A Most Magical Girl - Karen Foxlee Page 0,34

ledge, where she grasped a metal grate and remained.

“Help,” she said, coughing, and she saw Kitty go sailing past in the boat.

“Stay there!” shouted Kitty, and she cursed the girl again. “I’ll try and stop.”

The river gushed through the brick tunnel; it sped Kitty away in the little boat. It banged her against the walls and spun the boat like a leaf on a stream. Kitty grabbed an oar and tried to row against the current, but the boat would not be slowed. She heard Annabel’s calls, farther and farther away in the darkness.

“Stay there,” shouted Kitty once more, and she paddled as hard as she could. She paddled and paddled, until she managed to turn the boat lengthwise. The tunnel obliged by growing narrower at that very point, and the bow and stern wedged against the walls so violently that she nearly fell out.

“Annabel,” she called when she had recovered herself. “Let go of the wall and let the river bring you down. I’m stopped here—you’ll find the boat.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” cried Annabel. She was out of the water, shivering against the grate. There was no way she was going back in.

“You must!” she heard Kitty shout from somewhere far away. “You can’t just stay there.”

Annabel looked at the dark water surging beneath her toes.

She didn’t like the river, the secret river, hidden away so long ago beneath the city. Rivers were meant to be clean and pretty, with grassy green banks, like the ones she had gone boating on with Isabelle Rutherford. Rivers were places where you giggled behind a parasol and admired the view.

She had never had anything so terrible happen to her.

She closed her eyes and wished it all away.

“Hurry up!” came Kitty’s voice. “The boat’s nearly gone, and that’ll be the end of you.”

“Fiddlesticks!” shouted Annabel, and she jumped into the stinking black water again. She didn’t think she’d ever been crosser.

Kitty heard the splash. “You’ll hit the boat!” she shouted to encourage Annabel but heard nothing, just the river’s loud voice against the brick walls. “Annabel?”

Nothing but the river racing by.

“Annabel?”

Then a thump. A definite thump, with the little boat tilting to one side and Annabel’s face appearing in the darkness.

“Here,” said Kitty, and she dragged Annabel forward until she had her beneath the arms. She hauled Annabel’s stinking, sodden mess into the boat and laughed.

“Stop it!” shouted Annabel, and then she coughed so violently that she spewed over the side.

Kitty had never seen a young lady so thoroughly ruined. She looked at Annabel’s fair hair, all undone and tangled; her rosebud dress, all muddied.

Annabel stared back at her with disbelief. She’d never met anyone so rude. She’d nearly drowned, and the terrible girl had laughed.

“Beg your pardon,” said Kitty, and she replaced her laughter with her solemn green-eyed stare. “You just look a mess, is all.”

“Well, I nearly drowned,” said Annabel. All she could smell was the terrible river. It was stuck up her nose and down her throat. She could taste it, and just the thought made her begin to wretch again.

“Nearly, but you didn’t,” said Kitty. “I saved you.”

Annabel should say thank you, she knew it, but she didn’t want to. Not to someone who had saved her and then laughed at her. The green-eyed girl never stopped looking at her.

“I’d be very pleased if you stopped staring at me,” Annabel said instead, very politely.

Kitty laughed her little laugh again. She took an oar and pressed it hard into the brick wall until the bow of the boat loosened and spun and the boat was moving again.

“We have to find a way up out of here,” said Kitty. “We’ll need your map.”

Annabel held her hand to her face. She remembered her reflection in Miss Estella’s mirror. They were in the boat for a purpose, to find the Morever Wand, and deliver it to the Great & Benevolent Magical Society and save all of London, including her home. The remembering quite took her breath away. Home! She wanted her house and her mother and Mercy calling her for supper. The boat raced along on the dark river. It was taking her farther and farther away from all those things. She had never seemed so far away from everything that she knew.

“B-b-but we’ve got to go to Under London,” stammered Annabel. “To find the wand and stop Mr. Angel.”

“You can do all the looking and saving you want,” replied Kitty. “I want up above. I only said I’d take you to the wizards