Book 1: Chapter 12

Grandmother had her own extensive library, which was stocked with academic papers on maths, physics and astronomy. She subscribed to all the main astronomical journals, which Linua was expected to read so she could keep up with all the latest advancements. The only other books she had access to were the classical novels which Grandmother chose for her, and didn’t contain anything remotely resembling the Keng Boh Kids adventures.

The city library had more than just books—it had computers too, a row of them sitting silent with black screens. There was a man on one of them, who appeared to be looking up things to do with bicycles. Linua was briefly tempted to log in and look at the bulletin board, but there wouldn’t have been time for anyone to get home, log on and send a message yet.

Maybe, Linua thought, there would be books that had adventures like the Keng Boh Kids series. She wandered uncertainly into the children’s section, but was immediately approached by a librarian, frizzy-haired and freckled, who asked her where her parents were.

Linua felt very grown up as she explained she had been meeting with friends for a school project at the museum, but that there was a mix up with the car service and she wasn’t being picked up until ten. She could see instantly that she had hit all the right chords. The librarian went straight from being concerned to being understanding and sympathetic, and asked if she could recommend Linua a good book to read.

“Do you have anything like Keng Boh Kids?” Linua asked diffidently.

The librarian laughed.

“We have the actual books themselves, which the series was based on. Have you read them? It was a set of books before it was made into a TV series, did you know?”

Linua hadn’t known that. The librarian plucked the first one unerringly from the shelves.

“Do you have a library card?”

Linua shook her head. The librarian bustled away and bustled back a moment later with a form.

“Fill that out and get your parents to sign it,” the librarian explained, “then bring it back and you can get a library card and borrow books from the library.”

Linua at once started plotting ways to forge her grandmother’s signature. If she told Grandmother that she wanted to join the city library, Grandmother wouldn’t understand why Linua was unhappy with her own library collection. Even if Grandmother did agree to sign the form, Linua knew that she would choose all the books for Linua to read.

Linua wanted to choose her own books.

She was so absorbed by the first book in the Keng Boh Kids series that she nearly forgot to go outside at ten o’clock, when it was time for the car service to arrive, and it was only due to the prompting of the librarian that she realised the library was closing.

The next morning, on the way to the Castle, the car broke down. This had happened very occasionally before, and usually the driver would radio for another car to come and pick Linua up and take her to her destination. This time, the driver shook the radio and cursed, before recalling the age of his passenger and cutting himself off.

“Radio’s out,” he said. “We’re in a dead zone.”

They were sitting in a dip between two hills.

The driver heaved himself out of the car and poked around under the bonnet, before saying in a relieved tone, “I think it’s just the battery. There’s a garage no more than a mile up the road.” He bit his lip as he contemplated Linua.

“I can stay,” she said quickly. “I’ll be okay.”

He studied her a bit more, then heaved a sigh and said, “Keep the doors locked, there’s a good girl. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

This would be a whole extra hour when Linua wouldn’t have to be training at the Castle. She only wished she had been able to borrow one of the Keng Boh Kids books from the library so she could read it. The driver disappeared over the hill.

Linua cracked the window open, letting in a wisp of breeze laden with the fresh, dry scent of pine trees.

Some time later, she heard the sound of a moped. Mopeds were common in the city but you didn’t normally get them this far out in the hills. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a young man bring a moped to a stop right beside the car.

At first she thought he was just passing by and had stopped to make sure she was alright. She didn’t feel alarmed until he took of his helmet and grinned at her, and she saw it was the thief from the Observatory.