by Alex English
But Horace was too busy staring through the binoculars to answer. As he passed them to Echo, she took in his terrified face and softened. ‘He can’t know you’re in here,’ she said. ‘He won’t actually shoot at us, like you said.’
But, as she put them to her eyes, she saw that slowly, very slowly, the guards were turning the cannon to face them, its mouth a gaping black hole. A fourth guard staggered forward with a huge cannonball in his arms.
‘Quick, Professor, fly!’ she shouted.
‘Change of plan! Port Tourbillon it is! Hold tight!’ yelled the professor and the little airship surged forward.
Echo staggered sideways and Horace grabbed on to a nearby pipe as the airship tore out of the crater.
The professor held the wheel steady, murmuring to himself as he adjusted levers and turned dials.
The Hummerbird soared upwards, making Echo’s stomach lurch. Something large and bright whistled past and exploded beneath them with a dull boom. Horace let out a yelp and fell into a cupboard. Echo held tight to the pipework, Gilbert clinging to her neck and hiding his head in her hair. The professor flicked switches, his brow creased in concentration.
Echo scrambled into the co-pilot’s seat and glanced back at Horace, who had crawled back out of the cupboard with a look of utter horror on his face. ‘He’s . . . he’s shooting at us!’ he whimpered.
‘Probably just a warning shot,’ said the professor, rubbing his nose and studying the controls intently. ‘No need to panic.’
‘Yes,’ said Echo, with fake brightness. ‘I’m sure they weren’t really trying to hit us, Horace. Look, sit here.’ She shuffled to the left and made room for him.
Horace wedged himself in next to her and stared listlessly out of the window.
Echo cast a sideways glance at him and found his face so miserable that her insides swirled with guilt. He hadn’t wanted any of this. He hadn’t known what her plans were. And, whatever she might have said earlier about the Lockfort guards not trying to hit the little ship, she was pretty sure King Alfons had been aiming straight at them. She turned back to search the horizon for a glimpse of the world beyond the mist, but ahead of them was just an endless grey emptiness, and the bare, rocky terrain of the Barren spread out as far as she could see.
‘Are we safe?’ said Echo, as the boom of the cannon faded into the distance.
The professor nodded. ‘Yes, we must be out of range by now.’ He ran both hands through his hair. ‘Oh dear, we are in a pickle though. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get you two back home after all. Not for the moment anyway. Those rumours about Lockfortians being inhospitable are certainly true!’ He cleared his throat. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
‘Let’s get to Port Tourbillon,’ said Echo. ‘To . . . to fix your airship. It would be risky to try to sneak back to Lockfort with the balloon all patched up, wouldn’t it?’
The professor nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, yes . . .’
‘And we could stay with you. Just for a couple of days until the king cools down.’
The professor opened and closed his mouth, then gawped at them as if they were strange specimens in a jar. ‘I don’t really know how to look after children.’
‘We’ll look after ourselves,’ said Echo. ‘We won’t be any trouble at all. Will we, Horace?’
Horace, who was still looking rather green, gave a glum shrug.
‘I suppose it’s the only course of action,’ said the professor, looking slightly dazed by the turn of events. He took in Horace’s pale face and suddenly clapped his hands together. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m parched. Who’s for a nice cup of sweet tea?’
The professor jumped up and pulled a nearby lever. A little copper table unfurled neatly from the wall. He found a kettle rolling about on the floor and filled it from a tank of water stowed behind the entrance ladder. ‘Now, I’ll need some assistance with this. Safety first and all that.’ He strode to the rear of the aircraft, popped open a porthole and began to wriggle out.
‘What are you doing?’ yelped Horace, over the hum of the engine.
The professor chuckled and shouted back over his shoulder, ‘The engine’s the hottest part of the ship. Perfect for boiling kettles on. Grab my boots, will you?’
Horace and Echo looked at each other, then took a boot each and held on tightly as Professor Daggerwing dangled out of the porthole to balance the kettle on the engine exhaust.
A minute later, Echo and Horace hauled the professor and a steaming kettle of water back into the Hummerbird, where the professor found a teapot and passed round cups of the strong brew.
‘I’m afraid I’m all out of cake,’ he said, riffling through the cupboards. ‘I got rather peckish on the journey over, you see. However, I do have these.’ He brandished a large jar. ‘Anyone for a pickled squibnut?’
‘A pickled what?’ said Horace, looking horrified.
‘I’m all out of pickled lily livers,’ said the professor. ‘I do have pickled sweetroots, but I tend to save those for dire emergencies. They are a rather, er, acquired taste.’
‘Do you have anything that isn’t pickled?’ asked Echo.
‘I’m afraid not.’ The professor searched his shelves. ‘Anyway, pickles are an explorer’s best friend.’
‘They are?’ said Horace, wrinkling his nose.
The professor threw his head back and broke into song:
‘Oh, pickles are not fickle, they will always be your friend,
And, when I’m in a pickle, on a pickle I depend!
Oh, they won’t wilt or wither, they stay scrumptious in their jar,
Preserved for years and years and years with lots of vin-e-gar!’
Echo gaped in amazement at the professor’s unexpected musical outburst, almost spilling the cup of hot tea she was holding. Then she broke into a grin. Professor Daggerwing was different from anyone in Lockfort, that was for certain. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’ll try a squibnut.’
She nervously bit into the slippery little nut, which was rather like chewing a dried-up, vinegary slug. Echo was hungry after the evening’s adventures though, so she gulped several handfuls, swilling them down with the dregs of her tea.
Gilbert slurped some tea from her saucer, but took one bite of the squibnut, turned green and shivered in a way that suggested he was not a fan at all. Horace wouldn’t even try one.
‘How are they?’ asked the professor.
‘Er . . . vinegary,’ said Echo. ‘Very vinegary.’
‘Vinegar is one of nature’s wonders,’ said the professor. ‘A natural weedkiller. I often use it to keep the blondweed at bay in my window boxes when I’ve got any left over from pickling. It’s marvellous stuff.’
‘Do you live in Port Tourbillon?’ asked Echo, trying to imagine what sort of house the professor’s window boxes might be attached to.
‘Why, yes. Although I do spend a lot of time in the skies, of course, exploring and documenting. The Explorers’ Guild will be astonished when I tell them about Lockfort! I do believe I’m the first person from outside to have set foot in the city since the Great War.’
‘But why?’
‘After the Great War, it was agreed that Lockfort would be a no-fly zone. Of course, this was all more than a hundred years ago.’ He unfurled the map and pointed to the redinked words Terra Pericolosa. ‘It’s considered dangerous lands. Although it seems that on your maps the outside world has been entirely erased.’
‘That’s because it doesn’t exist,’ said Horace, folding his arms. ‘All Lockfort’s enemies were defeated during the Great War. Nothing was left except the Barren. That’s what really happened.’
‘I know that’s what they’ve told us,’ said Echo, thinking back to her lesson with Miss Brittle, ‘but I think they’re wrong.’
Horace shook his head. ‘I don’t believe any of it. It can’t be true.’
‘Now, now, let’s not argue,’ said the professor. ‘Horace will see soon enough. We’re all
tired,’ he added, as Echo stifled a yawn. ‘We should get some rest.’
‘Rest?’ said Echo, looking round the cockpit. ‘But where?’
The professor gave two sharp tugs on a chain and two hammocks sprang from hatches in the ceiling to join the one already there. Echo climbed into hers and Horace reluctantly took the one next to her.
‘I won’t be able to sleep,’ he said, pulling a blanket over himself. He lay back in the hammock, then suddenly jerked upright, almost toppling on to the floor.
‘Wait, who will drive?’
‘Autopilot,’ said Professor Daggerwing, adjusting a lever and reducing the engine hum to a soft purr. ‘We’ll be in Port Tourbillon by breakfast.’
Echo relaxed into the soft fabric, Gilbert curled in the crook of her arm. The hammock was surprisingly comfortable and soon the gentle loll and sway of the airship made her drowsy. Port Tourbillon by breakfast! She’d find Evergreen & Spruce and show them her mother’s hairpin. Perhaps someone in the jeweller’s would remember her mother. And then . . . Echo was about to think of something else, but the excitement of the night caught up with her and she slipped into a deep and velvety sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Echo woke before the others to find the airship humming its way steadily through a silvery-grey dawn. She climbed out of her hammock, moving a sleepy Gilbert on to her shoulder, and crept past Horace, softly snoring, and Professor Daggerwing, who breathed loudly, with his mouth hanging open. She settled herself into the pilot’s seat, drawing her knees up to her chest, and stared out into the endless grey of the Barren and—
Echo gasped and leaped out of her seat. ‘Gilbert, look!’
In the distance, through the hazy clouds, higgledy-piggledy rooftops formed a jagged silhouette against the rising sun. Towers soared into the sky, a wide arched bridge curved from east to west and above it all – could it really be? Yes, there were hundreds and hundreds of airships, as tiny as flies, hovering and darting through the air above the city. Was this it? Was this Port Tourbillon? She gazed, open-mouthed, unable to tear herself away.
‘Oh, Gilbert, it’s real,’ she breathed. Somewhere, deep down inside her, she had always felt there was something missing. That she belonged somewhere else, but she had never dared believe it was really true. Some part of her had feared it would all – the airship, the professor, the hairpin – turn out to be an elaborate hoax, or a dream, or . . . She couldn’t help grinning. But it was real. Port Tourbillon was there before her. And every inch closer they flew was an inch closer to finding out about her mother.
Echo wiped her eyes on her sleeve, before leaping out of her seat and running to shake the others from their slumber.
‘Horace! Professor! I can see it! We’re almost there!’
Horace flailed his arms, tried to sit up, twisted his hammock upside down and landed on the floor. ‘What’s wrong?’ he spluttered. ‘Are they shooting at us?’
‘Look! I can see Port Tourbillon!’
Horace stood up and rubbed his bleary eyes, then went to the cockpit and squinted out. ‘Where? I can’t see it . . . Oh!’ He froze and, for a moment, just stared. ‘It’s . . . it’s another city,’ he finally said.
‘I know! Port Tourbillon! That’s what we’ve been telling you this whole time. Here, take a look with the binoculars,’ said Echo, passing them to him.
Professor Daggerwing swung his legs out of his hammock, leaped gracefully down and strode to the cockpit. ‘Port Tourbillon indeed,’ he said, gazing out of the windscreen and settling himself in the pilot’s seat. ‘And just in time for breakfast.’
Echo gazed out of the windscreen as a thousand multicoloured rooftops spread out before them. Smoke curled from chimney pots and early-morning light gleamed on roof tiles. Down in the streets she made out tiny figures darting back and forth, some of them on foot, some of them riding in strange horseless contraptions. And, everywhere above, airships flew. Huge great Zeppelins gliding grandly through the sky, mid-size ships setting down and picking up deliveries, and tiny vessels even smaller than the Hummerbird buzzing here and there like bees at work.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ Echo said, almost hopping from foot to foot in excitement. ‘What do you think it’ll be like?’ She glanced at Horace.
‘But, but that means . . .’ He trailed off, dropping the binoculars on to their strap around his neck. ‘But Father said . . .’ He blinked a few times. ‘It was all lies, wasn’t it?’
Echo didn’t know what to say to this. In her excitement to get to Port Tourbillon, she hadn’t thought what it had all meant. But Horace was right: someone had been lying about it all. She took in his dazed expression. Horace had always believed his father so completely, it must be a huge shock. She gave his arm an awkward pat. ‘I think it must have been,’ she said softly.
The professor looked up from the controls. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m sure your father had his own reasons for keeping this from you. Perhaps he was trying to protect you.’
‘Perhaps,’ Horace said, but his shoulders slumped and he sat down in silence, chewing his thumbnail.
Echo shook her head. If only Horace hadn’t stowed away in the cupboard! She set her jaw. She would have to make sure the professor somehow returned him safely to Lockfort once this was all over. First though she had a mother to find.
Echo gazed out of the windscreen as they descended, thoughts of Horace’s predicament soon forgotten as she took in the sights below. Unlike Lockfort, with its identical low greyroofed houses, Port Tourbillon was a jumbled mass of brightly painted buildings. Here a skinny townhouse in buttercup yellow jostled next to a wide indigo cottage painted with stars, while across the street a turquoise building with triangular windows and a spiralling turret leaned at a very peculiar angle indeed. No two houses were the same. It was as if a giant had crammed them in any which way, and then hurled his paintbox at them. Echo had never seen anything like it.
‘Here we are – twenty-seven Hawthorn Square,’ said the professor, pointing down at a skinny purple-painted building with a jumble of little white-framed windows and snaking copper drainpipes. ‘My humble abode, where I will rustle us up some breakfast. I do hope the cats haven’t given up on me while I’ve been away.’
‘Cats?’ said Horace, stirring from his silence.
‘Cats,’ said the professor. ‘I have seven of them. An explorer’s best friend, don’t you know?’
Echo gave Horace a quizzical look. ‘Isn’t that . . . er . . . pickles?’
But the professor was too busy adjusting levers and turning dials to reply. He released the balloon pressure gauge, there was a low hiss and the airship began to descend gracefully towards the rooftop of 27 Hawthorn Square.
A prickle of excitement ran down Echo’s spine, and she hugged Gilbert to her chest. Port Tourbillon felt like a city where things happened. Where things would happen to her. Where she’d find answers.
She shook her head in awe, then felt a new stab of pity as she took in Horace’s shell-shocked expression. There was a whole amazing world out here. Why had King Alfons ever wanted to keep this from them?
Once the Hummerbird was tethered to the rooftop landing dock, they descended through a hatch on the roof into the attic of 27 Hawthorn Square. Professor Daggerwing’s house was just as skinny on the inside as it looked from the sky, with high ceilings and a multitude of small, boxy rooms spread over its five storeys. Echo loved it at first sight.
‘Now, who’s for breakfast?’ said the professor.
Gilbert gave an enthusiastic chirrup from his foothold on Echo’s shoulder.
‘Me too,’ said Echo, about to take the staircase down.
‘Not that way,’ said the professor, pulling a lever. ‘The slideway goes directly to the ground floor. Avoids all those stairs, you see.’
There was a whirr of springs and a clank of metal parts and a trapdoor sprang open in the floor to reveal a dark hole.
‘Follow me,’ said the professor, grabbing a cushion from a pile
and leaping into the opening, feet first, with a, ‘Wheeeee!’
Echo and Horace looked at each other with a shrug, then Echo took a cushion and jumped in too.
‘Eek!’ she squealed as she slid into a clear, curving tube that spiralled down the centre of the house. Room after room flashed by until she finally landed, giggling, in a huge pile of cushions. A few seconds later, Horace arrived with a flump.
Echo sat up and looked around. They seemed to have landed in a corridor in the basement. ‘That was fun!’ she said.
Gilbert shook himself and chirruped in a way that Echo was sure meant, Let’s do it again!
Even Horace had a smile on his face as the professor took his hand and heaved him up. ‘All my own invention,’ he said proudly. ‘I used to have a pulley system in both directions, but I decided sliding down was much more fun. The kitchen’s this way.’
As they made their way to the kitchen, Echo couldn’t stop staring at everything. What she really loved about Hawthorn Square was the homely messiness of it. There was no Miss Brittle here to tut or tidy. Every surface was covered with either paper or cats. Or sometimes paper and cats. There were diagrams, notes and maps. There were drawings and charts and newspaper cuttings. But most of all there were cats. All seven of them.
‘May I introduce you to Beetlecrusher, Foxtrot, Dandelion, Sugarsnap, Pumpernickel, Stargazy and Fred,’ the professor said, when they arrived in the kitchen with a throng of purring, legtwining felines. ‘It seems the good Mrs Milkweed has been keeping you well fed and watered,’ he said, as he stroked all seven mewing heads in turn.
‘Ah, Professor! You’re home!’ Echo turned and goggled as a tiny woman with rainbow-striped hair and a huge, sparkling diamond in her nose appeared in the doorway. The woman’s own eyebrows shot up when she spotted Echo and Horace. ‘Children, Professor?’
‘Ah yes.’ The professor fumbled for words. ‘There was an occurrence. Well, an incident . . . a number of incidents in fact. Echo and Horace will be staying for a night or two. It’s . . . ah, something of a long story.’