‘No,’ said Mordonna. ‘Not really. Hardly at all. Just a bit.’
Barry Trubshaw began to wonder if two twelve-and-a-half-franc 1905 Belgian Mauves were such great things to have after all. If owning them carried a risk of getting dead, maybe he could live without them.
‘You are wondering if two twelve-and-a-half-franc 1905 Belgian Mauves are such great things to have after all, aren’t you?’ said Mordonna. ‘Wondering if they are worth the risk of getting dead for?’
‘Umm …’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Mordonna. ‘I’ll do some of the other magic I promised you. I will make you a bit taller and cure your baldness and remove all those nasty blackheads from your back. When you bring the cage back here with the bird happy and safe inside, I’ll do the dark and handsome bit and make you seventeen years younger. OK?’
Without waiting for his answer, Mordonna performed the spells. It was all a charade, really, because she could have simply taken her sunglasses off, stared deep into Barry Trubshaw’s eyes and made him do whatever she wanted without all the stamp and image-changing stuff. But sometimes using magic was more fun and she realised that someone as pathetic as B. Trubshaw did not deserve the unbelievable joy of staring into her eyes.
‘Stand up,’ she commanded.
Barry Trubshaw stood up and bashed his head on the central beam across the middle of the yurt.
‘See, I told you I’d make you taller,’ said Mordonna. ‘Now I am going to put a map inside your head of where you have to go. I will turn one of your chickens into a horse and one of your pumpkins into a packet of cheese and pickle sandwiches and a bottle of cordial, and you can set out on your quest.’
Barry Trubshaw rubbed the sore bit on top of his head and found that he was no longer bald. Where he had previously reflected moonlight, he now had a thick head of hair – a thick head of hair matted with blood from where he’d hit himself.
‘Stamps beyond price, taller and hairy,’ said Mordonna. ‘Come on, off you go. And by the way, failure is not an option, as they say in the movies.’
‘What would, er, happen if I failed?’ Barry asked.
‘Stamped on, much, much shorter, every single hair on your body removed with fire and when it does grow back it will be bright ginger and you will only be able to speak an obscure language that only three very, very old people on a remote farm in Belgium can understand,’ Mordonna said with a smile. ‘But don’t worry, you’ll be fine. If there is anyone guarding the birdcage, just wait until they are asleep, get the cage and slip away without waking them. Just whisper my name to the old bird and he will understand.’
Barry Trubshaw climbed onto the horse, then climbed down and back on again so his head was facing the same direction as the horse’s head. Then he got down and went to the toilet three times because the whole thing had made him very nervous, before climbing back up again and setting off along the valley towards the track back to the outside world.
‘And remember,’ Mordonna called after him, ‘I will be watching you every step of the way, so no running home to Mummy and hiding in that secret place you made in the garden shed where you keep those magazines.’
‘You entrusted that self-important fat little bald man with the task of rescuing my beloved Vessel?’ cried the Queen.
‘Yes, Mother, and I have no doubt he will bring him back here without any trouble at all,’ said Mordonna. ‘Barry will merely act as a robot that I can channel my powers through. Besides, the Hearse Whisperer is on her way to Tristan da Cunha and any guards she will have posted to look after Vessel’s cage will be very lowly third-rate idiots who would never suspect a fifth-rate idiot like Barry Trubshaw. They’ll just think he’s some loony hippy roaming round the country on an old horse, which he is.’
Mordonna was absolutely right.18 Barry Trubshaw rode through the forest until he came to the deserted house where the Hearse Whisperer had trapped Vessel in the enchanted cage, and sure enough there were two third-rate idiots sitting outside on the verandah.
‘I am so bored that if summink don’t happen really soon,’ said the first idiot, ‘I fink I will die of boredom.’
‘Yeah, well,’ said the other idiot, ‘I reckon I am so bored that I prob’ly already have died of boredom.’
‘Hang on,’ said idiot one, ‘someone’s coming.’
‘Do me a favour, you say that every single day,’ said idiot two. ‘And you always say it at exactly seventeen minutes past four.’
‘No, no, I mean it, someone really is coming.’
‘You say that every day too.’
‘I know, but no, I mean, I can hear a horse,’ said idiot one.
‘You aren’t never said that before,’ said idiot two.
‘That’s ’cos I din’t never heard a horse before. Look, see, horse and man on horse.’
‘It’s a hippy,’ said idiot two. ‘Where’s me gun?’
‘I fink the guns rustid away wiv boredom.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Hi, man,’ said Barry Trubshaw, climbing down from his horse. ‘Can I use your toilet?’
‘Hippy wants the toilet,’ whispered idiot one to idiot two. ‘That’s all right, innit?’
‘Yeah, course it is,’ said idiot two, ‘but we got to check him first.’
He opened a folder and took out a set of photos.
‘Are you any of these peeps?’ he said, spreading the pictures on the ground.
The pictures were of the Floods.
‘Cause if you are, we’re s’posed to kill you.’
‘’Cept our guns is broke.’
‘Look, man,’ Barry lied, ‘I don’t know who those dudes are, but you can see I’m not one of them.’
‘That’s true,’ said idiot one.
‘So can I use your toilet?’ said Barry. ‘It’s, like, pretty urgent, man.’
‘No prob, mate,’ said idiot two. ‘’Cept for one fing.’
‘What?’
‘We aren’t got no toilet.’
‘You can use my bush,’ said idiot one, pointing at an old gooseberry bush across the track.
‘Or else you can use my bush,’ said idiot two, pointing at the gooseberry bush next to it.
So he wouldn’t show any favouritism, Barry Trubshaw used both bushes.
‘Do you two, like, live here on your own?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ said idiot one. ‘There’s me and him.’
‘And the old bird,’ said idiot two.
‘What, you mean, like, your wife?’
‘No, no, mate,’ said idiot one. ‘It’s a bird. Like, it’s got fevvers.’
‘Yeah, it’s in a cage,’ added idiot two.
‘Why?’
‘Dunno, but we’re s’posed to guard it. Stop anyone stealing it,’ said idiot two. ‘You wanna see?’
‘Why on earth would anyone want to steal a scruffy old wreck like that?’ said Barry Trubshaw when they took him inside and showed him Vessel’s cage. ‘Does it talk?’
‘Yeah, it does, acherly,’ said idiot one. ‘It swears all the time.’
‘Rude words,’ idiot two giggled. ‘Go on, do some rude words, birdie.’
Vessel let out a string of the filthiest curses and swear words that Barry Trubshaw had ever heard, followed by a lot more that he had never heard. The two idiots collapsed on the floor laughing, tears streaming from their eyes, doubled up with pain yet unable to stop.
Barry Trubshaw went closer to Vessel’s cage and whispered, ‘Mordonna sent me.’
Vessel fell off his perch.
‘Hey, what you doin’ to that bird?’ said idiot one. ‘Did you poke it?’
‘No.’
‘I reckon you poked it wiv a stick.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘So why did it fall off its perch?’ said idiot two. ‘Because I told it a swear word that it had never heard before,’ said Barry.
‘Really? Brilliant. Tell it to us.’
‘Mackerel,’ said Barry Trubshaw.
�
�That’s disgusting,’ idiot one giggled. ‘Mack’rel, mack’rel, mack’rel.’
‘Do another one,’ said idiot two.
‘Yeah, make the stupid bird fall off again.’
Barry went up close to Vessel’s cage and winked at him. Vessel winked back and when Barry said, ‘Organiser’, he let out a squawk and fell off his perch.
‘Organwossit, that’s really rude,’ idiot two sniggered and the two of them fell on the floor laughing again.
By the time midnight arrived and everyone was ready to fall asleep, Barry Trubshaw had the two idiots eating out of the palm of his hand. He did this by putting bits of his cheese and pickle sandwiches in his palm and holding it out to them. All the two guards had had to eat for the past few years had been stinging nettle soup and boiled gooseberries, which, considering what they used the gooseberry bushes for, didn’t taste too good.19
‘Would you do us a big favour?’ said idiot one. ‘Of course I will,’ said Barry Trubshaw. ‘I am your friend and that’s what friends are for.’
‘Would you sleep in wiv de old bird?’
‘Sure, why?’
‘Well, our boss said we was never to let it out of our sight so we’ve had to sleep down here on the floor every night while there is two really comfuble beds upstairs,’ idiot two explained.
‘Why didn’t you bring the beds down here?’ said Barry.
‘Couldn’t do that,’ said idiot one. ‘Beds goes in bedrooms. This is a lounge room.’
‘Well, how about, and this is only a suggestion,’ Barry said, ‘how about taking the birdcage upstairs every night?’
‘Oh,’ said idiot two.
‘You’re brilliant, you are,’ said idiot one. ‘You give us sammiches, two new swear words and a way that we can sleep in the comfuble beds and watch the old bird.’
He put his arms round Barry Trubshaw and told him that he was their best friend and he would like Barry to stay with them forever.
‘What a great idea,’ said Barry. ‘But I will sleep downstairs with the bird tonight, so you can have a really good sleep without being woken up by all the swearing at dawn.’
‘You’re brilliant, you are,’ said idiot two, hugging Barry as well.
‘Tell you what I’ll do as well,’ said Barry.
‘Got more sammich?’
‘No, better.’
‘More swear words.’
‘No, better.’
‘What, what, what?’
‘Bedtime story.’
‘See, I told you,’ said idiot two. ‘We have died of boredom, but now we gone to hevun.’
Along with a Barry-Trubshaw-Tracking-Device, Mordonna had implanted a magic hypnotising bedtime story inside Barry Trubshaw’s brain. A story that made anyone who heard it fall into a deep, deep sleep. Assuring them that Vessel would be fine left on his own for a little while, Barry took the two idiots upstairs, tucked them up in bed, having first cleared out the mice, the cockroaches and the mould that had spent the past two years living in the beds while the idiots had slept on the floor downstairs. Then he told them the bedtime story, and within one hundred and thirteen seconds the two guards were fast asleep. Which is to say, they were slow asleep, because their breathing slowed right down and their hearts barely ticked over as they fell into such a deep hibernation that it would be spring before they woke up again.
Five minutes later Barry Trubshaw was riding away into the forest with Vessel’s cage held firmly between his knees.
The Hearse Whisperer had passed several ships as she flew on towards Tristan da Cunha. The Floods could have been on any one of them or even, she thought, split up and each travelling on a different ship. But it was far simpler for her to go straight to the island and wait for them to arrive than to fly down and search each ship. Also, that would have meant transforming herself twice for each ship she landed on and she really needed to keep her transformations to a minimum.20
Plenty of time, she thought, to come up with a nice welcome. Something they will never forget.
Of course, they wouldn’t have to remember it for very long, because, apart from Mordonna, who the Hearse Whisperer would take back to her father in Transylvania Waters, the rest of them would be dead. So her wonderful welcome would be the very last thought in their heads.
Well, actually, she thought, my little welcome ceremony will be the thought before the last thought in their heads. The very last thought will be something along the lines of ‘Ahhhhhh, I am dea…’
The Hearse Whisperer laughed so much, she nearly collided with a Boeing 747.
‘So actually,’ she said to herself, ‘they will forget, because they’ll all be dead. And as my old grandmother used to say, “Dead men don’t keep diaries.”’
This made her laugh even harder and almost sent her crashing down into the sea.
‘Hello, sweetheart. I haven’t seen you in these parts before,’ said a male albatross, drifting across to her as she got her balance again. ‘You’re an exceptionally gorgeous young lady.’
‘Have you heard of fried chicken?’ snarled the Hearse Whisperer.
‘No, darling. What’s that then?’ said the albatross. ‘My name’s Albert, by the way. Albert Ross. What’s yours?’
‘Death,’ said the Hearse Whisperer, turning him into the thing he hadn’t heard of. ‘And this is a fried chicken.’
Considering they were out of sight of land in every direction, it was amazing that Albert, the fried chicken, did not land in the sea. He plummeted down towards the sea, but just as he was about to dive into it, a ship got in the way and he landed on someone’s head.
‘That,’ said the captain, looking down onto the deck where the ship’s nurse was giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation plus a little salt and pepper to a child with a roast chicken stuck on its head, ‘is not something you see every day.’
The rest of the journey to Tristan da Cunha was fairly uneventful apart from a close encounter with a UFO, which the Hearse Whisperer programmed herself to forget about because she knew no one would believe it, and nearly colliding with some bearded millionaire racing round the world in a hot-air balloon.
Tristan da Cunha is the most remote place on earth. It is the tip of an almost, but not quite, extinct volcano and is home to around two hundred and seventy-five people. If it did not really exist, it would have had to have been made up.21 It was named in 1506 by an explorer who was the first human to see it. Even though he didn’t actually land on the island, he still named it after himself. In 1810 an American became the first person to go and live there, and he renamed the group of islands The Islands of Refreshment. They were not very refreshing for him because he fell into the sea and drowned two years later. The very large lobster that ate his remains is reported to have found him extremely refreshing. Incredibly, the current Island Governor had worked in Belgium before being promoted to look after the most remote place on Earth.
The Hearse Whisperer landed on the rim of the sleeping volcano, transformed back into her own body and looked down over the small town. It would be four weeks at the very least before the Floods would arrive by sea. She could have a holiday.
‘A holiday?’ she said to herself. ‘Now I know I am getting old. I don’t do holidays. I do spying and killing and pain.’
‘And I don’t do talking to myself,’ she added.
‘Now I am depressed,’ she said out loud.
‘You’re depressed? You’re depressed?’ said a rat that had crawled out from under a stone. ‘What do you have to be depressed about? You can leave here whenever you want. Just turn into that big bird again, fall off that rock and soar away over the horizon to somewhere else and a bright new tomorrow.’
The Hearse Whisperer liked rats as much as she liked anything. They lived in disgusting places and carried all sorts of awful diseases like the bubonic plague. They were her kind of animal.
‘There is a somewhere else over the horizon, isn’t there?’ said the rat. ‘This island isn’t the whole world, is it?’
‘And do the humans in all these other places try to kill every rat they see like they do here?’
‘Well, yes, actually they do.’
‘Now I’m even more depressed,’ said the rat. ‘I was going to ask you to take me with you when you go, but there doesn’t seem much point. I might as well stay here and take my chances with the other rats on annual Ratting Day.’22
The Hearse Whisperer had come to the conclusion that Tristan da Cunha rats were not cool harbingers of doom and destruction like rats everywhere else, but whingeing, boring creatures who thought the wickedest thing they could do was bite a potato.
If I had my way, she thought, every day would be Ratting Day.
‘See that little hole down there with the volcanic steam slipping out from underneath it,’ she said, pointing down into the sleeping volcano. ‘Did you know that it is a magic time-warp gate that leads to another world?’
‘Wow, that’s amazing,’ said the rat. ‘So if I go down there I’ll be transported away from here and into a bright new tomorrow?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Hearse Whisperer. ‘I promise you that if you go down that hole, your future will be very bright indeed.’
Very short, but very, very bright, she thought.
‘Brilliant,’ said the rat and ran down into the volcano.
‘BYE!’ he shouted back up to the Hearse Whisperer.
‘Whatever.’ She held her nose because she couldn’t stand the smell of burning rat fur.
By an unbelievable fluke, the hole was not a vent from the seething fires at the centre of the Earth as the Hearse Whisperer had presumed, but a real time-warp gate to another world, one of only three on this planet.23 Well, not so much to another world, as to another country. So the poor innocent rat was not frizzled into oblivion, but whooshed away from Tristan da Cunha to a small cobbled square somewhere in Belgium. Unfortunately, the rat only had about 2.4 seconds to start thinking, Wow, this is brilliant, before he was flattened by a tram.
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