The Lightning Key by Jon Berkeley Read Free Book Online Page A

them of their sensitivity to light so that they can live aboveground again.”
    â€œSo that’s what they’re up to, the hairy little savages!” guffawed Baltinglass. “That would have the peasants locking their doors and windows, all right.”
    â€œDid she find out how to do it?” asked Little.
    â€œI haven’t gotten that far,” said Miles. “But I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. She said there was a key to using the Tiger’s Egg.”
    â€œA key?” said Little. Her eyes shone. “Then you can learn to use it, Miles. Maybe you will be able to bring back your father.”
    Miles shook his head, a lump forming in his throat. His father had been transformed by the bungling Doctor Tau-Tau into The Null, a monstrous, hollow-eyed beast who lived in perpetual darkness, and at first the discovery of the Tiger’s Egg had given Miles hope that someday it might help him restore his father to his former self. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Celeste says in the diary that she will take the key to her grave.”
    â€œBut we know where that is!” Little laughed, and way above them a skylark began to sing. “We can go to your mother’s grave in Iota and find the key.”
    â€œThat’s not what she means,” said Miles. “When a person says that it means they’ll never tell their secret to anyone.”
    â€œThat’s not what it says to me,” said Little. “If she says she’s taken it to her grave, then that’s the first place we should look.”
    â€œShe may have a point there,” said Baltinglass of Araby, tossing the remains of their picnic back intothe duffel bag. “A small detour can’t do any harm. You should see signs for Iota about another hour down the road. Fire the old girl up, there, Master Miles, and let’s be on our way.”
    Miles started Morrigan’s engine and made a rather jerky exit onto the road. For a while his concentration was taken up with driving the car. His shoulders ached from holding the wheel and he had pins and needles in his feet. Sunlight flashed between the tall poplar trees that lined the road, and dust had filled his eyes before he remembered to pull down the goggles. Still, the powerful engine at his feet gave him a thrill of excitement, and deep down he realized that he was happiest when he was speeding away from home with his closest friends, though danger snapped at their heels and nightmares might await them on the road ahead.
    Morrigan ate up the miles, and Miles drank in the sunlight and the breeze, and though he was sure that Little had misunderstood Celeste’s words he felt a seed of hope that he might after all find some clue to the mastery of the Tiger’s Egg that was his only chance of rescuing his father from lifelong darkness. The shadows lengthened toward evening, and Miles’s blind copilot dozed fitfully at the other end of the bench seat, waking now and then toshout such indispensable driving tips as “Watch out for crocodiles,” and “Step on it, boy; you’re driving like an old nun.”
    Just as he felt that his eyes would be glued forever in their sockets, Miles rounded a small hill that he thought he recognized. Sure enough, he could see ahead of him the red-tiled roofs of the town where he was born, and rising above the trees to their right was the church spire in whose narrow shadow his mother was buried. He braked the car gently and pulled into the picnic spot from which he and the policemen of Larde had set off through the trees in search of the escaped Null. He felt somehow bigger as he stepped down from the car, as though he had finally begun to grow into his oversize overcoat since starting out that morning. He shook the old man gently, knowing that waking Baltinglass was a dangerous task at the best of times, and skipped nimbly out of range as the old man snapped upright with a