The Case of the Stolen Film (2 page)

A second crash rocked the building. Dirk lost his grip and fell to the ground. Bits of wood and concrete landed on top of him. The machine had made a large hole in the corner of the building. Dirk jumped up and shook the dust off his back. He ran around the crates, knocking them away. Beneath each one was a patch of solid rock. They would all lead to an entrance deep beneath the foundations of London, but Dirk couldn't afford to bump into the Dragnet officers that Flotsam had mentioned. Drakes weren't too discriminating in who they arrested. The last time Dirk had bumped into some, he had wound up in prison. He had managed to escape with the help of a Sea Dragon called Alba Longs and a yellow-bellied, coal-black Cave Dweller called Fairfax Nordstrum, but it had been close and he didn't fancy repeating the experience.

There was a terrible scraping as the machine
chewed away at the building. Dirk ran to a window. It was boarded up but he could see traces of yellow from the workmen's bibs through the slats. He checked the other sides. He was surrounded. He thought fast. He had once seen a documentary on demolishing buildings and remembered how the voice-over had said that it was vital that the electricity, gas and water supplies be turned off.

‘Rats in a basket,' exclaimed Dirk, ‘that's it.'

Jegsy had plugged in the record player, so if the electricity hadn't been disconnected, maybe some of the other supplies had been left on.

Dirk searched the walls and found a small gas heater in the corner. A metal pipe ran into the back of it from the wall. He yanked it away. Escaping gas hissed. Dirk held a paw over it. He deftly lifted an overturned crate with his tail, grabbed it with his free paw and pushed it over the pipe, releasing the end so that the gas filled the crate.

There was another CRASH! as the crunching machine came though a window. Dirk could hear the workmen shouting. He had to act quickly before they got too close. He didn't want anyone to get hurt.

The smell of gas seeped through the gaps of the crate. The crunching machine took hold of a section
of the building and twisted, mangling a mass of metal rods that ran through the wall. The whole structure shook, causing the skylight to crack and shards of glass to shower on to Dirk. He flew up to the hole in the roof.

‘Here goes nothing,' he said.

He looked down at the crate, took aim, opened his mouth and exhaled. A line of fire shot down into the warehouse, catching the escaping vapours of gas, drawing flames down into the crate. It seemed like there was a moment's silence, like an intake of breath, before it happened.

At the top of his voice, Dirk shouted, ‘Take cover!'

There was a flash of light. The sound of the explosion filled the air and the surrounding workmen dived to the ground to protect themselves from the blast.

Lying down, covering their faces, none of them noticed the four-metre-long, red-backed, green-bellied, urban-based Mountain Dragon flying over their heads.

Holly was imprisoned in her house for the whole of the summer. The last time she had been out, she had returned home late at night, her jeans torn and covered in blood but with no visible sign of injury. Dad's big-haired wife had demanded to know where she had been and what had happened but she couldn't very well tell them the truth: that her leg had been broken flying up an elevator shaft on a Mountain Dragon's back, then fixed by a Sky Dragon called Nebula Colorado.

So she said nothing and as punishment for her irresponsible behaviour they had grounded her for the whole summer holiday.

No TV, no computer and no leaving the house until school began in September. The external doors and windows were kept locked at all times using keys that Big Hair kept on her bedside table at night. Even if she could get the keys and open the doors, there was no way of deactivating the alarm without the four-digit code, which changed every week.

At least Archie was allowed to visit. Dad and Big Hair let him come round because they thought it was a good sign that Holly had made a friend at last. Holly and Archie spent most of their time in her room messing about. Sometimes they played hide-and-seek, with Holly using her ability to blend with her surroundings, a skill she had picked up from accidentally tasting dragon blood. They talked about dragons. Archie's favourite story was the time Vainclaw Grandin had entranced the whole of Little Hope Village Hall in order to force the Prime Minister to operate a secret government weapon, which Vainclaw had learnt about from Callum Thackley, the Prime Minister's son.

‘Poor Callum,' Holly said the last time she recounted the story.

‘But he was on their side, wasn't he?'Archie argued.

‘Yeah, but Vainclaw drove him mad with Dragonsong. All the psychiatrists think the monsters
are in his head, but they're not, are they?' Holly didn't mention that Callum still wrote to her, strange tortured letters about monsters and madness. She always read them in case there was any indication that Vainclaw had been back in touch, but they scared her.

Archie remembered his own experience of dragons and nodded. Then he said, ‘Nebula was amazing, wasn't she? What do you think she meant when she told you that she was part of you now?'

‘Well, she used her own ash to fix my leg, didn't she?' replied Holly.

‘Does it feel any different?'

Holly stood up. ‘No, just the same.'

‘Try hopping,' said Archie.

Holly hopped. ‘It just feels like the other leg.'

‘Hop for the rest of the day – see what happens,' said Archie, grinning.

‘You want me to see what it feels like if I kick you?' replied Holly, chasing him round on one leg.

‘No thanks,' said Archie, laughing.

Archie's visits were all Holly had to look forward to, but he hadn't been round for days. Holly felt like a caged animal, which was why she had taken to sneaking downstairs to watch TV late at night while Dad and Big Hair were asleep.

She slipped into the front room, turned on the TV and instantly muted it. She couldn't afford to wake them. They had made it perfectly clear what would happen if she was discovered out of her room.

‘One step out of line and I'm sending you back to William Scrivener's,' Dad had said.

Holly had hated her time at the rich-kid boarding school, sharing a room with Petal Moses, away from London, away from Willow, her cat, and away from Dirk.

She turned the volume on quietly and flicked through the channels. It was the usual late-night programming: live-streaming of a reality TV show showing a bunch of people sleeping, an American detective film and an unfunny sitcom. Holly stopped on a channel showing a female presenter with tangerine-coloured skin and a smile set to full beam, sitting behind a desk with
Hollywood Gossip
written behind her.

‘What are your children doing this summer?' chirruped the presenter happily. ‘Whatever it is, I bet it won't be as exciting as it is for one very special twelve-year-old, currently here in Hollywood making a movie all about herself. It could only be Petal Moses, pop's most precocious offspring.'

A picture of Petal appeared behind her. She looked different from the time Holly had shared a room with her at William Scrivener's School. She had a healthy tan, her hair had been cut into a trendy new style and she was sporting a nose ring.

‘The movie in question? It's the adaptation of Petal's autobiography,
When Petals Blossom
. The film, called
Petal – The Movie
, will star young Miss Moses in the title role and will be directed by legendary Hollywood film director Chase Lampton.'

A man with thick curly black hair, wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket, appeared on the screen. ‘To me it's more than a movie about the child of a pop star slash actress,' said the man. ‘It's kind of an analysis of celebrity culture.'

It cut back to the presenter. ‘Lampton will also be directing his own son, Dante Lampton,' she said, as the picture behind her showed the director standing next to a boy who looked like a scaled-down version of him. ‘And talking of keeping things in the family, can you guess who's providing the soundtrack as well as picking up an executive producer credit? Of course, it's Petal's famous mother …'

Holly switched channels. She hated Petal. The spoilt pop star's daughter got everything she ever wanted and
probably always would. Holly wasn't jealous that Petal was making a film or that she was in Hollywood but she did envy her freedom.

Hearing the door creak, she quickly switched off the TV and froze, blending with the sofa, but the footsteps that entered the room were too light to be Dad or Big Hair. Holly's head reappeared as she turned to see a black cat with a white face and a black smudge on her nose padding into the room. She reached down and scooped her up.

‘Hello, Willow,' she said, stroking her and noticing that her fur was cold. ‘You've been outside, have you?' she said into her ear. ‘Lucky thing.'

Willow miaowed in reply and Holly noticed something attached to her collar. It was a biro case but instead of a pen inside there was a rolled-up piece of paper.

‘What have you got here?' asked Holly, removing the biro and pulling out the piece of paper. She unfurled it and read the note scrawled in capital letters:

COME TO THE CAT FLAP

Holly muted the TV and crept to the kitchen. She
crouched down and looked through the cat flap to find Archie Snellgrove's blue eyes blinking back at her, his unkempt dirty blond hair falling over his face.

‘What are you doing here?' she asked.

‘Can I come in? It's really cold,' said Archie, shivering as he spoke.

Back in the safety of his top-floor office, Dirk sat back, his feet on the desk, sipping a cocktail of orange and blackcurrant squash. On the TV was one of his all-time favourite films,
The Big Zero
. It was one of the classic American detective films. It was the reason Dirk had become a detective in the first place. He blew a smoke ring and relaxed.

‘Mr Dilly, are you awake?' whispered a shaky voice from outside his door.

‘Wide awake, Mrs Klingerflim,' said Dirk.

The door opened and his elderly landlady's owl-like face appeared.

‘Sorry to bother you so late, Mr Dilly,' she said.

‘I've always got time for you, Mrs K,' he replied.

‘Oh, you are sweet,' said Mrs Klingerflim, removing her thick glasses and wiping the lenses. Dirk noticed how old and fragile she looked without them. She put them back on and said, ‘That's better, now I can see you.'

For years, Dirk had assumed that Mrs Klingerflim was so blind that she thought he was human. It had come as a complete surprise to learn that she knew not only that he was a dragon, but his exact subspecies, due to having spent years dragon-spotting with her late husband, Ivor. She had even helped write his definitive guide to dragons.

‘I was worried you might be sleeping,' said the old lady. ‘My dear Ivor was a very light sleeper. He used to say that a whispering ant could wake him up,' she said, shaking her head fondly. ‘I'm the complete opposite. An elephant with a foghorn couldn't rouse me. Ivor used to wake me up by putting on Glen Miller records at full blast. That was on my old gramophone, of course. These days it's all electronological music played on computers, isn't it? CDs and empty threes and whatnot. It's funny how things change. I imagine one day we'll be able to stick our fingers up our noses and music will start playing.'

‘Sorry, Mrs K, did you want me for something?' replied Dirk, assuming that she hadn't popped in to give him her theory on the future of music production.

‘Oh yes, I'm sorry. Things fly in and out of my head like paper aeroplanes sometimes,' she said. ‘Would you mind checking the cellar? There's a funny noise. I'm worried we might have rats in there or something. I'd go down myself but the steps are very steep and the doctor says I shouldn't take any unnecessary risks at my age, what with my knees and ankles.'