like fun, hurling stale doughnuts at the lions and getting a few laughs from the giraffes. The only problem was, we were expected to contribute to the cost: three dollars a head. I’d already missed out on Hampton Court and the Greenwich Observatory and the class was beginning to look on me as a charity case. They’d even passed a hat around for me. Not that I needed a hat, but it’s the thought that counts.
“Tim,” I muttered.
“Yes?”
“Since you’ve got a bit of cash now, do you think you could lend me a fiver?”
“A fiver?”
“You know . . . for Woburn Abbey. The school trip . . .”
He considered for a moment. “All right,” he sighed. “But you do the washing-up.”
He threw a crumpled five-dollar bill onto the table. I snatched it up. It had been so long since I’d seen a five- dollar bill, I’d even forgotten what color it was.
“Thanks a bunch,” I said, wishing he had given me a whole bunch. I tucked the fiver into my shirt pocket. “So when do you start looking for the Purple Peacock?” I asked.
“Tomorrow.” Tim lifted his glass. “I reckon I’ll go back to the gas station in Camden. Find the pump assistant.”
“And then?”
“I’ll pump her.”
He threw back the Coke in one. I think it was meant to be a dramatic gesture, but it must have gone the wrong way because his face went bright red and a second later he made a dramatic dash for the bathroom.
I watched him go. In all the excitement I’d forgotten to tell him about Snape and Boyle. But in truth I’d more or less forgotten about them myself.
WOBURN ABBEY
So that was how I found myself, a few days later, beetling up the M1 highway at fifty miles an hour on the way to Woburn Abbey. There were forty of us in the coach—thirty-eight pupils and two teachers. My friend Monsieur Palis was one of them. The other was an old guy, Mr. Roberts. He had been teaching history for so long that I reckon he must have been alive when most of it was going on.
We’d all been given packed lunches, which we’d unpacked and eaten before we’d even hit the motorway. Now the bus was strewn with potato chips, candy wrappers, and crusts of Mother’s Pride. The driver couldn’t have looked more miserable if he’d been driving a hearse. I’d managed to grab a place in the back row and we were all making faces at the other motorists to see who could be the first to cause a multiple pileup. Woburn Abbey was about an hour from London. Mr. Roberts had spent the first fifteen minutes giving us an abridged history of the place, which Palis had then translated into French. Nobody had listened. The sun was shining. If we’d wanted a history lesson, we’d have stayed at school.
At last we turned off the M1, and after rattling down a few country lanes and doubtless flattening a few country hedge-hogs, we reached the grounds of the abbey itself. There was a sign pointing one way to the stately home and another to the safari park. Naturally we followed the first. I shifted on my seat and felt something jutting into my leg. Somebody had left a slingshot—a cheap, plastic thing wedged in the side of the chair. Without really thinking, I pocketed it. And that was all I had on me when we finally arrived: that and a couple of dollars in change from Tim’s fiver.
The coach reached the parking lot and rumbled to a halt. We were all about to rush for the door, but then Palis stood up, raising a hand.
“Gentlemen . . .” he began.
I looked around me. I could see thirty-eight hooligans, but certainly no gentlemen.
“May I remind you,” he went on, “that this is an historic outing. Woburn Abbey is a stately home, not an amusement arcade. In fact, the Marquess and Marchioness of Tavistock are still in residence here. So if there is any misbehavior, any tomfoolery, I shall deal with the matter personally.”
His hand lashed out, sending a boy called Sington in a backward somersault down the aisle.
“And no chewing gum during the tour,” Palis added with a twitch of a smile.
We trooped out more sheepishly after that. Even old Roberts seemed afraid of Palis. Two by two we marched down a winding path, past the restaurant, and through the turnstile. There was a sign up beside the ticket booth.
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
THE WOBURN CARBUNCLES
ON DISPLAY IN THE STATE SALON
“Please, sir,” somebody asked. “What’s a carbuncle?”
“It’s a type of jewel,” Mr. Roberts whispered, glancing nervously at Palis. “Quite a large jewel. It’s normally red and—”
“No talking!” Palis snapped.
Mr. Roberts whimpered. Sington gave a strangled cough as he tried to dislodge the chewing gum from the back of his throat. Palis strutted forward.
We really were having a lot of fun.
I’m probably not the best person to describe a stately home. See one and you’ve seen them all as far as I’m concerned, and I wouldn’t exactly get into a state if I didn’t see any. I mean, tapestries and paintings and chandeliers and fancy tables are fine if you like that sort of thing in your front room. But just following a red rope around the place gawping at them . . . well, it’s not my cup of tea—even if the cup is over three hundred years old and was once used by King Charles the First.
So I was bored by the book room, sent to sleep by the staircase, and I was hardly drawn to the drawing room either. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff there was in that place. Paintings, mirrors, bronze clocks—you name it, at some time or other they’d bought it. By the time we got to Queen Victoria’s bedroom, I’d have gladly thrown myself into the bed, even if the old girl had been in it at the time.
Our progress through the house had been watched by a number of antique ladies sitting in equally antique chairs. They were the only security on view and they looked about as lethal as a box of after-dinner mints. Half of them were knitting. The other half were smiling sweetly and blinking behind their horn-rimmed spectacles. But as we shuffled toward the Grand Salon, I noticed two security guards in uniform standing beside the door. One of them brushed against me as I went through. He didn’t apologize.
The Grand Salon was like any other room in the house. Which is to say, it was certainly grand. This one was furnished in blue with blue chairs and sofas and blue murals on the walls. But the reason for the security guards wasn’t blue at all. It was bright red. There were a dozen of them, glittering in a case in the center of the room. The Woburn Carbuncles—very pretty and doubtless worth a pretty penny.
“The Marquess of Tavistock discovered them in the attic, apparently,” remarked Mr. Roberts.
Lucky marquess, I thought to myself. All we’d ever found in our attic was dry rot.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Mr. Roberts went on.
“This way!” Palis cried, and went on himself. We followed.
I was the last to leave the room. For some reason there were no tourists behind me. I thought it was strange. There had been at least twenty other people in every room we’d visited, but suddenly there was no one at all. I walked toward the door. At the same moment there was a crash of breaking glass. A bell went off. I turned and looked back.
It was impossible. A minute ago I’d been looking at a glass-topped cabinet with twelve red carbuncles inside. Now I was looking at a shattered cabinet with only eleven carbuncles lying in the wreckage. But apart from the security guards, there was nobody in the room. Someone had just stolen part of the Woburn windfall. The alarm bell was still ringing. But I knew it wasn’t me and it couldn’t have been them, so . . .
“All right, sonny. Stay where you are . . .”
