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The Riddle of the Frozen Phantom
Margaret Mahy
Illustrated by Chris Mould
Contents
1. At the Very Back of the Drawer
9. The Treachery of a Housekeeper
10. A Startling Idea for a Devoted Father
12. Wicked Plans in Black Planes
24. Sophie Believes the Pendant
27. Villains Can’t Trust Other Villains
CHAPTER 1 At the Very Back of the Drawer
Suddenly, something clonked softly at the back of the empty drawer.
Sophie Sapwood, sitting in a sea of old photographs, stopped listening to her brothers who were outside, shouting and whistling as they bounced on the family trampoline. She tuned in to the back of the drawer instead.
She had been planning to go out to the trampoline herself, just to show both brothers the best way to turn somersaults in the air. After all, she had already found what she had been searching for – photographs of their dead mother which she had studied carefully. There was nothing left to look for. The drawer was completely empty.
But it wasn’t! It couldn’t be! Somewhere at the very back of the drawer, somewhere behind that first empty openness, something had clonked softly Sophie tugged at the drawer, trying to pull it right out, but it remained obstinately jammed halfway. Reaching in once more, her searching fingers spidered left, then spidered right. Nothing! But then, by flattening her arm, Sophie managed to reach just a little further and her fingertips brushed something smooth. Whatever it was was also icy cold, which was unexpected on such a warm morning. After all, here in New Zealand it was nearly midsummer – nearly Christmas.
The night before, Sophie had dreamed about her mother. She had woken and lain in bed for a few minutes without actually opening her eyes while she tried to work out if her mother had really looked like the mother in the dream. It had bothered Sophie to find that, though she could remember her mother’s voice, though she could remember the songs she had sung and her way of laughing, she was no longer sure about the colour of her hair, or the shape of her nose. That was why she had sneaked upstairs, all on her own, to sort through the bottom drawer in an old forgotten chest of drawers, boxed in by family junk at the back of the upstairs spare room. This drawer was crammed with photographs – some of Sophie’s mother, some of her big brother, Edward, and her little brother, Hotspur, and some of Sophie herself. Most of the photographs, however, showed icebergs, distant mountains and her father, the famous Antarctic explorer, Bonniface Sapwood, proudly posing beside sledges, flags and whole parties of penguins. There were even