Golden Mane, Book One of The Adventures of Sarah Coppernick

by SJB Gilmour

  ‘This is The Crossroads,’ Angela told them. Then she pointed down one road. ‘And this road takes us to more Neroland. Follow me,’ she ordered them and walked down the empty road. They all hurried to catch up with her. Nathan surprised Sarah. He glanced around at the empty black space that surrounded them. He shivered nervously then leaned in close to her.

  ‘Miss Sarah?’ he asked as they followed Angela.

  ‘Yes Nathan?’ Sarah replied, looking up at the big purple bookwyrm as he wriggled along beside her.

  ‘Would you mind carrying me in your pocket? I don’t feel very safe out here.’ He nodded out to the blackness. The wails, which Sarah now realised were cries of pain and anguish, were making him very nervous too. Angela was right. There was something – or some things – out there, and whatever they were, they didn’t sound very friendly.

  ‘You wouldn’t fit inside my pocket, Nathan!’ Still, she changed form and was once more dressed in her school uniform.

  Nathan smiled and whirled his eyes. ‘Oh yes I will!’ Right before Sarah’s eyes he began shrinking. In moments, he was roughly the size of a long, wriggly pencil. ‘Now, Sarah,’ he squeaked. ‘If you let me wriggle onto the palm of your hand, you’ll be able to slip me into your pocket. Please be careful. I bruise easily!’

  Sarah smiled and bent down and rested her hand on the ground. Nathan quickly scurried onto her palm. She gently slid Nathan into her blazer pocket and hurried to catch up with Angela and the others. Robert and Roberta seemed to be happily enjoying their stroll along the deserted street, their eyes lost in the distance.

  Mel fell in to step beside her friend. ‘My folks are going to love this!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sarah asked. She was scared and grateful for the chance to talk – anything to take her mind off whatever it was out there. She was also feeling very tired and more than a little hungry even though it had only been about an hour since lunch.

  ‘If Molotov, Gint and Grimm have escaped, and they’re in league with the trolls, there could be all sorts of trouble. This is big!’ Mel continued.

  The path then branched off. One branch kept going, and the other stopped at a portal. Angela stepped straight through it and vanished. Sarah and Mel glanced at each other, shrugged and followed her. Once on the other side of the portal, the group found themselves on a thin dirt road that wound through gentle grassy hills, some of which seemed to have been recently ploughed in large random patches.

  Roberta and Robert immediately scampered about, sniffing and rolling in the grass. They both peed several times on various spots.

  ‘Now this is more like it,’ Sarah murmured, half to herself. Then to Angela, ‘Now, where are we?’ she asked.

  ‘Welcome to the city of Gnumph, Sarah!’ her teacher replied.

  Sarah looked about. All she could see was grass and hills with patches of recently dug dirt. For a moment, she thought her teacher might be going bonkers.

  ‘Huh? City? Where?’

  ‘Sarah, the gnomes build their cities underground,’ Angela explained. ‘Actually, we’re on the outskirts. We need to catch a ride into town. A shuttle should be along soon.’

  Just when Sarah was thinking Angela really was going crazy, the ground began to rumble. Then Sarah discovered just what had caused the patches of dirt on the hills to be dug up like that.

  Several metres from them, the ground erupted as a large, spiralling screw-shaped front of an enormous digging machine poked out of the soil. Sarah and Mel scrambled back and watched the machine tunnel its way out of the ground. It resembled a huge submarine, only with the propeller missing and the enormous screw at the front. Two great tracks like the tread from a bulldozer propelled it along and out of the ground.

  Chapter Eight

  The spinning screw continued to whir for a moment and then it stopped. The machine itself made almost no sound whatsoever save for the rumbling and thudding of the dirt it displaced. It poked high up out of the ground and then settled down in the freshly dug mound of dirt. Gusts of steam blew out from several vents on the side of the machine. There were a few metallic clangs and thuds and then out of the side of the long tube-shaped machine, a hatch opened and a set of stairs folded down.

  ‘Right on time! In we go!’ Angela announced brightly. ‘Come along everyone.’ She marched up the stairs into the machine.

  Sarah and Mel rushed to follow, as did Roberta and Robert. Inside the machine it was almost exactly like a bus from home, except the seats were all only about twenty centimetres from the floor. This vehicle was made for much smaller creatures than Sarah, she realised. Lights on the ceiling lit the long cabin. Sarah gaped as she looked about. As far as she could tell, they were the only passengers.

  ‘Express shuttle to Gnumphlatia Manor!’ squawked a voice through a crackly PA system. Then the stairs folded up and the hatch swung shut with a solid thud. The hatch had barely shut when the machine gave a lurch, forcing Sarah and Mel to grab hold of the handrails.

  Roberta gave a startled yelp and sat down very suddenly with her tail between her legs. ‘I don’t like this,’ she whined to nobody in particular.

  ‘What the…?’ Sarah managed to exclaim over what was now quite a loud hum and rumble of the shuttle digging itself back through the ground.

  ‘It’s a mole-bus!’ Mel yelled over the noise. She pointed at the front of the cabin where there was a small door. ‘The driver’s in there!’

  ‘Are you telling me this thing is taking us underground?’ asked Sarah, feeling more than a little frightened now.

  ‘Of course, Sarah!’ Angela replied with a smile. ‘It’s alright. We’re quite lucky actually. This is a private service shuttle. The public mole-buses can be awfully crowded.’

  Sarah clung to the handrail, not trusting herself to speak for several minutes. Finally, the mole-bus stopped shuddering and the hatch opened again.

  Sarah and the others followed Angela out into an enormous underground cavern at the side of an even bigger tunnel. Dozens of mole-buses and other burrowing machines trundled along the tunnel, giving off huge vents of steam and vapour.

  ‘Here we are!’ announced Angela, marching up to a wooden door in the side of the cavern.

  ‘Where is here?’ Sarah wasn’t about to go any further until she knew just what was going on!

  Angela smiled. ‘Sarah, we’re on Gnumphlatia. It’s the home planet of the gnomes.’ She waved about her. ‘This is one of the main highways of Gnumph and through this door, is Gnumphlatia Manor. It’s the perfect place for us right now. Benjamin and I have used this place to meet before.’

  ‘You’ve been in trouble like this before then?’ Mel asked boldly.

  Angela chuckled. ‘Mel, Master McConnell and I have been working together for a long time. He’s saved my hide and I his, many times. We’ve used this place to meet when one or both of us has been on the run before. The concierge here and I have an understanding. He’s a corrupt little fellow, but he’s proved to be very useful in the past.’ She patted Mel on the shoulder. ‘No more questions for now. It’s best we go inside.’ She walked up to the door and gave it a most unladylike kick.

  The door rattled and a voice from within cried, ‘What do you want? We’re closed! Go away!’

  Angela rolled her eyes. ‘Why is everyone saying that to me today?’ she murmured. With her face set, leaned back and, much more firmly this time, kicked the door again. The kick itself might have been enough to knock the door down, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She backed it up with a quickly grunted incantation. The door exploded into thousands of splinters.

  Inside among the debris was a very small man. Sarah peered in and realised that the person sitting up and brushing the splinters off himself was not like any human man she’d ever seen before.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ the odd little fellow demanded, standing up to his full height of just over a metre tall. His head was bald and his skin was a very odd grey colour. His clothes were little more than rags patched toge
ther and tied with bits of string and leather thong. On his feet, he wore comical long pointy boots that curled up at the toes. His waistcoat, which once must have been rather fine crimson velvet, was faded and threadbare.

  ‘Who are you and why did you blow in my door?’ the strange little man demanded.

  Sarah rushed forward to help him brush off the splinters. ‘I’m Sarah,’ she told him. ‘Sarah Coppernick.’ She quickly introduced everyone.

  ‘Well, I can see at least one of you humans has some manners,’ observed the grey-skinned little man. ‘I’m Rudolf Greenstone, the gnome. However, you can call me Rudy. This is my hotel, Gnumphlatia Manor!’

  It seemed quite odd for the scruffy little fellow to be proud of what appeared to be an incredible shambles. The hotel appeared to once have been quite fine, but now it was dusty and covered in cobwebs. The counter was broken, wallpaper was peeling and the floor was littered with debris.

  ‘Come in!’ he bade them all. ‘You don’t want to hang about out there all day. Who knows what or which you’ll bump into?’ He waved at the dilapidated foyer.

  As he waved, the entire hotel shimmered. The dust and cobwebs were gone and his clothes suddenly became quite splendid. When the illusion of shabbiness was finally gone, Rudolf marched proudly to a tiny concierge counter and rang the big brass bell on the counter top.

  Everyone gratefully followed the odd little gnome’s instructions. Once inside, Sarah felt much safer. Suddenly, another little gnome appeared, dressed sharply in a green suit with gold stripes down the sides of his pants and big bright brass buttons on his jacket. He gave Angela the briefest of nods before turning to the rest of the group.

  ‘Good evening everyone!’ the gnome announced. ‘I am Ronald Mason, but you can call me Ronny. I’m your concierge this evening. How can I help you?’

  Rudolf stepped out from behind the counter. ‘I’ll leave you in Ronny’s hands then,’ he told his guests. ‘Good night. If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just ask Ronny here and he’ll take care of it.’ With that, Rudolf trotted off through a very little door into his office.

  ‘Now,’ said Ronny, clapping his hands together. ‘How many rooms would you like?’

  ‘Four, please,’ Angela replied, giving the gnome a nod.

  ‘Come right this way!’ he responded quickly. As he led them away, he murmured to Angela, ‘What’s it this time?’

  Angela sighed and using the same low tones replied, ‘I’m not sure to be honest, but I think we’ve got a serious problem with The Guild itself. Nothing we can’t handle, I’m sure.’

  Ronny nodded. ‘The usual fee, or do you need anything extra?’

  Angela chuckled. ‘I’ll let you know, old friend. I’ll let you know.’

  They arrived at two Ottispuschenshuffen, Ottispuschenshuffen & Ottispuschenshuffen elevators waiting for them. Ronny ushered everyone inside one of the elevators and ducked in himself just as the doors slid shut. Inside the elevator was a small stand upon which sat another glass bowl. It was half-full of hundreds of small silver coins, all with the Gnumphlatia Manor logo stamped on them.

  ‘Where to?’ asked the elevator, just as gruffly as their old one had done.

  ‘Rooms six hundred and sixty-six to six hundred and sixty-nine,’ Ronald ordered, pointing one officious, stubby finger at the elevator. ‘And no funny business or you’ll be back to Ottispuschenshuffens’ before you know what hit you!’ He then popped a small silver coin into the elevator’s open mouth.

  Silently the elevator took them to their floor. When Ronald had shown them all to their rooms, including room six hundred and sixty-six for Nathan, Sarah all but fell into the bed. She was exhausted. And she was hungry. Her belly gave a loud rumble.

  Mel was also thinking of food. She raced to the various folders and booklets on the counter next to the hotel room phone. The phone was the type Sarah had only seen in books and really old movies. It was all wood and brass with a large round dial and brown, fabric-covered cord.

  ‘There’s gotta be a menu here somewhere,’ Mel muttered. ‘I’m starving.’ She found what she was looking for and picked up the phone. ‘Room service?’ she demanded. She tucked the phone into her shoulder. ‘Hey Sarah! Wanna hamburger?’

  Sarah nodded eagerly. She spread her hands out to show her friend she wanted a big one.

  ‘Yeah. Hazelwood. Right, I want two of the biggest hamburgers you’ve got. You know, the kind you’ve gotta turn upside down cos you can’t bite all the way through it, it’s so big? How messy? Real messy. I want ‘em dripping. Everything on them… Egg, bacon, beetroot and lotsa, lotsa cheese… Yeah, extra cheese. What?’ She looked around. ‘I dunno what room I’m in…’

  ‘Six sixty-nine,’ hissed Sarah a little more loudly than she meant to.

  ‘Hear that? We’re in six sixty-nine. Yeah. And milkshakes.’

  ‘Chocolate!’ Sarah hissed again.

  ‘Two chocolate shakes, and fries and pickles… No we don’t want salad with ‘em. What?’ She grimaced. ‘Who the hell puts anchovies on a hamburger? You gnomes are weird. Nooo anchovies. And juice. Gimme two big OJ’s. Yeah. Six sixty-nine. And hurry up will you, we’re starving in here… Half an hour? How long does it take to make a burger…? Yeah. Thanks.’

  Mel grinned at Sarah and then sniffed under her arm. ‘Dunno about you, but I stink.’ She looked about the room and a dreamy look came over her face when she saw an enormous spa bath full of steaming sudsy water, just waiting to be used. Instantly, she stripped off her uniform and jumped into the bath.

  ‘Come on in, Sarah!’ Mel yelled.

  Sarah didn’t get the chance to answer because at that moment, there was a loud ‘ding!’ and a call from outside the room. ‘Room service!’

  ‘Half and hour, my butt,’ muttered Mel as she shot out of the bath and grabbed a robe. Still dripping wet, she yanked opened the door. A gnome was standing next to a food cart very nearly as tall as himself, which wasn’t very. On that cart were two enormous chocolate milkshakes, a large jug of orange juice and two polished stainless steel domed covers.

  ‘About time you showed up!’ Mel complained to the startled gnome.

  ‘Miss Hazelwood! You only rang two minutes…’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. Did you bring hot sauce? I want hot sauce.’

  The gnome opened a small silver box containing several bottles of various condiments. He then stood on his tiptoes and removed the covers, revealing two of the biggest hamburgers Sarah had ever seen, along with fries and pickles. Then he bowed again and left.

  When they had both eaten as much as they could (and still not managed to finish the enormous burgers), they both sank back into the tub and stayed there till the water was cold. The huge meal and long bath left Sarah so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open. Once she was in bed, it took all of thirty seconds for her to be fast asleep.

  Sarah woke to find a fresh pile of clothes for her at the foot of her bed. She found jeans, just like her old favourite ones, an assortment of T-shirts and a hoodie, also like her favourite ones at home. There was even a pair of canvas sneakers and some cotton socks. These weren’t as comfortable as going barefoot, but they were much better than her school shoes.

  She looked about and saw Mel was still asleep. For a slight girl, Mel was taking up nearly all of the enormous bed. Her arms and legs were stretched out at all angles. Being careful not to wake her friend, Sarah walked out of the room and into the corridor.

  The elevator took Sarah to the dining room where she found Angela, dressed in a lovely summer dress and bright red mary-janes. Her normally severely-tied hair was in pigtails with red bows. She seemed much more relaxed and even younger and prettier than ever. Roberta and Robert were dressed in sloppy casual clothes, and as usual, were barefoot. Even Nathan had replaced his usual bow tie with a paisley-printed red bandana.

  Then she noticed a huge buffet breakfast table. Even though she had eaten far more than was probably healthy the night before, her stomach was grow
ling again. She breathed in deeply. Yes, that breakfast smelled very good indeed.

  She heaped her plate with eggs, bacon, toast and lots and lots of butter. She also found juice, hot chocolate, a huge bowl of fruit salad and a large assortment of cereals in big glass jars. The adults hid smiles as they watched Sarah hoe through two plates of bacon and eggs, one bowl of cereal with fruit salad and two big mugs of hot chocolate, all washed down with an enormous glass of fruit juice.

  Just as she was finishing her breakfast, Mel appeared dressed in black combat boots, black cargo pants and a black T-shirt. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. With her thin frame and with her hair tied back, Mel looked almost boyish. Mel looked at her friends and then at the buffet and decided all conversation could wait. She headed straight for the buffet and managed to eat even more than Sarah had.

  When the girls had finished eating as much as they possibly could, they returned to their room to clean up. As Sarah brushed her teeth, Mel watched her silently with a concerned look on her face.

  ‘What?’

  Mel flushed and fished in a drawer behind her. She held up a small glass jar with something golden and sparkling inside.

  ‘Last night while you were sleeping, I was brushing my hair... Then I saw you asleep there like a big puppy so I gave you a brush too.’ Mel confessed. ‘These came off the brush.’

  Sarah looked closely inside the jar. There, at the bottom of the jar were three solid gold hairs. She shook the jar carefully and the brilliant hairs rattled softly.

  Sarah gaped at the hairs in the jar. ‘Those things came off me?’ she demanded. ‘How come they turned to gold? We’re underground! There’s no moonlight.’