The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan Read Free Page B

Vesuvius.”
    “Please don’t leave,” said Philippa. “You’re like family.”
    “Sorry, miss. But one of these days I’m going to end up dead or seriously injured, possibly both. Unlike you, I don’t have nine lives, just the one.”
    “A djinn doesn’t have nine lives, Groanin,” objected John. “You’re thinking of a cat, surely.”
    “Maybe I am at that,” admitted the butler. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and get packed.”
    “Will you still be here when we return?” asked Philippa.
    “It all depends on how soon I can get on a flight from Naples to Manchester, miss. But perhaps, I don’t know.”
    Groanin wiped a tear from his eye and left Nimrod’s room.
    The three djinn were silent for a moment as they contemplated the departure of their faithful old friend.
    “I’m gonna miss him,” said John.
    “Me, too,” agreed Philippa.
    “I shall miss him, right enough,” admitted Nimrod. “But his mind seems made up, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Yes,” agreed John.
    “Totally,” said Philippa.
    “I mean, you heard me try to talk him out of it, didn’t you?” said Nimrod.
    “Yes,” they agreed.
    “In some ways he was a terrible butler,” said Nimrod. “Insolent. Bad tempered. But in many other ways he was the best butler I’ve ever had.” Nimrod paused for a moment and then added: “I shall especially miss his tea. No one makes a cup of tea like Groanin.” He shook his head. “And his boiled eggs are perfection. I never knew anyone who could boil an egg so that it was always exactly how I like it. Soft, but not too soft. Every time. While his ironing — his ironing was without equal. There isn’t a laundry in the whole of London that could press a shirt as well as Groanin.” He sighed. “Still. There’s no point in crying over spilled milk. We’ve got a train to catch.”
    Fifteen minutes later, the twins followed their uncle out of the hotel and along the street to the railway station where they boarded a train covered in ugly graffiti. Soon, they were rattling north, along the winding, precipitous Neapolitan coast toward Pompeii and Vesuvius.
    John and Philippa were unusually quiet during the journey aboard the humid little train since they were preoccupied with Groanin’s departure as well as the daunting prospect of ascending to the crater of an active volcano. This silence soon hardened, like pumice, into a mood of pessimism anddepression as the reality of everyday life without the grumpy, old butler began to take hold of their young minds. Not even the arrival aboard the train of a three-piece band — guitar, double bass, and accordion — to serenade the sweating passengers with a selection of cheesy Italian hits from the 1950s such as “Volare” and “Tu Vuò Fa’ L’Americano” could cheer the twins. And it wasn’t long before John began to grow irritated that his enjoyment of feeling miserable should be challenged by a stupid band that nobody had asked or wanted to play and whose jaunty, happy Italian music was now quite at odds with his prevailing feelings of melancholy.
    At first, he was inclined to use djinn power to turn the three unwitting musicians into stray cats, which seemed, somehow, appropriate. But better sense and Philippa’s telepathic disapproval persuaded the boy djinn that this would have been something of an overreaction; so instead he merely turned the strings of the guitar and of the double bass into dry spaghetti that swiftly shattered, and the impromptu concert aboard the train immediately ended in a shower of broken pasta.
    “Thank you, John,” said Nimrod. “That was a real kindness to us all.”
    At Pompei Scavi, they left the train in the company of several hundred tourists who, despite the earthquake and the plume of smoke on Vesuvius, were still intent on sightseeing the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. But the usual bus up the mountain was canceled until further notice and while Nimrod negotiated a