The Adventures of Alfie Onion

by Vivian French

  “Pie pie pie!” he said.

  “Oh, Bowser…” Alfie shook a warning finger at the dog. “That belongs to Maggers. I can’t eat it.”

  “No you jolly well can’t!” Magnifico was purple with rage. “That’s MY pie!” He snatched it back, glanced at it, then hurled it into the thickest gorse bush. “Yuck! It’s got doggy tooth marks on it!”

  “I’d have eaten it,” Alfie said wistfully. “I don’t mind Bowser’s tooth marks.”

  “But it’s MINE!” The hero put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. “It’s ME who’s the seventh son of the seventh son! Ma cooked those pies for me, not you!” He marched to the edge of the hollow, gathered the remaining picnic baskets together, piled them up, and sat on them.

  Adeline shook her head. “Temper temper! Be careful you don’t give yourself hiccups.”

  Alfie tried his best not to laugh, but his face gave him away. Magnifico thumped the top of a box of sandwiches. “Stop laughing! I don’t like it. You know I don’t, Alfie!” There was now a plaintive note in his voice, and he pouted as he helped himself to another ham pie.

  “If you don’t wish to be laughed at, young man,” Adeline said, “don’t behave like a potato pudding. If you have even a scrap of generosity, you’ll give your brother something to eat.” She turned her back and began to crop the grass.

  “Well said said said!” Bowser waved a paw.

  Magnifico studied the half-eaten pie in his hand. “You can have some, Alfie.” He broke off a piece of crust and held it out. “Here.” And he gave Adeline a triumphant glare.

  “I’m overwhelmed,” Adeline told him. “You’ve taken my breath away.”

  “Actually,” Alfie said, “I think I’ll eat my cheese sandwich, but thank you very much. Bowser, you and Penelope can share the crust. Oh, and Norman too.” He sat down, and broke the pie crust into three pieces. “Here you—”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” Magnifico’s scream was piercing. He was pointing at the forest, and his face was green with terror. “Look! The trees! They’re moving … they’re coming to get us!”

  He was right. The trees were moving. Slowly but steadily, the moonlit forest was getting nearer and nearer. Penelope squeaked, Bowser gave an astonished “YIP!!!” and Adeline whinnied her amazement.

  “Wow!” breathed Alfie. “WOW!”

  “I want to go home!” Magnifico’s teeth were chattering with fright. “I don’t want to be a hero. I really, really don’t. Please, Alfie … please! Tell this mangy old nag to turn round, and let’s run away very, very, very fast!”

  Adeline snorted indignantly. “Excuse ME, young fellow. We had an agreement, if you remember. No personal remarks!”

  “Oh, who cares!” The hero had tears of terror and frustration running down his cheeks. “You ARE a mangy old nag and I want to go home! I want to go right now this minute! Alfie, take me home NOW!”

  Alfie didn’t answer. He was gradually realising that it wasn’t the forest that was moving. It was a line of trees and bushes unlike any trees and bushes he had ever seen before. They had feet: large hairy feet. And each pair of feet had twelve toes.

  Chapter Ten

  “WOOOOEEEEE,” Alfie breathed. “Look at that!”

  “Nooooooooo…” the hero moaned. “Nooooooo…”

  A particularly large bush quivered. The feet stopped moving, the branches dropped, and a hairy figure appeared, a magpie on each shoulder.

  “H’mph!” Adeline blew gustily into Alfie’s ear. “Spies! I knew those birds were up to no good.”

  The troll stepped forward. “Greetings to the humbly bodies,” he said in a deep growly voice. “I is Rootlie Toot, headly troll of trolls. Black white birdies tells me that hero has come.”

  Kev looked at Alfie. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Now, I have a little proposition for you—”

  Rootlie Toot interrupted. “I is jibber jabbering to humbly bodies, not you!”

  “What?” Kev was taken aback. “Beg pardon, I’m sure, but I need to explain—”

  He was interrupted again. “Birdie! You is too much word speaking!”

  “That’s trolls for you,” Penelope whispered. “They’re very pig-headed. Like the sound of their own voices. Just as a matter of interest, darling, it’s an amazing honour to meet Rootlie Toot!”

  Alfie nodded and asked, “What did he say just then? I didn’t catch it…”

  “Actually, dear heart,” Penelope said, “he’s asking if the hero will step forward and say a few words.”

  “Oh dear.” Alfie glanced at his brother. Magnifico was slumped over his picnic baskets, his hands over his eyes, doing his best to pretend he wasn’t there.

  “Where is hero?” Rootlie Toot demanded, and as he spoke the rest of the trees and bushes and shrubs dropped their disguise and emerged as a line of short squat trolls, some with two eyes, some with three. All of them had thick matted hair like their leader, and many had long bristly beards. “Headly troll is waiting!” Rootlie Toot stamped his foot.

  “Um…” Alfie looked wildly round for help.

  “Hat, dear boy!” Adeline hissed. “Take the hat! Pretend to be the hero!”

  There didn’t seem to be any other choice. Alfie snatched the hat from Magnifico’s unresisting head and put it on. Then, with as much of a swagger as he could manage, he stepped forward. “The hero, Magnifico Onion, seventh son of a seventh son, greets you!” He bowed low and Rootlie Toot bowed back, Kev and Perce doing their best to keep their balance.

  “Good wordy speak, hero. Seventh son of seventh son is magic humbly body. So will magic humbly body tricksie nasty ogre peoples out of forest?”

  Alfie caught the eye of the sleeker magpie, and was astonished to see the bird wink, then nod. What are those magpies up to? he wondered.

  Rootlie Toot was getting impatient. “Where is word, hero?” Alfie swallowed. “Erm … Magnifico Onion wishes to do … erm … all he can to help.” He paused. Rootlie Toot was not looking impressed. Oh well, Alfie thought. I might as well go for it. He took a deep breath. “Yes indeed, Your – Your Trolliness. The seventh son of the seventh son will get rid of the ogres. He’ll get rid of the ogres, and find the princess, and … and win so much gold that he can live in Glorious Luxury for ever and ever!”

  “Awk! Got it in one, laddie!” Kev began a victory dance on the troll’s shoulder. The troll brushed him off and moved nearer to Alfie.

  “So! Humbly bodies like gold and princesseries. Us trollsies like peacefulness and musherooms. Trollsies don’t like nasty stampy ogres flatting musherooms and making noise when trollsies want to shutty star peepers.”

  Alfie looked blank.

  “Sleep, darling,” Penelope whispered.

  The leader of the trolls bowed again. “Us trollsies will help magic humbly body. Tell us what tricksies you are having in your thinking box to shoo stampy ogres far, far away. Tell us now!” And to Alfie’s horror he stood back, hands on hips, and waited for an explanation and a plan.

  Alfie’s heart was beating so wildly that he could hardly breathe. What should he say? How could he possibly think of any tricks to get rid of the ogres? “Well …” he began, “first of all—”

  “Alfie…” It was Magnifico. He had finally dared to peek between his fingers. “ALFIE! Why are you talking to those horrible creatures?”

  Rootlie Toot swung round, scowling. “What humbly body is him?”

  “That’s my brother,” Alfie began, but terror had made Magnifico hysterical. He heaved himself up to his full height, his face scarlet and his eyes popping.

  “Go away, you revolting things! Go away, I tell you! Get back to your forest – get back to your oozy woozy swamps and leave us alone! You’re ugly and disgusting and—”

  “Stop it! Maggers, be quiet!” Alfie yelled, and Adeline threw up her head and rushed at the hero. Grabbing the back of his cloak in her teeth she hurled him into a hazel thicket … but the damage was done. The trolls were growling and muttering to each o
ther, and Rootlie Toot was scowling darkly.

  “You is magic hero,” he told Alfie, “but brother is badness. BAD badness. Trollsies no help you until badness brother is all gone. Bah!” And with an angry stamp of his foot he marched away.

  His band of trolls followed him, but several turned to glare before they went, and a small scrawny troll on the end of the line shook a threatening fist at the space where Magnifico had been. “Us is no ugly! YOU is ugly, humbly body! And you is totally mouldy in your thinking box! So yah!”

  Chapter Eleven

  THERE WAS A TERRIBLE SILENCE after the trolls had gone. There was even silence from the hazel thicket.

  “He’s ruined everything.” Alfie was the first to speak. He was almost crying with frustration. “Those trolls were going to help us, and Magnifico went and wrecked it! What are we going to do? How am I ever going to get him to the castle to kiss the princess?”

  “Just a thought, darling…” Penelope sat up on his shoulder, her whiskers twitching. “Why don’t you talk to those magpies?”

  “Good good good!” Bowser barked enthusiastically, and Adeline nodded.

  “Clever, dear girl. Very clever.”

  “Where are they?” Alfie looked round, but there was no sign of the black and white birds. “Hello?” he called. “Magpies? Could I talk to you?”

  There was no reply. Bowser jumped forward, and let out a volley of sharp barks.

  “Birdies birdies birdies! Oi Oi Oi!”

  Hidden in the dense foliage of a holly tree, Perce nudged Kev. “Hey, Kev? Shouldn’t we answer?”

  “Ssh,” Kev said. “I’m thinking.”

  Perce shook his head. “I thought the troll was our friend. He was ever so pleased when we told him about the hero. And then – bang! Bye bye birdies. There’s no trusting trolls, is there, Kev?”

  “Perce!” Kev snapped. “Button your beak!”

  “No need to be nasty,” Perce complained, and he flounced away to the other end of the branch.

  Kev went under his wing. He had things to consider.

  When it became all too obvious that the birds weren’t going to appear, Alfie sighed. “They must have gone. I’d better go and rescue Maggers.”

  He walked slowly over to the hazel thicket. “Mag— Master!” he called. “Master? Are you all right?”

  There was no answer. Not a groan, not a wail, not a mutter.

  “Allow me,” Penelope said, and she scampered down his arm and dropped to the ground. With a whisk of her white tail she disappeared in-between the gnarled roots, and a moment later there was a startled squeak. “Darling! You’ll never guess what – he’s vanished!”

  “WHAT?” Alfie ran round to the other side, but there was no secret exit, and no sign of his brother. Taking a deep breath, he tried to wriggle into the centre of the thicket, and quickly discovered he could move faster if he crawled on his hands and knees. At first he could feel twigs catching at his hair and his clothes, but then, much to his surprise, his path grew suddenly smooth – exactly as if someone had made it a regular passageway. Trolls, Alfie thought, then wished he hadn’t. He stretched out an arm to feel ahead of him, and his hand closed round a smooth woody root. Seizing it, he pulled himself forward—

  CREAK!!!!!!

  “No!” Penelope squeaked, but she was too late. The ground under Alfie had opened. With a jolt he was falling, then sliding down a steep slope … and rolling and rolling and rolling into complete and utter blackness.

  High above him he heard Adeline say, “Dear boy! You seem to have pulled some kind of lever—”

  And then he couldn’t hear anything for the rush of air in his ears as he slithered down and down and on and on, finally landing with a thump that shook the breath out of his lungs and left him gasping.

  “Next time,” said a sour little voice, “I suggest you look before you leap. I’ve no idea where we are, but I suspect it’ll be quite impossible to climb back to where we came from.” There was a mouse-sized “T’sk! T’sk!” of exasperation. “I don’t suppose you have a candle with you, either. This whole expedition suffers from a complete lack of preparation.”

  Alfie was delighted to discover that he wasn’t alone. “Sorry, Norman,” he said, and then, “What’s that dreadful smell?”

  The mouse sniffed, coughed, then sniffed again more cautiously. “Ah,” he said.

  “What do you mean, ‘Ah’?” Alfie asked.

  “Ogre,” Norman said.

  “OGRE?” Alfie gulped. “Is this how they smell?”

  The mouse gave a faint chuckle. “They do smell bad, but not as bad as this. I’d say we’ve landed next to an ogre’s rubbish pit. They build them under their houses … and the more the pit smells, the better they like it.”

  “No wonder the trolls want them out of the forest,” Alfie said. “It’s making my eyes water. Oh! What’s that noise?”

  The boy and the mouse listened intently.

  “Oooooh … oooooooh … oooooow!”

  The moaning came from somewhere in front of them. Alfie got cautiously to his feet and found to his relief that there was room for him to stand. He edged slowly forward, one hand held out into the darkness and the other holding his nose.

  “Maggers?” he called. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m not!” Magnifico’s distant voice was so cross that Alfie breathed a sigh of relief. No one who was seriously hurt could sound so peevish. “I’m bruised from top to toe,” the hero went on, “and there’s the most disgusting smell, and I can’t see anything … but at least we’re miles and miles away from those horrible trolls. Get me out of here, and hurry up about it!”

  Deciding this was not the moment to mention that they were probably underneath an ogre’s house, Alfie worked his way towards the hero. His feet squelched unpleasantly as he walked, and every so often he sank ankle-deep into oozing slime and had to heave himself out. All around him were gurgling noises, and his outstretched hand could feel whiskery spider-web threads floating in front of him, threads that clung to his fingers and filled his nose and mouth. At each step the smell grew worse, until it felt to Alfie as if he was breathing thick greasy fumes rather than air.

  And then there was light. Not much … just a wavering yellow light high up above his head, but enough to show him what he was walking through. Bones, rotting skins, mouldering fruit swarming with fat white maggots…

  “Yuck,” he muttered, and then a shower of snail shells, potato peelings and rotten plums came tumbling down on top of him, almost knocking him over. He staggered to one side, just managing to avoid a torrent of something that might once have been gristle stew but was now green and ghastly.

  “All gone,” said a loud and echoing voice. “All dinner gone.” There was a gusty sigh. “Poor Bilinda, left alone all day long while Dadda and Flugg have fun.” There was a pause, and then came the sound of sniffing. “Ho? What is? What is smell?” More sniffing … and a mighty roar that almost deafened Alfie. “HUMAN! Bilinda smells human! Ickle pickle yummy nummy human! Bilinda go find! Go find NOW!” And then he heard the sound of heavy feet crashing away.

  Alfie looked wildly round. He and Magnifico had to escape – but where was his brother?

  There was still light from above, but he could see no sign of the hero. “Maggers!” he hissed. “Maggers, where are you?”

  “Ssssh!” The whispered warning was so close that Alfie jumped. “I’m hiding!”

  And a shapeless slimy grey lump at Alfie’s feet heaved, sat up, and opened its eyes. “Now get me out! Get me out!”

  Chapter Twelve

  KEV HAD FINALLY FINISHED THINKING. He stood up on his branch and straightened his tail feathers. “Perce, we’re going to talk to the boy!”

  “You’ll be lucky,” Perce said, and Kev stared at him.

  “What do you mean?”

  Perce looked smug. “He’s gone. Told you. Should have answered when he shouted.”

  “Gone where?” Kev peered through the leaves. “
The horse is there. And the mouse and the dog – hey! What’s going on? They’re all of a tizzy.”

  While Kev was doing his thinking, Perce had hopped to a higher branch so he could watch what was happening below. “The boy went into that bush to find the hero, and he wasn’t there,” he reported. “Then the boy was gone too.”

  “They’re hiding,” Kev said. “Have to be. People don’t just vanish, old buddy.”

  “They did.” Perce was emphatic. “You’d have seen for yourself if you hadn’t gone to sleep.”

  “I was thinking, Perce. Making plans.” Kev fluffed out his chest. “Important plans.”

  “So what are you planning now, Kev?”

  Kev made a snap decision. “The castle! That’s where we’re going. The hero and that boy – I bet they slipped off there while you were looking the other way. And the castle’s where the princess is, right? We’ll have a snoop around, then when the hero tips up we can tell him what’s what. And he’ll be grateful, because we’ll lead him to his princess so he can live Happily Ever After ‘n’ all that garbage. So he’ll thank us. Generously. And what’ll we end up with, Perce?” Perce opened his beak, but before he could speak Kev added, “And don’t you DARE say a word about a nice warm hen’s egg!”

  Perce looked offended. “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Whatever you say, buddy. But I’ll tell you what we’re going to end up with. Treasure, Perce, that’s what. Twinkly sparkly shiny treasure! So shake those wings. Rosewall Castle, here we come!”

  Penelope’s eyes were very sharp, and so was her hearing. Kev’s voice had risen in his excitement, and she caught the end of his sentence. A moment later she saw the flutter of black and white as the two birds left the holly tree and soared into the night sky. Adeline, following the mouse’s gaze, snorted. “Spies! What do you think they’re up to?”