Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy Read Online Free PDF

bones. She walked round and round the great room. Past the guard, past the fossils, past the dinosaurs. Each time she went round the hall, she tried to ignore the small elevator the boy had mentioned standing in a darkened alcove humming quietly to itself. She walked round and round the room until her legs ached.
    The elevator doors had a large cross painted upon them, which could only mean “Do not enter.” Each step Ophelia took, the panic rose inside her.
    You are too young to worry so
, her mother said, suddenly inside her mind. It was exactly what her mother always said.
    “That’s all right for you to say,” replied Ophelia silently and quite angrily. “You haven’t got a boy that needs to be rescued.”
    More than anything, she felt annoyed at the boy for appearing behind that door and knowing her name and asking for her help.
    “I’m not brave enough,” Ophelia said aloud, and the walls whispered, whispered, whispered. The guard did not wake up. Ophelia Jane Worthington-Whittard looked at the guardsleeping and looked at the dinosaurs and walked very quietly up to the elevator.
    She pressed the large round silver button, and the doors slid open.
    She stepped inside. It was deathly still. The lightbulb flickered.
    She pressed the button engraved with the number 7.
    The elevator opened onto the seventh floor, into a huge room that was empty and cold. There were no statues or artwork, just the white marble floor weaved with silver. The windows, covered in delicate, spidery patterns of ice, looked out over the city square and the giant sparkling Christmas tree.
    There was not a sound in that room. The silence buzzed in her ears. Her boots made a terrible clatter on the floor and her breath plumed in front of her. She trembled with fear.
    On either side of the immense, empty room there was a doorway that led onto a corridor. She walked as quickly as she could across the expanse of empty marble floor to the left-hand corridor. She pulled her blue velvet coat collar up and put her hands in her pockets. Her teeth chattered.
    On either side of the left-hand corridor there were rooms. Each room had a number above it in silver. She touched the handles lightly. The doors were locked.
    The corridor had a very strange smell. It took her all the time to walk to room number 716 to remember what it was. It was exactly the smell of Mr. Fleming’s pigeon coop at 7 Bedford Gardens. Mr. Fleming lived right beside theWhittard-Worthingtons in Kensington, London, and Ophelia could speak to him over the back fence if she stood on a garden chair. He bred and raced Danzig highflyers and blue dragoons, and he was very kind to Ophelia, sometimes opening the little gate between their gardens so she could look at the newly hatched chicks.
    Yes, it was just the same here, a dank, moldy, feathery type of smell. There must be pigeons living in the ceiling, Ophelia thought, and then shivered. Her chin went numb with the cold. Her ears ached.
    The corridor turned just after room number 721. She was surprised to see that at the end of the passage, not very far away, there was a small white cupboard against a blank white wall.
    She felt very pleased. The whole exercise had been easier than she expected. The little white cupboard had only one little white drawer. She opened it very quietly and saw one small golden key. Everything was exactly as the boy had said it would be.
    She took the key and put it in her blue velvet coat pocket. Her favorite right-hand coat pocket. She smiled to herself. She smiled to herself because the day had turned out to be very interesting and she had turned out to be really quite brave. The key fell through her right-hand pocket hole and clattered onto the floor.
    There was silence at first, then a rustling, sighing, swishing, hushing sound.
    The rustling, sighing, swishing, hushing sound was smallto start off, but then it grew louder. It grew so loud that it was the only sound that Ophelia could hear.
    The sound came