The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone

by Jaclyn Moriarty

  ‘Wait!’ we all hissed, but she was already galloping, the horse’s hooves echoing along the empty street.

  ‘What’s your plan, Bronte?’ Nicholas enquired.

  My plan was to go to the castle, find the Whispering King, drink the potion from the jar in my pocket, Spellbind him, and rescue Billy.

  It had seemed sensible enough back at Aunt Franny’s house. Now I saw one or two holes.

  ‘Somebody’s coming!’ Alejandro barked. ‘Hide!’

  We scattered, most of us ending up behind a rose bush. A figure moved steadily towards us, scrunching over the grass, weaving between bushes, bumping into some.

  It was a small figure. Very small.

  ‘Ouch,’ it said, quietly. ‘Roses must have thorns, what?’

  ‘It’s Billy!’ I said, bouncing up.

  ‘Oh, Bronte!’ Billy said. ‘Is that you? Perfect. Do you happen to know the way out of here? Only, the soldiers got distracted trying to figure out how to carry a sort of cage they had, and I ran off. Not sure how long I’ve got.’

  The others loomed up now, and Billy yelped.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whispered. ‘These are all the other cousins. And that’s Alejandro, you remember the boy we rescued? Everyone, this is our cousin, Billy.’

  ‘Let’s go!’ Imogen murmured, and then she bit her lip. ‘Only where’s the circus girl?’

  We all looked towards the street, hoping to see Taylor, but what we saw was a battalion of soldiers moving steadily towards us.

  ‘Run,’ said Sebastian. ‘Turn around and run.’

  We flew towards the gargoyle gate. It was still ajar, and all of our hands reached out and threw it open.

  Along the road, around the curves.

  Behind us, the tramping of soldiers’ boots.

  Through the second gate.

  Our feet pounded, we panted desperately.

  ‘Help!’ A whimper from behind. I turned.

  Billy had fallen to his knees, his hands clamped to his ears. ‘Stop it!’ he shrieked. ‘Stop! Stop the noise!’

  The others also turned, and stared. Billy struggled to his feet, then immediately fell again. ‘Keep going!’ he shouted at us. ‘Leave me here!’

  ‘Come on!’ Sebastian called. ‘It’s not far!’

  But Alejandro was shaking his head. ‘It’s the Whisperers. They’re Whispering at him to stay.’

  ‘Then we have to carry him out!’ Esther cried, and we dashed back towards Billy.

  The soldiers’ steady tramping was growing and quickening. There was the clanging of the gargoyle gate.

  Two of the cousins reached out to Billy, and he stretched his hands towards them, but abruptly he pulled away, and urged again, ‘Keep going! I’m staying!’

  We all got a hold of him then, but his feet dragged on the dirt and he punched out wildly. ‘Leave me!’ he screamed. Between us, we hoisted him into the air, and stumble-ran, half-falling while Billy writhed around in our arms.

  Behind us, the soldiers marched closer.

  We were at the first gate.

  The soldiers were paces back, inky bulks in the shadows. We were pushing through the first gate.

  The Spellbinding was there, right there.

  Billy was screaming and slapping now. ‘Put me down!’

  ‘Almost there,’ we panted, and the soft dampness of the Spellbinding was on my face and hands, and we were almost through and—

  Billy twisted out of our hands, and threw himself back inside.

  Soldiers grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and wrenched him to his feet.

  Billy looked at us ruefully. But we knew it was not his fault. We’d all heard how vicious a Whisper was.

  The sky was paling now, a smudge of orange on the horizon, and there was a strange moment of quiet. The ocean carried on smashing its waves, and the forest still rustled the leaves of its trees, but my cousins and I stared through the Spellbinding in silence. On the other side, five or six Whispering soldiers faced us, grouped around Billy.

  The soldiers were so close that we could see the expressions on their faces, the buttons on their jackets, the tangles in their long hair. On their wrists were red- and-black bands. The shadow bands, I realised.

  From the direction of the Whispering Kingdom came the sound of horses’ hooves, and the creak and clang of gates. The sounds grew. A carriage approached, and the soldiers swivelled smartly, two keeping firm hold of Billy’s shoulders.

  ‘All bow for His Majesty, the Whispering King!’ pronounced a soldier, and my cousins and I glanced at each other. The Whispering King?

  An old man climbed out of the carriage. He moved very slowly—I couldn’t tell whether this was because he was old or because he was trying to act kingly. His hair was long and perfectly white, and something glinted on his chest. The soldiers bowed. I noticed Esther beside me going to do the same and then stopping herself.

  The King spoke in a low voice to two or three soldiers. I heard him say, ‘Prepare the cage,’ and also, ‘Gather the citizens.’ A few soldiers marched briskly back through the gate, while others took Billy somewhere out of sight.

  Now the King stepped close to the Spellbinding. The glinting object slung across his chest turned out to be a dagger. A tremor seemed to run right through us children as we noticed this. His eyes ran back and forth over us, and then they paused on me.

  ‘Which of you is Bronte Mettlestone?’ he asked.

  I jumped. He nodded to himself, and stared at me. There were creases under his eyes.

  ‘You are the child of Patrick and Lida Mettlestone?’ he enquired next. His voice seemed friendly and interested.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘Then Bronte,’ he said, ‘you are my grandchild.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I told him, politely.

  The Whispering King smiled kindly. ‘My daughter, the Princess Lida, ran away from home when she was a teenager. She met your father in Gainsleigh. I summonsed her home after you were born, and I’ve been inviting you to visit ever since.’

  There was a lot of muttering amongst my cousins and Alejandro. The soldiers at attention behind the King remained perfectly still.

  My heart was fluttering. Bad enough to have a Whisperer as a grandfather, but now he had to be the Whispering King?

  I studied him, trying to see if he could be my grandfather. He had that regular, wrinkled old-man appearance, but his long, white hair made him resemble a dessert. Somebody seemed to have poured cream onto his head, letting it spill down both sides to his feet.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Grandfather,’ I said, remembering my manners. He nodded, but he did not seem about to bundle me into a bear hug of welcome. The Spellbinding would have stopped that anyway, of course, and the dagger slung against his chest might have made it uncomfortable. ‘Could you kindly release my cousin, Billy?’ I asked next. ‘We are all tired and would like to go home. I will … visit you tomorrow.’

  ‘Certainly I will release Billy,’ the King replied, and I sighed with relief. ‘But I need a small favour first.’ He clicked his fingers, and a soldier stepped forward, handing him a small red box.

  ‘Dear grandchild,’ said the King. ‘Long ago, I heard a Whisper from the future. It told me that you—the firstborn child of my firstborn child—would play a key role in my plans to make the Whispering Kingdom all-powerful.’

  ‘It did?’ I asked, but I was distracted. There was much movement and sound behind the King now. Several more soldiers had appeared, marching through the gate, and behind them came streams of men, women and children. They wore coats over nightclothes, and had sleepy eyes and long, tousled hair. The soldiers must have woken them and brought them here. They stopped when the soldier instructed them to, so now a crowd stretched back, through the gate and into the darkness beyond. I noticed the red-and-black of shadow bands on many wrists.

  ‘Dear grandchild,’ the King said again, and he wiped at his eye. Was he crying? ‘I am so proud of you. As your mother is dead, you are now he
ir to the throne of the Whispering Kingdom.’ He half-turned and shouted the next part so that the crowd could hear. ‘YOUR FIRST GREAT ACT AS PRINCESS BRONTE WILL BE TO SET THE WHISPERING PEOPLE FREE!’

  The crowd clapped.

  On either side of me, my cousins were shaking their heads wildly. ‘Don’t do it,’ they hissed. ‘They’re Whisperers!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I hissed back. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’

  The King turned back to me. ‘Inside this box is my Whisper,’ he said. ‘Very powerful. You will reach through the Spellbinding and take it from me. Once it is through, open the clasp and release the Whisper. And then WE WILL BE FREE!’ (He was shouting again. The crowd applauded.)

  ‘But Whispers can’t come through the Spellbinding,’ I said, confused.

  ‘They can if you take them,’ he grinned. ‘You are half-Whisperer and half-Spellbinder, dear grandchild. In all the Kingdoms and Empires, you are the one person who can defeat the Spellbinding.’

  Again, my cousins shook their heads at me. I was annoyed at them because of course I wasn’t going to do it. But it was also difficult. All those people waiting for me to be a hero. And it seemed I had a special talent. I was the one person who could do this.

  ‘Er, Your Majesty?’ Sebastian spoke up bravely. ‘How is your Whisper going to set your kingdom free?’

  The King turned his smile on Sebastian. ‘This Whisper will clamp down so hard on the minds of every Spellbinder,’ he explained, ‘in all the Kingdoms and Empires, that their Spellbinding powers will be crushed. Not only will this Majestic Spellbinding dissolve, but we the Whisperers will never be bound again.’

  ‘So you’ll all be able to go around making people do what you want, like you did during the Whispering Wars?’ Imogen frowned.

  ‘Precisely,’ the King said. ‘WITH THE HELP OF PRINCESS BRONTE, WE WILL ONCE AGAIN BE THE MOST POWERFUL KINGDOM IN ALL THE KINGDOMS AND EMPIRES!’

  Another burst of applause.

  ‘But if Bronte is really a Spellbinder,’ Esther piped up, ‘you’ll be clamping down on her brain too.’

  ‘I put in an exception for her,’ the King promised. ‘Come along, Bronte. Take the box through.’ He held it out to me.

  I stared down at his hands. He wore a ring with a skull insignia that reminded me of pirates. ‘I’m very sorry, Grandfather,’ I said. ‘But I can’t do that. So if you’d just let us take Billy home …’

  ‘You won’t do it?’ the King checked.

  ‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘I will not. But we … we wish you well with your … endeavours.’

  ‘PIRATES!’ shouted the king. ‘SOLDIERS!’

  From the forest behind us came a swarm of pirates who surrounded us children. Meanwhile, right before us, soldiers were hoisting a cage high into the air. Billy was crouching inside.

  ‘Oh, well,’ Imogen said. ‘Nice try anyway, Bronte.’

  We were crammed together now, trussed up with chains, the pirates swaggering beside us as if they deserved praise. But honestly, we were just a bunch of children.

  The King clicked his fingers again and pointed, and the pirates unwound me from the rest and pushed me back towards the Spellbinding.

  ‘Not long ago,’ the King told me, smiling again, ‘I heard a second Whisper from the future. It said that the royal cousin of my royal grandchild would be important today.’ He pointed up to the wooden cage, suspended high above us. ‘So I had my pirate friends capture him!’

  Billy sat on the cage’s floor, peering down at us. A thick rope was looped around the top of the cage and strung over the branch of a tree. The rope then ran all the way down to the road, ending at a metal tube with a handle. It was a sort of pulley system, I realised. Someone on the ground could raise or lower the cage from the tree, using the handle.

  ‘PRINCESS BRONTE!’ The King bellowed, facing the crowd. ‘REACH YOUR HAND THROUGH THE SPELLBINDING AND TAKE THIS WHISPER!’

  I stared at him. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Princess Bronte,’ the King repeated. ‘Do you see this rope?’ He pointed to the rope running diagonal through the air. ‘And do you see this dagger?’

  I looked at the dagger, lying flat against his chest. Polished silver with an ornamental hilt.

  ‘Do you understand what will happen if I cut the rope with this dagger?’

  My eyes ran along the rope, up to the tree and to the cage that shivered in the air. If the King cut the rope, the cage would crash to the ground. Billy would be killed.

  I looked back at the King.

  ‘If you do not reach through and take this Whisper,’ said the King. ‘I will cut the rope.’

  He placed the edge of his dagger against the rope. ‘You have sixty seconds,’ he added, almost chattily.

  I don’t know if you have ever had to choose between allowing your cousin, Billy, to crash to his death, and releasing a Whisper that will crush the powers of every Spellbinder in the Kingdoms and Empires.

  It’s tricky.

  ‘Forty-five seconds,’ sang the King. ‘Or your cousin gets taken out.’

  ‘You’re counting too fast!’ I protested.

  In fact, I had no idea how many seconds had passed. My head seemed to swarm with insects. I would not let him kill Billy! But I could not release this Whisper!

  I looked around at my cousins and Alejandro, pressed together in chains. They stared back at me, eyes wide in helpless panic. Beside them, the pirates appeared interested, as if they were watching a penalty shoot-out in a soccer game.

  I looked up at Billy, his cage swinging alarmingly. At the dagger touching the rope. At the small red box poised before me.

  Now my heart clattered like a steam locomotive.

  This is impossible! I thought.

  And then I slapped my hand against my chest.

  The Elvish Medal for Bravery.

  I still wore it.

  You remember the Matron at the boarding school had told me its secret?

  Here is what she said:

  If you hold the medal in your hand, and you speak these words aloud, the medal will become the very thing you need.

  ‘Twenty seconds!’ the King cried.

  I clutched the medal and spoke the words: I have never been so afraid.

  The medal jumbled about in my hand, pushing so hard against my fingers that I had to let go. It rattled, then clunked against my chest.

  I lowered my chin to look. It now looked much like the case where the Butler keeps his spectacles.

  I reached my fingertips into the case, and touched something cold and metallic. Was it a dagger of my own? Was I supposed to fight the King?

  I drew out the object.

  ‘Ten seconds!’ shouted the King.

  ‘Hush!’ I told him, annoyed.

  I was busy staring. My medal had become a gleaming pair of scissors.

  Again, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you expect to receive the very thing you need, and instead you get a pair of scissors.

  It’s annoying.

  ‘Five seconds,’ the King said languidly. He had slowed his countdown, but he was staring at me intently, the edge of the blade firm against the rope. He meant what he said. He would kill Billy.

  And then, I guessed, he would threaten the other cousins and Alejandro, having the pirates kill them one by one until I took the red box.

  I could see all this in his eyes.

  I was going to have to take it. I reached out my hand.

  Then I dropped my hand. If the Whispering King was all-powerful, thousands could die.

  I was going to have to let Billy die.

  ‘Come on,’ said the King.

  Helpless, I glanced at the scissors—and saw a glint of movement in them.

  They were polished and reflective, I realised, mirroring the pirates and the chain-bound children behind me. That must be the movement I had seen.

  But there was something else. Behind the pirates, behind the children, two darting shapes. Two figures dressed in
black with masks. Exploding skull-and-crossbones on each.

  Gustav and The Scorpion.

  They slipped back into the shadows, and my heart sped up like something tumbling down a hill.

  ‘Time’s up,’ said the King, and raised his dagger high.

  ‘Wait!’ I said.

  ‘You’ve had at least sixty seconds,’ the King replied, testily. The dagger in his hand did not budge away from the rope—but nor did he slash it.

  I looked at the scissors.

  Even if Gustav and The Scorpion dealt with the pirates, how could they save Billy?

  Billy, tiny in his cage. Soldiers lined up neatly, the crowd of Whisperers behind them.

  The coats and nightwear of the Whisperers seemed shabby to me. One or two, I noticed, were playing with the shadow bands on their wrists, sliding them up and down or twisting them.

  Unexpectedly, I heard Aunt Sophy’s voice in my head: ‘You know how certain things are famous throughout Kingdoms and Empires for being dangerous and wicked?’

  I looked down at the scissors again.

  Back at the crowd of Whisperers.

  To the King with his dagger.

  To the Whisperers again—

  Quite suddenly, I knew what I must do.

  ‘Just a moment, Grandfather,’ I said. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  I took the jar from my pocket, unscrewed the lid, and swallowed it whole. Then I lifted the scissors and, in one great swoop, I cut through the Spellbinding.

  Many things happened all at once.

  Behind me, Gustav and The Scorpion rushed the pirates. There was a flurry of flashing swords.

  The King stared at the tear in the binding. A slow smile formed. He dropped the dagger to the ground, and stepped forward, raising the red box. Desperate, I looked behind him at the crowd of civilians. For a terrible moment, they simply stood, their faces blank.

  And then, all at once, they gave a mighty roar and the whole crowd surged forwards. They crashed into the soldiers, shoving and shouting as they came. Soldiers stumbled and fell. The King was jostled hard—the red box slipped from his hand and was kicked away and trampled.