die, but you got in so early, the rest of us didn’t stand a chance.”
“Did you even like him?”
There was that sneer again. “You don’t have to like someone to get something from them.”
Stephanie resisted the urge to punch Crystal’s smirking face long enough for Beryl to pass the doorway. She saw Stephanie and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Stephanie,” she said, “what are you doing here?”
“She thought she’d call round,” Crystal said, “to see how we are.”
“Oh, that’s very nice of you, dear.”
Crystal took this opportunity to walk away without saying goodbye. Stephanie focused on Beryl.
“You’re not wearing the brooch Gordon left you?”
“That horrid thing? No, I am not, and I don’t think I ever will. It doesn’t even sparkle for heaven’s sake. People know something is cheap if it doesn’t sparkle.”
“That’s a shame. It looked pretty, though, from where I was standing; it would have looked nice with one of your cardigans—”
“We saw you yesterday,” Beryl interrupted.
“I’m sorry?”
“In a horrid yellow car, with that dreadful Skulduggery Pleasant.”
Stephanie felt the instant flutters of panic in her belly, but she made herself frown and give a puzzled laugh. “Um, I think you may be mistaken. I was home all day yesterday.”
“Nonsense. You passed right by us. We saw you quite clearly. We saw him, too, all covered up like last time.”
“Nope, wasn’t me.”
Beryl smiled piously. “Lying is a sin, did you know that?”
“I’d heard the rumour…”
“Fergus!” Beryl shouted back into the house and a few moments later her husband walked out of the living room. He was at home every day now after suffering a “serious fall” at work. He was in the process of suing his employers, claiming that it was their negligence that resulted in his debilitating injuries. He didn’t look too debilitated as he approached the door.
“Fergus, Stephanie here says she wasn’t in the car with that awful Mr Pleasant.”
Fergus scowled. “She’s calling us liars?”
“No,” Stephanie said with a half-laugh. “Just that it must have been somebody else.”
“Stephanie,” Beryl chided, “let’s not play games. We know it was you. It’s such a tragic thing to see, a dear sweet innocent child like you falling in with the wrong crowd.”
“Wrong crowd?”
“Weirdos,” Fergus said with a sneer. “I’ve seen their kind before. Gordon used to surround himself with people like that, people with… secrets.”
“And why does he hide his face anyway?” Beryl asked. “Is he deformed?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Stephanie said, fighting to keep her voice even.
“You can’t trust people like that,” Fergus continued. “I’ve been around them my whole life, seen them coming and going. Never wanted anything to do with them. You never know who you’re dealing with or what sordid little things they get up to.”
“He seemed all right to me,” Stephanie said as casually as she could. “He seemed quite nice, actually.”
Beryl shook her head sadly. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re only a child.”
Stephanie bristled. “You’ve never even spoken to him.”
“Adults don’t have to speak to other adults to know if they’re bad news or not. One look, that’s all we need.”
“So anyone different from you is bad news?”
“Anyone different from us, dear.”
“My parents always told me never to judge someone by how they look.”
“Yes, well,” Beryl said primly. “If they think they can afford to live in ignorance, then that’s their mistake.”
“My parents aren’t ignorant.”
“I never said they were, dear. I just said they lived in ignorance.”
Stephanie couldn’t take this any more. “I need to pee,” she said suddenly.
Beryl blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Pee. I need to pee. Can I use your bathroom?”
“I… I suppose…”
“Thanks.”
Stephanie stepped in past them both and hurried up the stairs. She went into the bathroom, and when she was sure Beryl wasn’t going to follow her up, she crept into the master bedroom and went straight to the jewellery box on the dresser. It was a massive thing, each of its compartments bulging with tacky trinkets that sparkled and twinkled and glittered. She found the brooch in a slide-out compartment at the base of the box, where it nestled with a single hoop earring and a pair of tweezers. She stuck it in her pocket, closed the jewellery box and left the room, then flushed the toilet in the bathroom and bounded down the stairs.
“Thank you,” she said brightly, and Beryl opened her mouth to continue their conversation but Stephanie was already halfway down the garden path.
Stephanie sat on one of the boulders that sealed off the north end of the beach, waiting for Skulduggery. The weathermen had been predicting an end to the dry spell, but the morning sky was blue and cloud free. There was a shell on the boulder next to her, a pretty shell, a shell she suddenly found herself loving.
It moved. The air didn’t do that cool rippling thing around her hand, but the shell still moved and it wasn’t because of the breeze either. Stephanie’s heart quickened but she didn’t let herself celebrate. Not yet. It could have been a fluke. If she could do it a second time, then she could celebrate.
She concentrated on the shell. She held her hand up, seeing the space between her hand and the shell as a series of interlocking objects, waiting to be moved. Her fingers uncurled slightly and she felt it, she felt the air against her palm, solid somehow. She pushed against it and the shell shot off the boulder.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, sticking both arms up in the air. Magic! She’d done magic! She laughed in delight.
“You look happy.”
Stephanie turned so suddenly she almost fell off the boulder, and her dad grinned as he approached. She blushed deeply, and dug her phone out of her pocket
