The Warriors of Brin-Hask Read Online Free Page A

waiting their turn to emerge?
    ‘OK,’ said Dad, very calmly and gently. ‘I think it’s about time we casually strolled
out of here. Kids, you first. Just very slowly wander back out the way you came.
OK?’
    But Mr Snavely had his own idea. Without waiting for Amelia and Charlie to move,
he leapt out of the sink, landing badly on the floor and twisting his ankle. He cried
out in pain, and then again in terror as the rats charged at him.
    Amelia screamed. Dad yelped and scrambled onto the oven. There was a blur of movement
and a deafening crash as Charlie dove at the floor, bringing half a bench worth of
kitchen utensils down with him. Mr Snavely jumped up and bolted, chased from the
room by four or five beautifully disciplined rows of rats.
    Amelia pressed herself up against the wall, but Charlie whooped in triumph, standing
on top of a huge steel colander he’d tipped upside down. ‘I got one! I got one!’
    ‘Charlie!’ Dad roared. ‘Get out of here! Amelia, go!’
    Amelia ran from the kitchen, hooking her arm through Charlie’s as she went and dragging
him away from the upturned colander. They burst into the lobby where Mum, Mary and
James still stood, their faces blank with shock.
    ‘Are you …’ Mum struggled for something to say. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘Never! Never in all my –’ stammered Mr Snavely, before finally gathering himself.
‘You’re finished! ’ He shrieked. ‘Do you hear me? We’ll be back first thing tomorrow
to – to deal with you people! This is the end, for all of you!’

James was the first to react. Pale with fright, he snapped straight back into Mega-Jerk
mode and said, ‘Well, fantastic. If anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs finishing off
my packing.’
    No-one stopped him going.
    The lobby still echoed with the sound of the front door slamming behind Mr Snavely.
Amelia was shivering slightly, but Charlie was doing a curious sort of dance – one
part leaping in celebration that he had trapped a rat under the colander, one part
desperate frustration that he wasn’t back in the kitchen with Amelia’s dad.
    Mum reached behind the reception desk and pressed the button that called Tom.
    One last bang from the kitchen, and then Dad at last came through the door to the
lobby.
    ‘Out to the driveway, you lot,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t want anyone near that kitchen
for a while.’ He clapped his hand on Mum’s shoulder. ‘What do you think, Skye? Good
first impression?’
    Mum smiled sadly.
    ‘Hang on,’ said Charlie. ‘What about my rat?’
    ‘Safe,’ said Dad. ‘I put a twenty-litre can of olive oil on top of the colander.
He’s going nowhere. Probably. Good reflexes, by the way.’
    Charlie beamed and, satisfied for now, followed them out.
    ‘How bad will it be?’ said Mary.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ said Dad. ‘Adrian said we’d lose the hotel, and mentioned jail.’
    Mary gasped.
    ‘On the other hand,’ Dad went on, ‘those rats have clearly been there a lot longer
than we have, so they might take that into account.’
    ‘But what laws did we break?’ said Amelia.
    ‘Ah …’
    Mum and Dad exchanged looks, and the truth of the situation dawned on Amelia. ‘Mr
Snavely wasn’t really a Health Inspector, was he?’
    ‘No,’ said Mum. ‘He’s with Gateway Control, the people in charge of the gateway network.
It was Control that Miss Ardman sent her complaint to, and it’s Control who have
the power to take the hotel away from us.’
    ‘And send us to jail?’ said Amelia.
    ‘An alien jail?’ Charlie asked, as though that would be a great treat.
    ‘I don’t think anyone will go to jail,’ said Dad. ‘Or not you kids, anyway. But Control
is pretty unhappy that you guys found out about the gateway. One of our promises
in coming here was that we would contain the true nature of our work to the fewest
possible number of humans. In Control’s opinion, that meant adults only. You kids
were never meant to know.’
    ‘That was why I told you