“Me too,” signed Sorcha back. Then she wrote,
“We need Daisy,” Fergus said out loud, signing it too.
“Three heads are better than two,” signed Sorcha.
Fergus wrote on the pad,
Sorcha thought for a moment, then, grinning, snatched the pad.
“How?” asked Fergus. “I’ve tried everything.”
Sorcha smiled so wide Fergus thought her face might crack.
“The Sorcha Henderson Sit-In?”
“Aye,” signed Sorcha. “It never fails.”
Fergus felt his spirits lift again, higher this time, and he let out a small laugh – the first one in days. Because, for the first time in days, he felt like he might, actually, be getting somewhere.
The Sorcha Henderson Sit-In
“So how does this work?” Fergus asked Sorcha as the pair settled down on Daisy’s doorstep the next morning, with Chimp at their feet.
Sorcha passed Fergus the pad.
“Fair enough!” Fergus signed, and laughed.
But the longer they sat, the less amusing it all seemed to be. And the less Fergus felt like laughing. Because inside his head, dark thoughts swirled like inky fog:
“Chimp!” he hissed.
Chimp looked up, an enormous flower like a giant dandelion clock hanging out of his mouth.
“Drop that!” urged Fergus. “If Mrs Devlin sees you, she’ll have your tail for a duster.”
“What’s going on?” signed Sorcha.
“Chimp.” He pointed, and Sorcha grinned. But Fergus shook his head and wrote on the pad.
“What’s that?” asked Sorcha.
“I don’t know,” signed Fergus. “And I don’t want to. Daisy says they’re worse than Choppy Wallace on a bad day.”
wrote Sorcha, who had been told a lot about Choppy and Wesley, and the old rivalry between the two teams.
Fergus wrote, then passed the pad to Sorcha.
This time, Sorcha paused.
“What is it?” signed Fergus.
A wide smile spread over Sorcha’s face again.
Fergus was puzzled.
Sorcha pressed so hard the pencil nearly snapped.
Fergus shook his head. “Sorry,” he signed. “My head’s in a bit of a spin. But you’re right. Let’s do it!”
And with that, Fergus, Sorcha and Chimp set about making as much kerfuffle as they could possibly muster.
First they tap danced.
Then they drummed on the doorstep with some sticks.
Then they jumped up and down as many times as they could in a row (117 for Sorcha and 109 for Fergus).
Then they threw an apple into the bushes for Chimp to fetch. But, despite the hoohah Chimp made fetching it, not even a curtain twitched.
Then Fergus had a brainwave. “Oh no!” he yelled. “Don’t do that, Chimp!”
“Do what?” signed Sorcha.
Fergus winked, and wrote as he shouted.
Sorcha giggled.
“No!” yelled Fergus and Sorcha together. “Don’t do it!”
Sorcha wailed with laughter.
“Really,” continued Fergus. “Don’t WEE ALL OVER MRS D’S PRIZE ROSEBUSH!”
That was all it took. In two seconds flat the front door was open, framing a fuming Mrs Devlin.
“Fergus Horatio Hamilton, what do you think you’re playing at?” she demanded. Then she spotted Sorcha. “And Sorcha Henderson, I thought better of you.”
“She can’t hear you,” said Fergus.
Mrs Devlin blushed at her mistake.
Sorcha wrote on the pad and held it up so Mrs D could see.
Daisy’s mum ignored it. “That dog had better not have done any funny business in my front garden,” she said. “And what are you doing dawdling on my doorstep on a damp morning, and without coats? You’ll catch a chill and that could turn into pneumonia and then, well, you might be rushed off to hospital and have to stay there for months, years even.”
“Maybe you should let us in before that happens?” suggested Fergus. “We only want to see Daisy for a minute.”
Mrs Devlin’s lips went very thin, which they always did when she was cross, or worried, which was nearly all of the time. But then she said. “Och, maybe you’ll be able to talk some sense into her. Heaven knows, I’ve tried hard enough, but she’ll not listen to her own mother.”
So something big really was up – it had to be for Mrs Devlin to give in so easily. Daisy’s house was usually a fortress, with Mrs D guarding the gates like a giant, fanged hound.
“We’ll do our best,” he promised, as she held the door open for the friends.
“But not with muddy paws!” said Mrs Devlin sharply, as Chimp trotted in. “Pick him up, quick!”
Fergus smiled to himself as he picked Chimp up to carry him up the stairs. She was still the same old Mrs D.
“Keep Out!” read the sign on Daisy’s bedroom door. But Sorcha wasn’t about to obey that, and knocked hard three times.
Nothing.
So she knocked again, and this time Fergus joined in. “Let us in, Daisy!” he demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” came the eventual answer, as full of gloom as a rainy Sunday.
Fergus flinched. Clearly that was a lie, and demanding she talk to them wasn’t going to work. He looked at Sorcha, who shrugged. Then he had an idea.
“Dais, we need your help. Something terrible’s happened to the team.”
Fergus crossed his fingers and wished very hard, and saw Sorcha do the same.
Silence.
Then he heard a creak and a shuffle, then a click as the door slowly opened.
“Daisy?” Fergus asked, almost checking it was her, because she didn’t look like her usual bouncy self. Even her curls seemed less springy.
But that wasn’t all.
Daisy’s bedroom walls had always been covered in posters – some of Spokes Sullivan wheeling down the back straight, some of bike bits and general knowledge, and some straight out of the newspaper of Hercules’ Hopefuls themselves. But now the walls were completely bare. If Fergus had been worried before, now he was really terrified.
“Daisy?” he asked again. “What’s going on?”
But Daisy didn’t answer. Instead she just stood aside to let them in, then sat back down on the bed, dejected. “Go on then,” she said. “What’s so terrible?”
Fergus took a big breath. “Someone’s leaking secrets about the team to the Courier,” he said. “Which means Jambo’s set to lose his job, and we’re set to lose the Internationals as everyone will know our tactics.”
“Who would do that?” asked Daisy, less dejected now and more surprised. “Wesley?”
“No one knows,” admitted Fergus. “Wesley thought … he thought it might be you. Only because you’ve been in such a grump and then you didn’t show up at all,” he said quickly, waiting for his best friend to explode angrily.
“Me?” said Daisy. But then she shook her head and instead of looking cross, she just looked sad. “Och, whatever, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Fergus felt his legs wobble with worry. What was going on with Daisy?
Sorcha must have read his mind at that moment. “Now it’s your turn to tell us what’s going on,” she signed to Daisy, then took the pad. Daisy’s eyes began to brim with tears.
“Och, Dais,” said Fergus. “What is it? Are you injured? Are you ill? Are you scared about the Internationals? Is that it?”
Daisy snorted. “As if!” she snapped. “I’m not scared of anything!” Then she sniffed. “Well, maybe something.”
“What?” signed Sorcha.
Daisy looked up. “Dad’s got a new job in Inverness,” she said.
“But that’s … miles away,” said Fergus. “How will he drive there every day?”
Daisy wrote on the pad as she spoke so Sorcha could see.
“Flying, then?” tried Fergus. “Blimey, what a palava.”
“He won’t be flying, either.”
<
br /> Sorcha was looking at Daisy with a strange expression on her face.
“But how will he get to work then?” Fergus went on, confused. “Teleport? Only I don’t think they’ve invented that yet.” At least, not in this world, he added to himself.
Sorcha and Daisy looked at each other and grimaced. Then Daisy looked even sadder than before.
“Think,” Sorcha signed patiently to Fergus.
Fergus thought. And thought. And then, with a slow seep, realization came to him like cold water.
“Och, no way, Dais,” he said.
“Yes,” said Daisy, a sob welling in her throat. “Yes way. Fergie … we’re moving.”
“When?” asked Sorcha.
Fergus crossed his fingers hoping his friend was going to say in six months, or even a year.
“That’s the worst bit,” said Daisy. “At the end of this week! No more school. No more practice. And definitely –”
“No Internationals,” interrupted Fergus, as the awful truth dawned on him. “But you can’t! You can’t just … go. Once a Hopeful, always a Hopeful!”
“Not any more,” said Daisy. “I don’t know who I am any more. But hopeful? Ha! I’ll never be hopeful again.”
Fergus shut Daisy’s front door behind him. He had told the girls that Chimp really did need a wee this time, but it wasn’t that. He needed to think, and think hard. Was Daisy really going to leave? She’d been his best friend since he was a bairn, and they always spent all day at school together. She’d been his number two on the team since Grandpa set it up. She couldn’t just go. He’d be left on his own. Well, with his other team-mates and Chimp and Sorcha, but none of them were Daisy. The only person who came close was …
“Chimp,” he said, “get your helmet on. We’ve got some flying to do.”
And without a backwards glance, Fergus slid into his saddle, scooped Chimp into his lap, and set off towards the park as fast as he could. Once, twice, three times he back-pedalled and then FLASH! …
Dragon Danger
Fergus soared through the sky at speed. He’d never been more desperate to see his friend Lily. It occurred to him that he could visit Nevermore – a parallel universe – whenever he wanted, but Inverness, which was in the same country, seemed an impossible distance to travel. And with that thought in his head, he landed in Nevermore with an even heavier WHOMP than usual, right in the middle of the racetrack.
Or what was supposed to be the racetrack. Only this one seemed to have turned into some kind of dragon farm.
“Lawks a mussy!” came the shriek. “Get orf the track!”
It was Queen Woebegot. Fergus shot her a worried glance, waiting for her to change her mind and demand “orf with their heads” instead.
“No worries, Sheila!” Chimp replied. “We’re getting orf – I mean off. Come on, mate,” he added then to Fergus, who was mesmerised by Demelza the dragon breathing fire all over the slalom poles.
Fergus snapped out of it, sped to the sidelines with Chimp alongside him, and slipped out of the saddle. They hopped over the barrier into the stands where Hector Hamilton, Fergus’s dad and coach for the Palace Pedallers, was sitting.
“I was worried you weren’t going to make it,” said Hector.
“Make what?” asked Fergus.
“Dragon Danger Zone?” suggested Chimp. “Death Valley?”
“About that,” added Fergus worriedly. “What are they doing here? I thought they’d been cleared out? Has something happened? Is racing … banned again?”
Hector grinned. “Not at all. Welcome to the Dragon Derby,” he explained. “And Douglas and Demelza are only pets, they’re not dangerous at all. Not that the queen would agree.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” said Fergus, who had just seen Douglas land on the back straight, making a divot as deep as a ditch.
“Make it stop!” the queen shouted, though to whom it wasn’t clear. “It’s far too dangerous. Everyone will perish!”
“No, we won’t, Mum,” came a voice from the starting line. “We’ll all be just dandy.”
Fergus felt himself heave with relief at the sight of Princess Lily pulling on her helmet. She was still here, and still safe. He waved and she waved back, giving him the thumbs up and nudging her teammates Unlucky Luke, Scary Mary and even her brother, the cantankerous Prince Waldorf, to do the same.
“You’ll be better than dandy,” Fergus called over to them. “Win this one and you’ve won the championship!”
“Yes, best of three, remember,” added his dad loudly. “And you’re one up already, Pedallers.”
“Not if we have anything to do with it,” sneered Prince Derek from the starting line, where he was snapping on his own all-black helmet and adjusting his all-black kit. Beside him, the other Darklands Demons – Nigel, Norris and Norman – did the same. “Come on, girls,” he called then.
Chimp shot his head up. “Girls?” he asked. “But …”
Fergus followed Derek’s eyeline and felt his throat tighten. “I don’t think he was talking to his team,” he managed to squeak out.
“Who then?” asked Chimp.
“Th– th– them,” stammered Fergus, pointing a shaking finger at a gleaming black horsebox, out of which descended two more dragons. These beasts didn’t look anything like the palace pets. Instead of being a cheery green, and having clipped toenails, these dragons were the colour of crows and sported enormous claws and sharpened fangs.
“Meet Beryl and Gladys,” announced Derek.
“Orf with their heads!” shrieked the queen, somewhat predictably.
“Oh,” said Duke Dastardly, uttering his first words of the afternoon. “You didn’t think it was fair to just use your little dragons, did you?”
“He has a point,” admitted King Woebegot.
“Orf with your head,” snapped the queen at her husband.
But the king didn’t even flinch. He had been threatened with head-orfing several times a day for ten years and barely even heard it any more.
Fergus and his dad did, though, as well as Beryl’s terrible roar. “I’m not sure,” Hector said to the king. “I really don’t think –”
“Objection overruled,” barked King Woebegot. “Come along, everyone. Let’s get this started. Cook’s making my favourite for lunch and I’m getting awfully peckish.”
“You’re not the only one, mate,” said Chimp, eyeing Beryl, who in turn was eyeing Unlucky Luke a little hungrily.
As the riders lined up for the starting whistle, Fergus felt shaky for the second time that day. Losing Daisy to a house move was one thing, but she’d still only be 156 miles away. Losing Lily to a dragon … He tried to push the horrible thought from his mind. “Stay focused on the good stuff,” he heard a voice inside his head say. Wasn’t that what Grandpa was always telling him?
“They’ll be just dandy,” came another voice. But this voice was definitely Dad. “The team have been practicing hard, they’re ready for it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Don’t worry, Fergus. Everyone just needs to do their best,” Hector said.
Fergus nodded. He would do his best. Just like he knew Lily and the gang would. He still felt a bit worried about those dragons, though.
“On your marks …” came the call.
Fergus crossed his fingers.
“Get set …”
Chimp crossed his paws.
“Go!”
The pair of them crossed their hearts, closed their eyes, and hoped that dragons were vegetarian after all.
Who Needs a Handsome Prince?
“Great going, Lily! Keep your eyes on the prize!”
Fergus heard his dad’s praise, but he still couldn’t face watching. He’d opened his eyes once or twice, but every time he looked one of the dragons seemed to be dangerously close to swiping a rider with their tail so that they tumbled off, or coughing smoke in their path so that they crashed into a barrier. He knew from the noise that Norman and Waldorf had already come a cro
pper. That left just six cyclists in all, and one lap still to go.
“They’re only going to pull it off!” Fergus’s dad nudged him. “Lily’s riding a blinder today. You’ve really got to see this, son.”
Fergus steeled himself. His dad was right. What sort of an assistant coach was he if he couldn’t face the race – even if there were a few dragons? He opened his right eye, then the left, and saw the glory for himself. There was Lily, blazing down the back straight, with Unlucky Luke and Scary Mary not far behind, all of them managing to weave in and out of the wandering dragons. And way ahead of Derek, Nigel and Norris!
But that’s when it happened.
First Douglas trod on Gladys’s toe, so that Gladys let out a mighty bellow, scaring Beryl, who roared in rage and clattered into Demelza, who started a stampede right across the track.
Scary Mary screamed and swerved. Unlucky Luke braked so hard, the straps snapped on his special pedals and he flew over his handlebars. Then Lily, who had managed to stay on course, found herself caught up and corralled with the dragons into the corner. Seizing their advantage, Derek, Nigel and Norris swept past and on to victory.
“Och, no!” wailed Fergus’s dad.
“That’s a downer and a half, mate,” agreed Chimp.
But Fergus didn’t care about the race. He cared about Lily, who was stuck in the corner, surrounded by very cross dragons. Pets or no pets, they were all enormous, they could all breathe fire, and two of them could do some serious damage with their teeth and toenails.
“My daughter! Do something!” shouted King Woebegot to the Knights of No Nonsense, who had been standing idly by, discussing the state of the flower beds.
“Yes, orf with everyone’s heads!” commanded the queen.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Duke Dastardly calmly. “Yet. Derek?”
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