It was not a nice moment when we stood in front of her murmuring, “We’re very sorry,” with Mom’s stern eye on us. I was only glad that Florence and Grayson weren’t there—I’d probably have died of shame. The Boker refused to accept our apology, but she didn’t turn down the financial compensation. Of course, she said, the value of Mr. Snuggles had been incalculably high, and sad to say our savings wouldn’t bring him back, but she thought it essential to take our money. That way we’d learn that our malicious actions had consequences. In fact, the loss hit us hard: for the first time we’d saved up nearly enough for a really good smartphone—and now of course we could forget about that.
And as for the educational effects, they were limited to extending our English vocabulary with a few new terms like insubordination and collateral damage (both out of the Boker’s lecture on the depravity of young people today).
“If there’s one thing I’m proud of, it’s my tendency to insubordination,” announced Mia as we set off for home. As for me, I felt like a living case of collateral damage.
But don’t they say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Or as Mr. Wu used to put it, “When water has been poured away, you can’t bring it back.” In other words, what happened had happened, and life went on.
You just had to think of the positive aspects: not only had I expanded my vocabulary, I was really good at shape-changing now. With the Boker’s face in my mind’s eye, I could easily concentrate on turning from a jaguar into a small barn owl. And from a barn owl into Spot, the Spencers’ fat cat. A moment of concentration, and I looked like Buttercup. Now I was a beckoning Japanese cat. A bottle of fizzy drink. A dragonfly with shimmering wings. Back to the jaguar again. A breath of air. Myself in a Catwoman costume. Great!
“Not bad!” said Henry’s voice behind me, and I spun around. He had come out of his door unnoticed during my little performance, or at least so I supposed. “You’re really getting good!”
“I know!” I said cheerfully, snapping my fingers and changing the Catwoman costume for jeans and a T-shirt. “Senator Tod ran away from me just now. What shall we do next? I fancy a bit of roller-skating.” Another snap of my fingers, and Henry and I had Rollerblades on our feet. I turned a high-spirited pirouette.
“You’re in a good mood.” When Henry laughed, little lines formed around his eyes. “No acute attacks of guilt and self-hatred?”
“Nope. I’ve taken Mr. Wu’s advice: never mind how hard the times are, he always says, carry a green branch in your heart and a songbird will settle on it.”
“Wow—where on earth does Mr. Wu get all these hoary old sayings from?” Henry reached for my hand, and we skated down the corridor together. That was one of the things I liked about him—he was always ready to fall in with my feelings, and he asked no questions. “So Senator Tod came back, did he?”
“Yes, from over there,” I said, pointing to the place beyond Mom’s door where a corridor branched off sideways.
“Was he talking in riddles again?” Henry whirled me around in a curve. I laughed. This was really fun.
“Not really. He called me a nice kitty and said he’d be back in a…” I fell silent, because at that very moment, there was a loud bang, and a man in a tropical helmet and a safari outfit came around the corner, with a gun under each arm and three huge knives in his belt. I had to look twice, but yes, it was Senator Tod in another disguise. We came to a halt right in front of him, and he threw back his head and laughed his crazy laughter.
“Shall we change shape?” I whispered to Henry, who was staring, fascinated, at Senator Tod. “I can’t see him shooting a dragonfly successfully. Or a fruit fly.”
But Senator Tod didn’t seem to be about to use his guns. “I set out to hunt leopards, and now I have a couple of teenagers on skates in my sights,” he said.
Jaguars, for heaven’s sake! Why did people always get them mixed up?
“I know you two,” Senator Tod went on. “You ran away from me not so long ago—and I know your names. Henry Grant and Liv Silver.”
My cheerful mood was gone. I didn’t quite like a man whose name meant “death” knowing my name.
“Almost right,” said Henry, raising his eyebrows arrogantly. It was all very well for him to talk; after all, the Senator had given him the wrong surname. Jasper’s surname, to be precise. “And you are…?”
“Him again,” said someone behind us. It was Arthur—I hadn’t noticed that we were skating past his showy metal door with the words CARPE NOCTEM engraved on it. Although it didn’t look quite so showy now. It had definitely shrunk.
“Arthur Hamilton,” stated the big game hunter. “The boy who looks like an angel but has a heart of stone.”
“So you two have met before?” I was feeling a bit better when Arthur came and stood beside us, because the Senator knew his name too.
“Yes, this character’s been wandering around acting strangely for some time.” Arthur pushed a lock of fair hair back from his forehead. “Although he hasn’t introduced himself to me yet.”
“Then let me do it—this is Senator Tod,” I said, and Henry added, “Tod Nord, as in North.”
“North as in south?” asked Arthur.
Senator Tod nodded.
“And is that your only name?” asked Henry, although the obvious question, of course, would have been How do you know our names? Or What do you want from us?