Free The Deptford Mice 1: The Dark Portal by Robin Jarvis

up a bed for Piccadilly here.’
    Arthur left her.
    Gwen held Albert’s mousebrass lightly in her paw. She looked out at the stars and thought of him. When they were young, she had had many admirers but it was the unassuming Albert whom she had chosen. They had laughed together and he had courted her in the garden beneath the blossoming hawthorn. She had worn the flowers in her hair and he had kissed her under this same moon they had sworn undying love for each other.
    It was a beautiful night. If anyone had been there to witness it they would have seen a strange thing happen to Gwen Brown. As she stood undisturbed in the moonlight, erect and lovely, it seemed as if the care of years fell away and she was young again. Gazing out beyond the stars her remote eyes chanced down to her paws.
    For as they held his mousebrass she felt that familiar touch on her arm and an unseen palm closed for a tender, precious moment over hers.
    ‘Farewell,’ she managed to say.
    Audrey had found Twit and Oswald in the hall. They greeted her and asked after her mother.
    ‘Oh she’s fine,’ she replied, ‘only . . .’
    Twit raised his eyebrows. ‘Be there some other thing worryin’ ’ee?’
    She nodded and blurted it all out.
    ‘It’s my mousebrass. I’ve lost it. It must have come off in the fighting. You’ll think I’m mad but strange things happened when I went into the grottoes yesterday – I saw the Green Mouse Himself! And when I took the brass I heard Father tell me never to part with it. Now I don’t know what to do. I’m sure it’s frightfully important.’
    Twit and Oswald were taken aback. Oswald wondered if Audrey was quite well: visions of the Green Mouse were ‘not common in the Skirtings.
    Nevertheless, a mousebrass was important.
    ‘I don’t know how we can help,’ he said.
    ‘But we’d like to,’ added Twit.
    Audrey smiled at them gratefully.
    ‘I knew you would,’ she said. ‘But the thing is, I can’t go back down there. I had to promise Mother.’
    Oswald gasped. ‘Oh surely you weren’t thinking of going back into the sewers Audrey! Wasn’t once enough?’
    ‘But that’s where it is,’ she insisted. ‘What am I to do?’
    Little Twit blinked and shuffled his feet. He looked up at her and said timidly, ‘I’ll go back in there for you.’
    ‘Oh would you? That’s marvellous.’ Audrey was delighted.
    Oswald knew that he could not refuse: he too would go down there. He gulped loudly.
    ‘If Twit goes, then I ought to as well,’ he said at last. ‘Besides, I’m the only one who can find it, aren’t I?’
    They all knew what he meant. Oswald’s albino blood made him sensitive to lost objects. He had a divining rod shaped like a spindly catapult and with it he had found many things believed lost forever. He went to fetch it.
    ‘I’m glad Oswald is a-comin’,’ said Twit. ‘I ain’t too sure of the way.’
    When he returned Oswald said hurriedly, ‘Mother’s on the rampage: she wants to know where we’ve been and asked me where my scarf was. I’d forgotten I left it down there.’
    They crossed to the cellar door and were about to pass through when Piccadilly surprised them.
    ‘Hello Audrey,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
    ‘Well I don’t want to see you,’ she answered rudely.
    Then he saw what they were doing.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘It’s her mousebrass,’ said Twit. ‘Got lost in the scufflin’, it did.’
    Piccadilly didn’t like it. He had seen far too much of the sewers to want to go near them again.
    ‘Please Audrey!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t go.’
    ‘I’m not going,’ was the curt reply. ‘I made that promise to Mother. Twit and Oswald are going.’ She paused and added, ‘They’re not afraid.’
    Oswald wasn’t so sure about that but the accusation stung Piccadilly – he knew more about the tunnels than they did and realised the danger.
    ‘But two’s enough,’ said Twit hastily. ‘Only needs two of us.’
    Audrey stared