DRAGON IN THE SHADOWS - 1st book in the cat analysis trilogy

Chapter 5: The Shadow X

     Peter followed Lucinda out of his bedroom and into the lounge where the silver cat bed lay perfectly still in the corner.
     "Is this a joke?!" Peter exclaimed, "You probably just moved it out of my room yourself as an excuse to wake me again."
     "I swear I didn't move it", She said.
     "I'm going back to bed", he said, agitated, "I've heard enough of this nonsense today."
     "Oh, Peter!" She cried, but he wasn't listening.
     That's when he heard something moving behind him. It wasn't Lucinda for she was running up to him, and when he turned around, the bed was right behind him.
     "What?!" He muttered in puzzlement.
     "I told you Peter", She said, "It wasn't me!"
     "Then how is it moving?"
     "That was why I woke you", she said.
     "I wasn't asleep", he said, "So technically, you didn't wake me, you just alerted me."
     "Whatever." She said, "The point is, I woke you or as you say, alerted you, so you can work this out.
     "Well, it could be robotic."
     "What's that?"
     "A machine."
     "How can it be a machine?" She asked, "It's not like it has pop-out legs or anything like that."
     "No, which means it might be something in disguise."
     "Disguise?!" She exclaimed, "Disguising what?"
     "I don't know, lets see." He ran down the vast passage to the yellow garage door and entered it. He walked around the red Holden and the yellow Ford until he found his green chainsaw. He picked it up and walked back to the lounge room.

     Lucinda took one look at the chainsaw and scowled at him.
     "What a horrendous idea!" She said, "How is ripping it apart going to help?"
     "I'm not ripping apart, I'm just going to see if I can scare it enough to make it take off it's disguise."
     "Oh", she said, "Great idea."
     Peter ripped the start cord and the chainsaw buzzed with life. He lifted it next to the bed and pulled the trigger. The noise was startlingly loud, but the bed did not budge. He turned the Chainsaw off and said:
    "Well, looks like it's a normal bed." He turned to leave when Lucinda shouted:
     "Wait! What's this?!"
     She pointed to a large hole in the back of the bed. Peter followed her gaze and gaped at the hole, wondering how on Earth he hadn't noticed it before. He inspected the hole and found a bundle of cords. "Robotic", He muttered. He circled the bed and discovered a trail of black marks.
     "Well done, Lucinda!" Peter said, "Now let's follow this trail." So they followed it and noticed that it led to the tablet on the mantelpiece. Peter took down the tablet and undertook a short inspection. After a while he noticed that in the hole on the back of the tablet, was a new hole engraved in it, faintly glowing green. The size reminded him of something, though he could not tell what. Then he remembered.
     "The gem", he muttered quietly to himself.
Yes, it could be, he thought.
     He ran to his room and snatched the marble from its designated shelf. He sprinted back to the lounge and thrust the marble into the hole. It shone a bright green and around it, written in red, was a long statement in a spiral and in the same language as the writing from his dream. It went like this:

!@#^#**%#@!%$#@%!^*&(

     He grabbed a piece of paper from the study and with a black pen, wrote down the symbols from the ball. As soon as he had finished writing the last symbol, he looked back at the ball to check if he had written it correctly, but the writing had completely disappeared.
     "I guess that means its right then", he muttered as the gem fell out onto the floor with a quiet clink. He picked it up and set it back on the mantelpiece.

     The next day, when he went to the lab, he showed the text to Eddie and told him he found it in a book. He scanned it with his computer and the results were odd.
     "There is only one language translation, and it says that it is the language of the dragons. I guess that's just a nickname." He showed him the results:
     'B+O+O+K+KNOW+V+3.'
     Immediately Peter noticed and picked out the letters and numbers, and realized they made a sentence.
     "Hey Eddie, take a look at this!" Peter said.
     "What?" Asked Eddie.
     "Look at the letters and numbers", He said, "They seem to spell out something." And Peter was right. They spelt this: 'BOOK KNOW V3'.
     "I think it means Volume three of 'The Book of Knowledge'", Said Peter.
     "Yes, I think you're right!"
     Peter raced out of the lab, jumped into his car and drove home as fast as he could possibly muster.

     When Peter got home, he immediately ran to his small library, where he looked for the Knowledge Books, Volume 3 to be exact.
     After 5 minutes of frantic searching, he found them and pulled out volume three.
     He walked back to the study where Lucinda was waiting for him, though he had no idea to how she knew he would be there.
      He opened the thick book and looked through the many, many pages of the book. When he reached the end, he realized he had looked past the lump inbetween page 786 and page 787. He flipped back to the page where the lump was and found a small note wedged between the two pages. He opened it and gazed at the emerald green writing on it. Peter read it aloud:

"Dear Peter,

If you have found this note, then I presume that my colleague Mr. Bill Ching Chang has already given you the orb. I have not given him any details to what it is or what it is used for, but I am glad you have worked it out. There are three things you must know about the orb before you continue:

1: The orb is a powerful key. Please use with care for it is the only one left in the world.
2: Do not let cats of any sort near the orb, for they will open the tablet themselves.
3: The orb will test you to your limits. Make sure you study everything about both cats and dragons first. The orb is full of puzzles and tests, so be careful.

Thank you for reading this note and taking my reminders into account.
Yours sincerely,
                       Dr. R.J.Williams"

     "Who's Dr R.J.Williams?" Asked Lucinda after Peter finished reading the note.
     "I don't know", Peter answered, "But I think he does."
     Peter pointed directly at Midnight who had been scratching at his ears ever since the name had been said.
     As if he had heard and understood Peter, Midnight let out a long Mreoow and ran towards the tablet in the lounge.
     When the two of them arrived, they found Midnight scratching frantically at the wall. Then Peter realized that there, stuck to the wall, was a sticky note the same colour as the wall, with red writing on it. It read:
'Dr. R.J.Williams = The Shadow X. He hates dragons and will stop at nothing to get rid of them. Do not listen to rule 2.'
     "What?" Lucinda remarked.
     "I don't know", Said Peter, "But I think I know this: The Shadow X is not a good man."
     "So...What do we do now?"
     "Don't know, maybe we should get some rest."
     "Good idea", Said Lucinda, and the two of them went to their rooms for the night.