Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Vampire Affairs (The Bagsy Chronicles 4)

Jail Break

As soon as she'd been able, Bagsy had sent her letter to Mezrielda. Sharply, she'd received a response from Crimson, whose usual hungry glare was replaced with something akin to respect as he held his lethal talons out, presenting the letter to her.

Mezrielda was on board – on the 25th of August they'd sneak to the WhiskWay station, ride the WhiskWay tube, and enjoy a whole week in Australia. Mezrielda was already applying through the appropriate Hogwarts channels to be exempt from Ministry testing due to her educational visit to Quolldron college.

Professor Fitzsimmons said they'd happily write me a letter of exemption. We return from Australia the day before school starts, so there won't be time for them to test me before the Winter Term begins. If I forget to mention that I won't be here from the 25th onwards before it's too late for them to move the test forward then, oops, that'll be too bad.

Now all they had to do was figure out where the WhiskWay station was, and how on earth they could get there. Mezrielda had continued to sneak into her family library to do research whilst Bagsy poked around all the books, files and tomes she had access to in the house in hopes of finding a map. Eventually, the living room piled high with open books, scattered pages, and sheets of paper strewn about, Bagsy admitted defeat. She was sitting cross legged, staring in fury at a map of Scotland that had no hint of a WhiskWay Station anywhere. Throwing it on the ground in frustration, she let out a growl and fell backwards onto her back. What even was a WhiskWay station?

In a moment of mad delirium, she moved her arms and legs, making a snow angle in the mess she'd filled the living room with. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that there was one location she had access to that she wasn't searching; Bontie's bedroom. It was an invasion of privacy, Bagsy knew that, but she also needed to find out where the WhiskWay was. While the rest of the house was filled with all sorts of odd books and stories, Bontie's room would most likely house more non-fiction, purposeful, books. If there was a map to the WhiskWay Station anywhere in the house, Bagsy reckoned it was there.

By lunch time she'd cleared away the mess she'd made downstairs and, swallowing her guilt, trudged up to her sister's room, accepting the familial crime she was about to commit. Bontie had locked her inside all summer, Bagsy justified in her head, it was only fair she got to explore as much of the house as she could.

Bontie's bedroom door creaked open and Bagsy tip-toed inside. It was as spacious as her own room but, unlike the rest of the house, Bontie's room had a carpet. Bagsy hadn't realised how nice it was to have something soft under her feet. Every other room was tiled or had wooden flooring, and rugs were a rare sight. Bontie's floor felt like a cloud in comparison.

Shelves lined the walls, filled with a manner of oddities. There were metal balls floating around each other in a pattern that reminded Bagsy of the solar system. One book was chained down to the wood of the shelf, burning with a constant, yet cold, flame that left no mark on the furniture. An hourglass with pink sand was constantly spinning on Bontie's desk, next to a row of quills that were floating in the air and independently sharpening their edges across a quill-sharpening block Bontie had left on the table.

Casting her eyes about, Bagsy's gaze settled on a small cabinet nestled below the desk. Unable to see any books or maps around the room, Bagsy reached for the cabinet, hoping to peer inside. She let out an annoyed groan when she found it was locked. Standing up, she put her hands on her hips and regarded the room around her. Sure, it was unlikely there would be a map in that one cabinet below the desk, but it was locked, and Bagsy was bored, and she'd checked everywhere else. Plus, in all honesty, she wanted to know what was in the locked cabinet; it had to be locked for a reason.

She set about the room, searching for a key. She checked beneath her sister's bed, in drawers, in the base of the candle sticks secured into the walls, and even the tiny gap between the top of the door and the door frame.