by Emily Rodda
‘This isn’t the safest place for a picnic,’ Leo said, fumbling with the hat ribbons and glancing at the mist swirling in Tiger’s Glen.
‘It’s the safest place there is for us at the moment,’ said Bertha. ‘We’ll be alone here if Clogg’s going to declare it out of bounds.’
Leo managed to secure Bertha’s hat more or less straight on her head and followed her to the nearest picnic table, dragging the packs. He sat down on one of the benches with his back to the cloud palace. He could still feel the palace’s presence like a cold, malicious beam trained on the nape of his neck, but at least he didn’t have to look at it.
Mimi put Moult’s basket down on the opposite bench and began pulling out packets of food from the pack at random and plumping them down on the table. Moult hopped awkwardly out of the basket and fluttered up to perch on its handle. ‘Those people took the rug that flies,’ she clucked regretfully.
‘Nothing matters as long as Tye gets away all right,’
Mimi said, sliding onto the bench next to her.
‘Yes,’ Bertha sighed, as she sorted rapidly through the packets of food and helped herself to a bread roll and a large pickled cucumber. ‘Especially now the silly things have decided she’s a servant of the Ancient One!’
Leo saw Mimi tremble like a leaf in the wind and opened his mouth to tell her not to worry, he was sure Tye would get out of Hobnob safely. Then he realised that Mimi hadn’t heard a word of what he and Bertha had said. Her elbows on the table, her chin propped on her hands, Mimi was looking straight past him, gazing with total absorption at the palace of the Strix.
Chapter
29
Picnic
Leo reached across the table and gripped Mimi’s wrist. She gave a little jump, blinked twice, and looked at him. ‘What?’ she said thickly, as if she had just woken from a deep sleep.
‘I don’t think you’re as used to the cloud palace as you think,’ Leo murmured, being very careful not to sound as if he was accusing her of anything. ‘You were staring at it again.’
She shivered. ‘It’s the magic,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s really strong.’
‘I know,’ Leo said, letting his hand fall from her wrist. ‘It must be strong, if even I can feel it.’ He saw her look of quick surprise and wondered if she’d heard the trace of bitterness in his voice. Hastily he grabbed a bread roll and looked around for something to go inside it. He could only see dried meat, onions and more pickled cucumbers.
Moult and Bertha were still talking about Tye. ‘The young human will tell the adults that the tiger woman wasn’t trying to hurt her,’ Moult clucked. ‘She’ll tell them that the tiger woman was only trying to stop the game.’
‘They won’t listen to her, Moult,’ Mimi said. ‘They’ll say she’s too young to know what was really going on.’
‘I can’t believe how intolerant people are in this village!’ Bertha frowned, biting into her cucumber as viciously as if it were Bodelia Parker herself.
‘Yes,’ Leo said thoughtfully. ‘But they don’t seem to have a problem with anyone else. Only Terlamaines.’
‘That’s because –’ Moult began, and stopped as everyone looked at her.
‘What, Moult?’ Mimi asked encouragingly.
‘Simon says that once upon a time, before I was hatched, a flock of tiger folk lived near Hobnob,’ Moult quavered. ‘That’s what Simon calls them – tiger folk – but I think he must mean Ter – Ter –’
‘Terlamaines,’ said Leo.
Moult nodded. ‘That’s why that wood over there is called Tiger’s Glen,’ she said. ‘Terma – Terla – tiger folk lived there, when it was part of a much, much bigger wood called Old Forest that stretched all the way to the land of the Blue Queen.’
Leo, Mimi and Bertha looked at one another in astonishment.
‘I had no idea Old Forest came down this far south!’ exclaimed Bertha. ‘Of course, I’ve always been hopeless at geography.’
‘Tye must know,’ Leo murmured. ‘But she didn’t say a word.’
‘She wouldn’t,’ Mimi said sombrely. ‘Go on, Moult.’
‘Well,’ Moult said, her eyes very wide. ‘Simon says that one morning, just before the Dark Time began, everyone in Hobnob woke up to find that the forest had vanished in the night. Just one little patch of trees was left.’ She bobbed her head towards Tiger’s Glen. ‘And all the tiger folk had gone. No one could think how it had happened, but everyone was very happy, and there was a big celebration with fireworks, Simon says, and everything!’
‘Why?’ snapped Leo, more harshly than he’d meant.
Moult shrank back, fluffing her dusty feathers. ‘Well, because they were safe at last,’ she whispered. ‘Because before the tiger folk left, people were scared to leave their houses at night, or to go too near the forest, even in the daytime, in case they got eaten.’
‘Terlamaines don’t eat people!’ Bertha cried indignantly.
Moult set her beak and looked mildly stubborn. ‘They ate Broody’s grandmother,’ she said.
‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ argued Leo. ‘Broody’s grandmother was only a –’ Mimi kicked him under the table and he stopped himself just in time.
‘Only a what?’ Bertha and Moult asked together.
‘A – a long time ago,’ Leo finished lamely.
They stared at him curiously. Feeling his face growing hot, he cast desperately around for a way of rescuing the situation. ‘I mean … maybe Broody’s grandmother’s flock –’
‘The Flock of Bing,’ Moult put in, with a touch of pride. ‘Broody can trace her ancestry right back to the island’s founding fowls.’
‘Right, right,’ Leo gabbled. ‘Well, maybe the Flock of Bing just suspected it was Terlamaines who ate Broody’s grandmother, and the story grew from there. These things do happen … over time.’
Moult put her head on one side, considering. ‘You might be right,’ she said slowly. ‘I always wondered how it was that the tiger folk were able to cross the lake. Wizard Bing set it around his island especially, you know, because tiger folk hated to get their feet wet.’
‘We thought the lake was to keep dots out,’ said Mimi.
Moult nodded. ‘Dots dislike water also,’ she said. ‘Simon says it makes them fall apart. That’s why Wizard Bing’s idea was so very clever. The lake defended the Isle of Bing from two enemies at once.’
She thought for a moment. ‘It doesn’t defend it from foxes, though,’ she added. ‘Foxes don’t mind water a bit. This fox called Sylvester waded over to our island twice before he went to work for Bodelia Parker. He was very nice the first time – asked all our names, and told us to call him Sly for short and everything – but then he came back one day while Egbert was busy having his dust bath, and tried to eat Scramble.’
Bertha gave a little start and knocked her last bread roll from the table. She mumbled incoherently and bent to pick it up.
‘If it hadn’t been for Simon chasing him off, Sly would have got Scramble for sure,’ said Moult, clicking her beak thoughtfully. ‘Instead of running away, Scramble started running in circles. She does that sometimes, when she forgets where she’s going. So Sylvester nearly caught her.’
‘That must have been terrible,’ Leo murmured.
‘Oh, yes!’ Moult exclaimed. Her eyes were very bright. She was obviously enjoying herself, and it occurred to Leo that she probably didn’t get many opportunities to talk at home.
Except to Simon, he reminded himself, and felt a pang as he thought of the mushroom jumping up and down in Officer Begood’s gaol.
‘Of course,’ Moult continued vivaciously, ‘Scramble’s a Chewsday’s chick, like Egbert, and she could have fought Sylvester off if she tried, but she never remembers her hatching-day. Even though she has one every week, Scramble’s hatching-day party is always a surprise party – that’s what Simon says.’
She paused, and the light died from her eyes. ‘What Simon always used to say, I mean,’ she added in a s
mall voice. Her drooping comb drooped even further.
Bertha emerged from beneath the table munching her retrieved bread roll distractedly. She looked upset. The tips of her ears were very pink.
She’s sorry for Moult, Leo thought. But Bertha didn’t say anything. She just chewed, staring into space and taking no notice of the poppy dangling over her right eye.
Mimi, on the other hand, was looking interested rather than distressed. ‘Are hens hatched on, um, on a Chewsday always good fighters or something?’ she asked Moult curiously.
‘Of course!’ answered Moult, her surprise at Mimi’s ignorance jolting her out of her sad mood. ‘Don’t you know the hatching-day rhyme?’
‘No,’ Mimi and Leo chorused. They both glanced at Bertha, thinking that she probably did, but Bertha seemed not to be paying any attention at all to what was going on around her.
Moult shook her head in amazement. She cleared her throat, settled her feathers, shut her eyes and began to recite in a high, crooning voice:
Moonday’s chick is fair and sleek,
Chewsday’s chick is strong of beak,
Wormsday’s chick is rich and glad,
Thirstyday’s chick is poor and sad,
Flyday’s chick has wings of steel,
Saladday’s chick lays eggs with zeal,
But the chick that is on Sunday new
Is brave and noble, good and true.
She opened her eyes, caught sight of Mimi and Leo grinning at each other, and cringed. ‘Oh,’ she said in a small voice. ‘You do know the rhyme. You were just teasing me.’
‘No, Moult!’ Mimi said hastily. ‘No, really! I promise you we’ve never heard those words before.’
‘Do you really believe that the day you were born – I mean, hatched – makes a difference?’ Leo asked.
‘Well, of course it does!’ Moult exclaimed. ‘It makes all the difference! It’s everything! Teeny can fly so well because she was hatched on a Flyday. Chickadee is so glamorous and confident because she was hatched on Moonday. Broody is so good at laying eggs because she was hatched on a Saladday …’
‘Couldn’t it be just that they, sort of, made themselves like that because they thought they had to follow the rhyme?’ Leo suggested gently.
‘Oh, no!’ Moult insisted. ‘It’s definitely the day that’s important. I don’t know my hatching-day, but anyone could guess it was Thirstyday just because – well, because of the way I am. And I’m sure that Simon is a Sunday’s chick, though he doesn’t know his hatching-day any more than I know mine, because he’s an orphan too.’
She sighed, her head wobbling uncertainly on her scrawny neck. ‘When are we going to begin the quest to the cloud palace to save Wizard Bing?’ she asked. ‘Will it be straight after our snack? Or will you want to have your dust bath first?’
There was an embarrassed silence. Moult looked from Mimi to Leo to Bertha and back again, blinking uncertainly.
Leo determinedly bent his head and bit into his bread roll. This isn’t my problem, he told himself. This is Mimi’s problem and she can handle it.
‘Moult, we’ve been thinking,’ Mimi began awkwardly. ‘We – we’ve decided not to go to the cloud palace after all. We’re not sure that Wizard Bing is there.’
‘But – but of course he’s there!’ cried Moult, her voice cracking with distress. ‘He’s been collected in my place! You heard what Egbert said! It’s the only explanation!’ She fluffed up in agitation so that for a moment she looked as wild as Teeny in hysterics. Then she lost her footing, toppled off the basket handle and fell under the table in a spray of shabby feathers.
Attracted by the commotion, Bertha turned her head stiffly. ‘What is it?’ she enquired in a tense voice.
‘They say you’re not going to attack the cloud palace!’ Moult wailed from under the table. ‘But Wizard Bing –’
‘Dots to Wizard Bing!’ Bertha shouted astonishingly, going very red in the face. ‘I’ve got more important things to think about than –’ She shrieked and jumped backwards as a little brown mouse popped its head through a knothole in the tabletop, right in front of her.
The mouse emerged timidly from the knothole. It was so extremely small that its tail looked very long and its ears very large, as if it hadn’t grown into them yet. Below the very battered-looking message clipped to the chain around its neck dangled a small badge reading Trainee.
‘Oh!’ gasped Bertha, the blood draining suddenly from her face so that she looked quite grey. ‘Is that message for me?’
‘Are you Conker the dot-catcher?’ squeaked the mouse.
‘No,’ Leo said, as Bertha sat down heavily on the ground and closed her eyes. ‘Conker isn’t here.’
‘Conker the dot-catcher is supposed to be here,’ the mouse said, stamping one of its tiny paws. ‘I have it on very good authority that –’
‘Conker was here,’ Mimi broke in, ‘but then he went to Bing’s Wood. If you hurry, you’ll find him there.’
‘Bing’s Wood?’ The mouse’s face crinkled up as though it was about to burst into tears. ‘Oh, not again! I’m so tired and hungry, and I want to go home! My shift should have been over ages ago.’
It slumped onto the tabletop. ‘Well, I’m not standing for it,’ it said. ‘I’m taking this message back to headquarters for delivery at a later time. At training school they said we were perfectly entitled to do that if after a reasonable time the official addressee was still unavailable, unconscious, drunk, fighting, enchanted or dead. I can’t remember which by-law number that is, but I remember what it said.’
‘Bing’s Wood isn’t very far from here,’ Leo said, his eyes fixed on the message and longing to snatch it from the mouse’s chain.
The mouse shook its head. ‘Deliveries to Bing’s Wood are banned,’ it said dismally. ‘The wizard who lives there once tried to break the messenger service union by training unskilled lizards to do our job. I can’t go there now any more than I could go there this morning when I first arrived in this place. The union won’t stand for it.’
‘Then give the message to me,’ Leo said eagerly. ‘I’ll pass it on to Conker as soon as he gets back.’
‘Cheese, Louise, I can’t do that!’ squeaked the mouse, looking horrified. ‘No message may be given to any person, being, creature or other user of the messenger service who is not the official addressee under any circumstances whatsoever. That’s By-Law Number One.’
‘We won’t tell anyone,’ Mimi said coaxingly. ‘Here, have a piece of bread.’
‘Bribery!’ shrieked the mouse, drawing back and clasping its paws protectively over the message. ‘Bribery and corruption aimed at diverting the Rondo mail from its official addressee! They told me about this in training school, but I never thought I’d meet with it on my very first run! Wait till I tell them at headquarters!’
With that, it dived head-first back into the knot-hole and disappeared.
Mimi threw up her hands in comical dismay. ‘I tried,’ she said.
Leo tried to smile, but he couldn’t. He was wondering what was in the message – the message that the mouse had been carrying around since the morning. He was realising that he’d totally forgotten to tell Tye about the suspicious man in the bakery. He was also wondering what was wrong with Bertha, who was still sitting motionless at the head of the table.
‘Where’s Moult?’ Mimi asked suddenly.
Leo tore his eyes away from Bertha. ‘Still under the table, isn’t she?’ he asked, and ducked his head to look.
But Moult wasn’t under the table. She wasn’t in the egg basket, either. Leo and Mimi got up and searched carefully around, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Oh, she’s gone off somewhere!’ Mimi said wretchedly.
‘I should have kept my eye on her. I knew she was upset because –’ she darted a reproachful look at the silent Bertha’ – because she thought we were trying to wriggle out of saving Wizard Bing. But that mouse distracted me and … Oh, no!’
She was
staring at the other side of the picnic ground. With the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what he was going to see, Leo turned and looked too.
Just in time to see the scrawny little figure of Moult plunge into the crawling mists of Tiger’s Glen and disappear from sight.
Chapter
30
Eavesdropping
Mimi began to run towards the mist, frantically calling Moult’s name. Leo sprinted after her and caught her easily, seizing her around the waist and swinging her off the ground.
‘Let me go!’ Mimi raged, twisting and kicking. ‘Oh, poor, silly Moult! We have to go after her! We have to stop her! Moult! Moult, come back!’ She burst into a storm of tears and redoubled her efforts to free herself.
‘It’s too late, Mimi!’ Leo shouted, holding on grimly and hoping she wouldn’t bite. ‘Moult’s gone.’
‘Only into the mist!’ Mimi sobbed, tearing at his fingers, trying to pry them loose. ‘She can’t have reached the palace yet. Look, you can see the mouth of a little track there – that’s where she went. There’s still time! Leo! Let – me – go!’
Leo looked quickly over his shoulder. Bertha was limping towards them, looking angry and despairing.
‘Mimi,’ he muttered urgently. ‘Forgetting about everything else, you can’t go into that mist while you’re wearing the Key. You can’t risk the Strix getting hold of the Key. Do you understand?’
Mimi gave a gasping sigh, and went limp.
‘Do you understand?’ Leo repeated fiercely.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
He set her on her feet and released her, watching her narrowly just in case she tried to run. He didn’t think she would, now that he’d reminded her about the Key, but he’d learned through bitter experience that it wasn’t a good idea to trust Mimi Langlander too far when it came to matters like this.
‘Mimi!’ Bertha exploded as she reached them. ‘Just what did you think you were doing? Thank goodness Leo got to you in time! How dare you frighten me like that? Lawks-a-daisy, haven’t I got enough to worry about?’
