Milo shoved the folder back in its place and closed the case as quietly as he could. He dived into a densely packed rack of clothes and hid behind a sparkly blue gown covered in sequins and a white fur coat that smelled like dog. He hugged the case and tried not to breathe too loudly, which inevitably made him feel like he was suffocating.
Kaitlyn stumbled through the closet on her way to the bathroom, her silk floral pyjamas brushing against Milo’s hiding place. She flipped on the bathroom light and, mercifully, shut the door behind her.
Milo’s nerves crackled with anxiety. What should he do? Stay put? Sneak out through the bedroom door? Bad idea. Dad might have woken up, too. Visions of his father’s reaction to his only son’s betrayal spun through Milo’s head. Worse, he felt a tickle on his nose. He was going to sneeze. What is this ridiculous coat made of?!
The toilet flushed. Oh please, not now. Milo held his breath and plugged his nose as Kaitlyn opened the door.
Just then, Milo’s phone began to buzz. NOOOO! The vibrations echoed around the room. Who could be calling now? He fumbled with the device but couldn’t find the button to stop the call. Fingers sweaty, he pressed everything until the buzzing stopped.
Kaitlyn turned on the light.
Hardly risking a movement, Milo checked the screen to see who might have brought on his untimely demise. “Sladan Home”, it read. Lucy. Of course. She must have stayed up to find out how his ill-conceived caper had gone. He wondered if she’d attend his funeral.
His stepmother’s footsteps drew nearer.
Should he surrender now? Maybe he could pretend he was sleepwalking or had recently developed an obsession with sequins? Milo peeked through the garments.
Hand on her hip, Kaitlyn turned towards the hanging dresses. Milo braced himself for the inevitable scream. It never came. Kaitlyn turned the other way, then back again. She was looking at herself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. Something orange was sticking out of her ear.
Earplugs! Milo exhaled a whirligig of relief. She wears earplugs because of Dad’s snoring! Milo had never been so grateful for his father’s noisy medical condition.
Kaitlyn yawned, flicked off the light and returned to bed, leaving the closet door open. After a brief pause, Mr Fisher’s snores resumed.
Milo emailed Lucy as he waited for Kaitlyn to fall asleep. “GO TO BED,” he typed. “It’s done. I’ll show you everything tomorrow.”
He hit send, then exited his hiding place. Careful as a contortionist on a high wire, Milo returned the briefcase to the exact spot he’d found it, then slipped through the closet and out the bathroom door. Once in the hallway, he raced back to his room and hopped into bed, panting.
The phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Lucy. Her message contained nothing but twelve thumbs-up emojis followed by six exclamation marks.
Milo replied with a smiley face.
The Siren Stone
“I got another one!” Lucy exclaimed triumphantly. She bundled Milo’s printed compendium under her arm and scribbled the definition to the symbol she’d just translated. After many hours of work, she had nearly finished deciphering all of the mysterious glyphs on the “Siren Stone”, as she’d christened the graffitied boulder.
Milo was sat cross-legged on the ground next to Thingus, who was waddling around in the form of a seabird with massive grey wings.
When the kids had arrived at the island that morning, Thingus had appeared as a white stag and greeted them with an enthusiastic prance. Milo, using more of Millepoids’s candy, had spent the day coaxing the creature to shrink down smaller and smaller until he spontaneously morphed into an albatross. The ease with which he transformed suggested he had adopted this shape before.
Lucy pointed to a spot on the boulder. “These four symbols say: ‘Crawl. Swim. Fly. Stand.’”
“Huh,” said Milo. “Is that a sentence?”
Lucy double-checked her translation. The symbol key from Mr Fisher’s briefcase contained an incredible assortment of hand-drawn glyphs, each accompanied by a definition. “Maybe it’s like, a list of all the stuff Thingus can do?” she ventured.
Milo curled his lip sceptically. “Well, he can crawl, swim and walk. Watch this, though.”
He tossed a gumdrop high into the air. The albatross jumped, flapping its massive wings clumsily before face-planting in the mud.
“See?” said Milo. “He can’t fly.”
With dirt caked on his orange beak Thingus scrabbled across the clearing and pecked the gumdrop out from under a bush.
Lucy laughed. She couldn’t remember ever having felt more alive; she was currently probing beyond the boundaries of the unknown in the presence of another actual person who not only believed the things she was saying, but who was PHYSICALLY INTERACTING WITH A MIRACULOUS CRYPTOZOOLOGICAL SPECIMEN RIGHT BEFORE HER EYES. Had she died and gone to heaven? Today – Lucy inhaled the freshest air she had ever tasted – anything is possible. If only she could tell Milo the Truth about the Pretenders, it would all be perfect.
Milo crawled over and scratched the shapeshifter between his useless wings. “I wonder if there are any more creatures like Thingus? I’d hate to think he was all alone in the world.”
“That is an interesting question,” said Lucy, heat flooding to her cheeks.
“I was thinking,” said Milo. “Based on how the glyphs on the stone have worn away over time, these symbols could be old.” He lured Thingus closer with a chocolate button. “Really old.”
“You might be on to something there,” said Lucy, thinking of the hundred-year-old yearbook photos of the Other Mrs Stricks and Alastair Chelon.
Who had created these glyphs, and why? Was it the Pretenders? If not them, who? After all, the symbols under the factory had spelled out the warning “Beware the Pretenders”. Why would they create a warning about themselves? What did it mean? It would be so much easier to figure all this out if she could just discuss it with Milo. I can trust him, can’t I? But I definitely can’t trust his dad. Ugh,
