Dragons at Crumbling Castle Page 7

  ‘Yes,’ said Bane. ‘Why were we brought here? One of our party has got lost . . .’

  ‘We welcome you to Rugland. Me, Tumi, went to Carpet once in a floor-canoe. Sorry to bring you, but for your own good. Many more tribes in Rug. We the Rumbelo tribe. Some tribes not so friendly to strangers. Make big stew.’

  Snibril was just about to show himself when an arrow thudded into the side of the hut. Tall warriors in black feathers were climbing the walls of the hut town, and the Rumbelos dashed for their spears. But there were too many of the enemy, and soon the entire tribe was captured, including Bane and the other members of his party.

  Oh dear, thought Snibril. Here we go again.

  He followed the new tribe out of the town, keeping to the shadows.

  Snibril shadowed the tribes through the Rug, dodging from hair to hair, and feeling a bit left out of things.

  The enemy tribe took the Rumbelo people and the explorers to their village, where they tied them to stakes. Fires were lit, and people started peeling vegetables – it looked dangerous!fn2

  Snibril hid behind a hut, trying frantically to think of a rescue plan.

  ‘If we get out of this, I’ll never explore again,’ he heard Pilgarlic say to Bane, who was attempting to loosen his ropes.

  ‘I want to know what’s happened to Snibril,’ said Bane.

  Snibril was, in fact, not far away. He broke into the hut he had been hiding behind and found it was full of feathered headdresses and costumes. He had just had time to put one on when a lot of warriors came in and dressed up for their war dance – luckily, they all thought he was one of them.

  He crept out with them and was soon dancing around the prisoners, making up the steps as he went along. But since he was so much smaller than the other dancers they soon began to wonder who he was. Round and round they went, and Bane began to look very nervous.

  Then suddenly the smallest warrior danced across and cut the ropes! ‘It’s me!’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

  What a fight that was! Before anyone knew what was happening the prisoners had broken free and small battles were going on everywhere.

  The enemy tribe were so surprised that they were soon beaten and taken prisoner and, a little while later, the chief of the Rumbelo tribe, and Tumi the aged interpreter, thanked Snibril very much.

  ‘Any time you’re passing just drop in,’ they said, as the party left the village.

  ‘I hope I’m never near this wretched place again,’ moaned Christopher Pilgarlic. ‘That tribe nearly made stew out of us!’

  They agreed to make their way back to the Hugo, and were soon tramping through the thick hairs.

  It was Bane who saw the old-fashioned threepenny bit first, when he climbed a hair to find their position. ‘There’s a gigantic gold mountain up ahead,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and have a look.’

  Soon they reached a great wall of golden metal, and when they climbed it they found themselves on a coin the size of a field (to them). It had strange big writing on it.

  ‘This is amazing!’ cried Pilgarlic. ‘I wonder who could have built it? What excellent workmanship! I wonder whose it is?’

  ‘They drop down from Upper Space,’ said Bane, lowering his voice. ‘There was a silver one that fell on the other side of the Carpet once. Next morning it was gone.’

  They all looked up. Whatever was there was so far away that all they could see was mist.

  ‘Do you – do you think this one will go while we’re on it?’ asked Snibril nervously.

  ‘I hope not. All sorts of things come down from Upper Space. Gigantic crumbs, for instance, never get picked up. There’s good eating in a giant crumb too!’

  ‘We could make a fortune if only we could take some of this home,’ said Pilgarlic wishfully.

  ‘Don’t!’ said Bane. ‘Best we leave it. Once you tangle with Upper Space things can get dangerous.’

  So they went on towards the edge of Rug, until they could see the masts of the Hugo. The crew were just preparing to weigh anchor, because they thought the explorers must have been killed. They all went aboard and had a good meal before leaving.

  Soon the Rug was nothing but a dark line on the Linoleum, and everyone was thinking of home and the Carpet.

  ‘I suppose people will come again one day,’ said Snibril, as he watched Rug fall astern. ‘It’s not a bad place. Some of the locals were quite friendly.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Bane. ‘But there’s nothing like going home.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Pilgarlic.

  ‘Me too,’ said Snibril.

  fn1Literally, in one case, since the man had filed his teeth into nasty points.

  fn2To the victims, anyway. To everybody else, it looked like a good dinner in a few hours’ time.

  THE GREAT EGG-DANCING CHAMPIONSHIP

  I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the disgraceful scenes at the Blackbury Egg-dancing Championship? Probably not, because they were really awful. But perhaps I’d better explain.

  Blackbury – well, Blackbury is a lovely little market town in Gritshire (Free Car Parking, Early Closing Wednesdaysfn1) and is built on either side of the River Um. A few miles downriver is Umbridge. The trouble is that for hundreds and hundreds of years there has been great rivalry between the two towns.

  No one quite remembers why. But even at the time of the Civil War – when Blackbury was Royalist, so Umbridge of course fought for Parliament – Oliver Cromwell wrote to Charles II:

  ‘Yes, Gritshire folk are devilish bad-humoured and to my mind a bunch of clodpolls.’

  Now Egg-dancing is a very old form of dancing and was invented in Gritshire. A lot of eggs are rolled onto the floor and two blindfolded dancers get one look at the pattern and then have to dance without breaking one. It’s very skilful and if they’ve got good memories they never break an egg. This is genuinely true. It’s died out in most of the country, but in Gritshire, of course, it’s still going strong. In Gritshire, in fact, Egg-dancing is more important than football – and this year Blackbury and Umbridge, both First Division Egg-dancing Teams, fought for the championship.

  So, of course, it was like a war.

  The trouble was that Jem Stronginthearm, Umbridge’s champion Egg-dancer, was courting the Mayor of Blackbury’s daughter, a young lady by the name of Alice Band. And her brother Fred was the champion Egg-dancer of Blackbury.

  The evening after the Egg-dancing finals were announced Jem and Alice met at a stile in the rolling Gritshire countryside between the two towns.

  ‘I can’t stop long,’ said Alice. ‘Dad’s having a big party tonight. He says Fred will soon beat you in the championship and Blackbury’ll win the Egg Cup. What can we do?’

  Jem scratched his head. ‘Well, I don’t know about Blackbury winning the cup,’ he said. ‘But what I say is, I’ve got a bit of money put by and it’s not a bad little blacksmith’s business I’ve built up, with a cottage behind the forge and all. So I’m going to come and ask your dad if he’ll let I marry thee, and then we’ll see what he’ll say to that.’

  Next day after work Jem strode along the riverbank to Blackbury and thumped on the front door of Mr Amos Band’s house.

  ‘Alice told me as you’d be coming by,’ said Amos, when Jem had been shown in.

  Now Blackbury people are very sly and cunning and Amos was as cunning as they come. He had been having a good think. Jem stood in front of him, a bit nervous as you may imagine, twisting his cap in his hands.

  ‘All I’ll say is this,’ said Amos, with a sly smile. ‘I’ve got no objections to you, you understand. You’re a very good blacksmith from all accounts, but I couldn’t let my little girl marry someone who’d won the Egg Cup for Umbridge, could I? Not with me being Mayor of Blackbury. I understand you’ll be dancing against our Fred next week.’

  ‘What you mean is, if I lose the championship on purpose then you might let Alice and me get wed,’ said Jem slowly. ‘You mean I’ve got to let Blackbury win the cup . . .’
>
  ‘A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, I always say,’ said Amos. ‘Well, there it is, so what’s your answer?’

  ‘That’s very unfair,’ said Jem. ‘You know I’ve got to try for the Egg-dancing Championship. The whole of Umbridge is depending on me.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but there it is,’ said Mr Band smugly. ‘Think it over.’

  Just as Jem was striding away down the street a badly made paper aeroplane drifted down from one of the upper windows of Band house. It hit him on the head, and written on it was:

  It was a Friday morning, and Umbridge street market was in full swing. But Jem Stronginthearm looked so gloomy as he walked back home that everyone turned to stare at him.

  He stamped upstairs to the Solly O’Flynn gymnasium, which was over the bicycle shop next door. It was rather a poky room, painted in brown and cream and covered with fading photographs of former champion Egg-dancers, who all wore long trousers and waxed moustaches.

  Solly O’Flynn was Jem’s trainer and manager and he always wore a check suit and a bowler hat. He was reading the paper when Jem came in.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said.

  ‘I’m not going in for the championship tomorrow,’ said Jem. ‘Betsy Bates’ll have to dance instead.’ (Betsy was another Egg-dancer: not bad but inclined to break them.)

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Solly. ‘It’s all arranged and everything! I’ve even signed a contract for you to dance in the Commonwealth Championship!’

  But Jem had gone, and very soon a lot of worried people discovered that he’d left the town – and tomorrow was Egg-dancing Day.

  The day of the Egg-dancing Championship dawned and there was still no sign of the Umbridge Champion, Jem Stronginthearm.

  The championship was held in a big field just outside Blackbury, and, of course, there were lots of sideshows. The Blackbury Borough Volunteer Silver Band were playing tasteful waltzes at one end of the field, and at the other there was stirring military music from the band of the 1st Gritshire Bombardiers (including their own private marching tune, which had terrified the enemy from Agincourt to El Alamein, ‘My Old Granddad’s Walking Stick’fn2).

  And there were lots of crowds and noise. But there was no sign of Jem.

  In the Umbridge tent, Solly O’Flynn was helping Betsy Bates into her Egg-dancing boots. ‘I know you won’t do as good as Jem, but try not to lose,’ he hissed.

  And of course, in the Blackbury tent, Mr Band the mayor was congratulating himself on his way of getting Jem out of the contest.

  ‘You get out there and win, Fred,’ he told his son. ‘Blackbury’ll win the cup again!’

  Outside, the loudspeakers announced that the contest would soon start. The sound floated away over the roofs of Blackbury to where Alice Band, Fred’s sister, was sitting miserably in her bedroom. She had been locked in again.

  There was a sound of a ladder bumping against the windowsill – and Jem’s face appeared.

  ‘Get some things together, Alice,’ he said. ‘We can run off to Gretna Green and get married while everyone’s at the championship.’

  ‘No fear,’ said Alice, folding her arms. ‘I’m not going to have people say my husband ran away from Egg-dancing. I’m ashamed of you for giving in to Dad like that. You go back there – it’s starting in a few minutes. Then we might see about Gretna Green!’

  In the big field outside Blackbury the referee was just about to announce the start of the championship match.

  But half a mile away a small cart was rattling over the empty cobbled streets with Jem Stronginthearm at the reins and Alice Band hanging on for dear life.

  ‘I don’t know what your dad’s going to say!’ shouted Jem.

  ‘Never you mind about that,’ said Alice. ‘You just get up on that dancing floor and win the Egg Cup!’

  As they galloped into the field they heard the referee over the loudspeakers saying: ‘Since Jem Stronginthearm hasn’t turned up—’

  ‘Here he is!’

  screamed Alice, as the horses surged through the cheering crowd.

  Jem climbed up onto the stage and took up his position in the centre of a lot of eggs. Betsy gratefully handed him her blindfold – she knew that Jem was more likely to beat Fred than her.

  ‘Oh – er – well, then, in that case, may the best man win,’ said the referee, and she signalled the band to start playing so the dancers could be blindfolded and the dancing could start.

  Egg-dancers dance rather like a cat leaping from one hot tin roof to another, and while the two finalists started off with some fairly slow and easy tunes Jem realized that Fred Band was really quite a good dancer. He’d need a lot of beating.

  Down in the audience Mr Amos Band was cursing and swearing. ‘That Jem is too good,’ he muttered. ‘If he goes on like this our Fred will never win the cup. We’ll have to see what we can do about that!’

  After ten strenuous rounds of Egg-dancing, Jem Stronginthearm and Fred Band were neck and neck. Jem had slightly cracked four eggs and smashed one (which meant double penalty points), and Fred had cracked six. Six all.

  Up on the stage the President of the Egg-dancing Board of Control addressed the crowd. ‘This is the first time in history that there has ever been a draw,’ she said, ‘and since there is only one Egg Cup we must hold a dance-off to find the winner. After much consideration the committee have agreed that the tune will be that well-known Irish one, “The Irish Washerwoman”. And, er’ – she consulted her notes – ‘it’ll be played at double speed!’

  A gasp went up from the crowd. That tune had caused many a promising Egg-dancer to smash the lot and tie his knees in knots (it’s the one that goes deedle-dee-deedle-dee-deedle-dee-deedle – oh well, you know. And at double speed!).

  The judge decided to hold the dance-off after lunch, so everybody wandered off towards the canteen tents. Both the dancers looked thoughtful, and Jem hardly touched his third helping of beef dumplings, suet pudding and baked potatoes . . .

  Several hundred metres away, two crooks were sitting in an old motor car, watching the field through binoculars. (You know that policemen have ‘police’ painted in large letters on their cars? Well, the crooks’ car had ‘CROOKS’ on it in bright red letters – just so’s not to confuse people.)

  ‘That Egg-dancing Cup looks as if it is worth a pretty penny, Mugsy,’ said one of them.

  ‘Several thousand pounds,’ said the other, who was his brother. ‘You know, Slugsy, there’s bound to be confusion when the dance finishes. That’s when we’ll nick it. What’s for lunch?’

  While the crooks were eating a sinister pork pie and a highly suspicious jam turnover, Fred Band – the Blackbury champion – was very worried.

  ‘I’ll never be able to do it, Dad,’ he wailed to Amos Band. ‘The dance is too fast! I’ll smash dozens of eggs.’

  ‘Not these you won’t!’ whispered Amos. He held up a box of china eggs. ‘I know it’s cheating,’ he said, ‘but the honour of Blackbury is at stake!’

  The crowd was hushed as the two contestants took their positions for the dance-off in the Gritshire Egg-dancing Championship.

  A complicated pattern of eggs was laid out on the floor around them, the blindfolds were produced again, and the 1st Gritshire Bombardiers’ military band struck up the opening bars of that great dancing tune ‘The Irish Washerwoman’.

  And off they danced.

  All the people in the judges’ tent were crowded around the entrance. The gold and silver Egg Cup was all alone on a table. And, held very carefully, a knife was cutting a slit in the back of the tent. Slugsy Nales, wearing a proper crook’s outfit (black and white striped jumper, mask over the eyes and a flat hat – you don’t see many of them about now), reached in and carefully dropped the cup into a bag marked ‘Swag’.

  Meanwhile, Jem Stronginthearm was not doing very well. The dance was getting faster, and he knew he had already cracked several eggs. What he couldn’t understand was why Fred Band’s eggs only rolled
away when he trod on them – he could hear them just knocking into each other but not breaking.

  ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ one of the judges was saying. ‘The Blackbury man is pulling ahead.’

  Amos Band, Mayor of Blackbury, grinned broadly. Alice Band – who was on Jem’s side and was watching from the seat of his horse and cart – chewed her handkerchief nervously.

  Since the cart was fairly high it was Alice who first saw Slugsy and Mugsy tiptoeing away behind the crowd to their old car, whilst carrying a large bag with a shape in it not entirely unlike a stolen Egg-dancing Cup. ‘Felons!’ she cried. ‘Apprehend them!’

  Jem stopped dancing in a crash of eggs. He tore off his blindfold, and with one bound leaped off the platform and landed in his cart, and next moment he and Alice were rumbling across the field after the car.

  The music ended in a crash of broken notes. It took a few seconds for everyone else to realize what was going on. Then the chase began!

  The crooks’ car sped away through Blackbury, which was practically deserted. Close behind came the cart with Jem and Alice Band. Behind them, in this order, came:

  the 1st Gritshire Bombardiers’ Band in a jeep, still playing

  several policemen on bicycles

  the Blackbury Royal Mayoral Rolls-Royce, driven furiously by Amos Band

  twenty assorted other cars and carts

  and a crowd of dogs.

  The crooks skidded round a corner and zoomed off down Slade Street. But Jem’s cart was close behind and he was standing up and judging the distance between them. Balancing his weight carefully, he took a jump over the horse and landed on the back of the car.

  Mugsy Nales turned round with a look of absolute terror and in a crowded four seconds the car demolished two lampposts, a letter box, a litter bin and a bus stop. The sack containing the cup was thrown high in the air.

  Alice Band caught it as it came down.