Clearheart Page 12

  The Duke had told Bolgus that the Magicals had never thought the Giants were responsible for the attempted kidnapping of the Queen. He had told Bolgus that it was in fact Thomas who had blamed Bolgus. Bolgus was shocked. Horrified. Perplexed. Hurt. And ultimately rather angry.

  The Duke had told Bolgus that, if he were to help him collect a few bits and pieces from around the world, the Duke would permanently Shrinkify his brother, incarcerate him in the Magusian gaol for his betrayal and make Bolgus Lord of Gommoronahl. Bolgus wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to be Lord of Gommoronahl, because he knew he had never been the sharpest tool in the toolbox. All Bolgus really wanted was for his brother not to have doubted his honesty in the first place. But he was all worked up right now, so he was going along with the Duke’s plan.

  The Duke looked out across the isolated, fresh expanse of his new domain. He was growing stronger and more cunning daily. What a magnificent idea of his allies it had been to come to Antarctica, where the air is clean and the environment so similar to that of Magus. It was not for nothing that the Duke and Saul had found allies able to draw limited amounts of sap from Spirit Trees. The Duke had planned to raise Bolgus himself, but Ella had saved him the trouble by raising Lord Thomas of Gommoronahl and his brother Bolgus herself. He would have to remember to thank her.

  Soon the Clearheart would be captured. How brilliantly shrewd Saul had been to suggest that they lure her to them rather than going to get her themselves, using the pixie as bait. The Duke crossed his arms and closed his eyes. Soon, very soon, he would have her Shrinkified. He would take her with him to Magus, where never before has a Flitterwig been, with a small number of minions, and there he would force her to command the Dewdrops to come back to Earth with him so that he could get on with more serious Shrinkification of machinery. Then he would overthrow Magus by force. Forget magic—violence was the answer. And all the while he would have access to the Clearheart’s tears to protect him from any polluting effects in either world.

  Bolgus had begun snoring, his auburn head resting dolefully on the ice, the rest of his body tucked safely into the ground. The Duke called for Ragwald to bring some sap. He shot a laser of elf dust out of his forefinger, electrifying the poor oaf to his senses.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice,’ said the Giant. His bottom lip began to quiver. The Duke acted at once. He didn’t want the dumb creature crying.

  ‘Just meant to wake you up, Bolgus my good man. So sorry if I alarmed you. Now don’t be sad. Remember, soon we will have the Dewdrops. The Clearheart, as our prisoner, will be their guide and I will be their master. With them we will take Gommoronahl. They will sort out your sap problem and you will be Lord of your land.’

  Bolgus nodded his massive head and gave a weak, if wide, squishy-mouthed smile, baring his craggy, grey teeth. He tried to feel like this was a good thing.

  ‘Can I have some more sap?’ he asked needily.

  Ragwald put a small globule on the ice. Bolgus’s tummy rumbled like thunder and the simple creature forgot all about right and wrong for the moment as he licked the spot clean.

  All Bolgus had to do in exchange for the Duke’s loyalty was to bring the Stretchified Magical gold and oil and a few bits of metal sculpted by humans to blow things up. Thrusting his hand up through the Earth’s crust to grab the machines might cause a spot of bother. For it wouldn’t bode well for Giant anonymity at all if human objects were to keep disappearing into the ground. But Bolgus hadn’t stopped to think about that. Luckily for Bolgus, army bases are not keen on publicising such freak occurrences. And no human would be able to see the Giant, so, for all the army knew, their weapons were about to be stolen by aliens (armies will believe almost anything except the truth), leaving nothing more than upturned earth in their wake.

  Gold and oil from deep within the Earth’s core were easy to provide. For, as a Giant, he had access to every part of the centre of the Earth. It was his job to protect these parts, after all. Who would miss a few bits and pieces? Last time he had been awake it seemed like humans were doing all they could to use it up anyway.

  The Duke moved away from Bolgus, who could barely keep his eyes open. The Giant retreated into the heavy comforts of the soil and rock deep beneath them, leaving another mound of upturned snow and ice in his wake. The Duke swept inside, his reptilian tail dragging behind him. He called for his Protector, Ragwald, to prepare the Waters. It was time to check how close the Clearheart was getting.

  Saul, meanwhile, was hard at work in a removed wing of the Ulnus estate, working with the Dryad Flitterwigs to develop artificial sap, for there was little chance of getting much more from the already depleted Spirit Trees. Magic knew he was loving life right now. For without him, after all, the Ulnuses and the Duke would never have met. And the Duke would not be coming so close to realising his dream. Soon he would be among the first Flitterwigs to infiltrate the silvery liquid shores of the Magical Kingdom of Magus. There would be books written about him, stories whispered in his name. Who knew, perhaps one day there would be a statue erected in his honour!

  chapter 20

  honking & halitosis

  The sounds coming from outside Ella and Charlie’s tent were rather worrying to say the least. The bitter winds that had swept across them last night had settled, only to be replaced by a flapping and a shuffling and a honking. Not good.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ Ella whispered to Charlie, who sat up dead straight. His white hair stood on end and his eyes were bright as stars.

  ‘It’s some sort of water animal dialect,’ Charlie whispered back.

  ‘Not whales!’ breathed Ella through her teeth.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a whale hanging around out of water, you derr-brain?’ whispered Charlie. He started to make gentle barking sounds. The shuffling outside stopped. A slightly aggressive ‘pouff, pouff’ was the reply.

  ‘It’s a seal!’ Charlie grinned, proud to find his Animumble studies were coming to fruition so soon. ‘A fur seal!’ Charlie made some more noise. He really was unbelievably good at Animumble, if he did say so himself.

  ‘What are you saying to it?’ asked Ella, sitting on her feet. Harold hopped up onto her knee. She stroked his head to reassure him.

  ‘I’m asking if he’s hungry,’ said Charlie, barking some more.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Ella.

  ‘He said he’s always hungry,’ said Charlie.

  Ella gulped.

  ‘He wants to know why we’re here,’ said Charlie.

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said we’re looking for a mountain pixie wearing green pants and a stripy top, but he said he has only seen ice pixies and snow pixies lately. They only wear white and blue.’

  ‘Is he going to eat us?’ Ella asked.

  ‘Probably not. Seals don’t really like to eat humans.’ Charlie patted himself on the back for paying such attention in class when he used to go to normal school. ‘He might kill us though. He says it’s kind of instinctual for him to attack the unknown, so we shouldn’t go out yet.’

  ‘Oh, goodbye Germintrude, my dear,’ whimpered Harold from his spot on Ella’s knee, remembering, for the first time in weeks, his sister in the pond at Snoppit Farm. His lust for adventure had suddenly vanished into thin air. Ella only heard a croak.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Please be quiet, I think is what you mean, Charles,’ said Harold, sounding slighted.

  ‘I’m going out there,’ said Charlie. Ella grabbed his anorak. ‘Don’t worry, Ella. I think we’ll be okay.’

  Charlie moved towards the spot where the tent had magically split open yesterday. It split open for him again. A big grey furry head peered in, stinking of fish. It had a white throat with black spots. The seal’s breath was so powerfully bad it almost knocked Charlie over. Even Ella, at the other end of the leafy tent, could smell it. Soft, round, brown eyes stared out of the head and long whiskers grazed the opening of t
he tent. Ella froze. So did Harold. Charlie, however, put out his hand and let the seal sniff it, grunting under his breath all the while.

  ‘I’m going to invite him in,’ said Charlie quietly. ‘It seems the right thing to do.’

  And so in waddled the seal. Into their stretched-leaf tent. Right up to Ella. He grunted at her. Ella tried not to inhale. Goodness, that seal had bad breath. Charlie grunted back. The seal’s head heaved back and forth. He stared up into the air and opened his mouth. Ella held her nose and peered in. She thought she could see something festering in there, but she didn’t want to look any closer. She turned to Charlie.

  ‘He thinks it’s cool that I understand him and funny that you don’t,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s never met any animal like us before!’

  Ella smiled at the seal, but it wasn’t a very genuine smile. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’m being laughed at by a seal with halitosis.’

  The seal obviously didn’t feel the two children were much of a threat, for he rolled over on his back. Charlie moved over to him and scratched under his chin.

  ‘Could you scratch him behind there?’ said Charlie to Ella, pointing at a spot above the seal’s flipper. ‘He wants us to scratch all the itches he can’t reach.’ Ella did as she was told. The seal’s fur was wet. It felt a bit like Noughts and Crosses, Granny’s labradors, after they’d been swimming in the Dell. The seal’s flipper twitched like a dog’s leg does when it gets its belly scratched. Ella couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘He’s called Ralph,’ said Charlie. ‘And he’s very lonely. No other seal will spend time with him, you see, because of his smelly breath.’ Ella looked at the seal and her eyes were understanding. She remembered what it had been like for her, being different and lonely because of it. She scuttled over to the hanky and peered into it, willing her instincts to guide her. Her hair flared as soon as she looked at the bark.

  ‘Tell him to open his mouth again,’ said Ella. Charlie looked at her sideways. ‘Okay,’ he said, rolling his eyes at Harold.

  The seal did as he was asked and Ella, holding her nose tightly, peered in. She spotted the rotting tooth at once. Just as she had sensed. Feeling a little timorous, she put her hand gingerly into his mouth and laid the bark upon it.

  ‘He should be okay now,’ she said, leaning back on her heels.

  And he was. Within minutes, he was thanking Charlie and Ella and honking and snuffling for all he was worth.

  ‘How did you know to do that?’ said Charlie. Ella shrugged.

  ‘My hair and my ears and my shoulders kind of told me,’ she said. Charlie looked impressed.

  ‘He’s going to take us to talk to the penguins,’ said Charlie. ‘They might have seen something he hasn’t.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Ella, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. She reached for the globule of sap wrapped up in Thomas’s giant hanky and, taking a tiny bit on her finger and popping it in her mouth, thought of muesli and milk and fresh orange juice.

  Charlie didn’t have time to do the same, for the tent collapsed on them. Then it shrunk to its original size, slipping under the children’s bottoms and leaving them sitting on the freezing ice floor.

  ‘Cool,’ said Charlie. ‘I was hoping it would sense when we didn’t need it to be a tent anymore.’ Charlie thought of blueberry muffins as he tipped a drop of sap onto his tongue. Then he tucked the much-reduced globule carefully back into his hanky pack, thanking both it and the leaf as he did so. The leaf shuddered gratefully. For all things like to be appreciated. The seal said something to Charlie and Charlie looked at Ella uncertainly.

  ‘Fancy a ride on a seal?’ he asked. ‘Because apparently the trip to the penguins is all downhill.’

  ‘Uh, not really,’ said Ella, who couldn’t even ride a horse. The seal nudged her shoulder, almost knocking her over. ‘But obviously it’s very kind of you to offer us a lift and what I really meant was, that would be great, thanks.’

  Charlie laughed and scrambled onto the big beast’s back, translating as he did so. And unless Ella was much mistaken, she thought the seal might have been having a bit of a chuckle too as she jumped up in front of Charlie. Not that she knew what he was laughing at. She had leapt up very elegantly, she thought.

  Riding on a seal is really a lot of fun. Especially downhill. As they slid faster and faster down an endless incline, their eyes watering, their heads buried deep inside their hoods, the startling surroundings of the South Pole passing unseen, both Charlie and Ella couldn’t help feeling grateful to be Flitterwigs. Charlie, feeling like a fine Protector now that they were living in the wilderness and his Animumble was proving so handy, even had the presence of mind to catch the water that ran from Ella’s eyes in big, fat, shining tears. Harold whispered in Charlie’s ear from his perch on the boy’s shoulder. He would store the tears, he croaked, pleased to be useful. He hopped into Ella’s anorak and, perching on her shoulder, opened his mouth.

  chapter 21

  penguins & puppies

  Just as Ella was beginning to wonder whether this wild ride was ever going to end, they began to slow down. Ella could feel the land flatten beneath them. Ralph weaved left and right as if he had lost control. She peeked up, but the sting of the cold forced her face down again. Eventually they came to a standstill, but not before they heard a cacophony of cu, cu, cu, cu, cu, cu, cu sounds and then a scrambling and a splashing, as if hundreds of rocks had fallen into the ocean. Ralph barked loudly. The splashing and scrambling and cu, cuing stopped. Ella looked up from the hood of her anorak and caught her breath.

  Hundreds of penguins stood before them, their heads raised in fear.

  Charlie listened as the seal made his sounds.

  ‘He’s going to leave us here, or the rest of the penguins will get scared and dive into the ocean. Not that he actually eats penguins,’ Charlie whispered, slipping off the seal’s back, his hand resting on the creature’s neck. ‘Much,’ he added.

  ‘Well please tell him from me that that’s very thoughtful of him,’ said Ella, slipping off too. She could barely believe how ridiculous this whole situation was.

  Ella smiled gratefully at Ralph while Charlie bid him farewell. The beautiful fur seal watched them walk towards the penguins.

  ‘I suppose it’s not that often that you get to meet a human out here, never mind one who understands you, hey?’ said Ella, looking over her shoulder to see if the seal was still there.

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Charlie, breathing in the fresh air and strutting as if he were a great explorer with unstoppable survival skills.

  ‘Do you think he’ll find some friends now?’ asked Ella.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie. He looked at Ella fondly. She smiled at him, so glad she hadn’t had to come all the way here on her own. She was glad she had a Protector.

  ‘Thanks for coming to Antarctica with me, Charlie,’ she said.

  ‘No problem.’ Charlie kicked a spray of loose ice up into the air with his right foot. ‘Didn’t really have much choice,’ he whispered to Harold (who had reinstated himself on Charlie’s shoulder) out of the side of his mouth in Animumble. The frog tut-tutted him at once.

  ‘Be proud, Charlie,’ the frog croaked, struggling to speak clearly through a mouthful of tears. ‘You are a very important Flitterwig. Remember to act like one, in a gentlemanly fashion.’

  As they began to close in on the penguins, Charlie decided it would be a good idea to let them know they were friendly. The only problem was, he wasn’t sure what penguin sounded like. The noise the penguins had made on approach had been one of such panic, he hadn’t been able to catch the nuances of it at all. All Animumble, of course, was basically just Animumble, but until he heard the intonations and sounds a particular animal made—which he had a gift for immediately mimicking—he wasn’t sure what to do. He decided to go for a puppy sound, being one he was familiar with and which he didn’t think would scare the funny birds.

  He was sort of right and sort of wrong. The gentl
eness of his Animumble calls obviously made the penguins think Charlie was not foe, but it also made them fuss over him terribly. Within minutes of his call, the penguins had closed in on the two children. Both male and female became very clucky around Charlie, herding him this way and that, trying to huddle close to keep him warm. It was quite embarrassing. For Charlie. It was very amusing for Ella.

  Charlie soon found the right tone, however. The penguins moved away, but they were full of questions. Never before had they come upon anything like the two children so close up, and they certainly had not encountered a human who understood them.

  Over a spot of lunch (some sap tasting—Ella had a salad and mayonnaise sandwich, Charlie had a cheese one), Charlie answered questions. When he could get a word in, that is. For when Adelie penguins (which is what these little chaps were), get talking, they really get talking!

  ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that our ice caps are melting? That’s pretty strange!’ said one.

  ‘Strange! Try the fact that there aren’t enough fish in the sea to feed us,’ said another.

  ‘How about this for strange?’ said yet another. ‘I met a seal who is a vegetarian the other day. He’s starving, of course. Sometimes he has to cave in, as he really hasn’t much choice, but he said he’d rather not eat fish if he could avoid it.’

  ‘That is pretty strange,’ said Charlie.

  Ella waited patiently for Charlie to translate. He was halfway through trying to do so when one penguin, shorter than the others (although his wings were much bigger, and his tone much squeakier) piped up. ‘Strange. You think that’s strange. I was talking to an Arctic tern the other day who said he saw a creature that looks a bit like a human, but much scarier and with wings.’

  Charlie stopped mid-sentence. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, I know a tern who saw a creature who looks a bit like you two, but much scarier and with wings.’

  Charlie put his hand up to hush all the other penguins. Much muttering and back-turning and waddling-off ensued in response to the boy’s officious behaviour.