‘Best of luck,’ Beatrix said when they reached the school gates. ‘Make sure you refuse to take off the costume, even when your teachers order you to remove it. I’ll wait for you over there.’ She pointed at a little street opposite the school. ‘I’ll be hiding behind that doorway.’
Beatrix wrapped her coat tight around her and pulled her toadstool hat down over her ears. She hoped Oi and Wilfred wouldn’t take too long getting breakfast. Even though she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for the Riddletown Dragon, all she could think about was a bacon sandwich and a riddle cake.
Beatrix waited and waited but there was no sign of Oi and Wilfred and there was no sign of the dragon. She was so cold her teeth were chattering, her feet were numb and she felt as if she had frozen sausages for fingers. She wanted to go back to the inn to find her friends but she couldn’t in case the dragon snuck into the school and took Matilda.
The minutes turned into hours and Beatrix had to jog on the spot to try to stay warm. The people of Riddletown lit torches along the main street and in the town square as it grew dark. By now she was convinced Oi and Wilfred were in trouble, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to wait by the school for Matilda.
The flaming torches hung in metal cages from the buildings and gave off a very jumpy, nervous sort of light. It made the shadows come to life.
The school gates opened at four o’clock and the children came out. Well, the children and a very naughty, red-spotted curtain dragon. A teacher was waving her hand at Matilda, telling her off and shooing her away. Beatrix couldn’t hear what the teacher was saying but it looked as if her face was experiencing a series of mini explosions. The dragon kept shaking its head and the other children were laughing.
‘How did that go?’ Beatrix said, as Matilda approached the doorway she was hiding in.
‘Good fun! These bellows are pretty good for spraying school lunch as well as paint,’ Matilda said.
‘You didn’t!’ Beatrix replied.
‘I didn’t. The dragon did! Although I did then have to spend most of the afternoon outside the head teacher’s office. And they’ve taken away my playtime for the next ten years because I refused to take off the outfit, so please tell me you’ve seen the dragon lurking about somewhere.’
‘Not yet. And I’m worried about Oi and Wilfred – I haven’t seen them all day. Let’s go back to the inn. You go ahead – we’ll give this dragon one last chance to appear.’
Matilda set off down one of the many tiny lanes that ran between the thatched houses. The town was like a maze. If you weren’t on the main street or in the market square there were no lights and you could get lost very easily. Beatrix waited till Matilda was a short distance away, then slipped out of the shadows and followed her.
The ground was icy underfoot and the night smelt of smoke and dinners being cooked. Sometimes when Beatrix passed a hut or a house she could hear voices from inside and they floated on the air, free of their bodies. She knew it was only people talking, but she was thinking about the dragon, and thinking about the dragon made everything seem strange and a little bit scary. Dragons weren’t real. She knew this. But it was a lot easier to tell herself that during the day than at night when she was following a friend down dark little streets in a strange town where children vanished.
Matilda had stopped and was standing very still in the middle of the street. Beatrix pressed herself into the doorway of one of the houses.
‘Hello, is anyone there?’ she heard Matilda call out.
Silence. Then a sort of rustling noise, like a sparrow or a mouse moving through dead leaves.
‘Who are you – what do you want?’ Matilda said, taking a step backwards. Beatrix moved forward; she could feel her heart thumping against her chest.
‘What do I want? Why, I heard there was another dragon in town, so I wanted to see it,’ a quiet voice said. There was something very familiar about the high-pitched tone.
‘Yes, but you do know I’m not a real dragon?’ Matilda said. ‘I mean, real dragons don’t have curtains for wings and a pillow for a tail. Are you real?’
‘Of course I am.’
‘Then how come you can talk human?’
‘I taught myself.’
‘How?’
‘Er …’ The dragon hesitated. ‘With words of course. You just put them together, one in front of the other. Like walking. Little babies learn to talk, and all they can do is poop and sleep – it’s really not hard. Not for a clever dragon like me.’
‘Is that what you do when you’re not talking?’ Matilda said. ‘Poop and sleep?’
Beatrix covered her mouth and tried not to laugh.
‘No! Not all the time. No more than usual.’
‘How often is usual for a dragon? Three conkers a day?’ Matilda said.
‘None of your business! And that thing about conkers is not true. Conkers are conkers, not dragon poo. And before you ask, I hate hummus, quite like raspberries and it doesn’t matter how many Os there are in the month. I come into town whenever I feel like it.’
‘And you felt like it today?’
‘Why yes, of course. I wanted to meet you, I wanted to meet the child that so loves dragons she’s decided to dress up as one and charge around the market square like you just don’t –’
‘Care?’
‘Exactly.’
Beatrix moved forward, careful not to make a sound. She wanted to get a closer look at the dragon. It was smaller than she thought it would be. It had a very fat belly. She could make out its wings and a tail which dragged along the ground. Its skin looked very old and saggy, like an ancient elephant.
The dragon took a couple of steps towards Matilda. It moved like a chicken, and it had tiny arms like a T-rex. Beatrix could now see it was carrying two large brown sacks.
‘Anyway,’ the dragon said, ‘I would like some help. I’m on my way to a party and these bags of cakes and sweets are very heavy. If you help me carry them, I’ll give you an enormous party bag full of sweets and chocolates for you to take home. And you could stay for the party too. You’re already dressed up.’
Matilda was feeling less nervous now. The dragon was more weird than scary.
‘You’re a dragon on your way to a party?’
‘Yes. What’s so strange about that?’
‘Nothing really, it’s just that when you think of dragons, parties aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. Breathing fire, tick. Terrorising villages, tick. Kidnapping children, also tick. But parties … they don’t feature in many stories with dragons.’
‘Well I happen to like parties!’ the dragon said, his voice getting even more high pitched. ‘What’s wrong with a dragon that likes parties?’
‘Nothing at all,’ said Matilda. ‘Where’s this party of yours?’
‘Oh it’s not far. Follow me. It’s no distance at all.’
The dragon moved faster than Beatrix expected, hurrying down the street. Matilda kept up with it, walking quickly and carrying one of the sacks. Beatrix followed close behind. Where on earth were they going? The only way out of Riddletown was through the enormous gates.
The dark streets grew narrower and narrower, until there was hardly any street left between the houses.
‘It’s this way,’ the dragon said, ‘I can almost hear the party music. We’re nearly there.’ He turned down an alley. Matilda couldn’t hear any music. Nor could Beatrix, as she waited in the shadows. The dragon ran forward a few steps then waited by a door.
‘You are so kind,’ he said to Matilda. ‘So very kind, I don’t know what I would have done without you. Come this way, through the door, and you can have your sweets. Lots of sweets, lots and lots of sweets!’
Matilda approached the door. The dragon knocked three times. The door opened. Matilda and the dragon disappeared inside. Beatrix ran towards them, afraid of losing Matilda. As she approached she saw something that made her shiver in terror – a cage, a big metal cage, big enough for a child. It wa
s hanging above the door! The door slammed shut and she heard the cage fall to the ground with a great thump.
Beatrix ran to the door and tried to open it. It was locked. No, no, no! This was no good, no good at all. If she couldn’t follow Matilda then it was all for nothing. Not only would she have failed to rescue Matilda’s brother, she’d have failed Matilda too!
She shoved the door with her shoulder. It wouldn’t budge. She ran round the side of the house to see if there was a way in from the back, but a high stone wall blocked her path. She tried to climb, jumping up, trying to get a grip with her fingers, but the stones were flat and smooth and there was nothing to hold on to. She needed help. She needed Wilfred and Oi.
17
Beatrix’s Amazing Magic Trick
Beatrix ran back through the streets as fast as she could, making sure she remembered each twist and turn in the maze of passageways. One left turn, two to the right, one to the left. It didn’t take long, and soon she was back on the main street, running towards the inn.
She skidded on the ice outside, banging into Matilda’s mother who was busy cleaning snow off the path.
‘Woah! Hello there!’ she said. ‘Have you seen Matilda? She’s usually home by now.’
Beatrix didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t exactly tell Matilda’s mother she’d just seen her daughter get taken by the dragon.
‘She’ll be home soon. I promise. Are my friends here?’
‘Oh yes, they’re upstairs. They’ve been there all day. Talking to the farmers.’
‘Wait … which farmers?’ Beatrix said. ‘The ones who farm sheep or the ones who farm parrots?’
‘The ones who farm parrots. Are you OK, my dear? You suddenly look awfully pale.’
Beatrix stood very still. First Matilda had been taken, now Wilfred and Oi were trapped with Evil Army spies. How could she get them out of there? Beatrix ran over to the cart and climbed onto it. She opened up the chest with shaking fingers. Time for a disguise. And a magic trick.
A few moments later, Beatrix was standing outside the door to their room in the inn, one hand raised, ready to knock. She took a deep breath. She was no longer Beatrix the Bold. She was Fernando the Fantastic. She had a pillow stuffed under her top, a fake beard and a wizardy hat pulled low over her head. Around her shoulders she wore a cape and she’d even attached Oi’s fake nose. She knocked on the door and waited.
‘Who is it?’ came a deep voice from inside.
‘I am Fernando the Fantastic, and I have a delivery for Bob the Magician, a box of magic tricks, amazing magic tricks, all the way from … far away. The other side of the world.’
Martin the Murderous scratched his head. He and Colin had been waiting all day for the girl to come back, and the longer he spent with ‘Norman’ and ‘Bob’, the more suspicious he became that they were not who they said they were. And no matter how many times he asked, Bob wouldn’t tell him where he got the Evil Army knife he’d used in his bottle trick.
In fact, he was now so suspicious and so fed up with the silly answers he was getting (especially from Norman) that he’d tied them both up, stuffed socks in their mouths and locked them in a cupboard.
‘Leave the magic tricks outside the door – I’ll pick them up later,’ Martin said.
‘Oh no, I can’t do that. These tricks are far too expensive. Someone might steal them,’ Beatrix replied.
‘Come on then,’ said Martin, opening the door. ‘But be quick, we’re waiting for someone.’
Beatrix bounded into the room.
‘I am Fernando the Fantastic,’ she announced, putting the box of tricks down on the floor and looking round the room. ‘Where’s Bob? I need to show him how to do the new trick he ordered. It’s very complicated.’
Colin and Martin looked at one another, then Colin said: ‘Bob has just popped out with Norman. Show us instead and we’ll tell him.’
Beatrix thought she could hear a strange thumping sound coming from the wardrobe.
‘Very well,’ she said, opening the box. She took out the chains and padlock. ‘What’s that noise?’
‘What noise?’ Martin replied. ‘I don’t hear anything.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Colin.
‘That banging sound, coming from the wardrobe,’ Beatrix said.
‘Oh that,’ Martin replied. ‘It’s just rats. Horrible, stinky rats. There are lots of ’em running about the place.’
‘Horrible, stinky rats,’ Colin repeated, with a smirk on his face.
Beatrix looked at the wardrobe.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Rats can be a nuisance. Especially ones that get caught easily and have to be rescued,’ she said, a little more loudly. ‘Anyway, the trick. Here’s how you do it. Pay close attention so you can tell Bob.’ She lifted the chains out of the box. ‘First I wrap these chains all around me, like so …’ she said, rapidly winding the chains about her waist. ‘Then I fasten the chains with a padlock. Help me, would you?’
Martin fastened the padlock in place. He was really rather intrigued to see how the strange little man with the high voice and the big nose would get out of this.
‘Now, if we had a lake, I would throw myself in it and escape under water. But we don’t, so instead I will escape from these chains before your very eyes!’ Beatrix turned her back on Martin and Colin. She felt with her fingers for the special button that would release the lock. Then she threw off the chains with a terrific, ‘Ta-dah!’
‘Not bad,’ Martin said. ‘Did you keep the key to the padlock hidden in the palm of your hand?’
‘Oh no, it’s quite simple. Let me show you.’ She grabbed the chains and ran them round Martin and Colin as quickly as she could, making sure she looped them around their wrists and ankles.
‘First you make sure the chains are nice and tight, then you fasten the lock,’ she said, clicking the padlock in place, ‘then …’
‘Then what?’ Martin said, thinking that the chains were rather tight around his tummy and wrists. ‘And why’s your beard falling off?’
‘Then you open the cupboard,’ Beatrix said, ignoring Martin, ‘untie your friends … and ruuuuuunnnn!’
As Beatrix opened the cupboard, Oi and Wilfred tumbled out. Beatrix untied them and the three of them darted down the stairs and out the front door, slipping and sliding on the icy street.
‘Come with me, fast as you can,’ Beatrix said. ‘We have to find Matilda. Into the cart – I’ll show you the way.’
They jumped onto the cart, with Beatrix sitting in the driving seat. She flicked the reins.
‘Come on, Jeff, let’s go!’
Jeff the pigeon started flapping about in his cage.
‘Not you, Jeff, the other Jeff.’
The other Jeff looked over his shoulder, gave a horsey shrug, shook off the snow then began a slippery gallop towards the house Matilda had disappeared into.
18
The Vanishing Footprints
They raced through the streets with Jeff’s hooves thumping the fresh snow. The house Matilda had disappeared into was silent and dark.
‘Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here now,’ Oi said.
‘Well this is where they took her,’ Beatrix said. ‘Let’s climb over the back wall and see if we can sneak in.’
They scrambled over the high stone wall, using ropes from their cart.
‘Have you got candles?’ Beatrix whispered when they were on the other side.
‘Yes, in my pocket,’ Oi said. A strange barking sound came from his coat.
‘Barking candles?’ Beatrix said.
Jeff the pigeon made a cooing sound.
‘And cooing candles?’
‘I thought they might both come in handy. Dog can smell the soldiers before we see them and we might need to send Uncle Ivan a message with Jeff.’
Wilfred used a fire stone and a piece of metal to make a spark and light a piece of dry wool, blowing into it so the flames caught. Oi held the candlewicks in the flame, and passed
a lighted candle to Beatrix.
‘Are you sure you saw a dragon?’ Oi said.
‘I saw something that looked like a dragon,’ Beatrix replied, looking for the back door. ‘Or an enormous chicken. Here, the door!’
She tried the latch. It was unlocked. She opened it carefully, making sure she didn’t make a sound. The house was cold and damp and silent.
‘There’s no one here,’ she said.
‘What a strange house,’ Wilfred whispered, peering round the room. It wasn’t like a normal house. There was no furniture, no chairs or tables or bed. The house was just one big room, all the way to the roof. On one wall was a fireplace, but that was it. It was clear there was no one inside.
‘Are you sure Matilda and the dragon came in here?’ asked Wilfred.
‘Of course I’m sure. There was a cage just inside the door. The dragon must have carried her away in it – we’re too late.’
‘Unless …’ Wilfred said.
‘Unless what?’ Oi replied.
‘This house isn’t what it seems. Their boots will have been wet with snow and mud when they came in from the street, but I can only see footprints in one direction on the floor.’ He held a candle close to the floor. Beatrix knelt down next to him.
‘Look,’ Beatrix said, ‘they go to the fireplace. Then they stop.’
Dog was standing by the fireplace, sniffing at it and pawing at the stone. He was giving out a low growl, the kind of growl he usually only used when there was danger nearby. Or when he needed to go to the toilet. Oi hoped he didn’t need to go to the toilet.
Beatrix gave her candle to Wilfred.
‘Hold this – I want to check something.’ She felt her way around the fireplace. In the palace where she’d grown up there were secret passageways all over the place. She had a feeling she might be able to find one here too. The stone fireplace had funny-looking faces carved into the top of it. They were meant to look jolly and smiling but there was something sinister about them – it was almost as if they were laughing at her. She pulled at them and tried to twist them, but they didn’t move. Then there were two stone dogs, one either side of the fire. She pushed the one on the right. It didn’t move. Then she pushed the one on the left. This one did move, but only a tiny bit.
Beatrix the Bold and the Riddletown Dragon Page 6
