by Linda Talbot
to invent some succulent way of eating you."
Beldina too has such thoughts and is gazing with wide eyes at the little girls. She will turn them into toads, thinks Clumsilla. The giants lick their lips. The Wolgs leave.
"We must escape," pipes the grubby little boy, adding as an afterthought, "I'm Ludo and these are my friends from school. We wished we were in the Future with our exams finished and there was Zigana at the end of the football field."
Clumsilla introduces the beings from the Past. The children look blank but at least they do not laugh. Scrawn and Brawn gloat over a little girl crouching in one corner. Beldina's eyes shine, seeing that the little girl is already toad-like and will need only a minor spell to complete the change.
"How do you plan to escape?" Clumsilla asks Ludo.
He says, "Every night the Wolgs have a conference. They are going to invade the Earth. We would have escaped by now but they leave guards at the opening of the cave. If we get past those we can capture their space ship and go home."
"I shall bewitch the guards," promises Beldina.
"How can we fly in two directions at once?" points out Clumsilla, "My friends come from the Past and we live in the Present. I doubt if you would like the Present any more than the Future," she says to Brawn, "And I don't think I would want to spend all my time quarrelling with you in the palace garden."
"Zigana got us here. She should take us back," grumbles Scrawn, "How can we be sure of travelling through time otherwise?" But the celestial gipsy must be exploring elsewhere.
"Well we can't stay here," says Ludo "If we take the Wolgs' ship they won't be able to invade Earth."
Bast slinks off to look for mice while the others wait for the Wolgs to go into conference. Soon they hear the pad of their feet along the passage and listen until the sound dies to be replaced by their shrill voices arguing about how to divide up the Earth.
"NOW!" says Ludo, tugging at his shabby socks. Bast returns, still hungry, and glimmering fires light the rocks as they move along the passage. Soon they see the guards at the mouth of the cave. Beldina grabs Bast and gathers her dusty cloaks. Taking the lead she moves stealthily behind the guards.
"FROZZLE AND FROOZE!" she cries. The Wolgs turn blue and freeze. The captives push past to see that the ship has been turned the right way up, ready to take off. But as they near the door, the Wolgs, who have finished their conference and discovered their next meal is missing, swarm from the cave with shrill cries.
Clumsilla with Huff and the Wolgs
One grabs Laila's ankle and she almost topples but wriggles free. Another flies at Beldina who cries, "I can't bewitch more than two at a time!"
Everyone scrambles into the space craft, Brawn and Scrawn defy the heat and pick up several Wolgs and, heaving hard, send them bouncing across the rocks. But like lightening they are on their feet and back at the door. Brawn slams it and Scrawn pulls down the launching lever. At last Huff breathes a great glowing flame, almost setting fire to the floor and enveloping the craft in black smoke.
The hum of the space ship increases and slowly it rises, the Wolgs clinging to its sides. As it gains speed, several fall off and hurtle back to Wolgonia.
"Where are we going?" asks Brawn. At his words Zigana appears, her hair full of stray stars. "I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your time travelling," she says. "Now perhaps you'll make more of the age in which you live. There are too many restless people roaming around."
"But how shall we get back?" asks Clumsilla.
"You must leave this ship," says Zigana, "It's had no orders so will head for a Black Hole. Clumsilla can fly on her carpet. The rest of you will have to wish very hard indeed to return to the Present and the Past but with Beldina's help it should be possible."
Sadly Clumsilla and the children say goodbye to the beings from the Past. At least no one had been eaten or turned into a toad.
"Will you promise to stop quarrelling?" she says. Reluctantly they nod and even Bast looks humbled. Zigana opens the door and Clumsilla sits on the mat which moans faintly. She wishes hard and in a moment is shooting through the stars.
They whirl faster in the black until the sky is blurred and Clumsilla feels as though she is drifting...away...away...
She opens her eyes. She is shivering on the hearth rug in the middle of the pavement near her home. The dawn grey street, where a cold wind whines, is deserted.
"I can't have dreamed it all or I wouldn't be sitting on the mat," she thinks. "I wonder if everyone got home all right."
Now Clumsilla likes living in the Present. She learns to bake cakes, cut up frogs, untangle figures and find words. Her adventures seem increasingly unreal. Sometimes she sees a boy who looks a little like Ludo. But it never is. And sometimes, in a tree or on top of a wall, she thinks she sees Zigana's face. But it always fades. And she can never be sure.
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TAMING OF THE TOKHASHI
Zazhak, an ugly being, thrown up in a shower of rugged rocks by an earthquake, stirs his mixture of madness and hot air in a huge coloured pot. From it steam hisses, coils and weaves weird shapes.
Zazhak bellows in a black voice:
“Bubble and stir the water rat’s fur
A delectable stew of dead skins
Mix them with madness and lots of hot air
To make Topsy and Turvy, the Twins.”
Topsy, Turvy and Zazhak
Slowly a boy’s face takes shape, framed with floppy red hair, then his body in a baggy suit and his feet in shoes with loose laces. Clumsily, he climbs from the pot and lands in a crumple of clothes on the ground. The next moment, a little girl, with steamy black hair, a spotted dress and wrinkled socks, appears. Struggling, she almost gets stuck in the pot, then flops on the ground beside the boy.
Zazhak’s cruel eyes glint. He has a hooked nose, long black earrings and a skin that gleams white from living underground. Unable to return, his powers are waning. Gone are the days when he turned people who passed him on the mountain, to an orange pulp to garnish the stew in his coloured pot. And his roar, that once rocked three continents, is a whimper.
“Aha!” So there you are!” his dark voice declares. “Topsy and Turvy. You shall fetch me from the Mountains of Mishap and Gloom, the Tokhashi, a being of the deepest dark secrets that I must share or I shall wither away, for my wondrous powers are worn out.
“He lives in a bottomless cave, conjuring mischief which is wasted in the bowels of beyond. It’s high time he showed his face. You are small enough to squirm down holes, up trees and live on the odds and ends of the Other Worlds through which you will pass. You never wash or wear clean clothes. You are very average children. You can tell the Tokhashi he is needed to help me make mincemeat of mortals. That should shift him.”
Topsy and Turvy watch Zazhak draw a deep breath and when he breathes out, they are lifted with a loud rush of air, off their feet and up, up, into the pale blue sky. They float for some moments, then land among a soft tangle of roots.
Turvy’s shoes fall off as he tries to free his feet. Topsy tears her spotted dress.
“Oooh-ow!” echoes a woman’s voice, like a wailing wind, wrapping round the twins. “You are sitting on my hair!”
The twins jump up and look around. There is no one. But the tangle of roots is softly heaving; bunched in strands and waves and it rises high into the pale sky as far as the twins can see.
“Who are you?” calls Topsy, looking up. “And where are you?”
“I am Viana and I’m everywhere,” replies the wind-filled voice. “I’m very old. I am the sea, the mountains, the fields and the forest. I am the great arc of the sky and the ring of the Earth. I am flood and formlessness.”
The twins exchange blank looks.
“You seek the Tokhashi. But you must not take him to Zazhak. Together, their mischief would destroy the World. You must tame him, so Zazhak is powerless and withers away.”
“But how can we tame him?” asks Tur
vy, wishing he was still hot air rising from Zazhak’s pot.
“By bringing him something beautiful and rare you have rescued from great danger. He lives alone with old bones and knotted roots, not to mention rusty cans and faded flags left by mortals who scale the Mountains of Mishap and Gloom but never return.
“Climb my hair and see what worlds await. You will meet with the boundless threats of beings men have conjured from air, earth and water. But you can slip and slide through danger and death. No one will harm two untidy children.”
Turvy pulls on his shoes and they start to climb, hanging on hard to the thick strands of Viana’s hair. Here and there, fruit grows, as though on a tree. Topsy tugs at a ripe pear, but cannot pick it. It does not feel like fruit, but is slippery and soft as gossamer.
The twins hear a screech and a squawk. There is twittering, piping, a frenzied tapping of beaks. Four golden cages swing above their heads. Inside, strange birds of many colours are clamouring, as they claw and bite the bars.
“Let us out!” shrieks an orange bird with long curving tail feathers. “Zazhak has caged us. We demand to be freed!”
There is a strutting bird with spotted wings that squawks, and a sad, long-necked bird with big feet that twitters. But, above them, in the biggest cage, sits the most marvellous bird; a combination of stork, pheasant and peacock, a stream of feathers in burnished colours, flouncing behind. She waits in silence while the others