Children of the Red King Book 06 Charlie Bone and The Beast

by Jenny Nimmo

  Following Fidelio's gaze, Charlie saw Emma sitting alone on a log in a far corner of the grounds. She had a pile of books on her knees, and even from a distance, Charlie could tell that she was upset.

  "Does she... ?" Charlie turned to Fidelio.

  "Does she like Tancred? I'll say. Haven't you noticed?"

  "I'm an idiot." Charlie slapped his head. "It's obvious, now that you mention it. Poor Em."

  The sound of the hunting horn echoed across the grounds, calling them back to class, and Charlie ran over to help Emma with the books that had tumbled off her knees. They lay scattered around her feet, their pages flapping like white wings in the icy breeze.

  Emma took the books from Charlie with a grateful smile. "Silly of me to try and work out here," she said in a small voice. "I had this crazy idea that if I got all

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  my homework done, I wouldn't have to go to the King's room tonight."

  Charlie shook his head. "Wouldn't work, Em. They'd find something else for you to do."

  "I know," she said.

  Fidelio joined them as they walked back into school. They were the last to leave the grounds.

  That night Charlie waited for the sound of distant howling. The grunts and heavy breathing of the sleeping boys around him seemed even louder tonight. And then he saw that Billy was awake, too. Charlie could just make out the white blur of his head as he sat up in the bed beyond Dagbert's.

  "Billy?" Charlie whispered. "Can you hear anything?"

  "I heard the howling once," Billy said softly. "But it was very faint."

  "What did it say?"

  "I'm not sure..." Billy hesitated. "It might have been 'father. "

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  They heard, then, the distant but unmistakable sound of gunfire.

  With a little moan, Billy dived under the covers.

  Charlie lay back on his pillow. J hope they haven't killed it, he thought.

  At number twelve Filbert Street, Benjamin Brown was ^still wide awake. He wished Charlie could have shared the past two days with him. So much had happened. It had all begun with a hastily arranged meeting in the town hall. Mr. and Mrs. Brown decided to take Benjamin along with them. "It will be good for you," said Mr. Brown. "You might learn something."

  Benjamin doubted it until he heard that the subject for discussion would be the Wilderness Wolf. And he did, indeed, learn something. He learned that people lied when they were afraid. Fear was rife in the large hall that night. You could see it in people's eyes; you could hear it in their hushed and nervous chatter. Benjamin sat between his parents, right at the

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  front. The Browns liked to observe the minutest details on occasions like this.

  There were five people on the platform. They sat behind a long table; each had a clipboard and a glass of water set before them. Benjamin recognized the chairman, Mr. Marchwell, a prominent councilman who often visited his school; he also recognized Charlie's next-door neighbor Agnes Prout.

  Mr. Marchwell opened the proceedings with a short speech. He told his audience that they were all there for the same reasons: one, to discuss ways and means of identifying the "unusual utterances" (a long-winded description of howling, Benjamin reckoned) coming from across the river, and two, to decide whether the creature responsible for the utterances was a threat to the citizens.

  At this point, Agnes Prout rudely interrupted Mr. Marchwell with a shout of, "Threat? Of course, it's a threat. It's a wolf, for heaven's sake!"

  A few people applauded this outburst. Benjamin

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  was glad that his parents kept their hands in their laps.

  "We don't know that it's a wolf, Miss Prout," said Mr. Marchwell.

  "You bet we do," Agnes retorted. "I saw it. It bit my neighbor Mr. Yewbeam. I saw the wound; a stream of blood poured from his wrist, a positive stream."

  Mrs. Brown put up her hand.

  Mr. Marchwell leaned forward slightly. "You have a question... Mrs., er... ?"

  "Brown," said Benjamin's mother, standing up. "Irish Brown. I would just like to state that Mr. Yewbeam told me he was bitten by a human, a deluded person perhaps, but certainly not a wolf."

  Benjamin felt proud of his mother. He felt even prouder when she stood her ground against a torrent of ridicule from Agnes Prout.

  "Rubbish, Mrs. Brown. Absolute nonsense! Either the poor man wasn't himself, or you're deaf. That was no human, it was a wolf."

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  "If Mr. Yewbeam were here... ," began Mrs. Brown.

  "Well, he isn't," said Agnes, "so that's that." Mrs. Brown went an angry shade of red and sat down. Mr. Brown patted her back.

  "Well done, Mom," Benjamin whispered. She gave him a resigned sort of smile.

  Benjamin looked up at the bright lights beaming down from the ceiling. It would have been impossible for Charlie's uncle to attend the meeting. They would all have been plunged into darkness and covered in glass the moment he walked through the door.

  The audience had become very lively. Hands were showing up all over the place. People began to shout out of turn. In vain, Mr. Marchwell raised his hand, begging them to be civilized, to allow one another to be heard.

  "I saw it down Cruckton Avenue!" "Someone told me it was on Piminy Street!" "I heard it was seen in Cathedral Square!" "A great, gray beast, fangs like knives!"

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  "It's been eating cats!"

  "And dogs!"

  "Next it'll be our babies!"

  "Our kids!"

  "It's got to be killed!"

  It took some time for the hubbub to die down, but Mr, Marchwell was a determined person and he managed to keep the rest of the proceedings under tight control. Only at the end did hysteria begin to creep into a few voices again.

  A decision was made. The mayor would be apprised of the citizens' strong feelings about the "thing" in the wilderness, and a hunt would be organized. The so-called Wilderness Wolf would be flushed out and captured or killed. As the creature was silent during daylight hours, the hunt would begin at dusk the following day.

  When the meeting broke up, small groups began to form on the sidewalk outside the town hall. Benjamin could hear excited voices. Violence was in the air. He began to think that the people in those

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  angry, grumbling groups were more dangerous than any wilderness wolf.

  Mr. and Mrs. Brown walked home in silence. Benjamin looked up at their disapproving faces and decided not to ask any questions. Just as they were climbing the steps of number twelve, they heard a melancholy howl stealing through the cold night air.

  Benjamin shivered. "It doesn't sound dangerous," he said. "It just sounds sad."

  "Sad indeed," agreed Mr. Brown. "There's something not right about this."

  Five minutes later, sitting in his bright cozy kitchen, Mr. Brown put forward a theory. "It's like this," he said. "We hear a sound from the wilderness, right? An animal cry, if you like, but a call of some kind. A call for help. Now this 'thing' that attacked Mr. Yewbeam was human, he says."

  "Paton Yewbeam's no fool," Mrs. Brown broke in. "He said it was human and I believe him, absolutely."

  "So do I, Trish," her husband said hastily. "So do I. Thing is, it bites, which is an animal trait, so maybe

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  there's a connection between the thing in the wilderness and Mr. Yewbeam's attacker."

  Benjamin had been listening intently to his parents' conversation. Having inherited a double dose of their curiosity, and also their powers of analysis, deduction, and intuition, he was fast becoming an excellent detective himself.

  "I've
got a hunch," said Benjamin.

  Mr. and Mrs. Brown regarded Benjamin's ideas very highly.

  "A hunch, Benjamin!" Mrs. Brown said in a thrilled voice.

  "What is it, boy? Tell us!" Mr. Brown eagerly studied his son's face.

  "Well..." Benjamin decided to prolong the attention he was getting. "Well, it's just that Charlie told me that one of the boys, Asa Pike, hasn't been seen in school this term. He's endowed, like Charlie, only he's a kind of beast at night."

  Mr. Brown nodded impatiently. "Asa? Yes, we know about him."

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  "Well..." Benjamin paused again. The look of anticipation on his parents' faces was very satisfying. "What you might not know is that Asa, who was once a good friend of Manfred Bloor's, well, Asa helped Charlie to find his father, and I reckon Manfred was pretty angry about that, so he might have trapped Asa somewhere as a punishment."

  The Browns regarded their son with admiration and delight.

  "Benjamin, you might be right," said Mr. Brown.

  "Having possibly identified the howl, can you suggest how the howler might be rescued?" Mrs. Brown asked her son.

  At this point Benjamin told a white lie. He said, "No," when all along an idea had been forming in his mind. Behind him lay Runner Bean, asleep in his basket. Runner Bean could find anything, Benjamin reckoned. And if he could sniff something belonging to Asa, the big dog could surely find him. Benjamin kept this idea to himself. He didn't want his parents'

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  help. He wanted to find Asa on his own, or maybe with Charlie.

  "We'd better do something soon," said Mr. Brown, "or the hunt will kill that poor boy before they realize who he is. I'll go and see the mayor."

  "He won't believe you," Mrs. Brown said sadly. "He doesn't hold with all the stuff that goes on at Bloor's Academy. He knows about the endowed children, of course, but he doesn't like to admit it."

  "I expect I'll think of something," said Benjamin.

  Finding something belonging to Asa wasn't as easy as Benjamin had hoped. He discovered that Asa's parents had never been seen. No one knew where they lived. They appeared to have no friends and no relations. Any item that Asa might have worn or touched lay inside Bloor's Academy, an impossible place for someone like Benjamin to enter. The Bloors certainly wouldn't be happy to assist in Asa's rescue. He had changed sides. They would consider him a turncoat and a traitor.

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  By the time Benjamin got home from school the next day, the hunt was already underway. Half the city had turned out to watch. Forty able-bodied men were assembled on the bridge that led to the wilderness. In charge were the chief of police and Officer Wood. They were joined by a motley group of determined-looking men, dressed in an assortment of trenchcoats, suits, jackets, and raincoats. Their heads were covered by woolly hats, hoods, berets, and even a Stetson. A few pairs of rain boots and sneakers were to be seen, but most wore sturdy leather boots. Half the men carried rifles; the others took flashlights and clubs.

  A cheer went up as the forty-two men marched across the bridge and turned right, down a path that ran beside the river. A few meters farther on, it disappeared into dense undergrowth - the beginning of the wilderness.

  From a path on the city-side of the river, Benjamin's father had watched the whole proceedings. He returned home a worried man.

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  "It's not right," he told his wife and son, as they ate their scrambled eggs and spinach. "There's going to be a catastrophe, you mark my words. All those guns; someone's going to be killed in the wilderness, and it might not be the beast-boy."

  Benjamin suddenly thought of Charlie's friend Naren. She lived with her father and mother in a little house deep in the wilderness. It was a beautiful, secret place, a sanctuary for lost and injured animals. Would it remain secret, when a group of angry men came tramping through the trees with guns and clubs and torches?

  I wish I could talk to Charlie, thought Benjamin.

  Charlie had fallen asleep. He woke up to find someone shaking his shoulder.

  "Charlie, there's something on the wall behind you. A word." It was Dagbert's voice.

  Charlie sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  "Look! Look behind you," Dagbert insisted.

  Charlie looked around. On the wall above his bed

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  was the word "good-bye," It was written in a patch of moonlight, in shaky spiderlike letters that seemed as though they were a little uncertain of themselves.

  "Naren!" Charlie whispered to the wall.

  One by one, the letters began to fade.

  "Naren!" said Charlie, forgetting to whisper. "Where are you going?"

  There was no answering message. The wall remained blank. The slice of moonlight disappeared and the room returned to its usual inky darkness.

  "What's going on?" asked Dagbert.

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  ASA'S DISGUISE

  Charlie turned over and pretended to be asleep. He felt a sharp thump on his back. "Don't!" he whispered harshly.

  "Tell me about those words on the wall," Dagbert hissed.

  "No," said Charlie. "It's a private message."

  "I won't tell anyone."

  "Huh!" Charlie got up and went to the bathroom. If there was going to be an argument it would be safer to have it where no one could hear them. Just as he expected, Dagbert followed him.

  Charlie closed the door. The moon slipped from behind the clouds again, and the light was bright enough for the boys to see each other's faces.

  Charlie stood with his back to the bathtub. The cold tap dripped; a loud, insistent rhythmic drip. Dagbert stood by the sink, his face silvery green in the moonlight.

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  "I'm not a spy," Dagbert said. "You can trust me, you know."

  You're joking." Charlie sat on the edge of the bathtub. "You stalk me like a spy and you've turned nearly all my friends against me."

  "Not all."

  "Most. Why do you do it?"

  Dagbert slid to the floor beside the sink and put his hands on his knees. He gazed at his long fingers, lifting them, one by one, and finally linking his hands together.

  Drip, drip, drip went the tap, while Charlie waited for an answer.

  Dagbert's crinkly hair began to unfold, as though invisible hands were tugging it straight. It became dark, flat, and shining. "The moon rules my life," he said at last. "Like the tides. I'm mean when the moon is hidden by clouds, worse when most of it is shadowed by the earth. I'm not going to ask you to forgive me, Charlie, because I can't help what I do. But if you

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  tell me about those words on the wall, I promise I won't follow you anymore."

  Charlie considered Dagbert's proposal. He wouldn't have to tell Dagbert where Naren lived. Besides, if Naren had said good-bye, it probably meant that she had left the cottage in the wilderness. "I know this girl," Charlie began. "She's called Naren, although her real name is much longer. It's Mongolian. Her parents were drowned in a flood ..."

  "Nothing to do with me," Dagbert said quickly. "Go on."

  "She was adopted by Ezekiel's son, Bartholomew, and his Chinese wife. They live outside the city, at least they did once."

  "But the words... the words on the wall," Dagbert repeated insistently.

  "That's her endowment," said Charlie. "She can send messages through the air. As long as the curtains are open and the moon is shining."

  "Do you mean like a text message on a cell phone?"

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  Charlie frowned. "Not at all like that. She doesn't need any... instruments. All she has is my glove as a kind of homing device."

  "I see." Da
gbert looked impressed.

  "We'd better get back to bed," said Charlie.

  "There's just..." Dagbert couldn't finish his sentence. Something was happening to him. He began to shake violently.

  Charlie stood up, his eyes never leaving the trembling boy on the floor. Dagbert's fingers slowly uncurled and he held his hands out to Charlie.

  Speechless with horror, Charlie couldn't touch the unnaturally long sticklike fingers, for they had begun to glow. A soft green light was pouring through Dagbert's skin; his face, his bare feet, and his hands had a phosphorescent glow. Even the skin covered by his pajamas gleamed faintly through the thick cotton.

  Charlie fought a desperate urge to get as far away as possible from the glowing boy. "What's happened to you?" he whispered.

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  The boy on the floor was shaking so badly his voice came out in a halting splutter. "G-g-g-get... s-s-sea gold... cr-cr-creatures," he stuttered. "Un-under... m-my... p-pillow."

  It took Charlie several seconds to make sense of Dagbert's speech. When he finally grasped what the afflicted boy wanted, he dashed into the dormitory and felt under Dagbert's pillow. His fingers touched one, two, three... seven small hard objects. Holding them cupped in his hands, he ran back to the bathroom and, with some difficulty, placed them on Dagbert's palms, closing his glowing fingers over them. Five tiny gold crabs and a golden fish in one hand, a sea urchin in the other.

  Dagbert shut his eyes and bent his head. Slowly, the shaking stopped. Gradually, the green, phosphorescent glow faded. Dagbert opened his eyes and gave a twisted half-smile.

  Charlie knelt in front of him. "What's going on, Dagbert?"

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  "It's my birthday," Dagbert replied. He glanced at his watch. "To the minute. One o'clock precisely."

  Your birthday? I don't understand."

  "I'm twelve," said Dagbert. "I knew something would happen to me, but I never guessed what it would be."

  "What does it mean?" In spite of the extraordinary moment, in spite of the shock and amazement, Charlie was unable to suppress a yawn. He got to his feet, leaning on the wall for support.

  Dagbert stood up, still shivering a little. "It means that I am as strong as my father. And you mustn't tell a soul. NOT A SOUL. Because my father mustn't know. Not yet. Do you understand?"