The Shadow Thief Page 3

  ‘Didn’t you recognise that plant?’ he said, panicked. ‘It’s a Flesh Gobbler and its poison is so deadly it kills its victims in ten minutes flat!’

  Milli was too stricken to reply. Instead, she collapsed onto the ground at Ernest’s feet and began to reflect on her short and uneventful life.

  ‘I trust you will inform my family,’ she requested. Ernest shushed her, muttering wildly to himself. ‘That’s very noble of you,’ Milli went on, ‘your closest friend is dying and you can’t even listen to her last wishes.’

  ‘Milli, please! I think I may be on to something. It was my Aunt Bulb who first warned me about the Flesh Gobbler. There is no known antidote in traditional medicine, but she’s a botanist and has been working on a cure. Bulb isn’t sure her cure will work because it hasn’t been tested properly yet, but it’s worth a try now. If only I could remember it!’

  He screwed up his face in concentration and plonked himself down beside Milli who was now entering the early stages of delirium.

  ‘Look,’ she giggled, pointing to a ladybug on her leg. ‘Do you think she has a name and a family too, Ernest? With cousins and uncles and great-grandparents?’

  Ernest did not feel this warranted a response. Besides, he was still racking his brains for the possible antidote Aunt Bulb had shared with him. Meanwhile, Milli crawled over to a garden bed and sprawled across a patch of earth oddly patterned with blue and purple rings. Ernest rose to retrieve her, but stopped dead in his tracks when he caught sight of the luminous rings.

  ‘The Higloopungie!’ he shouted, leaping a foot in the air. ‘I remember now! The only antidote for the poison of the Flesh Gobbler is the distilled gastric juices of the Higloopung Worm. But we don’t have time for that. You’ll just have to swallow some whole.’

  Milli looked at him, befuddled, as he dropped to his knees and began clawing at the ground, sending great clumps of dirt flying in every direction. Soon enough, just above the surface, there appeared a slimy blue head. It was about a thumb’s width with bug eyes and gingery whiskers. The Higloopung’s bloated body was the colour of mouldy cheese and webbed with fine capillaries. It cocked its head in a peevish sort of way, causing the growths on its crown to crinkle in a rather unflattering manner.

  In case you are not one of those lucky children who has had an explorer for a geography teacher, it is my duty to inform you that the rare Higloopung Worm originated in the remote mountains of Higloopunglia, where they occupy a protected rank in the food chain. In Higloopunglia, the worms are venerated for their healing powers and never boorishly yanked from their underground homes. Only the Great King Compost the Third ever enjoyed the privilege of doing so, and even then only with very good reason.

  Ernest let out a whoop as he snatched up the Higloopung Worm and thrust it at Milli.

  ‘Quickly, eat it!’ he told her. ‘It’s the only way to neutralise the poison!’

  ‘We can’t just rub them on the cuts?’ Milli asked. The thought of swallowing the writhing worm had brought her sharply back to her senses. But Ernest was adamant.

  ‘No, no,’ he said, pulling another Higloopung from the ground. ‘You must eat them. Three ought to do the trick.’

  Milli wasn’t a squeamish girl but chewing and swallowing such a vile-looking creature was too much for even her to contemplate. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘You don’t have to chew them,’ Ernest reassured. ‘Just tip back your head.’

  Reluctantly, Milli did as he asked, and before she knew what was happening Ernest had popped the worms into her open mouth and she felt them wriggle down her throat.

  After several long moments and a lot of gagging from Milli, the black thorns in her arm dropped to the ground and the punctures they had created healed without so much as a scar. She turned to Ernest, surprised to find him wearing an expression of concern, rather than gloating.

  ‘Has it worked?’ he asked.

  ‘I shall have to thank Aunt Bulb,’ she returned meekly.

  Ernest grinned and threw himself at Milli, hugging her in relief. Quite unaccustomed to displays of emotion from Ernest, a polite ‘thank you’ was all Milli could think to say.

  The sun was disappearing behind Hog House like a ball of fire. Soon it would grow too dark for them to find their way back. They had been winded by a gale, nearly swallowed alive, growled at and almost poisoned. Even the valiant Milli agreed it was time to go home.

  When they reached the burrow in the wall and knelt down to scramble back through, they both turned for one final look at Hog House. They thought they saw the eyes in the boar’s head flicker and widen. A pair of fierce bloodshot eyeballs pinned them for a moment before resuming the immobility of stone. Neither Milli nor Ernest could be certain they had not imagined it, but they could not shake the unmistakable, prickling sensation that they had been seen.

  Making her way back through the deserted streets to Peppercorn Place, Milli thought about the bizarre events of the afternoon. She knew she would go back to Hog House. In fact, she planned to go the very next day. When the boar’s head had come to life, Milli had not been afraid so much as intrigued. Ernest, who was of the opinion that there were enough challenges in their latest trigonometry assignment, clearly hoped to put the whole unfortunate episode behind him. But Milli had spent her childhood inventing villains more shocking than you have ever read about in story books and finding ingenious ways to defeat them. Her villains had blind white eyes that bored right through your skull. Their hands were black and encrusted with blood. They had yellow nails as sharp as daggers that arched from their fingers and were always itching to carve their emblem into your skin. These villains kept weapons at the ready in their sleeves and boots, and feasted day and night on small children who strayed after dark. Milli had defeated many such villains in her games. So, as you can imagine, she did not find a temperamental doorknocker particularly worrying.

  She reached her house and let herself in through the bathroom window, which was always left open in case of emergencies. Creeping into her bedroom, she lost her footing on a slip of paper lying beside the door and went skidding into the wardrobe. Cursing quietly, she picked herself up, hoping the clamour had not woken her family. Only when she was about to change into her regulation nightshift did her eye catch sight of the slip of paper now lying harmlessly on the floor. When she picked it up, she saw that it was, in fact, an envelope with her name printed neatly on the front in very formal lettering. With a growing sense of dread, she tore it open and read:

  By the order of the Mayor of Drabville you are under arrest for committing the following offences:

  Being out of doors after the hour of four o’clock.

  Trespassing.

  Shouting in the street.

  The use of unauthorised medication.

  You will be collected from your residence at exactly eight-fifteen this evening.

  Resistance is futile.

  Milli stared at the note in disbelief. She and Ernest had been seen. They were going to be arrested. She glanced at her clock: 8.05. This was a disaster. She had to wake her father. No, he wouldn’t understand. She needed to talk to Ernest.

  She scribbled a hasty note to Mr Klompet and slid it under his bedroom door. She would get out of this muddle herself. How exactly? That part would be figured out later.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Prisoners of Hog House

  A long grey car arrived punctually at eight-fifteen and not a second before. Milli was waiting on the pavement when the rear door slid soundlessly open and waited for her to climb in. You are probably wondering why the foolish girl didn’t pack her bags and run the moment she received the letter. But you see, there is nowhere to run to in Drabville, nowhere to hide. It does not matter which remote corner of the town you creep into, you will always be found.

  Ernest was already slumped forlornly in the back seat when Milli clambered in. His head was resting in his hands and every now and then a low moan escaped his lips. A screen of tinted glass s
eparated the front and back seats, so Milli could not see the driver. Even so, she got the feeling the driver could see them.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered.

  Slowly, Ernest turned to face her, revealing a ragged scratch down his left cheek. ‘I tried to run.’ He looked so helpless sitting there with his tear-streaked face and hands shaking in his lap that Milli felt a pang of sympathy just looking at him.

  ‘This is outrageous,’ she fumed. ‘They’ve accused us of offences we didn’t even commit. What do they mean “unauthorised medication”?’

  ‘The Higloopung Worms,’ Ernest replied glumly.

  ‘Oh.’ Milli suddenly felt overwhelmed with guilt. This was her fault! Ernest hadn’t wanted to go to Poxxley Gardens, but she had coerced, cajoled and threatened him into it. Getting herself into trouble was one thing, but dragging Ernest into it with her was something else altogether. It was at that moment Milli decided she was going to rescue them, and she would do it for Ernest Perriclof, her only true companion and friend. She reached out and took Ernest’s hand in hers, squeezing it tightly just before the car turned a sharp bend and glided to a halt.

  The huge man who opened the door for them had muscles the size of cantaloupes. As they climbed out, Milli saw at once that he didn’t look particularly evil, just bored. Black bristles covered his chin. His jutting jaw and long swinging arms gave him an ape-like appearance. Looking past their beefy escort, Milli recognised immediately where they were. The dainty yellow flowers, twisting gravel driveway, red doorknocker: they were back at Hog House!

  Ernest’s jaw dropped as he, too, took in their surroundings but he had to bite his lower lip to keep from crying. Milli, on the other hand, felt a mixture of curiosity and indignation. She opened her mouth to ask how the car had managed to drive through the stone wall, but closed it again when she saw that they had come from a different direction earlier in the day and the driveway curved around to the back of the house where there was, presumably, another entrance.

  ‘Follow me and don’t try anythin’,’ the man growled, propelling them towards the front door. Milli, being Milli, tried to dart away but the oaf simply reached out, grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder as if she were no heavier than a sack of marshmallows.

  ‘Put me down, you big salami!’ Milli shouted as she squirmed in his grasp. ‘Just wait until my father hears about this. Kidnapping is a very serious offence and you are in big trouble.’

  ‘You ‘aven’t bin kidnapped, you’ve bin arrested,’ the man corrected her, stony-faced. When they reached the front door, he put her down and clumsily drew a delicate phial of blue glass from his pocket and sprayed a spicy fragrance in the vicinity of the keyhole. The door swung open instantly.

  He pushed them inside and they found themselves standing in an entrance hall the size of a football field. Gilt-framed portraits and the heads of hunted stags hung from the walls, while dusty chandeliers cast eerie patterns on the chequered marble floor. A sweeping staircase with wrought-iron balusters in the shape of crocodiles led to an upper level. Passageways wormed off the foyer in every direction, twisting and turning in a most mind-boggling fashion. Some stretched further than the eye could see and were lined with rows of mirrored doors. Milli’s eyes widened as she remembered the size of the house from the outside. It was big, but not this big. This was a labyrinth.

  ‘Impossible,’ she breathed.

  ‘It must be some sort of illusion,’ Ernest whispered in reply.

  ‘Quiet,’ the man growled and pushed them towards the staircase.

  Instead of climbing the stairs as they had anticipated, they were led underneath it where they stopped in front of a pair of green velvet drapes. Grunting, the man who Milli had dubbed Mr Salami because of his thick, red arms pulled the curtains aside to reveal a small and rather dingy-looking elevator.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr, er…?’ Ernest’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Gristle,’ the man offered gruffly.

  ‘Yes, well, excuse me, Mr Gristle, might I just ascertain the purpose of our visit?’

  Gristle looked confounded. For a moment his Cro-Magnon brow furrowed before he barked: ‘Inside!’ and gestured towards the open doors of the elevator. Clearly it would be difficult to engage him in conversation.

  As they began their rattling descent, Milli took the opportunity to study Gristle’s face more closely. There was something curious about his eyes. Something she could not quite put her finger on. Then she realised that instead of the blank, empty stares she was accustomed to from the townsfolk of Drabville, Gristle’s eyes glinted with emotion. When you looked into them you were able to read his thoughts as clearly as reading the pages of a book. At the moment, he was looking at her with suspicion. It really was quite astonishing. Beneath the panic of being arrested, of possibly never seeing her family again, Milli couldn’t help feeling just a tiny flicker of excitement. What other discoveries would they make inside Hog House? What secrets were concealed behind its mirrored doors? She could already imagine boasting to the children at school about how she had defeated an ogre with eyes like glowing lanterns. For Gristle, she was sure, would not have the intelligence to match his size.

  Ernest, on the other hand, was wondering whether there might be some major scientific breakthroughs in progress here, which he could be lucky enough to witness. Both their hopes were dashed when they stepped out of the elevator and onto the uneven dirt floor of an underground dungeon.

  The basement floor was damp and the beams of the ceiling so low that Gristle could barely stand upright. Lighting the darkness were braziers studded along a wall, showing a row of cells that looked more like cages. Gristle thrust them into the nearest one and locked the door with his phial.

  ‘You’ll sleep ’ere tonight,’ he sneered through the bars. ‘Tomorrow there’s some special people for you to meet.’ With a last goofy grin, which was intended to be menacing, he was gone.

  Special people for you to meet. Milli didn’t like the way he had said that. It sounded much too much like a threat.

  Milli slumped down exhausted beside Ernest on the rough dirt floor. Two rickety wooden stools stood in the corner, but they didn’t look stable enough to bear the weight of pillows, let alone children. The windowless cell was damp and smelled like onions. There was a pile of scratchy-looking sacks against a wall, which Milli guessed was supposed to serve as bedding. It was hard to believe that only earlier that same day Ernest had warned her about the house and its red doorknocker. How she wished she had listened to him. But there was no use moping about that now: the deed was done and time would not wind back just for two children who’d made an imprudent mistake. So they curled up together on the hard floor and tried to keep warm. Although frazzled from the events of the day, their minds were still whirring at top speed. They didn’t speak. There wasn’t much to say. At least, not until morning. They couldn’t do a thing until they learned who was keeping them prisoner. Knowing that a good night’s sleep is essential when devising any plan (especially one involving escape) they both shut their eyes determinedly. But as you can imagine, they didn’t sleep a wink.

  When Gristle returned early the next morning the children were as stiff as boards. Everything that could possibly ache ached. Gristle ignored their complaints and grumbles. Instead, he led them towards a mural on the furthermost wall of the basement, which they had overlooked on their arrival. The mural depicted the ruins of an ancient amphitheatre complete with columns, archways and tiered seats. Looking oddly out of place amidst the broken stone were two thrones draped in royal blue velvet. These stood on a platform in the middle of the arena. With a squirt from Gristle’s phial, the whole wall dislodged itself and folded like a fan. The amphitheatre was now a reality; the only difference being the addition of two strangely attired individuals ensconced in the thrones.

  Gristle led Milli and Ernest towards the raised platform and the two throned figures. At the same time, some several hundred prisoners also shuffled into the arena. There
were grandparents, mothers, fathers and even small children, all herded by a cluster of hooded figures clad head to toe in robes of red. As Milli peered at the captives she began to recognise some of the wretched, dirty faces staring back at her. All of them had mysteriously disappeared from Drabville at one time or another.

  There at the rear stood old Mr Mulberry. His face was grey and deeply lined but nevertheless determined. Milli remembered him as the local clockmaker who had always welcomed visits from convivial children. She almost didn’t recognise him, he had aged so dramatically. In front of him was a slender boy of about fifteen whose sharp green eyes looked strangely familiar. Although Milli recognised several others, she could not immediately place them. Her gaze lingered on one woman at the front of the crowd. Although she had the grimy clothes and matted hair of a prisoner, her eyes remained defiant. Milli started when she realised the woman was staring back at her. Don’t be afraid her gaze seemed to say, and Milli thought she saw a smile flicker across the woman’s lips before she turned away.

  ‘What is going on?’ Milli murmured to Ernest when a queer little man dressed like a court jester was lowered from the balcony via a rope. But a prod from Gristle’s thick fingers discouraged further communication. The little man lifted a trumpet to his lips and a royal march rang out through the arena. When he had finished, he drew himself up to his full height, which was scarcely taller than Milli, and announced ostentatiously, ‘Mrs Marjorie May Mayor’.

  A small, plump woman rose from one of the thrones in which she sat propped like a mannequin. She was the picture of wealth and privilege. Everything about her suggested roundness, from her apple cheeks to her calves like Christmas hams. She gave the small party a regal wave and smiled distantly down at them.

  ‘Mr Morgan Muscat Mayor,’ the little jester cried.