The Key to Rondo by Emily Rodda

Author:Emily Rodda [Rodda, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781921989582
Publisher: Scholastic Australia
Published: 2010-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Good Advice

Jim turned to look at Leo and Mimi. They both shook their heads violently putting their fingers to their lips and backing towards the door that led to the bedrooms.

By now, everyone in the room could see their alarm. Polly and Grandma were staring at them in surprise. Bertha blinked sleepily, shook her head till her ears flapped, and lumbered to her feet.

‘Hold on!’ Jim called through the door. He rattled the bolt with one hand, as if he was trying to open it, at the same time waving his other hand at Mimi and Leo, signalling to them to get out of sight. Mimi and Leo slipped rapidly into the bedroom hallway, pulling the door shut behind them.

They heard the front door bolt slide back, and the door creak open.

‘Good evening,’ they heard Jim say heartily. ‘What can we do for you?’

It was dark in the bedroom hallway, but light gleamed through cracks in the old timber wall. His heart hammering, Leo put his eye to a crack. He saw Jim standing back from the door, and Conker walking in, smiling broadly, with Freda the duck at his heels.

A third figure, tall and slim, lingered in the shadows outside.

‘Don’t stay out there in the cold,’ Jim said, beckoning.

‘Jim!’ Grandma muttered warningly. But Jim either did not hear, or chose to ignore her.

‘Come in and warm yourself,’ he said to the shadowy figure. ‘There’s a good fire in here.’

The figure hesitated, then stepped noiselessly over the threshold. As it moved from the darkness into the light, Leo caught his breath.

The third visitor was a woman dressed in leggings and tunic of fine black leather. A broad belt was slung round her slim waist, and from it hung a dagger in a leather sheath. Her hair was short, spiky and black as shreds of licorice.

She would have made a striking figure in any company. But it was her face that made her appearance really startling. It was heart-shaped, with huge, watchful golden eyes beneath dark, slanting brows. And it was covered with soft, fine fur – fur as smooth as velvet, striped gold and black, like a tiger’s.

‘Tye,’ Mimi breathed.

Leo nodded in the dark, staring in fascinated fear as the strange woman moved closer to the fire. Her black-gloved hands hung loosely by her sides, the left very close to the jewelled hilt of her dagger. Her feet made no sound on the floor. He could almost see her muscles rippling beneath her clothes, which fitted her like a second skin.

‘Well, well,’ said Conker, rubbing his hands and eyeing Bertha curiously. ‘You’re very cosy here, but what a lonely spot this is! Why, we wouldn’t have known this cottage was here, if your music hadn’t beckoned us as we tramped through the forest. “The Pom-Pom Polka”, if I’m not mistaken. A grand old tune!’

‘Indeed,’ Jim agreed, smiling.

Grandma said not a word. She had turned in her chair so that she faced the fire, and only her hunched shoulders could be seen.

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