‘That’s it! You’ve found her, Clod, you’ve bloody found her!’ I gave him a kiss then, right on the lips for the joy of it. He looked punched afterwards, as if I’d struck him. ‘Got her name!’ I said. ‘Now we need to find her. You’ll ask about, Clod, won’t you, find out what happened?’

I took the bonnet off and my hair came down, and I heard Clod whispering, ‘I shall start flying. Oh, I’ll bump on the ceiling!’

‘What?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all, Lucy Pennant,’ he said. ‘It’s very red, isn’t it, your hair. You kissed me.’

But then he went all white again.

‘Just a kiss, Clod.’

‘Albert Powling!’ he whispered. ‘Hurry!’

We hid behind the Great Chest, which now had twelve feet when only a moment ago it stood on eight.

Footsteps, then more footsteps, different footsteps. Then speaking too.

‘I heard something,’ came a man’s voice.

‘Yes, Uncle Timfy, what was it?’ This one was younger.

‘I think it was voices. Stunly, Divit?’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘I want you very alert, I’ll not have these city Ires telling us what’s what. I’m the what’s what around here. I don’t care that Idwid’s back, what’s Idwid to me? He’s always putting me down. So what that he’s a Governor? I’m the one that looks after Heap House, I’m the one with eyes that work. I’m a House Uncle, I am, and I will have my respect. Well then, you’ve done your rounds, who’s missing, who’s out when they should be in?’

‘Tummis, Uncle.’

‘And Clod.’

‘There’ll be no trousers for them if ever I have a say in it. Where’s Moorcus?’

‘On the task!’

‘What’s that now?’

A rustling sound, a patter of feet upon the marble slabs.

‘It’s that bird again.’

‘Catch it! Trap it!’

And from our hiding place I heard Clod whispering, ‘Oh no.’

A great shriek.

‘Got it, Uncle!’

‘Good boys, good boys.’

‘Hilary Evelyn Ward-Jackson,’ whispered Clod, ‘oh no!’

More footsteps, more people arriving. ‘Look what I found!’

‘Tummis Iremonger!’

‘Wateringcan! Wateringcan! There you are at last!’

‘Wring it, snap it!’ yelled the one called Uncle.

And then there was a noise like a stick being snapped in half.

‘Wateringcan!’ someone yelled in pain.

‘Well done, Moorcus. Take him, upstairs now, to Umbitt himself!’

And then they all went away again. And panting, shaking, we crawled out, there was the seagull on the floor.

‘Oh, my poor, poor Tummis,’ said Clod.

‘And poor Wateringcan,’ I said.

‘It must all stop, it’s all going wrong,’ he said. ‘Give me the door handle, Lucy, for good and all.’

I untied my hair then, and handed it over.

‘We’ll meet tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘Yes, yes,’ Clod said in a panic, ‘you know the Sitting Room?’

‘With the red sofa?’