by Tom Percival
‘Yes-ish?’ said the reflection in a small voice.
Hurrilan glared at him. ‘Let’s try this one more time . . . You have the cutting. It is growing, and everything is OK?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ began the reflection, then it noticed Hurrilan’s expression and finished off with, ‘but actually, now I think about it . . . everything’s GREAT!’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said the troll warlock, nodding. ‘Please make sure that you take extremely good care of that cutting. If anything were to happen to it, I would be most distressed.’
The mirror bobbed nervously. ‘Yes – yes, of course!’ it said.
Hurrilan narrowed his eyes. ‘I sometimes do things I regret when I’m distressed,’ he said. ‘Awful things . . . Do we understand each other?’
The reflection nodded, and gulped nervously as the image of Hurrilan vanished.
‘Hey, Wolfie?’ said Hansel. ‘Can you ask my sister to walk downwind of me? It’s really starting to smell round here.’
‘Oh, Wolfie?’ said Gretel. ‘Guess what? I’ve invented a brand new word for stupid and you spell it like this: H-A-N-S-E-L.’
Hansel pretended to laugh. ‘Oh that’s soooooo funny, so completely hilarious! Wolfie? Can you please tell my—’
‘No!’ yelled Wolfie. Hansel and Gretel fell silent. Wolfie tried to glare at them like his dad, the Big Bad Wolf, glared at people, but the effect wasn’t quite the same. His quivering little snout made him look confused, worried and upset. Gretel patted him on the shoulder.
‘Sorry, Wolfie,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You two have got to sort this out!’ said Wolfie. ‘We’re on a mission, remember?’
‘Absolutely!’ exclaimed Hansel. ‘And we’re totally going to succeed! Just as soon as we get rid of my dead-weight of a sister!’
‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ yelled Gretel. ‘Well, fine! Me and Wolfie were just leaving! Weren’t we, Wolfie?’
‘I don’t think so!’ snorted Hansel. ‘Wolfie is coming with me! Right, Wolfie?’
Wolfie groaned. It was exactly the same with his dad and the people of Tale Town – he was always caught in the middle. Well, no more! Wolfie was going to put his foot down.
‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘We are not splitting up! And stop arguing about who gets to keep me – I’m not your pet!’ He stood there with his paws on his hips, his furry tail wagging behind him and his whiskers trembling. ‘We’re all going to have to find a way through this together! I mean, you know . . . so long as that’s OK with you guys?’
The plan was to track the imps’ movements so they could work out where the cutting was. Then the plan was to take back the cutting and sneak out without being seen. It was Wolfie’s plan and everyone agreed it was a good one.
But it seemed that carrying out the plan wasn’t going to be that easy. Gretel was silently tracking one of the imps when Hansel fired a shot from his slingshot and tripped her up. The only reason that the imp didn’t see her was because she happened to fall right into a pile of compost. Later, while Hansel had been climbing a rope to get to one of the higher levels of the palace, Gretel had fired a burning arrow that set fire to the rope and Hansel had to slide back down as quickly as he could.
‘What?’ Gretel had protested when Wolfie glared at her. ‘It was an accident!’
Next, Wolfie had to stop Hansel trying to glue Gretel’s hands to a door handle and Gretel chaining Hansel to a pillar.
‘This is no good!’ exploded Wolfie. ‘We’ll never find the cutting like this! You two are going to get us all captured!’
Then a thought occurred to him. It was quite a sneaky thought and it almost surprised him. He didn’t normally ‘do’ sneaky, but perhaps there was more wolf in him than he realized.
‘Hey, guys . . .’ said Wolfie. ‘Which one of you would be better at finding your way home? You know, if you were trapped in a forest and only had a handful of breadcrumbs or something?’
‘That would be me,’ began Hansel. ‘Although I’d have to say that breadcrumbs are not an effective way of marking a route. What you really need are white pebbles, then—’
‘What on earth are you going on about?’ interrupted Gretel. ‘Firstly, I am clearly the superior trail finder. Secondly the whole breadcrumbs thing was your idea, and thirdly—’
‘Thirdly you smell?’ interrupted Hansel.
‘You are so immature!’ yelled Gretel.
‘At least I don’t smell!’ said Hansel.
While Hansel and Gretel were distracted, Wolfie crept silently away. He hoped that the twins were going to be OK, but it was clear there was no way they would be able to work together right now. He was going to have to go it alone.
Everything was better now that Wolfie was free of the twins’ constant arguing. He found that he could use his keen wolf nose to smell anyone that came near, and hide in plenty of time. All the imps he saw were going in one direction carrying fertilizer, water and plant food, then coming back carrying nothing but empty wooden buckets. They had to be going to the Story Tree cutting!
After a while, Wolfie was almost beginning to enjoy himself. He felt daring, brave, and like some sort of secret agent. He crept through the wooden corridors, silent as the night, pretending to be on an incredibly dangerous and important mission. Then he remembered that he was on a dangerous and important mission, and got all nervous again.
He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and carried on around the next corner.
‘Hello,’ said the man from the looking glass. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’
‘Eeeeaaarrrkkkk!’ shrieked Wolfie, leaping backwards.
‘Oh there’s no need to worry!’ said the reflection, as a couple of sweaty imps heaved the empty mirror along behind him on the wooden cart. ‘After all, I can’t physically harm you.’
Wolfie breathed a sigh of relief and inched closer, trying to get past the reflection.
‘However . . .’ said the reflection, ‘I do have . . . my UNDERLINGS!’ He barked a command and another group of nervous imps stepped out of a door behind him.
‘Come on, guys!’ said Wolfie to the scared imps. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone! Why don’t you just let me past?’
The imps looked at each other, then Wolfie, then the reflection, and finally down at the floor as they shuffled their feet and moved out of the way. ‘And you really shouldn’t be working for him!’ added Wolfie. ‘He’s not at all nice!’
‘You’re pathetic!’ roared the reflection at the imps. ‘Looks like I’d better do this the old-fashioned way!’ His eyes flashed with a sickly green light and the plants, branches and roots of the palace began to snake around, rearranging themselves into a new shape. A round sort of shape. A big, ‘hole-y’ kind of shape that was opening right beneath Wolfie’s feet. He tried to step around it but the hole opened faster and faster. There was no way he could avoid it.
‘Yeaaarrrrghhhhh!’ yelled Wolfie as he lost his footing completely and tumbled into blackness.
‘Urrrnnnngh . . .’ groaned Wolfie. He was sprawled out on a soft floor surrounded by straw, mouldy plants and the unmistakable smell of rot. Flies buzzed, worms slithered and unpleasant things crawled everywhere. Wolfie realized the awful truth: he was in a massive compost heap. ‘Eeeeuuuchhh!’ he squealed, leaping up and wiping off as much of the stinking mess as possible.
‘Ha! Look at you now!’ cackled the reflection from high above. ‘Down with all the rubbish where you belong! I shall leave you down there until –’ His voice cut off and Wolfie heard the reflection gasp. ‘What? Hurrilan wants to speak to me now?’
There was a chattering reply from the imps, and the reflection called down to Wolfie, ‘Look, I’ve got some work to do, OK? I’ll come back to carry on taunting you in a bit . . .’
‘All right!’ Wolfie yelled. ‘No rush.’
‘Thanks for being so understanding,’ the reflection called back.
Then there was silence.
Wol
fie peered around in the gloom, hoping that he might find a way out. He explored every inch of the cavernous compost heap, but found nothing. The walls were so slick with rotting compost juice that each time he tried to climb up, he slid right back down, squelching into the filthy muck. Things were not looking good. ‘Oh no you don’t!’ he muttered as he plucked a woodlouse from his ear. A worm was perched on the top of his hat, an earwig was trying to wriggle up his nose, and his best cravat was ruined. All in all, it wasn’t the best day he’d ever had. So Wolfie did the only thing he could think of: he sat down on the floor and cried.
‘Don’t worry!’ came a gentle voice. ‘It’s not so bad down here. Besides, there’s plenty of food.’
‘Who’s there?’ asked Wolfie, his heart pounding.
‘Only me,’ said a grubby-looking imp, poking his head out of the filth. ‘I got banished for breaking the magic mirror’s favourite mirror – he’s very vain, you know. “That’s seven years’ bad luck for you,” the mirror said as he threw me down here, then he laughed.’
‘That’s awful!’ said Wolfie.
‘I know,’ replied the imp. ‘He makes some really lame jokes!’
‘I was thinking more about being trapped down here for seven years.’
‘Oh yeah, right. That too!’
‘So what about the food you mentioned?’ asked Wolfie. ‘I am kind of hungry.’
The imp grinned as he rummaged around in the filth and pulled out a juicy worm.
‘Ohhh . . .’ said Wolfie. ‘You know what? I’ve just remembered – I’m not actually hungry at all! Isn’t that odd?’
The imp shrugged and popped the worm into its mouth, chewing away happily as Wolfie tried not to be sick.
‘So . . . what’s your name?’ asked the imp, its mouth full of half-chewed worm.
‘Wolfie.’
‘Hi, Wolfie, I’m Karpit.’
‘Seriously? Like, the things you put on the floors?’
Karpit shrugged. ‘Laugh all you like, but don’t ever laugh at my uncle Dawmatte. He’s got a black belt.’
‘What in? Karate? Judo?’
‘No, in his trousers!’ said Karpit, looking confused. ‘Still, we’d have to escape from here before you could start offending my uncle!’ He slumped down on a pile of rotting dandelions, which slipped to one side, leaving him sprawled out on the filthy floor.
‘Typical!’ muttered Karpit.
‘Wait!’ exclaimed Wolfie. ‘What’s that . . . down where you were sitting? I can see something!’
Poking up out of the compost was the top of a book. Together they scrabbled in the dirt, digging away until Wolfie was able to pick it up and wipe it clean.
On the cover it had a picture of the magic looking glass, and the words:
iMirror
User’s Guide
‘Whoa!’ exclaimed Karpit. ‘What does it say?’
Wolfie opened the book and started reading. ‘ “Congratulations on choosing iMirror. Most mirrors offer you a glimpse of the world around you; iMirror gives you the world you want . . .” ’ He paused. ‘It goes on like that for ages!’ Wolfie skipped through a lot of pages. ‘Wait! This sounds interesting, listen . . . “iMirror is manufactured to the highest standards, but if iMirror is left active for too long, it may develop personality ‘issues’. If iMirror becomes ‘problematic’ you may switch it off, and return for a full refund, or simply break it using the enclosed magical hammer – bringing an end to any undesired magic. Please note your personal safety in either course of action is NOT guaranteed.” The magic mirror must have become faulty!’ exclaimed Wolfie. Then his face fell. ‘But without that hammer we’ve got no chance of stopping it – we’d never get close enough to just turn it off!’
‘Wait a minute!’ cried Karpit. ‘I saw something like that the other day!’ He started scrabbling around, sending banana skins, carrot peelings and less recognizable, but equally disgusting things flying. ‘Now where was it . . . ?’ He dug on for a minute or two before holding a very dirty glass hammer in the air and shouting, ‘A-ha!’
‘Amazing!’ exclaimed Wolfie. ‘Now we’ve got everything we need, apart from a way out of here . . .’
There was a sharp chopping sound and wood chippings scattered down on top of them. A flare of light appeared about ten metres above their heads and a shadowy figure appeared.
‘Oh no!’ Wolfie cried. ‘He’s back! Quick, pass me the hammer – I’ll hide it!’
Karpit shoved the hammer into Wolfie’s hand and dived beneath the top layer of compost. The end of a rope slapped on to the ground. Wolfie managed to tuck the hammer under his shirt just as someone landed right in front of him.
‘Hey, Wolfie!’ said Gretel. ‘Nice place you’ve got here!’
Gretel shimmied back up the rope and heaved Wolfie through the hole she had hacked, but the branches were already weaving together. Wolfie only just managed to drag Karpit through, too, before the hole closed completely.
‘I know how to do it!’ gasped Wolfie, as they crouched behind some ferns in one of the living palace’s long corridors.
‘Do what?’ asked Gretel.
‘Fix everything!’ replied Wolfie. He held up the hammer that Karpit had found. ‘We can destroy the magic mirror and get you and Hansel back to normal!’
Gretel growled at Hansel’s name.
‘Whatever!’ exclaimed Wolfie. ‘What we need to do now is get to the cutting. I bet the mirror won’t be too far away!’
Gretel smiled. ‘I know where the cutting is! I was following some imps up to the main tower when I heard the mirror drop you into that compost heap. So all we have to do is fight our way to the top of the tower – despite the very real chance of almost certain death – find the cutting, and escape through a courtyard full of trolls.’
‘Now you put it like that . . .’ began Wolfie.
‘I’m in!’ cried Gretel.
‘And me!’ squeaked a trembling Karpit.
‘Right then.’ Wolfie gulped, his whiskers trembling in terror. ‘Let’s go.’
Wolfie, Gretel and Karpit soon arrived at the foot of a huge spiral staircase that twisted around the edge of a tall circular tower. They could see all the way to the top, hundreds of metres above.
‘This is the main tower,’ whispered Gretel. She pointed at a group of imps parading around in mismatched and ill-fitting armour on the third floor. ‘But we’re going to have to get past without them seeing us.’
‘How?’ asked Karpit.
‘Using this!’ replied Gretel, swinging a grappling hook on a rope through the air and throwing it a few levels above the imps, to catch over a twisting handrail. ‘Quick, while they’re not looking!’
Wolfie and Karpit clambered on to the rope behind her.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Wolfie and Karpit were not good at rope climbing.
‘My hands hurt!’ complained Karpit.
‘Hurry up!’ whispered Gretel.
‘You try climbing a rope with paws!’ muttered Wolfie. ‘You have no idea how hard this is without thumbs!’
‘Shhh!’ hissed Gretel.
A surprised-looking imp peered over the handrail. With a nasty grin, it pulled out a jagged dagger and started sawing away at the rope.
Gretel groaned and hooked her candy-cane staff into the wall. ‘Grab my legs!’ she yelled as the last threads of the rope gave way, leaving Karpit clinging on to Wolfie’s back while he dangled from Gretel’s feet.
‘This isn’t easy with paws either!’ yelped Wolfie.
‘Hang on!’ shouted Gretel, rocking her body back and forth until Wolfie was swinging over the staircase.
‘Let go on the next swing!’ grunted Gretel through gritted teeth.
‘I’m not sure . . .’ began Wolfie, but Gretel kicked her legs so hard that his paws slipped and he and Karpit landed in a heap on the stairs. Gretel took one more swing, then flung herself over the handrail, landing in a crouch, before springing up to climb the stairs two at a time.
&nb
sp; As Wolfie got to his feet, he noticed a figure a couple of floors above – it was Hansel! If Hansel and Gretel found each other then it was game over! He had to keep them apart! But how?
Wolfie didn’t deal well with stress. It was like those granny-eating lessons at Wolf School where he knew the answers but as soon as he was actually asked, his mind went blank and he couldn’t remember whether you were meant eat the granny first and then disguise yourself as an old lady, or the other way around.
A great roar rose up below him and Wolfie looked down to see trolls pouring into the tower and start running towards the stairs. Wolfie’s mind raced, and then he had an idea . . .
‘Trolls!’ shouted Wolfie, pointing to the base of the tower.
‘I’m on it!’ yelled Gretel, skidding through the badly dressed imps on the third floor, who all scattered, whimpering about it not being their fault. Gretel picked up a big axe one of the imps had dropped and started running back downstairs towards the trolls.
‘Let’s go!’ yelled Wolfie to Karpit as they raced past Gretel up the stairs.
‘Wolfie!’ cried Hansel, as Wolfie finally made it to the sixth floor. His eyes narrowed as he saw Karpit and he pulled out his nunchucks.
‘It’s OK!’ yelped Wolfie. ‘He’s with me! We’ve got to get to the top of the tower – that’s where the cutting is. Come on!’ Hansel looked puzzled, but shrugged, and together they all ran up the staircase.
‘Oh yeah, watch out for the cuddlers!’ called Hansel as they raced along a narrow section of the staircase lined with big, bushy plants that had incredibly soft leaves and made a purring sound.
