They had just about caught up with Keaters when he stopped suddenly. Slippers ducked behind a rock, pulling Alistair down into a crouch beside her.
“What’s he doing?” she asked. “Oh, I see.” The black mouse had hidden the oars in a clump of gorse and was pulling them out.
“I’ll take that,” said Slippers Pink, stepping out from behind the rock and seizing one of the oars.
“You!” said Keaters.
“That’s right,” said Slippers pleasantly. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Keaters?”
“Not long enough,” snarled the black mouse, raising the second oar above his head threateningly. “But here’s a thought—maybe this mission doesn’t have to be such a dead loss after all. How about you hand over the ginger brat or I’ll bring this oar down on your head? Are you there, Alistair? Come on out like a good boy or I’ll give your friend Slippers a nasty headache.”
“Don’t listen to him, Alistair,” Slippers said quickly. “Stay where you are.”
But Alistair had a better idea. Concealed by the rock, he slid off the path and clambered down, taking care not to disturb any loose rocks, until he was standing in the water lapping at the base of the cliff several meters below. From here, he began to wade unseen toward the boat.
“Still hesitating, Alistair?” said Keaters. “I have to tell you, I’m not all that keen on the pauses and hesitations. I prefer a decisive character, myself. I’ll make it easy on you, okay? If you haven’t come out by the time I count to three, Slippers will be having a nice long sleep. Like I did when the guards slipped something into my breakfast—oh wait, that’s right. There were no guards. I made it all up.” He laughed cruelly. “Just like I sawed through the bars of the cell so I could escape and leave you stranded there to die once you’d told me your secrets. So what are your secrets, hmm, Alistair? It’s something to do with that scarf, isn’t it? That scarf would be mine now if only Slippers Pink hadn’t turned up. Still the same old spoilsport, aren’t you, Slippers? Shall I just give her a little tap on the head, Alistair, or would you like to come save her?”
“Stay where you are, Alistair,” Slippers repeated. “I’ve got an oar too and I’ve been looking forward to getting my own back on this miserable traitor for a long time. Just you try it, Keaters,” she dared him.
Alistair reached the boat and tried to climb onto the path below the black mouse, but the wet rocks were slippery and he fell to his hands and knees, scrambling desperately to get to his feet.
“One . . . ,” Keaters began. “Two . . . Decision time, Alistair.”
With a desperate lunge, Alistair grabbed the black mouse by the tail and yanked.
“Thr—ooph!” Keaters’s feet shot out from under him and he landed heavily on his stomach. As he lay there, winded, Slippers Pink skipped neatly over his prone body, collecting the second oar on the way.
“Neatly done, Alistair,” she complimented him. She climbed awkwardly into the boat. “Push us off, will you?” She maneuvered the oars into position as Alistair quickly untied the boat and gave it a shove until it was bobbing in deeper water. As he hauled himself into the boat Slippers began to row—though not very well, Alistair noted, as she pulled too hard on the left oar and sent them circling back toward the cliff.
“Perhaps I could do that,” he offered.
“Ah yes,” said Slippers Pink, handing him the oars. “I’d forgotten. You have quite a lot of rowing experience, don’t you?”
“Too much,” said Alistair.
As he pulled hard on the oars, pleased to see he hadn’t lost the knack, he observed, “It looks like Keaters is getting up.”
Slippers, who had her back to the shore, turned to watch. The shabby black mouse was shaking his fist at them. It looked like he was yelling something, but Alistair couldn’t make out what.
“Good riddance,” Slippers said. “Now somehow we need to get around to the other side of this cliff and back to the beach where Feast and Tibby are.”
The next half-hour was a tense one, as Alistair put all his strength into rowing against the current that tried to wash them back onto the rocks, while Slippers Pink watched for hazards and screamed directions over the sound of crashing surf.
“Head farther to your left,” she called. “I think I see a channel.”
Too breathless to turn around and see for himself, Alistair did as he was told.
“Now a hard right, but look sharp—the passage is pretty narrow.”
Alistair’s shoulders ached, but he continued to row hard through the pain. Within minutes the boat was scraping between two rocks and then, thankfully, they were in calm water, with the current pushing them forward. Alistair pulled up the oars and let the boat drift while he tried to catch his breath.
“Nice going,” said Slippers Pink approvingly. “There’s no way I could have handled that myself.”
Alistair glowed at the compliment, glad to feel that he was contributing something useful after he’d been so foolish as to walk into Keaters’s trap. He finally asked the question that had been on the tip of his tongue ever since Slippers had burst into the cell.
“How do you know Keaters? He said the two of you go way back.”
“Keaters!” said Slippers Pink, and her voice was filled with contempt. “That double-crossing, two-faced toad. Ha! We go way back all right. I suppose he told you that we joined FIG together?” She looked at Alistair, who nodded. “Well, it’s true, we did. But what I’ll bet he didn’t tell you was that he joined in order to spy on us. Oh, he was very clever about it. It was years before we worked out how it was that Queen Eugenia seemed able to anticipate our every move. By the time we worked out we had a traitor in our midst, it was too late.” Slippers Pink fell silent. Her voice was heavy when at last she continued, “One of the people he betrayed was my dearest friend in the world. Another was Zanzibar.”
“He . . . he’s the one who betrayed Zanzibar?” Alistair’s blood ran cold at the thought. “What did he want with me? He was going to leave me to die!”
Slippers didn’t say anything, but shook her head.
“So the whole thing was a setup,” said Alistair bitterly. “Him being in the cell where my parents were supposed to be, deciding we should try to escape. I was the one who thought of using the cot, but that was probably part of his plan too. And I walked straight into it.” Alistair felt disgusted with himself. “It was all too easy when I think about it. Why though? Why go to all that trouble over me?”
Still Slippers was silent.
“Maybe,” said Alistair slowly, recalling how insistent Keaters had been that Alistair throw him the scarf, “it wasn’t me he wanted; it was my scarf. He knew it was important somehow.” He clutched the ends protectively. He’d been so close to giving it up, too. If Slippers hadn’t burst in . . . “So he didn’t really share a cell with my parents then?”
“I doubt it,” said Slippers.
“But he seemed to know so much about me.”
“Mm,” agreed Slippers Pink, her lips a tight line. “I’d love to know where he’s getting his information.”
As they drifted out of the channel, Alistair took up the oars again. If the channel came out where he thought, the beach was behind him and the cave near the rocks to his left.
Settling into a steady stroke, he considered what Slippers Pink had said. How had Keaters and his accomplice known that Alistair would be on Atticus Island? He ran through the possibilities. Althea? No, not possible. Billy Mac, then? Now that he thought about it, the fisherman hadn’t been all that friendly, but he’d still agreed to take Alistair and Slippers Pink to the island. Maybe he was part of the trap too? It occurred to him that if this was the case, Tibby Rose and Feast Thompson might be in real trouble. He almost groaned aloud at the thought that after all the day’s disappointments, it might yet grow a lot worse. He was about to mention his fears to Slippers Pink when suddenly she sat up straight and pointed.
“I think I see them.”
Alistair cra
ned his head around. Yes, there were two shadows, one large and one small, sitting at the far side of the cove. He corrected his course, then resumed rowing with increased vigor. It was possible that at least one thing might go right today.
20
The Rendezvous
They burst through a door and found themselves in the kitchen. Alice looked around wildly for any sign of Queen’s Guards, but all she saw was Cook, standing at the kitchen table. She had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she was still trying to comprehend the scene she had witnessed in General Ashwover’s office. When she registered the presence of the two panting mice in her kitchen, she looked startled but not surprised.
“Who are you really?” she demanded. “You’re not Sourian servants at all, are you?”
“No,” managed Alice, still puffing. “We’re Gerandans . . . undercover . . . and Sophia is right behind us.”
“Get in here.” Cook opened the oven door.
Alice was about to protest when she heard footsteps on the servants’ stairs. She and Alex clambered in and Cook pushed the oven door shut. The oven was warm from recent use but not, Alice was relieved to find, hot. As she and Alex jostled for space it seemed that there were too many arms and legs and tails and ears to belong to only two mice, but at last they managed to curl up into two small neat balls. Even so it was a tight squeeze, and Alex’s whiskers were poking into Alice’s right ear in a most uncomfortable way.
“Oh, ma’am, thank goodness,” came the distant sound of Cook’s voice. “Those two horrible children were here. I went after them with my rolling pin but they got away.”
Sophia’s silvery voice sounded distorted from inside the oven. “Thank you, Cook, I—” She paused. “It certainly smells delicious in here,” she remarked. “What’s that over there on the dresser?”
“That’s my blue cheese crumble,” Cook replied.
Alice could feel her legs starting to cramp, but still Sophia continued to linger.
“And there . . . is that a chocolate cake?”
“A triple chocolate cheesecake.”
“And in the oven?” Sophia asked. “I can just make out something through the glass. Two things, in fact . . .”
“The oven, ma’am?” Cook cleared her throat. “In the oven are two big ripe pumpkins.”
“Pumpkins?” Sophia sounded surprised.
“That’s right, ma’am. I’m making slow-roasted pumpkin confit, which I’ll serve with goat’s cheese. It’s a Gerandan delicacy.”
“A delicacy, you say? I adore delicacies. May I take a peek?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Cook firmly, “but you know how it is with confits. They’re very temperamental. If I open that door it’ll dry those pumpkins right out and they’ll be ruined. Then the general will be upset, on account of he wants this dinner to be absolutely perfect for you. And if the general is upset, that Lester will make a slow-roasted confit of my head.”
“I quite understand,” Sophia assured her. “I’ll leave you in peace. I have the utmost respect for the careful preparation of meals. Now, about those little brats . . .”
“They went that way!” said Cook. “You’d better hurry.”
“Oh, there’s no need to rush,” said Sophia casually, sauntering toward the door. “I’ll get them in the end. They know that as well as I do.”
In the close dark space of the oven, Alice couldn’t repress a shiver.
Seconds later, Cook opened the oven door and Alice and Alex climbed out. As they were shaking their limbs to try to restore blood flow, they heard someone clump up the back steps. Alice squeaked in terror as the back door opened.
Fiercely Jones pushed his hat back on his head and regarded Alice and Alex balefully.
“The Queen’s Guards have turned my potting shed upside down looking for you.” He advanced on them threateningly. “I’ll keep a watch on ’em, Cook, and make sure they don’t escape. You run for the guards.”
Cook moved to stand between the gardener and his erstwhile helpers. “Fiercely, wait—you don’t understand. Raz and Rita aren’t Sourian at all; they’re Gerandan.”
The gardener stopped short. “What?”
“The Queen’s Guards are after them because they’re spies. We can’t turn them in.”
Fiercely Jones squinted at Alex and Alice down his long nose.
“Is this true?” he asked them.
The two young mice nodded vigorously.
“We’re not really called Raz and Rita. We were sent by—” Alice stopped. Should she reveal who they were and what their mission was?
“Sent by who?” Fiercely was clearly suspicious.
Alice and her brother exchanged glances.
“FIG,” said Alice.
“FIG?” said Cook. “But that’s Zanzibar’s resistance group.”
“Zanzibar is still in hiding, of course, since he escaped from prison,” Alice explained, “but—”
“Wait,” the gardener interrupted. “Do you mean to say that Zanzibar is free?”
“That’s right. He escaped from the Cranken prison and—”
“He’s free!” Cook hugged herself gleefully.
Alice glanced around nervously, mindful of Lester’s uncanny way of appearing soundlessly. “I think we’d better get out of here,” she said.
“Of course,” said Cook immediately. “Fiercely, we have to help them.”
“Wait here,” said the gardener. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Then he pulled his hat down over his eyes once more and slunk out.
“You really shouldn’t have written FIG in the icing though,” Cook scolded. “You wouldn’t have been caught if not for that. And you almost got me into terrible trouble.”
“But it wasn’t us,” Alice protested.
“It wasn’t you?” said Cook, astonished. “But who else could it possibly have been? You don’t mean to tell me there are other Gerandan spies in the palace?”
“No . . . At least, I don’t think so.” Tobias had said that FIG was having trouble infiltrating the palace, hadn’t he? She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
All three paced the kitchen anxiously, until finally they heard a squeal and a clunk outside the kitchen door. Cook opened the door a crack and peered out, then gestured to Alice and Alex. It was Fiercely Jones, pushing a wheelbarrow full of manure. The sound they had heard was the wheelbarrow’s squeaky wheel.
“What are you doing moving manure around now?” asked Cook. “You were meant to be finding a way out of here for Raz and Rita.”
“This is their way out of here,” returned the gardener.
“Pushing a wheelbarrow of manure?” asked Cook.
“In the manure,” said Fiercely Jones.
Alice groaned.
“Isn’t there another way?” Alex asked.
“None that I can think of,” said the gardener. “Get in, and be quick about it.”
Hidden in the manure it was just how Alice had dreamed it. Her nose and ears were soon clogged with the foul-smelling substance. All she could do was keep her eyes shut tight and try to breathe as shallowly as possible so as not to inhale manure into her lungs.
Then they began to move. Slowly, it seemed to Alice, so slowly. Was the gardener taking them on a tour of the palace grounds? Why was it taking so long? Finally the wheelbarrow began to rattle and bump, as if they were crossing gravel.
“Aren’t you going the wrong way with that, Jones?” Alice could just make out Wooster’s voice through the manure in her ears.
“No, sir,” said the gardener, his tone aggrieved. “As if it’s not enough that I have two hundred and thirty-eight flowerbeds to attend to in the palace grounds, now Mr. Lester’s wanting purple flowers growing around the city walls. Meanwhile, those two useless helpers he gave me have skived off somewhere, and I have to shift all this manure myself.”
“It’s no wonder those helpers were useless—they weren’t really servants at all. They were Gerandan spies!”
“You don’t say,” sai
d Fiercely Jones in an uninterested voice.
“And I’m the one who escorted them into the palace,” said Wooster. He sounded quite proud of himself.
“But don’t you worry,” said his partner confidently. “There’s no way they’ll slip by us.”
“That’s a comfort, ma’am,” said the gardener. And then they were on the move again, bumping over cobblestones before passing smoothly over the planks of the bridge on the far side of the square.
“Fiercely, was it you who spelled out FIG in the flowerbed?” Alex asked as they trundled along.
“It was not,” came the gardener’s definite reply. “Why would I want to be drawing attention to myself like that?”
“Then who—”
“Quiet,” Fiercely Jones growled. “I can’t walk down the street talking to a heap of manure. People will think I’ve gone crackers.”
From then on they were wheeled in silence, the only words exchanged being those between the gardener and the guards standing sentry at the city gate.
Inside the manure, it was growing decidedly hot, and Alice was just starting to remember hearing stories about how things could actually be cooked in manure when the wheelbarrow trundled to a stop.
“All right, you can get out here,” came the voice of Fiercely Jones, and then the wheelbarrow was tipped up, depositing Alice, Alex, and a heap of manure by a simple stone bridge which crossed a shallow stream. “We came out the south gate, and if you follow this here stream to the east you’ll get to the Winns.”
“Thank you!” Alice called, as the gruff old gardener turned the wheelbarrow around and headed back in the direction they’d come.
Fiercely Jones didn’t respond, merely raised a hand without looking back.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg,” said Alex, looking longingly at the clear stream. Then, wrinkling his nose as he regarded his manure-covered fur, he added, “Of course, we already smell worse than rotten eggs.”
The two reeking mice slid down the bank toward the water, and were about to dive in when Alice put up a hand to stop her brother. She’d heard a shout in the distance.
“Quick,” she said. “Hide under the bridge.”
The Song of the Winns Page 19