The Warriors of Brin-Hask

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ‘So I call her Arabella Moonglow,’ said Sophie T, ‘because she’s all white, see?’

  Amelia bent over the baby rabbit in Sophie T’s cupped hands. ‘She’s so soft!’ said Amelia.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sophie T, passing the rabbit to Amelia. ‘Here, you can hold her.’

  Amelia heard a groan behind her. Charlie was jiggling up and down, his face so warped by impatience that Amelia had to stop herself from laughing.

  In a minute, Amelia thought. The end-of-school bell had only just rung, and there were heaps of other kids in the playground for Charlie to hang out with for five minutes.

  ‘Amelia,’ Charlie muttered, ‘how long –’

  ‘So,’ said Sophie T loudly, as though Charlie hadn’t spoken, ‘do you want one? Arabella is mine, obviously, but there are four other bunnies in the litter. Sophie F is coming over this afternoon to pick hers. You could come, too.’

  Charlie coughed.

  Amelia sighed and gave the rabbit one last pat. All right, Charlie. I haven’t forgotten you.

  But Sophie T saw her disappointment, and snapped at him, ‘Is there a problem, Charles?’

  Charlie instantly bristled with anger, but before he could open his mouth to speak, Amelia bundled the rabbit back into Sophie T’s arms and babbled brightly, ‘Oh, my goodness, thanks for reminding me, Charlie. Sorry, Sophie, I’ve just remembered I have to get back to the hotel this afternoon as soon as I can …’

  She rattled on, trying to fill in the space so that nobody else could get a word in. The last thing she needed right now was for Charlie and Sophie T to start on each other.

  Sophie T slitted her eyes at Charlie, a look of pure venom, but then turned back to Amelia and said sweetly, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. You can come to my house some other day. Any day, actually. I’m sure it would make a nice change for you not to be forced to hang out with …’ She paused, flashed a split-second sneer at Charlie, and then went on, ‘I mean, hang out at such a creepy old hotel.’

  Amelia felt a prickle of unease. She was suddenly aware that every kid left in the playground had stopped whatever they were doing, and were now listening to their conversation.

  ‘Forced!’ Charlie barked. ‘As if anyone would have to be forced to hang out at the hotel!’

  ‘As if anyone asked you!’ Sophie T shot back.

  ‘I don’t need to be asked,’ Charlie was almost yelling now. ‘I practically live there! You’re just jealous because no-one has asked you.’

  Amelia froze. How could he say that! He knew how nearly impossible it was for Amelia to invite any of her school friends back to the hotel. She’d already been to three afternoon teas at Sophie T’s, and spent one Saturday morning at Sophie F’s, and felt really, really slack about not returning the favour. Soon, her mum promised. Soon, but not quite yet …

  And Charlie was using it against Sophie T, as though Amelia didn’t want to be a real friend to her.

  Luckily, by this stage Sophie T was so angry she didn’t pause to take up the point with Amelia. She just lashed back at Charlie, ‘Jealous? How stupid are you, Charles? The only reason I haven’t been to the hotel is, I don’t want to! And not just because you practically live there, either. Although it does prove my point, because any place you think is cool must be pathetic.’

  ‘Ha!’ shouted Charlie. ‘Ha! That shows what you know! For your information, the hotel is –’

  Amelia yelped and leapt between them, and heard herself shrieking, ‘Charlie! That’s enough! Shut it!’

  Sophie T swelled with triumph, and turned smoothly to Amelia. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted –’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sophie,’ Amelia butted in gently. ‘But Charlie’s right. I’ve got to get back to the hotel now.’

  She didn’t look back as she and Charlie walked past every other kid in the playground and out through the school gates. Then again, she didn’t need to. She could feel Sophie T’s furious eyes on her back the whole way.

  It wasn’t the best start to the weekend. It was bad enough worrying about whether Sophie T would still be her friend by Monday, and trying to sort out in her own head exactly how angry she should be with Charlie, but she also had to deal with Charlie being angry. And not just angry at Sophie T – he was angry with Amelia!

  ‘Me?’ she said. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘You,’ Charlie said bitterly, ‘took her side and told me to shut up!’

  ‘You were about to blurt out the whole thing! What do you think I should have done, just stood there and let you yell out to the whole school that I live in a top-secret alien hotel? That we have a gateway that connects to every known wormhole in the universe? I should have let you wreck everything just to prove I’m on your side?’

  Charlie stopped walking and stared at her, aghast. ‘You think I was about to tell her that?’

  Amelia frowned. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, that’s just insulting. Yeah. Thanks heaps, Amelia. That’s great. You must really think I’m as dumb as Sophie T says.’

  ‘All right, then.’ Amelia stood in front of him, her arms crossed. ‘What were you going to say?

  For your information, the hotel is –’ she prompted him.

  ‘Like living on a movie set,’ Charlie finished. ‘With a real hedge maze with a fountain hidden in the middle, and an attic filled with cool junk, and an orchard with apple trees big enough to climb in. That’s what I was going to say.’

  ‘Oh.’ Amelia bit her lip. ‘Sorry. I thought …’

  Charlie shrugged. The worst bit was, Amelia knew he was really hurt by her not trusting him.

  ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Everyone in Forgotten Bay thinks I’m an idiot. I’m used to it.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot! I just thought Sophie T had made you so mad that –’

  Charlie snorted. ‘She’s the idiot!’ He pulled a face and said in a high voice, ‘Do you have a problem, Charles?’

  ‘Yeah, that was horrible.’

  ‘No, that was the funniest bit,’ Charlie grinned. ‘She thinks she’s so great, but she doesn’t even know – my name’s not Charles.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  Charlie laughed. ‘Of course not. It’s Karolos. Karolos Vasilis Andreas Floros.’ It rolled off his tongue impressively. ‘So now you know my secret. And believe me, if I had to choose between news getting out at school about the aliens or my full Greek name, I know which one would be easier to live with.’

  A kind of peace settled between them. They continued walking along the beach road toward the hotel. As they passed the shops, Charlie said, ‘You got the money?’

  Amelia pulled out her wallet and nodded. ‘This is going to be … weird.’

  They went into Archie’s Grocery and came out again with twelve jars of mayonnaise loaded into four cloth bags. A bag in each hand, they began the slow, steep journey up to the headland.

  Amelia’s hands and shoulders ached from the weight before they were even halfway up.

  ‘Surely Tom could have just driven here and got it himself?’ Charlie grumb
led.

  ‘He said he was too busy working out what time the warriors of Brin-Hask would arrive.’

  ‘What kind of warriors eat mayonnaise? And why couldn’t they come and get their own?’

  Amelia snorted. ‘They’re the guests, Charlie. We can’t get the guests to do the hotel work. Plus, in case you’ve forgotten, aliens aren’t supposed to leave the hotel grounds.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t get that either. I mean, you come all the way across space to Earth, and you don’t even get to go surfing? What’s that about?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Amelia was sarcastic. ‘Maintaining the whole top-secret bit about aliens existing or something, maybe.’

  ‘But they’re all wearing holo-emitters! What difference would it make? We have human guests at the hotel, and they never know the difference.’

  ‘Just how it is,’ Amelia said simply. ‘Rules of the gateway. Anyway, what if one of the holo-emitters failed? You know how freaked out we were when we saw Miss Ardman turn into a berserko dinosaur right in front of us.’

  Charlie nodded, and both of them shuddered.

  He shook himself, and said, ‘Talking of failed holo-emitters, I’ve got bad news and, well, bad news.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I still can’t figure out how to get mine to shift from menu mode to cloaking mode. And also … I sort of can’t find it.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Yeah, I was looking for it this morning, and it wasn’t in my room, so then I thought I’d left it in my desk at school –’

  ‘You took our holo-emitter to school?’

  ‘But it wasn’t there either. So now I don’t know where it could be.’

  ‘And you’re just mentioning this now?’

  ‘I don’t think I lost it at school,’ Charlie said calmly. ‘It’s probably at the hotel. Hey, watch it!’ he yelled as a car drove too close beside them. ‘Oh, it’s Mum!’

  They sped up, groaning as the mayonnaise jars banged against their legs, but eager to get to Mary’s car.

  ‘What on Earth are you two carrying?’ Mary leaned out her window, amused.

  ‘Mayonnaise,’ said Amelia.

  ‘For Tom,’ said Charlie, heaving his bags into the boot of the car, and then gratefully climbing into the back seat.

  ‘Tom?’ The amusement was gone, and Mary looked sharply at them both. ‘You’re running Tom’s errands for him?’

  ‘We don’t mind,’ said Amelia.

  ‘I do,’ said Charlie. ‘Those bags weighed a ton.’

  Mary turned back to the steering wheel, muttering to herself.

  It was a relief to sit back and let the car do all the work up the steepest part of the hillside to the hotel, which stood right at the top of the headland, sheer cliffs falling away on all sides.

  ‘Come on,’ said Mary. ‘Leave Tom’s stuff where it is, he can wait. Come inside and I’ll get you an ice-block each.’

  That sounded perfect. Amelia followed Mary into the hotel with nothing more complicated in her mind than whether she should go for raspberry or lemonade. But when Mary opened the front door, there was Amelia’s mum – the phone in her hand and a shocked look on her face.

  ‘It was them,’ said Mum. ‘The complaint went through, and they’ve decided to follow it up in person. Immediately.’

  The complaint? It took Amelia a second or two to figure out what Mum meant, and then she was just as stunned. Miss Ardman – their first alien guest. What a disaster that had been. So bad that Miss Ardman had threatened to report them all. And now, apparently, she had.

  James, Amelia’s older brother, slouched through the front door and stared at them all suspiciously.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Mum glanced awkwardly at Mary, and then said, ‘Oh … a bit of bother with the Health Department. They’re sending an inspector tomorrow.’

  Amelia frowned, not following the story now. Miss Ardman had called the Health Department?

  ‘On a Saturday?’ said James.

  The sound of falling saucepans and breaking glass exploded from the kitchen at the end of the hallway, along with the muffled sound of Dad cursing.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ Mum moaned. ‘What now?’

  A huge brown rat, its eyes glinting red in the afternoon sun, burst through the kitchen door and sped past them all.

  As the rat scuttled over the toes of her shoes on its way through the lobby, Mum screamed.

  Not in fear, not in disgust, not even in surprise. She screamed in frustration.

  ‘This can’t be happening! Rats in the kitchen? On top of everything else?’

  Dad ran out of the kitchen in pursuit of the rat, but stopped when he saw everyone in the lobby.

  ‘What do you mean everything else?’ he asked her.

  Amelia saw Mum lift her eyebrows warningly in James’s direction as she said carefully, ‘That customer complaint has gone through and they are sending someone to investigate tomorrow.’

  ‘They?’ Dad yelped. ‘Tomorrow? But we’ve got rats in the kitchen!’

  Mum put a hand to her forehead and breathed deeply through her nose.

  ‘Well.’ Dad staggered a bit. ‘Right. Well. Uh … it looks like we’re in a bit of trouble.’

  ‘Great!’ said James. ‘Shall I go upstairs and start packing now?’

  ‘Not helping, James!’ Mum snapped.

  Mary swept Amelia and Charlie out towards the main doors and said, ‘Why don’t you two go and tell Tom about the inspection tomorrow?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got to take him that mayo as well,’ said Charlie.

  Amelia was only too glad to be out of there. She was so mad with James, she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Such a jerk. Just because he hated the hotel, he didn’t care what happened to anyone else. As long as he got to go back to the city, who cared if Dad lost his job?

  ‘Good old Mum,’ said Charlie, happily. ‘I was afraid we’d get stuck in there listening to boring arguments all afternoon. Come on, over here!’

  ‘Where? What are you doing, Charlie?’

  Instead of going to the boot of Mary’s car to get the mayonnaise, Charlie was tiptoeing along the veranda.

  ‘I want to find where the rat went.’

  ‘Who cares where it went? As long as it’s out of the kitchen.’

  Charlie looked at her in surprise. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘The rat? Of course I saw it. Don’t really want to see it again.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice its eyes were red?’

  Amelia shrugged. ‘So? Lots of rats have red eyes, probably.’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘Lots of white rats do. Like Sophie T’s stupid Voldemort Moonsparkle or whatever.’

  ‘That was a rabbit, not a rat.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Charlie. ‘White animals – red eyes. Even then, not always. Toby Finch’s brother had a white dog with blue eyes. But brown animals? They never have red eyes. But this rat did.’

  Amelia stared at him. ‘Charlie, who cares? Maybe it had curly whiskers. Maybe it had seven toes on each foot. What difference does it make? The Health Inspector isn’t going to be checking what colour its eyes are, they’re just going to shut us down!’

  Charlie stared back, as though she were the crazy one. ‘Have you forgotten where we are? The Health Inspector is going to be the least of our worries if that turns out to be an alien rat.’

  Amelia swallowed. Oh.

  ‘Exactly. Now, are you going to help me look for it?’

  ‘No.’

  Charlie blinked at her.

  ‘Let’s say you’re right – and you probably are – that only makes it more urgent that we get down to Tom’s and tell him what’s happening.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Charlie’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and he
stomped back to Amelia. ‘You can be so sensible.’

  They dragged the four bags of mayonnaise out of the car and trudged down the hill to Tom’s place – through the thick magnolia trees, across the leaf-strewn clearing, to a little run-down shack.

  Charlie didn’t even knock, he just kicked the door open and yelled, ‘We got your mayo, and you’re busted, Tom! Next time you want us to do your jobs, you’ll have to pay us or I’m telling Mum.’

  Amelia winced. She set her bags down on the floor by Charlie’s, and then saw that Tom was muttering over one of his charts and fiddling with a weird-looking clockwork machine. The cottage, as usual, was a disaster. Everything was so cluttered with old clocks, parchments, jeweller’s screwdrivers, plates of toast crusts, broken toy engines, ancient books, cold cups of tea, springs and gadgets, it was amazing Tom could find anything.

  Charlie looked at Amelia, puzzled. It was impossible that Tom hadn’t heard them come in.

  ‘Hey!’ Charlie said.

  Tom snapped up and glared at him, one eye fierce, the other hidden behind a black eye-patch. ‘What?’

  ‘Your mayonnaise,’ Charlie said deliberately.

  ‘Like you asked.’

  ‘Right. Well, leave it there,’ Tom waved his hand vaguely toward the kitchen, his attention already back to the mess of paperwork on his desk.

  ‘Uh, Tom …’ Amelia said. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I mean,’ she said more firmly, ‘there is a problem. A big one, up at the hotel.’

  Now she had Tom’s attention.

  ‘Mum said Miss Ardman had made her complaint, and now the Health Inspector is coming tomorrow to follow it up. Plus, we have rats in the kitchen.’

  ‘Health Inspector?’ said Tom. ‘But Miss Ardman wasn’t complaining about the – Oi!’ he suddenly bellowed, and Amelia saw Charlie freeze, more than halfway across the next room, and only a couple of metres away from the stone steps leading down to the gateway itself.

  ‘Get out of there!’ Tom blazed. ‘Get over here, now.’

  Charlie recovered quickly from the shock of being discovered, and took another step closer to the stairs. ‘What’s the big deal? I only want a look.’