Secret of the Skull Read Online Free PDF Page B

ago.’
    I froze in horror. The phone dropped from my fingers and clattered to the floor.

 
    C HAPTER
S IX
    B-B-B UT . . .I W HAT ? . . . H OW ? . . . W HEN ? . . .
W HY ? . . .
    Huh?
    The mind-boggling consequences of what Izzy had just told me were boggling my mind more than it had ever been boggled before. And, what with one thing and another, my mind’s been boggled a lot !
    After a couple of minutes, I regained the power of speech. I scooped up the phone and said, in a feeble voice, ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Totally,’ said Izzy. ‘Why is that such a shock? You told me the woman at Skull’s house wasn’t Mirna anyway.’
    ‘Yes . . . but . . . er . . . but . . . this afternoon, I saw conclusive proof that she is Mirna Skulyevic.’
    ‘That’s not possible. She’s dead. I mean, unless Skull’s got a zombie or something living with him, that woman is an imposter.’
    I held a hand to my forehead, as if I was trying to stop my mind from overflowing. ‘Wait a minute. How can Mirna have died years ago and Skull’s family be unaware of that?’
    ‘The country was under a ruthless military dictatorship until very recently, remember,’ Izzy reminded me. ‘Mirna was locked away by the government. Very few people over
there knew she’d died, let alone anyone over here !’
    ‘OK, OK,’ I said, trying to get my head around it all. ‘How do you know this? What exactly have you discovered?’
    ‘Well,’ said Izzy, ‘basically, one of my cousin’s FaceSpace friends knows people in the area of Vojvladimia where the Skulyevic family comes from. Many people there knew
Emerik at least, because he was such a well-known poet. Several people who knew Mirna personally swear she died years ago. One of them, a close friend of hers, was given all her belongings because
there were no more members of the family in the country at the time.’
    ‘Belongings?’ I said. That wooden box Skull had shown me!
    ‘There were various bits and pieces,’ said Izzy. ‘I don’t know the exact details. They were all packed into one carved wooden box. Some sort of family heirloom,
apparently.’
    My heart nearly skipped a beat. ‘What happened to the box?’
    ‘It was given to an English researcher who was in Vojvladimia a few months ago,’ said Izzy.
    ‘Researcher? Researching what?’
    ‘Emerik Skulyevic. An English woman visited the area, gathering any information she could about him and his life. She’s writing his biography, his life story. She’s going to
establish an Emerik Skulyevic permanent exhibition in one of the London museums.’
    By now, my heart was skipping along to whatever beat it happened to fancy. ‘What was her name?’
    ‘Janet Smith. Which isn’t helpful. There must be hundreds of Janet Smiths around!’
    ‘Yes, quite.’ I smiled to myself.
    ‘I’ve tried to find out if this biography she’s working on is due out soon,’ said Izzy, ‘but no luck. None of the online bookshops have it listed.’
    ‘They wouldn’t have,’ I said. ‘I think the whole biography thing is a lie.’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Not quite. I will be in a few minutes. See you at school tomorrow.’
    I sent a text to Skull: Quick question – has your dad heard of anyone called Janet Smith? Has he been contacted by anyone writing a biography of Emerik Skulyevic?
    The reply was: No, and no. Why?
    I was right. Whoever Janet Smith was, she certainly wasn’t writing Emerik’s biography. For one very simple reason.
    Have you spotted it too?

    Surely, nobody who was writing someone’s life story would fail to talk to that person’s son? Any brief glance at the available info on Emerik Skulyevic would reveal
that Emerik had a son, Antonin – Skull’s dad.
    As soon as Izzy had mentioned this Janet Smith, I wondered why Skull’s family – being so proud of Emerik – hadn’t mentioned this biography to me. The reason was
they’d never heard of it, or of Janet Smith. Conclusion: ‘Janet Smith’ wasn’t really