Troubletwisters by Garth Nix, Sean Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

toast, or cereal? Or both?’
    Jack’s stomach rumbled, making him miss Jaide’s frustrated look.
    ‘Toast and cereal, please,’ he said.
    ‘Just cereal, I guess,’ said Jaide. ‘What about the cellar, though?’
    ‘Let’s sit down and eat our breakfast,’ said Grandma X.
    Jaide frowned in a way she normally only used with her mother.
    Jack sat with his sister at the table and watched Grandma X’s back as she put the kettle on the stove and lit the gas with a very long match that he wasn’t entirely sure he saw her strike. As he stuffed cereal in his face, he could tell that Jaide wasn’t going to be distracted by anything as trivial as food.
    ‘Grandma,’ Jaide started to ask, her cereal sitting ignored in front of her, ‘I really need to know about the —’
    ‘The blue door,’ said Grandma X. She turned back from the stove and looked at Jaide. ‘You can see it, can you?’
    ‘Yes! So can Jack. But is it really there?’
    ‘Of course, dear. If you can see it, it must be.’
    ‘I knew it!’
    Jaide thumped her fist on the table, sending the milk slopping from side to side in her bowl. ‘But why can’t Mum see it? When we pointed it out to her, she just told us off.’
    ‘That’s one of the mysteries, dear,’ said Grandma X, and blew out the match. The smoke from it wound once around her head and then went out the window.
    ‘One of what mysteries?’ Jaide persisted. Grandma X’s lack of straight answers was utterly infuriating her.
    ‘You’ll have to be patient, Jaidith. There is a time for the telling of these things, and a natural order to be maintained. Some doors are not meant to be opened before their time. Rushing things would be . . . ill-advised. Here, have a cup of hot chocolate. The day doesn’t start until I’ve had one, and I love the smell it gives the place. What do you think?’
    Jack looked up from his cereal. Grandma X had a cup of hot chocolate in each hand. But she’d only just lit the stove for the kettle, and she hadn’t even got out any milk or anything. Or had she?
    Steam swirled up from the mugs into the twins’ nostrils, and they breathed in its velvety scent. It filled Jaide’s mind with a warm, caressing breeze, and Jack’s with a comforting, companionable darkness. Breeze and darkness did their work, and all the twins’ thoughts ceased for an instant.
    When they started again, neither Jaide nor Jack could remember what they had just been talking about.

‘ CARDS,’ SAID GRANDMA X FIRMLY. ‘You said you can play. How about you show me after breakfast? I have a deck I save for special guests. We can have a game or two in here, then see if the weather is going to clear.’
    Jack felt as though he’d forgotten something, but the aroma of the hot chocolate reminded him of what was really important. He raised the mug to his lips and sipped. It was absolutely delicious. If every day in Portland started with hot chocolate, he was going to like it here very much.
    Jaide’s frown hadn’t completely faded, but she did the same as Jack, telling herself that she was worried about nothing. If it’s important, it’ll come back , her father was always saying. Hector was notoriously absent-minded, another Shield trait Jaide hoped she wouldn’t inherit.
    After their hot chocolate, Grandma X served the twins thick slices of toast spread with real butter and her own homemade gooseberry jam. They had just finished clearing up when a slender, blue-grey cat came through the window, landed elegantly on the table, and immediately jumped to the kitchen bench and paraded along it like a model to receive a pat from Grandma X.
    ‘Kleo, at last,’ said Grandma X. ‘What kept you? These two troubletwisters, as you no doubt already know, are my grandchildren, Jaidith and Jackaran.’
    The cat rubbed her chin under Grandma X’s hand, then turned and meowed at Jack and Jaide.
    ‘She missed breakfast,’ said Jack, remembering Ari’s hungry eyes. ‘Can I get her a