Return to Groosham Grange by Anthony Horowitz Read Free Book Online Page B

power, so he decided it wouldn’t count.
    “The British Museum,” he insisted. “And put your foot on it.”
    “Foot on it? All right, pal. Whatever you say. You’re the boss.” The driver shot through a red light, zigzagged across a busy intersection with cars hooting at him on all sides and accelerated the wrong way down a one-way street. The journey took them about ten minutes and David was relieved to get out.
    He paid the driver with a leaf and two pebbles he had picked up in the park. “Keep the change,” he said.
    “Wow! Thanks, buddy.” The cabdriver’s eyes were still spinning. David watched him as he drove off across the sidewalk and into a store window, then slipped through the open gates of the British Museum.
    But why were the gates open?
    Had Mr. Helliwell arranged it for him? Or had Vincent gotten there first?
    Feeling very small and vulnerable, David crossed the open space in front of the museum. The building itself was huge, bigger than he remembered. He had once heard that there were more than two miles of galleries inside, and looking at it now, its classical pillars arranged in two wings around a vast, central chamber, he could well believe it. His feet clattered faintly across the concrete as he ran forward. A well-mowed lawn, gray in the moonlight, stretched out as flat as paper on either side of him. There was a guardhouse next to the gate, but it was deserted. His shadow raced ahead of him, snaking up the steps as if trying to get into the building before him.
    The main entrance to the museum was locked. For a moment David was tempted. A single spell would open the door. He could simply move the tumblers inside the lock with the power of thought or else he could turn himself into smoke and creep in through the crack underneath. But Mr. Helliwell had said no magic. And this time David was determined not to cheat. He would play by the rules.
    It took him ten minutes to locate the side door that Mr. Kilgraw had opened. He slipped through and found himself standing on a stone floor beneath a ceiling that was so far above him that, in the half-light, he could barely see it. Doors led off to the left and right. Straight ahead there was an information desk and what looked like a souvenir shop. A grand staircase guarded by two stone lions swept up to one side. Which way should he go?
    It was only now that he was here that David grasped the enormity of the task that faced him. Miss Pedicure had lived for three thousand years. And she had lived in just about every part of the world. So this statue of her—which had once belonged to her mother—could come from anywhere and any time. It was two and a half inches high and it was blue. That was all he knew.
    So much for the needle. But what about the haystack?
    The British Museum was enormous. How many exhibits did it hold? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Some of them were the size of small buildings. Some of them, in fact, were small buildings. Others were no bigger than a pin. The museum held collections from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia, China; from the Iron Age, the Bronze Age, the Middle Ages, every age. There were tools and pottery, clocks and jewelry, masks and ivory . . . He could spend a year in the place and still get nowhere close.
    David heard the rattle of a chain and pressed himself back against the wall, well into the shadows. A guard appeared, walking down the stairs and into the main hall. He was dressed in blue pants and a white shirt, with a bunch of keys dangling from his waist. He paused in the middle of the entrance hall, yawned and stretched his arms, then disappeared behind the information desk.
    Crouching in the dark, David considered. As far as he could see, he had two choices. One: search the museum as quickly as he could and hope for a lucky break. Two: look for some sort of catalog and try to find the statuette listed there. But even if a catalog existed, how would he know what to look for? It was hardly