Emily's Penny Dreadful (4 page)

means it’s a story night. So there.”

  “
Whatever,” said
Sibbie. “I’m right, you’re wrong. So what’s with the sinister,
scary title? Where did you steal that from?”

“
That’s not stealing
either,” said Emily. “It’s a kind of creative borrowing. I learnt
about the Devil’s Element when our class went to the match factory
last year, so I’ve creatively borrowed it for my story.”

  “
The match factory!”
exclaimed Sibbie. “That gave you nightmares. Bad ones. What’s this
story going to do to you?”

“
They were different kinds
of nightmares,” Emily insisted. “That match factory and the little
kids who had to work in it were for real. I don’t mind having
nightmares when I know they aren’t real real.”

  “
How on earth can
you tell the difference when you’re asleep?” said
Sibbie.

  “
I just can,
somehow,” said Emily.

  “
It doesn’t stop you
waking us both up,” said Sibbie.

  “
Well, I’m sorry
about that,” said Emily. “I can’t

help waking up. And I can’t
help waking
you
up, since we’re sharing the same room.”

  “
I bet you could,”
said Sibbie. “If you really tried. Especially if you wrote
something nicer than that.”

She pointed to Emily’s exercise book.
“Something that wouldn’t give you nightmares. Something that I
might actually enjoy reading. Like a love story.”

 
Emily pulled a face. She wondered if it resembled one of
Uncle Raymond’s faces. “It’s
my
story.”

  “
Whatever,” said
Sibbie. “Anyway, this is getting boring. I’m going now.”

 
Emily breathed a
sigh of relief. All she wanted was to be left alone to get on with
her writing.

Sibbie, however, always wanted the last
word. “I bet Uncle Raymond’s really sick of hearing your voice by
now,” she said, on her way out of the room.

  “
No, he
isn’t.”

  “
Yes, he is. I’m
right, you’re wrong.”

 
And Sibbie was gone.
At last.

The Devil’s Element

A dreadful story, written by Emily

Chapter 1

It was a dark and story night.

A little girl, whose name
was Miley, lay fast asleep in a truckle bed.

 
So far, she was
sleeping soundly.

 
Peacefully.

 
Without a worry in
the world.

 
It looked as if the
sounds of the words from the story her Mama had read to her had
lulled her to sleep.

 
But it was NOT
so!

 
And it would NOT
last!

 
The girl was NOT in
her own bed.

 
Her Mama had NOT
read her a story.

 
Miley was SOMEWHERE
else!

 
And SOMEONE else was
about to discover her!

 
This is how Miley
came to be in a bed that wasn’t her own.

Chapter 2

Miley had had a BIG argument with her dear
Mama

and her dear Papa, and an even BIGGER
word-fight with her older sister.

 
Miley’s uncle -
Mama’s long-lost brother – whom Miley had never seen before in her
whole, entire life, was coming to stay. Miley was going to be
forced to give up her room, her precious room, and move in with her
bad-tempered sister.

  “
If he comes then
I’m not staying here a second longer,” Miley declared.

  “
You must endure,”
said her parents. “You must sacrifice your room for the greater
good.”

  “
Stop sniveling,”
her older, nearly-twelve-years-old, sister said. “He’s not going to
be here forever.”

  “
Why does he have to
come at all?” Miley asked.

Miley’s sister turned her
head away knowingly, the way she always did when she was lying. “I
do not know,” she declared. “But I heard our parents say that the
reason is a shameful secret.”

  “
Without a doubt, I
am not staying,” Miley declared. “If he comes then I will
go."

“
Go then,” her sister said,
pushing Miley in a very rough manner from the miniscule room they
were going to share. “You are too clever by far, anyway. You are a
precocious brat!”

 
Crying big, fat
tears Miley slunk from the house. In her hurry, she forgot to take
her coat, her winter shawl and the money from her Hippo Bank. She
also left her parapluie behind. (Everyone else called it an
umbrella but Miley had once heard a very fashionable lady use the
work ‘parapluie’ and she much preferred it to ‘umbrella’. So there!
If that was what being precocious meant, Miley was glad she was too
clever by far. Better than being a bad-tempered dumb-bum like her
sister!)

Miley stumbled down some dark, dank streets
and through cold and narrow laneways, without a clue as to where
she was going. People walked past her, nearly all of them going in
the opposite direction. A

man big about the waist, maybe the
biggest-waisted

man Miley had ever seen in her whole entire
life,

bumped into her. It was hardly surprising.
There was barely room in this particular laneway for one
person,

much less two. The big-waisted man didn’t
even try to

move aside for Miley. He didn’t said sorry,
or anything.

 
More tears filled
Miley’s eyes. When she had at last wiped them dry with her little
lace handkerchief she saw she was somewhere she had never been
before.

 
She realized she was
LOST.

 
AND it had started
to rain.

Chapter 3

Tall buildings seemed to drape themselves
over Miley, like her heavy winter shawl (which she had left
behind), but they didn’t make her feel at all warm. No, not a
bit.

 
Miley was terribly
scared. And she suddenly felt tired, and oh! so weary. She wanted
nothing more than to lie down and rest.

 
That was when she
spotted the open doorway. Where does that lead, she
wondered?

 
There was a
signboard above the doorway. Written in

scraggly letters, it said:

The Devil’s Element

 
And
underneath:

Inward Goods
Only.

 
The Devil’s Element
meant nothing to Miley but she hoped the doorway might lead to
somewhere warm and dry.

 
Miley slipped
inside. She descended some steep, wooden steps and found herself in
an empty cellar room with a small truckle bed inside it.

 
The room was dry but
not at all warm. Shivering, Miley lay herself down. Above her, a
high window gleamed in the weak, wet glow of lamplight from
the

street above. Soon she had fallen fast
asleep, still wearing her day clothes.

 
So, now you know how
Miley got there.

Chapter 4

Something woke Miley.

 
She sat up in the
truckle bed, her heart pounding like

waves thumping their fists on the beach
during a stormy night. She felt thirsty. Luckily, she heard a
tap

running somewhere. But wait, it wasn’t a
tap. It was

rain. It was funny how the two things
sounded alike.

 
Miley looked up at
the high window. The rain lashed the glass and flowed down the
leadlight strips. The wind was howling, too.

 
It was, in fact, a
dark and stormy night.

 
Then Miley
remembered she was not in her own bed. She was not in her own room.
The window was not her window. It was far too high off the
ground.

 
And, worse than any
of these things, her Mama had not been there to read her a lovely
story before she fell asleep.

 
Everything was
different. So horribly different!

 
It struck Miley that
all she had left in the world were the clothes on her back. She was
penniless and alone.

 
The cellar was a
dark and dismal dungeon. It was so dark that Miley could not see
even her hand in front of her nose. Her heart began to palpitate.
Her knees knocked together. Her teeth chattered.

 
Then Miley heard a
door open. A sudden sharp but flickering light sparked into the
cellar. It lit up a

staircase. This was not the same staircase
that Miley

had descended. This second staircase was
right opposite the first.

 
The light went out
and then came back on again.

What a funny light it was, thought Miley.
Noisy and smelly, as well as flickering. It reminded her of
something but what, exactly, she couldn’t remember
straightaway.

 
She heard footsteps
coming down the steps. Miley leapt up from the truckle bed, unsure
what to do next. Should she run into the light and beg for succour
or should she escape back up the first staircase? Miley decided to
escape.

 
Her shoes clattered
loudly on the wooden steps.

  “
Who’s there?” a
voice called after her.

 
Miley did not reply.
She reached the door at the top of the staircase. But, oh no! oh
dear! the door was shut fast.

 
Shut fast and
LOCKED!

Chapter 5

“
Who’s there?” the voice
called a second time. It was

a lady’s voice.

  “
To whom are you
speaking?” another voice asked.

This voice belonged to a
man. He sounded rather

ruffianly even though his grammar was very
correct.

  “
I heard something,
or someone, in the cellar,” the lady’s voice replied.

  “
Rats, maybe?” the
man’s voice said.

  “
It didn’t sound
like rats to me,” said the lady’s voice.

  “
A ghost under the
stairs, then?” the man replied. “Perhaps some kind of shameful
secret has come to haunt us? In other words, a metaphorical
ghost.”

  “
Where on earth did
you learn the word ‘metaphorical’?” said the lady.

  “
From the newspaper,
of course?” said the man.

 
But the lady was not
the least bit interested in ghosts or words, metaphorical or
otherwise.

  “
Whatever or whoever
it is, I think I have it trapped at the top of Inward Goods Only,”
she said.

Miley heard footsteps
coming towards her, just before the flickering light went out for
the second time.

Then she heard a ‘rattcch’
sound and the light was back. The light was a match the lady held
in front of her. It was easier for the lady to see Miley than it
was

for Miley to see the lady.

 
Smoke from the match
caught at Miley’s throat. She

coughed.

  “
It’s only a little
girl,” said the lady.

  “
I’m not a little
girl, I’ve just turned nine,” Miley declared stoutly - once she had
finished coughing, that is.

  “
Are you a burglar,
then?” asked the lady. “Did you come here to rob us?”

  “
Of course I’m not a
burglar!” said Miley. “I came through the door behind me, to
shelter from the dark and stormy night. It’s locked
now.”

  “
Of course it is.
The night watchman locks it. Were you invited in?”

  “
No,” said
Miley.

  “
Neither are
burglars invited,” said the lady.

Chapter 6

“
Damnation!”

 
The light had gone
out.

  “
That’s three
now!”

 
Miley did not have
time to cover her ears. The lady

had used a swear word. Miley knew it was a
swear word because it was the exact same word she had

heard her Papa say on more than one
occasion. Mama

had told Miley and her
sister to cover their ears whenever Papa said the swear word. “Bad
language is not the proper language of girls and ladies,” Mama had
explained to them. That could only mean this lady was not a proper
lady.

  “
What sort of place
is this?” asked Miley. She felt a little tremulous but she did her
best not to show she was afraid.

  “
It’s a factory, my
dear,” said the lady, lighting another match. “Of
sorts.”

  “
Of what sort?”
Miley asked, more out of politeness than really wanting to know.
The Devil’s Element was a funny name for a factory. A sinister
name. Not like the factory she had once visited with her class from
school. That factory had been called Heavenly

Smells. It made wonderful soaps (not sweets,
as Miley had at first imagined) and the visit had left Miley
with

pleasant, sweet-scented dreams.

  “
You might call it a
cottage industry,” said the lady. “We do things on a small
scale.”

  “
But this isn’t a
cottage,” said Miley. “Is it?”