Big Change for Stuart (22 page)

‘April?' he shouted. ‘Can you hear me?

There was no reply.

‘Right,' he said to himself. ‘I'm looking for the letter E.'

And it was there, on the very next paving stone. Except that it was a rather curly-looking E that could equally well (he decided, looking at it sideways) be a 3. Or even an M. Or a W.

He gave the stone with the curly E a jab with his foot, and a hole instantly opened up. A vile-smelling black goo began to slide out of the gap, and Stuart jumped back hastily. Holding his nose, he craned to
see
the next two paving stones. He could make out a compass and a flamingo. Neither seemed to have any connection with the letter E. The black slime was still pouring steadily out of the hole, forming large bubbles which popped with the noise (and smell) of a particularly horrible fart. Stuart took another step back, and tried to think.

Compass.

Flamingo.

The goo spluttered and oozed towards him. Stuart took yet another step back, thinking that it was lucky he had the mini-island of three paving stones to retreat to – and then it occurred to him that with such a long run-up, he could jump much further than before – he could reach the fourth, or even the fifth stone ahead. The trouble was that from this distance it wasn't so easy to see the images.

The fourth flagstone was printed with an orange elephant but the fifth was covered in rows and rows of little pictures like hieroglyphs, of which he could only make out one or two of the nearest – a windmill, and what looked like a yo-yo, and a zebra. The black goo was beginning to flow over his feet as he dithered over
the
clues. Elephant began with an E but it couldn't be that easy, could it? Flamingos laid Eggs. One of the points of the compass was East. And what were all the little pictures about? What did a windmill and a yo-yo have in common with a zebra?

Suddenly he smacked his forehead in realization. The
alphabet
, of course. And now he could see there was a gap in the top row of the little pictures. One letter was missing, and he just
knew
which one it would be.

Hastily he backed off as far as he could, and then sprinted forward, fists clenched, legs pumping. His intention was to launch himself like an Olympic long-jumper, but the last couple of steps of his run-up were taken through the overflowing slime. One foot slid, then the other, and instead of pedalling majestically into the air, he found himself lurching forward like a flung pancake. He belly-flopped to the ground.

Cautiously he opened his eyes a crack, and saw the little alphabet pictures just a couple of centimetres from his face.
Apple, ball, chair, dog, fish, grapes
… Which meant that the top half of his
body
was on the right paving stone. He moved one of his legs, and then the other; the surface they were resting on seemed to be tipping, and with a burst of panicky speed, he scrabbled to safety.

He sat up and looked back.

The elephant paving stone had swung open like a revolving door, one side of it sticking straight up in the air, the other pointing downwards into a deep, dark hole. Stuart peered into it, and saw a set of narrow steps spiralling into the depths. If he'd missed his footing he could have broken his leg, or worse. A smell of ancient damp wafted out of the hole, and he stood up hastily, eager to get away. The path was climbing quite steeply now, and he noticed that the walls on either side of him were lower too, so that there was a gap between the top of them and the ceiling.

‘OK,' he said, scanning the paving stones ahead, ‘so I've done Tea Knee Tine E. And now what I need to find is a picture of a—'

‘TONE!' shouted someone on the other side of the wall to his right.

‘April?' called Stuart. He'd never been so pleased to hear someone's voice in his life. ‘It is April, isn't it?'

‘Yes! Hooray, I'm sick of being on my own and I'm really, really worried about my sisters. I've been keeping track of May's shrieks, but I haven't heard June at all. This place is frightening.'

‘Did you fall in the water?'

‘Yes. And one of my shoes got swallowed up and my feet are covered in that vile, disgusting black slop, and I nearly fell down that staircase under the elephant stone.'

‘Me too. I did exactly the same thing!'

‘Great minds think alike.'

‘You haven't seen the dog, have you?'

‘No,' she said dolefully. ‘Not yet.'

‘So where do we go now?' he asked, looking at the next three pictures. They showed a loaf of bread (
Teeny-tiny Dough-ny Horten?
), a needle and thread (
Teeny-tiny Sew-ny Horten?
) and a series of stripes, shading from white, through pink, to red (
no idea
).

‘I've already worked it out,' called April. ‘It's the third one.'

‘How does a set of stripes represent
Toe
?'

‘It doesn't. It represents
Tone
. As in
tones of the same colour
.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely certain. I'm already standing on it.'

Despite everything, Stuart actually laughed. ‘I thought you said you were going to stop making snap decisions.'

‘I'm in a hurry. Come on!'

‘OK.' He made the jump.

Tea Knee Tine E Tone
.

There wasn't far to go now: the path was curling up towards a terrace, and the walls were shrinking with every step.

‘Right,' shouted April. ‘A mountain, a donkey and a light bulb.'

‘E for Everest?' suggested Stuart.

‘Or the formula for the speed of light?'

‘Huh?'

‘E equals mc squared?'

‘Might be, I suppose.'

‘Shall I try?'

‘Hang on,' said Stuart, before April could go leaping off again. ‘Why's the donkey got its mouth open?' It was a fat, jolly-looking donkey, its mouth wide open and its head tipped back.

‘It's braying, I suppose,' said April doubtfully.

Stuart nodded slowly. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘It is braying. It's going,
Hee-haw
.'

There was a pause, and then they both spoke in unison.

‘
Tea Knee Tine E Tone Hee Haw
.'

‘Brilliant!' shouted April. ‘Nearly there.'

They both leaped onto the donkey stone at the same time, and Stuart's saw April's head bob briefly above the wall.

‘There's a white one after the light bulb,' said Stuart, jumping again.

And now there were only three more patterned paving stones, and after that, a set of steps leading up to the parapet.

‘So what do you think?' he asked, looking at the last three pictures. The first was marked with a large green X, the second showed a seagull with a pointed red beak, and the third was printed with a can of baked beans. ‘April?' he asked again.

But instead of an answer, he heard a distant, desperate scream for help.

‘JUNE!' SHOUTED APRIL.
‘That's June, I know it. And she never asks for help; she must really be in trouble,' and her voice wobbled with anxiety. ‘I'm going to make a run for it.'

‘No,
don't
,' said Stuart urgently. ‘It's not going to help June if you get into trouble as well. What if you fall down a hole? I wouldn't know who to rescue first, would I?'

‘No, but …' He could hear that she was near tears. ‘
One
minute to solve it,' she said. ‘I'll set my watch timer. OK? And if we've not solved it in one minute, I'm just going to guess.'

‘OK.'

He looked at the paving stones again.

X. Gull. Beans.

‘Beans, Gull, X,' he said, out loud.

‘X is the Roman numeral for ten,' said April. ‘Tony
Horten
?'

‘Except it's not pronounced like that. All these clues have been about how the words
sound
, not how they're spelled.'

‘Tin, then,' said April impatiently. ‘The third one's a tin of beans. Tony Hor
tin
.'

‘It's still not right.'

‘Thirty seconds to go.'

‘You pronounce it more like
turn
,' said Stuart. ‘Tea Knee Tine E Tone Hee Haw Turn.'

‘Turn?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's not a gull.'

‘What?'

‘That's not a picture of a gull. I did a summer holiday project on sea-birds when we went to Pembrokeshire last year. It's not a gull – their beaks look different. It's a
tern
!' And she was already off, jumping ahead, the minute timer on her wristwatch beeping, and Stuart hurried to catch up with her, galloping up the steps to the parapet. And from
there,
when he turned, he could see all four paths stretching back to the far wall. Two of them – the two that Stuart and April had completed – were no longer patterned, but had turned to solid paths of pure white flagstones. Halfway along one of the others was a dripping black blob.

‘That's May!' shouted April, waving both arms. ‘She must have fallen in that horrible bog. May!'

A wail of rage floated up from the black blob. ‘I
said
… I
said
that it might be dangerous, and
nobody listened
– nobody
ever
listens to
meeeeee
.'

‘And there's June,' said Stuart, pointing at a tiny figure in the far distance. ‘She's not in trouble, she just hasn't got started yet. I'll go and get her, if you like.'

April nodded gratefully, and Stuart hurried away down June's path, happy to have avoided the task of escorting a smelly, furious May to safety.

Negotiating the path the other way round was harder than he'd imagined, involving a number of tricky leaps, and it wasn't until he had nearly reached June that he realized she was sitting with her eyes tightly shut and her fingers jammed in her ears, water pooling around her. She had obviously fallen
into
the icy water beneath the second flagstone.

‘June!' he shouted from the paving stone with the picture of the teapot. ‘It's me, Stuart.'

‘Go away,' she said, removing one of her fingers. ‘I'm having an extremely vivid dream.'

‘No you're not.'

‘I must be. It's the only possible explanation.'

‘But how could I be in the same dream as you?'

‘Because you're not actually Stuart, you're just a projection of my imagination. You probably represent a minor worry I'm having.'

‘But—' He could see from her face that arguing was going to be a waste of time. ‘OK,' he said, ‘you're totally right, June, this is all a dream.'

‘I knew it!' For the first time, she opened her eyes.

‘And what I represent is' – he thought extremely hard – ‘your minor worry about having to be in charge the whole time.'

‘Yes, that is a worry,' she said, looking slightly pleased. ‘My sisters don't understand what a responsibility it is.'

‘So the thing about this dream is, you don't have to be in charge.'

‘Don't I?'

‘No. In this dream, you just have to listen to what I say, and do exactly what I do.'

‘But—'

‘With
no
arguing. Is that clear?'

She nodded slowly.

‘So stand up,' he said, ‘and follow me.'

Ordering a Kingley sister around was a new and enjoyable sensation, and they reached the end of the path with speedy efficiency. As they mounted the steps, Stuart turned and saw the jumbled pattern of June's path change, paving stone by paving stone, to an unbroken white, and then he hurried up to the parapet.

The other two triplets were still only halfway along May's path, and April was engaged in dragging her sister onto the alphabet stone. May had obviously almost missed the jump, and had accidentally kicked open the dank, dark entrance to the spiral staircase.

‘This part of the dream shows exactly what happens when I'm
not
in charge,' remarked June, watching with interest.

Her sisters had nearly reached the steps when April paused and looked back.

‘What's the matter?' called Stuart.

‘I thought I heard something,' she shouted. ‘Hang on a moment,' and she turned back along the path.

May stood there, paralysed.

‘You're almost there,' said Stuart, coming down the steps towards her. ‘Just jump onto the picture of the gull, and then onto the steps.'

‘Yes, do what he says,' called June. ‘He might look like Stuart, but he's actually a figment of my imagination, and therefore completely trustworthy.'

In the distance, April was kneeling, peering down the spiral staircase.

‘Do I smell?' asked May, squelching up the steps and leaving a repulsive smudge on each one.

‘No,' lied Stuart, trying to breathe through his mouth.

‘I do. I smell like an outside
toilet
.'