The Ickabog

by J. K. Rowling

  “Ickabog, please listen,” begged Daisy. “If your Ickaboggles are Bornded surrounded by hundreds of people, all wanting to love and protect them, wouldn’t that feed them more hope than any Ickaboggle ever had, in history? Whereas, if the four of us stay here on the marsh and starve to death, what hope will remain for your Ickaboggles?”

  The monster stared at Daisy, and Bert, Martha, and Roderick watched, wondering what on earth was happening. At last, a huge tear welled in the Ickabog’s eye, like a glass apple.

  “I’m afraid to go among the men. I’m afraid they’ll kill me and my Ickaboggles.”

  “They won’t,” said Daisy, letting go of the Ickabog’s paws and placing her hands instead on either side of the Ickabog’s huge, hairy face, so her fingers were buried in its long marsh-weedy hair. “I swear to you, Ickabog, we’ll protect you. Your Bornding will be the most important in history. We’re going to bring Ickabogs back … and Cornucopia too.”

  The Ickabog and Daisy would draw a little ahead of the others.

  By Madeline, Age 12

  When Daisy first told the others her plan, Bert refused to be part of it.

  “Protect that monster? I won’t,” he said fiercely. “I took a vow to kill it, Daisy. The Ickabog murdered my father!”

  “Bert, it didn’t,” Daisy said. “It’s never killed anyone. Please listen to what it’s got to say!”

  So that night in the cave, Bert, Martha, and Roderick drew close to the Ickabog for the first time, always having been too scared before, and it told the four humans the story of the night, years before, when it had come face-to-face with a man in the fog.

  “… with yellow face hair,” said the Ickabog, pointing at its own upper lip.

  “A moustache?” suggested Daisy.

  “And a twinkly sword.”

  “Jeweled,” said Daisy. “It must have been the king.”

  “And who else did you meet?” asked Bert.

  “Nobody,” said the Ickabog. “I ran away and hid behind a boulder. Men killed all my ancestors. I was afraid.”

  “Well, then, how did my father die?” demanded Bert.

  “Was your Icker the one who was shot by the big gun?” asked the Ickabog.

  “Shot?” repeated Bert, turning pale. “How do you know this, if you’d run away?”

  “I was looking out from behind the boulder,” said the Ickabog. “Ickabogs can see well in fog. I was frightened. I wanted to see what the men were doing on the marsh. One man was shot by another man.”

  “Flapoon!” burst out Roderick, at last. He’d been afraid to tell Bert before now, but he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Bert, I once heard my father tell my mother he owed his promotion to Lord Flapoon and his blunderbuss. I was really young … I didn’t realize what he meant, at the time … I’m sorry I never told you, I … I was afraid of what you’d say.”

  Bert said nothing at all for several minutes. He was remembering that terrible night in the Blue Parlor, when he’d found his father’s cold, dead hand and pulled it from beneath the Cornucopian flag for his mother to kiss. He remembered Spittleworth saying that they couldn’t see his father’s body, and he remembered Lord Flapoon spraying him and his mother with pie crumbs, as he said how much he’d always liked Major Beamish. Bert put a hand to his chest, where his father’s medal lay close against his skin, turned to Daisy, and said in a low voice:

  “All right. I’m with you.”

  So the four humans and the Ickabog began to put Daisy’s plan into operation, acting quickly, because the snow was melting fast, and they feared the return of the soldiers to the Marshlands.

  First they took the enormous, empty wooden platters that had borne the cheese, pies, and pastries they’d already eaten, and Daisy carved words into them. Next, the Ickabog helped the two boys pull the wagon out of the mud, while Martha collected as many mushrooms as she could find, to keep the Ickabog well fed on the journey south.

  At dawn on the third day, they set out. They’d planned things very carefully. The Ickabog pulled the wagon, which was loaded up with the last of the frozen food, and with baskets of mushrooms. In front of the Ickabog walked Bert and Roderick, who were each carrying a sign. Bert’s read: THE ICKABOG IS HARMLESS. Roderick’s said: SPITTLEWORTH HAS LIED TO YOU. Daisy was riding on the Ickabog’s shoulders. Her sign read: THE ICKABOG EATS ONLY MUSHROOMS. Martha rode in the wagon along with the food, and a large bunch of snowdrops, which were part of Daisy’s plan. Martha’s sign read: UP WITH THE ICKABOG! DOWN WITH LORD SPITTLEWORTH!

  For many miles, they met nobody, but as midday approached, they came across two ragged people leading a single, very thin sheep. This tired and hungry pair were none other than Hetty Hopkins, the maid who’d had to give her children to Ma Grunter, and her husband. They’d been walking the country trying to find work, but nobody had any to give them. Finding the starving sheep in the road, they’d brought it along with them, but its wool was so thin and stringy that it wasn’t worth any money.

  When Mr. Hopkins saw the Ickabog, he fell to his knees in shock, while Hetty simply stood there with her mouth hanging open. When the strange party came close enough, and the husband and wife were able to read all the signs, they thought they must have gone mad.

  Daisy, who’d expected people to react like this, called down to them:

  “You aren’t dreaming! This is the Ickabog, and it’s kind and peaceful! It’s never killed anyone! In fact, it saved our lives!”

  The Ickabog bent down carefully, so that it wouldn’t dislodge Daisy, and patted the thin sheep on the head. Instead of running away, it baaa-ed, quite unafraid, then returned to eating the thin, dry grass.

  “You see?” said Daisy. “Your sheep knows it’s harmless! Come with us — you can ride on our wagon!”

  The Hopkinses were so tired and hungry that, even though they were still very scared of the Ickabog, they heaved themselves up beside Martha, bringing their sheep too. Then off trundled the Ickabog, the six humans, and the sheep, heading for Jeroboam.

  The Ickabog pulled the wagon, which was loaded up with the last of the frozen food.

  By Lucy, Age 9

  Dusk was falling as the dark gray outline of Jeroboam came into view. The Ickabog’s party made a brief stop on a hill overlooking the city. Martha handed the Ickabog the big bunch of snowdrops. Then everyone made sure they were holding their signs the right way up and the four friends shook hands, because they’d sworn to one another, and to the Ickabog, that they would protect it, and never stand aside, even if people threatened them with guns.

  So down the hill toward the winemaking city the Ickabog marched, and the guards at the city gates saw it coming. They raised their guns to fire, but Daisy stood up on the Ickabog’s shoulder, waving her arms, and Bert and Roderick held their signs aloft. Rifles shaking, the guards watched fearfully as the monster walked closer and closer.

  “The Ickabog has never killed anyone!” shouted Daisy.

  “You’ve been told lies!” shouted Bert.

  The guards didn’t know what to do, because they didn’t want to shoot the four young people. The Ickabog shuffled ever closer, and its size and strangeness were both terrifying. But it had a kindly look in its enormous eyes, and was holding snowdrops in its paw. At last, reaching the guards, the Ickabog came to a halt, bent down, and offered each of them a snowdrop.

  The guards took the flowers, because they were afraid not to. Then the Ickabog patted each of them gently on the head, as it had done to the sheep, and walked on into Jeroboam.

  There were screams on every side; people fled before the Ickabog, or dove to find weapons, but Bert and Roderick marched resolutely in front of it, holding up their signs, and the Ickabog continued offering snowdrops to passersby, until at last a young woman bravely took one. The Ickabog was so delighted it thanked her in its booming voice, which made more people scream, but others edged closer to the Ickabog, and soon a little crowd of people was clustered around the monster, taking snowdrops from its paw and
laughing. And the Ickabog was starting to smile too. It had never expected to be cheered or thanked by people.

  “I told you they’d love you if they knew you!” Daisy whispered in the Ickabog’s ear.

  “Come with us!” shouted Bert at the crowd. “We’re marching south, to see the king!”

  And now the Jeroboamers, who’d suffered so much under Spittleworth’s rule, ran back to their houses to fetch torches, pitchforks, and guns, not to harm the Ickabog, but to protect it. Furious at the lies they’d been told, they clustered around the monster, and off they marched through the gathering darkness, with only one short detour.

  Daisy insisted on stopping at the orphanage. Though the door was of course firmly locked and bolted, a kick from the Ickabog soon put that right. The Ickabog helped Daisy gently down, and she ran inside to fetch all the children. The little ones scrambled up into the wagon, the Hopkins twins fell into the arms of their parents, and the larger children joined the crowd, while Ma Grunter screamed and stormed and tried to call them back. Then she saw the Ickabog’s huge hairy face squinting at her through a window and I’m happy to tell you she passed out cold on the floor.

  Then the delighted Ickabog continued down the main street of Jeroboam, collecting more and more people as it went, and nobody noticed Basher John watching from a corner as the crowd passed. Basher John, who’d been drinking in a local tavern, hadn’t forgotten the bloody nose he’d received from Roderick Roach on the night the two boys stole his keys. He realized at once that if these troublemakers, with their overgrown marsh monster, reached the capital, anybody who’d made pots of gold from the myth of the dangerous Ickabog would be in trouble. So instead of returning to the orphanage, Basher John stole another drinker’s horse from outside the tavern.

  Unlike the Ickabog, which was moving slowly, Basher John was soon galloping south, to warn Lord Spittleworth of the danger marching on Chouxville.

  Sometimes — I don’t know how — people who live many miles apart seem to realize the time has come to act. Perhaps ideas can spread like pollen on the breeze. In any case, down in the palace dungeons, the prisoners who’d hidden knives and chisels, heavy saucepans and rolling pins beneath their mattresses and stones in their cell walls, were ready at last. At dawn on the day the Ickabog approached Kurdsburg, Captain Goodfellow and Mr. Dovetail, whose cells were opposite each other, were awake, pale, tense, and sitting on the edges of their beds, because today was the day they’d vowed to escape, or die.

  Several floors above the prisoners, Lord Spittleworth too woke early. Completely unaware that a prison break was brewing beneath his feet, or that a real, live Ickabog was at that very moment advancing on Chouxville, surrounded by an ever-growing crowd of Cornucopians, Spittleworth washed, dressed in his Chief Advisor’s robes, then headed out to a locked wing of the stables, which had been under guard for a week.

  “Stand aside,” Spittleworth told the soldiers on guard, and he unbolted the doors.

  A team of exhausted seamstresses and tailors were waiting beside the model of a monster inside the stable. It was the size of a bull, with leathery skin, and was covered in spikes. Its carved feet bore fearsome claws, its mouth was full of fangs, and its angry eyes glowed amber in its face.

  The seamstresses and tailors watched fearfully as Spittleworth walked slowly around their creation. Close up, you could see the stitching, tell that the eyes were made of glass, that the spikes were really nails pushed through the leather, and that the claws and fangs were nothing but painted wood. If you prodded the beast, a trickle of sawdust ran from the seams. Nevertheless, by the dim light of the stables, it was a convincing piece of work, and the seamstresses and tailors were thankful to see Spittleworth smile.

  “It will do, by candlelight, at least,” he said. “I’ll simply have to make the dear king stand well back as he looks at it. We can say the spikes and fangs are still poisonous.”

  The workers exchanged relieved looks. They’d been working all day and all night for a week. Now at last they’d be able to go home to their families.

  “Soldiers,” said Spittleworth, turning to the guards waiting in the courtyard, “take these people away. If you scream,” he added lazily, as the youngest seamstress opened her mouth to do so, “you’ll be shot.”

  While the team that had made the stuffed Ickabog was dragged away by the soldiers, Spittleworth went upstairs, whistling, to the king’s apartments, where he found Fred wearing silk pajamas and a hairnet over his moustache, and Flapoon tucking a napkin beneath his many chins.

  “Good morning, Your Majesty!” said Spittleworth with a bow. “I trust you slept well? I have a surprise for Your Majesty today. We have succeeded in having one of the Ickabogs stuffed. I know Your Majesty was eager to see it.”

  “Wonderful, Spittleworth!” said the king. “And after that, we might send it around the kingdom, what? To show the people what we’re up against?”

  “I would advise against that, sire,” said Spittleworth, who feared that if anybody saw the stuffed Ickabog by daylight, they’d be sure to spot it as a fake. “We wouldn’t want the common folk to panic. Your Majesty is so brave that you can cope with the sight —”

  At that moment, the doors to the king’s private apartments flew open and in ran a wild-eyed, sweaty Basher John, who’d been delayed on the road by not one, but two sets of highwaymen. After getting lost in some woods and falling off his horse while jumping a ditch, then being unable to catch it again, Basher John hadn’t managed to reach the palace much ahead of the Ickabog. Panicking, he’d forced entry to the palace through a scullery window, and two guards had pursued him through the palace, both of them prepared to run him through with their swords.

  Fred let out a scream and hid behind Flapoon. Spittleworth pulled out his dagger and jumped to his feet.

  “There’s — an — Ickabog,” panted Basher John, falling to his knees. “A real — live — Ickabog. It’s coming here — with thousands of people — the Ickabog … is real.”

  Naturally, Spittleworth didn’t believe this story for a second.

  “Take him to the dungeons!” he snarled at the guards, who dragged the struggling Basher John from the room and closed the doors again. “I do apologize, sire,” said Spittleworth, who was still holding his dagger. “The man will be horsewhipped, and so will the guards who let him break into the pal —”

  But before Spittleworth could finish his sentence, two more men came bursting into the king’s private apartments. These were Spittleworth’s Chouxville spies who’d had word from the north about the Ickabog’s approach, but as the king had never laid eyes on them before, he let out another terrified squeal.

  “My — lord,” panted the first spy, bowing to Spittleworth, “there’s — an — Ickabog, coming — this — way!”

  “And it’s got — a crowd — with it,” panted the second. “It’s real!”

  “Well, of course the Ickabog’s real!” said Spittleworth, who could hardly say anything else with the king present. “Notify the Ickabog Defense Brigade — I shall join them shortly in the courtyard, and we’ll kill the beast!”

  Spittleworth ushered the spies to the door and thrust them back into the passageway, trying to drown out their whispers of “my lord, it’s real, and the people like it!” and “it’s on its way south, my lord, our contacts seen it with their two eyes!”

  “We shall kill this monster as we’ve killed all the others!” said Spittleworth loudly, for the king’s benefit, and then under his breath he added, “Go away!”

  Spittleworth closed the door firmly on the spies and returned to the table, disturbed, but trying not to show it. Flapoon was still tucking into some Baronstown ham. He had a vague idea that Spittleworth must be behind all these people rushing in and talking about live Ickabogs, so he wasn’t frightened in the slightest. Fred, on the other hand, was quivering from head to foot.

  “Imagine the monster showing itself in daylight, Spittleworth!” he whimpered. “I thought it only ever came
out at night!”

  “Yes, it’s getting far too bold, isn’t it, Your Majesty?” said Spittleworth. He had no idea what this so-called real Ickabog could be. The only thing he could imagine was that some common folk had rigged up some kind of fake monster, possibly to steal food, or force gold out of their neighbors — but it would still have to be stopped, of course. There was only one true Ickabog, and that was the one Spittleworth had invented. “Come, Flapoon — we must prevent this beast from entering Chouxville!”

  “You’re so brave, Spittleworth,” said King Fred in a broken voice.

  “Tish, pish, Your Majesty,” said Spittleworth, “I would lay down my life for Cornucopia. You should know that by now!”

  Spittleworth’s hand was on the door handle when yet more running footsteps, this time accompanied by shouting and clanging, shattered the peace. Startled, Spittleworth opened the door to see what was going on.

  A group of ragged prisoners was running toward him. At the head of them was the white-haired Mr. Dovetail, who held an axe, and burly Captain Goodfellow, who carried a gun clearly wrestled from the hands of a palace guard. Right behind them came Mrs. Beamish, her hair flying behind her as she brandished an enormous saucepan, and hot on her heels came Millicent, Lady Eslanda’s maid, who held a rolling pin.

  Just in time, Spittleworth slammed and bolted the door. Within seconds, Mr. Dovetail’s axe had smashed through the wood.

  “Flapoon, come!” shouted Spittleworth, and the two lords ran across the room to another door, which led to a staircase down to the courtyard.

  Fred, who had no idea what was going on, who’d never even realized that there were fifty people trapped in the dungeons of his palace, was slow to react. Seeing the faces of the furious prisoners appear at the hole Mr. Dovetail had hacked in the door, he jumped up to follow the two lords, but they, interested only in their own skins, had bolted the door they had escaped through from the other side. King Fred was left standing in his pajamas with his back to the wall, watching the escaped prisoners hack their way into his room.