After a long, hot walk through the forest, my arms are untied and the hood is yanked off my head.
I find myself staring at a red-haired girl who has a mean expression and is wearing shorts and a vest with a panda on it. An elaborate collection of loom-band bracelets are arranged up both of her wrists and she’s chewing on a twig . . . no, a bone.
She takes out the bone, reaches up and prods me with it in the middle of my forehead. ‘State your business, boy !’ She looks eight, nine at the most, but her steely eyes belong to someone much older.
‘Yes . . .’ I say, blinking into the sunshine, ‘our business . . .’
She’s flanked by a pack of girls who look similarly grubby and tough. Each of them has bracelets on their wrists, but none have anywhere near as many as their leader.
‘Hey, boy !’ Another girl steps forward and shoves me in the chest. She has to shove me in the chest; she can’t reach any higher. ‘When Stella speaks, you reply!’
A quick glance at Rose tells me that that she’s decided to leave all the talking to me, so I blurt out, ‘Crowky’s taken our grandad and we need you to help us rescue him!’
‘Oh, do you?’ Stella says, eyebrows raised, and the other Lost Girls collapse in giggles.
‘Yes we do,’ I say, then I stand a little taller. ‘Do you know who we are?’
‘I know who you are all right. You’re Arthur and Rose Trout, Masters of Roar.’ She says these last words with a sarcastic curl of her lip.
‘Don’t speak to them like that,’ protests Win. ‘They’re here to help us!’
Stella glares at him. ‘Crowky has been terrorising us for ages and they just left him to it. We haven’t seen them for over two years!’
‘It’s actually been three years, three months and twenty-one days,’ says Win, helpfully.
Stella’s eyes narrow and she turns back to me. ‘And you think you can come back here and demand our help? I’ll admit that Crowky is a total pain in the bum –’ there are murmurs of agreement from the other girls – ‘but we’re not scared of him and he doesn’t bother us any more.’ She throws her arms out wide. ‘Not now we’ve got our awesome camp. We’re safe here. We’ve got our hammocks and our fire. Why should we risk all this for your grandad?’
‘Yeah!’ snarl the other girls.
A girl with braids and a bow slung over her shoulder shouts out, ‘Where were the Masters of Roar when Crowky stuffed Stella and trashed Treetops? It took Stella weeks to recover and we loved that camp!’
Now all the girls are jeering at us, and calling us names like dum-dum heads and pea-brains and stepping closer and closer. A collection of motley weapons appears in their hands – sticks and home-made bows and arrows.
‘If Crowky doesn’t bother you,’ I say quickly, ‘then how come you’re hiding out in this forest and trying to chuck people down ravines? It looks to me like he’s bothering you a lot. It looks to me like you’re scared of him!’
Stella goes white and then red, then she grabs hold of my T-shirt and pulls me down towards her face. ‘Say that again, poo head !’
‘Ha! Poo head! ’ cries Win, forgetting for a moment whose side he’s on.
Over Stella’s shoulder I catch a glimpse of the Lost Girls’ ‘awesome camp’. It’s nothing more than some tatty hammocks stretched between trees, a smouldering fire and a lot of puddles. Then I have a moment of inspiration. ‘Help us get rid of Crowky, and the Crow’s Nest is yours!’
‘Interesting . . .’ Stella shoves me back into the mud and beckons the other girls over. They gather in a huddle, arms thrown round each other’s shoulders. After a few minutes of intense whispering, Stella turns to face me. ‘We accept, Arthur Trout, but on one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m in charge.’ She jabs a thumb at her chest. ‘The Lost Girls take orders from me, and only me.’
‘Fine, you can be our leader –’
‘Chief.’
I nod. ‘OK, chief.’
Stella grins. ‘Actually there is one other condition.’
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘We want you to roll around on the ground and pretend to be a baby.’
All the Lost Girls start laughing.
‘What?! ’
‘You heard me,’ says Stella. ‘Roll around on the ground and pretend to be a baby!’
‘Just do it, Arthur,’ says Rose.
‘You just do it!’
‘No,’ says Stella. ‘No girls. We only want the boys to do it.’
‘Cool!’ says Win, then he drops down to the ground and starts to scream and wave his arms and legs around.
The Lost Girls clap with delight, then look at me and start chanting, ‘Do it! Do it!’ until I get down next to Win and join in. When they’re all whooping and cheering and their weapons are being put away Rose pulls us to our feet, not even bothering to hide the smile on her face.
‘Now you’ve got to hear Rose’s plan,’ I say. ‘I promise you, it’s good.’
Stella rolls her eyes. ‘Fine. Tell us your stupid plan.’
After Rose has spoken, Stella has to admit that it’s not ‘totally dumb’. ‘We’ll attack the Crow’s Nest the day after tomorrow,’ she says.
I shake my head. ‘No. That’s too late. Grandad’s stuffed and unless we can get there quickly he could stay stuffed!’
Stella just shrugs. ‘I don’t care. I want my girls to get there alive. This Magic Road sounds treacherous, and if we’re going to stay hidden from Crowky until the last moment we’re going to have to approach the castle in the dark, so we’ll need to train. We’ll use your map to recreate the Magic Road right here in the Tangled Forest. And there’s another thing.’
‘What?’ I say.
‘You lot are coming along that Magic Road with us. You’ve done it before and you can help. Plus, why should we risk our lives getting to the Crow’s Nest and fighting the scarecrows while you three sneak in the back door on dragons?’
Rose, Win and I gather together. ‘She’s got a point,’ says Rose.
I nod. ‘And we should just have time. Crowky said that he stuffed Grandad yesterday, which means we’ve still got two days to get to him.’
‘It feels risky,’ says Rose, ‘but what choice do we have? We need them to help us.’
I pull out the map. ‘There’s this rock, here –’ I point at a large rock Win drew – ‘it looks big and it’s close to the castle. If we arrive there at dawn, Rose can whistle for the dragons and they can pick us up and take us to the sea cave from there.’
‘That should work,’ says Win.
Rose looks at Stella. ‘We’ll do it. Today Arthur and Win can learn to ride a dragon and tomorrow we’ll train. Then we’ll cross the Magic Road together.’
Stella studies us for a moment, then nods and turns to her girls. ‘Flora, Hannah –’ two girls step forward and puff out their chests – ‘you’re in charge of weapon-sharpening. Shania and Hansini – you lead the other girls on a five-mile jog.’ Groans break out among the girls, but Stella silences them with a look. ‘And later this afternoon I want to see you all doing hand-to-hand combat, and I’m not talking slaps. Those scarecrows are nasty and fast and there are loads of them, so we’re going to have to do actual punching and karate chops.’
‘Oh . . . oh!’ Win practically jumps up and down. ‘I can help with that.’
Stella narrows her eyes. ‘No. You can’t.’ She turns back to her girls. ‘Then we’ll build our very own Magic Road ready for training in the morning. Clear?’
‘Yes, chief !’ The girls salute, then spread out across the camp.
Stella leads us back into the forest. She explains that they have a dojo, a place where they practise wrestling, which she thinks will be perfect to land a dragon. ‘This is where we’ll build the Magic Road,’ she says as we come out on a round, flat clearing.
We blink into the sunshine. The dojo is high above Roar, and over the miles and miles of trees, I can just see the
glimmer of the Bottomless Ocean and beyond that, the snowy mountains of The End. I turn in a circle and realise that we’re probably at the very heart of the Tangled Forest.
The crack that appeared on our birthday is here too, cutting across the dojo. It’s not quite big enough to fall down, but stepping over it is still unnerving.
‘Hey, Stella,’ says Rose. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Chief Stella.’
‘Right, Chief Stella. Have you seen Mitch around? She’s a mermaid-witch, about my height, blue hair . . . magical tail.’
‘And a bad temper?’ says Stella.
‘That’s her!’
Stella shakes her head. ‘I bumped into her down at the Archie Playgo about a year ago. We had a fight over some mushrooms.’ Her scowl suggests Mitch might have won.
Rose nods and scuffs her foot into the dusty dojo. ‘And you’ve not seen her since?’
‘No, but a lot of things have gone missing since you stopped visiting. Maybe she disappeared down the crack.’ To emphasise her point, Stella takes a rock and chucks it into the split in the ground.
‘Or Mitch could be out in the Archie Playgo,’ I say quickly. ‘Or maybe she went to The End.’
Rose doesn’t say anything; she turns on her heel and walks to the far side of the dojo. Then she puts her fingers to her lips and does a quick whistle, just like you’d use to call a dog. This is how Rose always used to summon the dragons and as long as she was standing outside it seemed to work every time.
The four of us gaze at the empty sky and my stomach squirms as I think about my journey dangling from Pickle’s claws. I’m wondering if Rose’s whistle has worked when I see two specks on the horizon. The dragons shoot through the air, covering miles in seconds, beating a path straight towards us. Sweat prickles my skin and I take a couple of deep breaths. I nudge Win. ‘You reckon we can do this? You and me? Learn how to fly a dragon?’
Ahead of us, Pickle snaps at his brother and Vlad retaliates with a nip at Pickle’s tail. Suddenly they’re tumbling through the sky and the air is torn apart by their screeches; Pickle clamps down on a wing tip and a jet of fire shoots from Vlad’s jaws.
‘Should be pretty easy,’ says Win, stepping back from the flames. ‘Like riding a horse, I reckon. Or a unicorn.’
‘Have you ever ridden a horse or a unicorn?’
‘No, have you?’ he asks. I shake my head. ‘Oh well, riding a dragon’s probably more like riding a bike, and we’ve done that loads of times. Our dragon-riding skills are going to be imaginary, Arthur!’
Next to me Rose snorts.
The dragons land in a tangle of wings and fire and rage, but Rose doesn’t hesitate. She strides over, dodges round their lashing tails and forces them apart by slapping at their snouts. ‘Bobad boboys, bobad boboys!’ she shouts, then when they’re cowering by her feet, she beckons us over.
‘Here goes,’ says Win, thumping me on the arm. ‘Let’s take these dragons to school!’ Then he frowns. ‘What even is school?’
‘I’ll tell you some other time.’
Rose passes me a handful of broken biscuits. ‘Give these to Vlad. You need to gain his trust by feeding him.’
‘Vlad? Why can’t we fly Pickle?’
‘Arthur, just because Vlad has got a scary name, doesn’t mean he’s the scariest dragon.’
‘Yeah, but he is, isn’t he?’ I eye Vlad’s wide blue bulk. He seems much more sinister than rosy-red Pickle.
‘Vlad’s big-boned, that’s all,’ she says. ‘Now get over there while he’s still worn out from his fight.’
I take a deep breath, blow out nice and slow, then walk towards Vlad. He’s hunkered down, licking a drop of black blood from a tear in his wing. His tongue is thick and grey and has fiery cracks running through it like molten magma. When he sees me stepping closer his head rises, his lips pull back and his yellow eyes narrow to slits. ‘Here, Vlad,’ I say, my voice wobbling, ‘come and get a biscuit.’ I reach out my hand and his mouth opens to reveal a set of large needle-sharp teeth. Smoke begins to seep from his nostrils.
‘Careful, Arthur,’ says Rose as I hold out the biscuits. ‘You’ve got to put them right in his mouth. If you chuck them in, he’ll know you’re scared. Dragons don’t respect you if they think you’re scared of them.’
I put my hand up to protect my face from the heat that’s radiating from Vlad and inch closer. He’s getting impatient now, snapping hungrily around my hand, so I reach forward as far as I dare and drop in the biscuits. They fall down his fiery gullet and he tosses his head back, gnashing his teeth enthusiastically.
‘Now’s your chance!’ says Rose. ‘Get on his back. You too, Win!’
‘How?’ I circle Vlad’s bulging body.
‘Climb him. Imagine he’s one of those models at the Dinotastic Play Park.’
Amazingly Rose’s shoddy advice works, and I’m able to scramble up Vlad’s side by pretending he’s made of fibreglass. I pull myself on to a sitting position by grabbing hold of one of the spikes that line his back. Immediately I shift from side to side. Vlad’s scales are roasting; this is like sitting on the embers of a bonfire! I feel bones and muscles moving beneath Vlad’s scaly skin and he turns his head and glowers at me.
I sit as still as possible, until he looks away.
Win pulls himself up behind me and settles down. ‘Right,’ he says, rubbing his hands with enthusiasm, or possibly because he just burnt them, ‘how do we fly this thing?’
And that’s when I realise we should have found this out before we climbed on to Vlad’s back. ‘Rose!’ I shout. ‘Tell us what to do!’
She cups her hands round her mouth and calls, ‘It’s easy! Squeeze with your left knee to go left and your right knee to go right. Oh, and say “robise” to make him go up!’
‘Rub eyes?’ says Win.
‘No, robise !’
‘Robise?! ’ Win bellows, and instantly Vlad’s crusty ears prick up and his immense wings expand. Before Win and I can even think of escaping, Vlad has heaved his body to standing and begun a lolloping jog across the dojo.
The ground shakes and Win and I hold tight to the spikes. I bounce up and down, my bum slamming repeatedly into his rough, hot scales. ‘How do we get him to land?’ I shout to Rose.
She says something, that might be ‘dobdob’ or ‘hobnob’, but I can’t hear over Vlad’s thudding wings.
‘Rose! What did you say?’
But it’s too late. Vlad has reached the edge of the dojo and is taking a clumsy leap. Just when I think we’re going to crash into the trees, his wings thrust down and we rise up in the air. I slip to one side as I look over my shoulder. ‘Rose!’ I yell. ‘We don’t know what we’re doing!’
But she’s not even looking in my direction. Instead she’s settled herself on the dojo, resting against Pickle . . . I think she might be sunbathing!
Win leans forward. ‘Arthur, we’re flying a dragon!’ I swallow and nod, and squeeze my legs round Vlad’s fat body as we soar higher and higher and further away from Rose. Win laughs in delight. ‘Doesn’t it feel dangerous?’
‘Make him go upside down, Arthur!’
‘No.’ I’m sitting with a straight back, my hands wrapped round the spike and my eyes fixed on the horizon. Wind whistles past my face as we rise up and down with each thrust of Vlad’s wings. If I don’t look down, I can almost pretend this is a computer game and nothing bad can possibly happen to me.
Win slaps his hands on my shoulders. ‘Make him fly into a volcano. That would be incredible!’
As we fly over Roar Win keeps making reckless suggestions and I keep ignoring them and I stick to going left and right. We glide over a lake, then I squeeze my left knee and we swing over a forest. I press my right knee and we’re back over the lake. A red bird flies alongside us for a while until Vlad growls at it, smothering it in smoke.
‘That’s it,’ I say, patting Vlad’s craggy scales. ‘Ignore the bird and keep going. Good boy.’
‘Mat
e, you’ve got left and right nailed,’ says Win. ‘Try something else. The day after tomorrow we’ve got to fly into a narrow tunnel, but right now all we can do is go in circles.’
‘I’m going straight now. Look.’ We’ve reached the Bottomless Ocean and are soaring across it, heading towards the horizon. ‘Anyway, Rose’s lesson was useless.’
Win leans forward and stares down at the sea. ‘I guess she wasn’t expecting Vlad to take off like that.’
I’m not in the mood to hear Win defend Rose. ‘Win, by the time we left the ground she was sunbathing. I can’t believe she didn’t come after us on Pickle. A few hours ago we saved her life, but now she sends us up into the sky on a . . . dangerous beast without thinking about our safety. Rose doesn’t care about anyone except herself.’
Win shakes his head. ‘That’s not true. Rose has always been there when we’ve needed her. Remember what happened at the Crow’s Nest?!’
‘You’ve not seen her at home, Win. Trust me. She’s changed.’
We fly on in silence for a few minutes, then Win says, ‘I don’t know about what Rose is like in Home, but she’s always looked out for you here. She must know you can handle this, otherwise she would have come after us.’
Win’s words make me think and sit up a little taller. Could he be right? Could Rose not being by my side be a good thing, not a bad thing?
‘Look, Arthur.’ Win points down to where a massive lump of rock rises out of the sea. Waves have hollowed out its middle, forming a narrow archway. ‘That would be perfect tunnel-flying practice.’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit small?’
‘No . . . well, yes, but Mitch always went on about how small and narrow the sea cave was so we should give it a go.’
Win’s right. For the mission, for saving Grandad, we should give it a go. Only I’m frightened of doing anything that could make us fall off Vlad’s back. No, not frightened, petrified. The idea of tumbling through the sky makes me feel helpless and sick, like I’m already falling.
We’re closer to the rock now and I can see waves being sucked into the archway. If Vlad is going to fit through there, we’ll have to go fast and at an angle. All we’ve got to hold on to are spikes, and right now my spike is slippery with sweat. I shake my head. ‘Sorry, Win. It’s too dangerous.’
The Land of Roar Page 11