The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst Read online

  Which is why, the moment the nurse handed over the crutches, I flew down the corridor towards the exit as fast as I could. The nurse had to chase me, shouting, ‘You have to wait for your father to collect you! You’ve not had your breakfast yet! You’re still in your hospital gown!’

  In the end, I was able to leave the hospital in the proper way, in my day clothes, having eaten breakfast. A Doctor Luellen came around to see me and said: ‘Oh, lucky you! Doctor Eli! Well, you’ll be fine to go, in that case! It’ll heal super-fast too! Go on then, skedaddle!’

  So off we skedaddled.

  We took a coach directly to the train station.

  While we waited for the train, Father stayed with the luggage and I practised swinging up and down the platform using the crutches. Imogen and Astrid walked alongside, giving advice and suggestions (mainly: ‘Okay, now go faster’). All the other people waiting for trains stared at me. I think my sisters were proud.

  The crutches were the kind that you prop underneath your arms, and you put the points on the ground and swing yourself forward. You probably already know how crutches work. It had stopped raining but the platform had a few puddles, and sometimes I splashed through these. Grown–ups said, ‘Oh!’ whenever this happened.

  That’s all they said: ‘Oh!’

  I got so quick that my sisters began racing me, until Father told us to cut that out please.

  Then the train arrived and off we went to Spindrift.

  Father took the opportunity of the journey to ask what I had been thinking, climbing onto the roof of a mansion. But after a while of me trying to explain, without really having an explanation, Imogen said, ‘Oh, let’s forget about that, Father, and think about the party instead.’

  Father sighed and said, ‘As long as you promise not to climb onto any more mansions for the purpose of seeing into palace windows, Esther. Or for any other purpose,’ he added quickly, seeing a potential loophole for me there. So I agreed.

  The party!

  It was held on a beach called the Beach with the Yellow Sand. Guess what colour sand it has?

  Ha ha. Yes, yellow.

  But we could hardly see the colour of the sand, because it was covered by party. If Doctor Eli was here (I thought), there was no chance we’d spot him in the noisy, happy crowds: everyone in sundresses and sandals, or linen trousers and rolled-up shirtsleeves, all playing games, eating toffee apples or waving little Welcome Home, Alejandro! flags.

  Remember the Spindrift Children? From Durba’s speech? Well, that’s one reason that Spindrift is famous.

  It’s also famous for another reason and that reason—

  —is this.

  Shadow Mages from nearby Kingdoms and Empires often move to Spindrift. To make a fresh start as good people. They promise to set aside their shadowy ways. Also, pirates occasionally abandon their pirating, and move into Spindrift, for the same reason.

  What this meant—

  —was this.

  There were Shadow Mages and pirates at the party.

  I will begin a new chapter in case you need a moment for the shock.

  My sisters and I did.

  Need a moment, I mean.

  But life is not divided into chapters, so we didn’t get one. We just had to be agog. (That means stare in astonishment.)

  Imogen and Astrid had almost no experience of Shadow Mages, just those Sterling Silver Foxes at the swimming pool really. But lately, as you know, I’d been chasing Shadow Mages away from my school.

  Father must have remembered this, because he placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Esther,’ he murmured. ‘These Shadow Mages have chosen not to use Shadow Magic, remember?’ He spoke softly. ‘In her doctoral thesis, your mother challenged the fundamental premise of the Kingdoms and Empires that all True Mages are inherently good and all Shadow Mages inherently evil. She came to Spindrift on a research trip into the issue when you girls were very young—she still works on a number of ethics committees that draft regulations around the issue.’

  I realised I’d been trembling, my heart racing—I’d even been fumbling for my hessian sack—but Father’s soft, steady words calmed me, even though I couldn’t quite follow them.

  Meanwhile, my sisters were hissing:

  ‘Look! That’s a Witch!’

  ‘Oh my goodness, you’re right! There’s another one! Cat around his shoulders! No, that’s a scarf, not a cat. Still, I swear he’s a Witch!’

  ‘Over there! Don’t look now. Don’t look! Wait. Okay—now! That must be a Radish Gnome! Those can’t be regular fingernails! They must be claws!’

  ‘Esther, is that a pirate? At the soda fountain! IT IS! IT’S A PIRATE! RIGHT THERE! JUST LOOK AT HIS MUSCLES!! HIS MUSCLES ARE ENORMOUS!!’

  ‘Right!’ Father blurted. ‘Come on, girls, let’s try the banquet tables.’ And he hustled us away.

  The banquet tables were incredible! It took a while to reach them—crutches are tricky in sand—so we didn’t know they were incredible straightaway. But there was plenty to see on the way.

  The party covered the beach and extended up over the boardwalk to the terraces of a row of hotels. Entertainers played music on stages. Dancers and acrobats twirled and spun on rugs. Fire-breathers and jugglers strolled amongst the crowd, but it was the sort of stroll where you stop now and then to spit out a gust of flames or to throw seven daggers into the air. You know, that sort of stroll.

  Everywhere we turned, banners waved in the breeze, proclaiming:

  WELCOME HOME, PRINCE ALEJANDRO!

  But where was Prince Alejandro? And where were King Jakob and Queen Anita?

  Imogen spotted them first.

  They were at the opposite end of the beach on a fancy stage, strung about with silk ribbons. The king, queen and prince sat in a row of chairs. A long line waited at the foot of the stage, and one by one, people walked up the steps, shook Alejandro’s hand and spoke to him.

  I suppose they were saying, ‘Welcome back! So glad to see you home again!’ It was tricky to tell from that far, but I did see one woman fling her arms wide as she approached, as if to hug Alejandro. A guard quickly intercepted and gestured for the woman to shake Alejandro’s hand. You could tell she was trying to turn the handshake into a hug. The guard led her back down from the stage, and the next person came up.

  Poor Alejandro, I thought. How boring.

  As I watched, he turned away from the line of people, and seemed to look straight at me. I waved, but he only turned to the next person in line.

  The ocean was calm with occasional splashes, as Water Sprites, floating on their backs, kicked their feet. Often the Water Sprites dove under to refresh themselves. Several Divisions had been invited to the party, Father told us, ‘to demonstrate that the Royal Family forgave the Water Sprites for taking Alejandro in the first place.’

  By the way, it was not raining in Spindrift. The sun shone golden warm and the sky was a bright curve of blue.

  And in that sky? Dragons.

  Swooping about, sending brilliant shocks of flame into the blue. ‘There’s a fascinating history with the dragons here,’ Father said excitedly. ‘Shall I tell you?’

  But Astrid changed the subject smoothly: ‘Oh, look, they have Puff Pastry Pinwheels.’

  For at last we had reached the banquet tables.

  As well as Puff Pastry Pinwheels, they had Caramelised Onion and Beef Sausage Rolls, Persimmon Bruschetta, Spiced Chicken Wings, Baked Potatoes with Sour Cream and Chives, Giant Maywish Chocolate Coins, Lemon Meringue Cloud Cakes and Rosewater Pistachio Cupcakes.

  Everything was labelled, which is how I knew their correct names.

  After we had tried a sample of almost everything, we wandered around the party. We were very cheerful. Very full, too. A bit queasy, even.

  I can’t remember everything we did, but I know we stopped at crafts tables and made hats and jewellery, with the guidance of a Sterling Silver Fox. We also went on a tour of the Radish Gnome caves led by an actual Radish
Gnome. He glanced over at me just before the entry. ‘Leave the crutches here,’ he suggested. ‘There are rails in there. Sing out if you need a break.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied.

  It was very strange: a polite conversation with a Radish Gnome. My sisters and I widened our eyes at each other.

  We also tried to dunk a Fire Siren by throwing a coconut at a target, won yo-yos by spinning a prize wheel, admired sand sculptures (there were castles taller than Father!) and got our faces painted.

  We kept an eye out for people we might know—apart from Doctor Eli, we knew that our cousin Bronte was here somewhere with her parents, and also our Aunt Franny. (Remember that my mother has ten sisters, so there’s always a chance you’ll run into an aunt wherever you go in the Kingdoms and Empires.)

  We considered joining the line to say, ‘Welcome home,’ to Alejandro—we’d bring him a plate of treats, we decided—but it seemed like a waste of a party to spend it standing in a queue.

  Not long after we’d made this decision, a catastrophe happened.

  The catastrophe unfolded—

  —like this:

  We had just run into our Aunt Franny.

  She was on the terrace of one of the fancy hotels, dancing a quick-step with a short, stout woman. The quick-step has a lot of prancing, skip-jumps and twirls. Other couples were also prancing and skipping, often bumping into each other, but friendly and joyful about the bumping.

  Aunt Franny is one of my favourite aunts. She has a very definite personality, a hoarse voice, and she always chews on carrots.

  Say a queen approached her and said, ‘I am Queen!’ Aunt Franny would munch on her carrot and demand, through a mouthful of chewed orangey bits: ‘And?’

  Although Aunt Franny lives in Nina Bay now, she once lived in Spindrift and was its mayor. That’s why she was at the party.

  Father is also fond of Aunt Franny and only a teeny bit afraid of her.

  Anyhow, we waved from the edge of the terrace until she noticed us. She did not say, ‘Excuse me,’ to her partner and cross over to us, as we’d expected. She beckoned us to join her on the dance floor. If somebody else did this, you might smile and say, ‘No thanks!’ but when Aunt Franny beckons, you slip right in and join the dance. Well, Father and my sisters did that, anyway. I raised my crutches so Franny could see my dilemma, and her eyes skipped from the crutches to my plastered ankle. She beckoned again anyway. That’s the sort of person she is.

  So I leaned my crutches against the hotel wall and hopped over to her.

  Father was already dancing with both Imogen and Astrid at once, confusing for a quick-step, but they managed. Aunt Franny spoke over her shoulder: ‘Broken a bone, have you?’

  Before I could answer, she and her partner had pranced away—the dance made them. I swayed to the music as much as I could on one foot, and tried not to get in anybody’s way.

  Whenever Aunt Franny danced close to me, or to Father and my sisters, we all talked at once, about our journey, the party, and how I’d broken my ankle falling from a roof. (Franny nodded seriously, as if it made perfect sense: Yes, you could easily break an ankle falling from a roof.)

  It was around now that Father happened to glance at the ocean. ‘Is the tide coming in?’ he asked, frowning. His dancing slowed, although Astrid and Imogen dragged on his hands trying to speed him up again.

  Aunt Franny spun her partner in a sudden circle, making the woman stagger a little. (I’m still not sure what her partner’s name was. Franny’s not the type for introductions.)

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Tide’s not due to come in until late.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Father asked. He had stopped dancing altogether, which meant that Imogen and Astrid had also been forced to stop, and he gestured across the boardwalk and down to the sea.

  As we watched, three things happened, one after the other.

  Two little children building a sandcastle at the water’s edge squealed as a wave crashed over their castle.

  A group of adults picnicking on a blanket hopped up and dragged their blanket further up the sand, just avoiding the splash of a second wave.

  A man called, ‘Oi! Somebody catch that for me!’ and waded into the ocean, reaching for a hat that had been carried out to sea by a third wave.

  Separately, these things might not have seemed important. The small children began building a new sandcastle at once. The adults with the picnic blanket set to eating again. And a Water Sprite plucked the man’s hat from the sea, and tossed it over to him. ‘Cheers, mate,’ said the man, wringing out his hat.

  But from up here it seemed very much as if the tide was coming in.

  ‘Freak waves?’ Imogen wondered.

  We all stood at the edge of the terrace, watching the beach. Everybody down there remained happy and lively. A long line still waited to greet the Royal Family and to shake Alejandro’s hand. At the other stages, people gathered to watch performances, many patiently nibbling corn on the cob. Quite close to the water’s edge, a group of small children—four or five year olds—were marching up onto a stage. Wooden levels formed a kind of staircase, and the children lined themselves up, each new row of heads popping up above the one before. It must be a choir, I decided.

  Meanwhile, waves crept further and further up the sand, each one inching closer to frolicking children and adults. Scarcely noticing that they were doing this, more and more people reached for bags or shoes and shifted them away from the water, then carried on chatting or eating.

  ‘Strange,’ Aunt Franny muttered to herself, then she looked up, blinked sharply and raised a hand.

  ‘Out there,’ she said.

  Even as she pointed, Aunt Franny was swivelling.

  ‘SOUND THE ALARM!’ she shouted. ‘CUT THE MUSIC! SOUND THE ALARM!’

  The music stopped almost at once and the other dancers paused mid-swing, confused, before turning towards the ocean.

  Way out near the horizon, a wave the size of a building was thundering towards the shore.

  All at the same time, the Water Sprites seemed to become conscious of it. There was a strange, silent choreography of Water Sprites diving in perfect arches and disappearing out to sea.

  Then the alarms rang out: CLANG! CLANG! And there was a surge of movement on the beach as everyone turned towards the water.

  You will be imagining a terrible panic next: shrieks! wails! people being crushed and shoved!

  That’s what I imagined.

  But instead of panic, a great calm seemed to settle on the beach, a strange stillness. Honestly, you could almost see them all weighing up the situation. The eyes of adults, and children too, calculated the size and distance of the wave, its likely reach, number of people on the beach, amount of space on the boardwalk above the beach—and then, in concert, they moved.

  Royal Guards whisked the king, queen and Alejandro from their stage and rushed them towards the highest nearby point: the lighthouse. A small group of adults—mostly constables, I discovered later, but they wore party clothes, so I couldn’t tell—bellowed commands. These were obeyed instantly. The tiniest children were gathered up, fanciest instruments grabbed, and people swarmed like patterns of insects up the sand towards the boardwalk.

  On the boardwalk, meanwhile, people were being steered into the hotels, clearing the way for those on the beach.

  My sisters, my father and I found ourselves hurrying into the hotel behind us: the Elegant Seahorse, it was called, very fancy, with thick, plush carpet that made me want to push off my sandals and feel it on my toes. No time, though. Once in the lobby, we were instructed to go directly to the roof. We joined a parade marching up the stairs: a challenge with my ankle. Imogen carried my crutches and I used the railing to help, hopping from step to step.

  ‘Is the wave going to flood the hotel?’ Astrid asked.

  A woman behind her replied. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’ll stop just short of the boardwalk. It’ll cover the beach and wash away the party, but it’s not going to hit th
e hotels.’

  ‘This is just precautionary,’ an elderly gentleman agreed. ‘And to ensure there’s space for all those on the sand to come to safety.’ He stopped to wheeze into his handkerchief, but quickly hurried on.

  They seemed very calm and knowledgeable. It was soothing.

  Just as we reached the roof and joined the crowd up there, the wave hit.

  The sound! It was a slow, crackling, majestic

  CRAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!

  I don’t know if I’ve ever held my breath for so long. Everyone on that roof did, I think. Everyone on the row of hotel roofs. Everyone down there squished on the boardwalk.

  Well, not the last few people who were scrambling up onto the boardwalk, of course. And not the people grabbing the hands of those last few, hauling them up. They were busy and had no time to hold their breath.

  But for the rest of us the suspense was like someone drawing a bow across a high note on a violin.

  Where was the wave going to stop?

  I should have stretched the word. It was more like this:

  CRA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-

  A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-

  A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A SH!!!!

  It reached, reached, reached up and up and up the beach in a storm of froth, up, up, up—

  And it stopped.

  Right at the edge of the boardwalk.

  It seemed so proud, the wave! It was like a great creature that smashes itself down into a flowerbed, and instantly, gleefully sets to work tearing apart any flowers that survived the smash.

  ‘DID EVERYBODY GET CLEAR? IS ANYBODY IN THE WATER?!’ That was Aunt Franny shouting into a megaphone. She was right at the edge of the roof, hanging over the railing. Her head was turning back and forth rapidly as she scanned the beach—awash with foaming sea water—and she was bending her neck at an awkward angle, trying see straight down to the boardwalk below.