Only Fidelio and Lysander were aware of Tancred's plan, but Fidelio had to rehearse with the school orchestra and Lysander was playing Ping-Pong in the gym.
The sculpture room could only be reached by opening a trapdoor in the art room and going down a steep spiral staircase. At the end of the school day, the trapdoor was always closed.244Emma was surprised to see Dagbert Endless lifting the trapdoor at half past five. She had never seen him in the art room before. There was such a forest of easels in the room that Dagbert didn't notice Emma, working behind her canvas in a far corner.
Tancred didn't see her either. Emma watched him descend into the sculpture room, only moments after Dagbert.
Everything Tancred did mattered to Emma, and when she saw him following Dagbert down to a room where an old tap dripped constantly into a stone trough as big as a bath, she was instantly alarmed.
For a few minutes Emma continued to add color to the group of birds in her painting, but she found it difficult to concentrate. She decided she must know what was happening in the room below. But if Tancred saw her looking in, he would regard her as an interfering girl, a busybody or, even worse, a spy.
There was another way. Emma could use her endowment. It was something she did very seldom. While some used their unusual talents almost every day,245Emma preferred to keep hers for emergencies. Was this an emergency? Decidedly yes, she thought, remembering the dripping tap and the tomblike trough.
Putting down her paintbrush, Emma stepped away from her easel, took off her cape, and closed her eyes. She thought of a bird, very small, like a wren; a tiny, brown, speckled bird that would never be noticed perched, in shadow, at the back of a wrought-iron step.
While Emma imagined her bird, she began to dwindle; smaller, smaller, and smaller until she was the size of a fledgling wren. Her arms became brown speckled wings; her legs, black and needle-thin beneath the downy feathers that covered her body; and then came the head with its bright black eyes and sharp yellow beak.
The brown bird hopped across to the open trapdoor and dropped onto the top step.
White sheets covered the undefined shapes standing around the sculpture room like ghosts.246Tancred had his back to a wood carving: a seven-foot-tall griffin. Dagbert sat on the edge of the stone trough. Behind him, the old tap dripped. The trough appeared to be half full.
"I like the carving," Dagbert said. "Is it yours?"
"Lysander's," Tancred replied. "It's a griffin. Have you brought the moth?"
"Have you got my sea-gold creature?"
"Of course. Where's the moth?"
Dagbert smiled. "Here." He drew a small glass jar from his pocket. At the bottom lay something white. Tancred couldn't see what it was. He had to step closer.
"The sea urchin!" Dagbert demanded.
Tancred peered into the jar. It certainly looked like Charlie's moth, lying at the bottom.
How could he know that Dorcas Loom had made an excellent replica? She had even painted the wing tips a luminous, glowing silver.
Tancred put his hand inside his cape and withdrew the sea urchin. As Dagbert made to grab it,247Tancred snatched the jar. Now that both boys had what they wanted, their meeting should have ended there, but Tancred stared uncertainly at the motionless object lying at the bottom of the jar.
In an instant Tancred pulled back, dropping the jar. The false moth slid out and lay motionless on the floor.
"You've tricked me!" cried Tancred, filling the room with a wind that blew the covers off every sculpture and carving. White sheets flapped in the turbulent air; tools, brushes, pots, and tins rolled about the floor; Emma huddled down on her step as the wind swept through her feathers.
The full force of the wind struck Dagbert in the face. He closed his eyes and with one hand clutched his seaweedy hair as though it might be torn from his head. "I'm stronger than you, Tancred Torsson!" he screamed.
The dripping tap spun off the wall and water gushed out in a torrent. In a second, the stone trough had overflowed, and a bubbling stream rushed across248the floor.
Staggering against the current, Tancred slipped and crashed against the stone trough.
Emma heard a thump as Tancred's head hit the side of the trough. He lay unconscious, facedown in the water. The wind died, and hopping forward, Emma saw Dagbert standing over Tancred.
"You'll never get my sea-gold charm again," cried Dagbert. "Never, never, never."
Emma held back the shriek that she wanted to utter. If she were to help Tancred, she must stay alive, stay hidden.
Clutching his golden sea urchin, Dagbert leaped up the stairs. He never noticed the tiny bird sitting like a dried leaf in the corner of the top step.
With a juddering bang, the trapdoor closed, and Emma heard Dagbert's footsteps thundering above. There was no time to wonder if the trapdoor had been locked. Emma flew down to Tancred.
Perching on his head, she began to peck frantically at the blond hair, but the storm boy didn't move. She would have to roll him over, Emma realized, so249that his nose and mouth were not beneath the water. For a tiny bird this was impossible. She would have to change.
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Emma urged herself as the feathers melted and her body grew. A girl, at last, she rolled Tancred on his back, put her hands under his arms, and dragged him out of the trough.
Tancred gave an enormous spluttering cough and sat up. "Aw, my head," he groaned.
"Em, what happened? What are you doing here?"
"Dagbert," was all she said, before whirling up the steps.
It was as she had feared, the trapdoor was locked. It would be useless to scream; no one would hear them. The whole school would be in the dining hall by now. Emma tore back down the staircase and ran to the trough. Plunging her hand into the water she found the tap and tried to jam it into the wall, where water still gushed from an open pipe.
It was impossible. Time and again the tap dropped out. The trough was overflowing, and there were250now at least six inches of water in the room. Soon it would be a foot, two feet, three. This was no ordinary flow. It was a torrent brought on by Dagbert and his set of golden charms, complete now that he had the sea urchin. Water was seeping under the door into the next room, where first years took their drawing lessons.
There were no windows in these basement rooms. Strips of halogen lighting ran across the ceiling, and two small vents let in the air. Emma dragged a chair to the wall, jumped up on it, and tugged at the grill covering one of the vents. It fell into the water with a loud
splash, and Emma looked into a dark cavity, where fresh air swirled from an opening high above. I must go in there, thought Emma, there is no other way.
Tancred had closed his eyes. Emma ran to him and shook his shoulder. He slipped sideways and fell into the water. Pulling him upright, Emma cried, "Tancred, you must sit up. You MUST. I have to get help, but if you fall into the water and I'm not here..."251Tancred opened his eyes. "Yes, Em," he mumbled. "My... legs... are... under...
water."
"Yes. But you must keep your head above. Can you walk?"
"Think so." His voice was little more than a croak.
Emma helped him stumble across to the chair beneath the vent. The water splashed against their shins in a vicious tide. Tancred dropped onto the chair and clung to the sides, but it was obvious that he found it hard to stay upright. Emma looked around the room. The griffin would be too heavy to move, she decided, but there were two plaster tigers that might serve her purpose.
Emma pushed the tigers to either side of Tancred. Their heads came just above his elbows. "Who made these?" she asked as she hastily began to change shape again.
"I did." Tancred smiled sleepily. "My tigers." Resting his arms on their wide, painted heads, he looked down at the small bird skimming the water close to his knees. "They'll keep me safe, Em."252Will they? Suppose they can't, Emma thought as she flew into the vent. Above her was complete darkness. It wasn't easy, even for a tiny bird, to fly blind, up and up, through a narrow pipe. Time and again her wing tips brushed against the sides, tilting her backward and making her head spin. But at last she reached a bend in the pipe, and found that she could stand. Ahead of her a tiny patch of light showed the way out.