Arthur and Me

by Sarah Todd Taylor

  I snatched at the paper he had tried to tuck inside his shirt. Arthur grabbed at it, but he wasn’t fast enough and I opened the paper and read it aloud.

  ‘I wish I felt more like a King

  I wish that I was brave

  I like to run about and sing

  That’s not how Kings behave.’

  ‘HAH!!!!’

  Behind me, someone laughed out loud. Then more people laughed and shouted things like ‘Rubbish’ and ‘Typical Arthur!’ and ‘What a wuss!!’

  I turned round.

  At the end of the garden there was a group of men dressed in armour. The tallest one had long blond hair down to his shoulders. He was very handsome, but he looked really mean.

  ‘Oh no,’ Arthur said. ‘It’s Lancelot!’

  ‘So this is where you are, Arthur,’ the tall knight said, striding down the garden like he owned the place. ‘Time to go back. You shouldn’t have left without us.’

  ‘Well, when young Tomos said that he needed me I answered his call,’ Arthur said. ‘Naturally I thought my knights would follow…’

  ‘Follow you?’ laughed Lancelot. ‘Why on earth would we follow you?’

  Arthur looked really upset. ‘I am your king,’ he muttered.

  ‘Where’s your crown?’ one of the other knights demanded. He was a short squat one with really dirty hands and a grumpy look on his face.

  ‘Can’t be king without a crown,’ another said. ‘It’s … what’s the word … a bit like sick budgie.’

  Lancelot rolled his eyes. ‘Illegal,’ he muttered.

  The other knight nodded. ‘That’s the blighter!’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t illegal,’ I objected. ‘We’ve got a Queen and she doesn’t wear her crown all the time. It’s kept safe for her in the Tower of London. She’s still Queen.’

  Lancelot glared at me. ‘I don’t think I was talking to you.’

  I shut up. He looked like the ‘hang you by your trousers from a tree branch’ type.

  ‘Anyway, Arthur,’ Lancelot said, running a hand through his hair and looking really bored with this conversation. ‘Now we’ve found you…’

  ‘Yes, how did you do that?’ Arthur asked. ‘Merlin is gone. His magic is no longer here, how did you…’

  Lancelot sighed and drew a piece of paper out of his pocket.

  ‘Your little friend left this in the cave. Once we knew where to look, we just had to follow the sound of utter stupidity and there you were!’

  It was a menu for our local pizza place, the one that does the triple pepperoni with pineapple that I love. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I landed in the cave.

  Lancelot flung it lazily at me.

  ‘You have to come back with us now,’ he said to Arthur.

  For a second I thought that Arthur was going to say no and stand up for himself. He pulled himself upright and looked Lancelot straight in the face. But then his lip trembled and his shoulders slumped down again. He made the tiniest of head movements, one that might, when it grew up, be a nod.

  I couldn’t believe he was letting this overgrown bully boss him around. He was a king! I stepped forwards, reached up and poked Lancelot in the chest.

  ‘I’ve got something to say to you,’ I said, trying to sound braver than I felt.

  He looked down at me and laughed. ‘Oh yes?’ he said, looking around at the other knights with an ‘Ooh, I should be sooooo scared’ look on his stupid face.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘What I want to say is … is … is … blimey, my dad’s home!’

  That wasn’t what I’d meant to say. It was true though. My dad was walking towards the house. There was no way I could explain why I had a dozen knights standing around the garden. I had to hide everyone quickly. But where? I couldn’t get them into the house. Soppy was in there. I couldn’t get them out of the garden without Dad seeing them. That left only…

  ‘Get in here, quick,’ I yelled, pulling open the door of our garden shed.

  The knights stared at me.

  ‘It’s … urm … it’s a magic portal to get you back to the cave!’ I cried. ‘Yes, that’s what it is. Just walk inside and you’ll find yourself in the cave in no time.’

  Lancelot didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Is this true?’ he said to Arthur.

  ‘Well…’ Arthur began.

  Oh pleeeeeeeease hurry up, I thought, Dad will be here any second now.

  ‘He certainly has great magical powers,’ Arthur said. ‘Better than Merlin.’

  That was enough for Lancelot. He waved at the knights to go into the shed and they piled in. I waited till they were all inside and then slammed the door and padlocked it shut. From the inside I could hear muffled cries.

  ‘Hey, why aren’t we at the cave?’

  ‘You’re standing on my ear, Galahad!’

  ‘Where has that wretched child sent us?’

  Hoping that Dad wouldn’t be able to hear them, I went to take the brooms off Mum’s clothes’ horses. I would have to find a way to get rid of the knights, but keep Arthur. Surely I could figure that out.

  From the shed I heard more cries.

  ‘Isn’t it dinner time? I’m hungry.’

  Uh-oh.

  Chapter Eleven

  Knights cannot be kept as pets

  ‘There was an entire chicken in here this morning!’

  Mum was staring inside the fridge. I knew what she was angry about. The chicken had been for lunch with Nain. The problem was I had all these hungry knights to feed. I had to keep them quiet while I figured out what to do about them, and they ate a LOT. When I took them the chicken all they did was complain.

  ‘Just one?’ Galahad had said. ‘We meant one each!’

  Mum knew that I’d taken it. She glared at me, waiting for an explanation.

  ‘Urm, it was…’

  And then I did the most disloyal, traitorous, treacherous thing I have ever done in my entire life.

  I blamed it on Mr Truffles.

  ‘I was just moving it around in the fridge, you know, to fit the milk back in, and Mr Truffles jumped up, grabbed the chicken and ran off with it. Sorry, Mum.’ I tried to look suitably sorry in an ‘it wasn’t my fault, you know what cats are like’ sort of way.

  Mum calmed down a bit.

  I’d have to find a way to make it up to Mr Truffles later.

  I went out to the garden to see how the knights were getting on in the shed. It had been two whole days and so far all they’d done was bicker. Except for Bedevere. He turned out to be very good at crafts and had used my Dad’s tools to fix the shelving and make a few more chairs for them to sit on from old paint cans.

  ‘…and I think that we should just break the door down and find our own way back,’ came a voice from the shed. It sounded like Sir Lancelot. He was always bossing the others around. He and Soppy would make a brilliant pair.

  ‘But Arthur says the boy is a great magician. He could be powerful.’ That was Gawain. I quite liked him. He was the best of the bunch anyway.

  ‘Like Merlin?’

  ‘No, I said a great magician.’ Yup, that was definitely Gawain. He made me laugh.

  All the knights started talking at once.

  ‘You leave Merlin alone. You were always mean to him.’

  ‘To be fair, he was a bit rubbish. If it wasn’t for him and that melon…’

  ‘Well, if you hadn’t annoyed that chicken…’

  I knocked on the door and they all went quiet. Then Lancelot said, ‘Tomos, let us out at once or you will be very sorry.’

  ‘I want to talk to King Arthur,’ I said.

  ‘If you open this door, we’ll push our way out,’ said Bedevere.

  I heard a loud noise like someone being hit over the head and then an ‘Ow’.

  ‘You’re not supposed to tell him the plan, you idiot!’ hissed Lancelot.

  This was a problem. If I opened the door they’d all get out, but if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to talk to Arthur. I r
eally needed him. The joust was tomorrow and I still had no idea what I was doing. I’d tried to practise on my own, but I didn’t have anyone to aim at so I wobbled all over the place and fell off. Arthur must remember something about the way the knights used to do it, even if he was a bit useless himself.

  How on earth was I going to get the door open without all of them rushing out? I remembered that they all believed that I was a great magician. Hmmm, could I use that somehow?

  ‘Sir Lancelot,’ I said in what I hoped was a brave imposing way, lowering my voice so that I would sound a bit older.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Does the child have a cold?’ someone asked.

  I chose to ignore that.

  ‘Sir Lancelot,’ I went on, ‘you will not have been able to use the … um … the portal to return to your cave yet because I lack one element needed for the spell to work. King Arthur must come out here and assist me.’

  I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping they’d believe me. People don’t often believe me. I’m really bad at lying. My face goes bright red and my nose twitches.

  There was a frantic muttering inside the shed. I tried as hard as I could to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t. Eventually Lancelot rapped on the door.

  ‘Are you still there, child?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Answer me this, then. Why shouldn’t we just overpower you and go back to the cave the way we came?’

  Ah! I’d been hoping they wouldn’t ask that. I thought quickly. Mrs Wendell-Jones must have told us something I could use. Something that the knights feared more than anything. A monster? That massive Green Knight that Sir Gawain had been terrified of? Or Palaug’s Cat, the scary beast that Sir Cei had killed? Maybe I could convince them that Mr Truffles was Palaug’s Cat come back to life and then they would stay in the shed in fear for their lives.

  I looked over at Mr Truffles sprawled out on the grass, snoring gently in the sun. Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

  Then I knew.

  I took a deep breath to make my voice sound especially scary and said, ‘I saw Merlin’s chicken in town yesterday.’

  There was a gasp and then more muttering. Part of me couldn’t believe this was going to work. Surely they couldn’t really be scared of a little chicken? I heard Lancelot cough and tap on the door again.

  ‘Child?’ I hated how he called me that. It’s like when Soppy calls me ‘squirt’. Really annoying.

  ‘You can have Arthur,’ Lancelot continued, ‘if you promise to have us out of this hut by sundown.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I promise. Now send forth the noble Arthur, please.’

  I’m sure I heard them sniggering at that. There was a bit of a scuffle as the knights all rearranged themselves to let Arthur squeeze through and then I heard Arthur’s voice.

  ‘You can let me out now, Tomos.’

  As I opened the door of the shed, Arthur tumbled out and fell onto the floor in a heap. Inside the shed the knights were perched on shelves, Dad’s workbench and the paint-can chairs that Bedevere had made.

  ‘Sundown, remember, child,’ Launcelot warned me. ‘You have till sundown.’

  I nodded. That was all the time I needed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Blindfold jelly juggling is probably easier than jousting

  ‘Right,’ I said to Arthur, ‘you know what we have to do now.’

  ‘Run away?’ Arthur suggested.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You are going to help me to joust and you are going to help me now.’

  There was more sniggering inside the shed. I saw Arthur’s shoulders slump.

  ‘And we are going to ignore those idiots in there,’ I finished, walking off to the end of the garden to set up the jousting lane.

  Galahad stuck his head out of the shed window and shouted at me, ‘Hey, boy! I hope you’ve put padding on him. The only thing he knows is how to fall off.’

  He pulled his head back inside and there was loud laughing.

  I kept on walking. I didn’t need to look back at Arthur to know how he must be feeling. I set up the jousting lane and got my bike. Soppy’s bike was in the shed with the knights, hidden at the back. When she found out what had happened to it, I was going to be in big trouble.

  Once I’d got everything ready, I dragged Arthur over and we started to practise.

  I was still useless. I kept falling off into the rose bushes or dropping my noodle-lance, or wobbling in a wonky line and running over Mr Truffles’ tail.

  After an hour I was covered in rose thorn scratches, mud and cat bites.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ I grumbled.

  Arthur sat down on the ground. ‘I don’t think I’ve been much help to you, young Tomos,’ he said, picking at the grass and not looking me in the face. ‘Perhaps I should have gone back to the cave when you suggested it.’

  ‘You must remember something,’ I said. ‘I mean, Mrs Wendell-Jones says that you were this great jouster.’

  ‘You have got to be kidding!’ came a cry from the shed. The knights started sniggering and then laughing louder till it sounded like I had a hundred hyenas trapped in there.

  ‘Arthur, a jouster?’ said another knight. ‘He couldn’t joust his way out of a hessian sack. He used to flee when he saw a mouse in the kitchen. That’s what he was running from when he tripped over the melon.’

  I looked at Arthur. He looked more miserable than ever.

  ‘Is that true?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, Tomos, I became King of the Britons because I ran away from a mouse and tripped over a melon.’

  I stared at him. As the laughter in the shed grew louder and louder, Arthur seemed to shrink towards the ground, his whole body sagging and trembling a little.

  ‘Arthur, are you…’ I stopped myself just in time. No one likes to be asked if they’re crying. Not when they are.

  ‘Brave King Arthur,’ came a mocking voice from the shed, ‘afraid of a little mousekins.’

  Arthur sniffed.

  Right.

  That.

  Was.

  IT.

  !

  I stood up and gave my shoulders a huge ‘I mean business’ shake, like they do in films when they’re about to be super-brave, and marched over to the shed. Galahad and Lancelot were each peering out of a window, laughing their heads off.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Galahad giggled. ‘We’re in trouble now. Look who’s coming to fight Arthur’s battles for him.’

  I stood underneath the window and glared at him.

  ‘Scared of a mouse is he?’ I yelled. ‘Well, how about I go get Merlin’s chicken and we’ll see just how brave some of you are?!’

  Galahad stopped laughing.

  ‘Yeah,’ I jeered. ‘You all think you’re so tough, but look at you. Twelve noble knights giggling like idiots in a shed! How long is it since any of you did anything brave, huh? Arthur came out here even though the dreadful Chicken of Doom could be just round the corner. He’s braver than the lot of you put together. He’s been to school with me. He faced Mrs Wendell-Jones. He’s trying to help me. We might not get very far, but it’s better to try than just to stand by and laugh and be mean and spiteful. Mrs Wendell-Jones told me that Arthur’s knights were brave, fearless, noble, kind and loyal, but you’re not. You’re a bunch of lily-livered cowardly selfish mean idiots. None of you deserve to be called a knight!’

  After I’d said all that, I noticed no one was laughing anymore. Galahad and Lancelot pulled their heads inside the shed and shut the windows tight.

  I took a deep breath. My hands were shaking. I didn’t feel very brave anymore. What if they all burst out of the shed together and attacked me?

  I waited. The shed was silent.

  I heard a sound behind me and turned to look at Arthur.

  He was staring at me with his jaw wide open and his eyes big and round. He looked like my mum and dad look when Soppy gets her exam results.

  ‘That was amazing,’
he said. ‘Tomos, you’re so…’

  ‘Stupid?’ I offered.

  Arthur shook his head.

  ‘I was going to say brave.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  It’s easier with the right stuff

  When I woke up the next morning I remembered that the joust was today and I was nowhere near ready. The entire school was going to be there to see me fall off my bike and make a fool of myself. Worse still, I was going to have to watch Arthur read some of his terrible poetry. In public. This was officially the worst day of my entire life. I pulled the bedclothes over my head and tried to think how I could get out of it.

  ‘Wake up, sleepyhead, it’s a big day,’ shouted Mum from downstairs. ‘And don’t take too long in the bathroom!’

  Fat chance. Every morning Soppy takes over the bathroom and spends forever in there. By the time she’s done, I usually have about five milliseconds before we dash off to school. Then Mum complains that I haven’t brushed my teeth properly. If all my teeth fall out before I am fifteen, I will blame it on my sister and her stupid floral bath bombs.

  I rolled out of bed and went over to the wardrobe to wake Arthur. The door was wide open.

  Arthur was gone.

  He’d left me. On the day of the joust. Maybe he’d run back to the cave to get away from the awful knights.

  He hadn’t said goodbye.

  I couldn’t believe it. My last chance to learn how to joust had just gone. The whole school was going to watch me fall off my bike and get clobbered by Gwion Gruffudd and I was going to get laughed at again.

  Because that’s what I do best. I fail and I get laughed at. So I might as well get it over and done with.

  I got dressed and went over to draw the curtains and that’s when I saw it.

  In the garden.

  A perfect joust lane.

  It wasn’t one of Mum’s brooms wobbling on top of the clothes airers with its bristles sticking out at odd angles. It was a long, straight wooden beam that ran down the middle of the path. At each end there was a long pole with a flag fluttering in the breeze.