Secret Breakers: The Power of Three Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hunter.’
    ‘ You must demonstrate true northerly direction when riding the winged horse in the shadow of six o’clock .’
    ‘It’s talking about the shadow made by the vane!’ Brodie scrabbled for her stopwatch.
    ‘How long have we got?’ said Hunter.
    ‘Thirteen minutes.’
    ‘OK. It’s not over. So let’s focus. What else is in the clue?’
    ‘ Northerly ,’ said Brodie. ‘That’s got to be important.’ She peered up at the vane and the arrows below the horse pointing in each direction of the compass. ‘We need to think about where the shadow from that northern arrow was when it was six.’ Brodie glanced over in the direction of a low-roofed building to the left, where a shadow from the clock tower and the weather vane above it was stretching across the brickwork.
    ‘Perfect,’ said Hunter, following her gaze. ‘The shadows are on the wall. But they must have been a bit further back along the wall when it was six, don’t you think?’
    ‘Erm. Hello. Still up here.’
    ‘Thought she didn’t want rescuing,’ sniffed Hunter. ‘I say we leave her there.’
    ‘I simply meant you shouldn’t presume I couldn’t get down without you,’ the girl snapped.
    ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ said Brodie, dragging the ladder along the wall herself and propping it in reach of the girl’s feet. ‘You two haven’t even properly met. How can you be so mean to each other already?’
    It was a question neither of the others seemed prepared to answer.
    The girl worked her way down the ladder and reluctantly Hunter held out his hand to her as she neared the bottom rung. She seemed to take great delight in rejecting his offer of help and jumped the last few steps instead. Brodie sighed. ‘Look, you two, we have a clue to solve. And twelve minutes to do it in.’ She looked at the girl from the roof. ‘Are you with us or not?’
    The girl appeared to be thinking.
    ‘It’s not a difficult question,’ snapped Hunter. ‘Are you in or out? Eleven minutes. Have to hurry you!’
    ‘OK. We’ll work together. I’m Tusia.’ She made a noise which sounded remarkably like a sneeze. ‘It’s Russian. Well, I’m Russian. Fourth generation. It’s said “ Too shka ”.’
    Hunter struggled for a while trying to make his mouth form the word as Tusia wanted. He gave up. ‘We’ve got ten minutes. I’ll call you Toots,’ he said. ‘She’s BB.’
    ‘Brodie actually. And he’s Hunter. And it’s best not to ask about that now. We haven’t got time.’
    ‘Nine and a half minutes,’ pressed Hunter. ‘Let’s get solving. The shadows are changing all the time. They’re moving along the wall of that building. If we leave it too long we’ll have no idea where the shadow was falling at six o’clock.’
    The arrows on the base of the weather vane worked like a sundial, and the shadow of the northern arrow was like a line against the bricks.
    ‘Well? We’ve got nine minutes, people!’
    Brodie ran her hands along the brickwork, moving in the opposite direction from which the shadow was travelling fraction by fraction as the moments passed. ‘We have to go backwards and work out where the shadow was at six o’clock.’
    Hunter scrabbled to his knees beside her. ‘What the cheese cracker are we looking for, exactly?’ he asked. ‘On a brick wall, I mean. Even if we do work out where the shadow was, it’s just a line of bricks, surely?’
    Brodie’s mind was whirring. ‘Where are the arrows on the weather vane?’ she snapped.
    ‘Erm. Under the winged horse,’ suggested Hunter tentatively.
    ‘So. We’ve got to find where the shadow of the vane arrow was at six. And look under it ,’ said Brodie. She wished she was as confident as she sounded.
    Tusia was waving her hands around, pacing up and down.
    ‘Erm, Toots. Not helping.’
    ‘Actually, I’m calculating . About a third of a brick per minute, I reckon, and so …’ She moved Brodie’s hand along the wall. ‘There. Six o’clock the shadow would