the cliffs.”
“And how do you know that, Master Wigby?” asked Madam Scargill from just down the row of children, her hands firmly planted on her hips. Ian jumped at her voice and mentally cursed her sharp hearing.
“Er …,” he said, struggling to come up with an explanation while Searle giggled wickedly behind him.
Madam Scargill marched down the row of remaining children. “Yes, please explain how you know this, Master Wigby, especially as it has been expressly explained to you that you are forbidden to go anywhere near those tunnels.”
Ian gulped again. He knew now that there was no avoiding it—he was in trouble for sure—but as his mind raced, he realized that there was no help for it. Lives were at stake and he’d have to fess up. “Yesterday, Theo and I may have gotten a little closer to the edge of the cliffs than we realized, and we were about to turn back when we discovered a small hole in the ground that opened up to a large cavern and a series of tunnels.”
Out the corner of his eye, he saw Theo glare at him, so he quickly added, “Theo, of course, begged me not to go into the cavern, but I wouldn’t listen, and I dropped through to take a quick look.”
Madam Scargill opened her mouth, obviously prepared to give Ian a thorough tongue-lashing, but the earl put his hand on her arm and said gently, “Let the boy speak, Gertrude. I’d rather find the creature’s lair than worry about the explorations of the lad, just yet.”
Ian cleared his throat, unsure if that meant he was in serious trouble or not. Still, he went on. “The cavern fed into a tunnel that led far underground, and I followed it for a while before I came to a second large cavern. That’s where I got the box, Madam,” he admitted to Madam Scargill. “It was set in the dirt there.” Madam Scargill’s eyes narrowed at him, but the earl’s hand on her shoulder prevented her from telling Ian what she thought of him at that moment.
“What box?” asked Thatcher.
Ian turned to his new schoolmaster. “We found a small silver treasure box, sir.”
“I confiscated the box,” interrupted Madam Scargill. “There was an argument over it on the lawn and I thought it better to hold on to it until the issue was resolved.”
“And where is this treasure box now?” asked the earl.
Ian caught himself before answering. If he told them that he’d hidden it up in the east tower, everyone would know that he’d done the unforgivable and trespassed into Madam Scargill’s room.
Madam Scargill said, “It was in my room. But I daresay the thing must be destroyed by now. The beast made a complete wreckage of everything up there.” She gave a small sniff.
“I could go look for it,” Ian said quickly. “It might still be intact, and I bet I could locate it if I had to.”
The earl regarded him with a wry smile. He was a wise man and he seemed to have caught the way Ian had been quick to offer up hope that the box had survived the beast’s wrath. “Very well, Ian. But first, tell us about this tunnel. How do you know that’s where the beast is?”
Ian knew that he had no choice now but to tell the entire story, start to finish, so he explained. “While we … er, I mean, while I was pulling the box free, I heard a horrible noise behind me. It was like a howl and a growl combined. So I yanked up the box and ran for my life, and with Theo’s help I barely escaped out the hole I’d come through before the beast got to me.”
“But why didn’t the beast just follow you out the hole?” asked Perry.
Ian resisted the urge to shudder as his memory took him back to the image of that giant snout sticking out of the hole he and Theo had barely made it through. “It was too small for the beast to fit through. But I suspect it either found a way to make the hole larger or it found another way out.”
“So it’s your fault?” yelled a voice right behind him. Ian turned to see Searle, who was furious, his hands curled into fists and his chubby cheeks flushed with anger. “You brought that horrible thing directly to us!” he yelled. “You and that wretched box!”
Ian’s eyes grew wide as he glanced around at the faces of the