by Paul Stewart
Captain Belvedere’s moustache twitched. ‘Just a private business arrangement I have with a little grocery store in Doralakia,’ he said. ‘It must have fallen out of one of the crates we delivered. I told them to be careful—’
‘And this,’ Hubert said, holding up a pencil on the end of a piece of string, ‘was found next to the tin!’
Mrs Flood gave a little cry. Oh no! Tell me it isn’t true,’ she gasped. ‘You delivered my daughter to a little grocery store in Doralakia along with your nasty crates. My poor, dear, darling Corby!’
Serena put an arm round her mother to comfort her, while Jon – Jolyon stepped forward and put an arm round Serena.
‘My dear madam, I’m so sorry …’ began Captain Belvedere, clearly flustered. ‘I had no idea—’
‘Never mind that, Captain,’ said Mr Flood. ‘Arthur and I will crank up the engine to full power. There’s just one thing I need you to do.’
‘Anything,’ said Captain Belvedere, gripping the ship’s wheel.
‘Turn the Euphonia round right now!’ said Mr Flood. ‘And head back to Doralakia!’
‘Some more verbena tea?’ asked Konstantin. ‘Or would you care for another spoonful of that wonderful delicacy you so kindly brought me from the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Corby, wrinkling her nose up at the tin of Snead and Mopwell’s Macaroni Cheese in Cheesy Sauce that the mayor was offering to her.
‘Here in Doralakia,’ Konstantin said, looking at the rusty tin, ‘we have olives, sweet cucumbers, honey and wine. But nothing quite like the extraordinary things that are put in tins and delivered to the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store! Every tin has a different delicious secret concealed within it!’ He laughed delightedly.
The two of them were sitting at the round table, which had a huge lamp on a tall, brass stand in the middle of it, together with a tall teapot, two small teacups, the rusty tin and two long – handled spoons. There was a large full moon in the sky, and all around them lamps shimmered at the top of every tower house in Doralakia, creating a magical constellation which led down to the pretty harbour below.
Thank you very much for a delicious tea, Konstantin,’ said Corby. I’ve had such a lovely time, but I was wondering …’
‘How I could help you to get back to your family?’ said Konstantin, getting up from the table.
‘Yes,’ said Corby.
‘I shall show you,’ said the mayor, hitching up his long white beard and crossing the roof to the telescope in the opposite corner.
He stepped onto the turntable and swung the telescope round until it was pointing out to sea. Leaning forward, he peered through the eye – piece, and began twiddling with several small wheels until the telescope was focused on the distant horizon. Then he beckoned for Corby to take a look.
Corby put her eye to the telescope.
And there, far out on the glittering sea, surrounded by shimmering shoals of love fish, and lit up with countless lights, was a magnificent ocean liner. It reminded Corby of the faded poster
of the Euphonia in her glory days that she loved so much.
‘The Queen Rita the Second,’ said Konstantin. ‘She is far too grand for any of our little harbours here in Dalcretia. No, she sails the seven seas on marvellous cruises to faraway places. But she does do us the honour of slowing down, so that her passengers can enjoy the lights of Fedrun and Mesapoli, Lissari, and of course Doralakia, glittering in the distance by night – and watch the spectacular sunrise over our tower houses the next day.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ breathed Corby, unable to tear herself away.
‘You think so?’ said Konstantin, a tinge of sadness in his voice. ‘As for me, the Euphonia will always be first in my heart
He seemed lost in thought for a moment, then pulled himself together.
‘Tomorrow, at first light, Nico and Spiro can take you out to the Queen Rita the Second in their boat. I shall give you thirty gold Dalcretian crowns for the finest cabin, and you, my dear Corby Flood, shall reach Harbour Heights a full day before your family. Think how surprised they’ll be!’ The mayor clapped his hands together.
‘But how will I be able to repay you?’ said Corby excitedly.
‘You shall repay me by always thinking fondly of Doralakia and’ – he took Corby’s hand and helped her down from the telescope – ‘by coming back one day to visit our little town.’
Just then, there was the sound of a bell tinkling nearby.
‘Please excuse me,’ said Konstantin as he crossed the terrace to a copper and silver tube – just like the one Corby had seen next to the door downstairs – protruding from the wall. Konstantin removed a cork stopper and spoke into the funnel.
‘Hello?’
The terrace filled with the sound of two voices, both shouting, both interrupting one another in the language Corby couldn’t understand. She recognized them at once. It was Nico and Spiro.
‘OK OK,’ she heard Konstantin say. He turned to Corby, a look of bemusement on his face. ‘The strangest thing,’ he said. ‘Nico and Spiro. They say
their mama has found a soulopol in the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store, and this time it isn’t a little girl dressed up as a bumblebee …’
‘It isn’t?’ said Corby.
‘No,’ said Konstantin. ‘Come quick, they say, because this time the soulopol – it is real!’
16. The Soulopol
omeone has come. But it is not the little girl it is an old woman with a huge black head. I’m frightened. What part of the forest is this? It smells strange and it makes my nose itch …
I’m … going … to … sneeze …
‘Atishoo! Atishoo! Atishoo!’
The sound of sneezing was coming from the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store, and with each sneeze, the crowd of Doralakians in nightgowns and pyjamas drew back and chattered nervously to each other in the language Corby didn’t understand.
The people of Doralakia, they go to bed very early,’ explained Konstantin as they hurried down the steep cobbled street towards the grocery store. ‘Doralakia has become a very sleepy little town ever since the laughing goat, she …’
Konstantin’s voice trailed off as they reached the crowd.
Nico and Spiro, in matching nightshirts covered in patches, stood at the front of the throng of townspeople, the tassels of their red caps dancing about as they talked animatedly. Spiro held a large frying pan in his hand, while Nico clutched a heavy rolling pin. Between them, Mama Mesa – poliki chattered away in a high – pitched, squeaky voice and waved her broomstick about, as if to emphasize what she was saying. Around her, the townsfolk exchanged nervous looks.
‘Mama, she say the soulopol is in a box that came from the ship,’ said Nico.
‘She say the soulopol follow the little bumblebee here to our grocery store,’ continued Spiro. Is not good to wear wings and stripy – stripy body, Mama say, because soulopol, they think you make fun of them!’
All eyes turned to Corby, who suddenly felt her face flush red.
‘Atishoo!
The crowd gasped and drew back. Mama Mesapoliki brandished her broomstick and muttered under her breath.
‘Mama, she say,’ said Nico and Spiro together, ‘the soulopol, it angry!’
‘Atishoo! Atishoo! AtishooP
All of a sudden there was a loud crash, and a tumble of tin cans cascaded out of the half – open door of the
Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store and down the steps onto the cobbled street.
‘Mama’s pyramid of tins!’ cried Spiro and Nico.
Konstantin shook his head. ‘First the laughing goat and now a haunted grocery store. Poor Doralakia! Who would want to visit us now when they hear that we have a soulopol!’
Corby stamped her foot. ‘What nonsense!’ she said. ‘I’m just a little girl in a fancy dress costume, and know that it isn’t a soulopol in there.’ She bent down and picked up a tin can.
‘It isn’t?’ said Konstantin.
‘No,’ said Corby. ‘And what’s more, I’m going to prove it.’
She pushed past the astonished onlookers and strode up the steps to the front door of the grocery store.
‘Do you need my frying pan?’ asked Nico helpfully.
‘Or my rolling pin?’ offered Spiro.
Mama Mesapoliki held out her broom. ‘Bumblebee?’ she said kindly.
Corby shook her head and looked down at the rusty tin can in her hand.
‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘But there is one thing I do need.’
‘What?’ asked Konstantin, hitching his beard over his shoulder. ‘A sword? A shotgun? A magic spell?’
‘No,’ said Corby. ‘A tin opener.’
17. The Hundred-Year-Old Pineapple Chunks
he falling rocks have stopped and the dust has settled, but I am still trapped in here in this hollow tree, no matter how much I stamp my feet and push against the trunk. But wait! Someone is coming …
Corby pushed open the door and stepped into the grocery store. The floor was strewn with tin cans, and on the counter only the first two rows of Mama Mesapoliki’s tin – can pyramid remained. Beneath the huge scales, which were now at a jaunty angle, was a jumble of wooden crates from the S.S. Euphonia. The one at the bottom had shifted and knocked over the others piled on top of it. A large, doleful eye peered out from between its wooden slats.
Corby opened her Hoffendinck’s Guide and turned to the page with the label.
This was all her fault. If she had left the label on the crate, then Nico and Spiro wouldn’t have thought it was meant for their mama’s grocery store and unloaded it. She read the name on the label.
‘Mr Times – Roman,’ she said. Perhaps it was just as well the crate wasn’t still on board after all.
Corby approached slowly, the open tin of Happy Island Pineapple Chunks in Syrup in one hand and Konstantin’s penknife, with its tin – opening attachment, in the other. The large, doleful eye watched her.
She bent down, reached into the tin and drew out a glistening pineapple chunk, which she gently pushed through the slats in the crate. There was a snuffling and then a slurping sound.
There, there,’ Corby whispered soothingly. ‘You poor thing. It’s high time someone got you out of that nasty crate, whatever you are.’
And that someone, Corby realized, taking a deep breath, would have to be her.
She looked at Konstantin’s penknife and then at the wooden slats. Like the bars of a cage, they had been hammered into place with nails at regular intervals. It occurred to her that if she used the penknife, then she could prise the nails out of the wood, one by one, and free the creature. It would take quite a while, but in the meantime, there were plenty of pineapple chunks left.
‘Mama say, what take Corby Bumblebee so long?’ whispered Nico to the mayor. ‘Has the soulopol cast a spell on her?’
They were all sitting on the steps of the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store: Nico, Spiro, Mama Mesapoliki, Konstantin Pavel, and Yanni Fulda, the clockmaker, and his pretty daughter Lara, who lived in the tower house next door and were the only other townsfolk who hadn’t gone back to bed. The moon was low in the sky and dawn was beginning to break over the mountains.
‘For the last time,’ said Konstantin, ‘Corby says it isn’t a soulopol. You heard her. And she said we must keep very quiet.’
‘But that was two hours ago,’ protested Spiro, ‘and if she doesn’t come out of Mama’s store soon, she’ll miss the big ship.’
He pointed across the harbour to where, far out at sea, the lights of the majestic Queen Rita II had just appeared in the distance.
Lara, the clockmaker’s daughter, gave a little sigh. ‘The big ship,’ she murmured.
Just then, Corby stuck her head round the door. She looked tired, and her hair had bits of straw in it.
‘Ssshhh,’ she said. ‘All of you. You’ll scare it. I’ve just got it settled.’
‘The soulopol?’ said Nico.
Konstantin gave him a look.
‘Come and see for yourself,’ said Corby, ‘but you must keep very quiet. The poor thing has been shut up in that horrid crate for ages, and it’s terribly frightened.’
Nico and Spiro bent down and whispered in their mother’s ear. Then they all followed Corby inside the grocery store, closing the door quietly behind them.
‘It’s magnificent!’ said Nico.
‘Astonishing!’ whispered Spiro. ‘Mama say, she seen nothing like it, and Mama, she born in Mesapoli!’
‘Beautiful!’ breathed Lara, the clockmaker’s daughter.
‘If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears I wouldn’t have believed it,’ added her father.
‘Doralakia is blessed to have such a creature!’ beamed Mayor Konstantin Pavel. ‘Why, the laughing goat was truly remarkable, but this … this …’ He clasped his hands together and tears sprang to his eyes. ‘This will put Doralakia back on the map … We shall take such care of it, Corby Flood, I promise you.’
‘Just until I get back to Harbour Heights and speak to my father,’ said Corby. ‘He’ll know what to do.’
‘Speaking of which,’ said the mayor, ‘you must hurry if you are not to miss the Queen Rita.’
They turned and quietly tiptoed out of the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store.
Behind them, from the nest of straw in the corner, piled high and with the tin cans removed, came a contented sigh.
18. The Sweetest Song
t is so nice here in the fresh dry grass. The little girl freed me from the hollow tree. Others came, too. I sang, and they smiled and laughed and stroked my skin.
And now the sun has come up. I am so happy, my heart will burst! I must sing again. If I sing, I can let the happiness out and my heart will not burst …
Down at the pretty harbourside of Doralakia, Corby climbed into Nico and Spiro’s boat. It had a rickety old engine strapped to its wooden hull, which was light blue, and had an eye painted on the prow.
To see where she going,’ Nico explained, making sure Corby was settled on a bench before he started the engine, by pulling a long cord.
The old engine spluttered into life after two more pulls.
‘Farewell, Corby Flood,’ called Konstantin Pavel, waving his handkerchief. ‘And may St George protect and watch over you. I only wish you could stay, for today Doralakia shall have its Longest Afternoon and the people shall see the marvellous creature you have entrusted to our care.’
‘Goodbye, Konstantin!’ called Corby. ‘Goodbye, Mama Mesapoliki. Goodbye, Doralakia! I’m sorry
I can’t stay for the Longest Afternoon
Spiro lowered the engine into the water and the light – blue boat surged out into the harbour at quite a surprising speed. Corby waved to the figures, rapidly receding into the distance on the harbour quayside, the tower houses rising up behind them like golden stalagmites in the early morning sunshine.
She turned away, and felt a lump in her throat. Looking down, she weighed the small leather bag she held in her hand. The thirty Dalcretian crowns Konstantin had given her jingled inside.
After about fifteen minutes the huge hull of the gleaming ocean liner drew closer, and Corby could see its decks, which were strewn with streamers and balloons and long lengths of glittering tinsel.
The Halfway – There Ceremony on the Queen Rita II looked as if it had been far more fun than the one on the S.S. Euphonia, thought Corby. It seemed so long ago – the party games, the food fight, Serena and Arthur, Serena and Jon – Jolyon, the sinister Brotherhood of Clowns …
Corby shivered.
‘You cold, Corby Bumblebee?’ asked Nico. ‘We nearly there, but you can have my jacket. Finest goatskin …’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Corby, turning back and smiling at him.
And then she saw it … over Nico’s left shoulder, a white lifeboat, far in the distance.
It was being rowed steadily towards a
deserted sandy cove. And as she watched, four figures clambered out into the surf and hauled the lifeboat ashore as a fifth figure waved his hands in the air – and then his legs, as he fell over in the back of the boat.
But it wasn’t this that had first caught Corby’s eye, nor the fact that the lifeboat looked curiously familiar. No, what Corby had noticed, even at this distance, was a flash of colour that chilled her to the bone.
The figures, who had pulled the boat ashore and were now heading off across the beach, were wearing bottle – green bowler hats!
‘For the last time,’ said Yanni Fulda, the clockmaker, ‘come away, Lara, and stop mooning after the big ship.’ ‘But Papa!’ protested Lara. ‘You don’t understand!’ Next to them, the mayor wiped his eyes and blew his nose loudly on his handkerchief. He turned away from the harbour, and was about to climb the steep, cobbled street back to his tower house, when the most extraordinary sound floated through the still early – morning air.
It was a sweet, lilting sound, like a songbird greeting the dawn, or a whale calling to its calf – and it was coming from the Hundred – Years – Old Grocery Store. It was the sweetest song Konstantin Pavel had ever heard. All through Doralakia, the townspeople were throwing open the shutters of their tower – house windows and peering out.
Konstantin laughed and began to walk up the street, and as he did so, he called up to the people: Today, Doralakia shall have the Longest Afternoon! Spread the word!’ he called. The Longest Afternoon ever!’
‘What do you mean turn round, Corby Bumblebee?’ said Spiro incredulously.
‘But we almost at the big ship!’ protested Nico.
‘I know, I know,’ said Corby, clutching Hoffendinck’s Guide more tightly than ever. ‘But the Brotherhood of Clowns! They’ve come back! We must warn the mayor!’
‘And what about your family?’ said Spiro.
