The Dark Giants Read Free Page B

What kind of gift could a hotel full of people enjoy at
once? She couldn’t wait to find out, and scrambled after Sophie F.
    It wasn’t until she was standing with Charlie and Sophie F on the lawn that she noticed
Sophie T wasn’t there. She looked around and spied her friend standing on the hotel’s
verandah, underneath a lantern. ‘Come on, Sophie!’ Amelia called. ‘Stand with us.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ Sophie T called back. ‘I just don’t want to get any dew on my new shoes.’
    ‘Oh, but there isn’t any –’
    Amelia stopped as Sophie F touched her arm and whispered, ‘ She hates the dark. ’
    Amelia blinked in surprise. She never would have guessed something so ordinary would
bother Sophie T, but she tried hard not to show any reaction. She just nodded, then
glanced over at Charlie. He had a triumphant gleam in his eye. Why did he have to
have such sharp hearing?
    Before he could do anything with this new information, Amelia said to Lady Naomi,
‘Where should I be looking? Is it here yet?’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Charlie, thankfully changing tack. ‘Where is it, Lady N? Did you get
her Wonder Woman’s invisible jet?’
    Sophie F snorted with laughter.
    ‘Or did you get her a star? You can do that, you know: buy a star and name it whatever
you like.’
    ‘True,’ said Amelia, ‘but you don’t usually order parts for a star or get Tom to
work on it.’
    ‘Or invite everyone to see it,’ Sophie F added.
    ‘Well, what then?’ said Charlie.
    Lady Naomi appeared to ignore him, but called down the slope of the headland, ‘Ready
when you are, Tom.’
    Amelia held her breath and peered into the darkness, wondering what Tom might be
bringing up the hill. She was staring so intently that when the first explosion came,
she gave a little scream.
    ‘Whoa!’ cried Sophie F, looking up as more explosions popped and thumped around her.
    Amelia saw the sky bloom with colour. All the guests from the hotel went ‘Ooh!’ together
as one pinprick of yellow burst into a ball of blue sparks, and then they all sighed
‘Ahh!’ as stream after stream of red sparks shot up like pillars.
    It was a brilliant show, and much more exciting than any fireworks Amelia had ever
seen before. Partly this was because these were so close she could feel the shock
waves in her belly, and the ground reverberating through the soles of her feet. It
was also because, as well as the usual green and white and red crackers, there were
a number of more … peculiar ones.
    A mauve firework puffed out like a chrysanthemum and then turned lime green, with
hot pink stars winking at the edge of each petal. A turquoise jet drew a sparkling
oval in the sky, which then swam with dozens of orange fish. And as the grand finale,
a golden comet squealed through the sky and wrote HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMELIA in letters
so huge and bright, it took a couple of minutes for the image to fade from her retinas.
    ‘That was amazing!’ cheered Sophie F. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’
    ‘I know!’ crowed Charlie. ‘Who knew Tom was a pyrotechnics expert? No wonder he blew
off his finger and eye! I’m going to get him to teach me everything!’

    Mrs Flood waved and called.
    ‘Oh, bum, I’ve got to go,’ said Sophie F. ‘Thanks for having me, Amelia. That was
the best!’
    She hugged Amelia and then ran back to her mum and their car. Amelia smiled after
her, still dazzled from the fireworks. In fact, it almost seemed as though she could
see a dull yellow glow out of the corner of one eye …
    She turned her head to see if the illusion would persist and got a nasty shock as
something like a camera flash almost blinded her.
    ‘What was that?’ yelped Charlie.
    Amelia blinked furiously, trying to recover her night vision, and pointed. ‘Over
there somewhere.’
    ‘I see him,’ said Lady Naomi, and strode off toward the bush at the edge of the hotel’s
gardens.
    Amelia looked back toward the hotel, torn. There was Sophie T, standing under