The Shadow Thief

by Alexandra Adornetto

  Milli and Ernest had to wait an entire week before an opportunity to pilfer a phial presented itself. When it did, it was quite by accident. Out of sheer boredom, they were exploring the myriad corners of Hog House that were not barred to them. They wandered through the stone-flagged floors of the airy and spacious kitchens, where they encountered someone bashing an octopus on a marble table in order to tenderise it. Cooks in immaculate snow-white aprons kneaded dough and kicked impatiently at chooks that scampered underfoot. Milli and Ernest were particularly fascinated by the Wizard Washing Wheel, a device with rotating mechanical arms which dunked cutlery and crockery first into sudsy water, then clean water to rinse.

  They discovered the larder when a grumbling chef, brandishing a large butcher’s knife, pushed past them as he exited the room. Inside they found that the Mayors were big on pickling. Everything and anything that could be pickled had been. Ernest could not help thinking of Mr Mayor’s overworked secretary whose fears about the fate of his tongue now seemed not entirely unfounded. Whilst examining the assorted jars of condiments and spreads, the children were caught by a glowering Mrs Basilisk, who escorted them from the kitchen by their ears, threatening to set them to work sorting lentils should she find them in there again.

  Once at a safe distance from the clutches of Mrs Basilisk, their attention was drawn by the sound of music. Milli and Ernest followed it up a spiralling staircase, so narrow they had to climb single file. The staircase smelled badly of old socks and egg sandwiches, but it did lead unexpectedly to Gristle’s quarters, a turret in a secluded attic wing of the house. They came to a door that had been left ajar. Just inside it, propped against a wall, the sight of a club they had often seen Gristle carrying instantly gave Ernest second thoughts.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ he whispered.

  ‘Good or not, it’s the best chance we’ve got to get that phial,’ Milli replied and, taking a breath, she pushed the door open.

  They cringed as the terrible sound of opera singing swelled and ballooned around them. It came from a rickety gramophone on a stand. They almost had to turn back, so dizzying was the sound. It was like a fat lady about to throw herself off a cliff but wanting to make sure the world knew about it first. The shrill, mind-exploding notes bounced off the walls and hit them with the impact of cricket balls.

  The room itself was small and circular, made cosy by the warmth of embers burning in the grate of a small fireplace, and surprisingly clean and neat. An iron bedstead with a sagging mattress was pushed up under a tiny arched window, which, Milli suspected, was too small even to allow Gristle’s head to poke through. The room looked as if it had been designed to house an elf rather than the ogre-like Gristle. There was a rustic chair covered in a patched throw, and what looked like a child’s finger painting hung lopsided on the wall. Open on the windowsill, its pages fluttering in the breeze, sat a fat manual entitled Opera for Oafs.

  Another door led to an even more minuscule bathroom. Confident of total privacy, Gristle had also left this door ajar. Peeking through the crack, the children were met by a troubling sight. Almost bursting out of a tin tub and surrounded by a spume of bubbles sat Gristle! By his side, tea steamed from a fine china cup. They could see his face reflected in a foggy, heart-shaped mirror. Transported by the music, his eyes were shut and he wore a smile of contentment such as they had never seen on him before. A rubber duck bobbed beside him atop the sea of bubbles. A stone ledge displayed a surprising assortment of bathing accessories: a giant pumice stone, a scrubbing brush hanging from a rope, a bowl of fizzing bath bombs, a slick and expensive-looking shaving kit and a flagon of Banana Bliss Bubble Bath.

  Gristle sang along with the record as he scrubbed himself, pausing occasionally to use the brush as a conductor’s baton. So this was the private sanctuary Gristle disappeared to between the hours of six and seven every night, the only time of the day when he was carefree. Under different circumstances the children might have laughed, but they were far too conscious of the consequences should their presence be discovered.

  ‘Over there!’ Milli mimed, spying the pair of boots sitting just inside the bathroom door. They could just glimpse the glass stopper of the phial protruding beneath the tongue of one boot. Keeping an eye on Gristle’s shaggy back, Milli knelt on the floor, reached out a tentative hand and carefully lifted the phial from its hiding place. Quick as a whip, she withdrew the stopper and transferred its contents into an empty bottle labelled ‘Midnight Hags’, helpfully supplied by Nettle. She handed it to Ernest and returned the phial to its sweaty hiding place, trying hard to avoid contact with the boot itself.

  The children were so pleased with their achievement, they did not hear the sloshing of water as Gristle emerged from the tub. The bathroom door flew open and there, in a fluffy bathrobe and bunny slippers, stood Gristle. For a few minutes they stared at each other in stunned silence. Luckily, Ernest had had the wherewithal to whisk the bottle behind his back and tuck it into the belt of his trousers.

  ‘We’re terribly sorry, we didn’t mean to intrude,’ Ernest stammered, edging backwards.

  ‘We were just playing hide and seek and got lost,’ Milli added. Looking more embarrassed than angry, Gristle bent down so his face was level with theirs.

  ‘Games,’ he growled, advancing towards them, ‘belong in the nursery.’

  Racing from the angry ogre the children tore down the tower steps and dared not stop until they had to catch their breath. Using their newly acquired phial they opened the nearest door and found refuge in the library of Hog House. This sombre and airless room with vaulted ceilings housed numberless tomes on its cobwebby shelves. The shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling. Dust motes floated in the shafts of sunlight that sliced through clerestory windows, candles dribbled wax and the silence was deafening.

  Milli approached a shelf and lifted a thick volume. When she tried to open it she found the cover was locked. There was no blurb, author’s name or date of publication. Only the title flickered on the cover: World Domination Made Easy. The others had equally menacing titles: Time and Tyranny; Making Crime Pay; How to Control the World and Make Friends in Six Easy Steps; Never Underestimate the Pleasure of Power; and The Art of Sham. In another section, Ernest discovered more bewitching titles: Madame Zinkwit’s Magical Mothball Remedies; One Hundred and Seven Uses for Spider Eggs; and Sprout Wings with Matilda Smiggle’s Beetle Broth. None were much use with their contents locked.

  They were just replacing Tinctures to Cure All Skin Conditions when they noticed a light coming from behind one of the shelves. They considered a hasty retreat but a compulsion drew them forwards. With pounding hearts they gently slid several volumes from their places in order to investigate further. Peeping through the gap revealed the danger of their discovery! They had stumbled upon the prestidigitator at work in his sanctum. If you think about it, this mouthful of a word (try saying prestidigitator aloud), works perfectly to encapsulate the work of a conjuror by combining the ideas of hey presto and digits.

  Lord Aldor’s workroom was a dim and narrow galley littered with all manner of gruesome specimens. A tortoise hung from the rafters. A gorilla’s palm served as an ashtray and beside it sat a pair of ears that had once belonged to a fluffy dog. A chunk of raw liver wobbled on a silver platter. Dirty Petri dishes (their contents crystallised) as well as other scientific implements cluttered a marble bench.

  Lord Aldor himself was facing the children and bent over his work of casually impaling Christmas Beetles onto fishing wire. Occasionally, he snacked from a heaped bowl of what appeared to be ribbed, gelatinous confectionery. Simultaneously the children took a step backwards. But before they could retreat unnoticed from the grisly scene, Lord Aldor’s head suddenly snapped to attention. Looking directly at them, he picked up the bowl of transparent jellies, which they now saw were a languidly wriggling mass.

  ‘Larvae, anyone?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Sky’s the Limit

&
nbsp; Days passed and the spectacular sights offered by Hog House came to feel familiar. On more than one occasion, the children wondered if they were destined to live out the rest of their days in idle luxury. The responsibility of helping the others weighed heavily with them but what could they hope to achieve with so little to guide them? Milli and Ernest spent many restless hours trying to unravel the mystery surrounding the shadows. There was no one to answer their questions or explain Lord Aldor’s intentions. It was at these times that they especially missed the predictability of their old lives in Drabville (which did not seem nearly as monotonous now) and the sensible advice adults there could always be relied upon to offer. Then there was the question of the shadows that had reunited with their owners only to be imprisoned in the dungeons of Hog House. Milli and Ernest knew that if they were going to help the prisoners escape, such a plan would rely wholly on their ingenuity and inventiveness. So far they had had little opportunity to display either. Instead, they spent long hours at play in the nursery discovering the workings of some new gadget or in the dining room sampling some new gastronomic delight.

  It seemed that whenever they tried to gather clues, Lord Aldor was watching them. When they snuck into the gardens to confer with Rosie and Leo, he was perched on a bench smiling his sardonic smile. When they crept down to the dungeons to smuggle treats to their hungry friends, he appeared out of thin air, seemingly bent on exposing their plans. When they arranged to meet Nettle in the room with the birdbath, he was waiting by the door and Milli and Ernest were forced to saunter casually past, pretending to be headed elsewhere. With every day that passed, they grew more and more despondent, until one day, out of the blue, came a breakthrough.

  The children were reading quietly in their nursery when Nettle arrived and announced that Lord Aldor would be departing on important business the very next morning. Mr and Mrs Mayor had been expected to accompany him, but had decided at the last minute that they could not bear to leave their precious charges, Crumpet and Gumm. Although homesick, the children were not having such a terrible time being Crumpet and Gumm. They had a mansion to explore, feasts every night, doting guardians, and friends in Nettle and the prisoners. But the knowledge that they were confined to the grounds of Hog House kept Milli and Ernest on task. Despite the luxuries they had been given, the house was still a prison, albeit an opulent one, and they were forced to watch their friends robbed of both freedom and dignity.

  Milli could scarcely conceal her excitement as she watched Gristle speeding Lord Aldor away in the long grey car, leaving a cloud of dust behind them. Not only were they temporarily free of Lord Aldor’s oppressive presence, but the magnanimous Mayors were off attending the opening of a conservatorium in Drabville and would be busy with official duties for most of the morning.

  ‘It’s time to get down to business,’ Milli said decisively, rubbing her hands together.

  ‘If it’s all the same to you,’ Ernest said, ‘I think I’ve had enough for one day. I might just have an early night.’

  ‘It’s midday,’ Milli reminded him. ‘Anyway we can’t give up now.’

  Ernest half-wished that Mrs Mayor was around to whisk Milli off for a hot stone massage. He felt he was betraying a loyalty, even though, being a very intelligent boy, he knew this loyalty was misplaced.

  ‘Mr Mayor would readily sell off your organs if he thought it was in his best interest,’ Milli assured him. Then she set off so determinedly towards Mr Mayor’s study that Ernest had no choice but to follow her. They had decided on this room as the place to begin their search through the simple process of deduction (which just means that when they looked around them they could find no better option). As Lord Aldor’s lackey, Mr Mayor would more than likely have access to important information even if he didn’t fully understand it.

  Milli gave a sharp tap on the study door. A moment later it opened just a crack, enough for the children to discern the distinctive black bill of one very edgy flamingo. Despite having been warned about the slightly unconventional secretary, Milli was still taken aback to see a bird wearing a pince-nez and a spotted tie. But it is amazing how adaptable we children can be because in no time at all she was chatting away to him as if he were an old chum.

  ‘You must be Milliplop Klobberit,’ the flamingo said reverentially. ‘Come in, come in.’

  When the children were safely inside, he bolted the door behind them and glanced fearfully around, as if he expected Mr Mayor to leap out at any moment, barking impossible deadlines.

  ‘Everyone’s out for the day,’ Ernest said gently, ‘you’ve got nothing to worry about. Right, Milli?’

  Milli didn’t answer. She was standing with her hands on her hips, sizing up the filing cabinets towering above her. She didn’t look awestruck, only more dogged to defeat another of the obstacles standing between her and escape.

  ‘Where are the secret files then?’ she promptly asked the flamingo.

  ‘The what?’ he stuttered.

  ‘The secret files,’ Milli repeated. ‘Surely you must know this office better than anyone.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about any secret files…I’m not privy to that kind of information,’ he faltered, ‘but there are some…Oh, I mustn’t. I’ll be terminated!’

  ‘Listen.’ Milli knelt down by the quivering bird. A pile of pink feathers already lay scattered at his feet and the down on his head was trembling terribly. ‘Ernest and I want to help you get out of here. But first you need to help us.’

  The flamingo seemed to understand the importance of their mission and, taking a great gulp of air, nodded in consent.

  ‘There are some files even I don’t have the key to.’

  ‘We expected that might be the case,’ Milli said, as she pulled and held aloft the bottle of scent from her pocket. Ever since their encounter with Gristle in the tower, she had carried it around with her, waiting for an occasion to put it to use.

  ‘Very well then,’ the flamingo complied, looking as though he had made a deal with the devil, ‘but if anyone asks, my involvement in this treacherous scheme was absolutely zilch. In fact, I did all I could to keep you from the secret files, but I was outnumbered. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’ Milli’s mischievous grin did nothing to settle the flamingo’s nerves.

  He beckoned the children towards the cherry picker, which, up close, looked rather unstable. Ernest’s spirits sank to his toes. With his feet on the floor Ernest believed he could be of some use, but when unnerved—as he was by heights—he had the tendency to squeal like a trapped rabbit or, as Milli enjoyed telling him, like a little girl. He had hoped that for once luck might be on his side and the files would be at ground level. But Ernest remembered, as if it were only yesterday, stepping on that split acorn four years ago. It meant he still had another two years of misfortune to go before it ran out.

  The cherry picker strained and rocked unsteadily as it ascended. After about five minutes of a faltering climb, Ernest began to feel queasy. They still could not see the ceiling, and now they could not see the floor either.

  ‘Don’t look down,’ Milli advised as Ernest turned a sickly shade of cabbage green. She wasn’t enjoying the bumpy ride much herself, but knew better than to express reservations in front of Ernest.

  At long last, the cherry picker jolted to a halt. The children looked down at the abyss the study had been transformed into beneath them.

  The cabinet they had stopped in front of was dishearteningly ordinary and certainly did not look as if it could contain classified information. The only difference between it and the other cabinets was that its contents were secured behind a heavy red padlock. Purposefully, Milli aimed the phial at the keyhole, squirted and watched as the padlock fell away and rocketed downwards. Although they listened keenly, such was their altitude that they did not even hear it hit the floor.

  The interior of the cabinet was long and hollow and the children felt thwarted to find it contained only one solitary box folder. The gap between the cher
ry picker and the cabinet seemed to grow enormously when Milli leaned over to retrieve their discovery. For one terrifying moment the cherry picker lurched and Milli found herself hanging perilously forward. Luckily, the flamingo, who had plenty of experience in such emergencies, behaved rather like an air hostess on board a plane entering turbulence. He used his tie like a lasso to steady Milli whilst at the same time patted Ernest reassuringly on his head. Once the folder was tucked securely under Milli’s arm, the flamingo fiddled with the stiff gears of the cherry picker and they began their unsteady descent.

  Having returned to the safety of ground level, the children made themselves comfortable in Mr Mayor’s wide leather desk chair. They sat rigid while the flamingo hovered anxiously around the door listening for any approaching footsteps. The tension in the air was palpable. The folder’s bland exterior had taken on an air of malevolence and all three of them were bursting with suspense. But they were in for a big disappointment. Two disappointments to be exact. The first was that inside the folder lay a single sheet of paper. For their efforts, the children had been expecting a hefty stack of documents. But as everyone knows, life is unfair, and I still have not told you the second disappointment.

  ‘Patterns!’ cried Ernest in dismay. ‘Flipping patterns!’

  The paper was indeed scrawled all over with squiggly, wiggly, higgledy-piggledy lines, not dissimilar to those made by a computer gone haywire. It was completely indecipherable. Was it a hoax? Had they been led down the garden path or did the file really contain the information they needed? They looked at each other in dismay as they struggled for suggestions.