Authors: Catherine Jinks
At one point, when a snot-nosed toddler began to trail after Newt (who was last in line), Jake lunged at the poor little boy like a guard dog, yelling, ‘
Get lost
or I’ll punch your head in!
’
Coco was scandalised. ‘For God’s sake!’ she scolded. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘They’re just children, Jake,’ Holly gently reminded him.
‘No, they’re not,’ Jake growled.
Marcus had to agree. ‘They can’t be real kids, Mum,’ he pointed out, ‘because one of them is you, remember?’
‘I used to let them push me around, but not anymore,’ Jake said, on his way into the ladies’ room. ‘They don’t exist. They’re nothing. They make me sick.’
He was still heaping abuse on the children when he suddenly spied Prot – and was startled into silence. The robot hadn’t moved. It was patiently holding the lift door, awaiting new instructions.
Sterling seemed pleased. ‘There. What did I tell you?’ he remarked to no one in particular. ‘It’s reliable enough.’
Coco gave a snort. She and her stepchildren piled into the lift, just ahead of Sterling and Marcus. When Holly stepped inside, tugging Jake along with her, the narrow box began to feel very cramped.
‘Right,’ said Coco. ‘So where to now?’
All eyes swivelled towards the panel of buttons, which were numbered zero to nine. There were also four control buttons: ‘open door’, ‘close door’, ‘alarm’ and ‘stop’. The alarm button was inscribed with an exclamation mark; the stop button bore a cross inside an octagon.
‘Press zero,’ Marcus suggested. ‘Prot? Push that button there.’
The robot obeyed, but nothing happened.
‘Okay.’ Sterling’s tone was thoughtful. ‘What about button number one?’
Again, nothing happened. Prot tried every single number, slowly and deliberately, without success.
‘We need a code,’ Sterling muttered. ‘There must be a code number for that travel agent’s office.’
‘What about the alarm button?’ Coco weighed in. ‘Maybe if we press that, someone will come and save us.’
When Prot pushed the alarm button, a high-pitched bell rang. But after a tense five-minute wait, everyone began to lose hope. ‘There would have been a response by now, if it was working at all,’ said Sterling.
‘I knew it!’ Newt broke into a wail of despair. ‘We’re stuck! We could be here forever!’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her stepmother snapped. ‘There has to be a way out . . .’
‘All we need is the code for that office,’ Sterling reiterated, much to Newt’s annoyance.
‘But we
don’t
have it, do we?’ Her tone was sullen. ‘And we don’t know how to get it, either!’
‘Yes, we do,’ said Marcus. When everyone turned to stare at him, he cleared his throat, took a deep breath and announced, ‘Miss Molpe can tell us the code number.’
Jake gave a hiss. ‘Oh, no.’ He shook his head. ‘No way. You can’t do that.’
‘Do what?’ asked Edison.
‘Are you proposing we lift the lid on that suitcase?’ Coco said to Marcus, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Are you
kidding
me? Yuk!’ cried Newt. ‘She’ll be a gooey old skeleton by now! No
thanks!
’
Marcus stubbornly held his ground.
‘Jake says she’s still alive,’ he insisted. ‘We should at least try talking to her.’
‘But she’s a witch!’ Jake was raking his fingers through his hair. ‘You can’t trust her! She lies! This whole place is a lie, because it’s her creation! And she has special powers . . .’
‘I know. Magical powers.’ Marcus had no doubts on that score. He was a total convert when it came to magic. ‘The thing is, though, you locked her in a suitcase. So she can’t be
that
powerful, can she?’
It was a good point. It certainly had an impact on Jake, who looked briefly confused.
‘And if she really is a siren, but she’s lost her voice, then she can’t persuade us to stay here,’ Marcus went on, clinching the matter, as Holly caught Jake’s wrist.
‘I think we should do what Marcus said,’ she quietly recommended. ‘I think we should go and see if this . . . this Molpe creature is still alive. And if she is, we can ask her for a code number.’
‘Which you won’t get,’ Jake warned.
‘Then we won’t let her out.’ Coco’s tone was brisk. ‘And if we
do
let her out, we’ll keep her in a headlock or something. You can take care of that, Jake. I’m sure you’ve got the muscles for it.’
‘It’ll be all right, Jake,’ Holly promised. She took his hand and squeezed it in a gesture of reassurance. ‘You’re not a little boy, now – you’re a big, strong man. And we’re all here with you, backing you up.’ As he gazed down at her anxiously, she smiled and murmured, ‘You can take a few risks now. You can confront your old fears. Because you’re not alone anymore.’
J
AKE WANTED TO TAKE A CRICKET BAT INTO
M
ISS
M
OLPE
’
S
caravan, but Holly wouldn’t let him. ‘If you think I’m going to stand by while you brain some little old lady with a piece of wood, then you don’t know me very well,’ she’d declared. So when he finally jerked open the caravan door and charged inside, he was wielding his clenched fist and nothing else.
Luckily, he met with no resistance. No lurking predator tried to ambush him. The caravan was tidy and peaceful, its floors neatly swept, its pillows plumped, its kitchenette spotless.
‘There isn’t a speck of dust,’ Coco whispered, as she followed Jake over the threshold. ‘I wonder who does the cleaning around here? I’d certainly hire them.’
But the pristine condition of the place didn’t interest Holly. She was more impressed by its layout and furnishings. ‘Look at this!’ she hissed at Marcus. ‘This is our caravan! Look at the curtains! Look at the stove!’
Marcus grunted. His gaze was fixed on the only grubby, dilapidated item in the whole room: Jake’s suitcase. It was big and brown and weighed down by dozens of heavy books. Its latches were rusty and its corners were dented.
Jake gave it a kick with his bare sole, which was hard and leathery.
‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘Wake up!’
Marcus caught his breath. So did everyone else. There was a brief, agonised silence.
Then a muffled voice trilled, ‘Is that you, little Jake?’
Holly squeaked. Marcus felt sick.
‘Oh my God,’ said Coco. ‘That’s her! That’s Miss Molpe!’
‘It’s
Big
Jake now, you old bat,’ Jake snarled. He kicked the suitcase again. ‘So shut up and listen.’
‘Oh my God, she’s still alive!’ Coco was talking through both hands, which she’d clapped over her mouth. ‘How
awful!
’
‘She can’t be real,’ Newt argued, triggering a sudden, excited response from her brother.
‘Maybe she isn’t real!’ he cried. ‘Maybe she’s part of Jake’s dream holiday!’ Seizing Jake’s belt, he gabbled, ‘Isn’t your Diamond Beach supposed to be a copy of the real Diamond Beach? Well, maybe
this
Miss Molpe is just a copy of the
real
Miss Molpe!’
‘You’re right, you’re right, I’m just a creation. I sprang from Jake’s imagination,’ Miss Molpe carolled from inside the suitcase – which received yet another swift kick from Jake.
‘Shut up!’ he barked. ‘Stop lying!’ To Edison he said, ‘What do you think I am, a weirdo? Why the hell would I want a cannibal witch in my dream holiday?’
There was no arguing with logic like that. Edison immediately subsided as Jake addressed Newt.
‘She’s as real as you are,’ Jake insisted. ‘And she’s still alive because she’s a witch. Now what do you want to ask her?’
Newt, however, was sulking. It was Marcus who replied.
‘We want to know the code for Siren Song Travel,’ he said. ‘So we can take that lift back to the office where we first started.’
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Jake, directing his raised voice at the suitcase. ‘We want the code for your office! Right now! Or we’ll set you on fire!’
There was a shifting, scraping noise. Then Miss Molpe warned sweetly, ‘You’ll be trapped here forever if you set me on fire. Let me out and you’ll have your heart’s desire.’
‘Oh, will you stop with the
rhymes
?’ Newt exploded. ‘They’re so
irritating!
God!’
‘We’re not going to let you out,’ Jake growled. ‘Why should we do that?’
‘To make sure that she gives us the right code,’ Marcus weighed in, before the siren could respond. Seeing Jake’s confusion, he quickly elaborated. ‘What if she lies to us? What if she deliberately sends us somewhere really dangerous? If we don’t bring her along, we won’t stand a chance.’ As Jake chewed at his bottom lip, pondering this advice, Marcus concluded glumly, ‘We shouldn’t let her out of our sight until we get home.’
‘Yes, and then we should call the police,’ Coco suggested. When everyone turned to stare at her, she exclaimed, ‘It’s a perfectly legitimate way of dealing with sociopaths!’
Newt gave a snort. ‘Yeah, right,’ she scoffed. ‘Like the police are going to believe a story like this one.’
‘If we tell the police
,
they’ll probably arrest us for unlawful restraint,’ Holly fretted, at which point Miss Molpe spoke up.
‘I’m old and I’m weak. I’m a friend, not a foe. It’s not vengeance I seek – won’t you please let me go?’ she begged.
‘Shut up,’ snapped Jake. Marcus, however, was more accommodating.
‘We’ll let you go once we’re back in the cellar,’ he promised Miss Molpe. ‘The sooner you tell us the right code, the sooner you’ll get out.’
His mother gasped. ‘You mean you want to take her with us in that
suitcase
?’ she protested. ‘Oh, no. No. That’s horrible.’
‘We have to, Mum.’
‘I’m strong enough to carry her, don’t worry,’ said Jake. But Holly didn’t look convinced.
‘I make children happy. I make dreams come true. You’ve no cause to entrap me if that’s all I do,’ Miss Molpe warbled, much to Jake’s annoyance.
‘You’re not fooling anyone,’ he retorted. ‘We know what you
really
are.’
‘I’m a songstress, a wise woman, kind and meek. Let me out and I’ll give you whatever you seek.’
Jake ignored her. ‘I guess your plan does make sense,’ he said to Marcus, grudgingly. ‘She won’t help us unless she’s got a reason to. Otherwise she’ll send us straight down a live volcano or something.’
‘That’s right,’ Marcus affirmed.
‘And maybe when we get home, we can hand her over to the police,’ Jake concluded. Suddenly he bent down to yell at the case. ‘Did you hear that, you old bag? If you tell us the code
right now,
we’ll let you out when we get home. Otherwise you’re going to be locked up forever and ever.’
There was more creepy scratching. At last Miss Molpe sang, ‘How do I know you’re not lying to me? What will you give as a guarantee?’
Jake and Marcus looked at each other. Then Jake winked at Marcus – who realised that Jake had no intention of freeing the captive.
Perhaps Holly reached a similar conclusion, because she promptly announced, in a firm tone, ‘Don’t you worry about that, Miss Molpe. I’ll have you out of there just as soon as we get home. If you keep your side of the bargain, we’ll keep ours. I give you my word.’ Having reassured the siren, Holly fixed Jake with a reproving glare and murmured, ‘God knows, I don’t intend to stash a little old lady on the top shelf of my linen cupboard until the day I die.’
For a moment Miss Molpe said nothing. Then she abruptly capitulated. ‘Thank you, my dear, your word will suffice. I’m deeply grateful – you’re very nice.’
‘Oh, for God’s
sake
!’ Newt screamed. As everyone gaped at her, she pointed a trembling finger at the suitcase. ‘If she doesn’t stop all that
goddamn rhyming
, I’ll kick her teeth in, I swear!’
Jake laughed. ‘Did you hear that?’ he asked the suitcase. ‘If you don’t stop all that goddamn rhyming, you’re going to get your teeth kicked in. Now . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘What’s the code number?’
J
AKE HAD BEEN TELLING THE TRUTH
. E
VERY ONE OF THE
albums piled on top of his suitcase was stuffed to bursting with grisly photographs. There were shots of chandeliers made from ribs and vertebrae; skulls stacked up like profiteroles; bones arranged neatly on shelves; bones dumped in ditches or scattered around like garden ornaments.
‘I’ve been there,’ Coco remarked, pointing at a rosette constructed entirely out of knee joints. ‘That’s in Rome, under a church. The whole place is decorated with hip bones and things.’
‘Look at this!’ Holly had picked up the oldest-looking album of all. It was bound in vellum, and the pictures inside weren’t photographs, though they
looked
realistic. Instead, they were engraved in gold on coloured glass, and they showed a rocky seashore covered in rags and ribcages, with five beaming, birdlike creatures perched on a cliff-top eyrie. ‘Do you think these are the sirens?’
‘I don’t know,’ Coco responded, squinting at the group portrait, ‘but I have to tell you, that sure looks like Capri. I had a
lovely
holiday in Naples once, and we took a boat to Capri for a day trip. Fabulous shopping.’
‘Who cares?’ Jake dumped the last books on the floor. ‘Let’s go.’
But when he tried to lift the suitcase, it was too heavy for him. Even after he’d kicked it a few times, accusing Miss Molpe of purposely ‘stacking on the weight’, he still couldn’t hoist it more than a few centimetres off the ground. Finally, he and Sterling each had to take one end of the suitcase and carry it between them like a trunk, gasping and straining as they shuffled along.
‘She thinks she’s going to
sweat
us into letting her out early,’ Jake groaned, during a brief rest stop near the kiosk. ‘Like we’re stupid enough to fall for that kind of trick.’
Miss Molpe said nothing. But Marcus heard her sigh.
‘Are there any adults around here?’ asked Coco. She was keeping her eye on all the scruffy, silent kids who were drifting along behind Jake. They looked slightly lost, as if they didn’t know what to do next. ‘
I
certainly haven’t seen any.’