“No no, you mustn’t come. I know how busy you are. They will be flying both of them back to Paris tomorrow, and I’m sure it will all blow over then. Everything is under control, my dear.”

It was all Max could do not to leap out from behind the tapestry and seize the telephone from her great-aunt’s hand. Maman, she thought, her heart squeezing painfully. Maman, it isn’t under control. It isn’t. Please come.

But her mother couldn’t make things all right. Only Max could, and she had to stick to the plan. So she stayed still, and listened as Great-Aunt Elodie chattered and giggled, and eventually her mother’s anxious murmuring relaxed. Finally there was the click of the phone being returned to its place: and just like that, Max’s mother was gone.

Then came the doorbell – once, and four more times to make sure – and the tap-tapping of the butler again. Max was too hot behind the tapestry, and cramped from staying so still. Some croaky yelling came from the doorstep, then the butler tapped away; a pause; he came tapping back again.

“Please follow me,” Max heard him say. “Madame Morel will see you in the drawing room.”

When the butler’s tap-tap had retreated, followed by one set of enormous footsteps and one scuttle with a menacing click-click-click, she poked her head out. No one there, unless you counted the ruby statue of a bird that hung in its cage by her head. She stayed very still for a moment, listening. Then at last, she moved.

So did the bird.

Max managed not to cry out, just about. She peered closer at the figurine. Was it mechanical?

Slowly, painfully, the bird put its head on one side, and opened its beak in a soundless plea.

A nasty feeling surged up from Max’s stomach to the top of her throat. Not mechanical. Alive. It was a real bird, with jewels threaded on to every feather, like beads on a braid of hair. Max looked around the hall, and realized that they were all alive. They were too heavy to flutter about, and too dispirited to sing, but they were blinking. If you watched closely, there was the occasional twitch of a weighty wing.

“Cah,” wheezed the ruby bird, in reproach.

Max was so chilled by those living trinkets that for a few moments she forgot the whole plan, and stood frozen in horror. Some Ester-noises from a little way away brought her back with a start. She hurried off, following the sound.

“Sorry,” she whispered to the ruby bird – budgie, maybe? Lovebird? – as she left. She wasn’t quite sure why she said it, except that she felt that someone ought to.

“Cah,” sighed the ruby bird. It closed its eyes.