by Eoin Colfer
I must distract them, thought Teddy, or they will vacate the area.
And so he had no choice but to throw off his veil and make himself visible.
* * *
Myles was unwrapping the power packs when Lord Teddy appeared on the balcony with the barrel of his rifle aimed squarely at Myles’s broad forehead.
“Don’t move, boy,” he said, “or you shall be sick and pale with grief. I guarantee it.”
Myles made no move except for a heaving of his chest, for he was sure that the duke could not possibly miss from such a range. And though he knew the full might of his mind should bear down on the problem of escape, he could not help but devote a few neurons to the problem of how they had been located. More than that, how had he been anticipated? The mere idea was repugnant. Had he, a veritable genius, become predictable?
“It was my suit,” said Myles, after a moment’s thought. “You tracked the order of my suit?”
“It was the suit,” Lord Teddy confirmed, and then he borrowed another line from Romeo and Juliet. “None but fools do wear it.”
I was a fool, thought Myles, not to consider that such a unique purchase could be tracked.
Teddy swung his barrel toward Lazuli. “You, creature, get rid of those power packs. Into that bucket.”
Lazuli obeyed the command with considerable reluctance, for with those packs went her chances of contacting the LEP until her own suit regenerated. She tossed them into the partially full paint bucket and imagined she could hear them short-circuiting. They would, she knew, be completely useless now even if she could retrieve them.
Beckett figured that this was an action situation and his turn to shine, so he bent his knees slightly and prepared to jump toward the balcony, but the duke noticed the slight motion and trained the gun on him.
“Please move,” he said to the twin. “I beg you. I haven’t shot anything for hours and a fellow needs to stay in practice.”
Whistle Blower knew instinctively that his human friend was under threat and growled. Lord Teddy recognized that class of a growl; in fact, it was one of his favorite sounds. It was the same growl he’d heard from tigers and leopards just before they sprang, and he wondered absently whether this creature was part feline, but his main focus was getting the troll where he wanted him.
“Hush now, kitty,” he said to Whistle Blower. “I have no wish to kill you, but I can certainly cut you off at the knees.”
Myles was thinking furiously. There must be a way out of this.
But without NANNI in his ears, he could think of nothing that did not involve sacrificing one member of their party. Lord Teddy seemed to pluck this thought out of his mind.
“There really is no need for all this tiresome rigmarole,” said Lord Teddy, lowering his barrel perhaps an inch. “All I want is the troll. Let me have him and the rest of you may go about your business.” Teddy raised the barrel again and the implication was clear: As long as your business does not interfere with mine.
Myles dismissed this as a ruse, for surely the duke must be aware that Lazuli would come after the troll, and the entire world knew where Lord Teddy Bleedham-Drye hung his hat, so he would not exactly be a chore to locate. A shrewd hunter such as the duke would never allow them to simply walk out of here. So what was the point of this bogus offer?
Lazuli was thinking exactly the same thing, but she’d had some training in the arts of conflict and instantly tumbled to the duke’s strategy.
The human is attempting to distract us.
But from what?
She studied the piazza quickly, searching for a secondary or hidden threat. Perhaps there was someone else on the wall, but Lazuli could see nothing overhead.
But what about underfoot?
Lazuli saw that they were all standing on a painter’s tarp, where the package had landed.
All except Whistle Blower.
The bearded human needs us clustered together, thought Lazuli. That’s why he hasn’t already fired his weapon.
She rocked on the balls of her feet and could feel something beneath the tarp. A lattice. A net, perhaps.
A net!
Wouldn’t it be just like a hunter to spread out a net? Every fairy had grown up with horror stories of the People being hunted for sport by humans with spears and nets. And it would seem that some things never changed.
Lazuli turned to communicate her theory to Myles, as the Fowl boy could perhaps turn the information to their advantage, but it was too late—the trap was already in mid-spring.
It happened like this:
The bearded hunter pointed his gun squarely at the growling troll and said, “I don’t think he likes me. Perhaps a flesh wound will quiet him down.”
Beckett called to Whistle Blower in the troll’s own language, possibly something along the lines of: Come here, pal. I’ll protect you.
Whistle Blower squinted a warning at Lord Teddy and then nimbly leaped into his human friend’s arms.
We are all on the tarp now, thought Lazuli.
And then the tarp wrapped up, seemingly of its own accord, and shot like a wriggling missile into the eve-ning sky.
On the balcony, Lord Teddy calmly packed his gear and glanced upward, where the Skyblade hovered, reeling in its cargo.
“But soft,” he could not resist saying, “what light from yonder aircraft breaks?”
The duke laughed softly, then spoke into his Myishi smartphone, which was linked to the Skyblade’s console.
“Is the light green, Sister?” he asked, and Jeronima’s voice replied through the speaker.
“Solid green, Señor Duque,” she said.
“Capital,” said Lord Teddy. “Then the cargo has docked.”
He had transported many creatures with that net and winch in his time. A baby elephant, two black rhinos (which were not as extinct as the WWF believed), and now an assorted bunch of humans and fairies.
Never a dull moment, thought Teddy as he climbed down from the balcony. Sister Jeronima would drop rendezvous at the roof of the Lamberti Tower in ten minutes, so he would need to double-time it over there to climb the more than three hundred and sixty steps to the top and literally walk out onto the Skyblade’s wing.
The duke had no doubt that Sister Jeronima would show up on time. After all, he had shown her the remote destruct button that would blow her out of the sky if she reneged on their partnership.
French Airspace, Seven Thousand Feet
The Myishi Skyblade really was a marvelous flying machine. Myles had to appreciate that even as he ground his teeth in vexation. A vexation that was caused by the near certainty that it was his own vanity that had led to the Regrettables’ second abduction in as many days.
Beckett managed to squeeze his arms through the jumble of bodies and tap his brother’s chin. “Myles,” he said, “no grinding. Do you have your night guard?”
“No, Beck, amazingly I don’t,” snapped Myles, unable to keep a civil tongue in his head. “I neglected to pack my night guard when we were scooped up in a net in front of Juliet’s balcony.”
Beckett’s hand withdrew but returned presently, offering a blob of chewing gum.
“Improvise,” he said with no little pride, and Myles realized that his twin was proud of using a big word that had come from one of Myles’s own sayings.
When surprised, improvise!
A tad puerile, certainly, but Myles had been five when he came up with it. Myles opened his mouth and accepted his brother’s offer even though it was used, or, as Beckett called it, pre-chewed.
While Beckett spread the gum over Myles’s upper teeth, Myles made three mental notes:
The first was to dispose of the gum responsibly, as it was an environmental nightmare consisting of mainly petrol-based polymers.
The second was to push forward with human trials on his own more environmentally responsible chicle gum, similar to that used by the ancient Maya.
And the third: Beckett had probably picked the gum off the piazza wall,
and who knew who had chewed it before his twin.
But Myles swallowed his disgust for now, as the priority was survival. They were only alive at all because of the aforementioned Myishi Skyblade’s design.
Myles wriggled his head backward to take a better look at the flying machine overhead. The undercarriage had a curved indentation that allowed the net to be winched close to the plane. This afforded the occupant of the net—usually a member of an endangered species, Myles imagined—to be sheltered from the slipstream. Obviously, the poacher would want to sell live specimens to whatever zoo he was dealing with. The second lifesaver was an air vent that blew warm air onto the captives and prevented them from freezing. And third, the very strands of the net were slightly heated, to the point where Whistle Blower had fashioned himself a hammock and nodded off, which prompted Myles to think: If this were my airplane, I would squirt a little anesthetic through that vent, just to keep everyone nice and calm.
Perhaps five seconds later, a green mist jetted from the vent and coated the prisoners inside the net. Myles had just enough time to reflect Great minds think alike before his eyes drooped and he joined Whistle Blower in the land of Nod.
Inside the Skyblade’s cockpit, Lord Teddy was wrestling with a moral dilemma. He had given his word to Sister Jeronima that they were partners in this enterprise, and yet now that he had the troll in his possession, he no longer needed the nun’s help. The duke had no issue with lying to people, but once a member of the royal family gave his word, that word was very difficult to wriggle out of. Sometimes it was most inconvenient to be royal, something commoners could never understand.
’Tis a great pity I have the upper hand, he realized. Otherwise the nun might attempt a betrayal, which would free me from my bonds.
And this thought led to an idea.
* * *
Sister Jeronima Gonzalez-Ramos de Zárate of Bilbao was entertaining similar thoughts of betrayal. It was true that the duke had facilitated the containment of the Fowl Twins and their fairy friends, but now she felt that if she returned to ACRONYM with the creatures in tow, she might be able to salvage something of her reputation and her career after the Amsterdam debacle.
Some might think it strange that a nun should be part of such an organization as ACRONYM in the first place, but the truth was that the church had been at the forefront of hunting magical creatures for centuries and had actually lobbied for ACRONYM’s formal incorporation following the Big Dark. In fact, the church had contributed billions of dollars to the organization’s coffers with the stipulation that it be represented at every level. Sister Jeronima was one of three station leaders in ACRONYM, the others being a Mexican bishop and a very old Roman altar boy.
I need to get rid of this English aristócrata, she realized, for of course she knew who the duke was. His face and indeed the hair on his face were internationally famous.
Sister Jeronima’s thoughts were interrupted by a posh chatter and she realized that Lord Teddy was talking to her.
“So, after an exhaustive search, I located this Irish monk,” he was saying as he flew the plane with no apparent discomfort from his relocated shoulder. “And he claimed to be over five hundred years old.”
“¿Es verdad?” said Jeronima, though she was only half paying attention.
“Yes, in fact it turned out to be completely true. I drugged the fellow and he trotted out a rather fantastic story of a troll attack on their monastery on Dalkey Island. Apparently, it was a regular occurrence back then. The troll would bag himself a few monks, and the venom in its tusks would preserve the bodies indefinitely so the beast could feast whenever it chose.”
Jeronima was listening now. No wonder Lord Teddy was interested in the troll if its venom had preservative qualities.
“But this monk, how did he know all of this?”
Teddy checked the feed from the craft’s undercarriage camera to satisfy himself that his cargo was still attached.
“That’s the fascinating part. This monk, Brother Colman, was the victim of such an attack, but thanks to a quite fantastic series of events, his life was not only saved but extended indefinitely.”
Jeronima realized at once that if she were to return to ACRONYM with this troll under her arm, not only would all be forgiven, but she would also be promoted to a prime station—in London, perhaps, or Miami Beach.
“What were these eventos?”
Teddy thought about this for a moment. How to streamline Brother Colman’s ramblings? “Apparently, the troll was in the process of goring Brother Colman when the creature was struck by lightning and tumbled down a well. The lightning must have killed the troll but restarted Brother Colman’s heart. And it hasn’t stopped beating since.”
“Increíble,” said Sister Jeronima.
“I am inclined to agree, Sister,” said Lord Teddy. “Incredible. It may take me a while to re-create these circumstances in laboratory conditions, but I will succeed, have no doubt.”
Jeronima did not doubt that the duke would succeed, if he were granted the opportunity, which she was now certain he should not be.
“But what a wonderful flying machine,” she said, changing the subject. “So many—How do you say it?—gadgets.”
“Yes,” said the duke with some pride. “I have a fellow who does all my vehicles. Ingenious chap.”
“All the modern conveniences,” said Jeronima.
“Honestly, I don’t think I know what half of these buttons are for,” said Lord Teddy, and, had Jeronima been a native English speaker, she might have noticed a sliver of slyness creep into his tone. “This one here envelops us in a smoke screen, and that lever generates white noise, I believe it’s called.” He pointed to a flip switch under a plastic cover. “And this little beauty is an ejector seat should I find myself in jeopardy and the craft is compromised.”
Jeronima did not comment but simply nodded, her face displaying only polite interest.
My chance will come, she told herself.
Jeronima’s chance did come, and sooner than she expected. Some minutes later, the duke took his eyes from the controls to gaze toward the ocean below.
“There she is,” he said. “The English Channel. It was the Armada’s downfall, and the Reich’s. Was there ever a more beautiful sight?”
Sí, thought Jeronima. The sight of a pompous duke being ejected from his own airplane.
And, with two deft movements, she popped the plastic cover and flipped the ejector-seat switch. She barely had time to exclaim “Adiós, idiota” before her own ejector seat was blasted out of the cockpit and into the blue of the afternoon sky. By the time her parachute deployed and she began her slow descent into the duke’s beloved channel, Sister Jeronima realized she had fallen prey to reverse psychology and she began to question her own proficiency as an interrogator.
The interior of the Skyblade was quite chilly at that altitude following Sister Jeronima’s departure, but, with a mere half dozen turns on a hidden handle, Lord Teddy was able to wind up a partition that sealed off the pilot’s side.
“Well done, Teddy old fellow,” he said aloud, delighted at the success of his cunning plan. The nun was undone by her own hand while attempting to stab him in the back.
“An undone nun,” said Teddy, loving the sound of this statement.
Jeronima had gotten her just deserts and the partnership between them was dissolved, all without his having to compromise the Bleedham-Drye name.
It was true he had neglected to mention that the ejector button on the central console was for the copilot’s seat, but in fact he had not specified which seat was connected to that particular button. He had been vague, true. But vagueness was only a mild niggle on the duke’s conscience that would evaporate by day’s end.
Lord Teddy’s phone buzzed and he saw a text from the Myishi Concierge service that read: Your passenger seat has ejected. Do you need assistance? If we do not hear from you in thirty seconds, Myishi Concierge will dispatch a retrieval craft.
&nbs
p; The duke dictated a reply: “Equipment malfunction. All is well. Negative on retrieval. Absolutely do not retrieve the chair. Put it on my bill.”
And he ordered the phone to send.
Whistling a merry tune, Teddy tapped the interactive map on his windshield, which told him that the remaining flight time to St. George was a mere thirty minutes.
Brandy, cigar, an eel bath, and then bed, thought the duke. For tomorrow I experiment.
Sister Jeronima felt in no immediate danger, as her seat swung like a pendulum below the bloom of parachute. In fact, the movement was soothing, and it took the nun a long moment to realize why that should be.
“But of course,” she said, just before splashdown. “Abuela.”
The motion reminded her of the swing in her grandmother’s garden in Bilbao. Little Jeronima had adored her abuela and visited her often, loving especially those moments at day’s end when her grandmother would read her future in the tea leaves.
You’re gonna be a big shot, kid, she had always told her granddaughter. You’re gonna show those guys.
Abuela’s prophecies had never been specific regarding who the “guys” were, or what she was going to show them. But Jeronima thought now, as the toes of her patent leather pumps dipped into the ocean swell, that the guys might be sharks, and what she would show them was how easily she could be digested.
Which might have happened had not the seat’s ejector jets reignited and begun to steer the chair and its surprised passenger toward the nearest Myishi workshop, on Southampton Docks. For it is a universal truth that corporations do not like to simply abandon expensive equipment, and, in spite of their client’s wishes, they will attempt to retrieve any parts that are lost, stolen, or jettisoned for R&R—that being repair and recycling. In this case, the engines had just enough juice to get the nun to the English mainland, traveling at a rate only slightly faster than a child paddling an inflatable dinghy.
