“Marvelous, that will do nicely.” The robber plucked the ring from Ben’s hand and held it up to the light to examine it. He must have liked what he saw because he tried to slip it into his pocket, but his leather pants were too tight, so he gave up and said, “A pleasure doing business with you.”
He waved his gun at us one more time and then disappeared out of the door. I heard the sound of the motorcycle engine and the squeal of tires on asphalt and he was gone.
After a few seconds I said, “Well, as far as hold-ups go, that wasn’t too bad.”
Ben kind of crumpled onto the floor like a deflating balloon and Charlie grabbed a giant chocolate bar from the shelf and bit into it without even taking the wrapper off.
The shop owner must have sensed it was a good time to come around, because he suddenly popped up from behind the counter and said, “Has he gone?”
Ben said, “Yeah, he’s gone.”
I wanted to say, No thanks to you.
The shopkeeper scrambled over to the cash register and pushed a button on the side and the drawer sprang open. And we all went, “Ahhhhh, that’s how it opens.”
“It’s all there! He didn’t take any money?”
“No, he didn’t take any money,” Ben said.
The shopkeeper turned to us, this strange look of awe in his eyes, and said, “It’s a miracle! You truly are superheroes.”
I could have tried to set him straight there and then, but I knew it would be a waste of time. And he was so grateful. I mean, really grateful. He kept shaking our hands and thanking us over and over again. He called us his miraculous superheroes so many times, we almost started to believe it. I guess, even though there had been no bicycle-kicks or shows of superhuman strength, a teeny tiny part of us felt like superheroes just for surviving.
The shopkeeper gave us a box of candy as a reward and as Ben was putting it into the basket of my bike he said to me, “You know what, Fred, if we can find a way out of a hold-up situation, chances are that we’ll be able to find Alan Froggley.”
And Charlie said, “Yeah, nothing can stop us.”
And you know what? I thought so too.
19
I end up sulking about our whole situation and take it out on my cape
Midway through sixth year, Mrs. Walker had a huge rant about the importance of having a protractor and pinned a sign to our classroom door that said, By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail, or something like that. At the time I couldn’t see why protractors were such a big deal, but as I sat on the green outside the shop with our long bike ride to St. David’s ahead of us, I had an epiphany. Mrs. Walker wasn’t just talking about math equipment. She was talking about life.
Although now that we were part-superhero and I was feeling more confident about our chances of getting to St. David’s, I thought that perhaps some preparation might be a good idea. While Ben and Charlie had a little snooze in the sun, I decided to do a full assessment of our situation. And this is when I realized the following worrying facts:
1.A criminal had taken our stolen ring.
2.He’d probably try and sell it on the black market.
3.News of this might reach the Gaffer.
4.The Gaffer could find out the ring came from three kids dressed as superheroes in Llampha.
5.It was only a matter of time before the Gaffer would come for us.
By the time I had swallowed the little sick burp that had taken me by surprise, I knew we had to get going fast.
I gave Ben and Charlie a kick to wake them up.
Charlie sat up looking all confused. “You okay, Fred? You don’t look so great.”
I didn’t feel great, but I had to focus on practical things. “We need to go, right now.”
“Can’t we just—”
“No, we’re leaving, and we need to find a change of clothes.”
“You pee in your costume too?” Charlie asked.
“Ewww! No, I didn’t.”
Ben grinned at me. “It’s okay if you did. It was pretty scary.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t.” I might have done a teeny dribble, but he didn’t need to know that.
Charlie said, “No, me neither,” but I couldn’t help noticing a slightly darker patch around Spiderman’s crotch.
“We can sort out clothes later, but we need to get out of here, like, now.”
“What’s the rush?” Ben asked.
“If that guy tells anyone where he got that stolen ring, the Gaffer might come looking for us and it’s not like we’re difficult to spot. I don’t see many other kids dressed as superheroes around here.”
Ben’s face went pale. “I . . . I didn’t think of that.”
“Which is why we need to go.”
Charlie didn’t have to be told twice—he was up and pedaling before Ben had a chance to swing his leg over the saddle. Fortunately for Ben, it’s difficult to steer a tandem bike from the back seat, so Charlie didn’t get very far before he crashed to the ground.
Ben wasn’t happy that he’d been left behind. “You tried to leave me! You . . . you . . . abandoner!”
Charlie scrambled out from under the bike. “Sorry, dude, I panicked.”
Ben shook his head. “Maybe you could try and put that sort of effort into pedaling when we’re on a hill?”
We headed out of Llampha with no clear idea of where we were going, apart from as far away from the scene of the robbery as possible. Mrs. Walker probably would have considered this as failing to prepare.
After our initial high-speed burst, our pace dropped, and I took more notice of where we were headed. We kept to the small roads as I thought we’d have less chance of being noticed. And I was right. The roads got smaller and smaller until they were more like tracks. After about an hour of cycling deeper into the countryside, we hadn’t seen a soul. In fact, we didn’t come across any sign of life other than a lot of sheep. Naturally, Charlie thought every one he saw was Sheila.
I got a little worried, but I didn’t let on to Ben or Charlie that I hadn’t a clue where we were. After we cycled past some very familiar looking sheep for a third time, I had all the evidence I needed to prove we were pedaling in circles. I kept this nugget of information to myself for another half an hour but then my anxiety—and the chafing of Lycra, bottom flesh, and bicycle seat—became too much for me to bear. I pulled into a field to ’fess up to Charlie and Ben that we were completely and utterly lost in deepest darkest Wales.
I leaned my bike against a fence and slumped down onto the grass. My cape got caught on a nail and it strangled me. Being attacked by my own clothing was too much of an insult, so I pulled my cape off and tried to rip it. Whoever invented Lycra knew what they were doing—it is surprisingly hard to tear. That only made me angrier. I went into full-on tantrum mode. I threw it on the ground and jumped on it. Again and again.
Once I was certain that the cape was not going to attack me anymore, I picked it up and threw it over the hedge and then collapsed on the ground.
“Not your color?” Ben said as he sat down next to me.
“I think we should go home.” My words surprised me but as soon as they were out of my mouth, I knew I meant them. Everything was a disaster.
Ben nudged me gently with his shoulder. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I really do. We’re lost and miles from St. David’s, we’re probably being hunted by a criminal called the Gaffer, and our parents will ground us for life once they find out about all this, which they will.”
“I know—exciting, isn’t it?”
“That’s one word for it,” Charlie said.
Obviously, Ben had lost the plot. It wasn’t exciting. It was terrifying.
But Ben didn’t see it that way. “Fred, you can’t give up now.”
“Can’t I?”
“Look, it’s pretty obvious that finding Alan Froggley is important to you. And I don’t think you should give up on things that are important. Some people quit too easily. When thing
s get tough, they just up and disappear off to Spain.”
Ben was clearly working through some stuff of his own. I nudged him back with my shoulder. “You okay, mate?”
He picked up a stone and chucked it over the wall. Then he shook his head and gave me a weak smile. “Okay, so some of that was more about me, but still, you shouldn’t give up. Supergirl wouldn’t.”
“Oh, ha ha.” I sighed a really big sigh. “I don’t know, Ben. All the signs seem to be clearly telling us to quit before we die or end up in a juvenile detention center for the rest of our lives.”
“You can’t be in a juvenile detention center for the rest of your life. They’d move you to a grown-up facility at some point,” Charlie said.
“Not the time, Spidey,” Ben said and then fixed his eyes back on me. “Fred, come on, dude, what about the signs that are telling us we should keep going?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed when he said that. “You want to tell me what signs are telling us to keep going?”
“Look.” Ben pointed at Charlie.
“Charlie?”
Ben had this funny twinkly look in his eyes. “Not Charlie—look at what he’s eating.”
I still wasn’t getting it. But I was concerned that Charlie was already plowing through our reward candy from the shop. For all I knew they might have been our last meal before we starved to death in the Welsh wilds.
“But what is he eating?”
Ben wasn’t dropping it, so I said, “He’s demolishing our box of Freddo Frog bars.”
Ben’s smile grew wider. “Freddo Frogs. Don’t you see, Fred? That’s you. Freddo Froggley? It’s not a sign, it’s . . .” He paused and looked at Charlie. “How many in there, mate?”
Charlie turned the box around. “Sixty minus three . . . okay, minus six.”
“There are fifty-four signs that you, Freddo Frog, should continue on your quest to find your biological father.” Ben folded his arms and nodded triumphantly.
I think he wanted me to say something meaningful, but all I said was, “Freddie Froggley? Freddie Froggley?” like it was a question.
I couldn’t be Freddie Froggley. High school was going to be hard enough as it was with a regular name, let alone being named after Cadbury’s cheapest chocolate bar. But before I could get completely devastated by this bombshell, Ben jumped to his feet and began singing.
To start with, I thought, Why is he singing at a totally terrible time like this? And then I realized what he was singing. He was singing “One More Step Along the World I Go.” But instead of step he was singing hop and instead of traveling he sang ribbiting. Which I think was his attempt at some frog-based humor. I guess it was pretty funny.
It didn’t take long for Charlie to join in. It was a clever song choice by Ben—it was both personal and motivating. They pulled me to my feet and I sang along with them. When we finished the last verse, we started again and we danced around that field somewhere in South Wales singing and croaking and laughing until Charlie did a little bit of chocolate puke down his Spiderman costume. That was one bodily fluid too many. We really had to get a change of clothes.
20
We end up sleeping in a church and I learn facts about pigs and shrimp
Fueled by just over ten chocolate amphibians each and on aching bowed legs due to three cases of serious saddle-bottom, Ben and I pushed the bikes through a field of sheep while Charlie kept trying to spot Sheila. Ben thought he had seen a building. After we stood on top of a gate for a better look, Charlie and I decided Ben might be right. We hoped that a building might mean people, or a phone, or a change of clothes at least.
In reality the building meant pews, a font, and an organ. We’d found a church in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere.
“Three Saints Church,” Charlie read aloud.
The clock on the steeple told us it was five thirty. The day was disappearing, we were tired and seriously saddle-sore, so, like all good leaders, I made a decision. “Let’s see if we can stay here for the night. Get some rest and then start out again in the morning. What do you think?” I was worried about how they might react. After all, I was asking them to spend another night away from home and on the run from the Gaffer.
Charlie hugged me. He did not smell good, but I was so pleased he was okay with everything that I didn’t mention it and just breathed through my mouth.
“Fred, that sounds like a fantastic idea. My butt and that bike have fallen out big time.”
“I’m up for a rest,” Ben said and pushed the door open.
I followed him inside and called out, “Hello?” and crossed my fingers that there would be no answer.
My finger-crossing worked—the place was deserted. I felt the hairs on the back of my arms prickle under my Lycra. “It’s cold in here.”
“It is a little chilly,” Ben said, wrapping his cape around him. I wished I hadn’t lost my cool and stomped mine into the dirt.
I found a light switch and flicked it on. “Let’s take a look around.”
At the back of the church, near the door where we had come in, was a table covered in a white cloth. On it was a big leather-bound book that told the story of Three Saints Church.
I ran my finger along the writing. It was all twirly like Grams’s. “Says here Three Saints Church was built in 1766 in honor of three Welsh saints, Cian, Dynod, and Elvis—”
“Let me have a look.” Ben pushed in next to me. “There’s no way there was a Saint Elvis.”
I shoved him out of the way. “Whoever wrote this seemed to think there was. Now listen—Saint Cian was made a saint because he spoke nothing but the Lord’s words, day and night, for thirty years.”
“Bet he was popular,” Charlie said as he sat down in the last pew.
“Saint Dynod, well, he was a man of ample proportions. He was made a saint because he carried the villagers of Llampha to safety during the great flood.”
Charlie rested his chin on the back of the pew. “And Saint Elvis? What did he do?”
I skim-read Elvis’s entry because it was a huge passage that went on about the earth and soil and fertilization and seeds. “Basically, he was good at gardening.”
Charlie scoffed. “You can be a saint for being good at gardening?”
“Apparently so.”
“Why isn’t Mr. Bloom from that gardening show one then?”
“Well, maybe he will be when he’s dead,” Ben said.
I turned the page. “Hey, listen to this. The bodies of the Three Saints went missing from the crypt and were never found. When the bones were here, this church used to be a place of pilgrimage.”
“What’s ‘pilgrimage’ again?” Charlie asked.
I wasn’t sure, but I don’t like not knowing an answer, so I made an educated guess. “Something that pilgrims do?”
Charlie frowned. “Those tiny sardines?”
Ben laughed. “No, those are pilchards. Pilgrimage is when people go on a religious vacation. Like a resort but with more praying.”
“Exactly,” I said and continued reading. “When the Saints disappeared in the 1900s, so did the pilgrims. And the church kind of got forgotten about. That’s sad.”
“Poor church,” Charlie said, rubbing his pew.
Ben set off down the central aisle. “Come on, let’s go explore before Charlie forms too close a relationship with the furniture.”
At the far end was a table with a cross on it and a statue of Jesus. There were some steps up to the pulpit—that’s the place where the minister stands to talk at the congregation—and two rows of pews where the choir would sit. Charlie walked straight up the steps.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Only special people are allowed up there.”
Charlie grinned. “If Spiderman isn’t special, I don’t know who is.”
“No, seriously, don’t you have to be blessed by a priest or by God to be in that part of the church?”
“What do you think’s going to happen?”
&nb
sp; “You could be smited.”
“What’s that?”
I wasn’t one hundred percent certain but said, “When God strikes you down.”
“With what?”
“I dunno, something from the sky, like a lightning bolt.”
Out of nowhere a really loud, deep sound filled the church and I thought we might be getting a firsthand example of what smiting was.
Charlie leaped down the steps and grabbed me. I tried to dodge out of the way—if he was being smited for trespassing on holy ground I didn’t want him dangling off me. But I was too slow, and he ended up clinging onto my back like a baby chimpanzee. I spun around furiously to try and get him off. I only stopped spinning when I heard Ben laughing.
“Look at you two!”
And then another sound reverberated through the church. Different this time—almost jolly. Definitely familiar.
Ben was sitting at the church organ, playing his fourth year piano piece, “The Entertainer.”
I peeled Charlie off me. “Ben, cut it out, someone will hear!”
“Chill out, Fred. Who’s going to complain—a load of sheep? There’s no one around for miles.” He switched to “Chopsticks” and flashed me his scrunchy-face smile. Which really wound me up.
“Just quit messing around. And it’s a flock, fluff-for-brains.”
“What?”
“It’s a flock of sheep. Not a load.”
“Whatever, Bo Peep.” He wagged his head from side to side and then said, “It’s a flock,” in this high-pitched voice that was supposed to sound like mine but didn’t.
He hammered the keys harder and shouted over to Charlie, “Two parts?”
And then there were two of them banging away. When Charlie said, “Again from the top,” I got mad and left them to it. While they messed around, I was going to be useful and explore the church.
Halfway through a very clunky version of “Old MacDonald” I found a door that led into a little room. It was probably where the priest or minister went to do his private praying. Inside was a desk, a closet, and a cabinet. After a thorough search I had found the following items:
1.A big box of communion wafers with a best-before date of August 1998
The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates Page 10