Emily Feather and the Secret Mirror by Holly Webb

Author:Holly Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic UK
Published: 2013-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

The security guard pulled her away from the painting, glowering at her. “Where’s your teacher?” he snapped.

“I – I don’t know,” Emily stammered. She felt dizzy, and not anchored to the ground. She wondered vaguely if she’d left part of herself inside the strange world of the painting when she was dragged back so suddenly. She certainly didn’t feel all there. She noticed Rachel hovering worriedly at the security guard’s elbow, and a couple of other people from their class whispering to each other in the doorway. As her vision cleared, she saw that it was Katie and Ellie-Mae – of course it was. Emily gave a tiny sigh, and then stared down at her feet as Mrs Daunt hurried into the gallery. She seemed to arrive out of nowhere, as though she’d suddenly sensed that one of her group was causing trouble.

“There are strict guidelines,” the security guard was telling her, and Mrs Daunt alternated between nodding apologetically to him and glaring at Emily.

Emily decided she’d better start thinking of an excuse quite quickly. No one was going to believe that she was trying to rescue a fairy girl in a painting. She glanced back at it, hoping that the river fairy was still there, and hadn’t been eaten, or shot down with arrows.

The painting wasn’t even moving for Emily now. It was greyly, eerily still. All the little figures were fixed, their faces frozen. Emily longed to reach out and touch the paint again – they looked so wrong, so silly like that. She knew that they were real, and it hurt to see them reduced to a strange, rather pretty picture. And then she saw, with a lurch deep in her stomach, that there were figures, now, at the bottom of the cliff, staring up at the girl.

“Well? What on earth were you doing, Emily? You know not to touch the paintings!” Mrs Daunt snapped. “Look at me!”

Emily swallowed, and dragged herself away from the girl’s frightened face. “I’m really sorry! I was looking at it, and then I saw a fly land on the painting –” there were several small black flies in the gallery, lazily circling in the warmer air under the skylight “ – so I brushed it off. It’s such a beautiful painting, I didn’t think properly. I just didn’t want it to have a fly on it…”

Not a brilliant excuse, she realized, crossing her fingers behind her back, but the best she could manage right now.

“You didn’t think properly. Exactly,” Mrs Daunt told her. But she seemed slightly less furious than she’d been before. “I’m so sorry,” she said again to the guard. “I think it was a silly mistake. I’m sure she didn’t intend to damage the painting.” Mrs Daunt turned to look at it properly for the first time, and frowned. “Are you using this one for your project, Emily?”

“Um, yes…” Emily answered. She hadn’t found another painting, so she supposed she’d have to. She could write something about how horrible those girls who reminded her of Lara and Ellie-Mae were, she supposed.

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