Clearheart Page 13
‘Well, fancy that,’ one twittered.
‘Throwing his hand up in such a fashion,’ said another.
‘As if he were in charge of us or something,’ added yet another.
‘Showing off how long his arms are,’ said a fourth.
‘Very strange indeed,’ twittered a fifth.
‘Well you see,’ said the diminutive penguin, his voice getting even squeakier with so much attention focused on him. ‘I spend quite a bit of time with the terns, because I believe they can teach me to fly.’ The little bird raised his wings, and Charlie saw that they really were very large indeed. ‘And even though I get teased for it,’ the penguin continued, his voice hardly audible now, ‘I keep trying.’
‘Show-off,’ twittered a nearby penguin, towering over the wee one.
‘Well,’ the little penguin continued, looking at his webbed feet in dismay. ‘The other day, I went for a, you know, a lesson, and this tern told me he was flying over the ice and he saw this sort of large, pointy, shiny protrusion. Very beautiful, he said. Like the glaciers that rise up out of the ocean, with their points spiking through the clouds. And outside of it stood a creature that looked a lot like a person, but much scarier, with wings. It was yelling most bossily at some very small black creatures. He was a long way down, but the tern has pretty good eyesight.’
Charlie stared at Ella as he translated. ‘I think he saw the Duke,’ he said.
Ella stared at the little penguin. Charlie didn’t have a chance to translate anything else, for the penguins seemed to have forgotten his wave of the arm and were twittering again.
‘Yes. Rufus is pretty strange,’ said one of the more talkative of the talkative penguins, pointing at the little penguin with her wing. ‘Always disappearing off on his own. Showing off about how he has big enough wings to learn how to fly. I mean, a penguin who flies! It’s just embarrassing.’
‘If you take me with you, I’ll show you where the terns roost,’ said little Rufus, staring up at Ella and Charlie hopefully. ‘It’s not far from here.’
‘It’s pretty strange that you two have turned up here like this,’ gabbled a penguin.
‘It’s pretty strange that you arrived on a seal,’ crowed another, leaning back on its heels and poking out a rather full belly.
‘You think that’s strange,’ a scrawny specimen piped up. ‘Have a look at the little green thing on the boy’s shoulder.’
This chirruping of penguins was never going to end!
‘That would be great!’ Charlie called to Rufus, quite unable to take the noise anymore. ‘The sooner the better.’
‘Well that’s a bit strange,’ said a particularly skinny penguin.
‘Yes, pretty strange indeed,’ said his neighbour.
Charlie hurried Rufus along. Thanking all the penguins profusely for their time, with a promise to return Rufus as soon as possible, he distanced himself from the twittering melee as quickly as he could.
When they had a walked a few hundred metres away (rather slowly, it must be added, for Rufus wasn’t terribly quick on his feet), Charlie let out a sigh of relief.
‘Blimey, they can talk,’ he said.
‘Why do you think I like to get away?’ said Rufus. Charlie looked at the penguin, with his dangling wings. Rufus was as odd among his own as he and Ella were among pure humans. Charlie liked him already.
chapter 22
terns & tendrils
The terns were not too far away at all, in a roost in a sheltered spot on a hill. After basic introductions, Charlie got straight to business.
‘So where was this man with wings?’ he asked.
‘Oh, quite a way from here,’ said one tern thoughtfully. ‘Quite a long way indeed.’
Charlie turned to tell Ella this, but she wasn’t listening at all. She was deep in thought, surveying the little penguin with the long wings. Rufus watched as terns flew in and out of the roost, his eyes a perfect reflection of Ella’s own longing when she watched Samantha fly. Ella took a deep breath.
‘Give us a minute would you, Charlie,’ she said, cutting Charlie off before he could say anything. She took Rufus by the wing and put her skateboard bag on the snow. She plucked Harold off Charlie’s shoulder and put him on her own. ‘See what you can find out,’ she called over her shoulder to Charlie as she began the short trek up another steep incline.
At the top of the ridge, Ella turned to Rufus. ‘I’m trying to learn how to fly too,’ she said. ‘I even know a spell that helps it happen. Shall we try to say it together and see if that brings us luck?’ Rufus looked at Ella mutely. He couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but he was somehow in thrall to her gentle voice. Harold (albeit with deep reservations) translated. Ella made the penguin repeat the spell a few times and tried to get him to tweak his ear in some fashion. Which was impossible, so she promised to do it for him—if she could find his ears, that was! At least Dixon wasn’t here to try to stop her this time.
The thought of the pixie tugged at Ella’s heartstrings and she breathed in suddenly. Interestingly, the act did not make her wheeze. Could it really be true, as she had been taught in Environmental Science, that her asthma was simply a result of Earthly pollution on her part-elven lungs?
Ella took a deep breath, pulled her anorak away from her shoulders enough to allow space for her wings, closed her eyes and tweaked her left ear. The Candlefloss inside her swelled with heat to protect her exposed shoulders. She whispered the incantation under her breath. Nothing happened. She tried again. Not so much as a shudder of the shoulderblades. She opened her eyes and looked around. ‘Come on, Ella,’ she said to herself. A huge expanse of ice spread out below her. She looked over at the penguins, tiny specks on the edge of the ice, and out to the ocean beyond them. An ice formation the shape of a bridge loomed out of the water like a vision. The sky was almost luminous. It’s blueness reflected against the snow and turned the edges of everything sapphire. This place was magnificent. ‘Come on, Ella,’ she said again.
She tweaked Rufus’s ear (or where she thought it was). The penguin made some indecipherable noises. The spell, she hoped. Ella winked at the penguin and jumped. The penguin jumped too.
‘What are you doing?’ said Charlie, staring down at Ella, lying flat on the ice before him in a crumpled mess.
Ella shook her head and smacked herself on the forehead. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t fly. ‘Where’s Rufus?’ she asked. Charlie looked around, gathering a dazed Harold in his fist. Rufus was nowhere to be seen. And then he looked up. There was the little fellow, up in the sky. Bopping about all over the place, flying—albeit in a rather circular and unruly fashion. Ella smiled brightly.
‘You’re a good person, Ella,’ said Charlie.
‘Thanks,’ said Ella.
‘Now concentrate. We have to find Dixon,’ said Charlie. Ella stared at him in disbelief. As if she’d forgotten that!
‘The tern is going to show us where she saw that person with wings,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘I’ve tied her to your skateboard with that tendril the giant gave us,’ he said. Harold beamed despite his fall. He was proud of how far the young boy had come.
‘You have to Stretchify the tendril though, ‘cause it isn’t long enough,’ said Charlie, all business.
‘How?’ said Ella. ‘I don’t feel in the slightest bit teary,’ she said, ‘and there is no way I’m going to let you poke me in the eye again,’ she added, sticking her hands on her hips.
‘I don’t have to,’ said Charlie, tying the Giant’s hanky tightly around his waist. ‘Because I am such a brilliant Protector! Harold and I collected your tears as we slid down the hill on the back of that seal and Harold has regurgitated them. Look!’ Charlie’s freckles fairly sparkled with pride as he pointed at a glimmering collection of diamond tears lying upon the snow.
‘Nice work, Charlie,’ said Ella. ‘But do you have more tears for later?’ Charlie slapped himself on the forehead. It reminded Ella of Dixon, which made her sad.
‘I didn’t,’ said Harold smugly. ‘There are a few more where they came from.’
Thomas, woken by a Tingle Alert, had watched the entire scene unfold. Was he never going to get a full seven hundred and twenty hours sleep again? Finding his mouth to be dry, he had stretched his enormous arm out under the Earth until he felt the edges of an aquifer. Pulling himself towards it, he had gently penetrated the aquifer’s stream. Catching the new flow that squirted from it in his hand, he had quickly carved a path in the rock so as not to stifle its flow. He had let the water pour into his hands and taken a good long sip. Realising that he had a perfect Waterway before him (poor Giants, they aren’t that quick), Thomas had looked into the Waters and found Ella.
She was standing on her skateboard with Charlie, attached by a tendril to an Arctic tern. The children had managed to Stretchify the tendril to use as reins. Resourceful indeed, these two Flitterwigs. The boy was proving himself to be a true Goblin Protector. But his pinkie had not tingled to show him that the children were capable of Stretchification or quick thinking. His pinkie had tingled so that he could see the girl’s generosity of spirit. Up in the air above them, a peculiar penguin with oversized wings flew. Not very well, it had to be said. But it was flying. It was thanking Ella as it dive-bombed past her head and crashed in the snow. The child had helped the penguin to fly. Well that was selfless indeed, considering the child could not fly herself. How much had he loved the Clearheart of old, with her kind heart and her goodwill, the Giant thought, sighing. Could it be that another of her kind walked the Earth today? Thomas rolled over and, just before passing out once more, thought to himself, ‘I certainly hope so.’
‘You’re going to have to Stretchify the bird,’ said Charlie, frowning. Goodness, this was all hard work. The tern stood politely on the snow before them, at their service.
‘But I’m rubbish at Transmogrification!’ said Ella.
‘But you Stretchified your own grandparents,’ said Charlie.
Ella sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it a try, but you’d better ask the tern if she’s all right about it.’ She crouched down so as to focus more fully, and conjured Dixon up in her mind’s eye. She thought of the first time she had met him, in her bedroom in London, when he had tried to convince her he was real. The memory of his sad face when she wouldn’t believe him made her neck warm. She remembered how he had taken her out to the garden and introduced her to the Royal Court of Magus. How he had been delighted to see her fascination. Her hair began to flare. A vision of his little body encased in a giant lollipop when he lost his mind to sugar at the lollipop factory made her smile, and a strong heat beat down her back. The memory of his distress when he had thought they would never see each other again, before the Queen lifted the Ban, made her shoulderblades itch.
‘Come on,’ she urged herself once more, holding tight to her ear and willing the magic inside her to find its way out. And then she thought of him alone, a prisoner of the Duke, all because of her. Her shoulderblades began to pound with such force it sent an ache through her spine and down to her feet. She said the incantation for Stretchification out loud and stood up straight. Harold spat tears onto the tern’s back. She could do it. She could do it. She could. She focused all her energy on the tern, sending every bit of magic she could muster into the air. The tern bulged and stretched and swelled before them. Quite frightening it looked too, its feathers pulled taut over its transparent skin.
‘I can perform magic no other Flitterwig can!’ she yelled triumphantly up to Rufus, as he took his leave and zigzagged uncertainly back to his penguin family.
Standing on the skateboard, the children tied themselves to the tendril. The tern pulled at the tendril and the board began to slide across the ice, Ella keeping balance like a master.
chapter 23
calumny & cracks
The Duke watched Ella and Charlie in the Waters. Across the plains of Antarctica they rolled upon a yellow skateboard, clinging for dear life to a long green length of twine. He clapped his hands with glee and marched outside.
He looked down into a large hole in the ice. The Duke could see the top of Bolgus’s hairy orange head within it. His red eyebrows stretching wildly across his forehead. He snored loudly. A gaggle of Troggles threw sweeties at his head and fell about laughing. Others ran across his head. The Duke shooed them away.
‘Wake up!’ he called down to the Giant. Nothing. The Duke stamped his foot. Time was of the essence. ‘Wake up,’ he shouted again, aiming a spear of dust at the Giant’s wall of a forehead.
‘OWWWWW,’ roared the giant. His humongous eyes flew open and he heaved himself up out of the crevice until he was sitting, waist deep, underground, his arms resting on the ice floor above. He squeezed his eyes shut against the wooziness that came with all this fresh air.
‘Sorry, old chap,’ said the Duke, not sounding a bit sorry at all. ‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘Hop to it.’ The Giant frowned, and began to sink slowly down into the depths of the Earth’s crust. He wasn’t sure why he was about to do what he was about to do, but if his name was to be cleared, blind obedience seemed to be required. Particularly if he wanted more of that sap. Although, it was making his tummy feel a bit funny. But maybe that was just the effect of being above ground again.
‘I snatched a couple more bombers for you,’ the Giant bellowed as he sank, shaking his head to wake himself fully (and sending packs of snow flying off his grit-sodden hair for miles in the process). The Duke ducked as gracefully as he could in his overextended body to avoid the spray.
There was a great rip in the snowy surface of the Antarctic plain as Bolgus tore his arm through the frozen ground and deposited two fighter jets on the ice.
‘Marvellous,’ said the Duke, rubbing his hands together. So far Bolgus had brought him two tanks, two fighter jets, a helicopter and a Rolls Royce (the latter a prize the Duke coveted for himself). Coupled with the guns stored in the grounds of the Ulnus estate, this final delivery should give the Duke more than enough to overthrow his wife and terrify the Magicals of Magus into submission.
‘Bolgus, you have done me proud!’ the Duke called after the Giant’s disappearing mane. The Duke turned back to his lair, his eyes burning red with ambition. ‘It is time to beef up the Troggles,’ the Duke said to Ragwald as he entered his hideaway and strode toward the daises. Upon two rested bowls of water; upon the other, a translucent bubble of electric pulses sparkled.
‘I want the Troggles fed double rations of sugar. Let’s make those creatures mean,’ said the Duke. Ragwald shuddered. It was all very well keeping the Duke’s minions comfortably Trogglified so that they were stupid and obedient and in thrall to their addiction to sugar. It was quite another to increase their dose. ‘They need enough sugar to induce swelling and aggression, with a touch of Antidote, so that they are still able to follow orders. Have you got that, Ragwald?’
The Duke’s Goblin Protector nodded obediently, but his hands shook with trepidation. If he was not careful with his doses, the Troggles might disintegrate altogether.
Pulling his tail about him, the Duke stared hard into the Waters of the first bowl, so as not to miss the action. Looking into the second bowl, the Duke tiptapped on the silvery surface. One of Bolgus’s eyes appeared within it.
Staring into the spit in his hand, Bolgus stood beneath the ground as instructed, and waited for the Duke to give him the signal. At precisely the moment the Duke told him, Bolgus cracked the ice with one fierce punch of his fist.
The children did not have a chance. Over the edge of the crack in the ice they flew. Down and down into the depths of the freezer below.
The Duke turned back to the ball of electric pulses and thrust his hands at it. Two lasers of elf dust flew from his pointing fingers, sending the pulses into a frenzy of increased activity.
Over the vast expanses of Antarctica, the Dome of Inconspicuous Impene
tration spread its mercurial boundaries until it covered the crack Bolgus had created. Making contact with the ice, the Dome sealed itself, molten silver solidifying on a bed of bluey white.
chapter 24
friendship & flight
By the time Samuel and Don Posiblemente reached the newly hewn crack in the ice, Ella was not only falling into the void, she was also imprisoned beneath an Inconspicuously Impenetrable Dome.
Samuel, tweaking both ears, cast his fingers at the transparent wall, for his magic could sense its presence as clearly as if he could see it with his own eyes. His elf dust speared the surface, singeing its exterior but not even coming close to cracking the barrier before them. Don Posiblemente held his own ear and, looking up, thrust from his mouth an enchantment that rumbled through the air like an avalanche. The Dome shook, but its foundations stood firm. Samuel covered his eyes to summon up the most powerful magic within him. His clothes flew out about him and froze as the Antarctic air touched their delicate fabrics. He conjured up two Candleflosses.
‘Swallow this,’ he instructed Don Posiblemente, his long grey hair sculpted in ice down his back. The scholar, who was freezing more and more solid with every pound of his hand against the wall, opened his mouth. The warmth that welled at once inside him brought the Flitterwig to his senses.
‘We need to penetrate the Dome,’ he said, unable to meet Samuel’s eyes.
Samuel raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t say,’ he muttered to himself.
After almost a day without contact from Ella, Don Posiblemente had been beside himself with worry. And then she had appeared to him in the Waters, for barely thirty seconds, as though he had flickered through her mind. But it was long enough for him to see her falling, and it was long enough for him to establish her co-ordinates. It was time to call the chairman of the Rooniun.