The Ickabog

by J. K. Rowling

  “Thank you for your time, major,” said Bert in a rush. “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

  And with a low bow, he left the Guard’s Room.

  Once outside, Bert broke into a run. He felt very small and humiliated. The last thing he wanted to do was return to school, not after hearing what his teacher really thought of him. So, assuming that his mother would have left for work in the palace kitchens, he ran all the way home, barely noticing the knots of people now standing on street corners, talking about the letters in their hands.

  When Bert entered the house, he found Mrs. Beamish was still standing in the kitchen, staring at a letter of her own.

  “Bert!” she said, startled by the sudden appearance of her son. “What are you doing home?”

  “Toothache,” Bert invented on the spot.

  “Oh, you poor thing … Bert, we’ve had a letter from Cousin Harold,” said Mrs. Beamish, holding it up. “He says he’s worried he’s going to lose his tavern — that marvelous inn he built up from nothing! He’s written to ask me whether I might be able to get him a job working for the king … I don’t understand what can have happened. Harold says he and the family are actually going hungry!”

  “It’ll be the Ickabog, won’t it,” said Bert. “Jeroboam’s the city nearest the Marshlands. People have probably stopped visiting taverns at night, in case they meet the monster on the way!”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Beamish, looking troubled, “yes, maybe that’s why … Gracious me, I’m late for work!” Setting Cousin Harold’s letter down on the table, she said, “Put some oil of cloves on that tooth, love,” and giving her son a quick kiss, she hurried out of the door.

  Once his mother had gone, Bert went and flung himself facedown on his bed, and sobbed with rage and disappointment.

  Meanwhile, anxiety and anger were spreading through the streets of the capital. Chouxville had at last found out that their relatives in the north were so poor they were starving and homeless. When Lord Spittleworth returned to the city that night, he found serious trouble brewing.

  When he heard that a mail coach had reached the heart of Chouxville, Spittleworth seized a heavy wooden chair and threw it at Major Roach’s head. Roach, who was far stronger than Spittleworth, batted the chair aside easily enough, but his hand flew to the hilt of his sword, and for a few seconds, the two men stood with teeth bared in the gloom of the Guard’s Room, while Flapoon and the spies watched, openmouthed.

  “You will send a party of Dark Footers to the outskirts of Chouxville tonight,” Spittleworth ordered Roach. “You will fake a raid — we must terrify these people. They must understand that the tax is necessary, that any hardship their relatives are suffering is the fault of the Ickabog, not mine or the king’s. Go, and undo the harm you’ve done!”

  The furious major left the room, privately thinking of all the ways he’d like to hurt Spittleworth, if given ten minutes alone with him.

  “And you,” said Spittleworth to his spies, “will report to me tomorrow whether Major Roach has done his work well enough. If the city’s still whispering about starvation and penniless relations, well then, we’ll have to see how Major Roach likes the dungeons.”

  So a group of Major Roach’s Dark Footers waited until the capital slept, then set out for the first time to make Chouxville believe that the Ickabog had come calling. They selected a cottage on the very edge of town that stood a little apart from its neighbors. The men who were most skilful at breaking into houses entered the cottage, where, it pains me to say, they killed the little old lady who lived there, who, you might like to know, had written several beautifully illustrated books about the fish that lived in the river Fluma. Once her body had been carried away to be buried somewhere remote, a group of men pressed four of Mr. Dovetail’s finest carved feet into the ground around the fish expert’s house, smashed up her furniture and her fish tanks, and let her specimens die, gasping, on the floor.

  Next morning, Spittleworth’s spies reported that the plan seemed to have worked. Chouxville, so long avoided by the fearsome Ickabog, had at last been attacked. As the Dark Footers had now perfected the art of making the tracks look natural, and breaking down doors as though a gigantic monster had smashed them in, and using pointed metal tools to mimic tooth marks on wood, the Chouxville residents who flocked to see the poor old woman’s house were entirely taken in.

  Young Bert Beamish stayed at the scene even after his mother had left to start cooking their supper. He was treasuring up every detail of the beast’s footprints and its fang marks, the better to imagine what it would look like when at last he came face-to-face with the evil creature that had killed his father, because he’d by no means abandoned his ambition to avenge him.

  When Bert was sure he had every detail of the monster’s prints memorized, he walked home, burning with fury, and shut himself up in his bedroom, where he took down his father’s Medal for Outstanding Bravery Against the Deadly Ickabog, and the tiny medal the king had given him after he’d fought Daisy Dovetail. The smaller medal made Bert feel sad these days. He’d never had a friend as good as Daisy since she’d left for Pluritania, but at least, he thought, she and her father were beyond the reach of the evil Ickabog.

  Angry tears started in Bert’s eyes. He’d so wanted to join the Ickabog Defense Brigade! He knew he’d be a good solider. He wouldn’t even care if he died in the fight! Of course, it would be extremely upsetting for his mother if the Ickabog killed her son as well as her husband, but on the other hand, Bert would be a hero, like his father!

  Lost in thoughts of revenge and glory, Bert made to replace the two medals on the mantelpiece when the smaller of them slipped through his fingers and rolled away under the bed. Bert lay down and groped for it, but couldn’t reach. He wriggled farther under his bed and found it at last in the farthermost, dustiest corner, along with something sharp that seemed to have been there a very long time, because it was cobwebby.

  Bert pulled both the medal and the sharp thing out from the corner and sat up, now rather dusty himself, to examine the unknown object.

  By the light of his candle, he saw a tiny, perfectly carved Ickabog foot, the last remaining piece of the toy carved so long ago by Mr. Dovetail. Bert had thought he’d burned up every last bit of the toy, but this foot must have flown under the bed when he’d smashed up the rest of the Ickabog with his poker.

  He was on the point of tossing the foot onto his bedroom fire when Bert suddenly changed his mind, and began to examine it more closely.

  He saw a tiny, perfectly carved Ickabog foot.

  By Cormac, Age 11

  Mother,” said Bert.

  Mrs. Beamish had been sitting at the kitchen table, mending a hole in one of Bert’s sweaters and pausing occasionally to wipe her eyes. The Ickabog’s attack on their Chouxville neighbor had brought back awful memories of the death of Major Beamish, and she’d just been thinking about that night when she’d kissed his poor, cold hand in the Blue Parlor at the palace, while the rest of him was hidden by the Cornucopian flag.

  “Mother, look,” said Bert, in a strange voice, and he set down in front of her the tiny, clawed wooden foot he’d found beneath his bed.

  Mrs. Beamish picked it up and examined it through the spectacles she wore when sewing by candlelight.

  “Why, it’s part of that little toy you used to have,” said Bert’s mother. “Your toy Icka —”

  But Mrs. Beamish didn’t finish the word. Still staring at the carved foot, she remembered the monstrous footprints she and Bert had seen earlier that day, in the soft ground around the house of the vanished old lady. Although much, much bigger, the shape of that foot was identical to this, as were the angles of the toes, the scales, and the long claws.

  For several minutes, the only sound was the sputtering of the candle, as Mrs. Beamish turned the little wooden foot in her trembling fingers.

  It was as though a door had flown open inside her mind, a door she’d been keeping blocked and barricaded for a ve
ry long time. Ever since her husband had died, Mrs. Beamish had refused to admit a single doubt or suspicion about the Ickabog. Loyal to the king, trusting in Spittleworth, she’d believed the people who claimed the Ickabog wasn’t real were traitors.

  But now the uncomfortable memories she’d tried to shut out came flooding in upon her. She remembered telling the scullery maid all about Mr. Dovetail’s treasonous speech about the Ickabog, and turning to see Cankerby the footman listening in the shadows. She remembered how soon afterward the Dovetails had disappeared. She remembered the little girl who’d been jumping rope wearing one of Daisy Dovetail’s old dresses, and the bandalore she’d claimed her brother had been given on the same day. She thought of her cousin Harold starving, and the strange absence of mail from the north that she and all her neighbors had noticed over the past few months. She thought too of the sudden disappearance of Lady Eslanda, which many had puzzled over. These, and a hundred other odd happenings added themselves together in Mrs. Beamish’s mind as she gazed at the little wooden foot, and together they formed a monstrous outline that frightened her far more than the Ickabog. What, she asked herself, had really happened to her husband up on that marsh? Why hadn’t she been allowed to look beneath the Cornucopian flag covering his body? Horrible thoughts now tumbled on top of one another as Mrs. Beamish turned to look at her son, and saw her suspicions reflected in his face.

  “The king can’t know,” she whispered. “He can’t. He’s a good man.”

  Even if everything else she’d believed might be wrong, Mrs. Beamish couldn’t bear to give up her belief in the goodness of King Fred the Fearless. He’d always been so kind to her and Bert.

  Mrs. Beamish stood up, the little wooden foot clutched tightly in her hand, and laid down Bert’s half-darned sweater.

  “I’m going to see the king,” she said, with a more determined look on her face than Bert had ever seen there.

  “Now?” he asked, looking out into the darkness.

  “Tonight,” said Mrs. Beamish, “while there’s a chance neither of those lords are with him. He’ll see me. He’s always liked me.”

  “I want to come too,” said Bert, because a strange feeling of foreboding had come over him.

  “No,” said Mrs. Beamish. She approached her son, put her hand on his shoulder, and looked up into his face. “Listen to me, Bert. If I’m not back from the palace in one hour, you’re to leave Chouxville. Head north to Jeroboam, find Cousin Harold, and tell him everything.”

  “But —” said Bert, suddenly afraid.

  “Promise me you’ll go if I’m not back in an hour,” said Mrs. Beamish fiercely.

  “I … I will,” said Bert, but the boy who’d earlier imagined dying a heroic death, and not caring how much it upset his mother, was suddenly terrified. “Mother —”

  She hugged him briefly. “You’re a clever boy. Never forget, you’re a soldier’s son, as well as a pastry chef’s.”

  Mrs. Beamish walked quickly to the door and put on her shoes. After one last smile at Bert, she slipped out into the night.

  Mrs. Beamish had been sitting at the kitchen table, mending.

  By Abiyana, Age 11

  The kitchens were dark and empty when Mrs. Beamish let herself in from the courtyard. Moving on tiptoe, she peeked around corners as she went, because she knew how Cankerby the footman liked to lurk in the shadows. Slowly and carefully, Mrs. Beamish made her way toward the king’s private apartments, holding the little wooden foot so tightly in her hand that its sharp claws dug into her palm.

  At last she reached the scarlet-carpeted corridor leading to Fred’s rooms. Now she could hear laughter coming from behind the doors. Mrs. Beamish rightly guessed that Fred hadn’t been told about the Ickabog attack on the outskirts of Chouxville, because she was sure he wouldn’t be laughing if he had. However, somebody was clearly with the king, and she wanted to see Fred alone. As she stood there, wondering what was best to do, the door ahead opened.

  With a gasp, Mrs. Beamish dived behind a long velvet curtain and tried to stop it swaying. Spittleworth and Flapoon were laughing and joking with the king as they bade him good night.

  “Excellent joke, Your Majesty, why, I think I’ve split my pantaloons!” guffawed Flapoon.

  “We shall have to rechristen you King Fred the Funny, sire!” chuckled Spittleworth.

  Mrs. Beamish held her breath and tried to suck in her tummy. She heard the sound of Fred’s door closing. The two lords stopped laughing at once.

  “Blithering idiot,” said Flapoon in a low voice.

  “I’ve met cleverer blobs of Kurdsburg cheese,” muttered Spittleworth.

  “Can’t you take a turn entertaining him tomorrow?” grumbled Flapoon.

  “I’ll be busy with the tax collectors until three,” said Spittleworth. “But if —”

  Both lords stopped talking. Their footsteps also ceased. Mrs. Beamish was still holding her breath, her eyes closed, praying they hadn’t noticed the bulge in the curtain.

  “Well, good night, Spittleworth,” said Flapoon’s voice.

  “Yes, sleep well, Flapoon,” said Spittleworth.

  Very softly, her heart beating very fast, Mrs. Beamish let out her breath. It was all right. The two lords were going to bed … and yet she couldn’t hear footsteps …

  Then, so suddenly she had no time to draw breath into her lungs, the curtain was ripped back. Before she could cry out, Flapoon’s large hand had closed over her mouth and Spittleworth had seized her wrists. The two lords dragged Mrs. Beamish out of her hiding place and down the nearest set of stairs, and while she struggled and tried to shout, she couldn’t make a sound through Flapoon’s thick fingers, nor could she wriggle free. At last, they pulled her into that same Blue Parlor where she’d once kissed her dead husband’s hand.

  “Do not scream,” Spittleworth warned her, pulling out a short dagger he’d taken to wearing, even inside the palace, “or the king will need a new pastry chef.”

  He gestured to Flapoon to take his hand away from Mrs. Beamish’s mouth. The first thing she did was take a gasp of breath, because she felt like fainting.

  “You made an outsized lump in that curtain, cook,” sneered Spittleworth. “Exactly what were you doing, lurking there, so close to the king, after the kitchens have closed?”

  Mrs. Beamish might have made up some silly lie, of course. She could have pretended she wanted to ask King Fred what kinds of cakes he’d like her to make tomorrow, but she knew the two lords wouldn’t believe her. So instead she held out the hand clutching the Ickabog foot, and opened her fingers.

  “I know,” she said quietly, “what you’re up to.”

  The two lords moved closer and peered down at her palm, and the perfect, tiny replica of the huge feet the Dark Footers were using. Spittleworth and Flapoon looked at each other, and then at Mrs. Beamish, and all the pastry chef could think, when she saw their expressions, was, Run, Bert — run!

  The candle on the table beside Bert burned slowly downward while he watched the minute hand creep around the clock face. He told himself his mother would definitely come home soon. She’d walk in any minute, pick up his half-darned sweater as though she’d never dropped it, and tell him what had happened when she saw the king.

  Then the minute hand seemed to speed up, when Bert would have done anything to make it slow down. Four minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes left.

  Bert got to his feet and moved to the window. He looked up and down the dark street. There was no sign of his mother returning.

  But wait! His heart leapt: he’d seen movement on the corner! For a few shining seconds, Bert was sure he was about to see Mrs. Beamish step into the patch of moonlight, smiling as she caught sight of his anxious face at the window.

  And then his heart seemed to drop like a brick into his stomach. It wasn’t Mrs. Beamish who was approaching, but Major Roach, accompanied by four large members of the Ickabog Defense Brigade, all carrying torches.

  Bert leapt back from the window,
snatched up the sweater on the table, and sprinted through to his bedroom. He grabbed his shoes and his father’s medal, forced up the bedroom window, clambered out of it, then gently slid the window closed from outside. As he dropped down into the vegetable patch, he heard Major Roach banging on the front door, then a rough voice said:

  “I’ll check the back.”

  Bert threw himself flat in the earth behind a row of beetroots, smeared his fair hair with soil, and lay very still in the darkness.

  Through his closed eyelids he saw flickering light. A soldier held his torch high in hopes of seeing Bert running away across other people’s gardens. The soldier didn’t notice the earthy shape of Bert concealed behind the beetroot leaves, which threw long, swaying shadows.

  “Well, he hasn’t gotten out this way,” shouted the soldier.

  There was a crash, and Bert knew Roach had broken down the front door. He listened to the soldiers opening cupboards and wardrobes. Bert remained utterly still in the earth, because torchlight was still shining through his closed eyelids.

  “Maybe he cleared out before his mother went to the palace?”

  “Well, we’ve got to find him,” growled the familiar voice of Major Roach. “He’s the son of the Ickabog’s first victim. If Bert Beamish starts telling the world the monster’s a lie, people will listen. Spread out and search, he can’t have gotten far. And if you catch him,” said Roach, as his men’s heavy footsteps sounded across the Beamishes’ wooden floorboards, “kill him. We’ll work out our stories later.”

  Bert lay completely flat and still, listening to the men running away up and down the street, and then a cool part of Bert’s brain said:

  Move.

  He put his father’s medal around his neck, pulled on the half-darned sweater, and snatched up his shoes, then began to crawl through the earth until he reached a neighboring fence, where he tunneled out enough dirt to let him wriggle beneath it. He kept crawling until he reached a cobbled street, but he could still hear the soldiers’ voices echoing through the night as they banged on doors, demanding to search houses, asking people whether they’d seen Bert Beamish, the pastry chef’s son. He heard himself described as a dangerous traitor.