The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis (29 page)

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Authors: Michael de Larrabeiti

Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Fantasy & Magic

BOOK: The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis
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‘He looks like a Borrible to me,’ said Sunroof, squinting down from the edge of the group that now surrounded the prisoner.
Knocker stared at Chalotte. ‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘If he ain’t a Borrible quite yet he’s certainly becoming one, and we all know that’s not possible.’
Napoleon pushed his way forward. ‘Plastic surgery,’ he said. ‘You know Sussworth would stop at nothing to get a spy back in with us.’ He knelt and fingered the dwarf’s ears. ‘I don’t know,’ he continued eventually. ‘How can we tell, we’re not medical experts. They can do fantastic things these days. They have heart transplants, kidneys, lungs, even arms … all that. Why not ears?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Chalotte. ‘There’d still be a scar this close to an operation. The ears are changing because he’s becoming a Borrible. I’m sure of it.’
‘It happened to us all, once, a long time ago,’ said Stonks.
‘Yeah,’ said Napoleon, ‘of course it did, but we were kids then; it only happens to kids. This bleeder is a dwarf, a midget, small like us but he’s an adult, he’s normal.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Knocker, thinking hard, his brow creasing. ‘Perhaps what Coco was joking about earlier is possible. Perhaps even normal people, if they want to become Borribles hard enough, will become Borribles. Who knows? Lots of things that we think impossible are possible, I bet.’
‘What about Ninch then?’ said Napoleon, screwing his face up tight and hard. ‘He stayed with us long enough and it don’t seem to have made him all sweetness and light, does it?’
‘That’s because he’s interested in money,’ said Chalotte. ‘That’s the difference.’
There was a groan from the figure on the floor, then another, a deeper longer one. Scooter’s eyes flickered in his mask of mud and the tip of his tongue tried to moisten his lips. He coughed and his eyes flickered once more and stayed open. He smiled up at Chalotte.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I knew I’d find you. Have you seen my ears? I’m one of you now.’
Chalotte nodded. ‘We’ve seen ’em,‘she answered. ‘In fact we’ve never seen anything like ’em.’
‘Wait a minute,’ interrupted Napoleon. ‘You should be back on the other side of King’s Cross. We told the Conkers to take you with them or keep a guard on you. What happened?’
Scooter lifted himself on one elbow and looked up at the ring of faces above him. ‘They did guard me,’ he said. ‘Took me to some other block of flats just after you left, but they saw my ears changing and said it wasn’t their job to guard a Borrible who hadn’t done any harm, so they let me go.’
‘There,’ said Bingo. ‘That proves something.’
‘Yeah,’ sneered Napoleon, ‘it proves that them Conker guards have got more trust than sense. “Never trust anyone until you have to and then not much,” that’s what the proverb says.’
‘How’s the shoulder?’ asked Chalotte.
‘Stiff,’ said Scooter, ‘very stiff, but I’m getting better. I’m well
enough to come with you now, honest. Don’t leave me behind again …’ And even as he spoke the dwarf’s eyes glazed over and his head dropped backwards to the floor.
Knocker bent and grabbed Scooter under the arms. ‘Take his feet, Bingo,’ he said, ‘and we’ll get him warm and dry. He’s not well at all, whatever he says.’
Scooter was placed on one of the long bus seats and made comfortable. His wet clothes were exchanged for dry ones and Chalotte examined the dwarf’s wound. It was red and badly inflamed. She looked at Strikalite. ‘We need some disinfectant.’
Chevvy was in earshot, his raincoat already on. ‘I’ll get you what you need,’ he said. ‘There’s a first-aid box in the scrap men’s lean-to. That’ll do nicely.’ He jerked his head just once and left.
‘Good,’ said Chalotte. ‘Now we’d better get some food into this bloke. Someone heat the soup while I swab down this gash in his shoulder.’
Scooter opened his eyes again. ‘I’d like some food,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave me behind. I promise you I’m really well enough to come with you.’
‘Oh yeah,’ said Napoleon, who had not left the vicinity of the dwarf since he had been brought into the bus. ‘What about your dwarf chums and their reward? Are you sure you weren’t followed?’
Scooter answered directly, staring straight at Napoleon, his eyes feverish but the honesty burning through the grime on his face. ‘No one followed me,’ he said. ‘I took damn good care of that. I’m a Borrible now.’ And with this remark the dwarf closed his eyes and fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion.
Knocker took Chalotte’s elbow and moved her away from the bed. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.
The girl shrugged. ‘We don’t know everything, even about Borribles,’ she said. ‘For the time being I’m going to believe his story.’
‘Huh,’ snorted Napoleon. ‘All right, I admit the ears look kosher, but Aristotle Rule, okay. He’s got to be watched and guarded until we’re positively sure.’
At this point the door sprang open and another gust from the night blew Chevvy back into the bus. Under his arm he carried a small white
first-aid box and he handed it to Chalotte, but he did so automatically. He looked worried.
‘I’ve been talking to some of the lookouts,’ he said. ‘They say there’s something dodgy going on. They’re not quite sure what but there’s some reports of some little fellers coming into the yard … a couple of dozen maybe. Borrible-size they reckon, probably them dwarfs you told us about. They must be looking for you and the horse.’
‘The dwarfs,’ said Napoleon. ‘I told you this bloody Scooter was a traitor. Medicines! There’s only one medicine he needs.’ The Wendle clenched his fists.
‘There’s no time for that now,’ said Strikalite. ‘We can do that after. We’d better get our gear on and find these dwarfs and kick ’em out.’
‘It’s not the dwarfs so much,’ said Napoleon, ‘but wherever they are the SBG won’t be far behind.’
There was a noise from Scooter’s bed at this and he sat up. His eyes were staring straight in front of him and his lips were dry.
‘He’s delirious,’ said Chalotte.
The dwarf ignored her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not the SBG, only Ninch. He wants the reward all to himself; he won’t tell the police if he thinks he can get the reward all to himself. No SBG this time … SBG next time.’
Chalotte rushed over to the dwarf and forced him to lie down. Then she took the disinfectant from the first-aid box and poured some of it over his wound. ‘I hope this isn’t too late,’ she said. ‘He looks very ill to me; we’ll have to get a doctor to look at him.’
Napoleon put on his waterproofs and made his catapult ready. He jerked a thumb at Scooter. ‘Aristotle Rule,’ he said. ‘Who stays with him?’
‘I will,’ said Chalotte. ‘He needs to be looked after anyway.’
‘And I will stay with you,’ said Sydney. ‘Two is safer than one if we should be attacked. I can get the horse ready as well; we might have to make a break for it.’
‘Good,’ said Napoleon. He turned to Strikalite. ‘This is your patch,’ he said. ‘How shall we do this?’
The Scrapper counted his troops. ‘There’s eight of you and about thirty of us not already on watch. You split into three groups and then
ten of us will come with each of your groups. We’ll spread out, our sentries will point us in the right direction.’
Sunroof buttoned up his coat and tipped his sou‘wester down over his eyes. ‘We’ll get ’em,’ he said. ‘It’s a funny place at night, here.’
Torreycanyon pulled on a borrowed pair of wellies. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘I really do.’
 
Outside the night was swirling and pressing down on the earth like a hundred fathoms of ocean. A gritty cloud rolled low over the leaning vehicle stacks and filled the ill lit streets and alleys of the scrapyard with shreds of mist. The wind butted and pushed every way it could, like some ruffian. The high towers of rubbish swayed and groaned like the towers of a drowned city. Black shapes glided across the shadows, their limbs moving in slow motion. Pale fish-like faces floated up at the windows of the broken cars and then disappeared. It would be hard work that night to distinguish friend from foe.
Napoleon blinked the rain from his eyes; the mud sucked at his feet. Behind him marched Knocker, peering to right and left in the gloom; behind came Strikalite and Sunroof and two or three other Scrappers. The rest of the Adventurers and all their groups were somewhere else, out of contact, cut off.
Napoleon swore to himself. ‘Where’s them midgets?’ he said. ‘Where are they?’
His question was answered as he rounded a corner and came face to face with five dwarfs, all of whom turned and ran at the very moment the Wendle appeared. ‘Follow me,’ cried Napoleon without the slightest hesitation, and he rushed after the enemy without even waiting for Knocker to come up with him. Napoleon wanted Ninch.
Knocker was completely taken aback by his friend’s sudden departure but set off in close pursuit, shouting a warning as he ran. ‘Watch out!’ he yelled. ‘It may be a trap.’
And so it was.
Napoleon, running with Wendle expertise through the sticking mud, soon began to gain on the dwarfs but in doing so he also began to outdistance Knocker while Strikalite and Sunroof and the rest of the Scrappers were left far behind. In no time at all Napoleon was on his own, way ahead and only dimly perceived by his companions.
When the dwarfs were convinced that Napoleon was isolated they halted their flight, turned and stood their ground, ready to attack their pursuer. They had made a serious mistake. Anyone who knew the Wendle well and knew something of his history, would have known that odds of five to one were the kind of odds that he thought fair, or even slightly weighted in his favour.
Napoleon’s pace did not slacken and he fired his catapult as he ran. First one dwarf went down with a stone in his midriff, then another dropped with a smashed cheekbone. Still Napoleon charged, raising his voice in a fearsome Wendle battle cry that rang and echoed round the empty cars. At the last he dived through the air, flying-horizontally, butting one dwarf unconscious with his head and punching another in the throat as he dived. The last surviving dwarf, unnerved by this turn of events, made no attempt to assist his allies but was off like a shot. Ten yards was all he covered. Before he could go any further Napoleon was back on his feet and had dropped the fugitive with a well-placed stone in the middle of the shoulder blades. By the time Knocker arrived Napoleon was leaning against a car and scraping the mud from his clothes with the end of his catapult.
‘Any trouble?’ asked Knocker, panting.
‘Nothing much,’ said Napoleon. He smiled like a slab of cement. ‘Just as well you didn’t get here earlier; there wasn’t enough for both of us.’
Knocker counted the five casualties. ‘I’m glad you’re on my side,’ he said.
It was then that the trap was sprung; the five dwarfs had done their job admirably. Their role had been to entice Napoleon and Knocker to this spot and they had succeeded. While the two Borribles were deciding what to do next there was a shout above their heads and dwarfs began to appear from all around.
Knocker loaded his catapult and Napoleon followed suit. ‘This is more like it,’ he said.
‘It’s no joke,’ retorted Knocker. ‘They’ve been waiting for us; there’s loads of them up top.’
‘Shout for the others,’ suggested Napoleon. ‘This lot won’t be so brave with a few more Borribles here.’
Knocker threw back his head and yelled, but assistance was not
quick in coming and Napoleon and Knocker found themselves in deep danger. Worse, they had hardly a target to fire at. In the dark they could catch only glimpses of their enemy, yet all around them they could hear the scrabbling of feet and hands as dwarfs climbed down and through the cars, crawling nearer and nearer.
‘Back to back,’ said Knocker.
Now hands were pulling and tugging at the Borribles, trying to separate them, trying to drag them away into captivity.
‘A Borrible,’ shouted Knocker, and fired a stone without aiming and heard a scream of pain. He reached for his torch and switched it on. He saw a face near to him but then his arm was struck with a metal bar and the torch dropped into the mud. Knocker lashed out with his fist and hit nothing; then something struck him a glancing blow on the forehead, something hard.
‘They’re throwing stuff down from above,’ he said and staggered forward, losing contact with Napoleon, but Napoleon grabbed him by the collar and pulled him upright.
More things fell—a rain of junk falling through the real rain—nuts and bolts, steering wheels, clutch pedals, door handles, car seats and even headlight bulbs, exploding like cannon shot.
Knocker staggered again, blood trickling down his face from the wound on his head. Napoleon held him with his arm. He too was struck on the shoulder by something hard and sharp. ‘We’ll have to get into a car,’ said the Wendle, suppressing a cry of pain. ‘This is dirty work at the crossroads all right, and no mistake.’
The two Borribles dived into the nearest hulk. Napoleon struck out right, left and centre in the dark and there was the sound of bodies crawling out of the windows. He switched on his torch and shone it in a wide arc and the two Borribles saw faces all round them, in car after car, as far as the torch beam carried.

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