The Emerald Forge (Pilgrennon's Children) Read Online Free PDF Page A

D, because that was the name of the block where the Art and Humanities classrooms were located, Floor 1, and B to identify it from the other boxes on that floor.
    The teacher dictated the title of the lesson, and Dana wrote it in her exercise book. Then he told them to open their textbooks, and commenced waffling on about what was written in them.
    Dana’s thoughts drifted off, and soon she was surfing the Internet through the wLAN. First of all, as she did regularly every morning she arrived at school, she ran the name Pilgrennon through all the good search engines. As with every other time she’d done it, she found nothing. Then she searched Jananin Blake’s name. There were rather more new results this time. Dana simply skimmed over the headlines, not finding anything of particular interest.
    Recalling the news broadcast from the night before and her consternation about Alpha, she searched for the Boolean string +Compton +London +girl + unidentified +grave .
    All of the pages the search brought up were relevant. Dana had learnt very quickly to identify keywords when she wanted to find something. She scanned through the articles in search of the most detailed account, and found an excerpt from a broadsheet newspaper:
    COMPTON BOMB VICTIM’S GRAVE DESECRATED
    The grave of an unidentified young girl who died of a heart condition during the London information terrorist attack in December three years ago was yesterday vandalised in the early hours of the morning. The culprits dug up the grave and broke into the coffin in a baffling act of desecration. Although the coffin had been opened, police have confirmed that the remains were complete and that nothing had apparently been removed from the burial site. Mr Roderick Burrell, the cemetery caretaker, discovered the grave yesterday morning. He told The Daily Mail : “It looked as though the grave had been exhumed with a small mechanical digger, rather than with a shovel, yet there are residential areas nearby and no-one questioned reported hearing any engine noise, and there were no tyre marks in the gateway or on the track leading to the grave. And it looked as though whoever had been there had an enormous dog with them — there were great big paw prints all in the disturbed earth. Police are appealing for anyone with information to come forward.
    Dana turned her attention to another article:
    COMPTON GIRL DUG UP BY A LION
    An expert today identified the prints of a ‘giant dog’ in the disturbed earth dug from the grave of an unidentified young girl who died of unknown causes in the London information terrorist attack as being those of a lion.
    “Dana Provine!”
    Dana looked up sharply. A snigger ran over the class, like wind rustling the branches in a wood.
    “Sorry, what was the question again?”
    The teacher glared at her through his grubby horn-rimmed glasses. “I asked you, what year did King John sign the Magna Carta?”
    Immediately, she pulled the answer off Wikipedia. “June 1215.”
    The teacher did not look pleased, although the answer was correct. “Now pay attention!” he said, and turned back to the board.
    Dana had lost the page where she’d been reading about the lion. She expected it was just a tabloid newspaper: most of them, when they did report real news, reported it badly and incorrectly.
    After the lesson, Dana went straight upstairs to the nearest girls’ toilet. She never liked break-time, and she was worried that she might come across the fat boy who had chased her the day before. She still had no idea where he’d got the Epsilon name from. The only person who’d ever called her that had been Ivor. It worried her. What if the boy knew more, like about Ivor, and Jananin?
    The lavatory stank of cigarettes and excrement, but at least she would be hidden here. As with most of the more remote toilets on the upper floors, there were three cubicles and a line of sinks. Many of the downstairs toilets were large and filled up with girls