Half Lost (The Half Bad Trilogy) by Sally Green

Author:Sally Green
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

Badlands

I reach out to touch the map but Gabriel snatches my hand back.

“It’s just a wall,” I say. I’ve been touching it for the last ten minutes and nothing bad has happened.

“It’s a map. And magical. And we don’t know how it works or what’s in there. Except that Mercury said that if you went to the wrong map you’d get stuck.”

I back off a little from the wall. “So? How do you think it works?” I ask. “Is there an on switch or a spell you have to do?”

Gabriel gets Mercury’s diaries out of my backpack and reads: “Finally found the map room in the cellar of the house in P and it was simple from there. She loves that: mixing the extremely complex spells of the maps with a simple request to gain access to them.”

“So ‘a simple request to gain access’ is what we need.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Any ideas? I mean, it couldn’t be as easy as asking, ‘Can we come in?’ Could it?”

“I have a feeling it really is as simple as that.” Gabriel looks at the wall and says, “I would guess that you touch where you want to go on the map and ask to gain access and . . . maybe it sucks you in, like a cut or something.”

“OK, but which map?” And I move round the room, studying all four walls, all four maps, but I’ve no idea which is the right one. There’s the badlands, a snowy mountainous place, a desert, and a city by a lake.

Gabriel looks at them all too and then goes back to Mercury’s diary. He says, “There’s nothing more. What we need to do is give ‘a simple request to gain access.’”

“Right. So we ask the map something like, ‘If you can take me to Ledger, then please let me in.’” I look at Gabriel to see what he thinks.

He nods.

“So which one do we try first?”

“Badlands,” he says.

“Why?”

He smiles. “I like the sound of it.”

“All right.” And I move to the wall and flex my fingers. “But where do we touch?”

We inspect the map but there’s no obvious sign to help us. “I think we pick a spot in the middle and ask to go in.”

Gabriel doesn’t look too impressed but says, “OK. But we go together.”

“No.”

“Yes. If you go alone, I’ll come straight after you anyway so we might as well go together.” I know he’d do it too, so I take his hand and then put my finger to the midpoint of the map and touch it gently.

Gabriel jerks my hand off the map, saying, “You have to mention Ledger’s name. You have to say to give us access to Ledger. I think if you just ask for access then we will go in but it might be the wrong map.”

“OK.” I smile at him. “Is English the right language? Or do you want to try French?”

“If she’s that powerful, I imagine it works whatever language you use.”

“You ready?”

Gabriel nods and I say, “Map, please take us to Ledger.

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