The Crossing of Ingo Read Online Free PDF Page A

think they
are
spies, Con?” I ask, lowering my voice to a whisper.
    “Whatever they are, I don’t want them there.”
    “Don’t get the ladder, Con.
Please.”
I’ve lost Dad – or as good as lost him. Mum’s gone to Australia. My brother’s got to stay safe.
    Conor’s expression changes. “Don’t panic, Saph. I’m not planning to fall off the roof and break my neck. You hold the bottom of the ladder and it’ll be fine.”
    The ladder is heavy. We drag it across the garden and hoist it against the wall. It’s the one Dad used when he painted the outside of our cottage. I remember the last time he did that. The fresh white against the storm-battered old paint.
    “Hold it like that, Saph. Lean all your weight against it.”
    “Be careful, Conor.”
    He goes up the ladder quickly. Con’s used to ladders because his bedroom is up in the loft. “Can you see anything?” I ask.
    There’s a pause. Conor is at the top. He hasn’t got anything to hold on to now. He braces his feet on the top rung and leans forward, then carefully stretches to his right, towards the chimney.
    What if they come back? If they strike at him now, when he’soff balance, he’ll fall. I turn and scan the horizon. No black dots of gulls. I turn back to Conor. “Is it a nest?” I shout up.
    “Yes.” His voice sounds strange. He’s leaning right across to the chimney. His hand is almost in the dark mass of the nest. He’s taking something out of it. Now he’s looking at what’s in his hand.
    Conor freezes. Sadie and I stare upwards in suspense. Slowly Conor’s hand closes around whatever he’s found. He teeters as if he’s forgotten he’s at the top of a ladder. For a second I think he’s going to lose his balance. At my side, Sadie lets out a volley of warning barks. I turn around and see dark specks on the horizon, growing bigger as I watch. The gulls.
    “Conor! Get down quick! The gulls are coming.”
    Conor scrambles down the ladder one handed. As he jumps to the ground, Sadie leaps around him, barking protectively. The sky is suddenly full of gulls. A cloud of beating wings hides the chimney as they circle the nest, screeching out their anger.
    Conor’s holding a handful of seaweed. “Is that what the nest is made of?” I ask.
    He nods. “It’s all woven together.”
    “But gulls don’t make nests like that.”
    Conor shrugs. He is very pale. He pushes apart the strands of weed and I see a pale, glistening oval, about the size of a fingernail.
    “That’s not a gull’s egg.”
    “Look at it, Saph.”
    I look at the egg. It is translucent green. Inside it there is a tinycreature, moving. A creature with fins and a tail. A fish. I shudder.
    “The nest was crammed with them,” says Conor.
    “But if they hatched, they wouldn’t be able to breathe in the air.”
    “I don’t know what they are,” says Conor. “Touch the shell, Saph.”
    I put out a finger reluctantly, and prod the egg. It is rubbery. There’s liquid inside in which the little fish can swim. I snatch my hand away. There is a ringing sound in my ears. My mouth turns dry.
    “Why have they put the eggs on our house?” I whisper to Conor.
    “They’re just trying to scare us.”
    “Do you think
he’s
behind it? Ervys?”
    “Probably.”
    “What are we going to do with this horrible egg thing?”
    “Feed it to Mary Thomas’s cat.”
    I laugh, but my spine crawls with horror as I imagine fish hatching out of the eggs and swarming all over our roof. I know what Ervys is telling us.
You human creatures are coming into my world. I have my powers too. I can make Ingo come to you.
It’s happened before. Fish swam in the streets of St Pirans after the Tide Knot broke and the sea flooded the town. Ervys thought that was a great victory for the Mer, in the battle between Ingo and the human world.
    The gulls have settled on the roof again, in a long line, watching and waiting.
    “What are we really going to do with the egg?” I whisper.
    “I