Although Fox had always been taught to think of ways to make money, she didn’t imagine there’d be much need for lots of cash in Antarctica, but then a rather marvellous idea occurred to her. Perhaps she could use the money to bribe the postal service to send her somewhere else. Somewhere with fewer penguins and more people.
The lift shuddered to a halt and the door opened.
‘You turn right out of the hotel,’ the lady called after Fox, who was already sprinting away. ‘Then down the street, past the train station and, when the road bends left, take the first little side road. The shop is tucked in there.’
Fox didn’t turn to say thank you – partly because it didn’t occur to her and partly because she could see Fibber leaping down the last of the fire-escape stairs and tearing across the foyer after her like some small, deranged business tycoon.
She flung herself into the cobbled street, squinting through the afternoon sun at the rows of higgledy-piggledy coloured houses with peaked terracotta roofs climbing into the bright blue sky. Last summer, tourists had flocked to the village of Mizzlegurg, drifting around on bicycles and eating ice creams under the restaurant awnings, but since the water crisis Mizzlegurg, along with so many holiday destinations across the globe, had become a quieter, less visited sort of place.
The signs of the water shortages were subtle, but they were there nonetheless: the flower boxes beneath windows were empty because there was a ban on watering plants that were purely for decorative purposes; numerous restaurants had closed because the increase in food prices due to failing crops meant fewer people could afford to eat out; the hotels were half empty because they could only supply a limited amount of water to guests; and the reservoir just outside the village that generated water for the locals was running dangerously low so each building had a water ration.
Fox ignored all of this and carried on running, knowing that Fibber was hot on her heels and that somehow she’d have to shake him off when the road split. The train station burst into view, just as the cleaning lady had said it would. Only it didn’t have multiple platforms and trains all under the same roof, like others Fox had seen. In fact, Mizzlegurg Station had no roof at all. It was simply a train track flanked by two platforms and a little wooden hut, which might have been a ticket office – though it was as empty as the platforms. Behind the station, Fox could see mountains covered in trees that had once been tall and green and bursting with leaves, but which were now bent and brown and shrivelled from lack of water.
She sprinted past the station, eyes peeled for the side street she hoped to vanish down without her brother seeing. And so intent was she on finding it that she didn’t give Mizzlegurg Station another thought. But if Fox had been moving a little more slowly, and if she had been paying a little more attention, she might have felt the faint but unmistakable tingle of magic stirring.
Because, in precisely forty-seven minutes, an event was going to occur at Mizzlegurg Station that would change the lives of the Petty-Squabble twins for ever.
When the road bent left, Fox bolted down the side street, then practically threw herself into the antiques shop. It was quiet inside and specks of dust hung in the air, suspended in the sunlight above the clutter of antiques like thousands of indoor stars.
Fox glanced around. The shop was full to bursting. Where tables laden with old-fashioned weighing scales, copper jugs and dusty cutlery ended, pianos, grandfather clocks, old trunks and wardrobes began. There were spinning globes perched on threadbare armchairs, ship wheels wedged into corners, jewellery boxes stacked one on top of the other and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Every nook and cranny was filled with junk. Fox blinked at it all in disgust.
Then she stiffened as she heard Fibber’s footsteps thundering closer. Would her brother shoot on down the road into another shop or had he sensed, as twins often manage to do, that Fox had turned in here? She shoved his briefcase under a piano to buy herself a little more time, then seconds later Fibber crashed into the shop, sending a pile of antiquarian books flying.
He turned on his sister. ‘Where is it?’
Fox could hear the panic in Fibber’s voice, but she noticed he’d hung back on unleashing the usual insults: squit-face, moth-brain, scum-breath. Fox wasn’t exactly a fan of these terms, but at least when Fibber used them she knew precisely where she stood. She had no idea what game he was currently playing with his recent silences and his lack of stamping all over other people. She plucked a rusty telescope from a shelf and turned it over in her hands.
‘I dumped your briefcase in a bin on the high street.’ She paused. ‘So, if I were you, I’d go and find it before it’s carted off for ever.’
Fibber snatched the telescope from Fox and hurled it over his shoulder. ‘I didn’t see you hovering round any bins.’ He straightened his tie to show that he meant business. ‘What did you do with it?’
‘If you keep pestering me,’ Fox muttered, ‘I’ll dump you in a bin.’
There was a cough from the back of the shop and the twins whirled round to see an old man emerging from behind a wardrobe. He had dark, wrinkled skin and a fuzz of grey hair and
