Playschool (11 page)

Hiding behind a pile of gold coins, she had watched as the suitcase had come into the cave, undone his zip and taken out the odds and ends he had collected that afternoon. Everyone at Quicklime's talked about Narled's storehouse and tried to guess where it was. Merlinmary was the only one to have found it, but instead of telling anyone, something told her it would be better kept secret.

Merlinmary went through all the tunnels and secret places that she had visited before – she knew there were other places still to discover – but The Toad was in none of them.

Matron and the two nurses woke Orkward Warlock up and gave him some more cough medicine.

‘Right, you little beast,' said Matron, ‘take us to where you last saw The Toad.'

Orkward shook his head but the medicine was starting to take effect and he coughed up some gravy.

‘That's better. Now, we know you went into the forest,' said Matron. ‘So just take us to the right place.'

‘But I'm not supposed to go in there, remember?' said Orkward. ‘You said that.'

‘It's a bit late for that. The forest was the last
place you saw The Toad. So that is where we are going to start looking,' said Matron.

Orkward wanted to keep the place secret, because that was where he was planning to fix the tracking device to Narled, but Matron's cough mixture had broken stronger and braver boys than Orkward and five minutes later, still dripping gravy from his nose, he was leading Matron and the nurses out of the gates and down the track to the gap in the bushes.

‘Stay here,' she commanded. ‘Nurse Juliet, make sure he doesn't move. Nurse Romeo, come with me.'

They followed the path until it ended in the small clearing. It was deserted apart from a gentle snoring noise coming from a pile of soft grass. Matron pushed the grass to one side and there, fast asleep with a peaceful smile on his face, was the little toad.

‘Charlie,' said Matron, because that was The Toad's real name before he was changed into an amphibian. ‘Time to wake up.'

She turned to Romeo. ‘Just fly back and make
sure the Warlock boy is still there. Then you and Juliet take the little horror back to school and don't let him know I've found Charlie. I have a plan.'

She picked the sleeping toad up and slipped him into her apron pocket. Back in her private room, she tucked him up in bed, locked the door and told Professor Throat to call off the search.

Meanwhile, the two nurse crows had flown Orkward back to the Naughty Dungeon and locked
him in there. The Naughty Dungeon was a virtual dungeon in the cellars of Quicklime's that no one had ever managed to escape from, because it was down a very, very long tunnel that led deep into the Earth.
³¹
It was haunted by horrograms, which are like holograms only very, very frightening. The nicest place in the Naughty Dungeon was inside the toilet bowl with the lid down.

The only thing Orkward Warlock had been better at than any other child in Quicklime's was being locked up in the Naughty Dungeon. He had been there seventeen times and was almost beginning to like it. He loved watching horror movies, and horrograms were like the best horror movies, except they leapt out and slapped you in the face when
you were least expecting it. He watched them as he crouched in the toilet bowl with the lid resting on his head, but the horrograms still got him.

‘That evil boy is up to something,' said Matron. ‘We need a mole to find out what.'

‘Well, we don't have a mole,' said Professor Throat. ‘We only have a toad.'

‘Well, what about if we got a mole and disguised it as a toad?'

‘Hmm. Go on …'

‘I think you'll agree that little Charlie has been a toad long enough, so I suggest we change him back into a little boy and hide him somewhere for the rest of the term,' said Matron. ‘Then we disguise someone else as The Toad so he can find out what Orkward is up to.'

‘Excellent idea,' said Professor Throat. ‘Do you have someone in mind?'

‘I do.'

When The Toad was safely hidden away, Matron sent Orkward back to his room, where the pretend toad was waiting for him. Orkward Warlock never looked closely at anyone except himself, and the mole that Matron had disguised as The Toad fooled him completely.

‘Where did you get to?' he asked.

‘I just fell asleep in the dark forest,' said The Faketoad.

‘What about Matron's Enchanted Wax?'

‘I left it outside the sick bay door. Nothing to worry about. No one saw me.'

‘Excellent,' said Orkward. ‘Maybe you're not such a little cretin as I though you were.'

The Faketoad beamed with happiness just like the real Toad would have done.

‘And look,' Orkward continued. ‘I even conned that idiot Winchflat into lending me his tracking device. We'll go back to the forest and fix it onto Narled. By the end of term we'll be incredibly rich and all the Floods will be dead.'

‘You're a genius,' said The Faketoad.

‘It'll end in tears,' said The Mirror, who could tell instantly that The Faketoad was not the real Toad, but hadn't the slightest intention of telling Orkward.

The Mirror had seen Orkward in tears more than anyone else had. The whole school knew Orkward Warlock was a sneaky little coward, but only The Mirror knew just how big a baby he was. The boy was even scared of his own shadow.
³²

As soon as it was dark, Orkward and The Faketoad crept out of school and back to the path into the dark forest. The Faketoad was worried that Narled might be able to see that he wasn't the real Toad and give him away, but he was counting on the fact that Narled and his family liked the real Toad and hated Orkward.

Orkward collected his hidden jar of Enchanted Wax, went into the clearing and waited. Soon Narled appeared. He was alone and, as Orkward polished his leathery suitcase skin with his left hand, he fixed the tracking device to Narled's straps with his right.

‘Now,' said Orkward, ‘here is the package I want you to take to the Floods on Saturday. They'll win the three-legged race. They always do, the cheating
warthog bottom bristles. When they're getting their gold medals for the three-legged race, leave the package under the winner's stand. You don't actually have to give it to them. Understood?'

Narled zipped the package away and nodded slightly.

As Orkward left the clearing, he deliberately by accident dropped a large gold coin on the path and, sure enough, Narled trundled over and picked it up before vanishing back into the dark forest.

Back in his room, Orkward Warlock turned on the tracking device base station and looked at the screen. There it was, the little blue dot that told him exactly where Narled was. The blue dot came back out of the dark forest and moved further up the valley along the road that passed the school.

‘Come on, let's go!' Orkward said to The Faketoad. ‘He's on his way to the treasure store, I know he is!'

They waited until they saw Narled pass by the school and then followed him at a safe distance so he wouldn't sense they were there. Eventually the
blue light stopped moving and, as they rounded a corner, they saw Narled standing completely still in the middle of the track. Suddenly he darted between two rocks – but Orkward saw him and followed.

‘I've been up this road dozens of times,' he whispered to The Faketoad. ‘I wonder why I've never seen this path before.'

The rocks slid together behind them, cutting off their escape.

‘
That's
why,' said The Faketoad. ‘Now we're trapped.'

‘We'll worry about that later,' said Orkward. ‘Come on.'

The path went back into the dark forest, getting narrower and steeper until Orkward was almost mountain climbing. The rocks were far too steep for The Faketoad's little legs. Maybe if he had been the real toad he could've hopped up, but The Faketoad was scared he might fall backwards.

‘I think I'll just wait here,' he said, but Orkward was too far ahead to hear and besides, he had no intention of sharing the treasure with The Toad.

I wonder how Narled got up there
, The Faketoad thought to himself.

Orkward came out above the trees and continued to climb. There was no sign of Narled, but he knew he was on the right track. Higher and higher he climbed until at last he reached a wide ledge at the foot of a sheer cliff. Far below him he could see the thick green blanket of the dark forest, and right in its centre was Quicklime College. Behind him was a cave, not just any cave, but Narled's secret treasure cave.

Orkward squeezed through the narrow opening and almost fainted. The cave was massive and, although the entrance was no bigger than half a doorway, the whole place was filled with light. It danced and sparkled in a million reflections as it revealed shelf after shelf of priceless gold and diamonds, and there was more – much, much more. Wherever Orkward
Warlock looked there was treasure, enough to make him the richest person in the world, richer than Aubergine Wealth, and no one knew it was there.

No one except The Toad and Narled.

So they would both have to die.

Orkward scrambled down the path to where he had last seen The Toad, but he was no longer there. He ran back to the two rocks by the road, climbed over them and raced back to the school.

‘Seen The Toad anywhere?' he said as casually as he could to anyone he passed, but no one had.

Of course, the real Toad was not The Toad any more. He was now back as himself, a small boy called Charlie, and he was safely hidden away in Matron's own apartment, eating cake and wondering how much lemonade he would have to drink before he finally got the taste of flies out of his mouth.

The Faketoad was not a fake toad any more either. The Faketoad was Satanella Flood once more, and was sitting in Professor Throat's office reporting everything that had happened.

‘It was brilliant,' she said, running round in
circles chasing her tail. ‘The stupid boy never saw through my disguise for a moment, though I nearly gave myself away when I tried to sniff an interesting lamppost and fell over.'

‘You've done very well, my dear,' said the Professor. ‘Here, have a gold star.'

‘He's going to try to kill us all,' she growled, finally catching her tail and biting it. ‘Oww,' she added. ‘That makes your eyes water.'

‘Don't worry, my dear,' said Professor Throat. ‘Narled has everything under control.'

As it began to get dark, Orkward gave up his search for The Toad. He took a backpack of food and a sleeping bag and hurried back up the mountain to the cave. He felt nervous being away from all that treasure, and from the ledge he could see right down into the sports field. He would stay there until the Floods were dead the next day, and then take the treasure and leave the wretched valley forever. He
knew Professor Throat's spell stopped him leaving, but he figured with a big bag of gold, he'd be able to bribe one of the dragons to smuggle him out. Even if Narled or The Toad did give him away, he would be far away.

He was just about to zip up the sleeping bag to go to sleep, when he realised that there was a better use for it. He spent the rest of the night feverishly gathering up the most valuable items from the cave into the bag, until it was bulging at the seams.