The Adventures of Sir Roderick, the Not-Very Brave

by James O'Loghlin

  In front of him towered the cockroach. If he turned and ran now, it would get him before he could take more than a few steps.

  The roach growled down at him. YOU PASS. COME BACK. MAKE FREE! Roderick felt inside his head.

  He sent back as confident a Yes as he could manage. The cockroach stepped to one side and nodded its head in the direction of the gully.

  Retreat would surely be fatal, and standing still wasn’t going to help, so Roderick started walking across the clearing with Fruitcake following.

  The cockroach shadowed them, bending close to sniff them every few steps.

  At the far side of the clearing Roderick started up into the gully, but the cockroach moved to block his way.

  FRREEEEE MEEEE. HURRY! he felt in his mind.

  Yes, of course, he thought back as sincerely as he could.

  The cockroach stepped aside again. Roderick continued into the mouth of the gully, feeling the cockroach’s stare on his back. The gully thinned and the walls rose steeply on either side. Ahead was a tunnel.

  Roderick groaned. Surely, in a fair world, after rescuing someone from cannibals and getting past a giant cockroach, the next bit would be something easy like strolling along a beach or having to eat a bag of lollies, rather than needing to disappear into a narrow, dark and almost certainly dangerous tunnel.

  Near the tunnel’s entrance was a tree and some bushes. Roderick broke off a dead branch as long and thick as his wrist, wrapped some dead grass and small sticks as tightly as he could around one end and secured it all with a vine. It was lucky there was a vicious, giant cockroach behind him because if there wasn’t there was no way he would have been able to force himself into the uncertain damp darkness of the tunnel. Its floor was mud and it was just wide enough for three people to walk abreast. He wished there were three of them, and that the other two were big, strong and brave. He pulled out his flint stones and lit the torch. He knew it wouldn’t last long so, dragging Fruitcake behind him by the reins, he broke into a jog, tripping and stumbling along the uneven wet ground.

  He was scared, of course, but it was a different sort of fear than what he had felt facing the cockroach. That was a jagged, desperate fear, sharp with the knowledge that the beast could crush him at any moment. What he felt now was less precise, but no less intense. He didn’t know what there was to be afraid of, or even if there was anything at all, and it was that very uncertainty that swirled the terror up and around him.

  Then his torch flickered and burnt out. He stopped. It was the darkest dark ever. He held his hand an inch away from his eyes and couldn’t see even a hint of its outline. If his fear levels had been on overdrive before, they were now on hyper-over-megadrive. He tentatively slid his right foot forward. The ground had been flat so far, but Roderick’s mind was full of sudden drops, bottomless pits and giant snakes. He brought his left foot up level with his right, then slid the right slowly forward again. At this rate it would take him a week to get as far as he could throw a stone.

  He felt Fruitcake push impatiently past him, and plod ahead. Roderick pulled back on the reins to try to hold him back, but the horse walked confidently on, dragging Roderick with him. Could Fruitcake see, or sense, what was ahead, or would they just walk straight off an invisible cliff? Fruitcake increased his pace. Roderick again tried to slow him, but failed. He half-walked, half-jogged to keep up. On impulse he threw his foot into a stirrup and swung his body up and onto Fruitcake’s back. He lay down low, hugging the horse’s neck and hoping that Fruitcake knew what he was doing.

  The ground began to slope downwards and they picked up speed. Fruitcake broke into a canter. Roderick hung on for dear life, expecting that at any second they would trip over some unseen obstacle. Suddenly he sat up. It was only faint, a tiny change in the fabric of the darkness, but he could now just see the outline of Fruitcake’s head.

  A few moments later he saw a pinprick of light ahead. Fruitcake broke into a gallop. The pinprick grew. Roderick’s fear changed to hope, and then excitement. He saw sky out of the tunnel’s mouth. As they were about to pass through it Roderick rose in his stirrups to let out a mighty whoop of triumph.

  He got as far as ‘Yipp . . .’ before his head smacked into a rock hanging down from the roof and he fell head first into the mud.

  CHAPTER 9

  BESIDE THE STRIVER

  He woke with a splitting headache. The top of his head was tender and painful, and when he rubbed it his hand came away streaked with blood. He felt about a bit more and discovered that at least the blood was only oozing, not pumping. He climbed to his feet and tentatively walked the last few steps out of the tunnel, then blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight.

  Below him was a grassy slope that led down into a lush green valley where Fruitcake grazed. To Roderick’s left a waterfall fell into a lake and then emptied into a tree-lined stream. Flowers bloomed, bushes sprouted, fruit hung from trees, and behind it all the mountains circled. It was definitely the nicest place he had been in for at least a few days. He sighed with relief.

  ‘Hands up, person with skinny legs.’ A male voice came from behind him. ‘And don’t move! Oh, wait. Except for your hands, that is, because I just said “hands up” so of course you have to move your hands. So move them. Move your hands in an upwards way. But keep the rest of yourself, um, unmoved. That’s it!’

  The voice spoke very quickly. It was male and sounded older than a child but not quite adult. Roderick obeyed.

  ‘Turn around. Not all the way around though, or else when you’ve finished you’ll still be facing the wrong way. What I mean is, start turning yourself around and keep turning until you get around so that you are facing me, and then stop turning. Get it?’

  Roderick nodded and slowly turned to face the voice.

  He was looking at a black bear.

  Roderick’s legs almost gave way. The bear was a head taller than himself, standing on its back legs and holding a thick wooden club in a ready-to-swing-at-Roderick position.

  ‘Who are you, then?’ said the bear. ‘Tell me using the usual way humans communicate, by which I mean verbal speech.’

  ‘R . . . R . . . I mean . . . Roderick.’

  ‘Ra-Ra-I-mean-Roderick? What an odd, and very long, name. We have shorter names around here,’ said the bear. ‘By the time you get up in the morning and say your name, it would almost be time to go to bed again! Ha ha ha!’ The bear threw back his head and laughed hugely at the sky, then quickly jumped back to attention, legs wide, club ready.

  ‘Don’t try it!’ the bear bellowed. ‘Whatever it might be, don’t try it. It is not on. My club and I will stop you doing any sort of it you might have been thinking of doing.’

  Roderick, who had not moved, tried to hold his hands up even higher.

  ‘But I’m not doing anything,’ he spluttered.

  ‘Maybe not, but you may have been thinking of doing something.’ The bear leant forward, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘No, no, I promise, I wasn’t even thinking of doing anything.’

  ‘What weren’t you thinking of then? Hey? Were you not thinking of stabbing me in the eye with your knife? Is that it? Not thinking about stabbing me in the eye with your knife is only one little word away from thinking about stabbing me in the eye with your knife! And the next step after that is doing it!’ He wiped his brow. ‘Phew. I’m lucky to be alive.’

  This was a very odd bear, thought Roderick. Or perhaps all bears were like this, but because they didn’t usually talk, no one ever knew.

  ‘Well, Mister very long-named Ra-Ra-I-mean-Roderick, what are you doing here, then?’ asked the bear.

  ‘Please, my name isn’t that long. It’s just Roderick, actually.’

  ‘Okay, then, Just-Roderick-actually. But that’s still a very long name, you know.’

  ‘No, it’s not –’

  The bear raised hi
s paw. ‘Answer my question! The question I asked before that went exactly like this: “What are you doing here?” No, wait. I know the answer to that one. You are standing there facing me. That’s what you’re doing. All right, smartypants, how about this question. Why is it that, at this particular time, you happen to be standing in this particular place, and not some other particular place? Ha! Try that one.’

  Roderick couldn’t think of any reason to lie so he didn’t. ‘I’m looking for Ganfree Banfor,’ he said. ‘I was told he may be here.’

  ‘I see. I see. I see. Ganfree Banfor.’ The bear raised the corners of his mouth in what may have been a smile. ‘And which particular Ganfree Banfor is that?’

  ‘Er, I didn’t know there was more than one.’

  ‘What?! You thought that in the whole enormous world there was not one single other person who had a first name Ganfree and a last name Banfor? Don’t try to pull the fur over my eyes. I know you’re not that stupid.’ He looked sharply at Roderick. ‘Actually I don’t know that. Maybe you are that stupid. Anyway, whether you are that stupid or not, there are probably at least six or twenty-eight or maybe even one hundred and sixty-three Ganfree Banfors in the world.’

  Roderick’s head was starting to hurt. ‘Okay. You’ve got a point,’ he said. ‘The one I am looking for is the great sorcerer.’

  ‘Wait!’ The bear held up his paw again. ‘Is what you are saying that of all the Ganfree Banfors in the world that are real, it happens to be the particular one who does sorcery things that you are looking for?’

  Roderick nodded.

  Suddenly the bear began to leap joyfully up and down. ‘How amazing! How incredible! Because of all the Ganfree Banfors there are in the world it so happens that the one who is a great sorcerer is the one, the only one, who happens to live here! You’ve come to the right place! Of course, it all makes sense now. I mean, if you’d gone somewhere else, how could you possibly hope to find the one who lives here? So, of course you didn’t go somewhere else. You came here. Is that it?’

  Roderick thought the best thing to do would be to just nod again, so he did.

  ‘You are a sensible bear, you are,’ the bear said approvingly, then narrowed his eyes. ‘Except you’re not a bear, are you? But if you were a bear you would be a sensible one. Like me.’ The bear pushed out his chest proudly. Roderick suppressed a smile, which was a shame because he hadn’t smiled for some days and he could have really done with one.

  The bear peered closer at him. ‘I know what you are! You are a sensible non-bear.’ The bear put down his club and rubbed his paws together. ‘Well, Mister Just-Roderick-actually sensible non-bear. I must tell you something. You will love this. I know you will,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You want to find Ganfree Banfor. Guess what my orders are? Go on. Guess.’

  ‘Ummm . . . to confuse anyone you find?’

  ‘Ha! Good. But wrong. No, my orders . . . do you know what orders are?’

  ‘Er . . . yes.’

  ‘Good. My orders . . . at least the orders I was told to obey, they are not really “mine”. I do not own them.’ The bear looked doubtfully off into the distance for a moment, then back to Roderick. ‘Anyway, my orders are to take anyone I find to . . . guess who? Ganfree Banfor!! And not just any Ganfree Banfor! The exact Ganfree Banfor that you are looking for!’ The bear beamed. ‘So, come with me or I’ll have to bash your head with this club, and that’d hurt! Although I’ve never actually had my head bashed with a club before, so I’m not exactly sure it would hurt. But I think it would, don’t you?’

  ‘I think so, yes, but we won’t have to find out – I’ll come with you,’ Roderick said quickly.

  ‘Great! You go first. Wait! Except you don’t know the way.’ The bear looked as if it was trying very hard to think. ‘Hmmm. I know. I’ll lead. Wait! No! Then I won’t be able to see what you are doing and you might escape or kick me or something.’ He looked at the ground.

  Roderick decided it was best just to wait.

  Eventually the bear thrust a paw triumphantly into the air.

  ‘I’ve got it! You go first but I will tell you which way to go. Perfect! That’ll work. Head that way.’

  The bear pointed towards the end of the lake furthest from the waterfall.

  ‘Wait! That creature over there that looks like a horse. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a horse,’ said Roderick.

  ‘Ha. I thought as much. Is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘Er . . . yes. He will follow us.’

  The bear brightened. ‘By the way,’ he added as they started off, ‘guess who gave me the order to take whoever I find to Ganfree Banfor? Can you guess? It was Ganfree Banfor! There’s that name again! It’s incredible.’

  When they got to the end of the lake it narrowed into what was either a narrow river or a wide stream. The bear indicated a path that ran beside it and they walked along it through trees downstream. Roderick wondered if the bear had also apprehended Ruby. He almost asked but decided not to. If she had evaded the bear, he did not want to warn him that she was about. Although why he should help her after the way she had abandoned him he did not know.

  After a few minutes the path emerged into a clearing containing a rectangular, wooden two-storey cottage that had a porch out the front that overlooked the river. Two horses grazed outside it and, in front of it, sitting at the edge of the river, a thin old man sat hunched over a fishing rod. As they approached, the man ignored them. As they got closer, he ignored them even more.

  ‘Excuse me, Mister Banfor,’ said the bear. ‘I see that you are hunting for fish in that passive let-them-come-to-me-via-my-rod sort of way that you seem to like so much and I am sorry to disturb you. But if you turn your head, or even your neck, or even your whole body, towards me, you will see that I am not just an “I”. I am a “we”. Not just one bear, but in fact one bear and one non-bear human. I have another human!’

  The man slowly turned to face them. Roderick had thought he had been tired the last few days, but he had never seen such weariness as he did in that turn. The man had a long straight nose and a white beard that fell to his chest. His face was deeply lined. Could this frail old man really be the powerful sorcerer Ganfree Banfor?

  Suddenly the man’s eyes blazed with such power and intensity that Roderick took a step backwards. Once again, he felt as if someone was digging around inside his mind. Then the light in the man’s eyes dimmed and he, once again, seemed old and diminished. He sighed deeply. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you have found me.’

  His words sounded so despondent that Roderick almost felt like apologising for disturbing him, turning around and leaving him alone. But there was his mission to consider and, of course, the fact that if he did that he would be ripped to pieces by a giant cockroach at the end of the tunnel.

  ‘So it seems,’ said Roderick. Many times he had imagined what he would say if he ever found Banfor, but he had always pictured a powerful sorcerer in grand robes plucking diamonds and door handles magically out of the air, not a sad old man sitting by a river.

  ‘When you say he “found” you, Mr Banfor,’ said the bear, ‘he only “found” you after being led here by me. So he didn’t really find you. I found you. Except I didn’t really find you either, because I already knew you were here. You can’t really find something if you already know where it is. So perhaps we should say . . .’

  ‘Chester,’ Banfor said firmly, raising his hand. The way he said it clearly meant ‘Shut up now’.

  ‘Thank you for bringing this man to me,’ he continued. ‘You can go now.’ The bear looked disappointed.

  ‘Perhaps you can find us some lunch,’ added Banfor.

  ‘Lunch!’ said Chester. ‘I know the one. The meal between the very important but often neglected breakfast, and the frequently over-indulged-in dinner. Yes, yes! Lunch, that pivotal meal that holds the day together. An important mission,
Mister Banfor!’ He paused dramatically, then drew himself up to his full height. ‘The question is, “Can I do it?”. And my answer?’ The bear leapt into a dramatic pose, legs wide apart and arms raised. ‘YES! Of course I can!’ He pivoted, dropped onto all four legs and bounded away.

  Banfor let out another sigh. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never taught him to speak. You’d never think a bear would be like . . . that.’ He gestured absently in the direction Chester had gone. ‘But then again, I could stop him doing it and I never do.’ He smiled. ‘So I suppose I must enjoy the company.’ He patted the ground beside him. ‘Do you fish?’

  Roderick sat, adjusting his sword. Banfor appeared to be unarmed, but seemed as unconcerned by the sword as a crocodile would be if someone was threatening it with a banana.

  ‘I never have,’ said Roderick.

  ‘It’s very relaxing. Especially when you don’t catch any. Peaceful. Sitting looking into the water all day, trying to decide if it’s a river or a stream. A striver, perhaps. Or a ream. See, if you just sat here all day without a fishing rod you might feel a bit useless. But grab a rod, and suddenly you have a purpose. I can sit here all day. In fact, I often do.’

  He gave a little tug on his rod, which was actually just a stick with string tied to one end. ‘There’s one! It’s a biggie!’ he said, jerking the rod backwards dramatically. Then he relaxed back into his staring posture. ‘Only joking.’ He looked at Roderick. ‘Not very funny, was it.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes. It was,’ said Roderick awkwardly.

  ‘Did you come here to fish, Roderick?’

  Roderick took a deep breath. This was the moment. He gathered himself and tried to pretend that he knew what he was talking about. ‘I did not, Sir Banfor. I came here because my nation, Baronia, a nation you have helped in the past, is in peril. I have come on behalf of the Queen –’

  ‘Yes, yes I know all that,’ said Banfor impatiently. ‘You want to take me back.’