Miss Davies sat down on a stone. ‘So you were right,’ she said. ‘I… well, I suppose I have foolishly been too proud to admit it. A terrible fault. Learn from it.’ She shook her head, while the Skolars made soothing noises. ‘I just couldn’t believe that anyone would be so irresponsible. Have they considered the doom they may bring on the universe? It is bad. Very, very bad. Sorry, Skolars.’
‘Never mind sorry,’ said Rosetti. ‘Look.’ The Skool lights flickered. They became dimmer, and stayed that way.
‘They’re charging something up,’ said Rosetti. ‘And we know what it is.’
‘They don’t need to go Time Travelling any more,’ said Miss Davies, despondent. ‘They’ve got the Cup. We are all doomed.’
‘Not yet. They won’t have brought it back,’ said Rosetti. ‘They know it Calls me. So they will have hidden it in Time again. They must have gone straight from Atlantis to… wherever.’ He frowned. ‘I’ve been hearing it lately, even far away in Time. But it’s gone now. I think it’s in the Far Past, before it was made.’
‘Can they do that?’
‘Like you said, obviously,’ said Owen. ‘If they hid it somewhere deep and quiet where it didn’t change anything important.’
‘So where?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘There are still six days to Founder’s Day,’ said Owen. ‘Enough for one more trip. That’s all.’
‘I know,’ said Onyx. ‘I’ll read a book.’
‘Reading is a waste of –’
‘Reading is never a waste of anything,’ said Miss Davies hastily. ‘Now I will lock up this dovecote and we will have tea and make a plan.’
‘Locking won’t be enough,’ said Rosetti. ‘We need a trap.’
‘I am not losing anyone in Time,’ said Miss Davies. ‘Not even meatheads.’
‘Who said anything about Time?’ said Rosetti.
‘What, then?’
‘A Blastoff Doorstep.’
‘Heh heh,’ said Owen, who was getting the hang of this laughing business.
‘Whatever,’ said Miss Davies, shaking her head despairingly.
Onyx and Miss Davies cooked sausages in the black iron pan over the Study fire. As the final banger banged, Rosetti and Owen came in, looking evil but happy.
‘Well,’ said Miss Davies. ‘Did you manage the dovecote surprise?’
‘Yep,’ said Owen. ‘Do the bad guys know we’re back yet?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Miss Davies.
‘They will,’ said Rosetti.
∗
Dr Cosm was in his office ruling red-ink lines on his plan for World Domination when he heard a tiny scratching on the door. ‘Enter!’ he cried.
The door opened a crack. Otto’s minute head appeared. ‘O Great One,’ he said –
‘Call me Headmaster-Designate,’ said Dr Cosm. ‘Or HMD.’
‘Er, HMD. They’re back.’
‘Who are back?’
‘You know who. From you know where.’
‘What?’ cried Cosm, his currant eyes vanishing in mean white folds of suet.
‘True, HMD.’
Cosm crushed an exquisite china Head of Einstein in his slimy hand. ‘Sss,’ he said. ‘I would have thought it impossible, hmm. Well, from now on, it is No More Mister Nice Guy.’
‘It wasn’t particularly nice to maroon them in Atlantis,’ said Otto.
‘Shut up! Meddling insects!’ There was white foam on the white chin. ‘They think they have foiled me! Well, I shall make sure that they never travel the years again! Nyahaha!’
‘Nya–’
‘Shut up!’ cried Cosm. ‘Fetch me my faithful brutes Slee and Damage!’
‘Coming up, master!’ cried Otto, and scuttled away.
‘We see how they travel in a dovecote with no roof and no walls and graffiti all over it,’ hissed Cosm through a rising billow of foam. A battering came on the door. ‘Enter, my thickheaded beauties, and listen to your master!’
‘Yeah,’ said Slee, entering.
‘Orright,’ said Damage, doing the same.
‘See how they obey me!’ hissed Cosm foamily. ‘Now, apes. Here are your instructions. Listen up, and keep listening!’
Damage and Slee were well naffed off that the Poly Skolars were back. Dr Cosm had said their Time Machine was dead primitive and needed wrecking because of health and safety. As far as Damage and Slee were concerned primitive was just another long word they did not understand and health and safety were two more but shorter. They understood wrecking, though. So along to the barnyard they stomped.
The dovecote looked small and half-wrecked already under the narrow moon. Slee pushed the door. ‘’S locked,’ he said.
‘I’ll kick ’im in,’ said Damage.
‘Me too,’ said Slee, anxious not to be left out.
‘Formation double Brawlboot. One.’
‘Two,’ said Damage.
‘Fa-REE,’ they said together, and put the boot in.
Which explains why what happened next happened to both of them.
The boots hit the door. Inside the door, an electric contact touched another electric contact, completing a circuit that shot a spark into a small charge of nitroglycerine placed by thoughtful Owen under the flagstone in front of the dovecote’s door. The flagstone leaped into the air. Damage and Slee went with it, arcing across the barnyard and through a hole Rosetti had made in the roof of the cowshed.
The ex-cowshed. The now empty-space-shed. The not-quite-empty-space-shed.
When Rosetti had listened with his mind for living creatures hereabouts, he had heard many small, thirsty voices. While Owen had been wiring up the Blastoff Doorstep, Rosetti had called in a tiny, gentle voice. And the owners of the little voices had hopped and hopped, until they were waiting under the hole in the roof. They made quite a crowd. Actually, there were so many of them that they were more like a pile than a crowd.
‘Yum, yum,’ said a million tiny voices.
And here come Damage and Slee, scorched and plummeting.
‘AIEE,’ cried Slee, hurtling through the hole and landing with a bump.
‘AROOO,’ cried Damage, doing roughly the same thing.
‘Lucky,’ said Damage, flat on his back on the floor.
‘Well lucky,’ said Slee, also flat.
‘Yum, yum,’ said the tiny voices, hopping towards the large, juicy bodies and climbing aboard. ‘We have not eaten for two years and you guys are the greatest packed lunch we have ever seen.’
‘Eek!’ cried Slee.
‘Fleas!’ cried Damage.
And the two Footerers ran scratching back to their study. Which to a few thousand fleas looked like the biggest and most wonderfully stocked picnic site in the world, ever.
At roughly the same time as all this was happening, a Governors’ Meeting was taking place.
‘So,’ said the Headmaster, reading from his notes. ‘Founder’s Day. I presume that all is in order?’
‘What passes for it around here,’ said Dr Cosm.
‘And by the way,’ said Commissioner Manacle. ‘We are sure that nothing has… happened to the Greyte Cup, are we?’
The Head met the Commissioner’s piercing glare with his own vague, kindly one. ‘Oh, quite,’ he said.
‘Because if for any reason it is not there,’ said Manacle, ‘it will definitely be the moment for Dr Cosm to take over.’
‘Ha!’ said the Head, with a hollow chuckle. ‘Laughable!’
But it looked to Commissioner Manacle as if inside the Head was not laughing. Not even a tiny bit.
Three days before Founder’s Day the Quest for the Holy Grail was important, but not as important as the sports. Owen made a large hole in the Long Jump pit and was treated for mild concussion. Onyx missed the Vaulting Horse and had to be brought down from the gym ceiling by a man with a ladder. And at three o’clock Rosetti was jogging on the start line of the Cross-country Running course.
‘Right,’ said Dr Cosm to Slee and
Damage, at the other end of the start line. ‘Your instructions.’
‘Rr,’ said Slee, scratching.
‘Pesky fleas,’ said Damage, scratching too.
‘I want you to nobble Svenson,’ said Cosm. ‘Stop scratching, will you?’
‘On your marks!’ cried the starter. ‘Go!’
Rosetti went. So did the rest of the field, except Slee and Damage, who were too busy scratching.
‘Oh,’ said Slee, breaking into a run. ‘How we going to do the nobbling, then?’
‘From behind?’ said Damage, peering over the horizon in front of them.
Off they went.
∗
‘Well done!’ cried the Skolars and Miss Davies and the Head as Rosetti cantered over the finish line an hour and a half later. The runner up was ten minutes behind him. There was no sign of Slee and Damage. ‘Any trouble?’
‘Trouble?’ said Rosetti. ‘No. Why?’
When Rosetti was on his way to tea, Slee tripped him up and Damage sat on him. ‘You’re nobbled,’ they said, scratching.
‘Sss,’ said Dr Cosm, in front of his screens. ‘Too late, morons!’
‘I hear that Keene’s Lovely Writing is brilliant, and French’s Hard Sums are a work of positive genius, and now Svenson has won the Cross-country,’ said Otto. ‘I hate to say this, Doctor, but I think the Skolars have the Cup in the bag. Curse them, obviously,’ he added hastily.
‘Hah!’ cried Cosm scornfully. ‘To win a Cup you need a Cup. And they have no Cup, nyhaha.’
‘Nyaha,’ said Otto nervously.
‘Shut up,’ said Cosm.
The day after the Cross-country, two days before Founder’s Day, a Security Master with a cattle prod and loudhailer stumped through the Hall of Session after lunch. ‘All will report to Big Side to watch the Old Boys’ Bloodbath and cheer a lot,’ he cried.
The Skolars trudged over to Big Side.
‘Oo! Team!’ cried Onyx, bouncing. ‘Skool-a-SKOOL!’
‘I think you’re mad,’ said Rosetti. ‘They tried to maroon us in Atlantis.’
‘And they keep pinching the Cup, and they’ve hidden it somewhen else,’ said Owen. ‘And they’ve got fleas and they want to destroy the Universe.’
‘Oh, well!’ said Onyx. ‘But just look at them! SKOOL!’
The Skool Team was indeed impressive. The Old Boys were huge, but they looked as if they ate too many pies and watched too much TV. The Skool Team looked as if they ate live wildcats instead of pies and did press-ups instead of watching TV.
‘CHAARGE!’ roared a voice. The Skool Team thundered down on the Old Boys. The Skool Team went THUD. The Old Boys went SPLAT. The pile of giants rolled yelling and battering towards the goal.
‘Wow,’ said Onyx. Then she noticed that Elphine the Match Girl was standing next to her. Elphine looked rather sulky. ‘Something wrong?’ said Onyx.
‘Slee,’ said Elphine, scratching.
‘What about him?’
‘He got blown up. And fleas after.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Onyx, trying to sound sincere but not managing.
‘He’s a idiot,’ said Elphine, rolling her eyes away from Slee, who was running across the field with the ball under his arm. ‘I don’t fancy him no more. Getting blowed up. Pafetic. I fancy people who do the blowing up. Not get blowed up. And give you fleas after.’
‘Oo,’ said Onyx. ‘We did it.’
Elphine turned, a worshipping light in her eye. ‘You did? Brilliant!’
Onyx was rather pleased. She had never been liked by anyone as tough as Elphine before. She had a sudden inspiration. The Cup would be deeply hidden; perhaps too deep for libraries to reveal its whereabouts. What would Rosetti have done? Something crafty, obviously. Perhaps this was a time for… cunning.
‘What we were wondering,’ said Onyx, trying to keep down the urge to tee hee keenly, ‘was whether silly old Slee said anything about going away on a, well, a holiday or something? Probably to biff people?’
‘Oh. Yeah. He’s off to a cave,’ said Elphine. ‘Called Lazy Daisy or somefink.’ She lit a match in a faraway manner. ‘Explosions,’ she said. ‘Cool!’
Simple as that, thought Onyx, and scuttled off.
‘Deep underground,’ said Onyx. ‘Deep, deep, deep, deep –’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Owen.
‘Start at the beginning, Onyx, dear,’ murmured Miss Davies.
‘Well,’ said Onyx through a red mist, for she was so excited that she kept forgetting to breathe. ‘Elphine said Slee was off to caves and Lazy Daisy. So I asked the Head, and he said he couldn’t remember, but paintings came into it. And then I asked Mr Sartorius, and he gave me this.’
Her fellow Skolars peered at the book in her hands. There were pictures of bison charging, horses dancing, little stick men with spears. Owen said, ‘What is it?’
‘Cave paintings,’ said Rosetti. ‘At Les Eyzies. In France.’
‘Which to someone as stupid as Slee sounds like Lazy Daisy,’ said Onyx in an annoying voice. ‘So I think the Cosm people have hidden the Cup in the caves and we absolutely must go back in time and get it because tomorrow is Founder’s Day and we cannot let Dr Cosm be Headmaster and probably destroy the Universe because it would just be too awful.’
‘Quite,’ said Rosetti.
‘Good research,’ said Owen.
Miss Davies’s brows came down over her fierce gold eyes. ‘The pigeons will be ready by teatime. See you in the farmyard after tea. Bring outdoor gear and torches.’
‘Yes, Miss Davies,’ said everyone. But Rosetti got the impression that she thought this was a last throw. And that she was not very confident they were going to win.
After tea, everyone trooped down to the farmyard with their equipment (Rosetti had packed a cricket stump, just in case). Miss Davies was already there. Into the dovecote they marched, and squeezed into the chair. As Miss Davies raised the Nudging Pole, there was a knock on the door.
‘Er…’ said a voice.
‘Wrekin!’ cried Miss Davies, going pink.
‘There’s no room,’ said Owen, who did not hold with artists.
‘He can sit on my knee,’ said Miss Davies.
‘Ik,’ said Rosetti.
Flap. Squawk. Nests in the mind.
It was cold: a thin cold that rode through the door-cracks on the breeze, penetrated anorak and found bone. The dovecote was on a limestony hillside covered in scrub. The air was dry, and so was the ground.
‘Look!’ said Rosetti, pointing.
Along the bottom of the hill wound a river full of grey-blue water. In the distance a blue-white blanket lay across the world.
‘How interesting. That must be the Massif Central ice,’ said Owen.
Rosetti cocked his head, listening to something the others could not hear. ‘It’s here. It’s calling. From below. Look for holes. Caves.’
They scrambled through the scrub, glad of having something to do in the cold.
‘Nothing,’ said Owen.
‘Nothing,’ said Rosetti.
There was a crash.
‘Ouch!’ said the voice of Onyx.
Rosetti and Owen trampled their way through the scrub towards her voice. They saw Onyx’s legs sticking out of what looked like a collapsed badger sett.
Rosetti pulled her out and wriggled down the hole. ‘It opens out,’ said his voice, strangely hollow. ‘Come on!’
They went.
The hole started narrow and rooty and smelling powerfully of badger. Just as Onyx thought she was going to suffocate, she felt moving air on her face and saw a light. The light became Rosetti, standing in a stone cave waving his torch. She squeezed out of the tunnel and helped Rosetti pull Owen through. In the torchlight, a narrow path wound away into the darkness between pale pillars whose tops were lost in shadow. They started down the path. The air smelled wet and stony, and everywhere was the drip of falling water. Nobody spoke.
Soon they were wading in an icy stream, still tr
avelling downwards. They followed it for twenty minutes. Rosetti walked round a corner, took a step and found emptiness. Onyx heard a splash. When she rounded the corner she saw him struggling in a pool of water deeper than he was tall. On the right-hand side of the pool, the water flowed out through a notch, falling into empty space with a hollow booming. On the far side of the bowl, a dry tunnel pierced the rock wall.
‘Over here!’ cried Onyx, pointing the way with her torch. Above the mouth of the dry tunnel someone had drawn a picture of a stick man, walking.
‘It’s a signpost,’ said Rosetti, teeth chattering.
The dry tunnel was floored with gravel. It opened into a wide gallery. In an alcove off the gallery was a pile of furs.
‘There are people down here,’ said Rosetti, wrapping himself in a skin that by the smell of it had once belonged to a bear.
‘They’ll be awfully pleased to see us,’ said Onyx.
‘No,’ said Owen. ‘These are very basic people. They will think that anyone down here is either a predator or a rival tribe.’
‘Gulp,’ said Onyx.
‘Look!’ said Rosetti, shining his torch on the wall.
Across the grey rock there leaped an animal, bright red and yellow: a deer, full of life and energy.
‘It could have been painted yesterday,’ said Rosetti.
‘It probably was,’ said Owen.
This was a bit of a conversation stopper. Not that anything could stop Onyx. ‘I recognize this from the books,’ she said. ‘We go on down here, and there’s a right turning and there’s a big hall at the far end with a lot of paintings –’
‘AROO,’ cried a voice deep in the tunnels.
Rosetti yanked his two companions back into an alcove in the passage. ‘Lights out!’ he hissed.
Just in time. Feet were running towards them out of the inky dark; feet small and bare, running two-footed like human beings but with the lightness of animals.
The little feet fluttered past, pit-a-pat. Behind them came a heavier pounding.
Footbrawl boots.
‘AHEEEE,’ cried a voice.
‘HUR HUR,’ cried another.
The boots went past. Something clattered.
Abbot Dagger's Academy and the Quest for the Holy Grail Page 11