Big Change for Stuart (14 page)

There was a groan and a nasty thud.

‘Dad?' called Stuart, horrified. ‘Are you all right?'

‘MR HORTEN?' SAID
another voice. ‘Are you all right?'

Stuart looked round, and realized that in that fraction of a second he'd come back to the museum again, and April was peering concernedly over his shoulder.

He looked back and saw his father lying on the floor beside the Fan of Fantasticness, his eyes open and a red mark on his forehead.

‘Are you OK?' asked Stuart, bobbing down beside him.

‘That was so odd,' said his father. ‘So odd …'

A cold hand seemed to grip Stuart's heart. Had his father's speech changed for ever? ‘What was odd, Dad?' he asked hoarsely.

‘I hallucinated that I was solely able to communicate in monosyllables, which led to considerable bafflement in my attempts to disseminate information to you. However, as I appear to have sustained a frontal cranial contusion, I was presumably experiencing a series of hypnagogic images which have now effectively dissipated.'

The cold hand let go of Stuart's heart again; his father was obviously going to be absolutely fine.

‘You're right,' said Stuart. ‘You got a bit of a knock when the fan folded up.'

‘The Fan of Fantasticness?' asked his father, getting slowly to his feet.

‘You told me that
fantasticness
isn't a real word. We should call it the Fan of Fantasticality.'

‘But I thought you wished me to favour a more curtailed approach to vocabulary?'

‘Shorter words, you mean?'

‘Yes.'

‘No,' said Stuart firmly. ‘Definitely not. I want you to stick to the usual mad long stuff that I can't understand any of.'

April had been watching the conversation, her expression puzzled. ‘What's been going on?' she asked.

Stuart grabbed the Magic Star from its socket and beckoned her over to a corner.

‘Dad used the star,' he whispered, holding it up so she could see that there were only three spokes left.

‘
What?
'

‘Accidentally. And I caught hold of him and managed to go along too. Sorry, it was an accident – it happened when we were trying to fold the fan. And you were right about how it's done.'

He could see her struggling with disappointment. ‘So what was the adventure like?' she asked, a bit glumly.

He thought for a moment; it was hard to describe it in the kind of words that he normally used. ‘Peculiar, unpredictable, frustrating, extraordinary,' he said.

‘You're sounding like your dad,' remarked April, managing a small smile.

The door opened with a bang, and Rod Felton strode in.

‘Splendid news,' he said in his usual enthusiastic bellow. ‘TV are interested.
Midlands at Midday
want to do a live feature on our special magical exhibition and they're sending a camera crew round in the morning. Can you be here at nine sharp?' he asked, glancing from Stuart to April.

They nodded, and then looked at each other. ‘We're going to be famous!' whispered April, grinning with excitement. ‘I must tell May and June,' she added. ‘They can come along and report on it for the
Beech Road Guardian
.'

‘And could you be here too?' the curator asked Stuart's father. ‘Only I've had a rather brilliant idea about how to drum up advance interest in the Roman Beeton exhibition as well, and I need someone who can tell a strigil from a hypocaust.' He laughed as if he'd just told a joke, and Stuart's father laughed as if he'd just heard one.

‘I should be honoured to assume such a role,' said Stuart's father, and Rod Felton bounced happily out of the room again.

‘Actually,' said April, ‘I've got another invitation. My mum says do you two want to come over for a barbecue this evening? Dad's cooking steaks.'

While April's dad filled the back garden with smoke, and May and June chopped up vegetables for coleslaw, April dragged Stuart into a corner by the shed and made him tell her every detail of the Amazing Maze.

‘So the letters so far are S, W and O,' she said, and chewed her lip for a moment or two. ‘And what about the mysterious phone call? You haven't told me about that yet, either.'

‘Oh, right …' Stuart hesitated. The thought of that strange and tempting conversation made him feel uncomfortable. ‘It was from a very old Canadian lady called Miss Edie who wants to buy all Great-Uncle Tony's tricks.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, that's the odd thing. She said she'd promised her grandmother, and that her grandmother had told her that Great-Uncle Tony hid a will in one of the tricks, leaving everything to the
person
who finds it, and—'

‘Hang on,' interrupted April, flapping her hands. ‘You said that this Miss Edie was really old.'

‘Yes.'

‘So when did her grandmother die?'

‘Eighty-five years ago.'

‘So before Great-Uncle Tony was even
born
?'

‘Yes.'

There was a long pause.

‘Did she seem a bit mad?' asked April tentatively.

‘Not specially,' said Stuart.

‘OK, well, let's ignore the grandma thing for the time being, it's just too strange. This hidden will, though – presumably it's the thing that all the letter clues are taking us towards. It said:
Lead you to my w
— didn't it, in the note? And I bet Miss Edie wants you to find it because then you'd be able to
prove
the tricks are yours, and you'd be free to sell them to her. But you wouldn't do that, would you?'

‘Wouldn't do what?' asked Stuart, still flabbergasted (
as
ever) by how quick and clever April was.

She spoke again, her voice confident. ‘You wouldn't sell your great-uncle's fantastic legacy – which you had to work so incredibly hard to find – to some woman you'd never met just because she offered you a bit of money?'

Stuart didn't answer. In his head he could still hear Miss Edie's crackly, insistent voice:
Being rich means you can get anything you want. What do you want, Stuart?

Over by the barbecue, Mr Kingley was forking the steaks onto plates, and Stuart's father was setting up a table and chairs. May (or June) lugged a bowl of salad from the house, and June (or May) started pouring out drinks.

‘Grub's up,' shouted Mr Kingley.

Stuart got to his feet, his stomach rumbling.

‘I've just thought of something quite funny,' said April, following him up the garden. ‘What if
I
found the will? Then the tricks would belong to
me
!'

Grinning, she went to sit down, but Stuart remained standing, and he wasn't grinning at all.
Though
part of him knew that April was only joking, another part was seething with panic and jealousy.

They're mine
, he thought,
not April's. They're mine to keep. And mine to sell
.

WHEN ROD FELTON
had said that a camera crew from
Midlands at Midday
would be turning up at the museum, Stuart had expected:

and, possibly,

What he hadn't expected was:

and finally,

For an hour Stuart and April stood in a corner and watched the producer and the director walk randomly around the room, pointing at things. They saw the assistant to the cameraman move a large lamp six times, before replacing it with a small lamp. They saw the dog investigate every single item in the room before lying down in a patch of sunlight and going to sleep.

‘What's wrong with these people?' muttered April. ‘They're so
slow
. Why can't they make any
decisions
?'

‘Hi there,' said the producer, at last ambling over to see them. ‘We're just waiting for our presenter to arrive. When she comes, we'll stick her in front of one of these trick thingies for the interview. Maybe she can sit on the big throne with all the flowers.'

‘It's actually called the Reappearing Rose Bower,' said April.

‘Is it?' he asked, not sounding terribly interested. ‘Or we might go for that Wishing Well thingy. She could throw a coin in. Or maybe the red cupboard thingy with the swords.'

‘You mean the Cabinet of Blood,' said April. ‘They've all got names, you know. And seeing as you haven't decided yet, can I suggest you use the Fan of Fantasticality as a background? It's really beautiful when it's open, and we've worked out how to shut it as well. Do you want us to show you?'

‘No, that's OK,' said the producer.

‘It's no trouble. And it would definitely look really good. And the mirror arch is really impressive as well – maybe you could start with a shot of that, and then one of us could actually hide inside the Pharaoh's Pyramid and—'

The producer was beginning to look a bit irritated by April's stream of suggestions, and Stuart was just about to give her a nudge to shut her up when the door opened and yet another person came in.

This time it was a tall and glamorous-looking woman with glossy hair the colour of conkers, a cream suit, and shoes with heels so high that she was practically walking on tiptoe.

‘
What
a drive I've had!' she exclaimed. ‘I barely knew that this town existed. Miles and miles and miles from anywhere!'

The producer hurried over to her, and so did the boy who got coffees, and there was some gesturing towards Stuart and April, and a fair amount of whispering. Then the woman came over to them, her heels clacking on the wooden floor.

‘Hi!' she said, looking down at Stuart. ‘I'm Rowena Allsopp.'

It was obvious from the way she said it that Stuart was supposed to know who she was. He glanced at April.

‘Famous Midlands TV presenter,' muttered April out of the side of her mouth.

‘Hello,' said Stuart. ‘You're a famous Midlands TV presenter, aren't you?'

‘That's right, and you're the one who found Tiddly Tom's magic tricks, are you?'

‘We both did,' corrected April quickly. ‘And he wasn't called Tiddly Tom, he was called Teeny-tiny Tony Horten.'

‘And how old are you?' asked Rowena, not even glancing at April. ‘Eight?'

‘Ten.'

‘Oh.' Rowena sounded a bit disappointed.

‘I'm ten too,' said April.

‘OK.' Rowena nodded, totally ignoring her. ‘Let me go and have a word with my producer.' She click-clacked off again, and odd bits of the conversation floated back: ‘… see what you mean about the girl … more impact if the story's just about the small fellow – we needn't mention his age …' and then, rather faintly, ‘I can't bear bossy kids …'