The Beasts of Upton Puddle (16 page)

“I'll be missing my kicking fix for Saturday and Sunday, won't I, brain boy?”

Joe opened his eyes to see his nemesis standing over him, holding a thick branch. Apparently, Duggan wasn't satisfied with his brief clash outside the school and had followed Joe into the woods. He hoped Duggan couldn't read the surprise or fear in his face, but it would make little difference anyway. The whites of the bully's eyes contained the usual psychotic excitement that told Joe he was about to feel a sting of bark on his skin. He may as well make Duggan earn it.

“That's a nice stick,” Joe said. “Why don't you throw it and go play fetch with yourself?”

Then came the angry smile and a whoosh of stick across the side of Joe's head. His ears rang.

“Think you're really clever, don't you?”

Whump! The stick connected with the other side of Joe's head. He scrambled away on hands and knees.

“Think you can keep it up if I break your jaw?”

The stick fell across his back, followed by a boot to the ribs. Joe groaned and turned over, looking into the sunlight, wishing someone somewhere would intervene, wishing he'd decided to go home instead. Images blurred and swam as if he'd put on a pair of water-filled goggles.

Duggan's figure darkened Joe's view as he stooped over him like a gorilla about to swat a chimp from his den.

“What's that?” Duggan stopped moving.

For a second, Joe hoped they'd been disturbed by
the Beast of Upton Puddle, but Duggan was staring at the ground a few feet away from the tree stump. “This yours?” he said, picking up a shiny object and showing it to Joe.

Joe squinted, battling with his vision. It was the padlock key. He stared at it for a second or two, trying to look unconcerned. “Never seen it before.”

Duggan's teeth flashed in a sadistic grin. “It
is
yours. What does it open?”

Joe shrugged and shook his head.

“You'd better tell me, 'cause if you don't, I'll have to take it to Gravesy the groundskeeper. Me and him are like that.” Duggan crossed two fingers. “He used to be a locksmith, and he'll be able to tell me what lock this fits.”

Joe knew that was a lie, but it didn't matter. His stomach tied in knots. He stared at the key, then at Duggan, gritting his teeth. There was no way he could allow this thug to walk away with it. Though he knew there'd be little chance of success, Joe launched himself at the yob, screaming his tonsils out.

Joe's head connected with Duggan's chest, almost toppling him, but he responded with a sharp lunge. Joe no longer had the advantage of surprise, and Duggan was ready for the next try. He came at the bully with a wild windmill of fists, but Duggan met each swing with a jarring block and drove him back to the ground. Two knees pressed Joe's aching arms, and he knew his
face would be the next target.

“All right, all right,” Joe gasped. “I'll tell you what the key's for, but you
have
to keep it a secret.”

Duggan grinned. “I don't
have
to do anything. How about you tell me, and I don't finish off this kicking?”

“Fair enough. Just get it over with, then, but you'll never find out what it opens.”

Duggan squinted, his tiny brain obviously calculating the odds. With a slow nod, he opened his fist to look at the key, then pocketed it. “I'm keeping the key, but, yeah, okay—I'll keep it a secret.”

Joe knew that was a lie too, but it didn't matter. “It's the key to my savings box, which I buried out here in the forest.”

“Savings? How much?”

“Two hundred fifty quid.”

“Really?” Duggan almost drooled the next question. “Where did you hide it?”

“I made a map, but I don't have it on me. That would be stupid, wouldn't it?”

“Yeah, I s'pose so. So where's the map?”

Joe was tempted to tell the thug there was another map for that map but decided not to push his luck. “It's at home.”

“Well, go and get it, then. I'll be waiting here.”

“I won't be able to come back out once my mum sees I'm home. I'll bring the map to school on Monday, but you have to promise you won't beat me up again.”

“All right, but if you forget it, I'll make sure you won't be able to walk for a week. Get it?” Duggan shifted more of his weight onto his knees to emphasize his point.

“Got it.” Joe winced.

Duggan eyed him, then got up. “Monday, brain boy. Don't forget,” he said before he strolled off.

Joe struggled to his feet. There was no choice now. He had to get to Merrynether Mansion fast. There was little chance that Duggan would ever find out what the key was for, but that was not his chance to take. He had to warn Mrs. Merrynether.

By the time Joe had pulled the bell cord the fourth time, he knew nobody was coming to let him in. Joe made his way around the side of the mansion, thinking this was getting to be a bit of a habit. He doubted the trapdoor would be open this time, especially since Lilly had stolen the padlock key, but perhaps the tradesman's entrance would be a possibility.

Both were shut. The tradesman's entrance displayed a sign saying
Closed until Monday
, and a shiny new padlock secured the trapdoor to its frame. At least there was no chance of Duggan getting inside with the old key, but Joe was desperate to know how things were coming along with the manticore. The last time he stood in the vault, there came the glimmer of hope that Flarp's chaotic arrival would help him recover.

Something small and sharp bounced off Joe's head.

He yelped and rubbed furiously at his scalp.

A screw chunked in the grass by his feet.

Lilly leaned out of a window, his beetroot face wrinkled in anger and his little teeth chomping down on his pipe as he waved his fists in the air. “Get ye gone, ya backshtabbin' yellow-bellied turncort.” His eyebrows rose. “Unless a course ya brought me drink dis toime?” The cluricaun paused, his teeth clacking on the end of his pipe as he passed it from one side of his mouth to the other.

Joe grinned. “Are you going to let me in?”

“Get me a bloody drink, boy! That woman's new beasty is drivin' me ta misery—I needs me some relief.”

“I thought you liked Flarp.”

“No, not him. She got a new one yesterday. Horrible little ting, ruder than a nude at a queen's tea party . . . and twoice as ogly!”

“You two should get along just fine, then.”

“Why, ya little—” Lilly almost fell out of the window.

“So where's Mrs. Merrynether?”

Lilly ducked inside, slammed the window, and screamed a torrent of Irish curses as one of the panes smashed.

Joe cupped his hands around his mouth, “You all right up there, Lilly?”

A loud raspberry sounded in return.

“Thanks!” Joe laughed. “So is Mrs. Merrynether in or not? I'll keep on until you tell me.”

More curses accompanied the scrunching of tiny
clogs on glass. A hand shot out of the window, pointed toward the back of the house, and then made a V sign before darting inside again.

“Thanks, Lilly.” Smiling, Joe walked past the trapdoor and around the back of the mansion, realizing he'd never actually been there before. He wondered what he might find.

An explosion of color and grandeur stole Joe's breath as he turned the corner. A huge garden, bursting with sunny pineapple broom and vibrant lilies painted like cherry-red lips, greeted him. Ancient oaks lined a perfect circle of grass the size of a small lake. From their branches hung baskets of snowy petals that splashed outward like frozen fountains. Central to the ground's grassy expanse, moss-smothered statues dominated the view, each fantastic creature swathed in wild vines. Joe recognized a manticore sculpture rearing on two legs as if in battle, the tail arched and the fearsome talons extended like knives. But commanding even greater attention, standing on a plinth at the very center, stood the proud figure of a dragon, its long neck searching upwards and its arrow-shaped head lifted to the sky. Joe worked out that from the base to the tip of its snout it stood at exactly twenty-three feet and seven inches.

Impressed by the workmanship, Joe took a few more moments to gaze at it and then noticed the strange figurines circling the plinth. At first he thought they were simple stone funnels spouting jets of water
over the base, but a closer look revealed them to be a ring of flabby men covered with warts and seated with their heads pressed into their palms: they were crying over the dragon's feet. A few paces in front, completing the display, was the likeness of a seraph with both its arms and wings stretched in abandon, its face also tilted skyward like the dragon's.

Joe studied all this for a while longer, wondering what it was supposed to represent, before turning his attention back to why he had come. At the far end of the grounds, Joe saw Mrs. Merrynether dressed in muddy, green overalls and crouched over a large rectangle of soil and a long line of canes supporting a crowded array of bulbous fruit. Her back was to him, and her shoulders pumped as lumps of dirt and weeds flew from either side of her.

In contrast to Mrs. Merrynether's sprightly action, Archy the pig lay next to her on his back, snoring with an occasional twitch.

“Mrs. Merrynether?” Joe called.

Her head turned, and she squinted through her enormous lenses. “Ah, Joseph. Good to see you, boy. Come over here and give me a hand, would you? My back's not what it used to be.”

Joe hurried over, sat beside her, and looked at the plants on display: things he'd never seen in the fruit and veg section of the local grocery store before. Knobbly fruit like pink golf balls hung from one bush; long
yellow things with black hooks and hairy tips sprouted from thick roots too. And then he noticed a fat pea-green mushroom that looked like it had split into four separate heads, each entwined with its neighbor.

“What are they?” breathed Joe. “I've never seen plants like these before. Where did you get them?”

Mrs. Merrynether picked a golf ball from the closest bush and inspected it. “This one is called baby moons' blight.”

She tossed it into a basket to her left and picked another. “They're very good for your health, you know—strengthen the arteries. Want a bite? This one's perfect.”

Joe wrinkled his nose but accepted it anyway. Being sure to watch her reaction, Joe had a tentative sniff, then bit into it. The skin popped, and a fine mist of clear juices sprayed into the air as the pulp savaged his taste buds. Joe wasted no time in spitting it out and gargling his disapproval. “Urgh! It tastes like vindaloo. They're horrible.”

“You don't like a good curry?” Mrs. Merrynether chortled.

“No, I do not. I had a bit of my mum's takeout a few months ago. It was gross.”

“Shame. I've got some daddy moons' blight growing in the conservatory. That's the
really
hot stuff. Heinrich made some stew with it a few weeks back and couldn't speak for three days after he'd eaten it.” She chuckled.

“And what's that?” Joe pointed at the twisty mushroom.

“That? Oh, that's Minutis explosus, or midget's puffball.”

“And you can eat it?”

“Well, yes, if you like, but they taste vile. It's the spores you want.”

“The spores?”

“Yes, watch.” She picked up what looked like a small butterfly net and held it over the top of the mushroom. Leaning closer to it, she hummed a melody as if whispering a lullaby to an infant. Within a few seconds the mushroom bulged like a pair of green cheeks stifling a sneeze, and then, following an unsightly shudder, an inky cloud containing miniscule black seeds wheezed into the air surrounding it.

“Here,” Mrs. Merrynether said, removing the net. “Try one of these. It's not spicy, I promise you.”

Joe frowned but decided that however foul it could be, it would be better than the curry-tasting nightmare still tainting his tongue. He popped one of the seeds in his mouth and crunched it down between his teeth.

“Popcorn! It tastes like popcorn.”

“Lovely, aren't they?”

“They're great. Where do you
get
these?”

“Aha. That would be telling, wouldn't it?”

“Is it the same place as the animals?”

Mrs. Merrynether tapped the side of her nose. “Why don't you go inside the house—the back door
through the glasshouse is open. Heinrich will be in the vault as usual, and I'm sure you want to see how Cornelius is getting on, don't you?”

“Yes, and can I see the new creature? What is it?”

Mrs. Merrynether's chin jerked forward. “How did you know we have a new patient?”

“I . . . er . . . Lilly told me?”

“Lilly?” Mrs. Merrynether's spectacles slipped down her nose, and a vein stood out on her forehead. “You saw that little nuisance? Where? We've been trying to catch him ever since Heinrich let him escape.”

“He was on the second floor a few minutes ago.” Joe grimaced. “I think he broke one of your windows . . . by accident.”

Mrs. Merrynether shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Thank you, Joseph. Please go inside the house and see Heinrich. He will have a new shopping list for you.”

“Ah . . . about the other list. I sort of—”

“Oh, the old list? Don't worry about that. Snappel, the scheduled patient, is going to be delayed by a week or two. We need some items for our newest guest instead.” Mrs. Merrynether got to her feet and passed the basket to Joe. “Take these inside and give them to Heinrich. He'll give you the list, all right? I'll see you in a while.” She shooed him away with muddy hands and then turned back to her plants.

“Okay.” Joe balked under the weight of the basket and turned his head as the golf balls wafted curry
smells at him. “See you soon.”