‘Look.’ I point towards the model village.
‘Crumbs,’ says Eric.
I hold my breath as Tilly slides the stick along under the lid and begins to lever it up.
‘Here it comes,’ I say.
The lid pops open and I brace myself, waiting for a super-fast stab from the snake. Nothing happens. Tilly leans forward and peers into the box.
‘Don’t do that,’ says Eric, beside me.
She reaches for her stick and pokes the snake. I hold my breath again. I’m in awe of her lack of imagination. She pulls back on the twig and hoists the tiny, knotted snake from the box. It honestly looks about the size of one of Jacob’s rubber worms that he put down Mrs Worthy’s back at the first session of Field Craft this summer.
‘Whoa,’ breathes Eric. ‘It’s minuscule! It’s gone on shrinking.’
‘But she can’t keep it,’ I say. ‘It’ll grow again.’
For a moment I can’t see her as my view is interrupted by a string of white vans whizzing up the road from the castle and on out of the village.
When the vans have gone, and I can see Tilly again, she’s dangling the snake in the pond. It can’t swim, not least because it’s all knotted. ‘She’s going to drown it! Even for Tilly that’s a bit cruel.’
‘What’s he doing?’ Eric points towards the front of our house. Professor Lee’s lurking outside our garage again, this time with no wheelbarrow.
‘What’s she doing?’ I point to Lily Lee, standing flat against the wall, further along the street. ‘She looks as if she’s watching him.’
The professor tries the garage door, glancing around himself and pressing on the most battered panel at the end. He’s obviously pushing quite hard because his feet are sliding on the road.
The door gives way and he plunges into the darkness.
‘Oh dear,’ says Eric.
A second later, the professor appears in the doorway with the huge and heavy disappearing cabinet.
‘How’s he … ?’
The question’s answered by another white van racing up from the castle. It screeches to a halt outside our house.
‘No!’ I shout, but behind the van Grandma bursts out of our front door, her arms full of Eric’s dad’s clean washing. The van driver panics, and takes off down the road, leaving the professor standing in the garage doorway holding the disappearing cabinet and looking absolutely thunderous.
Grandma doesn’t spot him, just carefully locks the front door before heading in our direction.