The mention of the famous firefighters impressed the boys and Lewis preened himself; being the son of the Managing Director of one of the biggest oil companies in the area certainly had its advantages.
“But taking the 4x4 …”
Lewis sat up. “What on earth did you expect me to do?” he demanded. “You didn’t really think I was going to leg it all the way over here in this heat, did you? It’s fifty degrees out there, in case you hadn’t noticed!”
“Didn’t the house staff try to stop you? I mean, your mum’s in Edinburgh, isn’t she? They’re responsible for you.”
“Yeah! So responsible that they’re all going to some dance at the club tonight! Anyway, it’d take more than the staff to stop me! They know that Dad has been letting me drive on the private roads for ages and anyway, I’m so good now that I could pass my test tomorrow if I wanted.” He shrugged at their doubtful expressions. “Forget it, for Pete’s sake! What have you all been up to?”
“Not a lot. Reading comics mostly,” Jack said. “My dad bought a pile from the bookshop in the souk. This one’s really good,” he chucked it over to him. “It’s all about djinns.”
“Djinns?” queried Lewis, leafing through the pages.
“Yeah, you know … desert spirits …”
“I wonder if it’s really true,” Peter said dreamily. “There’s one about a man who goes into a ruined city in the desert that’s supposed to be haunted …”
“And he sees djinns?” mocked Lewis. “Don’t be so gullible!”
“I think it’s true, Lewis. I don’t care what you say,” Jack said, his eyes gleaming. “I think there are djinns. It says they live in trees and houses and old wells …”
“There could be some in that old ruined village near the hills,” agreed Peter in a voice that was carefully casual. “My dad says the Arabs won’t live in it ’cause they’re scared of ghosts. And djinns are ghosts, aren’t they?”
“You mean at whatsit … Al Antara? Rubbish!” Lewis said dismissively. “We’ve been to Al Antara dozens of times and we’ve never seen anything or anybody. The whole place has been crumbling to bits for years.”
“We’ve never been there at night, though. Maybe that’s when they come out,” Jack said, sitting up suddenly.
“Hey, that’s an idea!” Peter interrupted, his eyes shining. “I’d love to go there at night! Just think what it’d be like to see a djinn!”
Lewis’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “You?” he sneered, “at Al Antara in the middle of the night? Don’t give me that, Peter!” He leant forward and flicked him with the pages of the comic. “You’d be scared stiff!”
Peter looked suddenly furious. “Well, if you’re so brave,” he snapped, “why don’t you go and spend the night there! Go on, Lewis! I dare you!”
2. Fire Damage
When five magic carpets sailed over Edinburgh, Scotland’s elegant capital, and landed in the garden of a small house in Holyrood Park, close to the towering hill known as Arthur’s Seat, they didn’t cause the kind of sensation you might expect — the simple reason being that as they were magic carpets, nobody could actually see them as they flew over the city.
It was only when their riders stepped onto the garden path of the little cottage that they became visible and if, by any chance, you have visions of star-studded wizards and magicians appearing out of the blue, then I’m afraid I must disappoint you. The MacLeans are a fairly ordinary family; probably the last people in the world you’d have expected to possess magic carpets and even Sir James, a Member of the Scottish Parliament and the owner of a very successful distillery, is not your average magic carpet traveller. Having said that, mind you, they’re not all that ordinary really as Kitor, the large, black crow perched on Clara MacLean’s shoulder, can talk.
The crow flapped into the air as Clara got off her carpet and she watched with a smile as he headed for the slopes of Arthur’s Seat. Kitor had been grumbling about his empty belly more or less all the way from Jarishan and hopefully, she thought, it wouldn’t be too long before he found some supper. If not … well, the freezer was full and she could always defrost some chicken livers for him.
Travelling backwards and forwards over Scotland by magic carpet was nothing new to any of them and Clara’s father, John MacLean, one of the Park Rangers on Arthur’s Seat, merely turned round casually to check that they’d all arrived safely before moving towards the house, fishing in his pocket for his keys. His son, Neil, a tall, dark-haired lad, looked doubtfully at the five carpets that hovered round him at knee level. “We don’t need the carpets any more, do we, Dad?” he queried. “Shall I send them back to the hill?”