Emily Eyefinger and the Secret from the Sea (4 page)

‘All right, children,' Ms Plump said. ‘Remember, you're going to be beautiful children today in the museum. No running and no touching anything. And, Terry Meaney, that means you! Stop tripping people!'

Annabelle got to her feet.

‘She tripped on me!' Terry said. ‘She's the tripper! It's not my fault!'

‘I saw what you did, Terry,' Ms Plump said. ‘Now don't do it again. It's annoying and it's very rude.'

‘Aw, Miss …'

‘And stop kicking your school bag. Leave it over there with the rest of them. We're not allowed to take our bags into the museum.'

‘Why not?' Terry asked.

‘Because we're not. And don't you give me any trouble, Terry. We're going to see a sculpture of a horse that's over a thousand years old. This will be a real treat, children.'

Terry mumbled, ‘You're a thousand years old.'

‘What did you say, young man?'

‘Nothin'. I didn't say nothin'.'

‘You didn't say
anything
.'

‘That's what I said!'

‘Come along, children,' Ms Plump said with a sigh.

Emily and Janey looked at each other.

‘Terry always ruins everything,' Janey said. ‘Why didn't Ms Plump just leave him at school? She could have locked him in the toilets.'

As they passed the museum shop, Emily noticed a horse sculpture in the display window. Terry saw it too.

‘Hey, Miss! It's the horsey! You can buy it!' he said. ‘Can we buy it, Miss?'

‘Keep your voice down, Terry,' Ms Plump said. ‘That's not the real horse. It's just a copy. The real one is worth a huge amount of money.'

‘How much? Tell me how much! Tell me, tell me! I've got lots and lots of money! I've got millions and crillions and dillions of money!'

‘Terry, the real horse is so valuable that no one could buy it. The museum wouldn't sell it anyway. Now settle down and follow me.'

The children went up a staircase and, as they did, an old lady in a long coat was coming down very slowly. She was bent over, using her walking stick on every step. As the children got closer the old
woman looked up and then quickly looked down again.

Emily said to Janey, ‘I think I know that old lady.'

‘Who is she?' Janey asked.

‘I'm not sure but I know I've seen her before.'

‘That happened to me once,' Janey said, ‘and …' She kept talking but Emily didn't really listen to what her friend was saying. Emily kept thinking that the old woman looked very familiar.

Ms Plump led the children through the main hall to a glass case. But the case was empty. Inside was a card that said:

 

Tang Dynasty Horse

Removed For Cleaning

 

‘Oh, this is great,' Janey said to Emily. ‘We come all this way and the stupid horse is gone.'

‘Goodness me,' Ms Plump said. ‘I wonder what's happened.'

Ms Plump spoke to one of the museum guards. He talked on his phone and soon a tall man with thick glasses appeared from a door nearby.

‘Hello, children,' he said. ‘My name is Mr Brakeswell. I run the workshop. I've just been working on the horse. Follow me and I'll give you your own private viewing. Would you like that?'

‘Oh, yes, please,' Ms Plump said.

Everyone followed the man into the workshop. There, standing on a small table, was the ancient horse. The children crowded around.

‘Be very careful, please,' the man said.

‘That's not a horsey!' Terry said. ‘Miss, it's not a horsey, it's too little. My cat is bigger than that.'

Terry reached out a finger.

‘Terry! No touching!' Ms Plump said, grabbing his arm.

‘I didn't touch it! I didn't! I wasn't going to touch it! Honest, Miss, I wasn't! I was only showing!'

Mr Brakeswell looked over his glasses at Terry and then spoke to the class.

‘This horse was owned by the emperor of China,' he said. ‘Isn't it beautiful? I've just made it as clean as it was over a thousand years ago. Let me tell you a bit about its history.'

The man told them what had happened to the horse since it was made. It was given to a traveller from Italy. Later a prince had it in his castle in France. It disappeared during a war and it turned up in another country. Finally, a very rich person gave it to the museum.

‘It will go back in its case tomorrow,' the man said.

The children looked at every bit of the old horse very carefully. Emily and a few of the other children drew pictures of it. After they'd finished, the man showed them a vase he was working on.

‘This is from Greece,' he said. ‘It's even older than the Chinese horse. It's over two thousand years old. If you look closely you can see a small crack down its side. I've mixed up some filler and now I'm going to paint over the crack.
When I finish it'll be like new. Do you have any questions?'

When no one raised their hand Emily asked, ‘Are there other things in the museum that need fixing?'

‘Yes, lots of things. Almost everything here has something wrong with it. There are paintings that have paint coming off. There are old cups with chips out of them and wooden things with holes that bugs made. There's plenty to keep me busy.'

The Chinese horse was just behind the children. Terry was still doing his drawing. Then he turned and looked at the cracked vase.

‘Hey!' he squealed. ‘The people on that thing haven't got any clothes on!'

‘Terry, shush!' Ms Plump said.

‘But, Miss, they're in the nuddy! Those people are rude.'

Emily was standing with her arms folded. With her eyefinger behind her back she saw the table with the horse on it suddenly tip. The horse began
to slide off. Terry turned back and reached out to grab it but it was too late. The horse crashed to the floor and shattered into pieces. Its head clattered across the floor and stopped at Emily's feet.

‘See what you've done!' Mr Brakeswell screamed. ‘You silly boy! You've destroyed a priceless piece of artwork!'

‘I didn't do it!' Terry squealed. ‘I didn't touch it!'

‘You're a liar, you horrible boy! Get away from there!'

‘Did you kick that table, Terry?' Ms Plump asked, pulling him away.

‘No, Miss, I didn't do nuffin'! Honest I didn't!'

Emily bent down and picked up the horse's head.

‘Give me that!' the man yelled, snatching it from her hands. ‘You dreadful kids! I never should have let you in here! How am I going to explain this? Get out of here before you break everything! Guards!'

‘You can glue it!' Terry yelled. ‘You can fix it!'

The man glared at Terry. ‘No one in the world can fix this now,' he said. ‘Most of it is dust now! You can't glue dust back together! Guards!
Guards!
'

Museum guards streamed in the door as alarms started ringing.

‘Get these children out of here immediately!' the man ordered. ‘Call the police! Clear everyone out of the museum!'

Ms Plump's face was red with anger and embarrassment as she shooed the children out of the workshop. Emily looked behind her with her eyefinger as the man picked up bits of the horse. She saw him gather something up in his hands and look around quickly before stuffing it in his pocket.

‘I wonder what that was all about,' she thought.

As the children walked back towards the entrance Janey whispered to Emily, ‘Didn't I tell you Terry ruins every trip?'

‘Usually he does,' Emily said, ‘but not this time.'

‘What do you mean? He broke that horse. I hope he goes to jail.'

‘I don't think he broke it.'

‘But he was the only one near it.'

‘I know, but there's something funny going on,' Emily said. ‘Terry wasn't close enough to that table to tip it over.'

‘Come on, Emily, tables don't tip over all by themselves.'

‘I think this one did. This is a real mystery, Janey. Besides, that horse wasn't the real one.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It wasn't a thousand years old. It had some plastic in the head. I saw it with my eyefinger when I picked it up.'

‘So?'

‘So they didn't have plastic in ancient China, Janey. And the man hid something,' Emily said. ‘He picked up something and put it in his pocket. I saw him with my eyefinger.'

‘Hey, maybe there was gold inside and he picked it up,' Janey said. ‘There's this movie and nobody knows where the money went and there's this statue of a bird and –'

‘Janey, quiet!' Ms Plump said.

The children picked up their school bags as everyone was leaving the museum. Police sirens were coming closer and closer. Emily thought about the broken horse and Terry and Mr Brakeswell. Suddenly she whispered to Janey, ‘Fishing line!'

‘Like for catching fish?' Janey said. ‘What was that doing in a horse?'

‘It wasn't
in
the horse, it was tied to the horse. It was very thin so no one would see it.'

Now there were six police officers getting out of their cars on the street outside. The old woman that Emily had seen earlier made her way through the crowd and out of the museum. She started walking slowly down the steps.

‘Janey! Quick!' Emily whispered. ‘We have to help that old lady!'

‘What are you talking about? I don't want to help any old lady.'

‘I'll tell you later. Just grab her arm! We'll help her down the stairs!'

Emily raced ahead.

‘Excuse me,' she said, taking hold of the old woman's arm. ‘We'll help you.'

Janey grabbed the woman's other arm.

‘Get away from me!' the woman said sharply. ‘I don't need your help.'

‘And you probably don't need this either,' Emily said, grabbing the woman's grey hair and giving a hard tug. The hair came off in one piece.

‘Just as I thought!' she cried. ‘You're no old lady. You're Arthur Crim! I knew I'd seen you before!'

‘Out of my way, kid,' the man said.

Arthur Crim ran down the steps with Emily still holding tight to his arm.

‘It's him! It's Arthur Crim!' Emily screamed. ‘Stop him!'

‘Arthur Crim, the famous robber?' one of the police officers said. ‘Why, so it is. Stop, you!'

Emily plunged her hand into the robber's pocket and pulled out the Chinese horse.

‘And here's the real horse!' Emily shouted, holding it up. ‘You thought you'd get away with it, didn't you? You and your friend Mr Brakeswell!'

What Emily didn't know was that Mr Brakeswell had sneaked up behind her. So when she held up the horse he snatched it out of her hands. And right at that moment Terry's foot shot out, tripping him.

Mr Brakeswell tumbled down the stairs, rolling over and over as the ancient horse flew up into the air. Ms Plump gasped. In a second the horse would smash on the stone steps of the museum. And that's exactly what would have happened if Terry Meaney hadn't reached out and caught it.

Later, when the police had taken away Arthur Crim and his old criminal friend, Lionel ‘Jailbreak' Brakeswell, Emily explained what happened.

‘It's really quite simple,' she said. ‘Mr Brakeswell knew we were coming to see the horse so he took it into the workshop and got us to come in. When no one was looking he pulled the table over with the fishing line. He made it look like it was Terry's fault.'

‘You see,' Terry said. ‘I didn't do it. I told you I didn't break the horsey.'

‘No, you didn't, Terry,' Ms Plump said. ‘I'm sorry that I thought you did.'

‘Of course the horse that broke was just a copy from the museum shop,' Emily said. ‘Arthur Crim
had the real one. He waited for the alarms to go off and for everyone to leave so he could sneak out.'

‘Well, you're a hero, Emily,' the police officer said. ‘If it wasn't for you and that eyefinger of yours these crims would have got away with something very valuable. Let's all give Emily a big clap.'