Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa by Jenny Nimmo

Author:Jenny Nimmo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction, School & Education, Action & Adventure, General
ISBN: 9781405218306
Publisher: Egmont Books
Published: 2005-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

BULL, BELLS, AND GOLDEN BATS

As he made his way up the steep hill to his home, Lysander began to feel breathless. This had never happened before. He was a strong boy tall for his age, a great runner and champion hurdler.

It was the drums that took away his breath. That's what it was. Their angry beats echoed in his head like distant thunder, making him shudder.

"Trouble!" called Homer from his master's shoulder.

"Yeah, trouble," Lysander agreed.

He had just climbed the steepest part of the hill road, a long curving ascent that ended in a welcome stretch of even ground. Here he stopped and looked out across the city The cathedral, with its great domed roof dwarfed all the other buildings in the city Only the shadowy mansion to the north was anywhere near as tall.

"Bloor's," Lysander muttered.

Beyond the gray roof of the academy and just at the edge of the woods that covered the castle ruin, there issued a thin plume of smoke.

When he saw it, Lysander's eyes began to smart, his skin burned, his throat felt raw Tearing at his collar, he ran the last few meters home. He reached a pair of tall iron gates and, pulling one open, he tore up the path to an imposing white house, set behind lawns as green and smooth as billiard tables.

Mrs. Jessamine Sage was watching a quiz show on TV when her son went pounding up to his room. Mrs. Sage knew her son's trouble immediately She could hear the drums accompanying his footsteps. It was from her that Lysander had inherited his power. At certain times, she too heard the drums speak and the ancestors clamoring for attention.

Mrs. Sage eased herself up from her comfortable chair. She was a well-rounded woman of considerable strength, but she'd been feeling heavy and listless of late. She didn't need drums to tell her that another baby was on its way There were other very obvious signs.

The beautiful and stately woman climbed the stairs to the first floor. Behind the two doors on either side of her son's room, her daughters, aged ten and fourteen, were playing loud, unmelodic music: guitars and voices. It was all squeaky shouting and rap, rap, rap. Not a drumbeat between them.

"Hortense! Alexandra! Reduce!" barked Mrs. Sage in such a commanding tone that both girls immediately obeyed.

When Mrs. Sage opened her son's door she was met by another barrage of sound, this one so tumultuous it almost knocked her back onto the landing.

"Lysander! Calm!" called Mrs. Sage across the room. She never used two words, or even five for that matter, where one would do.

Lysander was lying on his bed with his eyes shut tight and his hands over his ears. Even so, he heard his mother's powerful voice. He opened his eyes.

"Think of a tree," sang Mrs. Sage.

"Roots, leaves, branches.

"Holding, lifting . . .

"Sky . . .

"Think of the King."

Lysander removed his hands from his ears.

"There," said his mother, lowering herself onto the bed. "Better?"

It worked every time.

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