Skulduggery Pleasant: Books 1 - 12. Derek Landy

her.’” Stephanie saw her parents clasp each other’s hands and smile sadly. “‘So now that you’ve successfully stolen my girlfriend, maybe you’d like to take her to my villa in France, which I am also leaving to you.’”

      “They get the villa?” Beryl cried, jumping to her feet.

      “Beryl,” Fergus said, “please…”

      “Do you know how much that villa is worth?” Beryl continued, looking like she might lunge at Stephanie’s parents. “We get a brooch – they get a villa? There are only three of them! We’ve got Carol and Crystal! We have more! We could do with the extra space! Why do they deserve the villa?” She thrust the box towards them. “Swap!”

      “Mrs Edgley, please retake your seat or we shall be unable to continue,” Mr Fedgewick said, and eventually, after much bugeyed glaring, Beryl sat down.

      “Thank you,” Fedgewick said, looking like he had had quite enough excitement for one day. He licked his lips, adjusted his glasses, and peered again at the will. “‘If there is one regret that I have had in my life, it is that I have never fathered any children. There are times when I look at what Fergus and Beryl have produced and I consider myself fortunate, but there are also times when it breaks my heart. And so, finally, to my niece Stephanie.’”

      Stephanie’s eyes widened. What? She was getting something? Leaving the villa to her parents wasn’t enough for Gordon?

      Fedgewick continued reading. “‘The world is bigger than you know and scarier than you might imagine. The only currency worth anything is being true to yourself, and the only goal worth seeking is finding out who you truly are.’”

      She could feel Fergus and Beryl glaring at her and she did her best to ignore them.

      “‘Make your parents proud, and make them glad to have you living under their roof, because I leave to you my property and possessions, my assets and my royalties, to be inherited on the day you turn eighteen. I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that, in my own way, I love you all, even those I don’t particularly like. That’s you, Beryl.’”

      Fedgewick took off his spectacles and looked up.

      Stephanie became aware that everyone was staring at her and she hadn’t a clue what she was supposed to say. Fergus was again doing his startled fish impression and Beryl was pointing one long bony finger at her, trying to speak but failing. Her parents were looking at her in stunned surprise. Only Skulduggery Pleasant moved, walking behind her and gently touching her arm.

      “Congratulations,” he said and moved on towards the door. As soon as it clicked shut behind him, Beryl found her voice.

      “HER?” she screamed. “HER?”

       3

      LITTLE GIRL, ALL ALONE

      hat afternoon Stephanie and her mother took the fifteen-minute drive from Haggard to Gordon’s estate. Her mum opened the front door and stepped back.

      “Owner of the house goes first,” she said with a little smile and a bow, and Stephanie stepped inside. She wasn’t thinking of this house as her property – the idea was too big, too silly. Even if her parents were, technically, the custodians until she turned eighteen, how could she own a house? How many other twelve-year-old kids owned houses?

      No, it was too silly an idea. Too far-fetched. Too crazy. Exactly the kind of thing that Gordon would have thought made perfect sense.

      The house was big and quiet and empty as they walked through it. Everything seemed new to her now, and Stephanie found herself reacting differently to the furniture and carpets and paintings. Did she like it? Did she agree with this colour or that fabric? One thing that had to be said for Gordon, he had a good eye. Stephanie’s mother said there was very little she would change if she had to. Some of the paintings were a little too unnerving for her taste maybe, but on the whole the furnishings were elegant and understated, exuding an air of distinction that befitted a house of this stature.

      They hadn’t decided what they were going to do with the house. Any decision was left up to Stephanie, but her parents still had the villa to consider. Owning three houses between them seemed a bit much. Her father had suggested selling the villa but her mother hated the thought of letting go of a place so idyllic.

      They had also talked about Stephanie’s education, and she knew that conversation was far from over. The moment they had left Mr Fedgewick’s office they warned her not to let all this go to her head. Recent events, they had said, should not mean she could stop studying, stop planning for college. She needed to be independent, they said, she needed to make it on her own.

      Stephanie had let them talk, and nodded occasionally and muttered an agreement where an agreement was appropriate. She didn’t bother to explain that she needed college, she needed to find her own way in the world because she knew that if she didn’t, she’d never escape Haggard. She wasn’t about to throw her future away simply because she had come into some money.

      She and her mother spent so long looking around the ground floor that by the time they got to the bottom of the stairs, it was already five o’clock. With their exploring done for the day, they locked up and walked to the car. The first few drops of rain splattered against the windscreen as they got in. Stephanie clicked her seatbelt closed and her mother turned the key in the ignition.

      The car spluttered a bit, groaned a little and then shut up altogether. Stephanie’s mother looked at her.

      “Uh oh.” They both got out and opened the bonnet.

      “Well,” her mother said, looking at the engine, “at least that’s still there.”

      “Do you know anything about engines?” Stephanie asked.

      “That’s why I have a husband, so I don’t have to. Engines and shelves, that’s why man was invented.” Stephanie made a mental note to learn about engines before she turned eighteen. She wasn’t too fussed about the shelves.

      Her mum dug her mobile phone out of her bag and called Stephanie’s dad, but he was busy on site and there was no way he could get to them before nightfall. They went back inside the house and her mother called a mechanic, and they spent three quarters of an hour waiting for him to arrive.

      The sky was grey and angry and the rain was falling hard by the time the truck appeared around the corner. It splashed through puddles on its way up the long drive, and Stephanie’s mum pulled her jacket over her head and ran out to meet it. Stephanie could see a great big dog in the cab of the truck, looking on as the mechanic got out to examine their car. After a few minutes, her mother ran back inside, thoroughly drenched.

      “He can’t fix it here,” she said, wringing out her jacket on the porch, “so he’s going to tow it to the garage. It shouldn’t take too long to fix.”

      “Will there be room for both of us in the truck?”

      “You can sit on my knee.”

      “Mum!”

      “Or I can sit on your knee, whatever works.”

      “Can I stay here?”

      Her mother looked at her. “On your own?”

      “Please? You just said it won’t take long, and I’d like to have another look around, just on my own.”

      “I don’t know, Steph…”

      “Please? I’ve stayed on my own before. I won’t break anything, I swear.”

      Her mother laughed. “OK fine. I shouldn’t be any more than an hour, all right? An hour and a half at the