Casper stayed very still for several seconds. Perhaps whoever it was had made a mistake and would just clear off. But there were footsteps now, and they were climbing the stairs.
“Urgh. Even the staircase stinks of his mother’s weird cooking.”
Casper flinched. It was Candida; clearly she hadn’t finished with him yet.
“Why does she insist on cooking African food?” she tutted. “Doesn’t she know that over here we eat cucumber sandwiches and custard creams?”
Casper wished that he was brave enough to stand up for his mum, but he was too frightened, so he made a mental list of his hiding options instead.
Kitchen cupboard: not big enough.
Under his bed: too obvious.
Beneath his parents’ bed: too messy.
Behind the sofa: really?
And then his eyes rested on the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Casper had seen his dad open it up the night before—there was something wrong with the pendulum and both clock hands were stuck at twelve, he’d said—but a dodgy pendulum was the least of Casper’s problems. He charged toward the clock, yanking the door open using the key slotted into the lock, then he snatched the key out and bundled himself inside.
It was dark within and it smelled of dust and secrets.
“Casper?”
Casper held his breath.
“I know you’re in this poky little turret,” Candida cooed as she tiptoed over the carpet. “And I know for a fact that your parents aren’t. I saw your mother walking down the drive earlier and the lights are still on in your father’s workshop.” She paused. “And there I was assuming your door was always locked…”
Casper’s heart beat in double time as he listened to Candida stalking through the flat. Cupboard doors opened and snapped shut in the kitchen, then Casper watched, through the narrowest crack in the clock door, as Candida returned to the sitting room and dug her nails into the back of the sofa.
“You think I’d let you get away with dumping Leopold in detention?” she hissed. “Do you have any idea how wealthy his family is? His father’s so rich he can make people disappear with just one telephone call.” She lowered her voice. “Your parents would never find you; you’d just wake up one day in Greenland or somewhere equally ghastly and that would jolly well be that.”
Casper grimaced at the thought of such a drastic change to his timetable and tried to ignore the pendulum digging into his shoulder. Then his eyes widened. Candida was right outside the clock now. She looked it up and down, as if regarding a pile of dirty laundry, and Casper didn’t dare blink. Then she flounced from the sitting room into Casper’s bedroom.
Such was the way that Candida moved—dramatically, impatiently, like a spoiled little monarch—that in her wake a small gust of air slipped through the crack in the grandfather clock. The dust around Casper shifted and seemed to glitter in the half-light and it was then, in that hushed moment, that the Extremely Unpredictable Event occurred.
The key Casper was holding now looked altogether different. Without the layer of dust covering it, he could see that it was not simply a dull lump of metal anymore. It was silver and in its base there was a turquoise gem, which was glowing. And it was because of this glow that Casper saw he was not alone inside the clock.
There, sitting opposite him, was a girl holding a small white envelope, out of which she was pulling a note. The girl looked up and, upon seeing Casper, jumped before hastily shoving the note into her pocket and glaring at him.
Casper blinked. Then he blinked again and rubbed his eyes. But the girl was very much still there and she was unlike anyone he had ever seen before. She had tiny gold stars scattered over her cheekbones; she was wearing overalls with several wrenches and screwdrivers poking out of the front pocket; and, most disconcerting of all, she smelled strongly of the Outdoors, a place Casper tried to avoid at all costs because of the wide-open spaces and the lack of lost and found baskets, which made hiding from particular classmates very tricky.
The girl cracked her knuckles and Casper flinched. Was she a burglar? Or an accomplice of Candida’s? But what kind of burglar or accomplice dressed like this? And had she crept inside the turret after lessons or had she been sneaking around up here all day?! Casper tried to gather his thoughts. The clock isn’t big enough for two people to hide in and the girl was definitely not here when I climbed inside because I would’ve sensed her or bumped into her, despite the dark. Wouldn’t I?
But as Casper stared ahead in disbelief, he couldn’t help feeling that the inside of the clock looked somehow bigger now. Roomier. More like a cupboard, perhaps, or an old closet.
The girl narrowed her eyes, like a cat might do before pouncing, and Casper shrank inside his blazer. Was it safer in the clock with this odd girl or outside in the flat with Candida? He couldn’t decide. So he did what most people in England do when they find themselves in an awkward situation: nothing.
It was the girl who spoke first. “So, you’re the criminal.”
Casper paled. If Candida overheard the girl talking, he’d be toast. So he closed his eyes and tried to pretend that what was happening wasn’t. Because it couldn’t be. Pendulums and hanging weights were what you found behind grandfather clock doors. Not strange girls in overalls.
A finger prodded him in his ribcage and Casper’s eyes sprang open. The girl was dangerously close now and the gold on her cheeks glistened. She shuffled backward again, pushed her hair—which was white-blond and wild about her face as if she’d been shoved into a tumble dryer and pulled out mid-spin—back from her eyes, and glowered at Casper.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fall asleep mid-arrest. That’s what dungeons are for.”
Casper raised a shaking finger to his lips in an attempt to make the girl be quiet. Surely at any moment Candida would fling open the grandfather clock door if she heard the sound of a voice inside it? But nothing happened. Perhaps Candida was still rooting through his bedroom. He tried to think rationally. The girl inside the clock must be a pupil at Little Wallops—someone younger than him, someone extremely forgettable—and yet looking at her now, Casper couldn’t help feeling that he’d remember someone like her.
“I… I don’t recognize you from school,” he whispered.
The girl wiggled her feet, which were bare and scuffed with dirt. “That’s ’cause I’m usually too busy getting expelled from classes.” She paused. “But they always let me back in, in the end. There’s a shortage of bottlers in Rumblestar right now, so it’s important I get a decent training.” She frowned. “Stop distracting me. I’m trying to arrest you.”
Casper felt sure that Candida would find him now—this girl was hardly making an effort to be quiet—but for some strange reason she didn’t appear and Casper found himself whispering another question. “Where on earth did you come from, then?”
“The sky,” the girl replied. “Obviously.”
“The sky doesn’t spit out children,” Casper hissed. “That would be ridiculous.”
The girl shivered. “You sound just like a grown-up.”
Casper thought of Candida again. Was she rummaging through the kitchen cupboards now or had she given up and left the turret? “I don’t know who you are or where you’re from,” Casper whispered to the girl inside the clock, “but I’m not a criminal—you are for trespassing onto private property! I’m just a Year Six boy hiding in a grandfather clock, and right now we need to keep quiet.”
The girl snorted. “I’m only ever quiet when I’m sleeping, and even then I’m pretty sure I snore.” She looked around. “Besides, you’re inside a Neverlate Tree, not a clock. You really are a very stupid criminal not to know where you’re hiding! And not even bothering to disguise your face or your clothes to even try to look a tiny bit more like one of us!”
Casper was losing patience now. “If this is a tree, then why is there a pendulum digging into my shoulder?”
The girl looked faintly amused. “There’s not. But the Neverlate Tree is a bit wonky inside, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re leaning against a crooked piece of wood.”
Casper twisted his head round and his palms tickled with sweat. Where the pendulum had undoubtedly been there was now a gnarled wooden bump. And mingling with the smell of dust and secrets was the warm, wild smell of a tree. Casper swallowed. The situation was getting dangerously out of control. What was going on?
The girl folded her arms. “The Neverlate Tree grows excuses for those heading back to the castle late, but the envelopes only open if you climb inside to read them.” She snatched the note from her pocket and held it up so that Casper could see:
Busy capturing criminal
Now, had she been a little less hasty and a little more thorough, the girl might have turned the piece of paper over and seen the words on the other side. But she was not that sort of girl; she moved fast, talked lots, and thought very little about the consequences.
“So,” she said, “I’m going to drag you up the steps with me by your ears or your hair or whichever hurts more, then the Lofty Husks will punish you for tampering with the kingdom’s marvels and”—she grinned—“reward me for being the hero to bring you in!”
Casper’s eyes bulged—not at her words, though they made no sense at all, but at the lump wriggling past the wrenches and the screwdrivers in the pocket on the front of the girl’s overalls. A blue-scaled, winged creature about the size of a fist poked its snout over the edge of the pocket and squinted at Casper.
The girl rapped the creature on the head. “Not now, Arlo. I’m extremely busy.”
The miniature dragon—for that, to Casper’s amazement, seemed to be what it was—let out a bored growl, then slunk back into the pocket.
The girl rubbed her hands together. “Now, where were we?”
Casper’s pulse was racing. Overalls, dungeons, and now dragons called Arlo… He needed to put a stop to all this now, so he rammed his shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge. He tried again, this time with his foot, but still the door wouldn’t move.
The girl sniggered. “Neverlate Trees only open again for you if you’re holding an excuse.” She wiggled the note in the air. “Everyone knows that.”
Casper ignored her and pummeled at the door with his fists. “Er, Candida? If you’re still out there and now is a good time for you, I’d love to take that beating.”
“I don’t mind doing the beating myself,” the girl in the clock said hopefully.
Casper flung himself at the door, but still it held fast. And then the girl pushed the door gently, and to Casper’s shock and relief, it swung open. Light flooded in, drowning the turquoise glow, but as Casper scrambled out of the clock after the girl, he was surprised to find that his feet did not meet with carpet. They met with something cold and hard.
Stone.
Casper looked up and his stomach lurched. His sitting room was gone. Candida was gone. The grandfather clock was gone. In its place there stood a very old tree. And hanging from the twisted branches were—Casper gasped—not buds, not leaves, but dozens of small white envelopes.