The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom

Hotspur crowed like a rooster. Rooster voices answered him from backyards all over the city.

“Hey, what will Daffodil say?” asked Edward beginning to bounce again.

“You already know what she’ll say,” cried Sophie.

“Who’s going to look after the kids?” the two of them cried together, and they began laughing again. Only Hotspur looked uncertain.

“Don’t worry, Hotspur,” Sophie declared. “We’ll look after ourselves.”

“We always do,” agreed Edward. “We’ve had to, haven’t we? I mean, Dad’s done his best, but we’re the clever ones.” And he began bouncing high… high… maybe higher than he had ever bounced before.

“Edward’s going into orbit,” shouted Sophie, looking up at him in admiration. “He’s a distant planet.”

Inside the house, Bonniface Sapwood, faithful brown suitcase in hand, came thundering downstairs in his mukluks.

“What’s for breakfast?” he cried joyously.

But his housekeeper, Daffodil, was standing at the door with her own suitcase (a pink one) packed and bulging beside her. They stared at each other in horror.

“Where do you think you’re going?” they cried together, pointing at one another’s suitcases.

“I’m an explorer, remember!” Bonniface declared. “I’m going to find The Riddle. That’s always been my dream.”

“But I’ve got a chance of dancing in a Christmas ballet,” Daffodil declared right back at him. “And that’s always been my dream. I’ve been practising for weeks.”

“Who’s going to look after the kids?” they shouted simultaneously, glaring across the kitchen at each other.

Out on the trampoline, Edward, Sophie and Hotspur were listening, rolling on the trampoline, and laughing crazily.

“They’re your kids!” said Daffodil at last.

“But listen…” begged Bonniface. “I’ve just had a new theory about where we might find the wreck of The Riddle. Daffodil, I must find that lost ship before anyone else does.”

“It’s just an old ship,” said Daffodil. “It probably won’t ever sail again.”

“It’s The Riddle!” yelled Bonniface. “The First Mate, Escher Black, led the crew to safety after the ice closed in on it, but that’s only part of the story. If I find The Riddle, I’ll find the ship’s logbook, and then I’ll know exactly what happened and why. I’ll write a book about it all. It’ll be a bestseller and someone is bound to make a film of it. Maybe even a ballet – a mukluk ballet!”

“Listen!” said Daffodil. “I told you when I came to work here that I’d have to go when I had a chance to dance. I thought you understood. Well, you said you did.”

“But I’ve already packed my thermal underwear and my best polypropylene waistcoat,” said Bonniface. “Be reasonable!”

“And I have packed my tights and my tutu,” said Daffodil. She leaped to straighten the curtain at the kitchen window – a leap so graceful that Bonniface was distracted by her footwork and failed to see the expression of great cunning which crossed her face. “Oh well, perhaps I will be reasonable,” she cooed, turning round again, “Eat up your fried egg and we’ll argue about it later.”

The fried egg certainly smelled good.

But out on the trampoline, Edward, Sophie and even Hotspur had all seen that expression of cunning cross Daffodil’s face.

“Shall we tell?” asked Sophie, while Hotspur twittered like a fantail. Fantails came out of the garden trees and twittered back at him.

“Let’s just see what happens next,” said Edward. “That’s what you do in stories. I might take a few notes.”

A writer never knows just what is going to turn out to be useful.

CHAPTER 9 The Treachery of a Housekeeper (#ulink_bffa0704-54f6-52b5-b1c4-e3bd8f25de6f)

What happened next, in this particular story, was that their housekeeper sneaked out of the back door. She ran over to the trampoline, holding a finger across her lips. Then she took the finger away and kissed Edward, Sophie and Hotspur, but very quietly. (She usually gave them great smacking, musical kisses like cymbals being flicked together). Then she vaulted lightly over the garden wall with the grace of a trained ballet dancer, and slid into her car – a red ‘Snifitzu’ – which was parked in front of the garage.

Gently and silently, she put it into reverse; gently and silently she took off the handbrake and coasted down the sloping drive. When she hit the main road (after looking carefully both ways), she took off like a rocket.

Three minutes later Bonniface called out, asking where the tomato sauce was.

Four minutes later he got up and began to search the house for tomato sauce, calling Daffodil’s name as he did so. His voice echoed in empty rooms.

Five minutes later a howl of fury and anguish rang out in the Sapwood kitchen.

CHAPTER 10 A Startling Idea for a Devoted Father (#ulink_5a7cca2c-76bb-58a0-9c02-510efe7db52f)

“How could she do this to me?” Bonniface complained bitterly. He mopped up the last of his egg with the last of his toast – toast he had been forced to make himself.

“It’s nearly Christmas,” said Sophie, for the children had come in from the trampoline to comfort their father. “You could put off going to the Antarctic until after Christmas.”

“You don’t understand,” cried Bonniface. “I’ve just had a dream. I heard a mysterious voice. ‘Help!’ it cried. Now, a lot of people would be confused by a voice calling ‘Help!’ but not me. I knew – knew for sure – that it was an Antarctic voice. And it was calling me! ME! And it wanted me now! And not only that, I had the strangest feeling that I knew where it was calling from. I suddenly remembered an inlet – the Inlet of Ghosts, they called it – which people talked about without quite knowing whether it was really there, and I woke up with a sudden new theory about where I might find The Riddle, so…”

“You’ll have to take us with you,” interrupted Edward. “I’d rather go to another planet, but going to the Antarctic might be a sort of science fiction practice.” Hotspur gave the cry of an excited goose.

“Antarctic explorers never take their kids exploring with them,” shouted Bonniface. “Scott didn’t! Shackleton didn’t! Amundsen? No way!”

“It might have been more fun for them if they had,” said Edward.

Bonniface crunched his toast thoughtfully. Slowly, his expression changed till suddenly he thumped the kitchen table with his clenched fist. He thumped it so hard that the bottle of tomato sauce leaped high in the air.

“You’re right!” he cried. “Why should I copy Scott and Shackleton? Why shouldn’t I be the first explorer to take my children with me? I want to look after you kids. I long to try out my new Riddle theory. And I absolutely need to answer that cry of ‘Help!’ I’ll do all three things at once. It’s settled. We’ll all go south!”

“Hooray!” shouted Edward and Sophie, while Hotspur chortled like a happy magpie. “We’ll pack at once.”

“You will need thermal underwear,” their father shouted after them.

“You gave us some last Christmas,” Sophie called back. “And the Christmas before that.”

Bonniface smiled proudly, thinking what a good father he had been.

“What I really wanted was a reflecting telescope,” Edward muttered. Still, it was no use worrying about past disappointments.

“And do you have polypropylene jerkins?” Bonniface shouted again.

“You gave us jerkins and jackets for our birthdays,” Edward’s voice came back faintly. “We have complete sets of explorer clothes! And mukluks! Even Hotspur has mukluks – though he really wanted trainer skates.”

Hotspur! Bonniface suddenly frowned. The older children might be useful. They could cook, do up their own jerkins and jackets and mukluks. But Hotspur!