Floods 10 (12 page)

Meanwhile, inside the cottage, the hostages were working on a plan of escape.

‘There's no point in trying to work on a plan of escape,' said the Grime Reaper. ‘I can hear every single thing you whisper and read every single thing you write.'

‘Escape?' said Maldegard. ‘We're not thinking of escape. I mean, we are just simple human women and two old goblins, how on earth could we escape from a being as awesome and powerful as you?'

‘Indeed. You couldn't.'

‘No,' Maldegard continued. ‘But I was thinking how this place could do with a bit of a tidy-up. You
know, wash the curtains in nice boiling hot water to get all the stains out and maybe scrub the floors with nice boiling hot water and bleach to kill all the germs. I'm sure you'd like that, a nice thorough spring clean.'

‘Boiling hot water?' said the Grime Reaper.

‘Absolutely,' said Maldegard. ‘Put the kettle on, Edna.'

The cottage shuddered, only for a split second, but it was enough for the women to realise the Grime Reaper was uneasy.

‘I think we should strip off all this dirty old wallpaper too,' said Edna Hulbert.

‘I've never done that before,' said Maldegard. ‘How do you do that?'

‘With water,' said Edna. ‘You soak the wallpaper with hot water and rip it off with a scraper.'

‘Would that be nice, boiling, extremely hot water?'

‘Well, of course – the hotter the better.'

‘And I suppose the scraper would need to have a very nice sharp edge, wouldn't it?'

‘Absolutely, and jagged like a saw, too.'

The cottage shuddered and this time it was for more than a split second. The two women winked at each other. Then the two goblins realised what they were up to and joined in.

‘Do you think we should pull up the carpet?' said Auntie Tremble.

‘Of course we should,' said Uncle Trimble. ‘I expect the floorboards will be all rotten, what with the cottage being right by the river.'

‘Do you think they'll be too damp to burn?' said Edna.

‘Well, we can try.'

The cottage made a noise that could only be described as a whimper. Then it lifted up in the air and began to run.

‘Oops, be careful there,' Maldegard called out. ‘You'll spill the boiling water all over the place.'

But the Grime Reaper was too frightened to hear them. He reached the end of the cave and slipped into one of the fifteen tunnels. Unfortunately he made a bad choice. The tunnel got quite a lot smaller quite quickly and kept on getting smaller until the
cottage was jammed tight and its chimney stack had been snapped clean off.

The Grime Reaper was jammed in so tight he could neither move forward nor backwards and behind him, he could hear Mordonna and everyone coming along the cave. There was nothing for it. He would have to shape-shift.

The front and back doors of the cottage were pressed up against the sides of the tunnel so the Grime Reaper opened the window in the end wall.

‘OK, everyone out,' he ordered.

Maldegard knew he couldn't change his form with the four of them inside the cottage, so she sat down in the middle of the floor.

‘Can't go outside,' she said. ‘You've loosened all the rocks in the tunnel. They could come crashing down on us at any moment. No, I think we'll stay in here.'

‘I order you to leave,' the Grime Reaper snapped.

‘Order, is it?' said Auntie Tremble. ‘Father, is the kettle boiling yet?'

‘Just started.'

‘Well now, why don't we have a nice cup of tea while we wait to be rescued,' said the old goblin.

‘Lovely idea,' said Maldegard, ‘and I reckon there's enough water left in the kettle to strip some of that wallpaper off too.'

The Grime Reaper began to sob. The whole cottage heaved up and down, shedding slates off its roof and rattling all the plates on the dresser.

I can't be beaten by two human women and a
couple of senile goblins
, he whimpered inside his head.

Can I?

‘I bet you're thinking to yourself how you can't believe you've been beaten by two human women and a pair of old goblins, aren't you?' said Maldegard.

The Grime Reaper said a very rude word followed by quite a few more very, very rude words. Then he said very quietly, ‘Please go away.'

‘We will if you will,' said Maldegard.

‘How do you mean?'

‘If you promise to leave Transylvania Waters and never return, we will climb out of the window.'

‘And if I don't?'

‘Put the kettle on again, Edna,' said Maldegard. ‘And you know, it's getting rather chilly in here. I think we should break up the kitchen chairs and start a fire.'

‘And what about my beloved Howler?' said the Grime Reaper. ‘Will you set her free?'

‘When you have gone far, far away, we will send her to you,' said Mordonna, who had been outside the window listening.

‘Can we trust him?' said Nerlin. ‘I mean, he's the Grime Reaper. He's really evil.'

‘We'll take out some insurance,' said Mordonna. She and Winchflat went into a huddle and then sent the two carpenters she had brought along from the castle in case there were any staircases that might need removing, into the house to remove the staircase.

The cottage screamed in a way that only a small building can.

‘The staircase joins the upstairs to the downstairs,' said Winchflat. ‘Without it there can be no connection between your brain and your body. So when you shapeshift back into a living creature you will be a zombie.'

‘Which will probably make Howler very happy,' said Mordonna.

‘And if you behave yourself for the next five years we will re-install the stairs and you'll be able to think again.'

The Grime Reaper made some very weird noises that only a semi-derelict cottage could make and shapeshifted into a chicken.

‘Nice try,' said Mordonna. ‘Everyone knows chickens have no connection between their brains and their bodies, but then everyone also knows that chickens can't fly properly, so I'm not sure how you're going to go far, far away.'

‘On the other hand,' Maldegard added, ‘they do make wonderful soup.'

Whether it was the damage he'd sustained as a cottage,
³⁷
or whether he was getting old or whether he simply wasn't a very good shapeshifter, it was hard to know, but it took the Grime Reaper eleven goes at shapeshifting, including turning into an armchair, a bag of ready-salted peanuts and a small kitten, before he finally changed into an albatross. It was actually all of the above plus the staircase-removal zombification.

‘Ummgl gluggl burger lol,' said the Grime Reaper.

‘Exactly,' said Mordonna.

‘Right, off you go,' said Nerlin. ‘Somewhere really remote.'

‘Yes,' said Mordonna. ‘I know the perfect place.'

‘Tristan da Cunha!' Nerlin cried.

‘Exactly.'

‘And maybe, just maybe, in ten years or so if you and Howler haven't made any trouble, we might give you your staircase back.'

‘I think you should probably stick to map-making above ground,' said Winchflat. ‘Or at least take a bodyguard with you.'

‘Excuse me?' said Maldegard. ‘Are you trying to claim that it was you lot rushing down here that saved us?'

‘Well, of course.'

‘I don't think so,' said Maldegard. ‘Edna and I had the situation perfectly under control.'

‘Absolutely,' said Edna.

‘And I think we'll just explore a few more tunnels and caves before we come up,' said Maldegard. ‘There's talk of dinosaur bones and ancient fossils.
Who knows, maybe we'll find some Jurassic DNA for you to play with?'

Winchflat had been feeling rather depressed for a while. That Tiny Building In The Middle Of The Perfect Courtyard and its Mysterious Door was driving him crazy. There had never been a problem he couldn't fix with one of his inventions, until now. He found himself dreaming about it and it was affecting his concentration when he was awake. There had to be a way in, but whatever it was, he couldn't find it.

Maldegard's talk of ancient DNA was just the sort of distraction he needed. He didn't realise that his wife was lying in her teeth.
³⁸
She hadn't heard anything of the sort, but she knew if she said she had, Winchflat would be only too happy for her and Edna to keep on exploring underground. She did think, though, that if there was anywhere in the world that might have ancient DNA knocking about, or maybe even some living dinosaurs, the most likely place would be the caves of Transylvania Waters.

After Mordonna and the others had gone back to the surface and Auntie Tremble and Uncle Trimble had gone back to the rest of the goblins, the two women and young Spudly set off along the cave, past where the cottage had been wedged.

‘I just have a feeling we'll find something amazing along here,' said Maldegard.

‘I think every cave explorer has that feeling pretty well all of the time,' said Edna. ‘I've got it too.'

‘You're probably right.'

‘But hey,' Edna continued, ‘it's a nice exciting feeling, so let's go with it.'

‘'Scuse me,' said Spudly, who had been saying goodbye to his aunt and uncle, ‘but I just have this amazing feeling we'll find something brilliant along here.'

And round the next corner, they didn't. Though they did find another corner and then a bit further along another one, and all the time they seemed to be climbing higher and higher. There were lots more corners. Some went left and some went right and some did both. However, none of them
had anything brilliant around them. Only the last one had something different, and that was what is commonly known as a dead end.

‘There's a dead end,' said Spudly, who had been running on ahead so he could be the first one to find the brilliant something.

‘And is it brilliant?' said Edna, who had recently discovered sarcasm and was having a bit of a practice.

‘No. It's just a big pile of huge bones,' said Spudly.

‘Really?' said Maldegard.

‘Yes, and they're really old,' said Spudly. ‘I mean, there's no meat on them at all. They're way too old to make soup with.'

By then the three of them had reached the bones. They filled the entire tunnel from floor to roof with no gaps. Small bones packed in between big bones and smaller ones filled the gaps right down to baby mouse ribs poked in spaces no thicker than three very thin postage stamps. The effect was of a smooth wall of polished marble. It wasn't
until you got very close you realised it was made up of thousands of bones.

‘Wow,' said Edna.

‘Wow indeed,' said Maldegard. ‘And I'll tell you something. There's no way those bones just ended up there when their owner died. That wall has been built and it took them a very long time.'

‘Why?' said Spudly.

‘I imagine to stop anyone going any further along this tunnel,' said Maldegard.

‘So that probably means there
is
something brilliant along there,' said the young goblin.

‘Indeed.'

‘You know when you build a castle out of playing cards or a tower out of dominoes,' said Edna, ‘and you pull one card out of the bottom and the whole thing collapses? Do you think this wall might be like that?'

‘No,' said Maldegard.

She was right, and anyway the whole thing had been built so well that it was impossible to get hold of a single bone.

‘We need to take a more scientific approach,' said Maldegard. ‘We must assume that this barrier was not built to be ever taken down. So we must use all our skills to try and demolish it.'

‘Or dynamite,' said Spudly.

‘Maybe we could get one of the family to come down and cast some sort of spell to make a doorway,' said Edna.

‘Or dynamite,' said Spudly again.

‘Or …' Maldegard began. ‘Have you got any dynamite?'

‘My dad has,' said Spudly. ‘We use it in our annual sports day in Putting the Turnip.'
³⁹

‘OK, go off and ask your dad if we can have a bit,' said Maldegard.

‘Brilliant!' Spudly cried as he ran home.

‘And don't forget some matches and a long fuse,' Maldegard called After him.

Thirty-seven minutes later Spudly returned with his father, a big stick of dynamite and a box of matches.

‘And the fuse?' said Edna.

‘What's one of them, then?' said Spudly's dad. When Maldegard explained, he said, ‘Ah, no, we don't have any of them. Sounds like a good idea, though.'

‘So how do you detonate the dynamite without getting blown up yourselves?' said Edna.

‘We lights a bonfire and then the best thrower stand as far away as he can and throws the dynamite into the flames,' Spudly's dad explained.

‘That sounds extremely dangerous,' said Edna.

‘Oh, it is,' said Spudly's dad.

‘Yeah, it's brilliant,' said Spudly.

‘'Tis all right,' said Spudly's dad, ‘because whoever has the honour of throwing the dynamite wears the magic talisman and that protects him.'

‘So, you're saying that as long as you are wearing this magic talisman you are protected from the blast?' said Maldegard.

‘Well now, when you put it like that,' said Spudly's dad, ‘I'd have to say no, not so much really. Though it be a great honour to wear the talisman. It be over three hundred years old and anointed with the blood of hundreds of wearers. It be very sacred.'

‘Can we see it?' said Maldegard.

‘All right, but t'aint normally allowed if you ain't a goblin.'

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet bag from which he took the sacred talisman and placed it in Maldegard's hand.

‘A carrot,' she said. ‘It looks like a carrot, a very, very old shrivelled-up carrot.'

‘Oh,' said Spudly's dad. ‘Hang on. I got muddled up, that's my lunch.'

When Maldegard handed the old carrot back to him, he shook his head and blushed and said, ‘Oh dear. It is a carrot.'

‘So the sacred talisman is an old carrot?' said Edna.

‘No, that is my lunch. I put it in the same bag.'

‘Oh, I see,' said Maldegard. ‘Well, just take the talisman out then.'

‘That's the think,' said Spudly's dad. ‘There bain't nothin' else in the bag.'

‘So you've eaten the sacred talisman?' said Edna.

‘I have. I thought it tasted a bit strange, but I suppose that was all the blood of my ancestors, and to be perfectly honest they did look very much alike.'

‘Well, that'll be all right then, Dad, won't it,' said Spudly. ‘We can just pretend that the carrot is the real sacred talisman and no one will be any the wiser.'

Maldegard said she didn't see how something as small and shrivelled as an old carrot could protect anyone against a dynamite blast, then Spudly's dad had to admit that it didn't, but it did mean the
wearer died a hero instead of an idiot for setting off a big explosion without its magic protection. Edna said that was sort of splitting hairs because either way you were dead.

Spudly's dad tipped a bag of sticks and grass out at the foot of the bone wall, told everyone to stand back and lit the fire. When it was well alight, he took the stick of dynamite from a special dynamite bag round his neck, took careful aim and threw it into the fire.

There was a very loud explosion about fifty times bigger than:

‘What?' said someone as the entire tunnel was filled with powdered bones, incredibly thick smoke and a faint mist of carrot dust.

‘Eh?'

‘Where?'

‘Bacon.'

The enormous noise had deafened everyone so
no one knew who was alive or dead or where they were or what they were saying. Never one to miss an opportunity, Spudly shouted every rude word he'd ever heard at the top of his voice.

Gradually the dust settled and everyone's hearing recovered enough to hear Spudly, who suddenly realised they could hear him and went very quiet.

No one was dead, except a little beetle that had been flattened by a small piece of archaeopteryx kneecap.

Every single bone had been blasted into dust and there ahead of them was a staircase. They climbed it, higher and higher, until they realised they were way above ground level. The stairs were too tall for Spudly and his father so the two women carried them up in their shoulder bags.

‘I reckons we must be up inside
,' said Spudly's dad.

‘You mean
,' said Maldegard. ‘I think you're right and I think we must be quite near the top.'