Frankie Fish and the Great Wall of Chaos

by Peter Helliar

  As the last of the prisoners shuffled past, Frankie’s heart sank. ‘Great,’ he muttered. ‘Another dead end.’

  But Ping shook her head, her cheeks pale but her eyes bright. ‘Don’t give up, Frankie. Not all the prisoners are taken on the parade.’ She raised her eyebrows meaningfully at Frankie and Drew. ‘And if these dragons came from the Emperor’s prison …’

  Suddenly, Frankie caught her drift. ‘… they will eventually return to the Emperor’s prison!’ he finished.

  ‘Exactly. So let’s follow them back.’

  Frankie could tell Ping was in pain, but she started walking determinedly after the retreating dragons. She is the toughest kid I’ve ever met, thought Frankie as he, Drew and Mei Mei hurried along behind her.

  The group tailed the dragon down the road, dashing from stall to stall to avoid being seen. But the crowd had started to thin.

  Ping glanced at Frankie and Drew worriedly. ‘I think people are starting to notice you,’ she whispered.

  Frankie knew she was probably right. There was only so much a silk dressing gown could hide. He really hoped they reached their destination soon!

  ‘Look!’ Drew half-whispered, half-shouted, pointing. Ahead of them was a huge building that appeared to have two enormous roofs stacked on top of each other and a giant red wall surrounding it. ‘What is it with the Chinese and walls?’ he added.

  An expression of excitement mixed with dread washed over Ping’s face. ‘It’s the Forbidden City,’ she murmured.

  ‘China has an entire Forbidden City?’ exclaimed Frankie. ‘And I thought Grandad having a Forbidden Shed was impressive.’

  ‘The Forbidden City is very well-protected,’ said Ping seriously. ‘If the Emperor does have a Secret Prison, it’s probably in there.’

  Frankie groaned. ‘If the Emperor rules his Forbidden City the way Grandad rules his Forbidden Shed, then getting in there WON’T be easy!’

  But then Frankie had an idea. His class had been learning about Ancient Greece and although he hadn’t paid attention to everything, one part had stuck in his mind. He explained it to Ping and Drew as best as he could. ‘The Greeks couldn’t beat this bloke named Troy and his army,’ he told them, ‘so they built a huge wooden horse and left it outside Troy’s place and then pretended to sail away.’

  ‘So … you want us to build a wooden horse and leave?’ Ping asked, confused.

  Frankie shook his head. ‘Just listen! Eventually Troy and his mates went and brought the horse inside, all the way into Troy’s castle …’

  ‘Probably thought it was hard-rubbish night,’ Drew guessed (incorrectly).

  ‘What Troy didn’t realise,’ said Frankie, ignoring Drew, ‘was that there were men hiding inside the horse. In the dead of the night, they slipped out and opened the gates for their soldiers, who had returned. And that’s how Troy was defeated.’

  ‘We don’t have a wooden horse,’ Ping pointed out.

  ‘But we do have a couple of dragons,’ Frankie said, with a very Drew-like twinkle in his eye.

  Back home, Frankie had sneaked into the kitchen plenty of times for late-night snacks, but he had NEVER sneaked through the backside of a dragon before. Even so, his plan was simple enough. Ping and Mei Mei would sneak under the yellow dragon’s bum, and Frankie and Drew would go under the red dragon’s. Once they were inside the Forbidden City, they’d find each other again, and then hunt down Frankie’s grandparents. He’d just have to hope like mad he wasn’t too late to rescue them …

  ‘Good luck!’ Ping hissed, and darted into the crowd.

  ‘I hope the dragon doesn’t fart,’ Drew muttered to Frankie as they hurried after the red dragon.

  ‘Or worse,’ Frankie muttered back.

  As the red dragon twerked and gyrated its way through the city, Frankie and Drew crept steadily closer. They pretended to join in the festivities by clapping their hands and cheering the dragon.

  The dragon was now approaching the gates to the Forbidden City. It was now or never for the boys.

  ‘On the count of three, follow me,’ Frankie hissed, and Drew nodded.

  Frankie felt like there were a thousand butterflies breakdancing inside his stomach. As excited as he was about his Trojan Dragon plan, he knew that if they were caught, the punishment would probably be DEATH.

  ‘One … two … three,’ Frankie mouthed and the two boys disappeared up the red dragon’s bottom. It was crowded under the fabric. Frankie was so busy trying not to drop the Sonic Suitcase or bump into a stranger that he couldn’t even glimpse the yellow dragon nearby. He just had to hope Ping was safely underneath it.

  The red dragon continued to dance down the road, frequently circling round the group of prisoners. For Frankie and Drew, it was a bit like being at the end of a conga line with a sheet over everyone’s head. They couldn’t see where they were going; they just did their best to keep up.

  Finally, the drumbeat ceased and the dragon came to a stop. Drew crashed into Frankie.

  ‘Ow!’ Frankie growled.

  ‘Sorry,’ Drew whispered back.

  Frankie’s heart beat faster as he heard the sound of heavy gates opening. Were they going into the Forbidden City?

  Clutching the Sonic Suitcase tighter than a hungry tiger holding a hot dog, Frankie studied the ground beneath his feet – which appeared to be paved with bricks – for possible ideas as to their next move.

  A firecracker exploded near Drew’s foot. He yelped in surprise.

  ‘Ssssh,’ hushed Frankie.

  The red dragon began to move again. They were going in!

  A few moments later, there was the creaking of wood and the rattling of locks. Finally there was a gigantic thud.

  The sound of voices grew louder and closer. The drumbeat picked up and the firecrackers drew cheers from the gathering crowd. Frankie heard the rattle of chains as the shackled prisoners were led back to their cells.

  Frankie felt his heart race as fast as the lead car at a Grand Prix. The puppeteers were beginning to de-dragon themselves! The boys wouldn’t stay hidden for much longer.

  Frankie swallowed nervously. He was still holding the Sonic Suitcase. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with this?’ he muttered. (He’d just remembered that swearing is one of the many perks of parent-free time-travel!)

  ‘Do something!’ urged Drew, who was starting to panic. ‘If they see it, they’ll take it!’

  The dragon’s cloth skin was being rapidly peeled away.

  Frankie felt the panic rising. And then, just as the cloth above him was pulled away, Frankie whipped the Sonic Suitcase up under his silk dressing gown.

  Drew turned back and stared at him in amazement. ‘Where did you hide it?’

  Frankie grinned and shrugged. ‘Didn’t know I was a magician, did you?’

  Gripping the suitcase tightly between his legs, he looked around and saw they were in some kind of large, elegant courtyard. Frankie peered hopefully down the row of figures who’d just appeared from under the dragon. Maybe, somehow, his grandparents were among the group? But there was still no sign of them.

  Next it was the yellow dragon’s turn to be skinned, but there were no Fishes underneath. To make matters worse, there was no Ping or Mei Mei, either! Frankie felt the knot in his stomach tighten.

  Where could their friends have gone? Had they been caught? Had Ping’s tummy ache gotten so bad that she’d collapsed somewhere along the road?

  Frankie was so worried about Ping that he didn’t notice a man striding towards him and Drew until he was nearly on top of them.

  The man had a stern expression, an enormous sword and a large purple scar running across his cheek. Everything about him suggested guard.

  ‘Nām,’ bellowed the imposingly scary (and scarry) man.

  Frankie guessed (correctly) that nām was Chinese for ‘name’. ‘Frankie Fish,’ he mumbled, his eyes firmly fixed on his possibly soon-to-be-shackled feet.

  The guard gasped. He stepped closer and this time
he spoke in halting English. ‘What did you say?’

  Frankie glanced up, but before he could repeat himself, he saw what was hanging off the guard’s right arm.

  A shiny hook. A shiny and very familiar hook.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Drew under his breath. ‘What are the chances of both this guy AND your grandad having a hook for a hand?’

  Frankie knew there was a better chance of one of the Mosley triplets winning the Nobel Peace Prize than encountering TWO people with hooks for right hands. The clincher was when he spotted something inscribed on the hook’s handle:

  A HELPING HAND FOR MY DARLING ALFIE.

  LOVE, MAVIS

  Frankie felt the blood drain from his face. If this man has Grandad’s hook, that means … He could barely finish the thought.

  That means Grandad doesn’t have it anymore.

  The man was still waiting for an answer. He stared at Frankie intently.

  Gulp.

  ‘I said … my name is Frankie Fish.’ Frankie’s voiced cracked a little and he wasn’t sure if it was nerves or badly timed puberty.

  The Guard With The Scar looked at Frankie with a mixture of confusion and wonder. He yelled something in Chinese and suddenly every other guard and puppeteer scattered across the courtyard, disappearing behind doors and through gates.

  Then the guard held his hook inches from the innocent-looking faces of Frankie and Drew, and directed them through another gate that was partially hidden behind a tree.

  Frankie, still clutching the Sonic Suitcase between his thighs, began shuffling along. Right then, there were three things he desperately hoped. The first was that he didn’t lose his grip on the suitcase. The second was that Ping and Mei Mei were OK. And the third was that the Guard With The Scar was not about to use Grandad’s hook to slice and dice the two recently busted time-travellers.

  Frankie was really, REALLY worried about the third thing … because the guard had just led them down into what looked like a dark and smelly dungeon.

  Way into the future, Constable Dougal was taking down the details of Miss McGovern’s thirty-seventh complaint about her neighbour Mr Finch’s cat, Maisie. Apparently Maisie had been taking particular delight in peeing in Miss McGovern’s veggie patch.

  ‘I can taste it in my spinach!’ cried Miss McGovern.

  Constable Dougal was crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s on the report (which was exactly the same as the past thirty-six reports about Miss McGovern’s grievances with Mr Finch’s cat, because it turns out it’s hard for police to take action against a cat relieving itself) when two identical women with huge hair and fluorescent dresses – yellow and orange respectively – barged in and starting screaming in unison.

  ‘We need to report a trouble-making, information-withholding rabble-rouser!’ yelled Christine, pushing poor Miss McGovern aside.

  ‘A theft,’ corrected Carmel, attempting to appear calmer than her sister. ‘We need to report a theft that is still in progress.’

  ‘What has been stolen, exactly?’ asked a wary yet duty-bound Constable Dougal. Privately, she suspected that if these women were missing anything it might be their marbles.

  ‘Let’s call them family treasures, shall we?’ replied Carmel, her Texan drawl now cranked up full-bore.

  ‘We know who is responsible and where he is right now!’ screamed Christine.

  ‘OK, give me the name,’ said the constable, picking up her pen.

  ‘Frankie Fish,’ the sisters replied in unison.

  Maybe it was because she was intrigued by these two strange out-of-towners, or perhaps she was tired of hearing about peeing cats, but Constable Dougal stood up. ‘I’ll get my car keys,’ she said briskly. ‘Lead the way!’

  Carmel and Christine beamed triumphantly at each other. Maybe now they’d be able to get into that shed – and to the bottom of this mystery.

  It’s hard to walk down stairs when you have a time-travelling suitcase between your legs, and it’s even harder when said legs are trembling in fear like two bags full of jelly. As Frankie struggled downwards, the daylight gradually faded away, replaced by the flickering glow of torches attached to the walls.

  Frankie’s mum often talked about how romantic candlelight was, but there was NOTHING romantic about this. His face was sweating and his thighs were on fire from the effort of gripping the suitcase.

  ‘Don’t drop it,’ whispered Drew, who’d finally figured out where the suitcase was hidden.

  A terrible stench wafted up the stairs. It was a cross between sweaty armpit and Old Man Harris’s after-lunch breath (the former St Monica’s groundskeeper’s favourite lunch being pickled herring on rye). The smell made Frankie feel worse than ever. He and his best mate were in olden-days China being led somewhere by a maniac who had possibly already murdered Grandad and Nanna. Meanwhile, a time-machine was chafing his legs so badly it could start a fire.

  As the Guard With The Scar led them past a row of dank prison cells, Frankie peered around, searching for a glimpse of his grandparents – but with no luck.

  Tears welled in Frankie’s eyes, and he genuinely couldn’t tell if it was because the mission was doomed, or if it was because his legs were so hot he could grill a steak on them. He wished he could just sling the suitcase over his back the way Drew was carrying his backpack.

  The Guard With The Scar kept glancing over his shoulder and yelling things in Chinese, almost like he was talking to someone in another block of cells. The volume was so intense it would’ve scared even the Mosley triplets (maybe not all three, but definitely one of them … though you’d never know which one).

  Of course, Frankie and Drew had no idea what he was saying and weren’t sure if he was even talking to them, so they just started throwing out random words they associated with China.

  ‘Chopsticks!’

  ‘Rice!’

  ‘Great Wall!’

  ‘Ping!’

  ‘Mei Mei!’

  ‘Surprisingly good tofu noodle soup served by a monk!’

  Of course this was no help at all, but when you’re as frightened as Frankie and Drew were, your brain doesn’t always co-operate.

  The Guard With The Scar led the boys further down the gloomy passage and then stopped in front of one of the darkest, scariest, stinkiest cells imaginable. He pushed Drew into it, then herded Frankie further along the passage and shoved him into an even darker, scarier and stinkier cell. And then, as he locked the rusty gate of Frankie’s new home, the guard muttered in English, ‘Good luck, Fish,’ before walking away with a chuckle.

  The moment the guard was out of sight, Frankie collapsed on the floor, relishing the sweet relief of letting the suitcase drop – carefully – from between his knees. It was like drinking ice-cold lemonade after helping his dad dig holes all day at the St Monica’s Working Bee.

  But his happiness soon faded. There was no escaping the fact that his plan had backfired spectacularly. This made the School Assembly Marriage Proposal Banner incident seem tiny. Not only had Frankie failed to rescue his grandparents, he’d also dragged his best friend into a terrible mess, not to mention Ping and her completely innocent dog, Mei Mei. And then he’d gone and lost them all.

  Gulp.

  Don’t cry, Frankie, he told himself sternly. Do NOT cry.

  He settled for sitting silently in the dark, and allowed himself one very small sniffle.

  Then he heard a scratching noise along the floor. Frankie leapt to his feet, because the last thing he needed right now was a great, dirty rat running up his leg, biting his face and turning him into a rat-zombie. (Frankie had clearly only listened to half of Lisa Chadwick’s oral presentation during history class on the Bubonic Plague.)

  The scratching intensified, and Frankie was so scared he couldn’t even speak. He braced himself for the rat-zombie to start gnawing at his face. And then he glimpsed something: a little spark of light on the floor.

  Frankie frowned. Was someone else in the cell? Someone with a crappy firecracker
in their possession? (Remember: time-travel swearing is the best!)

  There was another scratch, and this time it resulted in a small flame. A match! thought Frankie, watching in amazement and terror as the small flame started floating towards him.

  ‘Please don’t eat me!’ Frankie pleaded, as he waited to become the first victim in the rat-zombie apocalypse (probably).

  From out of the gloom came a familiar voice. ‘Oh, my dear Frankie. The only thing I’m going to do is give you a big kiss!’

  Heart beating with hope, Frankie leaned towards the match and saw the beautiful (if slightly dirty), beaming face of Nanna Fish.

  The match fell to the floor as Frankie hugged her harder than he ever had before.

  The ninja knots inside Frankie’s tummy loosened just a little. He’d started to think he would never see Nanna Fish again. Never have her spoil him with chocolate and ice-cream and her famous blueberry pancakes. Never hear her insist that he was the smartest boy in the world (even though Frankie’s report cards begged to differ). Never get another smothering Nanna-hug ever again.

  So even though being locked in a dark, stinky, probably rat-zombie-infested cell hundreds of years in the past was not exactly ideal, at that moment there was nowhere else in the world Frankie wanted to be.

  ‘Is Grandad in here too?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Oh no, dear,’ Nanna said, her smile fading. ‘I haven’t seen him in a long while.’

  And with that, the match on the ground went out and Frankie found himself once again in darkness.

  Ah, rats.

  Frankie dragged one of Nanna’s matches along the hard ground and finally – on his seventh attempt – it burst alight.

  ‘So, where is Grandad?’ Frankie asked Nanna urgently.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ sighed Nanna Fish. ‘I think he might be down the other end of the corridor – sometimes I can hear him swearing. Who knows why they separated us, honestly. I told them we were married and that we wouldn’t fool around –’