Bookweirder (21 page)

The poacher was too fast. He’d managed to grab the ladder and get the shield back over his head. Already he had his foot on the first rung. At the top of the ladder, four white human hands had grasped the rails, attempting to push it back, but George and Pippa too had missed their moment, and they weren’t strong enough now. With the poacher’s weight on it, they’d never be able to push the ladder back.

What made the whole thing strange was the silence. It was like watching the television with no sound on. The poacher wasn’t shouting threats. Malcolm and George worked just as silently up in the tower. Norman himself wanted to shout, to say something, but he was finding it hard enough just to breathe. His whole body had tensed up and he was frozen on the spot.

Suddenly this silence was shattered by an immense boom. Norman felt the sound as much as he heard it. It was like a huge sound wave knocking him backwards. He groped around on the stone floor of the balcony, trying to get his bearings. What had happened? Had the Intrepids sprung a surprise for their attacker? Or was it the other way around? Norman scrambled dizzily to his feet and focused his eyes on the scene below.

The poacher had leapt or fallen to the ground and had taken refuge behind his corrugated metal shield. The ladder was still leaning against the tower. As Norman watched, four pale hands reached out from behind the stone parapet and began drawing the ladder up, over the tower wall.

Norman glanced towards Todd for an explanation, but the lawyer only stared back, his look of perpetual amusement never more emphatic. Norman followed the lawyer’s eyes to the floor of the balcony, where the gigantic elephant gun lay smoking. He looked back up in shock. Todd had fired the gun … no, that was impossible. It had been in his own hands. He looked down at his trembling fingers. They were covered in a fine black dust.
He
had fired the elephant gun.

Only now did he feel the pain beginning to radiate from the spot on his arm where he had held the gun. He rubbed it slowly and turned again to the siege. The ladder was disappearing behind the tower battlements. Norman strained to hear George and Malcolm’s voices, but all he could hear was a shrill ringing in his ears.

The poacher retreated from the tower, cowering beneath his shield as he watched the walls of Kelmsworth Hall. When he spotted Todd on the balcony he stopped to shout.

“You! Was that you?” He called Todd a name that Norman had heard in the schoolyard but did not dare repeat. “Stay out of this!” he warned.

Todd said nothing in reply, just stood there staring down at the furious poacher.

He brandished his shield as he screamed, “You’re a big man up there with your gun, ain’t ya? How ‘bout you come down here, then? We’ll see who’s the big man!”

Again Todd did not reply. A small smile of amusement uncurled across his face. He was enjoying this.

On the tower ramparts Malcolm again emerged and, pulling back his bowstring, drew a bead on their besieger. The poacher was focused on the balcony. He had spotted Norman.

“Hey, kid! Rams fan! It’s you. Is that your dad who shot at me?”

Norman shook his head silently.

“Kid, I don’t want to give you or your ferret any trouble. Just show me how to get back to New York and I’m outta here. Okay?” His voice cracked as he threatened and pleaded. “Just show me how and we’re done. Right?”

Norman was about to open his mouth to say something when Todd finally decided the situation merited his attention. “I believe the steamers for New York leave from Liverpool. If you catch the 2:10 train, you could be in Liverpool tonight,” he called down.

Todd’s condescending reply sent the poacher into a fury. “Smartass limey, aren’t you? You know which New York I want. The
real
New York. Ask Rams boy about it. There ain’t no St. Louis Rams in this place, and you both know it. I want the New York where the Rams play the Giants.” His anger became a desperate plea. “All I want is to get back. I don’t want no trouble.”

Norman tugged the sleeve of Todd’s black coat. “You need to send him back.”

Todd paid no attention. He was more interested in goading the poacher. “I don’t believe there are any giants in New York. The place you are talking about sounds like a fantasy land.”

“Don’t you tell me what’s fantasy!” the poacher howled. “I know
what’s real and what ain’t, and what ain’t real is talkin’ weasels. You better get me back unless you want me to come up there and kick your ass.” As he got angrier his shield dropped ever lower, and he shook his fist at Todd.

Todd remained unbothered. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises,” he replied.

“I’ll leave the premises when I’m ready, punk,” the poacher growled. “I’ll leave the damned premises when I leave this whole place, and you’re going to help me. Whether you like it or not!” He lowered his shield arm and brought his two hands together in a choking motion.

Malcolm didn’t miss his moment this time. The poacher heard the
twang
of the bowstring, but it was too late to protect himself. The missile flew unerringly down towards its target. It struck the poacher in the shoulder. He dropped the shield to the ground and let out a howl. Norman flinched, imagining the pain.

Up on the tower, Malcolm nocked another arrow but held his fire.

The poacher howled and swore as he grasped the tiny arrow in his arm. His face was contorted in pain. He braced himself to remove the arrow but could not bring himself to do it. He turned in a frenzy, like the wounded animal he was. Finally, with one violent tug, he grunted and pulled the missile from his arm. He slumped to his knees, panting and wheezing. When he looked up, his face was twisted with pain and hatred.

Norman willed Malcolm to fire.
Finish him off
, he thought, but the shot never came. The poacher rose to his feet and grabbed the metal shield. Turning like a hammer-thrower, in one smooth motion, he hurled the shield up towards the tower ramparts.

The Cooks and George poked their heads above the folly’s walls. They swivelled in unison, following the path of the sheet as it wobbled and clattered against the tower, then fell noisily to the ground.

Norman never took his eyes off the poacher. Before he staggered away across the lawn, he turned once again to glare at Todd
on the balcony. His eyes took on an insane white gleam as he stared up at his new enemy.

By the time Norman reached the lawn, the poacher was gone. His corrugated tin sheet lay abandoned on the grass. There was a small spatter of blood on it. Norman stared down at it, mesmerized. It was weird how blood made everything more real.

“By the Maker, Strong Arm, you left it late this time!” Malcolm called down from the ramparts.

Norman waved up to him apologetically. The stoat rappelled down the tower wall.

“Where’ve you been?” the stoat asked, exasperated, when he reached the lawn. “We were nearly done for there.”

“The big lout has attacked us every night for three nights,” Pippa recounted breathlessly. Her face was flushed from the excitement of the battle, and her words tumbled out rapidly. “He surprised us by coming in the morning. Lucky we collected our ammunition last night rather than going straight to sleep.”

“Lucky you had that bloomin’ great big gun of yours,” Gordon added, rubbing his unruly red hair out of his face. “Crikey, where did that come from?”

Norman didn’t have time to answer. George Kelmsworth moved between the two Cooks to confront Norman. “We could have used that last night, and the night before.”

Norman blinked, unsure how to explain. “I came as soon—”

“That’s what you always say,” George cut him off. “ ‘I came back as soon as I could.’ ” He mimicked Norman’s accent. “We could have all been killed.” He lunged towards Norman, who stepped back, alarmed by George’s belligerence.

“Steady on, George,” Gordon began. But it was Malcolm who stayed the older boy’s hand. The stoat leapt onto George’s shoulder. George patted the stoat’s sleek head and relaxed.

“Let’s hear what he has to tell us,” Malcolm weighed in. “Norman has always stood by me. Let him have his say.”

Norman was confused. Even though Malcolm was standing up for him, it was difficult to see him there on George’s shoulder. Why
hadn’t he leapt immediately to
his
shoulder? He felt a twinge of jealousy and then hopelessness.

“I sounded the alarm …” he tried to explain. He looked at the faces of the defenders. Gordon’s freckled face was frank and curious, while Pippa was frowning intently and George’s eyes were blazing with anger. Norman just raised his hands helplessly.

“What were you doing in there?” Gordon asked, motioning towards the balcony of Kelmsworth Hall. “What were you doing with
him
?” He said the word “him” as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Norman turned to see the tall, dark figure of Mr. Todd looming over him. The lawyer placed a hand on Norman’s shoulder and smiled his smarmy smile.

“Well done, boys,” he congratulated them, as if they’d won a soccer game or done well on a quiz, rather than just escaped with their lives.

Norman grimaced and shrugged the lawyer’s hand off his shoulder.

“Why were you in the house, Strong Arm?” Malcolm asked, “Todd’s the enemy as much as Baldy is.”

“We need his help,” Norman insisted, looking from stoat to boy. Their eyes were hardened against him.

“You keep disappearing on us, Strong Arm,” Malcolm pleaded. “It’s hard to know if we can count on you.”

“How far is your house, anyway? How long does it take to get there?” Gordon asked, scrunching an eye as if trying to work it out. His sister pulled him back. Norman gave her a hopeful look, but Pippa just curled her lips, as if suppressing her own rebuke.

“It’s complicated. My dad …” Norman didn’t know where to start, without getting into the bookweird.

“Are you even trying to get Malcolm’s map?” George asked.

“Of course I am!” Norman protested. “It’s just not easy.”

“He’s not your stoat, you know,” Gordon railed, catching George’s anger, as if it were a fever. “You can’t own a talking animal.”

Getting it from all sides now, Norman just sputtered, “I know that. Listen—”

He felt Todd’s hand on his shoulder. “Now, now, children,” the lawyer cooed patronizingly, “let’s not squabble.”

Norman snapped. “Get off!” he shouted, shoving Todd away again. “This is all your fault. Either help us or stay out of it.”

Todd stepped back and shook his head, almost like a shiver, in surprise. For a moment he was too stunned to say anything. They all turned to stare at the lanky lawyer now.

“So are you?” Pippa asked finally. The look she gave him wasn’t pleading or threatening or even indignant, but there was a sort of impatient force to it. “Are you going to help us?”

Todd continued to stare.

“Or is it war?” Gordon muttered pugnaciously. It would have been funny if they hadn’t just barely won a battle for their lives.

“I
don’t know why you won’t just send him back.” Norman stared this plate in weary disbelief. They had been arguing about this for half an hour, but he always returned to the same question.

Todd placed his knife and fork in a cross on his empty plate. Leaning back in his chair, he intertwined his fingers in front of him and let out the smallest of sighs. “Perhaps you think I’m a magician or something. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have the power to send people back and forth between books at will.”

Norman looked across the table to Malcolm for some support, but the stoat king was distracted by his lemon cake. He peered intently at it, but he hadn’t yet taken a bite. The battle at the tower had made him sombre, but he was not as distracted as he appeared. In truth, he was watching Todd covertly. He wasn’t convinced that this man was also Abbot Reynard of Tintern Abbey and the Royal Chapel of Lochwarren. The abbot might have used the power of the bookweird to bring him here to this strange world, but he’d said nothing about transformation. If the abbot had come with him to Kelmsworth, wouldn’t he still be a fox, just as Malcolm was still a stoat?

“But you could send him back to his own book,” Norman insisted. “You sent me back to my own book when we were in New York.”

“If you remember correctly,” Todd lectured, “you sent yourself back. You have your own peculiar little
ingresso
. I doubt very much that our criminal friend has the same aptitude.”

It was true. Todd, in his guise as Fuchs, had only supplied the book. Norman had brought himself back from the New York police station by eating it.

“But it must be possible,” Malcolm reasoned. “He got here, didn’t he?” He took a distracted bite of the lemon cake. “He must be able to go back.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s possible,” Todd replied. “But it would take someone who knows a great deal more about the bookweird than I do.”

“Do you know anybody?” Norman asked hopefully.

“No one comes to mind.” A servant had come in with a pot of tea and all talk of the bookweird ceased for the moment.

“Thank you, Jenkins,” Todd murmured.

The servant poured tea in Malcolm’s cup. Todd watched him enviously as the servant continued to pour, serving Norman, then Todd.