Chapter Twelve

 "Go away, you silly puss cat!"  Marta shouted at the jet black beast rubbing itself against her legs.   "It thinks we're playing with it," she noted to the others.

The four of them had run from their Uncle and Aunt's house into the square, but the black cat had followed them.  Pere had a suggestion:

 "Give it a kick up the-"

 But his cousin put herself between him and the animal.

 "Don't you dare!" Marta said, defiantly.

 "We can't let it follow us!"  Xavier protested.  "Mum would be sure to recognize it and when the muck starts flying..."

 "We'll be covered in it," Marta said, completing the thought.

 "It's got evil eyes," Montserrat said, trembling slightly.  "I think it's deliberately tracking us.  It wants to find out where we go and then it'll sneak off home and tell the old hag where we live!"

 "Don't talk wet Montse," Xavier said, shaking his head.  "Cats can't talk!"

 "Normal ones can't, but this one's her familiar," Montserrat claimed.

 "Her what?"  Marta, asked.

 "Witches have demon companions who take the form of an animal; they're called familiars.  I read about it in my Encyclopedia of Witchcraft," Montserrat explained.

 "What nonsense!" Xavier said, in scalding tones.  "There are no such things as witches!"

 "If you believe in ghosts, and you'd have to now," she said, tapping the folder that Marta held to her chest.  "Why can't you believe in witches?"

 A sudden high pitched hiss from the cat cut the argument short.  It arched it's back and its claws shot out, ready for action.
The four of them span round to see what it was looking at.  Montserrat half expected to see Elvira's mother come flying into the square on her broomstick.  What they saw was a huge alsatian dog bounding across the square heading straight for the terrified cat.

 "It's Bobby!"  Marta said, recognizing their old next door neighbour's bad tempered pet.

 The dog pulled up at the mention of its name and the cat seized its chance, it shot off into the centre of the square and ran vertically up into one of the plane trees that gave shade to the benches surrounding the water fountain.

 "Come on, let's go while we can," Xavier suggested.  "Well, I've never been so glad to see that monster."

 Bobby looked at the tree mournfully, then began to growl and slowly turned his eyes on the retreating children.

 "He's blaming us for spoiling his fun," Pere said, swallowing hard.  "Run for it!"

 The dog came springing after them, howling for blood.

 "Stand your ground!" Marta shouted, turning to face the animal.  She tensed, expecting to feel its teeth at her throat any second.

 Just as she was about to close her eyes a shout brought the dog up short.

 "Bobby!  Bobby!  Oh, so this is where you got to, eh?"

 The dog seemed to shrink in size and began to whimper as old Senyor Rovira wagged his finger at it:

 "You're a naughty dog, running off like that.  If you do it again you'll go to bed without any supper!"

 "Oh thank goodness you arrived Senyor Rovira," said Marta, relieved.  "I thought he was going to kill me!"

 "Oh now don't exaggerate child," the old man said, shaking his head.  "He was only playing with you.  He wouldn't have bit you.  You wouldn't have hurt the little girl, would you Bobby?"

 The dog smiled up at its owner baring a long row of vicious looking teeth.

 The others came guiltily back into the square, acutely aware that they had abandoned Marta in their panic.  Marta did not let them say a word.

 "Come on, let's get home, Mum will be worried," she said, turning to go.  "Goodnight Senyor Rovira."

 "Goodbye Marta, now do give my regards to your mother, won't you?"  He turned to the dog and said: "Say goodbye to the boys and girls now Bobby."  The animal gave a wicked bark and the old man patted him on the back with a smile.
 

When they reached their Grandmother's house Marta put the folder she was holding under her sweater and after saying a quick hello to the old lady she ran upstairs shouting:

 "Excuse me, I'm dying to go to the...."

 The others followed Gran into the kitchen and had to sit patiently with her while she prepared chocolate milks and fed them pieces of cake.  As they were polishing off the grub, Marta came in to join them.  They could tell from her face that something was wrong.

 "Here's your milk and cake dear,"  Grandma said, handing them to her.

 "I'm not hungry, thanks Gran," she responded, putting the glass and plate down on the table.

 "Can I have yours?"  Pere asked, picking up the cake without waiting for her answer.

 Marta sat down, looking miserable.  Montserrat glanced at Xavier who said to his sister:

 "Oh I forgot to ask you, did you find the folder you were looking for this morning?"

 Marta looked distracted for a moment then replied:

 "I found one, but it was the wrong one.  It didn't have the work I was looking for.  It had all sorts of papers in from another subject."

 The other three sank lower in their chairs and even Pere stopped eating for a moment.  Grandma eyed each one in turn, but said nothing.
 

  The twins stayed for another hour but none of them could find the enthusiasm to get a game together.   When Maria got back from work she noted a change in the children's mood, but could not get them to talk about it.

 "We're just tired, that's all," Marta told her.

 The twins went home and Xavier and Marta did not have time to discuss the details of Marta's disappointment until after supper, when they went up to Marta's room to do their homework.

 "Let's have a look then," said Xavier, lowering his voice.

 Reluctantly Marta crossed to her wardrobe and took out the folder saying:

 "There's all kinds of Uncle's private papers, but none of them are related to Dad.   We should have looked more carefully; maybe there was another folder under this one that I didn't see."

 Handing it to over to him she added:

 "We'll have to figure out a way to get them back to Uncle Raimon, they might be important."

 Xavier took out the papers and read them one by one while his sister tried to complete her Biology project.  It was not long before she was interrupted by a low whistle escaping from Xavier's lips.

 "Whew!  This is dynamite!" her brother said.

 "What do you mean?"

 "You didn't look closely at these, did you?"

 "No, I didn't have time.  I just glanced through and saw that there was no sign of either the will or any insurance policies.  What are they?"

 Xavier swallowed, put them down onto the desk and said, slowly:

 "Amongst other things, they're a record of all the money and gifts Uncle Raimon has given to government officials for services rendered."

 "What, bribes?"  Marta gasped, losing all interest in the anatomy of ants.

 "Exactly, " Xavier confirmed, adding, in a low voice: "The newspapers would pay a lot of money for information like this."
 It slowly dawned on Marta what her brother was implying.

 "You can't be serious.  They'd send him to jail,"

 "Perhaps he deserves it."

 "That's as maybe, but he's our Uncle!"

 "Well, he hasn't exactly shown much family solidarity with us over the years, has he?"  Xavier argued.

 "What are we going to do?" Marta asked, pushing the folder away from her into the middle of the table as if she could catch some horrible disease from it.

 "I don't know.  We'll have to sleep on it."

 "When Raimon realises this is gone, he's not half going to panic!"  Marta observed.  "Wasn't he stupid to keep a written record of such things and then-"

 "That's it!  It must be!"  Xavier interrupted her.  "The only logical reason for that would be to threaten to use the information some time in the future.

 "Blackmail?"

 "Blackmail!"

 Marta looked down at the folder lying on her desk and wished she had never agreed to the idea of a seance in the first place.