The Key to Rondo

by Emily Rodda

  ‘Only because you were practically a dead weight!’ Mimi raged, stamping her foot. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have dropped like a stone and broken your neck. You’d be lying dead in the forest right now, with tigers chewing on your bones. I told you to stop thinking! I told you! But oh, no!’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking!’ Leo yelled, jumping up. ‘And it’s lucky for you I can’t! Where would you be now if it wasn’t for me? With Spoiler in the Blue Queen’s castle, that’s where you’d be! In chains in a dungeon or something waiting to be sucked dry!’

  Mimi’s lips suddenly twitched. ‘Hanging upside down by my ankles?’ she suggested dryly, looking at him sideways. ‘With savage rats nibbling at my fingernails?’

  Leo’s own lips twitched. He couldn’t help it. ‘Dots, more like it,’ he said. ‘Thousands of savage dots.’

  Mimi nodded solemnly. ‘Sounds bad,’ she said.

  ‘Lying dead in the forest being eaten by tigers doesn’t sound too good either,’ said Leo. ‘So – we’d better stay together. It looks like we need each other. You’ve got straw in your hair, by the way.’

  ‘So have you,’ Mimi said.

  ‘Ahem!’

  The cough had come from right behind them. They whirled around…

  And met the small, angry eyes of a huge pink pig in a flower-laden hat.

  Chapter 16

  Bertha

  ‘And what are you doing here, may I ask?’ the pig said grandly, tossing back the ribbons of her hat.

  Staring at her, astounded, two plans popped into Leo’s mind at once. The first, and simplest, was to run. He considered this briefly, and discarded it. Even if he could outrun an angry pig, it was unlikely that Mimi could.

  That left the second plan. He hoped it would work.

  ‘This farm is Private Property. You flew in without invitation. Therefore, you are Trespassers!’ said the pig. She frowned ferociously and pawed the ground.

  ‘We didn’t mean to fly in here,’ Mimi began angrily. ‘It was a mistake. You don’t have to be so –’ She broke off with a squeak as Leo nudged her violently.

  ‘I shall now call my employer, Farmer Jack Macdonald, and he will Deal with you!’ said the pig. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to yell.

  Leo quickly stepped forward. ‘Lady Bertha,’ he said respectfully, bowing low.

  Mimi gaped at him.

  The pig closed her mouth, drew back a little, and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Oh, you recognise me!’ she simpered, glancing at her reflection in the large water trough that stood beside her and adjusting her ribbons self-consciously. ‘Lawks-a-daisy, how very embarrassing! I’m not all that famous!’

  ‘How could I fail to recognise you?’ Leo asked, with perfect truth since Bertha’s hat, and Bertha herself, had been indelibly imprinted on his memory in the first floor hallway of the Black Sheep.

  ‘Oh,’ tittered Bertha, blushing deeply. ‘So – you’ve seen my pictures, I gather? Do you go to the Art Gallery often?’

  ‘Oh, no – not really,’ stammered Leo, deciding that it wasn’t up to him to explain to Bertha that not a single one of Jolly’s portraits of her had been accepted by Monsieur Rouge-et-Noir. ‘Actually, I saw some paintings of you at the Black Sheep. We’ve just come from there, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Have you!’ exclaimed Bertha with great interest. ‘Then you know my artist, Jolly! I suppose he told you where I lived, the naughty boy! So – you liked my paintings and you wanted to see me in person?’ She cast down her eyelids demurely.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Leo fervently. ‘I knew that paintings could only be – um – pale reflections of your – your beauty. I couldn’t wait to meet you!’

  This was not the truth but it had a very good effect on Bertha, who by now was almost wriggling with pleasure.

  ‘Leo!’ Mimi muttered in disgust. ‘How can you –’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Leo, raising his voice, ‘we were so keen to see you that we intruded on your privacy. When you tell Farmer Macdonald, he’ll probably call the police and have us taken straight to gaol.’

  Mimi’s indignant protests died in her throat. If Bertha told Farmer Macdonald they were here … if Macdonald told Officer Begood … Before they knew it they would be back in town, not only in deep trouble, but as far away from saving Mutt as ever.

  She clasped her hands nervously, quite accidentally looking exactly like an anxious fan.

  Bertha nodded to her graciously. ‘Don’t blame yourself too much, dear,’ she said. ‘We all make mistakes. But I’m sure you understand that I can’t overlook this. I have my job to do.’

  ‘Of course,’ Leo said, bowing his head. ‘But before you give us up to the law … could we have your autograph?’

  ‘My autograph?’ Bertha breathed, clearly thrilled. ‘Why, of course! It’s the least I can do when you’ve come so far.’

  She wagged her head this way and that, tossing her ribbons in confusion. ‘But I don’t think I have a pen,’ she murmured. ‘I mean, I usually carry a pen for autographs, naturally, but I just can’t find it at the moment. Silly me!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Leo, looking disappointed. ‘I don’t have a pen either. What a shame. Look, you wait here, and we’ll run and get one.’

  Bertha frowned in thought. Leo held his breath.

  ‘Hoy! Bertha!’ roared a voice from behind the barn. ‘Where are you?’

  Bertha jumped guiltily and looked over her shoulder.

  ‘It’s Farmer Macdonald,’ she whispered rapidly. ‘Quick! Get under that pile of straw. We’ll talk about the autograph after he’s gone. He’s – well, I’m afraid he doesn’t understand the pressures of being a star.’

  Leo and Mimi dived into the straw, wriggling into it until they were well covered. The straw was prickly and smelled strongly of pig.

  ‘Here I am, Farmer M,’ Bertha called in a lilting voice. ‘Here, by the water trough.’

  ‘Admiring yourself as usual, I suppose,’ shouted the farmer, who seemed to be in a very bad temper. ‘Primping and preening. Ah, I never should have let Jolly paint you. Ruined you, he has!’

  Leo and Mimi heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching and shrank further into the straw.

  ‘I was not primping and preening, for your information,’ Bertha said haughtily. ‘As a matter of fact, I was –’

  Leo held his breath. Bertha was going to give them away, he knew it. Cautiously, he moved a little of the straw aside. He had to see what was going on.

  Bertha was looking very ruffled. Her hat was slightly askew and a red poppy was nodding over her left eye. All Leo could see of Farmer Macdonald was a large pair of mud-spattered black boots.

  ‘Call yourself a watch-pig!’ the owner of the boots roared. ‘The barn’s crawling with dots! They got through that broken window. They’ve made off with two bags of wheat, a churn of milk and a dozen eggs already. The rooster’s exhausted himself trying to catch them. Now he’s lying down with his feet in the air, dots running all over him, and the hens having hysterics!’

  The black boots stamped the ground furiously.

  ‘As if I haven’t got enough on my hands with all this quake damage to see to!’ the angry voice raged on. ‘Fences down! Windows broken! The wife’s prize garden ruined! A whole batch of cider spilt and my brother screaming for more supplies in town! Dots stealing everything that isn’t nailed down! And where are you? Staring at your reflection in the water trough! Bah!’

  Bertha tossed back her ribbons. ‘I was not employed to chase dots!’ she said disdainfully. ‘I was employed to protect the farm from Wolves. My extensive experience –’

  ‘Dots to your experience!’ shouted the farmer rudely. ‘You get in there and clear out those pests, you fat, conceited lump, or I’ll find a pig who can and send you packing!’

  ‘Yoo-hoo! Jack!’ a woman shrieked, from the direction of the farmhouse. ‘Another mouse has come from Jolly. It’s waiting for a reply. What will I say?’

  The farme
r swore violently. ‘Coming, Mary!’ he yelled. The boots turned and stomped away.

  ‘How dare you!’ squealed Bertha as the sound of footsteps faded.

  Leo and Mimi crawled out of the straw. Bertha swung round to face them, her small blue eyes filled with furious tears.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded in a choked voice. ‘Did you hear what he said to me?’

  ‘He was only –’ Mimi began.

  ‘He wasn’t very understanding,’ Leo said quickly, drowning her out.

  ‘He’s – a brute!’ sobbed Bertha. ‘After all I’ve done for him! Why, I’ve made his farm famous! Of all the ungrateful, insensitive …’ She broke off with a wail, and turned to gulp some water from the trough.

  When she turned around again, she seemed to have herself more under control. She gave a huge sniff and pushed the red poppy out of her eye with a trotter that trembled only slightly.

  ‘Well, that’s the end,’ she said. ‘He’s gone too far this time. Come on!’

  She set off rapidly across the field, heading for the road that ran beside the forest. Leo and Mimi hurried after her, continually glancing over their shoulders in case Farmer Macdonald reappeared.

  ‘Where are you going, Bertha?’ Mimi panted, as they reached the half-collapsed fence.

  ‘I’m leaving!’ snapped Bertha, casually putting her shoulder to the fence and pushing it over completely. ‘I’m not staying here to be insulted.’

  She stormed out onto the road, trampling the fence flat and kicking aside a cracked sign that read Beware Of The Pig.

  ‘I’m going to town, where I’m appreciated and where my talent can flower!’ she declared. ‘I’ll go straight to Jolly. He’ll be furious when he hears how his brother has treated me.’

  Leo thought rapidly. He remembered the forest side of the music box well enough to know that Bertha would have to turn right if she was going to walk to the town. He instantly decided that he and Mimi would turn left. Mimi certainly wouldn’t object. Leo was sure that she didn’t want to stay in Bertha’s company any more than he did, and if they turned left they would be heading directly for the Blue Queen’s domain.

  That was unfortunate, but he told himself it didn’t really matter. The Blue Queen’s castle was far away, and surely he’d be able to convince Mimi to give up and take them both home long before they got there.

  ‘We go left,’ he murmured. Mimi nodded eagerly.

  Before they could say anything to Bertha, however, she turned left herself and began trotting briskly towards the distant hills. Wondering what she was doing, they hurried after her.

  ‘It’s just lucky that as well as being a famous artist, Jolly also owns the Black Sheep,’ Bertha called back to them over her shoulder. ‘He’ll be only too pleased to give me food and lodging in return for free modelling. It’ll be just till I’m on my feet, of course. Then I’ll get a little place of my own. Somewhere near the Art Gallery, perhaps. I’m very well-known there.’

  ‘Bertha,’ Leo began, running to catch up with her, ‘are you sure –?’

  ‘I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life!’ Bertha snapped, shooting a cross look in his direction. ‘I’m going to town, and that’s all there is to it!’

  ‘But you’re going the wrong way,’ panted Mimi, who was having trouble keeping up.

  Bertha stopped short. ‘No, I’m not!’ she exclaimed. ‘Jolly always comes from this direction when he visits me.’ She frowned. ‘And you must have come the same way yourselves, if you came from the tavern,’ she added suspiciously. ‘Weren’t you telling the truth about that?’

  ‘Of course we were,’ Leo said quickly. ‘But we came – um – out of the forest.’

  ‘Well, of course you did!’ said Bertha impatiently. ‘Jolly’s Gap ends in Flitter Wood, doesn’t it? But Jolly always moves onto the road as soon as he can. He’s not keen on travelling through the forest. There are some very strange people in there, you know. And tigers. And bears. Not to mention the wolves, of course.’

  She pushed the red poppy out of her eye and started walking again. ‘It’s such a pity Jolly’s Gap ends there,’ she added, as Mimi and Leo hurried after her. ‘But, as Jolly says, it’s very convenient to have your own, personal Gap, wherever it ends up. He always keeps the door locked, of course. Only three or four wolves and one small bear have ever got through to the Black Sheep since he’s owned it. And the tigers don’t really bother.’

  She sighed. ‘I daresay I’ll have to knock for ages before Jolly hears me and lets me in. My nails will be ruined!’

  ‘Oh!’ Leo gasped, suddenly understanding. ‘The Gap! The misty tunnel in the tavern broom cupboard! You mean – Jolly uses it when he comes to paint you?’

  ‘Well, of course!’ said Bertha, blinking at him in surprise. ‘He’d hardly travel overland, would he? It would take days and days! He gets all his supplies from the farm through the Gap, too. It’s awfully handy for him.’

  ‘Yes, it would be,’ murmured Leo.

  ‘Of course, he usually keeps very quiet about it,’ Bertha went on. ‘He wouldn’t want just anyone using it – turning his first floor into a bus station, as he puts it. Sweet wrappers on the floor, and marks on the walls, and so on.’ She wrinkled her nose fastidiously. ‘And if someone got eaten in the forest, well, Jolly might be held responsible, mightn’t he? But obviously he felt he could trust you, being such huge fans of mine.’

  ‘Oh – yes!’ chorused Leo and Mimi weakly.

  As Bertha set off again they hurried after her, darting looks at one another, their eyes full of unspoken questions.

  How had Conker found out about Jolly’s Gap? By accident, during a dot hunt? Or had Jolly told Conker about it, maybe when he needed help carrying a load of cider or potatoes from the farm down to the storeroom? Did Jolly have any idea that Conker was in league with Spoiler, and was using the Gap for evil purposes of his own?

  And what was the Gap anyway? From what Bertha had said, it sounded as if it wasn’t the only one of its kind in this strange world.

  Soon the white fences of Macdonald’s farm were behind them. The forest loomed beside them, dark, secret and forbidding.

  Leo found himself becoming increasingly nervous. Every minute he expected Conker, Freda and the mysterious woman called Tye to jump out at them from the whispering darkness.

  Think about something else, he told himself. Do something useful, like working out where we are.

  He tried to remember the details of the picture on the side of the music box. He had a feeling that there was a village somewhere ahead – a small place, bright with sunflowers.

  If I’m right, it’ll be on the left, he thought. We should get to it soon. And suddenly he thought of the music box sitting on his desk in his room. If someone looked at it now they would see three tiny figures on the forest road – a boy, a girl and a pink pig wearing a hat.

  Not long afterwards, just past a bend in the road, they came to the village. It wasn’t at all what Leo had expected. Grass and berry bushes grew among the burned-out ruins of houses and sheds. Dots skittered furtively in the abandoned vegetable gardens where towering sunflowers grew wild.

  ‘I remember this place,’ Mimi murmured in Leo’s ear. ‘I remember the sunflowers. But I’ve never looked at it closely. I didn’t realise it was a ruin.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Leo whispered back. He raised his voice. ‘I wonder what happened here, Bertha?’

  ‘Oh, it probably happened in the Dark Time,’ Bertha said carelessly. ‘Strange that the people didn’t come back and rebuild their houses, but there you are. Sometimes it’s just too much trouble – as I know only too well myself.’

  She moved across the road to where a path marked with wagon tracks wound away into the forest. ‘Is this where we turn off for the Gap?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah –’ said Leo. ‘Well, I’m not really sure. We …’ He debated how much to tell Bertha, and decided to keep it simple. ‘We got lost in the forest,’ he went on. ‘So we don�
�t know exactly where the Gap is any more.’

  ‘What?’ screeched Bertha, stopping so abruptly that her trotters dug deeply into the dirt of the road. ‘You don’t know? But – but that was the whole idea! You were going to lead me to the Gap! Oh, I can’t believe this!’

  ‘We never said we knew where the Gap was!’ Mimi broke in crossly. ‘We never promised to lead you anywhere! You can’t blame us!’

  Bertha’s eyes narrowed. ‘I certainly can blame you!’ she squealed, her voice rising alarmingly. ‘You tricked me!’

  She was panting with rage. Any moment she’s going to yell for help, and Conker and Tye will hear her for sure, Leo thought. Frantically he flapped his hand at Mimi to warn her not to say anything else.

  ‘You – you vipers!’ wailed Bertha. ‘I’ve worn my trotters to the bone walking along this horrible, dusty road because I thought I could trust you! And now –’

  ‘Wait!’ Leo said quickly. ‘We’re a bit – confused, that’s all. Look, this probably is the path to the Gap. It looks as though it’s used quite often. Let’s try it, anyway. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Mimi muttered darkly. ‘What if Conker, and that Tye person, and that crazy duck are in there, waiting for us?’

  But Bertha had already snorted and lumbered onto the path. Helplessly, not knowing what else to do to avoid a scene, they followed.

  Chapter 17

  The Cottage in the Wood

  The path through the forest was broad, and very winding. Tall trees rose on either side of it, their leaves whispering softly in the breeze. Flowers and blue butterflies made bright splashes of colour beneath the trees, birds sang, and there was the gurgling, rippling sound of running water. Leo could hear a faint tapping noise too, as if somewhere nearby a large bird was pecking at a tree-trunk, looking for grubs.

  Bertha stomped along, fuming. Leo and Mimi crept cautiously behind her, their eyes darting everywhere.

  ‘There aren’t many ferns around,’ Mimi murmured to Leo after they’d been walking for a few minutes. ‘And the stream doesn’t sound the same as it did in Flitter Wood – it sounds as if the water’s deeper here. I don’t think this is the right path.’