The Beasts of Upton Puddle (3 page)

Joe turned to look at the array of frowning men and women, each clutching a shivering animal or a small cage to which they were murmuring words of baby-talk comfort. “But you always help out, Mr. Wheeler.” Joe pushed his trolley closer and offered him the badger and an expectant smile.

“I know. And it's commendable of you to keep your eyes open for injured animals, but this is a business, you know. I can't help you every time.”

Joe looked at him silently.

A forlorn look held long enough might normally have swayed the old vet, but Mr. Wheeler smiled all the more. “I have to give priority to paying customers, see?”

“I'll pay,” said Joe, rummaging through his pockets.

“I'm sure you would.” Mr. Wheeler smiled and ruffled Joe's tangled hair. “Truth is, lad, things have been a little crazy in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's the Beast, eh?”

“Beast?”

“Yes, the Beast of Upton Puddle. You deliver papers every morning. Haven't you heard of it?”

“No.”

“It was on the front page yesterday. Some people even think it's bigfoot; others say it's a wolf. But ever since the first sighting two weeks ago, we've been run off our feet here with pets and livestock.”

“I think I saw it half an hour ago in Ringwood Forest.”

“You did, huh?” The vet looked over the top of his glasses.

“Yes, I think so. It looked a bit like an ape or something, but it was huge.”

“Well, I'd better ring the police,” the vet said, reaching for the phone. “Whatever it is, they'll need to cordon off the area.”

“My badger?”

Mr. Wheeler paused as he picked up the receiver and looked at the motionless mammal. With his free hand, he picked up a large book from a pile near the phone and placed it on the counter. “Here. This is a directory of all the veterinary practices, wildlife sanctuaries, and animal keepers in the county. Take a look through there. One of them might be able to help you if you're lucky.”

“Thanks.”

Joe flopped the directory open and leafed through the thin pages while the vet spoke with a police officer.

Carmichael Veterinary Practice . . . Farringdon Dogs Home . . . Haltsworth Rescue Center
. Joe stopped there and traced the writing with his finger, reading aloud.

“Specializing in the rescue and shelter of a wide variety of animals, great and small. Members of the ADCH and practitioners of the Merrynether Techniques.”

The name
Merrynether
seemed familiar. Joe thought carefully as he scanned through the directory. Several other entries also made mention of the Merrynether Technique, and then the thought came to him: it was a name engraved on a plaque decorating the gate of a mansion he'd seen on his paper round. Could this be the same person?

Mr. Wheeler was still busy on the phone when a flustered Mr. Gordon burst in, dragged along by his insane rottweiler. The slavering monster spotted Joe instantly. Drawing in a rattling breath, it exploded into a psychotic episode of barking.

Joe decided it was way past time to leave. He placed the book on the counter, waved to Mr. Wheeler, and pulled his trolley and badger out of the building.

Wrapped snug and warm inside Joe's jacket, the badger seemed untroubled by the bumpy trolley ride as they neared the end of Merrynether Mansion's long driveway. Joe took a moment to admire the grandeur of the building as it came into view. The magnificent Elizabethan house was eclipsed by enormous oak trees and obscured by untamed creepers, as if in submission to nature. An overabundance of leaves and colorful blossoms
almost overwhelmed its ancient red bricks and dark beams. At the base of the mansion was the main entrance, also under threat by an array of unruly plant life. Had it not been for the white van parked by the side of the building, Joe could have imagined he'd been transported to a time when the owners would walk the grounds dressed in medieval garb and speaking the kind of language heard only in dated movies.

Joe left his trolley by the entrance and tentatively peered around the corner at the van. The engine was running. “Hello?” he called.

No answer.

Joe walked to the mansion's front door and, seeing a pull cord, tugged it. A deep chime sounded from somewhere within the house. Joe waited, feeling oddly nervous.

A minute passed before the door swung open. For a split second, Joe expected to see a tall butler with a pale, thin face, but he was greeted by somebody completely different.

“Yes, young man? Can I help you?”

For some reason that Joe could not fathom, he simply stared, unable to answer. An old lady stood before him. She was even shorter than he was, dressed in a bright red gown, almost royal in appearance. Her head was crowned with a rich hive of black hair in which not a single white strand could be seen. Her twinkling grey eyes acknowledged him from behind a pair of huge spectacles. There were so many lines carved into her
skin that Joe wondered if she even needed ears to support her glasses at all.

“Young man?” she tried again with a friendly smile that miraculously produced even more lines on her face.

“I . . . Badger!” Joe pointed at the trolley, feeling extremely stupid.

“Excuse me?”

Joe's cheeks flushed. Why he felt so odd, he was not sure, but the strangest of premonitions crossed his mind as he looked at this unusual old lady—as though he were about to step inside the house and into a world that would turn his life upside down and inside out.

“I'm very sorry,” he said, finally shaking the peculiar feeling. “Are you Mrs. Merrynether?”

“That's the name on the gate.” She continued to smile.

“Then I'm sorry to disturb you, but—”

A loud crash, the sound of something very heavy slamming into metal, came from the direction of the van.

“Do come in,” the old lady said suddenly. And before Joe knew what was happening, she pulled him inside with his trolley and closed the door. “Badger, you say? In the trolley? Hurt, is it?”

“Um . . . yes. Can you—?”

“Oh, dear me, no, young man. What's your name?”

“I'm, uh, Joe Copper,” he said, being bustled through another door and into a huge leather armchair.

“Well, what brings you here, Master Copper? Oh, yes . . . the badger. Would you like a cup of tea?” She
was rubbing her hands together now, looking everywhere in the room except at Joe, as if he were a distraction she needed to remove in a hurry.

“Actually, I—”

“Well, good. Good! I'll get you one.”

There was another crash, farther inside the house, followed by the muffled yowl of something that sounded very much like a giant cat being stuffed into a sack.

This time she looked at him, eyes wide, lips pursed.

Joe stared back.

A silent agreement passed between them that the noise was not to be mentioned.

“The badger,” they both blurted at the same time, then paused.

“Well, young man, how about this? I'll help your badger if you help me. I need some things from the local store.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Now wait just there, and I'll fetch some money and write you a list.” She hurried from the room.

Joe sat in the chair, fingers digging into the soft leather.

Like the outside of the house, the inside was subdued. Tiny arched windows covered in ivy allowed only the thinnest rays of light to enter the room, and flickering candles illuminated areas the sun could not reach. Tall bookcases and antiquated cupboards were filled with dusty tomes and tatty encyclopedias. A battered grandfather clock ticktocked in one corner, and
a round card table with a chipped decanter, half filled with ruby-red drink, was placed by the chair.

“Here you are, Joseph,” she said, returning almost as quickly as she had left. She stuffed three crumpled pieces of paper into his right hand.

“Now off you go, and I'll have that pot of tea nicely brewed by the time you come back.” She hurried him out of the room, through the hall, and out of the house with his badgerless trolley, then slammed the door.

Joe opened his hand to look at the pieces of paper. One was a list:

The other two pieces of paper were fifty-pound notes!

By the time Joe had returned to Merrynether Mansion, his arms burned. He'd dragged his trolley and its heavy cargo all the way through the village, along the country lane, and up the bumpy driveway. Angry blisters stung his fingers, but the job would have been impossible without his set of wheels.

He let go of the handle and yanked the bellpull, grimacing as the rope bit into his sore hand. The low chime sounded, and Joe took another look at the contents of his trolley. What on earth would anybody want with so many hot water bottles, and what kind of mammoth feline would need so much litter? Joe ran the numbers in his head, calculating the volume of cat litter, duration of use, and possible weight of such an animal. He grinned as he imagined a twenty-foot kitten squatting in a bathtub. Then he remembered the feral yowl within the house less than an hour before. What
exactly did Mrs. Merrynether have in there?

The five bags of cat litter loaded onto his trolley cushioned the bottles of Irish whiskey. In most towns, no responsible retailer would ever sell alcohol to a twelve-year-old boy, but Upton Puddle was a small village with a close community. Reginald Bacon, the village storekeeper, knew a customer's list when he saw one, and apparently he was accustomed to seeing bizarre requests from the Merrynether residence.

Joe tugged at the rope again, wondering why there had been no response. Again the chime sounded, and he waited patiently for another minute, picturing more outlandish visions of giant saber-toothed tigers eating bucketfuls of cat food and playing with yarn coils the size of bowling balls.

Still no one came to the door. If the old woman didn't show up and he didn't leave soon, he'd be in a lot of trouble when he got home. He was already late, and his mother would be wondering where he was.

He walked around the side of the house where the white van had been parked. In the ground was an old, square oak door. A latch and a rusty padlock held it shut, but its subtle angle told Joe the padlock had not been closed properly. After glancing around, he knelt and, with a little help from his penknife and his overactive sense of curiosity, worked the padlock free from the door. A pang of guilt interrupted him, but for a boy like Joe, it was too late to worry about something so trivial.
He'd made his mind up. He was going inside—just to look around; that was all.

The door creaked so horrendously that he almost dropped it. He continued anyway, and peculiar odors wafted up as he opened it fully. Raspberry mixed with creosote, cheese with a hint of freshly cut grass, wet dog and a sour smell he could not identify—all these assaulted him as he peered into the gloomy cellar.

A set of brick steps beckoned. Ignoring a squirming sensation in his stomach and the pumping in his chest, Joe crept inside. By now the cat in his mind was a monstrous black moggy waiting in a corner, licking its teeth, ready to pounce. He expected a huge pair of green eyes to blink open right in front of his face, and it was precisely then that he remembered his encounter in Ringwood Forest. He was about to turn back when a voice yelled out. It was the shout of someone very annoyed, very Irish, and possibly very drunk.

“Torn dat loight out, would ya? Can't a fella get a little shut-oy when 'e wants ta?”

Joe froze. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness of the cellar, but his nerves were not as eager to follow suit. The words almost stuck in his throat as he called, “Hello?”

“Hello! Hello!” the voice spat back in a mocking tone. “Six horse loads of graveyard clay on top o' ya! Would ya clorse dat bloody door!”

“Uh . . . yes, sorry!” Joe rushed back, wondering
why he was shutting himself in a dank cellar with an abusive Irishman.

The door slammed shut. Without the glaring daylight spoiling his peripheral vision, Joe could see his surroundings. The cellar was far bigger than he expected, packed with an array of tools, workbenches, wooden cages, clockwork contraptions, outrageous apparatuses, tables and chairs, boxes and books, crates and cartons, bottles and bags. The only open spaces were where doors were set into the brickwork. At the center of the cellar was yet another large trapdoor, but it was a wooden cage placed next to it that really grabbed Joe's attention. His mouth hung open.

“Wot are ya gawpin' at, ya snotty-norsed little ankle boiter!” With tiny pink hands gripping the wooden bars, a man no more than a foot in height and dressed in a sky-blue waistcoat and pantaloons, puffed out his shiny red cheeks in frustration. He chewed on a smoker's pipe with his miniature white teeth and stared at Joe with fiery eyes.