Dave Hop Normal was there in the bedroom, standing looking down the back of the radiator.
‘Where did you get to?’ asked Tiberius.
‘Look,’ said Normal, with a grin and he fished down the back of the radiator and pulled out a long necklace covered in cobwebs. He scraped off the cobwebs and laid it carefully on the bed.
‘She lost it,’ said Normal, ‘that’s why she was crying. It was her granny’s. I found it.’
‘How?’
‘I told you,’ said Normal. ‘someone said “radiator” so I had a look there.’
‘You’re bonkers,’ said Tiberius.
‘And you’ve got a coat hanger down your back,’ said Normal.
Tiberius looked even more flustered as he yanked the hanger from his jacket.
‘Where did you get to?’ he demanded.
‘Nowhere, I was here all the time, I just held my breath,’ said Normal, ‘that’s when I heard the little girl talking to her mum about the necklace.’
‘D’you think they were… ya know… humans?’
Normal shrugged. ‘We’d better get back,’ he said.
‘How?’ asked Tiberius.
Normal pointed at the scroll. It was still hanging open in Tiberius’s hand.
‘That got us here,’ he said.
Tiberius looked at it. He shook it, nothing happened. The voices sounded again outside the bedroom door again and footsteps were approaching.
‘Quick! We gotta do something,’ said Tiberius, and he shook the scroll again.
Still nothing.
‘What did you do?’ said Normal, ‘you know, to get here.’
‘Nothing, I just picked it up and opened it.’
‘Try closing it again then.’
The door began to open, but even as Tiberius rolled the scroll up there was a flash and the room span and Normal and Tiberius found themselves back in the golden cave. Normal grabbed the scroll and laid it carefully on the stone table.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s get out of here.’
Normal dived back into the water and swam back up the tunnel to the silver lake. Tiberius waded in and followed him with an awful lot of splashing.
When they emerged into the night Ocacia was standing by the water staring at them. She was soaked.
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