Dan and the Caverns of Bone (13 page)

I shrug – a small, British one this time.

I know why they've gone. Luci and her friends live below the radar, off the map. Under the ground. The press were bound to find them sooner or later, hungry for more of the story I span last night. They could never live with that. After all I'd done to protect it, the squat was over anyway.

But there's something I see – a glint in the ghostlight from Si.

It's a pair of purple shades, on the arm of the big fancy chair.

I slip them on.

‘Daniel,' says Si, at my side, ‘there's nothing else for you here. Let us return to your home and your family. You will have other clients. The one thing the world is never short of is ghosts and their regrets.'

‘Yeah. But I think I'll just take one last look at the catacombs, Si. You know, to see what I could have won.'

The cellar door is slightly open. I look around for a skull candle, but I don't see one. In fact, all the bones that once decorated the squat have vanished completely. There is a candle in a jam jar, though, and a small box of matches.

I light up and walk down.

Nothing here has changed of course. The corridors of bone, the macabre sculptures – all as creepy as before. I walk through the public areas I now know so well, half expecting to be stopped by a policeman, but there's no one at all. I squeeze between the bars as if they aren't there.

There are no boats beside the river when I reach it, but there wouldn't be, would there? I shimmy across the chain and creep into the party chamber. I'm sorry that I never got to see this place in full swing. I could tell Si that ghosts aren't the only ones with regrets, but I can't be bothered.

The chamber is almost unrecognisable. It has been cleaned entirely – the snack boxes, litter, candles and cushions are all gone. Even the huge glitter ball has been taken down. And something else is different too.

‘They put them all back,' says Si, sweeping his light across the walls of bone. ‘All of them.'

And he's right. All the skulls from the squat have been fixed back into the wall of the Party Cavern. But not just any old how. They have been arranged in giant letters, letters that spell out two words:

AU REVOIR.

Till we meet again.

And whether that's a message to me or to this place or to Death himself, I guess I'll never know.

But hey, that's my life all over.

And I never let it get me down.

What's that? You want to know what Lavache said as he was arrested? You want it
translated
?

‘It's only fair to your readers, Daniel. We don't all have the chance to borrow languages from ghosts.'

You understand it, though, don't you, Si?

‘Naturally. He believed he “would have got away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you… er… interfering children”.'

Close enough, Si. That's close enough.

Dan's first adventure is also available from Bloomsbury.

When Dan's spectral sidekick Simon brings him the spirit of a teenage shoplifter, things get seriously out of control. Now Dan's on the hit list of a very dangerous and very badly dressed gangster – not to mention being stalked by a crazed Victorian magician who cut off his own head. (Don't ask.)

£5.99            ISBN: 978-1-4081-5412-0

Copyright © 2013 A & C Black
Text and illustrations copyright © 2013 Thomas Taylor

This electronic edition published in June 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing

First published 2013 by A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square,
London, WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com

The right of Thomas Taylor to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

eISBN 978-1-4081-7817-1

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