by Emily Rodda
‘Leo,’ Conker said in a strained voice, ‘why don’t you, Mimi and Bertha get some water from the well, then take the rug over to Bliss and start cooking dinner? I’ll fix things up here. We shouldn’t be much longer.’
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Freda muttered.
‘Just one thing!’ called Woodley, as Leo gratefully began to turn away. ‘Ahem – about the well …’
‘What about it?’ snapped Conker. ‘Not poisoned, is it?’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ gabbled Woodley, his hands fluttering nervously. ‘It is perfectly safe – the water is perfectly safe to drink, I mean, but –’
‘Spit it out, man!’ bellowed Conker, finally losing patience. ‘Oh, my suffering nostrils, what’s wrong with the fool well?’
‘It’s – cursed!’ Woodley squeaked, jumping back in fright.
‘Cursed?’ gasped Leo.
‘CURSED?’ roared Conker. ‘Oh my heart, liver and lungs, why didn’t you say so before, instead of blithering on about –’
Wak!’ Freda exploded, flapping her wings in shock. She was gaping at the well.
‘Oh dearie, dearie me,’ sighed Woodley, who was facing the same way.
Then Mimi screamed, there was a mighty thump, and an eerie, high-pitched squeal split the air.
Chapter 13
Big Mistake
Leo and Conker spun round. Mimi was squeezed against the well, her hands pressed to her mouth. In front of her, almost hiding her from view, lay what looked like a monstrous, oval pink balloon with four tiny kicking legs.
The thing was so grotesque that for an instant Leo couldn’t take in what his brain was telling him. He could see a head – wrapped in pink satin and looking absurdly small – sticking out of the huge balloon at one end, and a curly tail twitching at the other, but he had to force himself to believe that what lay on the ground, crushing Mimi against the side of the well, was Bertha.
‘Help me!’ Bertha squealed in that strange, high-pitched voice. ‘Oh, help! Oh, what’s wrong with me? I fell over, and now I can’t get up!’
‘Oh, my heart, liver and lungs!’ Conker muttered, goggling at her and tearing at his beard as if he was trying to pull it out by the roots.
Leo tore his horrified gaze from Bertha and met Mimi’s eyes. They were huge and dark with shock. Her hands still pressed against her mouth, she shook her head slightly. She was telling Leo that she had nothing to do with what had happened to Bertha – that the Key had nothing to do with it.
‘Did I faint from hunger?’ moaned Bertha. ‘Oh, I feel very strange.’
‘You look very strange,’ said Freda, recovering from her shock and waddling over to stare at Bertha with interest.
‘What do you mean?’ screamed Bertha in fright. Her trotters paddled the air as she desperately tried to roll herself over and stand up, but her huge, swollen body was far too heavy for her to move. She waggled her head violently and the last rags of the pink satin pillowcase flew off and fell to the ground in a crumpled heap.
‘Stay still, Bertha!’ Conker roared at her. ‘You might make it worse!’
‘I don’t see how it could be worse,’ said the duck.
‘Dearie, dearie me,’ a voice behind them mumbled. ‘Most unfortunate.’
Leo, Conker and Freda jumped and looked around. For a moment they had forgotten all about Woodley.
Woodley had pulled the table napkin from his pocket and was mopping his forehead with it. ‘It’s the well,’ he said faintly. ‘As I was telling you – ahem – just now. Or as I was about to tell you when –’
With a ferocious growl, Conker sprang forward, seized Woodley by the shoulders and began shaking him violently. ‘What about the well?’ he roared. ‘What’s it done to her?’
Woodley’s teeth chattered. His plump cheeks wobbled. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.
‘Let him go, Conker!’ Leo shouted, grabbing Conker and trying to pull him away from the little caretaker. ‘He can’t talk while you’re shaking him. Let him go!’
‘Someone help me up!’ wailed Bertha from the ground. ‘What’s wrong with you all?’
‘Stop it, Bertha!’ Leo heard Mimi call out, her voice sharp with panic. ‘Stop struggling! You’re crushing me against the well.’
Don’t use the Key, Mimi, Leo begged silently. Don’t try to shrink Bertha with the Key. We don’t know what’s caused this. You might hurt her if you try to …
He made a huge effort and finally managed to pull Conker away from Woodley. Panting, Woodley straightened his dressing gown and tightened its cord with trembling hands. ‘Naturally you are upset,’ he said breathlessly. ‘I am upset. Very upset. We are all upset. But there is no need for violence. Only yesterday I was saying to myself –’
‘Master Woodley,’ Leo broke in, holding Conker back with difficulty, ‘please tell us right now what’s happened to Bertha. Tell us what we can do to help her!’
‘Oh,’ Woodley said blankly. ‘Well, she will have to reverse her wish, won’t she?’
Everyone stared at him. He blinked at them and absent-mindedly mopped his brow with the table napkin again.
‘Are you saying that this well is a wishing well?’ Leo asked at last.
Woodley frowned. ‘Well, it never used to be,’ he said crossly. ‘Guests often thought it was, because of course it’s a very old well – ancient really – ancient, you know – and its appearance is – well, “quaint” is the word our guests often use. But it was always just an ordinary well – a well for water, you know – until just before the last school holidays, when that interfering Wizard Bing –’
‘Bing?’ shouted Conker.
Woodley jumped back in fright.
‘It’s all right,’ Leo told him, keeping a firm grip on Conker’s jacket. ‘Go on, Master Woodley.’
Woodley wet his lips and cleared his throat nervously. ‘Wizard Bing came here to the Snug saying that he had just perfected a new spell – a new spell, you know – that could change our well into a wishing well. And I said to myself – well, folk are always making wishes at our well anyway, I said, and it might be an added attraction if the wishes came true. And the trees were very keen – very keen, you know. So I paid Wizard Bing what he asked, and he cast the spell. He only told me afterwards that it was irreversible.’
He shook his head mournfully. ‘I should have known. After the sandwich tree fiasco, and that lizard business, I should have known something would go wrong. Bing wouldn’t refund our money or even apologise! He said I should just put a sign on the well to warn people to wish carefully. A vulgar sign! On an antique Snug well! Oh, the villain!’
He clenched his plump little fists. His stubby wings whirred in agitation, lifting him a short way from the ground, and for a moment his pleasant face looked quite ferocious.
‘So Bing did the spell, and something went wrong …’ Leo prompted. He was seething with impatience, but he knew that he had to let Woodley tell the story in his own way if they were ever going to get any useful information out of him.
‘Everything went wrong,’ said Woodley, twisting the table napkin into a corkscrew. ‘It is hard to imagine how the whole dreadful business could have turned out worse. Either he put the spell in backwards, or it was backwards to start with – I don’t know. But the fact is, if anyone makes a wish at our well now, the reverse of what he or she wishes for comes true!’
Freda gave a harsh quack of laughter. Conker swore under his breath.
‘The – the reverse,’ Leo murmured, thinking it through. ‘You mean … that if I wished to be, say, taller, the well would make me shorter?’
‘Quite.’ Woodley sighed. ‘Or if you wished to be the most handsome man in the world, you’d become so terribly ugly that folk would scream at the sight of you. If you wished to be rich, you’d lose every penny you had in the world. It’s quite frightful. Why, I myself –’
But Leo had already turned away and hurried to Bertha’s monstrous side, beckoning for Conker and Freda to fol
low him.
‘Well, at last!’ Bertha cried indignantly as she caught sight of them. ‘What have you been doing, wasting time arguing and fighting while I lie here so frail and weak with hunger that I can’t get up –’
‘That’s not it, Bertha,’ Leo said, kneeling down beside her head. ‘Bertha, when you were looking into the wishing well, did you wish to be slimmer?’
‘What?’ Bertha gasped, instantly going crimson in the face. ‘How did you – I mean, how dare you, Leo! Why would I wish a thing like that? Are you saying I’m fat?’
‘Wak! Wak! Wak!’ laughed Freda.
‘No, no!’ said Leo urgently. ‘I mean, yes. I mean … listen, Bertha, this wishing well doesn’t work properly. You can’t get up because it’s made you gain weight, instead of losing it. You’re enormous!’
Bertha screamed in horror and burst into tears.
‘Oh, Leo!’ Mimi groaned in exasperation.
‘You could have told her more tactfully, Leo,’ Conker said uncomfortably.
‘Bertha, please listen,’ Leo pleaded. ‘It’ll be all right. We can fix it. You can fix it. All you have to do is wish again. But this time you have to wish for the opposite of what you really want. Do you see? You just have to look into the well and think, I wish I was fat and –’
‘No-o-o!’ Bertha wept, beside herself with misery. ‘Never! I could never wish such a thing! I’d rather die!’
‘Bertha, you aren’t listening,’ Leo said desperately. ‘Calm down and listen! You wouldn’t really be wishing you were fat. You’d really be wishing you weren’t fat – or at least, that you were only as fat as you were before.’
‘So!’ shrieked Bertha. ‘I was fat before, was I?’
‘Well, you are a pig, Bertha,’ Conker put in helpfully.
Bertha howled and burst into fresh floods of tears.
‘Dearie, dearie me,’ murmured Woodley, glancing worriedly up at the trees, which had begun rustling and creaking. ‘This is most disruptive – most disruptive, you know.’
Leo looked up too. The doors of all the occupied cabins had been flung open and light was streaming out onto the tree branches where groups of chattering people stood staring down at the scene at the well as if it were an entertainment put on especially for their benefit. Small children in pyjamas were squealing and jumping up and down recklessly. Older children were being stopped with difficulty from sliding down to the ground to get a closer look.
‘Bertha!’ Mimi said sharply, digging her elbow into Bertha’s side. ‘Take no notice of the others – they’re just being idiots. You’ve got to pull yourself together. You’re causing a scene. It’s embarrassing!’
Bertha’s wails abruptly stopped. Leo shook his head in annoyance. He knew he should be glad that Mimi’s harsh tactics had succeeded in calming Bertha, but it seemed very unfair that they had when his kindness had failed. And what did Mimi mean by calling him an idiot, when his advice to Bertha had been perfectly sensible?
‘Right,’ Mimi said. ‘Now, Bertha, we’re going to get you up so that you can look into the well again. Then you’re going to make another wish. The wish has to be the opposite of what you really want, because the well works backwards. Have you got that?’
‘Ye-es,’ snuffled Bertha. ‘But I can’t bring myself to –’
‘You don’t have to wish to be fat,’ Mimi said crisply. ‘That would probably be dangerous, anyway. You might end up so skinny that you still couldn’t get up. What you have to do is think: I wish not to look the way I did before.’
Bertha drew a shuddering breath. ‘Well, I suppose I could do that,’ she said in a quavering voice.
After that, the crisis ended quite quickly. While Freda and Mimi supervised and the crowd in the trees called out advice and encouragement, Leo, Conker and Woodley removed the luggage from the flying rug, urged the rug close to Bertha, and managed to roll her onto it with so little effort that Leo suspected Mimi was using the Key to help.
For once, he approved of her breaking Hal’s rule. Mimi hadn’t tried to use the Key’s magic to reduce Bertha’s size. She’d shown great self-control about that, considering how uncomfortable she must have been, squeezed between Bertha’s huge body and the wall of the well. But making Bertha roll easily onto the rug was something she felt she could do with safety, and she’d done it. Very sensible, Leo thought with some surprise.
Free to move at last, Mimi edged out of the narrow space between Bertha and the well. Then, sagging deeply under its huge burden, its fringe quivering with effort, the rug struggled gamely upwards till it reached the well’s rim.
Bertha twisted her neck until she could look down into the water. As everyone watched, frozen with tension, her lips moved silently. The next moment, her enormous body had shrunk like a deflating balloon and she was herself once more.
As the rug sank to the ground with obvious relief, the crowd in the trees whistled, cheered and stamped. The trees rustled their leaves disapprovingly.
‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ cried Woodley. ‘The excitement is over now. Quiet in the Snug – quiet in the Snug, you know!’
The people in the trees shouted even more loudly, waving, whistling and clapping. Bertha looked up in dazed surprise. She shook back her ears and bowed graciously.
‘I think we should retire to our tree at once,’ she said to Leo, Conker, Freda and Mimi in a low voice. ‘People have obviously recognised me from the newspapers. They’ll be coming down wanting autographs next, and I’m really just too, too exhausted to meet my fans tonight. Oh, if only I hadn’t lost my sunglasses!’
Chapter 14
Freedom of the Press
Woodley escorted them to the tree called Bliss, introduced them courteously, and left them to return to his dinner. By this time everyone was very hungry, but Conker refused to consider a simple meal of bread and cheese. He was determined to get some use out of the cooking pot before abandoning it for good. He started a fire in one of the twin fireplaces that sat side by side beneath Bliss’s spreading boughs. Then, grimly ignoring Freda’s muttering and Bertha’s loud complaints about being famished after her ordeal, he filled the pot with dried meat, chopped onions, herbs, and water from the well, and set it on the fire.
The pot wriggled in the flames, giggling and flapping its handle up and down. ‘Tickles, Conkie!’ it shrieked. Water and shreds of dried meat and onion slopped onto the fire. Most of the flames went out, and smoke billowed from the charred, wet wood, making everyone cough.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Conker roared at the pot. He kicked at it furiously. It screamed and dodged, spilling most of its remaining contents over the last struggling flames, which died at once.
‘Fire all gone,’ the pot said in surprise, shifting uncomfortably in the black, watery mess of dead coals, meat and chopped onions that now filled the neat little fireplace.
Wreathed in smoke, speechless with rage, Conker bared his teeth.
‘Never mind,’ Bertha said brightly. ‘Bread and cheese is fine with me.’
Without a word, Conker turned to the second fireplace. He lit the fire and dumped the cooking pot on top of it. The pot jiggled and tittered in the flames just as it had done before, but by now so little stew remained that none splashed out.
Doggedly Conker filled the kettle and put it beside the fire to warm. Then he plumped himself onto the ground, folded his arms and sat glaring at the flames in stubborn silence.
Freda sighed and wandered off into the shadows. Leo had the distinct impression that she was heading for the glow of Woodley’s fire, from which the smell of sausages was still faintly drifting.
After a while, the cooking pot stopped giggling and started fidgeting in a bored sort of way instead. The stew inside it had begun to bubble, and soon the delicious scent of cooking meat, herbs and onions filled the air. Bertha’s stomach growled.
‘All done, Conkie,’ the cooking pot said hopefully. It bounced on the coals, and sparks sprayed from the fire, showering the kettle an
d Conker’s boots.
Conker jumped up with a curse, shaking off the sparks and stamping them out on the ground. He pointed a quivering finger at the cooking pot. ‘I’ll say when it’s done,’ he snarled. ‘And if you move again, pot, it will be the last thing you ever do.’
He turned his back on it and glowered at Mimi, Bertha and Leo as if daring them to say anything about being hungry.
Bertha’s stomach rumbled again.
‘Well,’ Leo said, desperate to break the tense silence that followed. ‘This is great, isn’t it? We’re in Hobnob, we’ve got a safe place to sleep, and tomorrow we can start investigating!’
Mimi gave a snort of amusement. Conker sniffed. But Bertha nodded approvingly.
‘You’re quite right, Leo,’ she said. ‘As my dear mother always told my brothers and me, whatever happens you should always count your blessings. I must say, after that wolf blew my house down and then started chasing me and trying to eat me it was quite difficult to think of any blessings to count. Still, I thought of some eventually.’
‘What were they?’ Mimi asked curiously.
‘Well, one was that my house had been made of straw, so it hadn’t crushed me to death when it fell down,’ Bertha told her. ‘And another one was that the wolf hadn’t bitten off any of my legs yet, so I could still run.’
‘Some blessings,’ Conker grunted.
‘Well, they were better than nothing,’ Bertha said defensively. ‘I think a positive attitude is very important – especially when a wolf is chasing you.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Conker agreed, and Leo was relieved to see that he had begun to look a little more relaxed. It was also a relief that Mimi was acting normally again. The drama at the well, and Conker’s struggles with the cooking pot, seemed to have driven thoughts of the Strix’s palace from her mind.
Leo was just about to say something about Wizard Bing, hoping that a discussion of the quest would cheer Conker even further, when he saw a light bobbing towards them through the trees. Someone was approaching, carrying a lantern.
‘Evening, all!’ called a harsh, scratchy voice.