The Infernals (6 page)

“Call the police, Ethel,” he said. He shook his fist in the general direction of faces and bottom. “You little horrors!” he shouted.

“Nyaahhhh!” shouted a dwarf in return, and stuck his tongue out as the van sped away.

“See, I was right,” said the driver’s son. “It was an elf. And a bum.”

• • •

Inside the van, Mr. Merryweather was trying to keep his eyes on the road while ignoring all that was going on in the back.

“Cold out there,” said Jolly, the leader of the group, as he pulled his bottom from the window and made himself look decent again. The rest of his companions, Dozy, Angry, and Mumbles, took their seats and began opening bottles of Spiggit’s Old Peculiar. The air in the van, which hadn’t smelled particularly pleasant to begin with, now took on the odor of a factory devoted to producing unwashed socks and fish heads.
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Curiously, this very strong, and very unpleasant, beer appeared to have little effect on the dwarfs apart from exaggerating their natural character traits. Thus Jolly became jollier, in a drunken, unsettling way; Angry became angrier; Dozy became sleepier; and Mumbles—well, he just became more unintelligible.

“Oi, Merryweather,” called Angry. “When do we get paid?”

Mr. Merryweather’s hands tightened on the wheel. He was a fat, bald man in a light brown check suit, and he always wore a red bow tie. He looked like someone who should be managing a bunch of untrustworthy dwarfs, but whether he looked that
way because of what he was, or he was what he was because he looked that way, we will never know.

“Paid for what?” said Mr. Merryweather.

“For today’s work, that’s what for.”

The van swerved on the motorway as Mr. Merryweather briefly lost control of the wheel, and of himself.

“Work?” he said. “
Work?
You lot don’t know the meaning of work.”

“Careful!” called Dozy. “You nearly spilled my beer.”

“I. Don’t.
Care!
” screamed Mr. Merryweather.

“What did he say?” asked Jolly. “Someone was shouting, so I didn’t hear.”

“Says he doesn’t care,” said Dozy.

“Oh, well, that’s just lovely, that is. After all we’ve done for him—”

The van came to a violent skidding halt by the side of the road. Mr. Merryweather stood and glared furiously at the assembled dwarfs.

“All you’ve done for me? All. You’ve. Done. For. Me. I’ll tell you what you’ve done for me. You’ve made my life a misery, that’s what. You’ve left me a broken man. My nerves are shot. Look at my hand.”

He held up his left hand. It trembled uncontrollably.

“That’s bad,” agreed Jolly.

“And that’s the good one,” said Mr. Merryweather, holding up his right hand, which shook so much he could no longer hold a pint of milk in it, as it would instantly turn to cream.

“Abbledaybit,” said Mumbles.

“What?” said Mr. Merryweather.

“He says you’re having a bad day, but once you’ve had time to calm down and rest, you’ll get over it,” said Jolly.

Despite his all-consuming rage, Mr. Merryweather found time to look puzzled.

“He said that?”

“Yep.”

“But it just sounded like ‘abbledaybit.’”

“Ed,” said Mumbles.

“He says that’s what he said,” said Jolly. “You’re having a bad—”

Mr. Merryweather pointed his finger at Jolly in a manner that could only be described as life-threatening. Had Mr. Merryweather’s finger been a gun, Jolly would have had a small column of smoke where his head used to be.

“I’m warning you,” said Mr. Merryweather. “I’m warning you all. Today was the last straw. Today was—”

Today was to have been a good day. After weeks, even months, of begging, Mr. Merryweather had got the dwarfs a job that paid good money. It had even been worth repainting the van, and altering the name of the business. At last, everything was coming together.

Mr. Merryweather’s Elves had previously been known as Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarfs, as the changes to the van’s lettering suggested, but a series of unfortunate incidents, including some civil and criminal court actions, had required that Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarfs maintain a low profile for a time, and then quietly cease to exist. These incidents had included a brief engagement
as four of Snow White’s seven dwarfs at a pantomime in Aldershot, an engagement that had come to a sudden end following an assault on Prince Charming, in the course of which he was fed his own wig; two nights as mice and coachmen in
Cinderella,
during which the actor playing Buttons lost a finger; and a single performance of
The Wizard of Oz
that ended with a riot among the Munchkins, a flying monkey being shot down with a tranquilizer dart, and a fire in the Emerald City that required three units of the local fire brigade to put out.

And so Mr. Merryweather’s Dwarfs had been reinvented as Mr. Merryweather’s Elves, a cunning ploy that, incredibly, had somehow managed to fool otherwise sensible people into believing this was an entirely different troupe of little men, and not the horrible bunch of drunks, arsonists, and monkey shooters who had almost single-handedly brought an end to pantomime season in England. Elves just didn’t seem as threatening as dwarfs, and as long as Mr. Merryweather kept the dwarfs hidden until the last possible moment, and ensured that they were, for the most part, clean and sober, he began to believe that he just might get away with the deception.

That day, Mr. Merryweather’s Elves had begun what was potentially their most lucrative engagement yet: they were to be featured in a music video for the beloved boy band BoyStarz to be filmed at Lollymore Castle. If all went well, the dwarfs would appear in future videos as well, and perhaps join BoyStarz on tour. There would be T-shirt sales; there was even talk of their own TV show. It seemed, thought Mr. Merryweather, too good to be true.

And like most things that seem too good to be true, it was.

First of all, they didn’t want to do it, even before they knew what “it” was.

“I have a job for you lot,” he told them. “A good one and all.”

“Eh, it wouldn’t involve being a dwarf, would it?” asked Angry.

“Well, yes.”

“What a shocker. You know, it’s not as if we wake up every morning and think, ‘Oh look, we’re dwarfs. Didn’t expect that. I thought I was taller.’ No, we’re just regular people who happen to be small. It doesn’t define us.”

“What’s your point?” asked Mr. Merryweather wearily.

“Our point is,” said Jolly, “that we’d like to do something where being a dwarf is just incidental. For example, why can’t I play Hamlet?”

“Because you’re three foot eight inches tall, that’s why. You can’t play Hamlet. Piglet, maybe, but not Hamlet.”
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“Less of that,” said Jolly. “That’s what I’m talking about, see? That kind of attitude keeps us oppressed.”

That, thought Mr. Merryweather, and the fact that you all drink too much, and can’t be bothered to learn lines, and would pick your own pockets just to pass the time.

“Look, it’s just the way the world works,” said Mr. Merryweather. “It’s not me. I’m trying to do my best, but you don’t help matters with your behavior. We can’t even do
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
in panto this year because you fought with
Mrs. Doris Stott’s Magnificent Midgets, so we’re three little people down. Nobody wants to watch
Snow White and the Four Dwarfs.
It just doesn’t sound right.”

“You could tell them it’s a budget production,” said Angry.

“We could double up,” said Dozy.

“You can barely single up,” said Mr. Merryweather.

“Careful,” said Dozy.

And after they’d bickered and argued for another half hour, he had eventually managed to tell them about the job, and they had reluctantly agreed to earn some money. Mr. Merryweather had climbed behind the wheel and thought, not for the first time, that he understood why people liked tossing dwarfs around, and wondered if he could convince someone to toss his dwarfs, preferably off a high cliff.

They had arrived at Lollymore Castle, not far from the town of Biddlecombe, early that morning. It was cold and damp, and the dwarfs were already complaining before they even got out of the van. Still, they were given tea to warm them up, and then dressed in the costumes that had been specially made for them: little suits of armor, little coats of chain mail, lightweight helmets.

Then they were handed swords and maces, and Mr. Merryweather had sprinted from the van to stop them from killing someone.

“For crying out loud, don’t give them weapons,” he said, grabbing Jolly’s arm just in time to stop him from braining an assistant director with a mace. “They might, er, hurt themselves.”

He patted Jolly on the head. “They’re only little fellas, you know.” He hugged Jolly in the manner of a friendly uncle embracing a much-loved nephew, and received a kick in the shin for his trouble.

“Gerroff,” said Jolly. “And give me back my mace.”

“Look, don’t hit anyone with it,” hissed Mr. Merryweather.

“It’s a mace. It’s
for
hitting people with.”

“But you’re only supposed to be pretending. It’s a video.”

“Well, they want it to look real, don’t they?”

“Not that real. Not
funeral
real.”

Jolly conceded that Mr. Merryweather had a point, and the dwarfs went to inspect the castle as the director pointed out their “marks,” the places on the battlements where they were supposed to stand during filming.

“What’s our motivation?” asked Angry. “Why are we here?”

“What do you mean?” said the director. “You’re defending the castle.”

“This castle?”

“Yes.”

“Is it ours?”

“Of course it’s yours.”

“I beg to differ. The steps are too big. I nearly did myself an injury climbing up those steps. Almost ruptured something, I did. If we’d built this castle, we’d have made the steps smaller. Can’t be ours. Makes no sense.”

The director pinched the bridge of his nose hard and closed his eyes.

“Right then, you captured it from somebody else.”

“Who?” asked Jolly.

“Capsmodwa?” said Mumbles.

“That’s right,” said Angry. “Did we capture it from smaller dwarfs? We’re dwarfs—er, elves. I can’t even see over the battlements. How are four of us supposed to have captured this castle? What did we do, raid it in installments?”

“Perhaps it was just abandoned, and you took it over.”

“You can’t do that. You can’t wander into places without a by-your-leave just because someone’s popped out for a pint of milk or a bit of a battle, and then call it home. It’s not right. They’d have you up in court, you know. That’s illegal entry, that is. That’s six months in jail. And I should know.”

The director opened his eyes, grasped Angry by his chain mail, then lifted him from the ground so that he and Angry were on eye level.

“Listen to me,” said the director. “This is going to be a very long, very wet day, and if I have to, I will drop you from these battlements as an example to your friends of what happens when people start questioning the logic of a video in which a boy band with perfect teeth and blond highlights attempts to capture a castle from a bunch of little people wearing plastic armor. Do I make myself clear?”

“Abundantly,” said Angry. “Just trying to help.”

The director put him down.

“Good. Now, I’m going to go down there, and we’re going to start filming. Clear?”

“As crystal,” said Angry, Dozy, and Jolly.

“Al,” said Mumbles.

The dwarfs watched the director descend to the castle gate, then tramp angrily across the mud to the assemblage of tents and vans that constituted the video set.

“He’s obviously very artistic,” said Angry. “They’re like that, artistic people. They go off at the slightest thing. Them, and wrestlers.”

“Why did they give us plastic armor and real swords?” asked Dozy.

“Dunno,” said Angry. “Doesn’t say much for his battle strategy.”

“Nice castle, though.”

“Oh yes. Lovely workmanship. Knew what they were doing, these old builders.” Angry tapped his sword approvingly on a battlement, and watched as a chunk of it sheared off and almost killed a lighting technician below.

“Sorry,” said Angry.

He saw the director glaring at him, and raised his sword.

“A bit fell off,” he shouted in explanation. “We can fix it later,” then added to this colleagues: “Very shoddy, that. Bet a French bloke built this castle. Wouldn’t have that in an English castle. Built to last, English castles. It’s why we had an empire.”

But the others weren’t listening. Instead, they were gazing slack-jawed at the sight of BoyStarz, who had just emerged from the caravan that was their dressing room. Even by the standards of the average boy band, BoyStarz looked a bit soft: their hair was perfect, their skin unblemished, their teeth white. They seemed to be struggling under the weight of their armor, and one of them was complaining that his sword was too heavy.

The director accompanied them to within a few feet of the castle walls, and introduced them to the dwarfs.

“Okay, these are the BoyStarz,” he said, and at the mention of their band name some deep-seated instinct kicked in, aided by many months of training involving beatings, bribes, and threats of starvation, and each of the four young men did a little dance.

“Hi,” said the first, “I’m Starlight.”

“And I’m Twinkle.”

“I’m Gemini.”

“And I’m Phil.”

The dwarfs looked at the fourth member, who wasn’t as pretty as the rest, and seemed a bit lost.

“Why is there always one bloke in these boy bands who looks like he came to fix the boiler and somehow got bullied into joining the group?” asked Jolly.

“Dunno,” said Dozy. “Can’t dance much either, can he?”

Which was true. Phil danced like a man trying to shake a rat from his leg.

“We’re supposed to hand our lovely castle over to this lot?” said Angry. “It’d be like surrendering it to powder puffs.”

“No,” said Jolly softly. “No, there’s such a thing as pride, as dignity. We can’t have this. We just can’t.”

“What are they saying?” Twinkle asked the director nervously. “They look frighteningy.”