8 The Return of the Clockwork Giant!
“We can’t let him find that key,” whispered David to Debbie.
“And we have to get the ladybug balloon before he does!”
“You creep up the stairs and I’ll go outside and create a diversion. When you’ve got the balloon, run as hard as you can for the golf course. I’ll meet you there as soon as possible!”
“Be careful, David!”
“You too!”
Carefully, cautiously, they opened the door of the boot cupboard. Fortunately, the hinges were nicely oiled. It slid open silently.
Debbie flited towards the stairs and David crept towards the front door.
Once outside, he slipped around to the hydrangea bushes that bordered the small lawn that the French windows opened onto. He crouched down and tried to think of a diversion. He was just picking up a stone and wondering if Uncle Octavius would mind very much if he broke a pane of glass and if he was strong enough to throw it all the way across the lawn when the problem solved itself.
Jezabel Plank came storming across the lawn and marched into the library. Her loud voice boomed clearly through the French windows out into the garden.
“Someone has stolen my car!”
Cauldron didn’t seem to care very much. “So?”
“I’m not walking from Burradoo to Moss Vale, Caudron. First, I’m going to call the police and tell them that my lovely car has been stolen and then you can drive me back.”
“You can’t call the police!”
“Why not? I love that car! I went to a lot of trouble to steal the deed from Granddad and forge his signature. Why should some lazy, common thief have it and not me? I worked for that car. I took a whole year of penmanship at TAFE.”
“I don’t want the police snooping around here and I don’t have time to drive you home. If we pull off our plan, we’ll have so much money you’ll be able to buy eighty-two Rolls Royces, if you want them.”
Apparently, this was a good way to talk to Jezebel.
“Oh, very well,” she said crossly. “The question is, how am I going to get home?”
“Take Octavius’s car,” said Cauldron easily. “Once our plan reaches its crescendo, he won’t be seeing his house or the inside of his garage for a long time. He keeps the keys hanging in the kitchen.”
There was a soft click, far too soft for Caudron and Jezebel to hear in the library. David saw with relief Debbie glide from the house and begin running towards the road. A helium balloon, a little shrunken but still floating, bounced behind her on the end of a ribbon. She appeared to have a book under her arm.
David ran after her and they ducked into a bush at the edge of the driveway as Jezebel came zooming around the house in Uncle Octavius’s car.
“What a terrible woman! I knew she couldn’t really have a beautiful name like Claudine!” Said Debbie. “And look at what I found on the hall table outside Cauldron Bubble’s room!” She showed David a large, exciting looking book with a beautiful picture of Paris and the word Claudine on the cover. “I thought it might be helpful,” explained Debbie. “Since we keep hearing the name everywhere.”
David opened it and made a sound of disgust. “Someone’s gone and bent all the pages over and scribbled in the margins with a pen.”
“What a horrible thing to do! You think he’d at least use a pencil!”
“Well, it’s hardly surprising that a man who forges disability parking permits and steals Doughnut Duplicators would disrespect books,” snarled David.
A loud POP made them jump. The ladybug balloon had knocked into a thorny branch of the bush.
“Oh dear!” said Debbie but David had spotted something. A piece of paper had fallen to the ground. David pounced on it. “This must have been inside the balloon. It has writing on it, but it doesn’t make much sense.” Debbie leaned over his shoulder and read:
Pg 15
18 down
2 in
Count three
Pg 35
8 down
4 in
Count 1
Pg 38
Down 25
2 in
Count 4
Next Wednesday Midnight.
“I don’t get it!”
‘It must be some sort of code. Debbie, where are we going to sleep tonight? We can’t go back to the house with Cauldron stomping around.”
Debbie considered this. “We could spend the night in the greenhouse. There’s some old lawn furniture right at the back, we could take the squabs off the chairs and use them to sleep on. I don’t think Cauldron will think to look for us in our own garden. And the smell of the corpse flowers should keep him away.”
“It’ll be pretty nasty for us too,” muttered David.
“We’ll have shelter, and we can eat grapes and the smell shouldn’t be too bad,” said Debbie doubtfully. “Anyway, we can hide there and try and work out this code. We can sneak past the house under the juniper hedge.”
As if to back up her argument, a large plop of rain fell on David’s head. “Alright,” he agreed.
They crawled along underneath the low branches of the juniper hedge. The hedge ran down to the back garden. Once they were in sight of the greenhouse, Debbie and David darted out and ran for the door.
“I’m glad Uncle Octavius’s garden is so overgrown,” panted David as he pushed the door open. “It would be hard to see anything from the house. Where did you see the lawn furniture?”
“Towards the back,” said Debbie.
She was right. A big stack of outdoor furniture was piled up against the backwall of the greenhouse. Most of it was covered with a tarpaulin but a few chair arms and legs were sticking out. Debbie began to tug at a chair squab. David had moved around to the other side of the pile of furniture, looking for a squab for himself.
“Debbie, there’s a door behind all this stuff!”
Debbie stopped pulling at the squab and went around to where David stood. Sure enough, hidden behind the stack was a door. There was just enough room between the door and the stack of furniture to squeeze along the wall of the greenhouse to reach the door.
David pushed himself into the gap and inched his way towards the door. He pushed it and it opened. “Debbie, come and look at this!”
Debbie quickly squeezed her way along to the door.
“This must be Uncle Octavius’s old laboratory!” David waved his hand around a small wooden room with a slanting tin roof. There was a work bench at the side of the room. It was covered with flowerpots, test tubes and a kettle. At the other side of the room was a bookcase full of books and an armchair. On the top of the bookcase there was an old-fashioned lamp with a box of matches. Behind that, there was a cupboard.
“Help me move the bookcase,” said David. “There might be something useful in the cupboard.”
There was something useful in the cupboard. ‘This must be where Uncle keeps his camping gear!” Debbie began to pull sleeping bags and camping mats out of the cupboard.
David had found a large box full of tins and a can opener. “Look what I’ve found! With this and the stuff growing in the greenhouse, we can hold out for weeks! This is the perfect hideaway. Cauldron can’t see a light from the house because the garden and the greenhouse will block his view and he won’t come down here because of the smelly corpse flowers.”
Debbie lit the lamp. A warm glow filled the room. The rain was pattering down steadily, and it made a lovely sound on the tin roof.
“Let’s try and work out this clue,” said Debbie, spreading the piece of paper on the floor.
“Let’s have tea first.”
“That’s an even better idea. What do we have in the box?”
“A lot of mackerel,” said David peering in. “And baked beans. What do you want?”
“Baked beans, please.”
Munching away at their tins of baked beans, David and Debbie looked at the mysterious piece of paper between them.
Pg 15
18 down
2 in
Count three
Pg 35
8 down
4 in
Count 1
Pg 38
Down 25
2 in
Count 4
Next Wednesday Midnight
“It’s like a crossword puzzle,” said David, doubtfully.
“I’ve never been much good at crossword puzzles,” said Debbie gloomily. “They only work if you can spell perfectly.”
“I don’t think this puzzle is about spelling,” said David slowly. “And I don’t think ‘next Wednesday midnight’ is code. I think that’s when whatever is in the code will happen.”
Suddenly, Debbie jumped. ‘Oh David! We forgot about Gamaliel and the key and Cauldron knowing about the hiding place in the mantel!”
“Come on,” said David bravely. “We’ll have to go back to the house and bring the box with Gamaliel in it down here and hide it.”
“But what if we get caught?”
“We’ll just have to risk that! Uncle Octavius said that Gamaliel must never fall into Cauldron Bubble’s clutches!”
They hurried towards the house. It was pouring with rain by now. They darted around the side and peeped through the French windows into the library.
“Oh no,” gasped Debbie.
There stood the dastardly Bubble with his eyes gleaming, looking straight at Gamaliel’s sea chest.
“Ah ha!” said Cauldron. “Yes. I should have realized. I should have tried the old box first, rather than wasting my evening attempting to open every other lock in the house with this key!”
And dramatically (cheered on by the vast and admiring audience in his own head), Cauldron pounced on the chest and thrust the key into the lock.
A crack of lightning flashed across the sky; a boom of thunder followed it. All the lights in the house went out and Cauldron Bubble let out a terrible scream. He had opened the box.
He had expected to find the parts of a clockwork giant.
But Gamaliel had been quietly reassembling himself. And he exploded out of the box the minute the key was turned.
He was huge. He was horrible. He was very, very mad. Throwing Cauldron aside, Gamaliel stormed towards the French windows. He walked straight through them as though they weren’t even there.
And he strode with ever quickening speed down the driveway, towards the road.
“David!” cried Debbie. “He’s going towards Milton Park! He’s going to the Clock Work Exhibition! He’s going to steal everything and upgrade himself until he’s unstoppable!”
Come back next week to find out what happens next! Follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Ruth Marie Hamilton to never miss an instalment.
The photograph of the clock is courtesy of Pixabay. The writing and the designs belong to R.M. Hamilton. The book, Claudine is written by Marian Grudko & T. A. Young & illustrated by Donal Partelow. I LOVE this book with my whole heart and I hope you will all go and get your own copy because I think you will love it as well. 🥰