by Debi Gliori
The dial tone stopped, and a woman’s voice spoke. “Bella-Vista residence, Vadette speaking.”
Not Vadette, groaned Pylum-Haight to himself. Oh, please let her develop instant laryngitis. . . . Bracing himself, he replied, “Hello, love. Is the man himself around? It’s Hugh—Hugh Pylum-Haight.”
On the other end of the line, he could hear the rattle of ice cubes as someone took a large gulp of their drink. “Oh, it’s you, Huey . . . ,” came the reply. “Huey. Wee Huey. Now, why don’t you just bog off, wee man, and phone the office instead? Vincent is not available to take calls tonight.”
“Look, love . . .” Pylum-Haight discovered that he’d chewed the end off his cigarillo in an effort not to scream out loud, hurl his car phone out the window, and drive straight into the nearest available tree. “I know it’s late, but I’ve got to have a word with Vinnie. Something urgent’s come up.”
Another rattle of ice cubes. “What? What’s up, Huey? Why don’t you tell me, and if I think it’s important enough, then I’ll let him know. . . .” Clink, chink, rattle.
Breathing deeply, Pylum-Haight swerved round a corner and almost succeeded in avoiding a particularly deep pothole. “Vadette, pet, I don’t think you need bother your vacant—sorry, your pretty head about this. Just tell the man to come to the phone—please,” he begged.
Clink, tinkle, glug.
Vadette appeared to consider this for as long as it took for whatever she was drinking to slide down her throat and then, with no warning whatsoever, she screamed, “VINNIE! It’s that WEE POSER again!”
“Aaargh, my ears,” moaned Pylum-Haight, deafened by the eightfold onslaught of Vad-the-Mad at full throttle.
“Yer what? That you, Huey? What’s the problem? It had better be important—I’m missing the darts.” In the background came a roar of applause and a voice calling, “One hundred and eighty!”
“I’ll be brief, Vinnie.” Pylum-Haight slowed to a crawl behind a police patrol car that had nosed out into the road ahead. “It’s that site you had your eye on—you know, the big old castle by the lochside—”
He was interrupted by Vinnie yelling, “Leave it out, Vadette, would you? Stop dancing in front of the screen—I can’t see the game.”
Pylum-Haight rolled his eyes. He could imagine the scene in Vincent’s hilltop house. The vision of Vadette obscuring the picture on Vincent’s wide-screen television as she gyrated and wobbled in front of it was the stuff of which nightmares were made. Poor Vincent, he thought, such appalling taste in girlfriends.
“Come and sit on my lap, then, that’s a good girl.”
Pylum-Haight choked on his cigarillo, and tried to turn it into a cough. Sit on his lap? Vincent would be asphyxiated—Vadette must weigh . . . a hundred and fifty kilos? Two hundred?
“That house with the weird name?”
Vincent was evidently still breathing. Pylum-Haight failed to imagine how. “The same,” he said. “But I think it might just be about to fall into your lap. . . .”
There was a loud thump and a wail from the other end. He must have dropped her onto the floor, Pylum-Haight thought in amazement.
“Are you straight-shooting, Huey?” Vinnie’s voice was harder now, closer, as if his mouth was pressed up close to the eight car speakers.
“Cross my heart, Vinnie. By the new year, I’ll have done so much damage to the roof I can guarantee that the present owners will be desperate to sell StregaSchloss to Bella-Vista Developments Inc. In short, to you.”
“Five hundred chalets . . . ,” the voice murmured reverently, as if Vinnie were running his hands through priceless gems. A thousand caravans, leisure complex, bowling alley, games arcade; knock down that boring old castle, build a multistoried car park. . . .”
“Don’t forget the fish farm and the nuclear power station,” added Pylum-Haight. “And the abattoir, the rendering plant, and the animal research facility. . . .”
Perfectly Beastly
The prospect of a removal from StregaSchloss, however temporary, would have given the most seasoned team of movers pause for thought. Not so the Strega-Borgias, who threw themselves into the effort with gusto. Even baby Damp caught the general mood and packed all her teddies for removal from the house. She pulled on the Disappearing Handle, all the better to dispatch them quickly, but to her disappointment, the Magical Vanishing Thing (better known as the downstairs toilet) failed to make her teddies dematerialize. Instead, back they came, soggy of fur and plush, bringing with them an assortment of drenched envelopes and a mushy wodge of old toilet paper. Puzzled, Damp staggered off in search of a Grownup.
“There you are, pet.” Mrs. McLachlan looked up from packing nursery essentials into a large wooden crate. She took in Damp’s wet and disheveled appearance and gave a deep groan. Plucking the baby off the floor, she bore her off to the bathroom. “How many times do I have to tell you? Toilets are dirty. DIRTY. DIRRRTY.”
Damp gazed at her wet hands. They looked clean enough to her. She hesitated, then popped a comforting thumb back in her mouth.
“NO! DON’T DO THAT!” Mrs. McLachlan shrieked. “TAKE THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH NOW!”
In the kitchen, Titus choked on a mouthful of last night’s meringue. Such was his ingrained obedience to the nanny that he spat the contents of his mouth back onto his plate.
“Puh-leeaze,” groaned Pandora. “Spare me. I know you’re gross—you don’t have to keep on proving it to me.”
In the great hall, boxes and trunks lay in stacks, some with their contents spilling across the flagstones, others tightly bound and chained with huge padlocks. Signora Strega-Borgia muttered to herself as she added rusty keys to a hoop hanging from her waist. Her husband was deep in conversation on the telephone, one hand cupped over his ear in an attempt to hear the voice at the other end.
“Now, let me see . . . ,” mumbled Signora Strega-Borgia. “All the grimoires are packed in the old sea trunk. The flasks of hen bane are in cotton wadding in the lead-lined casket—the isinglass decanted into those thermoses. . . .”
“Shall we begin again?” Signor Strega-Borgia rolled his eyes in impatience. “I’d like to book four rooms and your stables, not four tables, and for the rest of the month, through to the new year.”
“. . . my wands and cauldron are in the pink hatbox, ceremonial pointy hat in the black hatbox, candles, incense, and ectoplasm in that string bag over there—blast, the ectoplasm’s escaped. . . .”
“Not four kennels, no. All your stables. . . . Yes. . . . Ah—I thought you might ask me that. . . . Not dogs, no. . . . Nope, not horses, either. . . . Um, well, I suppose you have to know sometime. . . . Actually, what we’re talking about is a crocodile, a griffin, a yeti, and a very small and terribly well-behaved dragon. . . .”
“KNOT!” bawled the dragon, crashing through the front door. “YOU HORRIBLE, FOUL, DISGUSTING, SNOT-ENCRUSTED HEATHEN!”
“Where has that ectoplasm slithered off to?” Signora Strega-Borgia muttered in the background.
“Could you keep it down, for Pete’s sake,” hissed Signor Strega-Borgia, returning to his phone call. “Sorry about all the racket. . . . No, no, it was the roofing contractor, not one of our pets—heavens, no.”
“WHAT D’YOU CALL THIS?” The enraged dragon extended a claw from which dangled a vast amorphous blob of dirty green jelly.
“’S NOT MY FAULT,” called Knot from the doorway of the dining room. He shuffled downstairs to examine the fascinating substance adhering to Ffup’s claw. “Never seen it before,” the yeti decided, patting it with a matted, hairy paw. “Looks pretty tasty, though,” he added, beginning to drool.
The dragon shuddered. “WOULD SOMEONE GET THIS GIANT BOGEY OFF ME?” he bawled.
“My pleasure,” said Knot, stepping forward.
“No . . . no, STOP!” shrieked Signora Strega-Borgia. “My ectoplasm!”
Knot licked around the gap in his clotted fur that functioned as a mouth. “Mmmhmm. Oh. Sorry. . . . D’you want me to see if I
can get it back?”
“Great,” said Signor Strega-Borgia bitterly. He replaced the receiver in its cradle and turned to glare at Ffup and Knot. “You two have just added another zero onto the end of our hotel bill.”
“What hotel?” said the dragon belligerently. “What bill? Nobody mentioned anything about a hotel to me. No one ever tells me anything.”
“’S not fair,” added Knot.
“One of these days you two will realize that the whole world doesn’t revolve around you—in the meantime, we are going to live at the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms while the roof here is mended.” Signor Strega-Borgia smiled. “And you beasts are booked into the adjoining stables, hot and cold running slops and as much straw as you can eat—”
“WHAAAAAT?” Sab, the griffin, staggered downstairs from Titus’s bedroom, his leathery forelegs piled high with clothes. “But I thought you’d booked us a suite,” he complained. “You know—white towels, free shower caps, en suite tea and coffee—that sort of thing.”
Tock appeared at the front door with a carrier bag full of lily pads from the moat clamped between his jaws. He deposited these on the doorstep and pointed behind himself with an extended claw. “Taxis are all here.”
Bumping slowly down the drive came a fleet of black cabs, one for each beast and a spare for the family, Mrs. McLachlan, Tock, and Latch.
Panic ensued. Suddenly, the great hall filled with flying dust, shouts and screams, loud crashes as cabin trunks were slid hastily downstairs, and the resultant wails as they made painful contact with shins. Suitcases and bags multiplied until the hall looked like a baggage claim, but then, miraculously, ten minutes later, everything had vanished into the interiors of the waiting taxis. The family, staff, and beasts stood shivering on the steps of StregaSchloss.
“I’m sure I’ve forgotten something important.” Signora Strega-Borgia climbed with difficulty into an overloaded taxi. Tock leapt in behind her, his bag of lily pads dripping in his wake.
“Your son, perhaps?” inquired Signor Strega-Borgia, snapping the clasps shut on a computer packed into an aluminum flight case and handing it through the taxi window.
“Titus!” called Pandora. “Don’t worry—you’d hate it anyway. May as well stay put.”
Mrs. McLachlan, halfway into the bulging interior of the taxi, turned round and shot her a look.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself,” Pandora said, walking back into the great hall.
“COME ON, TITUS!” she yelled. “Get your rear in gear—we’re going. NOW!”
“Coming,” came a faint voice from the depths of the house.
Pandora folded her arms and waited. The great hall already had an air of abandonment about it. The carpet had been rolled up and put away for safekeeping, along with vast paintings, suits of armor, and rusting shields that had adorned the walls of StregaSchloss for as long as Pandora could remember. The grandfather clock, shrouded in dust sheets, and the crystal chandelier hanging over the stairs were all that remained. The hall echoed to the sound of approaching footsteps. Titus appeared at the end of the corridor leading to the kitchen. Pandora noted that his hands were clutching several laden cake boxes.
Seeing her expression, he explained. “Seemed a shame to leave all this food for the rats. . . .” His voice trailed off weakly.
“Multitudina!” wailed Pandora. “I’ve forgotten her! And Terminus—oh, no! I must find them. . . .”
“They’re rats, Pandora. You can’t take rats to a hotel—anyway, they’ve probably got millions of their own.”
Outside, the taxi sounded its horn. Pandora was stricken. My pet rat, she thought, stifling a small sob. And her daughter. Abandoned. Alone in an empty StregaSchloss.
Seeing his sister’s eyes fill with tears, Titus relented. “We can come back, Pan. Don’t panic. Rats can look after themselves, and we can keep on popping in with food for them.” He patted her awkwardly on the back, dropping a cake box as he did so. Its lid fell off, and a large scone rolled out and bowled along the hall floor. “There,” he said. “That’ll keep them going for ages. Now come on, we have to go.”
Propelling his sister outside, Titus pushed her toward the taxi and then returned to close the front door. With a mournful groan of rusty hinges, it slammed shut behind him.
Terminus Undone
Silence descended on StregaSchloss. Dust began to settle in the great hall, eddying and swirling in the drafts blowing down through the hastily mended library ceiling. A tap dripped in the kitchen sink and a clock on the mantelpiece slowly wound down. Below it, in the firebox of the range, coals turned from red to ashy gray. Degree by degree, the temperature dropped as StregaSchloss went into hibernation.
In her nest of shredded newspaper in the pantry, Multitudina, the free-range rat, snored faintly. Curled between her mother’s front paws, Terminus opened one yellow eye and pulled Multitudina’s whiskers. Hard.
“Ow!” squeaked Multitudina. “What was that for?”
“Hungry,” muttered Terminus. “Bigger snacks, now.”
“Heavens, child,” said Multitudina, struggling to her feet and gazing at her fuzzy pink offspring with dislike, “you’ve a lot to learn about manners. What’s the magic word? P—p—p—?” she prompted.
The ratlet raked her mother with an incredulous stare and yawned. “Want it,” she stated baldly. “Food. Now.”
Multitudina sighed. Never, never, never again, she vowed for the hundredth time. No more babies, ever. “You’re big enough to look after yourself,” she growled at her daughter. “Don’t lie there demanding room service. Show some independence. Have you ever thought of finding a place of your own? I’ll help you pack,” she added hopefully.
Terminus ignored this. Her nose twitched. She could smell something. Something edible. Throwing caution to the wind, she ran out of the pantry and found herself in the wide-open spaces of the kitchen floor. The kitchen table towered above her, its four huge legs leading up to unimaginable heights, its checked tablecloth draped . . . just . . . within . . . reach.
Swinging wildly on a corner, Terminus slowly clawed her way upward, paw over paw, claws digging into the loosely woven fabric. Inelegantly, she dragged herself onto the tabletop like an exhausted swimmer emerging from the deep end of a pool. For a while, she lay beached and panting on the tablecloth, then her greed reasserted itself. She stood on her hind legs and surveyed the kitchen from the vantage of the high tabletop plateau, mentally logging the fact that the tablecloth was strewn with little bread boulders, puddles of cow juice, and little smears of bee-sticky. Unable to resist the opportunity, she climbed onto the rim of an abandoned milk jug and yelled in the direction of the pantry, “Yoo-hoo, O wrinkly one! Bet you’re too old, fat, and smelly to catch me before I eat this lot!”
From high above the ratlet’s head, a husky voice drawled, “I have to agree. Your mother is indeed way too crumpled, ancient, and odiferous to halt you in mid-glut, but I’m not.”
And before Terminus could turn her head to discover the source of this boast, something the size of a tennis ball dropped down from the ceiling and drop-kicked her into the milk jug.
The ratlet came up for air, thrashing and choking, milky bubbles inflating on the end of her nose, her whiskers dripping white. Through a film of milk, Terminus peered up to the rim of the jug. What she saw was not reassuring. Silhouetted against the light with two hairy legs dangling down into the depths of the jug was a giant spider. A spider with a distinctly menacing attitude. A spider that was, for the time being, ignoring Terminus’s attempts to escape the milk bath and appeared to be combing her copious body hair with a small comb made out of bone.
“Attractive, isn’t it?” observed Tarantella, twiddling the comb idly, turning it over and over all the better to admire it. “If memory serves me correctly, I think it used to belong to a relative of yours . . . um, was it your father? Brother? Great-aunt? Yes, that was it. It was your great-aunt Indiscretiona’s. Her left femur, I believe. . . .”
&n
bsp; Just before Terminus fainted in sheer terror, she saw the spider bend down toward her, its mouthparts coming closer and closer until the ratlet’s entire field of vision was filled with pink. The last thought that passed through her head as she slid beneath the surface of the milk was that for some perverse reason, the spider appeared to be wearing lipstick.
Since her intention had not been to harm Terminus, just to put the frighteners on her, Tarantella draped the unconscious rat-baby over the edge of the milk jug and sauntered off in search of something more appetizing.
Compliments to the Chef
The girl behind the reception desk at the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms appeared to be slightly stunned by the arrival of the entourage from StregaSchloss. Her brief experience of the hotel trade had failed to prepare her for the odd assortment of guests and luggage attempting to negotiate the revolving door at the hotel’s main entrance. Towed by Tock on a chain, Pandora skidded across the marble floor and fetched up under an antique chaise longue. The revolving door slowed to a more sedate pace and Mrs. McLachlan stepped into the hotel with Damp, a handbag, and Sab on a tight leash.
“Sit, boy,” she commanded, flashing the receptionist a brief smile and gently lowering Damp to the floor.
“What’s this sit nonsense?” demanded the griffin under his breath. “What d’you think I am—a dog?”
“Good afternoon,” Mrs. McLachlan addressed the receptionist. “We’re part of the Strega-Borgia party. I believe you have some rooms booked in that name. . . .”
“What PARTY?” screeched Ffup, barging through the revolving door, his chain clanking behind him. “No one told me there was going to be a party.”