by Hal Duncan
– Or the island is the bridge, muses Foxtrot. Intriguing.
And it’s tightening in to swaller em now, that tornado of time, freezing wintery pea-souper one sec, shimmery summer haze the next, rain in Peter’s eyes, pollen in his nose – oh, he jolly well better not sneeze. He feels its pull on his feet, not just a hand, but the storm itself, like it’s trying to peel him away into some dream of a particklar spring day as’ll just be his.
– Peter! cries Lily. Your clothes!
His greatcoat’s gone, flickered into... silvery onesie?
– Well, I... never?
The sight of an otter in an ickle cowboy hat is stranger still.
• 9
And now, scamps, now, it ain’t just time and togs transforming, cause all of a sudden Peter feels the twerp’s grip gone, and he’s tumbling forward, heaved into the huddle by Lily and Flashjack, and looking back at a stramash of Christian Cadets all trying to clamber over one another to reach the Flag, and each, one by one, going whoomf! poof! sploof! into clouds of midges. Cause that’s what a twerp is inside, scamp, all petty spites and hungers at odds with each other and not a jot of integrity to hold em together when push comes to shove.
– Fuck me! cries Squirlet pointing. Look!
And up on the crag, Blackstone’s lion’s head roars, his eagle wings beat.
And Squirlet growls.
Peter don’t know why. Them other scruffs, they savvies it from the fabble of the Stamp’s theft, what were in its vault. But Squirlet was there, she saw, and she minds that monstrous statue, lion-headed Mithras with Moloch to one side, Mammon on t’other. Mithras, born on the 25th of December. Mithras, whose cultists hoodwinked Christendom into birthday parties for him.
Mithras, god of Roman legions and their bundled sticks – them fascii – as give fascists their name.
Great eagle wings beat. Forward he pushes. But Blackstone’s fighting the whirl of seasons, and even as he manages a step, it’s like... some afterimage stays in place. A trail of em he leaves behind with each lurch onward, and as hailstones batters one, rain soaks another, they all pauses, looks around, befuddled. Why, he’s only coming unstuck in time! Like as he don’t love any season, not really, not actual nature, just the notion of it, so the Land of Nod it’s trying to find a time to fit him, but it ain’t succeeding.
And Foxtrot...
– Summer! shouts Foxtrot.
– Wish for summer! he shouts.
CRACKOOM! It’s like some waltzer blew a fuse, brakes locking, blockaged, buckling, stopped dead, throwing all its cars and all the nippers in em six ways to Sunday. It’s like strings held all em scraps of season in that hurricane, and every one of em just snapped. So off them winter days and autumn months goes flying: WHOOOSH! And Blackstone whirling with em too... awaaaaaaay.
Then suddenly it’s just the six of them, on a glorious summer’s day, and of course...
Flashjack slaps at his cheek, wipes summat off his fingers.
– Fuckin midges, says he.
• 10
First thing Peter notices, plonked on his arse on the stone slab, ain’t the roasty-toasty warmth of the sun, nor the robin’s egg blue of the sky, nor the lushness of vegetation up past the beach’s soft white sands, the flowery and fruit-filled foliage as is now veritably verdant, headed more for Hesperides than Hebrides. No, it’s Lily stood between his legs, her stetson cocked, holding a sharpshooter’s rifle, barrel longer than Janiemalinky’s legs, and butt customised to fit to an ickle otter’s shoulder so’s it looks even longer still.
– Springfield Trapdoor, she croons in wide-eyed awe.
She’s not the only one what’s had their clobber customised to some inner caprice, scamps. No, them scruffs has too, cause blow me, but ain’t Janie looking quite the knight in her shining armour, with Faerie Flag as banner, them two longpins now crossed swords on her back. And Flashjack, he’s a dandy highwayman, domino mask and all. Squirlet, she’s covered head to toe in the black silks of a ninja, only her eyes peering out, leery as ever. And Foxtrot, why, he’s in pirate’s pantaloons and billowy shirt, the swankiest swashbuckler, with a rapier Errol Flynn would die for.
That ain’t even the end, though, cause all them furs they’d snaffled for their mission, well, maybe’s it were the scruff’s whims worked em into these guisings, or maybe’s a little of the beast was left in em what wanted in on the fun, but now both Squirlet and Janie has tails, they do – squirrel and spider monkey – swishing this way and that. And Foxtrot has fox ears atop his noggin now, flicking that way and this.
– Ooh! What am I? says Flashjack, spinning in search of a tail, tongue lolling down past chin from a gob fierce with canines.
– Mmmmfffmmf mmffmm mm? says Peter.
Leastways, as best the others can tell, that’s what he says, voice muffled under the goldfish bowl helmet what goes with his silvery spaceman clobber. At Foxy’s miming, Peter savvies what’s what – aaaaah – and unlatches his helmet, takes it off.
– Whatever are you staring at? says he.
Squirlet taps her forehead, points, and he reaches, feels the pointy ickle horns what’s sprouted on his own. From a greatcoat made of wool maybe’s. Ickle lamb’s horns.
– Well, I think you all look adorable, says Lily.
Oh, if ever an otter could look smug, scamps. If ever.
Part Five
• 1
With Blackstone and his Addanc strewn to time’s winds, so’s it seems, leaving just yer odd Nazi bodypart littering the sand, for all’s there’s hours of playlight left in yer summer afternoon sun, Foxtrot figgers they best stash the Flag back in the rucksack with the Stamp and go noseying sharpish, see if they can’t find Keen and Able’s crib. Best ask hospitality – good form and all, no? Land of Nod’s open to all slumbering scruffs, sure, but they ain’t asleep; and every groanhuff’s nightmare being one of Keen’s hellion guardians, well... best not be presumptious of their privileges, eh?
So, up the beach they ambles and finds a trail sorta like the one they come down, except now it’s a scramble up through bushes heavy with plump black brambles and apple trees just begging to be scrumped. And at t’other end of it, the road along the coast’s still there, but instead of tarmac now, why, it’s gold bricks for cobbles, and there’s benches along it like some seaside promenade. Seems a fair bet that if this dreamland’s copying the roads of the Skye they come from, it’s maybe’s copying towns too, so off they heads south, for Portree.
– Foxtrot, calls Lily as she bounces back from hobnobbing in fluent Eep with some otters, them having been ebubbliant to meet their chieftain. She scoots a spiral up one of them coin-operated telescope thingies what’s dotted all along the road.
– I’m not sure Somewhere Safe is safe after all, says she. The otters say... there’s something odd going on on Raaarrrrsay.
With a little jimmying to get coins for it, and jockeying for turns, they ascertains – lemme see! – why, is that a boat being built on the shore of the isle facing em? And the builders – gerroff! – is that...?
It’s elves! And not yer good elves neither, as is pointy-eared pint-size imps happy to sit up trees and sing songs. No, scamps, these fuckers is all tall and haughty, pale as death in skin and hair. Surely the kind of elf what’s full of pomp and piffle of his noble forebears’ valiant deeds, proud of his Pure Elven Blood™, yer high and mighty scion of his ancient race of blah blah wanky fucking blah.
Yer fuckin racist royalist Baron Blowhard von Galahadrialarse, Ubergruppenfuhrer of the Teutonic Erl-Knights elves is what these are.
They’s fucking Nazi elves!
• 2
So they gets a move on now, cause Peter minds that bollocking he overheard, and Foxy figgers they’ve only gone and brung over them captive spies with em – and fuck knows, maybe’s all the groanhuffs and twerps on Skye. So they might well have a whole lot of ’splaining to do, even warning if Keen and Able don’t know of it already. Ain’t but a pinch of wishsnuff each left, but they a
grees it’s called for, so off they zooms, like a squadron of Spitfires, speeding south, till eventually they comes to the sign what says, Welcome to Dun Tarakin.
Now, it’s a right queer sight as greets em in Dun Tarakin, cause in the outskirts it’s all treehouses they’s flying by, and as they hits the town proper, why, there’s giant doll’s houses with walls left open, and streets of wendy houses of all colours, blanket forts and wigwams (which Lily says is aktcherly called tipis) and even cottages made of boiled sugar sweeties. It looks a right funland! Oh, but there’s summat worrisome about it too, scamps, cause all through the streets is Scruffians froze in place, like statues, froze mid-stride as if legging it from summat.
They don’t look scared or nuffink, our heroes finds when they lands to nosey. Them hellions with their cat’s eyes and batwings and suchlike all looks quite chipper. And they ain’t turned to literal stone. But they ain’t moving a muscle nor making a peep, even when’s yer pokes em. Except maybe’s, they thinks, maybe’s this girl’s eyes seemed to flick at em as they passed, then suddenly forward again, like as she’d tried not to look but oops. So they works their way in past em, toward whatever’s they’s running from, and eventually they finds emselves at the harbour.
It’s a real statue, turns out, at the end of the pier. Nod and the Doggedy, the plaque calls it. And there’s Keen with his face hid in his hood, cauldron at his feet, harp under one arm, and a croquet mallet slung over his shoulder – what’s surely from him giving dreaming scruffs all the grubbing and grooving and gaming they could wish for, eh. And there’s Able riding a big Irish wolfhound what’s leaping so’s he can catch a ball in a hand made of silver, no less.
But there ain’t sight nor sound of yer actual Scruffian gods.
• 3
So Foxy and Squirlet’s debating the Situation as they’s having a sortie round this eerie scene of frozen scruffs, when Janie tugs on Flashjack’s sleeve, and he ganders, pipes up, cause it’s one of their crib-mates, innit:
– Firepot! Foxy, lookit: it’s Firepot!
Now Firepot don’t mind this, cause she were dreaming at the time, natch, but he pokes at her, gets a hint of glare, so he pokes again.
– Whatcha doing, Firepot?
– Ssssshhhh! she whispers out the side of her mush, not moving her lips. Why ain’t yer playing the Game?
– What game? says Foxtrot.
– The Game, she whispers.
And she whispers em all ventriloquistically like, how’s one day yonks ago – maybe’s a thousand yonks ago – this hellion shows up, tall as a scofflaw and voice so deep yer’d swear he were a groanhhuff... if he hadn’t tweaked himself a lion’s head. Anyways, he offers Keen and Able to be It in a game of Hide-and-Seek, only they hid so well they ain’t been seen since. Got right boring without em, so he suggested a game of Statues, only when he done Eeny Meeny, it were Nuff picked as It –
– NUFF’S HERE?! says Squirlet and Foxtrot together.
– Nuff’s everywhere, says she, ominypresents. Watching over us always. Makes the Game right hard, cause nobody can move to tag him or get In Den One Two Three until he isn’t looking, can they? And if Nuff’s ominypresents, that means he’s never not looking. So that hellion said, anyway. Also he’s invisible, so you can’t tell. So we’ve been here forever now. I’m bursting for a pee.
– There ain’t nobody watching yer, says Flashjack, least of all Nuffinmuch O’Anyfink. That’s bonkers.
– Is not. That hellion said –
– That fucker was telling big fat porkies. It’s Nuffinkatall Diddlysquat watching yer more like.
– Who’s Nuff? says Lily.
– Boss of Bosses before Foxtrot, says Squirlet. Gone Offsky centuries ago. And I doubt it was to the Land of Nod.
– You can’t say that, whispers Firepot. He can hear everything too, and just cause he’s invisible now, don’t mean he doesn’t have feelings. He’ll get offended if you go round –
– Fuck’s sake, snaps Squirlet.
– We’d all dearly like Nuff back, says Foxtrot gently, but alas...
Firepot harrumphs and crosses her arms.
– He’s here, she says. He – arse! You’ve got me Out now.
And just like that, Firepot goes pop like a bubble bursting and vanishes.
• 4
Well, Foxtrot tries to get more skinny on this so-called hellion from other frozen scruffs, but they’s all taking the Game right serious. Squirlet tries snapping her fingers in this one’s face. Flashjack tries tickling another. Janie even sticks a licked finger in one’s ear and pushes till he falls over. But all they gets is blank stares, a blink, a muffled giggle and an Oi! the last three of which all ends in swearing and pops cause them scruffs, Foxtrot deductivises, is convinced they’s been put Out of the Game by an imaginary Nuff, so they’s woken up.
Oh, it’s a right wicked scheme this Blackstone’s connived – cause it ain’t hard to figger how’s that lionheaded liar ain’t hellion at all but infuckingdubitably that Nazi cuntfucker, who’s only been whisked off by yer winds of time to arrive some dark winter night a thousand yonks before em. And with the land’s rightful ringleaders hoodwinked into hiding, and its hellion guards hornswoggled with a warpy lie, why, the whole Land of Somewhere Safe is anything but safe. It’s defenceless, scamps! There’s Nazi elves preparing an invasion, and if any scruff so much as blinks in peeve they’ll just pop.
***
– If this Keen and Able, says Peter, are the rightful kings –
– Ringleaders, says Squirlet.
– won’t they return to save the kingdom –
– Anarchist collective, says Foxtrot.
– in its hour of need?
– Yer underestimating a Scruffian’s commitment to shenanigans, mate, says Flashjack.
– They’ll stay hidden, says Foxy, unless –
– Shusht, says Squirlet.
Furrowy browed, she leans over them maps, paperweighted by gold cobbles on the roundabout, circling her finger over peninsulas what’s now going by the more Scruffian monickers of Grotternish, Snotternish, Doozynish, Monkeynish, Strathweird and Slide.
– There.
Her finger stabs. Dun Scaith. Or as it’s monickered now...
– Fortress. Of. Shadows, reads Lily.
With the sun now setting though, scamps, and no wishsnuff for flying, an umpty-plonk mile hike in darkness don’t seem the savviest move, especially not with that lionheaded Nazi fucker lurking out there somewheres, maybe’s his Addanc too – that horrid thing that scrobbled Peter, says Lily, and sheepish Peter don’t correct her how, um, it was more a nobbling than a scrobbling, really. So, for a temporary crib, they claims a nice gingerbread house with spiky icing for its painted pebbledash, and after a fine feast on the furniture, they snuggles down to sleep in the softest muffiny beds.
• 5
What with a good night’s kip and a breakfast of pure sugar rush, they’s all in fine fettle when they sets out the next morn. A thousand yonks since him arriving, maybe’s Blackstone’s just pegged it, as groanhuffs tends to. And why, even if Keen and Able ain’t hid in that Fortress of Shadows, it has to be a good place to stash the Stamp and dig in against invading Nazis, innit. So they’s whistling merrily as they marches south into thick forest.
Ain’t until well after midday they starts arguing over whether they’s missed that really important left turn.
– It’s the River Slickyhand, says Squirlet.
– It can’t be, says Foxtrot. My calculations –
– must be wrong.
– Well, did you see some hidden turn-off?
– Oh, so it’s my fault?
Trailing along a safe ways behind, the others keeps quieter’n a pack of sprogs in back of a Volkswagon headed for a caravan holiday in Cornwall what’s ended up in Wales, mum and dad at snippy loggerheads. It don’t exactly help that there’s an enormous rook circling in the sky, and Flashjack’s sure he clocked a wolf in the underbrush, keeping pace. Carr
ion animals following em. No, that ain’t awfully reassuring.
It’s only befitting, really, them being lost, when’s they finds emselves in the Valley of Lost Things, stumbling out of an holloway onto the shores of what might be Loch Duff, (says Peter helpfully, peeping between bonces at the map, getting shrivelling scowls for it,) into a veritable midden of Very Important Thingamajigs – great dunes of ration books, keys, spectacles, diaries, even a rag Lily unwraps to find...
– Ewww! she says. Whoever should want to keep a mouldy old crust of bread?
– Considering why one would hide that, says Foxtrot, it’s probably the most valuable thing here.
– Oh, says Lily.
They’s pushed on through more wildwoods, to the shores of what might be Loch Ethane, (Peter don’t say) when, with evenfall, it’s decided to camp – for a nosh and kip, eh? So, as Flashjack sets to guddling a fish, Foxtrot slinks off into the forest, returning presently with a wee white rabbit in a pocketwatched waistcoat, garotte round its throat. He’s just skinning it for the fire when an almighty CRACK! sends em racing for the source: Lily’s rifle! Lily!
Yeah, Lily standing proud over a dead unicorn.
– Perhaps... a trifle more meat than required? says Foxy.
– Pemmican? says Lily.
• 6
Now, I suppose Foxtrot might’ve minded them twerps becoming midges, and it’s conceivable he overheard that rabbit muttering about being late in a most groanhuffy punctiliousness regarding punctuality, but, look, they wasn’t to know it were groanhuff’s dreamselves they was scoffing, and it were probably just sleeping groanhuffs, not locals what’d been transported and transformogrificated. So we needn’t count it as cannibalism, strictly speaking. Besides, it were in a good cause, as them six woke up the next morn feeling much less conniptious and crotchety, rallied and ready to sort out where the fuck they was and where’s to go.
