varying degrees of anger directed both at herself and others.
Jordy seemed to have rallied his own strength of spirit and asked, ‘You OK, Clo? You look a bit down. Don’t worry about that old mountain up ahead – we’ll probably find a way round it.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried, Jordy.’
‘How about you, big buddy?’ cried Jordy heartily, putting an arm round Alex’s shoulders. ‘You OK?’
‘Couldn’t be better,’ murmured Alex, without conviction. ‘Happy as a kookaburra. Hey!’ His voice brightened and he pointed. ‘There’s Nelson, out there on the horizon.’
There indeed was the chubby princely shape of Nelson, rolling along on his three pins as if he were still at home. Nelson was a cheering sight to the three children. The familiar figure barrelled along seemingly unconcerned by the plight he was in. He had something in his mouth.
‘Nelson! Nelson!’ called Chloe.
The ginger tom saw the children and came to them. He dropped a dead mouse at their feet.
‘Oh, Nelson,’ said Chloe softly, in admonishment.
All his life Nelson had been bringing his human friends such gifts. But were they pleased? Not a bit. Never. Often, they were annoyed. There was no fathoming such ingratitude. But he still kept trying.
He allowed himself to be fussed and stroked with such affection as he had never known before then, seeing that his gift had been spurned, he picked it up again and wandered off into the gloom. It seemed so normal to the children, to see their cat rolling along without a care, that they too took heart.
Jordy especially felt that, as the eldest, he ought to show a bit of leadership. Leaders, according to the captain of the cadets he used to belong to when he and his dad were on their own, do not reveal any private concerns to their followers. Leaders show a granite jaw and talk tough. They share the problems, but not their worries. It was one thing having three heads to sort out an obstacle, but another to lay one’s fears on the shoulders of the rest of the group. Things were not desperate, he kept telling himself, only matters for concern. If they all stuck together, and used their common sense, they would come out of their travels unscathed.
So far they hadn’t found a single watch, which told Jordy something about their search. It seemed to him that the watches must all be gathered in one place, just like the war weapons ahead of them. There must be a hill of watches somewhere, which would make their search easier, he felt. After all, to look for one watch, which might be hidden anywhere, was daunting. Looking for a whole sparkling hill of watches, then sorting through them for the one they wanted, seemed a much easier task.
‘What’s that?’ he cried, alarmed, as he saw something out of the corner of his eye. ‘Over there!’
But when the other two followed his pointing finger, all they could see was a bundle of rags under a feather-boa tree. Chloe took her list of books from her pocket. It comforted her to see how many fantasy novels there were on it and to recall how many of them ended happily.
‘If I find something to write with – and on,’ she told herself, ‘I’ll transfer the list, maybe update it, on a better bit of paper.’
‘What?’ asks the bat. ‘Come on, spit it out.’
We ought to warn them, says the masked board-comber. We ought to tell them to beware of Katerfelto.
‘You need to protect the girl, is that it? You think she’s got a map in her pocket, don’t you?’
She does keep looking at that piece of paper.
‘It might be a shopping list. A tin of boot polish. A dozen eggs. That sort of thing.’
I think it’s a map.
‘That still doesn’t mean there’s something in it for you. No one would have a map showing a cache of Eskimo ornaments, now, would they?’
Inuit. You must call them Inuit. There could be lots of things, mutters the board-comber, which I could use to trade. Stage jewels. I know lots of board-combers who collect stage jewels. Porcelain figures. Stamps. Cigarette cards. If there’s treasure on that map I want it.
‘You want? You want? That’s a bit selfish, isn’t it? What about those poor kids over there? They were nearly killed by those villagers, you know. Did you go and help them then? No. And why? Because you knew you could get the map afterwards, once they’d been murdered. If it’s lost up the mountain, though,