Day of the Djinn Warriors by P. B. Kerr Read Free Book Online Page A

because a Las Vegas—based TV company called LZ kid TV had been aggressively buying up all the best TV shows and simply putting the tapes in a vault where no one could see them.
    “Best place for ’em if you ask me,” said Mr. Groanin. “Some of them shows you kids watch on TV are tripe. I say, some of them TV shows you seem to like so much are just tripe.”
    Philippa switched off the TV. “Well then, let’s go out,” she said.
    “What about your dad?” asked Groanin, who wasn’t keen on going anywhere in Manhattan.
    “Doc will look after him. He’s already getting better.”
    “It’s a miracle what that woman can do,” said Groanin, who liked Marion Morrison more than he ever would have admitted to Philippa.
    “I know,” she said. “Let’s go to the Metropolitan Museum. They have one of those famous terra-cotta warriors on loan from China. I’ve been meaning to go and look at it for a while. Besides, the Met is full of really cool things. You’ll like it.”
    “I doubt it,” said Groanin, reaching for his coat. “If you recall, miss, I had a bad experience in a museum once. A tiger tore off me arm. Still, I’m game, if you are.”
    The Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue was a few blocks from the Gaunt house on East 77 th Street. From the front, it looks like a sort of giant-size temple, with tall columns and a flight of steps as wide as a football field. But the museum was closed because of a twenty-four-hour strike by museum attendants, and the steps were crowded with people carrying placards and shouting loudly about something. Philippa and Mr. Groanin stayed for a moment to read the placards with slogans such as M ETROPOLITAN M USEUM OF F EAR , N O G O IN G HOSTLY G ALLERIES, POLTER MET, and N IGHT V ISITORS M EANS N O V ISITORS.
    A few minutes’ conversation with one of the attendants revealed that they were on strike because, he said, the Met was haunted. Several of them had reported seeing and hearing ghosts in the Sackler Wing and in the Chinese art galleries on the second floor.
    “I’d say they were just after more money,” said Groanin as he and Philippa went back home again. “My guess is that one of those blokes what works at the Met read this.” He showed Philippa a copy of the previous day’s
Daily Telegraph
, and drew her attention to a front-page headline that read, S POOKS S PELL S TRIKES AT B RITISH M USEUM. “Very likely someone read that and thought it sounded like a good way of getting more money out of them as pay their wages.”
    Philippa read the story in Groanin’s newspaper as they walked. “I’m not so sure,” she said. “This means something. But I’m not sure what.”
    When Philippa and Groanin got home, they found John and Nimrod had returned from Las Vegas. They were huddled in the library with Mr. Rakshasas, discussing everything that had happened at the Winter Palace Hotel.
    “So what happens now?” asked Philippa when her brother and her uncle had finished explaining their lack of success. “We’ve wasted two days trying to get Dybbuk on board.”
    “All is not lost,” said Nimrod. “Accompanied by Mr. Rakshasas, for whom the ethereal world is more comfortable at his age, one of you children will have to go after Faustina instead of Dybbuk.”
    John looked at Philippa. “Remind me a little,” he said. “What exactly is the ethereal world?”
    “’Tis the spirit world, John,” said Mr. Rakshasas. “The world of ghosts and phantoms and assorted apparitions.”
    “Oh,
that
world.” John shivered uncomfortably. He didn’t like ghosts, and meeting the ghost of the Pharaoh Akhenaten had done nothing to change his opinion of them. Ghosts were creepy. Especially the ones that went around haunting places and scaring people.
    Philippa, who liked the idea of ghosts even less than her brother, was just about to volunteer, nevertheless, when Groanin spoke. “The spirit world can be frightening, even when you’re a djinn,” said Groanin.