The Ancient Starship Read Online Free

to see him standing, quite dignified, in her black trackie-daks. A nice pink stripe ran down one leg, and a fat pink daisy was embroidered on one hip. He had his back to her, and was staring at the little safe door on Amelia’s other wall. As if looking serious and thoughtful about how to unlock it would distract Amelia from the cute little row of diamantes that sparkled across his bottom.
    He turned and glared at her. ‘Say nothing.’
    They hurried downstairs to the lobby, Grawk padding ahead of them. Mum was on the phone behind the reception desk.
    She covered the receiver with one hand. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
    â€˜Oh, I hope you don’t mind, Skye,’ said Lady Naomi, coming from the dining room. ‘I asked them if they’d like to go for a walk with me. I won’t keep them long.’
    Mum instantly relaxed. ‘Oh, no problems, then. Be good, you two.’ Her attention was pulled back to her phone conversation. ‘Yes, I’m here, Mr Snavely. The question is –’
    Amelia and Charlie followed Lady Naomi out of the hotel, down the main steps and across the sloping lawns, almost in the direction of the hedge maze.
    â€˜Are we going into the bush?’ asked Charlie.
    Neither he nor Amelia had explored the bush side of the headland yet. There was so much to discover in the hotel itself, not to mention the steady stream of alien guests, that they hadn’t bothered to investigate past the maze. And the bush was so dense with spiky, scratchy trees, thorny bushes and cutting grasses, and so full of biting, stinging creatures everywhere, that it hardly invited you in for a nice bushwalk.
    Lady Naomi led the kids to a shaggy old banksia tree, checked behind them, and then pulled aside a low-hanging branch.
    In the grass behind it was a path. If Amelia had found it by herself, she would have thought it had been made by wombats and ignored it, but now Lady Naomi was urging them on. Grawk ran ahead, his nose to the ground, his tail up like an antenna.
    â€˜You do your research here? ’ said Charlie.
    â€˜Yes. Well, not here exactly. I have to go quite a bit further to get away from the headland’s magnetism before I can use my equipment.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Amelia. ‘That’s why. We always thought you went away because what you’re doing is so top-secret.’
    â€˜That too!’ Lady Naomi laughed, then paused as if listening for something. They stood silently for several long seconds, then Lady Naomi shook her head and kept walking. ‘So how much did your dad tell you about that starship in Egypt?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ said Amelia.
    â€˜Really?’ Lady Naomi pressed her. ‘Nothing at all?’
    â€˜He didn’t have time to tell us anything,’ said Charlie. ‘He just whooshed away with those Control freaks.’ He snorted. ‘Hey, get it? Control freaks? ’
    â€˜Ms Rosby’s not a freak,’ said Amelia.
    â€˜Yes, she is,’ said Charlie. ‘I mean, she’s cool and stuff, but come on – she’s six years old and looks like Santa’s grandma. That is actually, literally freaky. Admit it.’
    â€˜So you don’t know any more about the starship than what was on the news?’ Lady Naomi said.
    Amelia suddenly wondered just why Lady Naomi had brought them out here. She’d been so careful up until now to keep all her comings and goings private, and she’d done such a good job that Amelia hadn’t even had a clue which direction she went in. And now she was inviting them in? That seemed like more than just friendliness. And now, from Lady Naomi’s questions, it seemed as though she’d been hoping to find out something from them that would …
    Well, she didn’t know what Lady Naomi wanted. Information about the spaceship? Or about Control’s interest in it? Did she think there was some connection between the crashed