NO WHISPERERS WELCOME.
People were putting rotten fruit in the Whisperers’ letterboxes.
Snatty-Ra-Ra is one of our local Whisperers, of course. I’d sort of forgotten that about him because, well, he’s Snatty. Everyone knows him! Everyone loves him!
But some of the folk with stalls in the Town Square shifted their tables and blankets way across the Square, away from Snatty. Ronnie, our artist friend, moved his things closer, to show support, which led to Ronnie getting hit in the ear by a flying squashed banana meant for Snatty.
One day, a bunch of kids just back from the beach ran circles around Snatty, darting forward now and then to pull on his ponytail. He thought they were just messing about at first and he tried to have fun with them. GONG! GONG! he said, even though it’s his nose makes that noise, not his hair. But the kids only pulled his hair even harder, so he winced, then they flicked their damp beach towels at his face. One kicked over his coffee mug and another stamped on his sandwich. ‘Whisperer, go home!’ they chanted. ‘Whisperer, go home!’
Their parents stood about pretending not to notice.
We saw all this from the Orphanage window, by the way. The twins and Glim and me pelted down the stairs and across the Square, and chased them out of there, along with their parents. (Orphans can be pretty scary to the ‘nicer’ sort of folk.) But it was too late: Snatty-Ra-Ra’s smile had packed itself away and I never saw him get it out again.
People were even quicker to pile on the local Shadow Mages and pirates. I mean, they’d never had a good reputation. We’d always known they were trouble, we’d just trusted their promise to leave their Shadow Magic or pirating ways behind and start over in Spindrift. Before this war, we’d had plenty of squabbles with outsider Shadow Mages—but we’d never blamed our locals for that.
But here we were being relentlessly attacked by Radish Gnomes, Fire Sirens, Sterling Silver Foxes, Ghouls, Witches, and pirates—and the people of Spindrift were beginning to look at our local Radish Gnomes, Fire Sires, Sterling Silver Foxes, Ghouls, Witches and pirates in a whole new light.
‘Hang on,’ people were saying, ‘why did we let you folk in here again?’
Which is why, when I woke up on the morning of my birthday and the things that happened started happening, I should not have been shocked in the least.
Honey Bee
He were on our way through town to see Mayor Franny for our volunteer duty when it began.
I was carrying the picnic basket. I had asked the kitchen to be sure to include a chocolate twist, as I knew that Finlay loved them and it was his birthday. I also had a candle, and a matchbook to light it, so we could sing Happy Birthday.
Rosalind remained ill, so it was just Victor, Hamish and I.
The downtown area was very crowded. I nearly tripped over a man selling sardines on Rawson Street. He’d sat himself down on the pavement, and his legs were stuck out almost to the gutter.
Just as I had recovered from that, a mangy dog darted across the street and a woman shrieked, ‘Get him! He’s stolen my pork chops!’
We paused to watch her chase the dog, which flew over a brick wall and vanished. A few people applauded the dog’s successful escape, and the woman yowled at them, like a ferocious cat. The people cheered at this yowl, and now the woman curtseyed as if she’d just put on a show.
Around the next corner, a shiny red automobile stood by the side of Gerbera Lane. We had seen automobiles before—some of the wealthier parents motored to the school to visit their children—but they were rare in town. A crowd had gathered around this one, and both men and women were kicking at its tyres or knocking on its paintwork.
We carried on.
‘Noisy, isn’t it?’ Hamish commented.
Victor rolled his eyes. ‘It’s always noisy here,’ he said. ‘The sooner we get this over and return to the peace of Brathelthwaite, the better.’
Funny how people are different, isn’t it? I myself had just been thinking how delightfully lively it was in town—you never knew what was going to happen next! An escaping dog, a yowling woman, a red automobile! So refreshing after the dull schedules and lessons at Brathelthwaite.
It made me wonder, not for the first time, why Victor was still coming along to volunteer duty.
He is rather self-absorbed, is our Victor, and somewhat… I was going to say relaxed or lethargic but the word I’m really looking for is LAZY. Not the sort to leap at an inconvenient task like helping with the war effort, anyway, even if the Prince had read his name out on the radio. Surely one or two weeks of volunteer duty would have been enough to cover him for that?
At that moment, there was a trumpet fanfare, followed by a rising drumroll. It was coming from the Town Square.
‘Golly,’ said Hamish. ‘I think that means the Queen i here! Is she going to make an announcement, do you think?’
Beside us, Victor had quickened his pace. He was tidying his hair as he walked. Of course, I thought. That’s why he’s still helping. He is always so keen to get the attention of important people, and the Queen is about as important as it gets. Victor had been sure the Queen would invite him to tea to thank him for helping to rescue the Prince. He became very cranky as the days went by and it never happened.
When we skidded into the Town Square, it was bustling with people, all pressing together to see. They were knocking into newspaper stands and stalls, and spilling each other’s morning coffees. It felt rather like a party. The Queen stood at the top of the Town Hall stairs, gazing over the townsfolk in a loving way. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway.
A Royal Soldier in red stepped forward smartly.
‘All rise,’ he boomed into the loud hailer, ‘for Her Majesty, the Queen of the Kingdom of Gusts, Gales, Squalls and Violent Storms!’
Everybody was already standing up, so it was tricky to ‘rise’. Still, we straightened our backs, as if he’d ordered us to have better posture.
The Queen’s turn.
‘My people,’ she said. ‘My good, fine people of Spindrift! What an honour it is to stand before you today. What courage you have shown in these trying times! I am proud of every one of you! Between us, we will win this war!’
A great cheer went up. People stamped their feet. A whooping sounded from the sky—not the sky, but the Orphanage building. Its second floor windows had been flung open and the orphans were leaning out, clapping and shouting. The twins were loudest, of course. Glim rested her chin on her folded arms and Finlay had propped himself up on the ledge, one arm curled around the window frame. I worried rather that he might fall.
‘Disrespectful,’ Victor muttered.
‘I know that many of you have lost loved ones and my heart breaks for you,’ the Queen carried on, and now the crowd grew still. Heads bowed. A lady wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘I also know that a dreadful influenza has been sweeping your town.’
Many nodded grimly.
‘This morning,’ the Queen said, ‘I come to you with news about the influenza.’
Now faces took on interested expressions. Finlay leaned even further out of the window, causing me to bite my lip.
The Queen gazed around the murmuring crowd once more, her face sorrowful. ‘We have received a message,’ she said at last, ‘from the Whispering Kingdom. It seems that the influenza is itself a form of invasion. It is a Witch-made spell. It has been deliberately introduced into Spindrift and has spread. The Whisperers have offered to send in a Witch-made antidote that they say will extinguish the influenza—in exchange for the total surrender of our Kingdom.’
It was difficult to hear much of this, for as the Queen spoke, the crowd’s murmuring became a buzz, and then a drone and then a roar. Each of her statements was like a lever, propping the volume up, until it burst forth into furious shouting and shrieking.
‘How dare they?’
‘My grandmother is in hospital with that flu!’
‘My little nephew is on a respirator!’
‘They
think we will surrender? After what they have done to us?’
‘They must be off their rockers!’
‘NEVER!’
‘NEVER!’
‘NEVER!’
The guards blew their horns. The Queen held up her palms. Eventually, the crowd settled.
‘We will never surrender!’ the Queen declared.
More cheers and stamping. But it was angry cheering and stamping. And a woman near me frowned to herself and muttered, ‘But my little girl is so sick with it. Could we not surrender just for a little while?’
‘Hmph,’ said a man standing next to me. ‘The Queen’s own son’s got the influenza. Let’s see how long she keeps up this never of hers.’
People nearby shushed him or swatted his shoulder, but he had a point. Would the Queen let her own son, the Prince, languish rather than giving in to the Whisperers’ demands? It put her in a rather awkward position.
‘Hold up,’ Hamish shout-whispered to me. His long hair tickled my cheek. ‘Did the Queen just say that this influenza is Witch-made?’
Hamish is always a few steps behind.
I nodded, straining to hear what the Queen said next, but the crowd had gotten itself into a state again and there was a deal more hullabaloo.
‘Isn’t that what that nice woman said?’ Hamish called to me over the noise. ‘The Orphanage one—a doctor, she was, or a teacher? Helped us rescue the Prince? She said it was a Witch-made influenza, didn’t she?’
Oh yes! She had said that! I’d forgotten!
‘Anita!’ I half-yelled back to him. ‘Yes, she used some Faery potion on Prince Jakob, remember?’
Now I found myself, rather surprisingly, shouting at the Queen. ‘WHY CAN’T WE USE FAERY MAGIC TO CURE IT?’
Somehow the Queen caught my words! Then she caught my eye and nodded! It really was a treat. I felt my cheeks blush. On the other side of Hamish, I believe Victor scowled.
‘THE HOSPITAL IS NOW TREATING PATIENTS WITH FAERY POTION!’ the Queen bellowed into her loud hailer. It hurt my ears, she was so loud. Everyone fell silent. ‘It seems one student doctor was already doing that—’
There were whoops from the Orphanage windows. ‘Hooray for Anita!’ various orphans shouted.
The Queen blinked. ‘Yes, Anita has helped a great deal, probably saving the lives of the old people and babies. But a real cure will require actual Faeries. The store-bought potion only takes the edge off the symptoms. Now, we have sent away urgently for Faeries to—’
‘BRING IN FAERIES NOW!’
‘WHERE ARE THE FAERIES?!’
People were shouting again. They were quite impatient. But I suppose you couldn’t blame them. Family members and friends were so ill. And anyone could catch the flu at any time.
‘But—’ The Queen held up her hand. ‘Travel is extremely difficult at this time. Pirates are controlling the seas, and Shadow Mages are blocking the roads. So this may take some—’
‘WE DON’T HAVE TIME!’
The Queen nodded grimly. ‘We don’t,’ she agreed.
There was a sober quiet.
‘How did this Witch-made influenza get into Spindrift?’ somebody demanded.
The Queen shook her head. ‘We do not know. Now—’
But here is where the trouble began.
I believe it was Harriet, the owner of the hardware store, who started it. ‘Local Witches!’ she called. ‘They probably made it!’
‘Was it our Witches?’
‘It must have been!’
‘Why do we have Witches here anyhow?’
‘Why do we have any Shadow Mages?’
A sort of roaring then, as if the crowd had become the engine of an automobile.
‘They must be helping with these attacks!’
‘Speaking of, why do we have Sirens here? Who let those Fire Sirens in that day? Must have been our local Sirens!’
That one was just plain silly. Everybody knows that Sirens don’t associate with Fire Sirens. They’re very tetchy with each other. And nobody had let the Fire Sirens in, they’d just taken down our Spellbinder guard, same way the Witch coven did. Our guard wasn’t up to much, was the problem.
But this was not a time for reasoning.
Everyone was angry, you see. Angry, frightened and sad, and nobody knew what to do with those feelings, or how to fight the invading Shadow Mages or the super-powered Whisperers or the influenza. But they needed to fight something.
And then I heard a blazing voice: ‘ENOUGH! THEY’VE BROUGHT IT ON THEMSELVES! IT’S TIME TO KILL THE SHADOW MAGES! IT’S TIME TO KILL THE WHISPERERS! LET’S END THIS!’
FINLAY
It was what you’d call a free-for-all then.
Those folks that are mean-spirited or bloodthirsty took up the cry, ‘KILL THEM! KILL THEM!’, fists already out and flying. Those who saw how wrong this was—and who loved our local Whisperers and Shadow Mages— hollered, ‘NO! NO!’ and got their arms in lockholds around the first lot. The first lot didn’t like that much and head-butted the second lot.
Meanwhile, people who didn’t care either way but like a good dust-up—and we’ve got plenty of that sort in Spindrift—started laying into whoever was standing beside them.
Frightened local Witches and Whisperers tried to duck out of the crowd: ‘Excuse me! Just let me through, please?’ and the nasty folk shouted, ‘There’s one! Get him!’
I scrambled out of the Orphanage window. No time for stairs. Scraped up my shins on the brickwork sliding down the drainpipe. Twins and Glim were right behind me.
Couldn’t tell you what happened then. Elbow in my eye. My fists pounding someone’s gut. We were trying to get to Snatty, to protect him. Pummelled from behind, I landed with a crack on my knees. Kept running into Sterling Silver Foxes and Sirens who were being hammered, and trying to hammer back. An elbow in my chin. Someone’s heavy boot hooked around my ankle, tripping me up. The heel of a hand in my eye.
That sort of thing.
I know the Queen was blaring away in her loud hailer. ‘I COMMAND YOU TO CEASE AND DESIST AT ONCE!’
Even if she’d said, Stop right now! it wouldn’t have worked. I command you to cease and desist didn’t stand a chance. Most people didn’t know what cease and desist meant.
I did all right in the fight. Well, not great, actually, but keep in mind these were mostly adults and I’m a kid.
I blacked out for a bit.
Came to when somebody stepped on my face.
Honey Bee
h, that was me.
I stepped on his face.
The brawl went on for over two hours! I didn’t know that was possible. I mean, if my nose were bleeding, I would head straight to the infirmary to get ice. If my tooth got knocked out, I’d hurry to the dentist. Broken glass all over the ground around me? I’d fetch a broom and sweep it up. And so on.
But these people just carried on wrestling! Getting blood all over their clothes, and spitting out their teeth, and cutting themselves on the glass when they fell on it! Which they did, often—fall, I mean. It turns out that you’re always falling when you fight. I cannot imagine how they ever laundered the blood out of their clothes.
The local constables tried to break it up, of course—they kept blowing whistles and bellowing, but the whistles were just knocked out of their mouths, and most of them ended up tangled in the fight.
Victor and I took cover in a little alcove under the Town Hall steps. The picnic basket was knocked out of my hand as we hurried over there. Hamish was separated from us and I couldn’t see him anywhere. A chair was flung towards the alcove, and Victor leapt to the side so that the chair hit my shoulder. It hurt, rather. Then Victor must have decided that the alcove was not safe at all, and he scurried away, hands protecting his head.
I tried to find a better hiding place too but I’ll tell you what, you can’t estimate people’s movements at all when they’re fighting. You think you can just duck around them, but they pay no attention to other people or objects.
They sway this way and that, and they walk backwards, glowering at their opponents, stumbling right into tables or children.
Crossing the square was like being thrown about in a runaway wagon. I was buffeted this way and that, knocked down twice, before I hopped up, stumbled and stepped onto Finlay’s face. Not on purpose, you understand. It woke him up, anyway, and he leapt to his feet and back into the fray.
Extraordinary.
All the shops and offices around the Square had locked their doors and pulled down their shutters. I knocked on JJ. Barett Esq, Solicitor and Conveyancer, but JJ shouted, ‘Get away!’ Eventually, Motoko-the-Chocolatier, bundled me inside her Candy Shoppe and locked the door. We waited then while shouting and thumping, whistling and swearing carried on outside, the jars of candy rattling on the shelves. Motoko was wearing marvellous earrings, almost the size of teacups, and she seemed pleased when I admired them.
At last, soldiers arrived from the military base to assist the constables. More whistles were blown, and rifles were shot into the air, but nothing really happened until they brought in the fire hose. It was quite remarkable to see the power of a gust of water. It can send a grown man flying. Motoko and I giggled.
After that, the constables jangled their handcuffs and threatened to arrest anyone who didn’t drop their fists in exactly five seconds. Five! Four! Three!—that was enough to have everyone shuffling apart, arms hanging by their sides. A number were lying on the ground groaning. They were patched up or carried off to the Hospital.
‘As if the Hospital don’t have enough to do already,’ scolded Constable Dabnovic.
Motoko-the-Chocolatier opened the door to her shop, and unlatched the shutters. I thanked her for rescuing me and she gave me a peppermint crisp bar and told me to hurry back to school.
‘Things will quieten down now,’ she said.
I believed her, too. And then, just as I stepped out of the Candy Shoppe, I saw the Queen’s guards unlocking the doors of the Town Hall—where the Queen must have taken cover eventually during the brawl—and she stepped back out with her loud hailer and raised it to her mouth.
The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars Page 19
