by Debi Gliori
The sight that greeted them was the antithesis of a homecoming. Shining through the stained-glass windows of the first-floor landing, the moon illuminated a StregaSchloss abandoned, desolate, and, to the children’s eyes, wounded beyond hope of recovery. The very air was damp with the kind of sepulchral chill that invited one not to linger overlong. Furthermore, it stank, as if some creature had crawled into the plumbing system to die.
Titus flicked a switch, with little hope. To his surprise, the lights came on overhead. “Right, Pan, where first?”
“Let’s try the kitchen. Multitudina might be holed up in the pantry.”
Clutching each other for comfort, they crept along the passage to the kitchen, each of them secretly holding out little hope of finding anything left alive.
“Multitudina . . . ?” whispered Pandora, reaching out to turn on the light.
From the depths of the kitchen range came an exasperated “Tchhhh. Totally typical,” said a familiar voice. “She returns after an extended absence and her first words are not ‘Oh, Tarantella, oh, great mother-of-millions, oh, faithful, intelligent, beautiful Tarantella, how ever can I make it up to you?’ Hah. NOT. ‘Oh, dear Tarantella—by the way, happy belated Christmas from your adoring Pandora.’ Hah. NOT. ‘Oh, forgive me, faithless, heartless biped wretch that I am. . . .’ ”
“Okay—enough,” sighed Pandora. “Sorry. I am sorry. Very.”
“That’s simply not good enough.” Tarantella glared through the air vent at Pandora and folded all eight legs into a huffy bundle. “Come on. Increase the sincerity factor, up the emotional content, and SAY IT LIKE YOU REALLY MEAN IT!”
Pandora burst into tears. As if it wasn’t bad enough returning to your wrecked home, being lectured by an invisible tarantula put the lid on it. “I’m really, really SORRY!” she bawled. “All RIGHT? I’m utterly miserable—you’ve no idea how horrible all this is. . . .” She became incoherent with grief, leaning on Titus for support.
“Awwwk. Don’t leak like that, girl.” Tarantella slipped through the air vent and waved a hairy leg at the children. “Oh, lordy, I see you’ve brought your arachnophobic sibling, too. What joy. . . .”
In the harsh electric light, Titus saw that the whole kitchen was festooned with cobwebs. Seeing him gazing at her handiwork, Tarantella shrugged. “A girl has to keep busy, you know. Make some attempt to draft-proof this dingy hole. It was so gloomy here, as I’m sure you can imagine. . . . No lights, no crackling log fires, no Christmas tree, no—”
“Sultana,” came a hoarse whisper from the pantry.
“Santa, you moron,” Tarantella snapped, continuing, “Bleak and cheerless, no presents, no Christmas cards, no—”
“Dirty raisins,” added Multitudina, emerging from hiding.
“Oh, give me strength,” moaned Tarantella. “DECORATIONS, not ‘dirty raisins.’ Are you completely illiterate or what?”
Multitudina sniffed huffily and scuttled down the stairs to the dungeons, yelling backward over her shoulder, “YES I AM! I’m an ILLITERAT! I was brought up to EAT books, not READ them. . . .”
The Unspeakable Pursue
the Inedible
Loud clankings and rumbles woke the clones from their candlewick-entangled slumbers. As electricity surged round Auchenlochtermuchty, it caused the service lift to drop swiftly down the shaft and clang to a halt at kitchen level. The clones pressed forward, tripping over socks and ponchos and bruising several of their fellow incubatees in the process. The hatch opened and a reek of stale whisky breath washed over them. Mortimer stood before them, weaving slightly and muttering to himself.
“What does she take me for, eh? Bally laundry maid, what? Chap like me shouldn’t have to do this. Women’s work, what? Frightful inconvenience. . . .”
Grumbling drunkenly, he grabbed the candlewick bedspread and staggered across the kitchen to the laundry area. With a loud hiccup, he stuffed the bedspread, clones and all, into the hotel’s colossal industrial washer-dryer. “Must lay off the sauce, Mortimer, old bean,” he advised himself. “Beginning to hear the voices again, what?”
He sprinkled the alarmed clones with washing powder, threw a jugful of fabric conditioner in for good measure, and then paused, his liver-spotted hands trembling over the ON switch. “Hands gone all wobbly, what?” he observed, holding them up to his face to inspect them. “All four of them, shaking like reeds. Come to think of it, Mortimer, old stick, what’s the world coming to when a chap can’t keep track of his own limbs, what? Myself, I blame the present government, actually. . . .”
Muttering incoherently, he spun round several times, reached into the depths of the broom cupboard, and produced a bottle of Old Liverot—a singularly foul malt whisky whose only virtue was its strength. Weaving more noticeably, Mortimer clutched this bottle to his chest and lurched out of the laundry area, fortunately forgetting to turn on the washer-dryer.
The brief shower of fabric conditioner had done nothing to improve the clones’ tempers, and they swarmed out of the washing machine, sleep-deprived, speckled with washing powder, and intent on revenge. At that moment Beelzebub, resident cat of the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms, poked his scarred nose through his cat flap into the kitchen. Years of guerilla warfare in the village alleyways had taught him to be ever vigilant and, if in doubt, to turn tail and run. He spotted movement over by the washing machine and, whiskers twitching, crept silently through the cat flap in order to investigate. The sight of so many shrunken humans pouring across the tiles caused him to panic. Beelzebub instantly inflated himself into something akin to an orange toilet brush, flattened his ears back against his skull, and gave what he fervently hoped was a fearsome growl.
The clones were not impressed by this. However, bored by their sartorial range being confined to Latch and Titus’s socks and towels, they were seriously impressed by the colorful nature of Beelzebub’s fur. “Cool,” a Titus type yelled. “Hey, you guys, let’s get ourselves some new orange threads.”
Beelzebub took one horrified look at the advancing hordes of tiny figures and, skidding inelegantly on the tiles, spun right round and bolted out of the cat flap.
The clones were not to be put off that easily. Brandishing Latch’s toenail clippers like a battering ram, they didn’t pause to draw up a battle plan. With the massed howl of hundreds of thwarted fashion victims, they set off in pursuit.
Beelzebub ran for his life. Whatever the mysteriously shrunken humans were, the cat was sure they didn’t have his future welfare in mind. He paused for breath on the outskirts of the village, turning round to see how far behind his pursuers were.
Behind him, in a seething horde, the clones sprinted along the main road, their lamplit shadows forming and reforming as they crossed from one pool of light to the next. Wondering if the shrunken ones could climb trees, Beelzebub headed for the uncharted territory of the track to StregaSchloss, hoping to find shelter in the bramble jungle that arched over his head. Nearly prostrate with terror, the cat squeezed through a thicket and scrabbled up the trunk of an ivy-clad oak. Out of breath, he perched on a lofty branch and peered down into the darkness below to see what the clones would make of this new development.
He didn’t have long to wait. Undaunted by the dangers of the bramble thorns, the clones clustered round the base of Beelzebub’s tree. They spotted their prey instantly and began to climb up the ivy.
When the first wave of poncho-clad clones reached Beelzebub’s perch, the cat edged backward till he was in danger of running out of branch. Beneath his weight the branch sagged ominously.
“Cool color,” remarked one Pandora type, imagining herself clad in Beelzebub’s fur. “I want that bit with the white stripes. . . .”
Beelzebub sprang for safety, leaping across the gap into the branches of an adjoining oak. The effect of this was to make the branch he’d just vacated spring whippily into the air and dislodge all the clambering clones. A flock of ponchos billowed merrily into the night, and then, obeying the dictates of gravity, f
luttered downward, coming to a jerky halt as the bramble thorns caught in the toweling fabric, leaving the clones dangling from the branches, arms and legs waving helplessly in the air.
Their companions regrouped at the foot of the tree in a state of shock. Above their heads, the night was rent with loud complaints.
“Aaaargh!” shrieked a Titus type. “Get me down! I’m freezing!”
Trying to stifle her giggles, a Pandora type pulled her sock up over her head to obliterate the vision of what hung dangling overhead.
“This is a grave offense against the dignity of clonehood!” screamed another Titus type, beating his tiny fists against the oak tree. “Orange Fur will pay dearly for this. REVENGE, my brothers and sisters, REVENGE. . . .”
Taking this as a perfect opportunity to escape, Beelzebub fled up the track, heading in the direction of StregaSchloss.
Wee Things Without Pants
“But what happened?” Knot whined. “I don’t understand. No one ever tells me anything.” The beasts stood on the shore of Lochnagargoyle, within sight of home.
“D’you mean the roof?” said Sab, expertly skimming a pebble across the lapping water. “We told you. It blew off. On Christmas Eve, remember?”
“No,” wailed Knot, “I don’t mean the roof. I mean what happened to Ffup? He’s—no, she’s gone all . . . weird.”
“It’s a girl thing,” muttered the dragon. “Don’t ask.”
Tock emerged from the loch, his scales dripping and his claws scrabbling for purchase on the seaweedy pebbles. “Here’s another of those stones for you, Sab,” he said, handing the griffin a perfectly flat and square example. “My claws are frozen stiff. If you want any more skimming stones, you’ll have to get them yourself.” He shivered. “Let’s go back home.”
“For some reason, I’m utterly famished,” remarked Ffup, picking up a mouthful of seaweed and devouring it. The beasts ignored her completely. For the past half hour since the dragon had returned from her investigation into the source of the Distant Howl, she’d been acting very strangely. She was inwardly focused, vague, giggly, and perpetually complaining about how hungry she was.
“Is that a light up there?” she said through another dripping mouthful of seaweed, vaguely flapping a claw in the direction of StregaSchloss. “I thought I could see a glow through the trees.”
The beasts stood on the loch shore, peering through the night at their old home. There was a light. Headlights swung down the track, sweeping across the fields and throwing the skeletal shadows of trees up against the walls of StregaSchloss. Just as suddenly as they had appeared, the lights vanished and the unmistakable rattle of an approaching Land Rover stopped. To the beasts’ confusion, the vehicle appeared to be creeping down the drive, lights out, engine cut, stealthily advancing toward the deserted house.
“Something’s not right,” said Sab, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Let’s go and see what’s going on.”
The beasts tiptoed in single file, negotiating the gorse-lined path that led from the loch shore to the meadow. Now that they were closer to home, they could see that some of the house lights were on, throwing diamonds of light over the drive, across the grass, and picking out the naked branches of the chestnut tree. Desperately homesick, puzzled, and exceedingly wary, the procession of beasts halted in the meadow and waited to see if their ancestral home was under threat.
“RIGHT, YOU HORRIBLE LOT. FALL IN!”
Light shone out from the kitchen windows of StregaSchloss across the littered kitchen garden. It illuminated Signora Strega-Borgia’s parsley patch, it filtered through the leaves of her bay tree, and it picked out a tiny figure perched on an upturned plant pot.
“ON THE DOUBLE! QUICK MARCH! ONE, TWO. ONE, TWO. ONE, TWO!” The tiny figure leaned on its shield and sighed in exasperation. Then it hitched up its kilt over its stomach. “PICK YOUR FEET UP, YOU MISERABLE SNIVELING WRETCHES! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE AN INVINCIBLE UNIT OF THE FIFTH DRAGON’S-TOOTH ENGINEERS!! OH, GIVE ME STRENGTH! ABOUT TURRN! HAAAAALT!”
On the sodden ground below their bawling leader, the massed ranks of the tincture squaddies came to a mutinous standstill. Several of them tripped over their shields and fell into the parsley. Seeing this, their leader sank to his knees on the plant pot and banged his head five times against his shield. The tincture squaddies watched this performance impassively. They’d seen it all before, many times. Next, their leader would stand up, hurl more abuse at them, and begin the whole exercise again. It was the pits. The army was the pits, their leader was the pits, and this godforsaken country, with its vast parsley trees, giant marauding spiders, big rude cats, and endless snow and rain, was —
“RUBBISH!” Their leader was back on his feet again, jumping up and down on top of the plant pot. “THAT WAS RUBBISH! HAVE YOU ALL GOT CLOTH EARS OR WHAT? READ MY LIPS! FAAAAALL IN!”
They fell in. Reluctantly, grumbling about the unfairness of the fate that had brought them here to train and fight and die; moaning about the inadequacies of their uniform, given the hostile climate, they still did as they were told, and fell in.
A short distance away, separated by stone walls and panes of glass, Titus blinked. “You’re kidding, right?” He sat at the kitchen table, staring open-mouthed at Tarantella.
Pandora had managed to light the fire in the range and the kitchen was growing warmer by the minute. She’d found some shriveled carrots and onions and had made a kind of vegetable soup, which she was now dishing into a bowl for Multitudina while Titus listened to Tarantella’s unbelievable story.
“Have it your own way, dear boy,” the spider said, pausing as she applied pink lipstick to her mouthparts. “It’s a tale, told by an idiot, sigh, signifying noth—”
“Is it true? Come on, Tarantella, this is important.”
Tarantella glared at Titus, snapped the cap back onto her lipstick, and tucked it away in a hidden pouch under her abdomen. She looked up at him, smiled in a decidedly insincere fashion, and produced her comb from another pouch. Humming to herself, she began to groom her legs with maddening slowness.
Titus turned to his sister. “Help me out here, would you? Tell me, what do I have to do to get to the bottom of this story—fall to my knees on the floor and beg?”
“That would be a good start,” Tarantella said. “And while you’re at it, you could get me something to eat. Good flies are so hard to find these days. . . .”
“Tarantella”—Pandora remembered how effective McLachlan mode had been in quelling the rebellious clones—“stop messing about. Tell us what happened on Christmas Eve or I’ll send you to the attic without any supper.”
“Oh, my. Hark at it now.” The tarantula hopped across the table and ran up Pandora’s arm.
Titus gagged. If that hideous spider had done that to him, he’d have died on the spot.
“Such a bossy little boots,” Tarantella continued, tapping Pandora’s nose with a reproving hairy leg. “However, seeing as it’s you and not him, I’ll tell you.” And she crawled up Pandora’s hair and began whispering in her ear, “Psss-psss roofers, hiss-psss pulled slates off, psst-hssst lost in the loch, pss.”
“LOCHNAGARGOYLE?” gasped Pandora, struck by the wickedness of it all. “They threw our slates in the loch?”
“Never to be found again,” came a familiar voice from the kitchen door. “And after your unfortunate accident, that’s where you’re headed, too.”
Swathed in golden fur and holding a gun in front of her, Ffion Fforbes-Campbell stepped into the kitchen, followed by Hugh Pylum-Haight. In the horrified silence, Tarantella scuttled unobserved out through the open kitchen door.
Rising Damp
The clatter of the Fforbes-Campbell Land Rover leaving the Auchenlochtermuchty Arms had woken Damp from a deep sleep. Rubbing her eyes with chubby fists, she assessed how exactly she felt about this. It all hinged on the status of her diaper. If it was dry and warm, nine times out of ten she’d roll over and go back to sleep, but tonight, the cold clamminess
round her bottom augured ill. Damp stood up, her travel cot creaking loudly as her weight shifted. Sometimes this sound was enough to wake the sleeping mummy summit. Tonight, this was not to be. Damp cleared her throat and experimented with a Grade One Whimper. Sometimes, this was all it took. . . .
By the time Mrs. McLachlan reached her cotside, Damp had progressed to the deafening heights of Grade Eight (Full-on Sobbing with Extra Hiccups for Good Measure). The baby was so enchanted with her own operatic prowess that it was several minutes before she realized that she had an audience.
“You poor wee chook,” clucked Mrs. McLachlan, scooping the tear-stained baby up into her arms for a hug. “Och, my wee lamb . . . my poor little honey-bunny, what’s the matter?”
The baby gave a wail and burrowed deep into her nanny’s comforting chest.
“Was it a bad dream, sweet pea?” murmured the nanny, stroking Damp’s head. “Don’t know where your parents have gone,” she continued, turning on the bedside light and sitting down on Signor and Signora Strega-Borgia’s empty bed with Damp on her lap. “And when I woke up, Pandora had vanished, too.”
A knock came and Latch’s head appeared round the door. “Flora,” he whispered, rubbing his eyes, “where is everyone? Young Titus isn’t in his bed and it’s gone three a.m.”
“Why don’t you try downstairs?” suggested Mrs. McLachlan. “I’ll come down and give you a hand just as soon as I’ve settled the wee one back in her cot.”
Damp stiffened. Back in her cot? No way was she going back there. Ah, well—she was left with little choice. . . . The opening aria from Grade Nine filled the tiny hotel bedroom, beating off the walls, swelling to an ear-splitting crescendo of High-C Shrieks coupled with Progressive Choking Sounds that threatened to overwhelm both audience and performer. The audience capitulated and bore the diva downstairs. Two minutes later, their ears still ringing, Mrs. McLachlan, Latch, and Damp found one half of their missing family. In the darkened lounge bar, Signor Strega-Borgia bent over the lifeless form of Mortimer Fforbes-Campbell, while behind the bar, Signora Strega-Borgia was on the phone to the nearest hospital, explaining the nature of the emergency.