Amanderella and the Ppockingstull Treasure Chapter 7

Chapter 7.

Breakfast and a journey.

Breakfast at Gottsnobbler Hall was usually a quiet affair, consisting mostly of toast, polite coughing, and Lord Gottsnobbler writing letters of complaint to people who had never heard of him.

This morning was different.

For one thing, Maudline Ppockingstull was at the table.

For another, the table itself was trembling slightly, as though bracing for impact.

Amanderella entered the dining room to find her mother hovering anxiously over the teapot, her father clutching the marmalade jar like a life‑preserver, and Maudline buttering toast with the cheerful force of someone sharpening a shovel.

“Good morning!” Maudline boomed. “I slept splendidly. Your guest bed is very springy. It threw me out twice.”

Lady Gottsnobbler made a faint squeaking noise. “Threw you… out?”

“Oh yes,” Maudline said. “Excellent exercise.”

Lord Gottsnobbler’s nose stiffened into its quill‑pen point. “I shall write a letter to the mattress manufacturer. Beds should not eject their occupants without warning.”

Amanderella sat down calmly. “Mother, Father, please don’t fuss. We have a great deal to do today.”

Lady Gottsnobbler poured tea with trembling hands. “Yes, dear, but must we do it before breakfast? I haven’t recovered from yesterday’s… holes.”

Maudline reached for the eggs. The table groaned.

“Breakfast is essential,” she declared. “A treasure hunt requires stamina. And protein. And possibly rope.”

Lord Gottsnobbler choked on his tea. “Rope? Indoors? At breakfast?”

Amanderella took a slice of toast. “Maudline means for later, Father.”

“I hope so,” he muttered. “I shall write a letter to the Rope Safety Council just in case.”

Maudline cracked an egg with the enthusiasm of someone splitting firewood. “Once we’ve eaten, we can examine the map properly. I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

Lady Gottsnobbler paled. “Thinking about it? Oh heavens. Amanderella, dear, please tell me this map does not involve… unpleasantness.”

Amanderella smiled. “We won’t know until we examine it.”

Lord Gottsnobbler shuddered. “Maps always lead to trouble. I shall write a letter to the Cartographers’ Guild.”

Maudline took a hearty bite of toast. “Trouble or not, we’ll get to the bottom of it. That’s what explorers do.”

The faux fox, draped over the back of Maudline’s chair, slid sideways in silent agreement.

Maudline clapped her hands. “Right! Eat up, everyone. Once breakfast is done, we tackle the map.”

Lady Gottsnobbler whimpered. “And the holes.”

Lord Gottsnobbler sighed. “And the letters.”

Amanderella buttered her toast with serene efficiency. “Father, please don’t write to anyone until after breakfast.”

He sighed. “Very well. But I shall make notes.”

He produced a notebook labelled Letters To Be Written Immediately After Breakfast.

Lady Gottsnobbler dabbed her forehead. “Amanderella, dear, must you go gallivanting about with maps and things and… and digging? It can only lead to unbridled sneezing in this weather.”

“Yes,” Amanderella said gently. “Maudline needs my help.”

Maudline beamed. “I do. And I knew you’d say yes. You always were the sensible one.”

The faux fox, draped over the back of Maudline’s chair, slid sideways in silent agreement.

Once the breakfast dishes were cleared away Maudline brought out the map and spread it carefully on the table.

Amanderella bent over the vellum again. “If this is the original map, then the first clue must make sense at last.”

Maudline thumped the table again,, the teaspoons leapt like startled fleas. “Exactly what I thought! So, I brought the clues with me.”

She rummaged in one of her wicker baskets, producing a battered envelope that had clearly survived several rainstorms, a minor landslide, and possibly a rugby match.

Amanderella took it carefully. “This is Sir Barnabull’s handwriting?”

Her mother gasped. “The Sir Barnabull? The one who hid the treasure?”

“The very same,” Amanderella murmured, sliding out a folded slip of paper. “This is the first clue.”

Her boots gave a tiny, excited squeak.

She read aloud:

Where shadows fall at end of day, Seek out the stone that points the way. Beneath its nose the earth is thin, And secrets wait for those who dig in.

Maudline nodded vigorously. “I thought it meant the sundial. Everyone thinks it means the sundial. But the sundial wasn’t built until 1840, and Sir Barnabull lived in 1672. So it can’t be that.”

Amanderella tapped the map. “But look,, here. This little drawing. It’s not a sundial at all.”

Her father squinted. “Is that… a pig?”

“It’s a boar,” Amanderella corrected gently. “A stone boar. And look,, it’s marked right at the edge of the old orchard.”

Maudline slapped her knee. “Exactly! But the orchard was cut down in 1893 to make room for the tennis courts. So, no one has seen that boar for over a hundred years.”

Amanderella’s mother wrung her hands. “A stone boar? In an orchard? Why would anyone put such a thing there?”

Maudline beamed. “Because Sir Barnabull was eccentric. And because he liked pigs.”

Amanderella leaned closer to the map. “If the boar is still there,, buried, toppled, or overgrown,, then the first clue is solvable.”

“We’ll have to go to Sillingwold Lodge,” she said. “At once.”

Maudline clapped her hands. “Splendid! I knew you’d say that

Amanderella folded the map with great care. “Right. We leave this morning. We’ll need tools, ropes, torches, and a spade.”

Maudline grinned. “We have all those at home.”

Amanderella’s mother looked from her daughter to Maudline, then to the faux fox, which had slithered halfway under the sofa as if trying to escape the entire situation.

“Oh dear,” she whispered. “This is going to be another adventure, isn’t it.”

Amanderella smiled. “Yes, Mother. It is.”

After breakfast, the household dissolved into a flurry of activity, or, in the case of the Gottsnobblers, a flurry of panic.

Amanderella fetched her motorbike from the shed, brushing a thin layer of dust from the chrome. Her boots gave an eager squeak as she checked the fuel, tightened a strap on her satchel, and adjusted her goggles with calm, practised hands.

Maudline, meanwhile, was preparing her bicycle.

“Preparing” was perhaps too gentle a word.

She was tightening the bolts with the enthusiasm of someone tuning a catapult.

The bicycle, a heavy, black‑framed beast of Victorian engineering, rattled ominously with every adjustment. The faux fox scarf hung from the handlebars like a defeated flag.

Lord Gottsnobbler hovered on the doorstep, nose stiffened into its quill‑pen point. “I shall write a letter,” he muttered, “to the Ministry of Vehicular Sanity. This combination of machinery is unsafe. Positively unsafe.”

Lady Gottsnobbler wrung her hands. “Amanderella, dear, must you go out on that dreadful contraption again? You’ll catch your death of fumes. Or wind. Or velocity, and sneeze.”

Amanderella swung her leg over the motorbike. “Mother, I’ll be perfectly safe.”

The engine gave a low, promising growl.

Lady Gottsnobbler jumped. “It’s growling at me. Amanderella, it’s actually growling.”

“It always does that,” Amanderella said gently.

“It shouldn’t,” Lord Gottsnobbler declared. “I shall write to the manufacturer. And the council. And possibly the vicar.”

Maudline wheeled her bicycle to the drive with the unstoppable momentum of a runaway wardrobe.

“Ready!” she boomed. “I’ve packed three spare inner tubes. One must always be prepared.”

Lady Gottsnobbler blinked. “Inner tubes? For what?”

“Emergencies,” Maudline said cheerfully.

Lord Gottsnobbler paled. “I shall write a letter to the Emergency Preparedness Committee.”

Amanderella fastened her scarf. “We’ll be back later. Once we’ve searched the Sillingwold Lodge estate and found the treasure.”

Lady Gottsnobbler pressed a hand to her heart. “Oh heavens. Maps. Holes. Bicycles. Amanderella, promise me you won’t fall through anything.”

“I’ll do my best,” Amanderella said.

Maudline mounted her bicycle with a determined heave. The bicycle creaked in protest.

“Right then!” she declared. “Forward!”

Amanderella started off, sending a small shower of gravel skittering across the drive.

Lady Gottsnobbler shrieked. “The gravel! It’s escaping!”

Lord Gottsnobbler waved his notebook. “I shall write a letter to the Gravel Preservation Society.”

Amanderella raised a polite hand. “Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Father.”

Maudline rang her bell, a frantic tring‑tring‑tring that startled a passing pigeon into early retirement.

Together, they set off down the drive:
Amanderella gliding like a sleek mechanical arrow,
Maudline thundering behind her like a cavalry charge on two wheels.

The Gottsnobblers watched them go, pale and trembling.

Lady Gottsnobbler whispered, “She’s off again.”

Lord Gottsnobbler sighed, opening a fresh pot of ink. “I shall need more paper.”