The village had come to life. As Toby stood at the door he wondered whether he was on the set of a movie. There were creatures of all shapes and sizes: short hairy ones with puffy faces and bushy ginger beards, tall skinny ones with long ears and bright blue eyes.
‘Elves?’ queried Toby under his breath.
‘Uh huh, mostly Swedish at the moment,’ responded Arty as he watched the same scene. ‘You had a couple on your plane. They usually go into government, you know, MI5 – the Untouchables, that kind of stuff. They’re supposed to be brilliant at spying – really cool!’
‘What are the Untouchables?’
‘Ah, well, that’s what I’m going to be. Only elves can get into them. They’re kind of undercover police, really clever! They say if you’ve seen one then you’re probably already dead . . . or dying – you wouldn’t be able to see one if you were already dead,’ added Arty for clarification.
‘What, they kill?’
‘No, not kill, well, not normally anyway, but you know what I mean, really clever! They can sneak up on you and rearrange your hair or something like that without you knowing.’
Toby laughed, and Arty looked disappointed. ‘You mean they cut and style your hair before they kill you?’
‘No, you know what I mean. They—’
‘So why from Sweden, why don’t they get work at home?’ interrupted Toby before Arty could dig a deeper hole.
‘Not recognised. Their government think elves are still Hansel and Gretel type of thing. It’s amazing our government don’t either – well, actually it’s not the government but . . . hey look!’ shouted Arty, pointing across the yard.
‘Romanian dwarves. They’re after work in the Welsh mountains, gold mining. Funny really, the Welsh dwarves went to Romania to mine diamonds. Nought queer as dwarves, I say. Oh, yeah, you had one of those on your plane too,’ said Arty pointing at a tall, skinny, dark coloured man.
‘A draconian. Weird as anything and definitely not to be trusted. We elves hate them. We’ve only got a couple here and they always get into fights with the elves. Talking of trouble, we’ve got loads of trolls: village and forest mainly. Tosh is a village troll. That girl troll on the plane was a forest troll. Village trolls tend not to mix with forest trolls but at least they tolerate each other. I would love to see a mountain troll but we’ll never get one of those here.’
‘Why?’ asked Toby.
‘They’re too big for one thing. And they would try and eat everything in sight: elves, smaller trolls, the whole lot, even human boys! There’s a load more too: fairies, banshees, gremlins, you name it, we’ve got it.’
‘Giants?’
‘Err, no, no giants, not enough room – bigger than mountain trolls.’
‘Ghosts?’ said Toby hopefully, thinking that Charlie had been here, or someone from the Greasy Witch.
‘No, not them neither,’ said Arty, shivering, ‘too scary. But we got almost everything else,’ he said, finishing with a hopeful don’t-ask-any-more-questions grin.
Toby was impressed, though. He had never seen anything like the place and it made him feel a little more normal. For the last two years he had done things that no other kid his age could do but instead of feeling like it was the best thing since meeting Charlie it often left him feeling incredibly isolated. Charlie, the professor, and the ghosts already knew about his secret. He had run out of new people to tell so the fun of watching their faces react with shock had long passed. He wanted to tell Arty about his gift and then he remembered Charlie: ‘Swear you won’t tell anyone, Toby. It could be very dangerous.’ Toby stopped himself. Later, maybe, he thought to himself as he watched a pair of short, stocky, brown-feathered creatures walk by not three feet away. He soon forgot about his secret.
‘Wow,’ said Toby. The two creatures looked around and hissed. Toby stood staring with his jaw wide open. They each flared a pair of wings on their backs; they looked enormous. They snapped their sharp beaks warningly as their mesmeric human-like eyes seemed to pin Toby to the spot where he stood.
Arty stepped in quickly. ‘It’s okay, he’s new, he doesn’t know but I’ll tell him,’ said Arty quickly. The two creatures stepped back and turned to walk away from the two boys.
‘Tell me what?’ said Toby, shaking a little.
‘Strixmen,’ said Arty nervously. ‘Most creatures here are fine. Some can be a bit moody from time to time but Strixmen . . .’ Arty visibly shook. ‘They only started to let them in two years ago. Four people went missing straight away on the first night. A week later someone found a rotting corpse by the castle walls. It had been torn apart.’
‘Did they kick them out?’
‘No, they couldn’t prove it was them. But then three of the missing walked in through the gates three days later, shortly followed by the fourth a day after that. They’d been to London and got lost. Oh, and don’t offer them food.’
‘Why?’
‘I did it once. One kept me awake for two nights after that. It kept screaming outside my bedroom window – literally outside my bedroom window, hanging of the roof like a bat . . . I offered it a Kit Kat,’ said Arty, sniggering, ‘I thought everyone liked Kit Kats. Sid doesn’t sell dead rats, you see. Mind you he doesn’t sell Kit Kats either. I had to get mine when the village went to Scotland. Strixmen are supposed to be reborn souls of dead Cornish miners, human miners. They don’t seem to like humans at all. Someone told me they saw one tear a human apart in seconds and then howl at the full moon with a bit of arm dripping blood in its snarly beak. It’s simpler if you don’t talk to them, Toby.’
‘I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster ride at the moment. Elves that fight something-or-other, moody trolls that growl at you, and them . . . What is this place?’
‘I don’t know!’
Toby challenged him. ‘You’ve been here a year and you don’t know?’
‘All right, clever clogs, keep your hair on. I ain’t got all the answers, you know, but I think I know a man that does. He’ll be here in ten minutes. Come on, let’s get a cuppa,’ grunted Arty.
‘In there?’ said Toby nervously pointing back into the cottage.
‘Where else?’ said Arty shrugging his shoulders in a there-is-nowhere-else kind of way. ‘It’s not very often Anton loses control of his needles. It’s really difficult for Spiny Gailians – that’s what he is. Any excitement causes that kind of thing. You’re lucky he’s not an adult – their needles are weapons filled to the brim with deadly poison.’
Reluctantly Toby went back into the cottage. Tosh was half asleep on the settee and Anton looked a little embarrassed.
‘Everything okay, Needles?’ said Arty insensitively.
‘Shut up, Arty!’ whined Anton.
‘Oh, come on, I’m only jesting.’ Arty shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘Good morning, boys,’ came a slightly high-pitched voice.
‘Major!’ hollered Arty and Anton, and even Tosh joined in with a muffled salutation from under the blanket.
‘And you must be . . .’
‘Toby,’ said Arty.
‘I’m Major Shenanigan. Uhm, that’s my name, by the way, not a rank.’ Major smiled. ‘Has Arty been looking after you? I hope so. I’m sorry, I don’t have your papers through yet but when I do you’ll be the first to know. We’ll sit down then to discuss a plan for your stay,’ he said seriously, but then he brightened up. ‘Until then how about a cup of tea and a story?’
‘Hooray,’ shouted everyone except Toby, who was feeling slightly shy and a little uncertain. Papers, plans – he really wasn’t sure what he had let himself in for.
‘So, as part of the ongoing education of you fine young lads who can tell me about the Fawkes Gate . . . and I hope you can help me out with this one Toby?’
‘I don’t know a Forks Gate,’ said Toby, looking at a fork Anton was holding.
‘Neither do I, but I reckon you’ve heard of Fawkes before – as in Guy Fawkes. But before we go into that, which of you has trave
lled through the Fawkes Gate?’
Arty passed the tea around and sat down on the couch joining Anton, Tosh and Toby.
‘Thank you Arty, mmm, delicious . . . No, well, as it happens, only Anton has. I thought that would surprise you. So Anton, do you remember the tall skinny ghost with the large floppy hat and the very big hooked nose at Westminster when you first arrived?’ Anton nodded eagerly, stirring his tea with the fork. ‘That is where you will find Fawkes Gate, and the ghost’s name is Guy Fawkes. Now that is someone you will have heard of, eh, Toby?’
Toby smiled. For a moment he was beginning to feel left out but not now. Everyone in Britain knew about Guy Fawkes and November the fifth. Toby even got ten out of ten in a history paper at school on the Gunpowder Plot.
‘Toby, have you seen many bonfire nights?’
‘Loads, I went to a humongous one last year at Richmond Park,’ he said with a big broad grin.
‘Okay, hold that thought. Can you get the Verring crown?’ said Major, turning to Anton.
Arty grinned. ‘Oh, cool, you’ll love this.’
Anton returned and handed Major a silver ring with feathers sticking out of the top.
‘The feathers were the boys’ contribution.’ Major laughed. He placed it on Toby’s head. To Toby’s surprise the room started to brighten, with a light blue veil covering everything including the boys, although not thickly enough they couldn’t see the furniture.
Everyone settled down comfortably as Major spoke again. ‘All you need to do is visualise the images you remember from bonfire night, Toby. See them, in your mind’s eye and watch.’
At first Toby was shy, but his story was soon in full swing as Anton and Tosh eagerly watched and listened, as if they had not seen a bonfire night before.
‘Look – the first image is coming through.’ Major pointed.
Toby watched as the blue veil went dark. It was night time, and they could see the distant lights of the city of London. It was everything Toby could remember from that night in Richmond. He had eaten toffee apples and candyfloss, drunk bucket-loads of hot chocolate and jumped on every possible fairground ride. The boys placed their hands over their ears as the fireworks exploded in loud booming noises. Shockwaves reverberated around the room blasting the boys’ hair in all directions (except for Anton, who had no hair). Each firework exploded in a kaleidoscope of colours with bright halos of purples and greens and bright whites. When the fireworks had finished, Toby launched enthusiastically into a story about Griselda, the horrid witch. The boy’s loved the images as Griselda tried to gatecrash Charlie’s three hundredth birthday celebration which also happened to be on bonfire night. She had almost ruined the evening until Charlie and Toby tied fireworks to her broomstick. The last they heard the broomstick was seen somewhere over Bognor Regis with its brush tail still smoking. It was so frightened it refused to come down so Griselda had to walk home. Everyone cheered at the images.
‘And why do you have fireworks?’ asked Major as the fireworks finally died.
‘Blowing up the Houses of Parliament,’ said Toby with a little difficulty; he suddenly felt a little queasy.
‘Perfect – and thank you for the wonderful stories and images, although I think you need to visit the toilet,’ said Major, looking at Toby’s very peaky face. ‘I forgot to say it also allows us to relive such things as good meals. Very useful if you are caught short somewhere and you have nothing to eat.’
Major Shenanigan removed the Verring crown as Toby ran for the bathroom where he retched noisily. Toby had eaten and drunk far too much in the memory. With the Verring crown removed daylight returned, filling the room. Everyone cheered loudly and clapped vigorously when Toby returned. He was grinning broadly as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
As the cheers settled Major Shenanigan told the true story about a certain Guy Fawkes and how he and his men had discovered a gateway that led into another world, situated directly underneath the Houses of Parliament in central London. The year was 1605. Major Shenanigan was now wearing the Verring crown.
‘Initially the discovery had even received royal support. The king saw a great opportunity for new trade with places no other European country could access. But there were also many who were frightened of this new world, people who held very powerful positions. Guy Fawkes had military training and was asked to make a controlled explosion to open the gateway but, unknown to him, someone had smuggled in far more gunpowder than was necessary. And it had been placed right underneath the debating chamber in the Houses of Parliament. The authorities were alerted and Guy Fawkes was arrested and accused of trying to blow up parliament. He was found guilty of treason.’
The images from the Verring crown stopped short of Guy Fawkes’s execution.
‘But ’e was only trying to ’elp,’ said Anton, sounding flabbergasted.
‘Politics,’ said Major Shenanigan. ‘Someone in parliament didn’t want the gateway opened. The very idea of immigrant creatures storming through the gateway in their droves was abhorrent to them. Or at least that was the paranoid image they created in their tiny, little, xenophobic minds,’ grumbled Major. ‘The perpetrators had a two-fold plan: the explosion, if it had happened, would have wiped out the gateway, collapsed it beyond recovery. And the second part was the destruction of parliament. Had that happened then it would have completely discredited the project and any other attempt to open the gateway up. They also hoped that arresting Guy Fawkes for attempted mass murder of the government would shut the project down completely. Luckily for us the explosion didn’t happen because the gunpowder was damp.’
‘So how was the gateway opened then?’ asked Tosh groggily, much to the surprise of the others. He must have been awake for at least five minutes to have been able to ask such a relevant question. Arty patted him on his scaly back and regretted it immediately, wiping the puss on to his jeans.
‘Well, that’s a story most humans do not know about, at least living humans,’ said Major. ‘After his execution, Guy Fawkes returned as a ghost to continue his work. The gateway was opened up and the creatures were welcomed into a new world.’
‘Then ’e is a ’ero?’ exclaimed Anton.
‘Well, that depends what side of the fence you sit on,’ said Major Shenanigan.
15
The Return of a Friend
It had been a month or more since Toby had reluctantly arrived in Tintagel village. If it hadn’t been for his new best friend, Arty, he would have changed into the falcon and flown straight home to London. Toby had resisted Arty’s friendship at first but his clumsy humour soon broke down the barriers. As each day passed their friendship grew stronger and stronger. Being so far away from Charlie and the professor had proven difficult at first but, when Toby was down, Arty was there in his own way: a friendly punch on the shoulder, a joke, a nudge with the elbow. And it wasn’t just Arty’s company Toby had begun to thoroughly enjoy, it was also the amazing, one of a kind, Tintagel village with its long list of very peculiar residents. For some reason Toby liked the trolls best. There were many more trolls like Tosh and they all shared the same appearance with green pustular skin. They were also very smelly, although the trolls seemed to think they smelt gorgeous. They could often be seen sniffing their own rotten armpits and smiling afterwards in satisfaction. And then there were Kelpies. Toby hadn’t seen them at first and Arty hadn’t mentioned them. They did look very weird if not a little scary: black, glossy, silky creatures with human facial features and seal-like bodies that clumsily crawled along the ground. They had been admitted to the village on one inflexible condition that they solemnly swore they would not eat children. All children in the village remained blissfully healthy and alive.
There were loads of witches but none that Toby recognised. According to Major Shenanigan Tintagel had been providing sanctuary for witches for hundreds of years. They could fly in and out as they pleased. Toby had yet to see any ghosts; he missed the ghosts. And he had not heard from Charlie either.
&nb
sp; Toby and Arty had counted thirty-three different kinds of creatures in the village: Cornish pixies, dwarves, fairies, and so on. Most were friendly and wanted to ask Toby about the country outside the village. As Toby learnt very quickly most creatures in the village had not yet seen England, Scotland or Wales. But it came as no surprise, after listening to the true story about Guy Fawkes, that most of the creatures had come from another world. Toby had very little time to think about London or Charlie or the professor, very little time to be bored. Tintagel was like no other village that he had visited and frankly it was by far the most exciting village he had been to by a long chalk.
Above everything else Toby’s favourite moment so far had to be when he had met Sid the one-eyed squid who owned the Tuck Shop – a small one-roomed sweet shop wedged in between Fly Me to the Moon (a small cottage factory for witch’s broomsticks) and Peppermint Sam (a shop that sold anything peppermint to anyone called Sam. It wasn’t very busy). Sid was as blind as a bat. Most of the younger customers had learnt that if they ordered Crocodillos (crocodile-jaw-shaped sweets that would sink their teeth into your top lip if you didn’t eat them quick enough) Sid would misjudge the distance to the sweet jar and accidently punch holes in the wall. He would then get so infuriated he would throw anything and everything at the customer. In most cases the ad hoc missiles were sweets as they were always closest to hand, or rather to tentacle. The shop was immensely popular with the kids as they often got these delicious treats free of charge.
Arty and Toby had run low on sweet supplies so today they were due a visit. But that seemed the furthest thing from Arty’s mind. He was sitting in the armchair by the open fire looking very pensive. He didn’t look as though he wanted to move anywhere. Toby, on the other hand, was relaxing on the settee. His feet were up on the footstool. He hadn’t heard from Charlie or the professor but he knew they were okay because his suitcases had arrived and he had begun to receive money: a monthly allowance. Charlie had said they would be in touch somehow. Major Shenanigan had deposited the unspent money with Tintagel village’s very own bank, which looked exactly like a red postbox from London with VR on the front. Toby was assured his money was well looked after and available upon request. He was beginning to feel that this could be very a comfortable home indeed, at least until the professor called for him.
Toby Fisher and the Arc Light Page 10
