The Fabulous Phartlehorn Affair

by M. L. Peel

  The knights murmured in dismay. Bruno looked quizzically at Grace.

  “Good news,” she said. “We’re going to be rescued!”

  “Therefore,” continued Sir Oswald, “I’ve trebled security patrols in the forest. No one gets in or out of Phartesia without my knowing.” The Chief of Security sat back down at the table. The colour had drained from Grace’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Bruno.

  “Scratch that. No rescue mission. We’re on our own.”

  Now the duke spoke again. It sounded as if he was barking out a set of orders. Sir Oswald stood up to reply.

  “What are they saying?” hissed Bruno, frustrated.

  “They’re talking about an ‘explosive elixir’,” replied Grace, straining to listen. “It’s a potion… Something they’ve been making from fireworks… They’re going to give it to us before the concert… They’re planning to poison us!”

  Bruno remembered the knights he’d seen hard at work in the West Tower and felt sick. They’d been cutting up fireworks! Why hadn’t he thought to mention it to anyone?

  The duke bellowed a final command. “Bring out the prisoner!” translated Grace.

  The hidden pair heard a rattle of chains, followed by the clank, clank, clank of a person walking in shackles. Then the prisoner, whoever he was, began to scream. It sounded to Bruno as if he was begging for mercy.

  “It’s Monsieur Zidler!” gasped Grace. “The duke says he had been planning on testing the explosive potion on some other prisoners he’s got rotting in the dungeon. But he’s changed his mind and now he’s going to test it on Zidler…”

  Bruno and Grace heard the sound of a struggle followed by a terrified snivelling. The Grand Council of the Knights Trumplar swivelled round in their seats, waiting with bated breath. Too curious to resist, Bruno quietly crawled forward and peeked out from between the circle of legs.

  There was Monsieur Zidler, cowering in the corner. Sir Oswald was just replacing a small glass bottle into a cupboard behind the duke’s throne. Already, the talent scout’s belly had swollen to ten times its normal size. He looked like a skittle waiting to be struck down by a tenpin bowl.

  The seconds ticked by.

  Monsieur Zidler’s face flushed from pink to purple to puce. Then, one by one, the silver buttons popped from his waistcoat and pinged around the chamber. The last button skidded across the floor, spun on its edge and came to a halt right by Bruno’s hand.

  “Un souveniricus!” laughed Sir Oswald and bent down to retrieve the button. Bruno felt a surge of panic as the knight’s fingers almost grazed his arm. Just in time, he retreated back into the shadows.

  The duke was now counting down from ten: “Tenicus, ninicus, eighticus, sevenicus, sixicus, fivicus, fouricus, threeicus, twoicus, ONEICUS!”

  Suddenly it was as if the room had been hit by a subterranean earthquake. The children clutched onto the table leg, praying they would not be crushed beneath its heavy stone top.

  Then, silence.

  The floor of the chamber was covered in an ash-white dust. Grace’s eyes watered as she fought back a sneeze. The knights leapt to their feet, whooping and hollering. Grace gave in to her allergy. Atchoo, Atchoo, Atchoo, she sneezed. But the noise was drowned out by the rejoicing of the Knights Trumplar.

  Bruno waited for a moment or two longer, then crawled forward again. Monsieur Zidler was nowhere to be seen. Where he had stood, there was nothing but a thick pile of ash and a whiff of burnt toast and hair oil.

  The duke was cackling with delight. “Jobsworth!” he shouted.

  As if by magic, the butler’s clogs appeared in the entrance to the chamber. He was carrying a broom.

  The duke strode over to the doorway, still issuing orders in Phartesian. The trusty moustache-bearers scuttled after him. The knights resumed their chanting as they marched up the stairs behind the duke.

  “Et volcanicus erupticus exquisiticus,

  In revengicus pharticus apocalypsum…”

  Jobsworth hummed along as he swept up what remained of Monsieur Zidler. The broom stirred up the dust beneath the table. Grace, determined not to let out another sneeze, clamped her fingers tightly over her nose until, finally, Jobsworth snuffed out the candles and was gone.

  The children counted to a hundred, then crept out into the darkness. It was time to tell the others the terrible news.

  28

  Hatching the Plan

  Natasha, Xanadu, Bruno and Grace huddled together inside the curtains of Bruno’s four-poster bed. Behind them, Humbert’s bed was still empty.

  As calmly as he could, Bruno explained how he’d seen Humbert sneak out from the dormitory. He told how he and Grace had decided to follow him; how they’d crept past the sleeping knight to enter the forbidden east turret. Next he described the spiral staircase that led down to the hexagonal chamber. Then, finally, Bruno told the others about the photographs of children going up in smoke, and how he and Grace had watched as the knights tested the explosive elixir on Monsieur Zidler.

  “Holy moley!” said Xanadu. For the first time in nine years, he removed his sunglasses. Beneath them his eyes were a piercing electric green. He stared directly at Bruno. “We’ve got to do a runner.”

  Grace hugged her pyjama-clad knees to her chest. She shook her head. “The knights are patrolling the forest. No one gets in or out of Phartesia without them knowing, that’s what Sir Oswald said.”

  Natasha hammered her fist into the mattress. Her plait swung behind her like a whip. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Actually,” said Grace, “I think I have.”

  Bruno stared at her in surprise.

  “Listen,” said Grace, “my mum says Plan A is to run away from trouble as fast as you can. But we can’t run away because we’re surrounded. So it’s time for Plan B.”

  “Which is?” demanded Natasha.

  “That attack is the best means of defence!” replied Grace. “The Knights Trumplar want to blow us up. I say we turn the tables and blow them up instead!”

  “Genius!” exclaimed Xanadu, then looked crestfallen. “But how?”

  “The explosive elixir!” said Bruno, suddenly guessing. “They’re planning to sprinkle it into our dinner. If we steal it, we can pour it into their food!”

  Grace beamed at him and raised her hand for a high five.

  “Sorry to break up the party,” cut in Natasha, “but won’t the knights notice that the potion’s gone?”

  “That’s easy,” said Bruno with a smile. “We replace it with a fake.”

  “But how will we get the potion into the knights’ food?” asked Xanadu. “They never eat with us.”

  Bruno frowned. “Good point,” he admitted.

  There was a squeak of floorboards out in the corridor.

  “Someone’s coming,” hissed Natasha. “Quick! Back to bed!”

  The children raced across the dormitory. Bruno hurriedly rearranged his covers, trying his best to look asleep.

  A figure appeared in the doorway. The children held their breath.

  “You don’t fool me,” sneered a familiar voice. “But why are you lot up? Shouldn’t you be letting your precious instruments get some rest?”

  Bruno’s heart rate began to slow again. Humbert! “What are we doing up?” he said indignantly. “More like what are you doing up? You’ve been gone for hours! Grace and I tried to follow you. And it’s a good job we did, too! It turns out we’re in massive danger.”

  Humbert looked confused. “Danger?”

  Natasha sat up in bed, as straight-backed as a vampire rising from her coffin. “We’re not here for a concert,” she snapped. “We’ve been kidnapped.”

  To everyone’s surprise, a rare genuine smile lit up Humbert’s face. “But that’s really cool!” he exclaimed. “We’ll be all over the papers! They’ll probably even make a film about us.”

  “Aren’t you worried?” asked Grace, propping herself up on her elbows.

  Humbert shrugge
d. “Why should I be worried? If we’ve been kidnapped, my parents will simply pay a ransom. Then I’ll be set free. I wonder if they’ll let me play myself in the movie.”

  Bruno decided to cut to the chase. “They don’t want a ransom,” he said. “They want to blow us up.”

  “Blow us up?” scoffed Humbert, “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s mad enough that these lunatics want us to blow off. They’d never dare to blow us up!”

  Xanadu slipped out from where he’d been hiding behind a curtain.

  “Where are your sunglasses?” asked Humbert, shocked.

  “Dude, this is no time to talk fashion. The knights have a special potion. Bruno and Grace saw them test it on Monsieur Zidler. He exploded right in front of them! We’ve been trying to think of a way to put the potion into the knights’ food before it gets into ours.”

  Humbert clambered back into his bed. He plumped up his pillows. “Well, why didn’t you just say that in the first place? That’s easy. All you have to do is sprinkle it over their canapés.”

  “What are canapés?” asked Bruno.

  “Those little nibbly things people eat at parties,” said Humbert. “But you wouldn’t know about sophisticated stuff like that, would you, Stink Bomb?”

  Bruno’s fists clenched into tight balls of anger. Grace shot him a restraining look as Humbert waved a dismissive hand in the air.

  “I still think you’re overreacting. But, if you must know, I think the palace cooks have already made the canapés for the concert. I’ve just been in the kitchens and seen them all stacked up in the fridges.”

  A very small part of Bruno wanted to throw his arms around Humbert.

  “What were you doing in the kitchens?” asked Natasha.

  Humbert looked a little embarrassed. “None of your business,” he sniped. (Between you and me, what Humbert wasn’t going to admit was that he’d been down in the kitchens trying to steal some Stunkenstew, in the hope that an extra portion might improve his phartling.)

  Grace leant forward like a small, earnest general briefing her troops. “OK, so here’s what we do,” she said. “We go down to breakfast and get through the dress rehearsal as if nothing’s wrong. We wait until tomorrow night, when everyone’s asleep, to make our move. Xanadu, Natasha and I will stay here and create a diversion. Humbert, you’ll go with Bruno…”

  “Why do I have to go with him?” the two boys protested together.

  Grace folded her arms across her chest. “It has to be you two,” she said. “Bruno knows the way to the chamber, Humbert knows where to find the canapés. First stop the chamber, to steal the elixir. Then you’ll head to the kitchens to pour it over the canapés. I’d go myself, but it’s too risky. I almost gave us away twice tonight by sneezing, remember?”

  The two boys glared at each other.

  “I still don’t believe a word of this,” said Humbert. “But anything to relieve the boredom of being holed up in here for another day.”

  29

  The Trap

  Grandpa Trevor unzipped the flap of his tent and crawled out into the dew-soaked morning. Chippy fluttered out behind him. The grass was studded with buttercups and daisies. There was birdsong in the trees and the sky was a perfect forget-me-not blue. How strange, thought Trevor Pockley, that the sun should continue to shine so brightly when he felt as if his whole world had fallen apart.

  A little way off, Mr and Mrs Chalk were already busy frying up some freeze-dried sausages on a portable stove.

  “Right then,” said Mrs Chalk after they’d breakfasted and packed away the tents. “I guess we’d better get the map out and decide where we’re heading.”

  Grandpa Trevor peered at the map over her shoulder. It showed no paths or villages, only a vast, uninterrupted stretch of forest. He scratched his bald head in confusion.

  “If this is the kingdom of Phartesia, surely somewhere there should be a castle.”

  “Good point,” agreed Mr Chalk, “but where?”

  Chippy hooted from a branch above. She flapped her brown-and-white wing extensions. “I’m the king of the castle!” she squawked. “I’m the king of the castle! Get down, you dirty rascal! Get down, you dirty rascal!”

  “Cut it out, Chippy,” scolded Grandpa Trevor. “You’re supposed to be an owl, remember. Owls can’t talk.”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Mr Chalk. “I think Chippy’s trying to tell us something.” He jumped up onto a tree stump and shouted at the top of his voice:

  “I’m the king of the castle, get down you dirty rascal!”

  Mrs Chalk nervously approached her husband. She spoke in a soothing voice. “Julian, darling, I think you may be suffering from hysteria. We’re all deeply worried, but playing children’s games won’t help.”

  “Don’t be daft, Penny.” Mr Chalk jumped down from the tree stump. “I’m not hysterical. In fact, my head’s never felt clearer. Don’t you see? In the game, the castle must always be higher than the rascal. It’s the same in real life. Rulers always build their castles at the highest point in the kingdom. That way they get to look down on everyone else!”

  “Which means,” said Mrs Chalk, hurriedly consulting the map, “that the castle of Phartesia …”

  “…must be up there!” cried Grandpa Trevor, pointing up at the highest peak. “Julian, you’re a genius!”

  Chippy hooted in protest.

  “I already knew you were a genius, Chippy,” he added, giving the bird a thumbs-up.

  Mr Chalk fished around in his pockets for his binoculars. He focused them on the summit of the mountain. “Blinking heck!” he cried. “I can see it! Look, there, half-hidden behind those trees. It’s built right into the mountainside.” He passed the binoculars to Grandpa Trevor.

  “Well, I’ll be darned.” The old man whistled. “Just look at all those turrets! That’s a mighty long way up to build a castle.”

  “There must be a road that leads up there,” said Mrs Chalk, still poring over the map.

  Mr Chalk was already packing up his rucksack. “No time to hunt around for roads,” he said. “Even if there is one, it’s sure to wind its way all around the mountain. It’ll be much quicker just to climb straight up.”

  Grandpa Trevor exhaled deeply. In places the cliff face looked almost vertical. To be honest, he wasn’t sure his creaky joints were up to it.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” chirped Chippy.

  “That’s the spirit!” said Mrs Chalk, stuffing the map back into her pocket.

  The trek started out easily enough. The ground was firm underfoot and the incline was not too steep. Mr Chalk snapped off a willow branch and used it to cut a swathe through the undergrowth. Now and again he would startle a partridge and send it whirring away into the sky. Once, Chippy hooted in fright as an eagle dropped like a stone in front of them, swooping back up with a rabbit clutched between its claws. Other than that, in two hours of walking they saw no living creatures at all.

  While the Chalks were desperate to set eyes on their daughter, they knew that the old man was struggling to keep up. They stuck to a steady pace and paused often for water.

  “Plenty more where that came from,” said Mrs Chalk, offering Grandpa Trevor the last swig from her bottle. “Next stream we come to, we’ll refill.”

  It wasn’t long before they heard the gurgle of water. It came from a clearing beyond the trees.

  “Stick close together,” said Mr Chalk beating back a patch of bracken and nettles, “that way you won’t get stu— Aarghhhhh!”

  All at once, the three of them felt the ground collapse beneath their feet. They went tumbling down through thin air, landing in a heap at the bottom of a deep pit. Chippy hooted in alarm, then fluttered down to join them. Grandpa Trevor tried to stand up but his ankle gave way beneath him.

  Mr and Mrs Chalk rose unsteadily to their feet and looked up. The sides of the pit were at least four metres high.

  “Looks like we’re in big trouble,” moaned Mr Chalk, inspecting the pi
le of bracken that had fallen in on top of them. “This trap was freshly laid. Whoever dug it will be back before long. And from what Agent Frogmarch told us about the people who live here…” He drew his finger across his throat.

  Tears welled in Mrs Chalk’s eyes. “I don’t care what happens to us,” she sniffed. “But what about Grace and Bruno? Who’s going to rescue them now?”

  Grandpa Trevor was thinking fast. There was no mobile phone reception in Phartesia — Agent Frogmarch had forgotten about that problem. But perhaps there was another way to get a message out. “Penelope, have you got a pen and paper?”

  “Here you go,” she said, wiping away her tears and pulling out a notepad and pen from her rucksack.

  Grandpa Trevor tore off a long thin strip of paper. First he drew a picture of the castle nestling into the mountaintop. (Funnily enough, it displayed a surprising amount of artistic skill.) Next to the castle he wrote: HEAD HERE FIRST TO RESCUE THE CHILDREN!

  Then, as an afterthought, he added a drawing of the pit and the words: We are trapped here, please come and rescue us next if you have the time!

  When his drawing was complete, Grandpa Trevor turned to Mrs Chalk and said, “Give me your hairband.”

  Mrs Chalk stared at his bald scalp in confusion.

  “It’s not for me,” he added impatiently.

  Penelope Chalk pulled the band from her ponytail and handed it to Grandpa Trevor, who summoned Chippy to his knee. Carefully, the old man wrapped the paper around the parrot’s claw, then fixed it in place with the elastic. He spoke to the bird in a gentle voice.

  “It’s up to you now, Chippy. I need you to fly back down to base. Get this message to Agent Frogmarch.”