The Longest Night of Charlie Noon

by Christopher Edge

  The screeching noise comes again, closer this time, turning my blood to ice.

  I turn towards Dizzy, the worst fears that have lurked in the back of my mind ever since Johnny told us about Old Crony now rushing into the light.

  “What is it?” I ask, unable to keep the rising panic out of my voice.

  But Dizzy just smiles as a brownish blur erupts out of the undergrowth, its wings flapping into the air before it lands in a clumsy flurry on an overhanging branch.

  “It’s just a jay,” Dizzy says, raising his gaze to peer up at the fawn-coloured bird, its black-and-white wings fringed with a dusting of blue.

  From its perch, the jay peers down at me, the pale streaked crest of its head darting from side to side as if showing its disapproval. Then it opens its beak wide with another ear-piercing screech, the sound of this sending a shiver down my spine.

  It’s just a bird.

  My heart’s racing, my legs ache; the sweat that has stuck the shirt to my back now turned to a cold clamminess. I thought that coming here with Dizzy was going to be fun – a chance to solve the mystery in the woods – but it’s turned into a wild goose chase.

  The jay screeches again, a warning call telling us to go away. Maybe that’s what we should do. Maybe it’s time to go home.

  Mum and Dad think I’ve gone to Dizzy’s house for tea, but they’ll be expecting me back soon. Dad will be sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the clock and listening for my key in the lock. The only way I’ll be able to tell what kind of mood he’s in will be to count the number of empty bottles on the table in front of him. And if there’s too many, that’s when the shouting will start.

  Noisily flapping its tail feathers, the jay hops from its perch on to a higher branch, hiding behind a curtain of leaves as it lets out another angry screech. And then from the darkness of the undergrowth, I hear the sound of a twig snapping.

  Still feeling on edge, I peer anxiously into the green twilight that lurks between the trees, but I can’t make out the source of the sound. All I can hear now is the constant rustling of leaves, the same sound that has followed us like footsteps through the woods.

  I’m sick and tired of this stupid place. I’ve had enough of playing spies with Dizzy.

  “Maybe we should head back now,” I say.

  But Dizzy doesn’t answer and, as I turn around, I see him hurrying ahead, his lolloping stride taking him to the spot where the track splits in two.

  “Charlie – over here!” he calls out.

  Hurrying to catch him up, I almost trip over a half-submerged tree root, but manage to stop myself before I fall. As I reach the shade of the tree that stands at the fork in the track, Dizzy is waiting for me.

  “What is it?”

  Unable to hide the excitement on his face, Dizzy points down at the ground.

  “I found this.”

  At the base of the tree, a rough circle has been swept, clearing away the leaves and twigs that litter the ground elsewhere. And in the centre of this rough circle, three sticks have been placed, arranged in the shape of an arrow pointing down the left-hand track.

  Beneath the overhanging branches the air feels stiflingly hot, sweat stinging my eyes as I stare down at the sign. I reach up to wipe my forehead with the back of my sleeve, the thrill of this discovery rubbing out all thoughts of heading home.

  “You were telling the truth,” I say, suddenly realising that I hadn’t really believed Dizzy until now.

  Shucking his school bag from his shoulder, Dizzy crouches down next to the arrangement of sticks. Reaching inside his bag, he pulls out a pencil and his school book, flicking through the pages until he finds a blank page.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as Dizzy starts to draw. A trilling call cascades from the branches above us, but I don’t know why Dizzy has to start bird-watching now. Not now we’ve found what we’ve been searching for.

  But instead of drawing a bird, I see that Dizzy is actually sketching out the sign.

  “If this is a secret code, we’ve got to work out what it means,” he says.

  “I think it’s pretty obvious what it means.” I look down at the arrow on the ground and then straight ahead in the direction that it’s pointing. “It’s telling us which way to go.”

  Under the shafts of sunlight breaking through leaves, the path ahead looks almost golden now. A butterfly flits between these sun-dappled patches, its purple wings shimmering as it settles on a leafy bush before taking to the air again. As my eyes follow its flight, I see another patch of scuffed ground further along the path.

  “Look!”

  This time it’s me that gets there first. I peer down to see three sticks laid out on the ground.

  Unlike the arrow, I can’t really tell which direction this triangle is pointing in. Back the way we came? Or into one of the thickets of bramble that lie on either side of the track? The points of the triangle give us three choices, but how can we tell which is the right one? If someone is leaving us directions, then it looks like they want us to get lost.

  As Dizzy starts to sketch this new sign, I look around, hoping to find another clue. Countless sticks and twigs are scattered across the track, but my gaze snags on a patch of ground where another rough circle has been swept clear, two sticks left in the centre of it. And beyond this I can see yet another arrangement of sticks, lurking in the shade of a nearby tree.

  “There’s more!”

  I hurry over to inspect the first of these new clues, Dizzy trailing in my wake.

  An arrow, a triangle and now what looks like a T-junction. It’s almost like someone’s leaving road signs on the path through the woods.

  “What’s this supposed to mean?” Dizzy asks, frowning as he marks the sign down in his sketchbook.

  “I don’t know,” I reply, mopping the sweat from my forehead again, “but it tells us that we’re on the right track. Come on.”

  The next sign is even closer than the last: three sticks laid out in the shade of a huge oak tree.

  This one looks like a box with a missing lid, but no clue has been left inside to help us solve this secret code.

  Above our heads comes a sudden hushing of leaves, the treetops swaying with a leathery creak. But down here I can’t feel any breeze, the suffocating heat making it difficult for me to put my thoughts in order. It’s as though the air in the woods isn’t working properly, starving my brain of the oxygen I need to work out what this means.

  I look around, scanning the track as I search for more clues, but all I can see is the usual litter of twigs. Beneath the tunnel of leaves, dappled light swirls along the path like reflections on a river, but beyond this, the thick ferns and bushes straggle into shadow. No more clues to be found.

  “This is the last one,” I say.

  Dizzy is crouching down again, adding this final sign to his sketchbook, but as he looks up from the page a frown furrows his brow.

  “These sticks look different to the ones I saw yesterday,” he says, his lips pursed as if trying to work something out. “Those sticks had their bark stripped clean away – leaving them all smooth and white – but these just look like ordinary sticks.”

  I shrug my shoulders.

  “Maybe the spy was in a hurry this time.”

  Dizzy looks doubtful.

  “What if it’s not a spy?”

  “What do you mean?” I say as fresh beads of sweat run down my face. “That’s who you said it was.”

  A frown still creases Dizzy’s forehead as he rises to his feet. He hoicks his bag back on to his shoulder, the book still open in his hand.

  “I only said that’s who I thought it might be, but what if Johnny’s right? What if it’s Old Crony?”

  Above our heads, another rustling sound hushes through the leaves. I glance anxiously towards the trunk of the ancient tree, the rough bark cracked and marked with wart-like burrs. In the shadows cast by the swaying leaves it almost looks like the face of a scary old man.

  Despite the h
eat, I shiver, then force out a laugh to disguise my involuntary shudder.

  “Johnny was just making that up,” I say, looking around to reassure myself. “There’s no crazy old man who lives in the woods. Old Crony doesn’t exist.”

  I hold out my hand for Dizzy’s book, eager to change the subject.

  “Let me have a look.”

  Dizzy hands the book over and I look down at his sketches of the sticks that we’ve found.

  “What do you think it means, Charlie?”

  I frown, trying to make sense of the strange symbols on the page. In Dad’s spy novels, the hero is usually able to crack a secret code by finding a codebook or discovering a key that unlocks the mystery. This might be a special word or phrase that suddenly makes sense of everything. In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Hannay – the hero – discovers a black book that belonged to a murdered man, filled with what looks like random numbers. But each number corresponds to a letter of the alphabet and by using a key word to decipher this code, Hannay uncovers the secret of the Black Stone, a deadly group of spies plotting to steal the plans for war.

  Sweat rolls down my face, the shade here at the foot of the tree providing little relief from the sweltering heat. My head aches as I stare at the meaningless patterns on the page. I don’t have a codebook and thinking about black stones isn’t going to help me solve the mystery of these sticks.

  As I shake my head, tiny beads of sweat drip into my eyes with a sudden stinging sensation. My vision blurs but, as I blink, something shifts in my brain, the blurred image turning the shapes that the sticks have made into letters in my mind.

  I point to the first of Dizzy’s sketches.

  “What if this isn’t an arrow, but the letter ‘E’ instead?” I move my finger along the page. “And this triangle of sticks could be an ‘A’. That would make this a ‘T’ and these sticks at the end might be in the shape of the letter ‘U’.”

  I look up at Dizzy, my eyes shining with excitement.

  “Maybe it’s not a code after all. Maybe whoever has left these sticks has written their message in plain English.”

  Dizzy looks confused.

  “But that doesn’t spell anything.”

  For a second my heart sinks, thinking I must have made a mistake. I look down at the page again, trying to work out how I’ve got this wrong.

  “E – A – T – U,” I say, the sound of the letters turning to words as I speak them out loud. “Eat you.”

  I look at Dizzy, his face filling with horror as we both realise what this means.

  And that’s when the monster bursts out of the trees.

  The monster is shrouded in blood-stained rags, its arms outstretched as it lets loose an ear-splitting howl.

  Above our heads, the treetops shake as birds flee their perches, ricocheting off the branches in terror as the monster howls again.

  The same terror roots me to the spot. I stand frozen, staring in horror at this shambling nightmare made real.

  Johnny Baines was telling the truth.

  This is Old Crony.

  He’s come to get us.

  I turn towards Dizzy, his mouth opening wide as he screams a single word.

  “Run!”

  Old Crony stands between us and the way we came. No way past his flailing arms and if we stay on the path, we’re easy prey. With a split second to decide, there’s only one way to go.

  Spinning on my heels, I turn and run into the trees.

  Ducking beneath the branches, I crash through the undergrowth, my heart thudding in my chest as I plunge into this shadowy world. Tangles of brambles appear out of the gloom, making me swerve as I dive between these clumps of shrubbery. My shoes slide into a swathe of wildflowers, their nodding heads obliterated beneath my pell-mell feet as I blunder wildly on. In the dim green twilight, the woods seem to stretch on forever.

  Behind me, I hear the sound of someone else crashing through the undergrowth, but don’t dare glance back to see if this is Dizzy following my trail. Then the sound of a triumphant howl, even closer now, gives me the answer I dreaded.

  Old Crony’s coming to get me.

  My chest heaves as I hurdle a fallen tree trunk, my shoes almost slipping on the furry moss that carpets the ground. I take a sharp turn, dodging between a brake of trees, hoping that their maze of twisting branches will shield me from the monster’s sight.

  I can’t hear the sound of birds any more, just the whiplash crack of snapping branches as I thrash my way through the thicket. Thorns tear at my hands as I claw my way deeper into the woods. I can feel my blood, drumming wildly in my ears; each breath coming in a juddering gasp.

  Breaking free of the thicket, I glimpse a flash of red beneath my feet, then cry out in alarm as I realise it’s a fox, half buried beneath the leaves. But the fox doesn’t bolt at my cry and, as a cloud of buzzing flies rises from its mouldering fur, I quickly realise why. Beneath its shroud of leaves, the dead fox’s sightless eyes stare into mine as if warning me that I’m next.

  I stumble on, the sharp pain of a stitch stabbing at my side. Behind me I hear the sound of more branches breaking, a fusillade of cracks that tells me that the monster is closing in. Fear rising in my throat, I glance back to see Old Crony emerging from the trees.

  I can’t breathe. He’s so close now. Close enough for me to see the faded blood stains on the rags that are wrapped around him like a shroud. Inside my head I hear Johnny Baines say, Old Crony eats children, you know.

  I didn’t believe him then. I do now.

  “Dizzy!” I shout, desperate for help, but the only sound I hear in reply is another whooping howl from this shambling creature that’s hunted me down.

  My heart hammers in my throat. I should’ve stayed on the path. This is Old Crony’s territory. And I’m for the pot.

  Old Crony reaches for me, his grubby fingers emerging from the folds of his blood-stained robes.

  Twisting away to evade his grasp, I turn to flee. Beneath the smothering roof of leaves I feel as though I’m drowning in an ocean of green, snatching one last gasping breath before Old Crony drags me under. I kick, trying to outrun this monster on my trail, but instead trip over a fallen branch, my foot snagged by its tangle of ivy.

  I pitch forward, my hands clawing at thin air as I fall. For a moment, time seems to expand; a split second stretching out as the ground rises to meet me. Beneath the leaf mould I catch a glimpse of grey stone and I know this is going to hurt. Twisting my head, I’m caught in a stray beam of sunlight as I hear the sound of a voice calling out my name.

  “Charlie!”

  Then a sharp pain blooms in the side of my head and the lights go out.

  “Charlie.”

  The voice seems to be coming from a long way away.

  “Charlie – are you OK?”

  There’s a brightness filling my vision, squiggled lines of red and black traced against this pinkish glare.

  It hurts. The pain a blinding sharpness that seems to fill my brain, but as I open my eyes, it feels sharpest at the side of my head.

  Dizzy’s face swims into view, framed by a halo of leaves. Sweat shines from his skin, his dark-brown eyes wide with worry.

  “Take it easy,” he says as I try to sit up. “You fell over and knocked yourself out.”

  Then a second face appears at Dizzy’s shoulder, this one swathed in tattered, blood-stained rags.

  Old Crony.

  I shout out in alarm, my head spinning as I scramble backwards in fear.

  But then Old Crony reaches up to pull these rags away and I see instead Johnny Baines’s pink, sweaty face staring back at me.

  “It was you!” I shout, this sudden realisation unleashing a surge of anger deep inside me. “Not Old Crony!”

  For a second I forget about the pain that’s pounding in my brain as I stagger to my feet. I launch myself at Johnny, ready to punch his lights out. But before I can even reach him, the trees begin to spin as a fresh firework of pain explodes behind my eyes.

&nb
sp; I feel myself pitching forward again, but this time Dizzy catches me before I fall.

  “You’re bleeding,” he says, helping me into a sitting position with my back resting against an upturned tree stump.

  I reach my hand up to my head, to the place where the firework pain feels brightest, and feel the wetness there. It’s getting dark now inside the woods, but when I look down at my fingers the sticky redness there seems even darker. This isn’t sweat – it’s blood.

  “Help me,” Dizzy says, glancing back at Johnny, who’s still standing there open-mouthed.

  Dizzy’s words seem to jolt Johnny out of his trance. Shucking off the rags he’s still got wrapped around him, he grudgingly tears a strip from these.

  “You can use this as a bandage,” he says, holding out the grubby piece of material.

  As Dizzy reaches out to take it, I shake my head even though this makes the trees start spinning again.

  “You can’t use that,” I protest, even as my vision runs red.

  “We don’t have anything else,” Dizzy says, looking really worried now as the blood drips into my eyes. “Hold still.”

  I don’t have any choice except to do what he says, trying not to faint as Dizzy first cleans the wound with his handkerchief before wrapping the bandage round. The pressure of this makes my head pound even harder, but as Dizzy binds the ends of the bandage together, I realise that it seems to have stopped the bleeding.

  That’ll have to do for now,” Dizzy says as he takes a step back. “But you’ll need to get your mum to put some Germolene on when you get home.”

  Johnny’s still standing there, watching me, the corners of his mouth curling into a smile.

  “What’s so funny?” I snap, struggling to keep a lid on my anger as my head pounds.

  “You should’ve seen your face,” Johnny smirks, glancing down at the blood-stained rags now dumped in a bundle at his feet. “My dad uses these to keep the floor clean when he’s butchering animals for the shop, but they had you fooled I was Old Crony, didn’t they?”