Free The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter

him.
    “I was thinking,” Max continued, “that we might go to Great-aunt Haddie’s.”
    “Who?” Lucia asked.
    “Great-aunt Haddie,”
Max repeated. “She wrote the letter to Dad.”
    “Oh, yes, I didn’t hear what you said,” Lucia said, embarrassed that she didn’t remember the name or even realize that their mum’s aunt would be their great-aunt. “Stellar idea except for the fact that we have no clue where she lives.”
    “Yes, we do,” Max said. “It said so in the letter.”
    “No, it didn’t,” Lucia said.
    “Yes, it did,” Max insisted. “Think about it. She wrote that she’d spent the morning snoring by the sea, in quotation marks. Well, that was her being clever. I checked the pocket atlas and there it was. Snoring-by-the-Sea.”
    “Is that what you were doing up on the roof?” Lucia asked.
    Max nodded.
    “You could have just read it in your bedroom and spared me the climb,” Lucia said.
    “Anyway,” Max said, “Snoring-by-the-Sea is a small town and I’ll bet there aren’t many Haddie Piggits living there. We could just turn up and ask how to find her. Also, it’s not too far from London so there still might be some late trains running.”
    “Snoring-by-the-Sea?” Lucia said, wrinkling her nose. “It doesn’t sound very exciting.”
    “It’s better than Mrs. Carnival’s,” Max said.
    It so happened that there
was
a late train and they just managed to catch it. A train ride is nearly always an enjoyable thing, except when it’s the second one of the day and you are going to see a relative whom you know nothing about. Also, it’s not much fun when it’s dark outside. There was little to see through the windows. Here and there they could make out shadowy hummocks of fields or a blocky cluster of houses. There was something very humiliating about this trip too. Lucia, for one, felt as though she had botched things up. Maybe she should have tried harder to keep the adventure going. Who knew when they would ever get to be on their own in London again? Never probably.
    “I don’t expect Haddie Piggit will be happy to see us,” Otto said miserably. “Not at this time of night.”
    “Of course she’ll be happy to see us,” Max said. “She’s our aunt, isn’t she?”
    “Great-aunt,” Otto said. “Which means she’s ancient and probably goes to bed at eight o’clock. After she’s eaten her mushy peas.”
    Presently, Snoring-by-the-Sea was announced as the next stop. The Hardscrabbles grabbed for their bags, then remembered that they didn’t have them anymore. It’s a very discombobulating feeling to walk off a train at a strange station without having a bag to hold.
    Under the flickering platform lamps they could seethat the station was completely deserted. Not a single passenger had gotten off the train and not a single person was waiting to get on. It was altogether ominous, rather like in those old-time books in which the children arrive at a bleak little town and are driven by a creepy coachman to the creepy house of a deeply creepy relative. Even Max glanced back at the train, as though he were wondering if it was too late to get back on. But the next moment the train’s horn blew a wheezy warning and it started up again. Then it was gone. The Hardscrabbles were completely and utterly alone.
    “Now what?” Lucia turned on Max very snappishly.
    “Now we find someone to ask about Haddie Piggit,” Max said, trying to sound more confident than he was.
    For a solid thirty seconds Otto and Lucia stared at Max. A solid thirty seconds is a long time to stare at someone. Try it and you’ll notice that the other person will pretend to be fascinated by a smooshed piece of gum on the pavement. That’s exactly what Max was doing at that moment.
    “And where, do you suggest, are we going to find this person to ask?” Lucia finally demanded.
    Max didn’t answer. He just started walking. There was nothing for Otto and Lucia to do but follow him. One, because they