Beyond the Deepwoods (13 page)

Up, up, up, he rose, through the rosy syrup and … out. Twig gasped and coughed and gulped down huge lungfuls of air. He wiped his eyes clean and, for the first time, saw the long body and massive head for what they really were. A rope and a bucket.

Past the steep walls he went; past the group of angular spindlebugs, still busy squeezing the last drops of pink honey from the now deflated sacs of their milchgrubs, and on into the upper reaches of the great cavern. The bucket swung perilously. Twig clung onto the rope, scarcely daring, though unable
not
, to look down.

Far below was the patchwork of pink and brown fields. Above him, a black hole in the glowing roof was coming nearer and nearer and…

All at once his head popped out, and Twig found himself back in the steamy heat of the kitchen. The fat and flabby face of the Grossmother was directly in front of him.

‘Oh, no,’ Twig groaned.

Sweat rolled down over the Grossmother's bulging brow and cheeks as she secured the
end of the rope. Her body wobbled with every movement, sloshing and slewing like a sackful of oil. Twig ducked down as she unhooked the bucket, and prayed she wouldn't notice the crown of his head above the surface of the honey.

Humming tunelessly, the Grossmother slopped the full bucket over to the stove, hefted it up onto her trembling shoulder and sloshed the contents into a pot. Twig fell into the bubbling goo with a squelchy
ploff.

‘Ugh!’ Twig exclaimed, his disgust drowned out by the Grossmother's puffing and panting as she returned to the well for more. ‘What's going on?’

The honey was hot – hot enough to turn the clear bucketful instantly opaque. It gurgled and plopped all round him, splashing into his face. Twig knew he had to get out before he was boiled alive. He heaved himself up out of the thickening steamy mixture onto the rim of the pot and splatted down onto the top of the stove.

Now what? he wondered. The floor was too far down to risk jumping, and the Grossmother was already returning with yet another bucket of honey from the well. He scuttled off behind the pot, crouched down and hoped she wouldn't see him.

With his heart beating fit to burst, Twig listened to the Grossmother hum and stir and sip the pink honey as it came to the boil. ‘Hmmm,’ she mumbled, and smacked her lips noisily. ‘Tastes a bit funny,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Sort of sour…’ She sipped again, and hiccuped. ‘Oh, I'm sure it's fine.’

She plodded off and snatched a couple of tea towels from the table. Twig looked round him desperately. The honey was now ready. It was time it was poured into the feeding tube. Surely she'll see me! he thought.

But Twig was in luck. As the Grossmother wrapped the cloths around the first scalding pot, and heaved it from the stove, Twig ducked round behind the second. And when she plonked it back into place and went to empty the second pot, he darted behind the first. The Grossmother, intent on getting the honey for her boys ready in time, never noticed a thing.

Twig remained hidden as the Grossmother struggled to empty the second huge pot into the feeding tube. After a considerable amount of grunting and groaning, he heard a ratchet clicking round. He peeked out.

The Grossmother was pulling a lever up and down. As she did so, the long tube, now full of the heated pink honey, sank down through the floor and into the chamber below. She pulled a second lever, and he heard
the click and gurgle of the honey being released into the trough. A roar of gluttonous joy echoed up from the hall below.

‘There you are,’ the Grossmother whispered, and a satisfied smile spread over her gargantuan features. ‘Sup well, my boys. Enjoy your meal.’

Twig scraped the sticky honey off his jacket and licked his fingers.

‘Yeuch!’ he said and spat out. Boiled up, the honey tasted vile. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. It was time for him to make his getaway. If he waited for the Grossmother to do the washing-up, he'd be caught for sure. And the last thing he wanted was to be dropped back down the disposal chute. But where
was
the Grossmother?

Twig squeezed himself between the two empty pots and peered round. He couldn't see her anywhere.

Meanwhile, the tumultuous racket from the chamber below showed no sign of easing up. If anything it was getting louder and – to Twig's ears – more agitated.

The Grossmother, too, must have sensed that something was wrong. ‘What is it, my treasures?’ Twig heard her saying.

He twisted round in alarm, and squinted into the shadows. And there she was, her monstrous bulk sprawled out in an armchair in the far corner of the kitchen. Her head was back and she was dabbing at her brow with a damp cloth. She looked worried.

‘What
is
it?’ she said a second time.

Twig didn't care what was wrong. This was his chance
to escape. If he knotted the tea towels together, he should be able to shin down to the floor. He squeezed back between the pots but too quickly. In his haste, he knocked against one of the pots and could only stare in horror as it toppled over, away from him. For an instant it hovered in mid-air, before crashing to the floor with a resounding
CLANG
!

‘Oh, me!’ the Grossmother squeaked and leaped to her feet with remarkable speed. She saw the fallen pot. She saw Twig. ‘Aaaaah!’ she screamed, her beady eyes blazing. ‘More vermin! And at my cooking pots!’

She grabbed her mop, raised it in front of her and advanced purposefully towards the stove. Twig quaked where he stood. The Grossmother brought the mop up above her head and … froze. The expression on her face turned from one of fury to one of utter terror.

‘You … you haven't been
in
the honey, have you?’ she said. ‘Tell me you haven't. Contaminating it, adulterating it … you vile and disgusting little creature. Anything can happen if the honey is soured.
Anything
. It turns my boys wild, it does. You don't know…’

At that moment the door behind her burst open and a furious cry of ‘
THERE SHE BE!
’ went up.

The Grossmother swung round. ‘Boys, boys,’ she said sweetly. ‘You
know
the kitchens are out of bounds.’

‘Get her!’ the goblins screamed. ‘She did try to poison us.’

‘Of course I didn't,’ the Grossmother whimpered as she backed away from the advancing torrent of goblins. She turned, raised a flabby arm and pointed a fat finger at Twig. ‘It was …
that
!’ she squealed. ‘It got into the honey pot.’

The gyle goblins were having none of it. ‘Let's do her!’ they raged. The next instant they were all over her. Scores of them. Screaming and shouting, they pulled her to the ground and began rolling her over and over across the sticky kitchen floor to the disposal chute.

‘It was just a bad …
ooof
… a bad batch,’ she grumbled. ‘I'll …
unnh
… My stomach…! I'll make a new lot.’

Deaf to her excuses and promises, the goblins rammed her head down the chute. Her increasingly desperate cries became muffled. The goblins leaped to their feet and jumped up and down on her massive bulk, trying to push her down through the narrow opening. They squished her. They squeezed her. They pummelled and pounded her until all at once, with a squelchy
plopff
, the immense wobbling body of fat disappeared.

Meanwhile, Twig had finally got down from the stove and made an immediate dash for it. Just as he reached the door, he heard a colossal
SPLODGE
! echoing up through the hole. He knew that the Grossmother had landed on one of the compost heaps in the great cavern below.

The goblins whooped and cheered with malicious delight. Their poisoner had been dealt with. But they weren't satisfied yet. They turned their anger on the kitchen itself. They smashed the sink. They trashed the stove. They snapped off the levers and broke the tube.
They sent the pots and stirring paddles tumbling down the chute, and roared with laughter when a cry of ‘Ouch, my head!’ came echoing up from the cavern below.

And
still
they weren't done! With a howl of fury they turned on the well, hitting it, kicking it, breaking it into a thousand little bits, till all that was left was a hole in the floor.

‘Get the cupboards! Get the shelves! Get her armchair!’ they yelled, and they pushed and shoved everything they could lay their hands on down through the hole they had made. Finally, all that was left in the kitchen was Twig himself. A bloodcurdling cry went up, like the roar of a wounded animal raging with pain. ‘Get
him
!’ the goblins screamed.

Twig spun round, raced through the door and dashed off down the dimly lit tunnel. The gyle goblins pounded after him.

To the left and to the right, Twig ran.

This way and that

On and on through the endless maze of the honeycombed colony.

The sound of the raging goblins gradually faded away to nothing.

‘I've lost them,’ said Twig with a sigh of relief. He looked round at the tunnel, stretching away in front and behind. He swallowed nervously. ‘I've also lost
myself
,’ he muttered miserably.

Some minutes later, Twig came to a crossroads. He stopped. His stomach churned. There were twelve tunnels leading off it, like the spokes of a wheel.