Knights and Bikes, page 7
“We’re fine,” said Demelza, narrowing her eyes as she wondered if there was another reason Miss Bocaddon brought so many cakes and pies up to the house. “We’ll have fish finger sandwiches, fruit scones and two glasses of lemonade please.” She snapped the menu closed and handed it back before Miss Bocaddon could ask anything else.
Nessa seated her backpack carefully on the bench next to her, nudging away Captain Honkers who kept sticking his head inside to honk at the pickled knight who was nestled at the bottom next to the Pendragon Cup.
“I’ve been looking at this,” said Demelza. She pushed the theme-park map across the table and stabbed her figure down on the ride furthest from the entrance. “This is the highest point in Piskie Park. I bet this ride was built on top of the barrow thing. That’s where we have to take the cup.”
“Whiplash Whirligig?” said Nessa. “That’s like a roller coaster?”
“Kind of,” said Demelza. “It goes underground for a bit. Mebbe we can follow the track and find the entrance, although we need to be careful, ‘cause I heard people have gone missing down there. Derwa Crimp in my class said that her sister heard from her friend who heard from her cousin, Merrin Carnkie who used to work there, that the ride once went into the hill with ten people in it and came out empty.”
“Hmm, I think that might have made the news if it had happened,” said Nessa. She pulled a face as she pointed out an area of the map decorated with unicorns, fluffy pink kittens, fairies and princesses in big froofy pastel-colored dresses with far too many ribbons. “What’s that bit?”
“Urgh. THAT is the Princess Pageant,” said Demelza as they tucked into their sandwiches. “The rides go slower than you can walk and they play tinkly nursery rhymes.”
“Perfect for you, Smellza,” said a voice from the booth next to theirs. Demelza snarled as Connan Lenteglos’s grinning head popped up over the back of the bench.
He stopped smiling as Demelza growled and leapt up to grab him by the black strings of the silver ram’s-skull tie that he wore around his neck.
“Aargh, get off!” he squealed as she pulled it tight. She could hear Jory and Trevik laughing from the booth behind him. “Chill out,” he spluttered as his face went red. “I just wanted to ask about Honkers—the vet vet told my mom he’s alive?”
“It’s CAPTAIN Honkers,” said Demelza, letting go of his necktie before his head exploded. “And yes, he’s alive, no thanks to your stupid dog.” Right on cue, Captain Honkers flapped up onto the back of the bench and pecked Connan right on his shiny nose.
Connan shrieked and held his nose as Demelza pulled Captain Honkers away and kissed the top of his head.
“Ee ooks ine!” said Connan, staring at the goose.
“Of course he looks fine!” said Demelza. “We went and got the magic Pendragon Cup an’ saved him, an’ now we’re taking it back to—”
A loud coughing came from Nessa’s backpack but was drowned out by a weird, very loud laugh from Nessa.
“HAHAHAA! Good one, D!” She slapped Demelza on the back. “He looks like he believes you.”
Demelza bit her tongue as she realized how much she had said. She joined in with Nessa’s false laugh. Connan looked from one to the other, then frowned and slipped back down into his booth. Demelza listened but couldn’t hear what he was saying to his friends.
“Sorry,” she said to Nessa. “My mouth went all blabby.”
“You need to be careful, D,” said Nessa as she spread cream on her scone and blobbed a spoonful of jam on the top. “You were telling him everything!” She went to take a bite of the scone, then paused and looked around. The café had gone silent. Everyone was looking at them, mouths agape. Miss Bocaddon dropped the teapot she was holding. An old lady snarled. Even Captain Honkers had stopped hissing at Connan over the back of the booth and turned to watch Nessa, open-beaked. Nessa paused, scone half raised to her mouth.
“What’s up?”
“Put the scone down and walk away,” Demelza whispered. She slid out of her seat and grinned nervously around the café as she grasped Nessa’s arm.
“Sorry,” she said, backing towards the door and dragging Nessa with her. “She’s not from Penfurzy, she didn’t know.” She held out her arms protectively as she backed away, shoving Nessa behind her. Captain Honkers raised his wings and hissed warningly as a man in a yellow anorak raised his arm to throw a bun at them. Demelza finally reached the door. She flung it open, sending the chimes jangling. “Go-go-go!” she shouted to Nessa.
They darted outside and leapt on their bikes.
“Fly!” yelled Demelza. They cycled away at a million miles an hour, wind whipping through their hair, Demelza’s anorak cape flapping behind her and Captain Honkers flying overhead honking for them to ride faster as they whizzed through the streets and finally left the town behind.
“We should be safe now,” panted Demelza as they reached the first sign for Piskie Park. She pulled over to the side of the road and flopped over her handlebars. “Pheeeew! That was close. We’d better not show our faces in there for a LONG time!”
“What in Honkers’ name was that all about?” said Nessa as she hopped off Neon Justice and leant to one side to get rid of a stitch.
“Your scone,” said Demelza, eyes wide.”You put the cream on first, THEN the jammy goodness.”
Nessa stared at her blankly. “And?”
“And we never-ever-ever-ever, never-never-never-ever do that. On Penfurzy, jam goes first. AAAAALWAYS.”
“Honk!” said Captain Honkers in agreement.
“Penfurzy is bonkers,” said Nessa, getting back on her bike. “But OK, in future – jam first.” Her backpack shook impatiently. Now that they were safely out of town, Nessa pulled out the pickled knight and popped him into her basket.
“About time,” he grumbled, spitting out an eraser and a flutter of pencil shavings.
“Soz, Pickles, nearly there. Let’s get groovin’.”
They set off down the crumbling, mossy road, following the big, faded signs towards Piskie Park. Nessa bellowed out the awful, cheesy slogans on each sign they passed:
“You should be a ringmaster!” Demelza laughed at Nessa’s dramatic, booming voice.
“I was for a while,” sniffed Nessa. “I ran off to join the circus when I was six. We went all over the world, but I had to quit I was allergic to clowns.”
Demelza nodded. Clowns were the worst.
Captain Honkers launched himself into the air and flew for a while, stretching his perfectly healed wings. A rumbling snore was coming from Nessa’s basket.
Demelza chewed her lip as they cycled, then looked sideways at Nessa.
“You’ve done a lot of things before you came to Penfurzy. What about when you grow up? What do you want to be? A stunt pilot? A secret agent?”
Nessa shrugged as she skirted a pothole. “I guess being a writer would be pretty cool. Creating characters and worlds for readers to explore in their heads.”
“You’d be good at that,” grinned Demelza. “Making stuff up.”
“Watch it, Freckles,” said Nessa. “So, what do you want to do?”
Demelza thought about it as they cycled through the fallen leaves. She hadn’t really imagined anything beyond helping her dad at the camper park and crazy golf course. What else could she do? She didn’t ever want to leave Penfurzy, but maybe she’d have to when she grew up. She pushed the thought away and wished she hadn’t started the conversation.
“You’re a brilliant artist,” said Nessa at last. “We should make comics together. I’ll write the stories, you draw them.”
Demelza nodded. “I’d like that. We could make comics about our adventures.”
“We’d better make them good ones then!” smiled Nessa as they rounded a corner. In front of them, a gigantic sign arched over the road:
“DAAAAAAAA!” sang Demelza.
They cycled down the empty car lanes towards the tollbooths, ducked under the barriers and whizzed up to the giant gates to the park. They were locked tight. A banner ran from one side to the other.
Closed for the Winter.
“Do you think you could pick that?” asked Demelza, running her hand over the rusty lock.
“Probably,” said Nessa. “But why bother if we don’t need to. There’s always an easier way in. Come on.”
They followed the high, rickety wooden fence around the park. Every time they came to a big bush, Nessa ducked behind it then came back out shaking her head. Finally, from behind the biggest bush they had passed so far, Nessa let out a whoop.
“Found it! Come on in,” she shouted.
Demelza followed Captain Honkers as he waddled after Nessa. She squeezed her bike between the bush and fence to find Nessa wriggling through a big hole in the rotten fence. She pushed Neon Justice after her friend, then followed her through.
“There’s always a way for kids to sneak into these places,” said Nessa, helping Demelza drag her bike through the bushes on the other side.
“Bravo, Trespasser!” cheered the pickled knight.
They brushed themselves down and stared around. The wind flapped the shutters on the closed snack stands, sent clouds of leaves swirling around the silent park and fluttered the sails of Skunkbeard’s Swinging Ship of Doom which loomed to their left,.
“Where to?” asked Nessa.
Demelza pointed towards the other side of the park where a towering roller coaster stood cold and dark against the grey sky—a giant dinosaur skeleton standing guard over the hill beneath it.
“There it is,” said Demelza. “The Great Barrow.”
Chapter Thirteen
ZIP-ZIP AND AWAAAAAY!
The park was eerily quiet as they cycled through its empty avenues and skirted around the pastel-colored Tinkly Teacups, the Choo-Choo Hullaballoo and the Capering Carousel with its rearing horses, most of which were missing ears and tails.
“Watch this, D,” said Nessa, dismounting by a row of wooden cutout figures. She went round the back and stuck her head through the head hole of a man in Bermuda shorts balanced on a surfboard and pretended to scream down at the badly painted shark biting the board. Demelza pulled her big plastic camera out of her bag, put the little viewfinder up to her eye and snapped a picture. A white square popped out of a slot at the front. Demelza pulled it out and wafted it gently until the picture of surf dude Nessa appeared.
“Awesome!” said Nessa, slipping the photo into her jacket pocket.
“Now do me!” Demelza stuck her head through a hole in a pram, a flowery baby bonnet above her head. She opened her mouth wide and wailed like a baby as Nessa took a picture.
“Now me!” the pickled knight hopped out of Nessa’s basket as she wafted the picture into existence.
“HONK!” said Captain Honkers, following the pickled knight to the cutouts.
“OK, wait for it!” Demelza balanced the camera on a bin and set a timer before hurrying to join the others. She climbed onto a step behind the stands and stuck her face through the head hole of a medieval knight, Captain Honkers flying up to perch on her helmet. Nessa became a ridiculously muscly man in a stripy vest holding a barbell up in the air with one hand. She scrunched up her face and puffed out her cheeks until they were bright red as if with the effort of holding up the weights. The pickled knight wriggled his head through a hole to become the strangest, ugliest little dog they had ever seen.
“One, two, three…” counted Demelza.
“YAAAAAAARG!” they all shouted as the camera clicked and whirred.
“Sweet!” said Nessa. She grabbed the photo and held it high. “The first official group picture of the new Penfurzy Rebel Bicycle Club.”
Demelza and Nessa did their special handshake but paused mid hip-bump as someone shouted in the distance: “Smelllllllzaaaaaah! Nessieeeeee-Wessieeeeeee!”
“Man, even his insults are lame,” said Nessa as Connan’s annoying voice echoed through the empty park, followed by the hooting laughter of Jory and Trevik.
“Gah. Me and my jabber-jaws! I can’t believe they followed us!” Demelza jumped onto her bike. “Come on, let’s get to the barrow before they see us.”
“Run? Never! Stay! Fight to the death!” shouted the pickled knight, leaping out of Nessa’s basket and bouncing in the direction of the voices. “They shall witness our might! They shall cower before us!”
“Whoa! Peace, little dude!” said Nessa, cycling after him and sweeping him up like a rugby ball, his battle cries suddenly muffled by her armpit. “Fighting is for lame-os. Let’s just do what we came to do.”
Demelza could hear him muttering angrily into Nessa’s armpit as they cycled the neverending twisty-turny paths towards the Whiplash Whirligig.
“Honk. Hoooonk!” Captain Honkers warned from the skies.
“Bum drops,” said Demelza, looking back over her shoulder. Connan and his friends, Jory and Trevik, were cycling around the Tipsy Tornado with General Barkley bounding after them. “Quick, this way!” She veered to the left, past a sign for the Treetop Trial. A fence hid them from the boys’ view as they zoomed towards a little wood at the edge of the park. Demelza pointed to a steep ramp that led up into the trees.
“Think you can make it up there?” she shouted to Nessa.
“Just watch me!” Nessa’s legs became a blur as she put on a massive burst of speed in the run-up to the ramp.
“Go-go-go!” shouted Demelza. They hit the ramp at full speed, fighting against the stiffening pedals as the slope stole their speed. Finally, when the effort was too great, they jumped off their bikes and dragged them to the top of the ramp and into a treehouse that sat between two trees.
“Get down,” said Nessa. They flung their bikes to the floor and ducked down below the windows. Demelza wrapped her arms around Captain Honkers and pulled him to the floor with them just as General Barkley bounded into the wood, barking excitedly.
Trevik’s voice carried up to them. “Thought you said they went this way, Connan?”
Demelza and Nessa each found knotholes in the wood and peered down at the boys. General Barkley was trying to pee on as many trees as he could. The three boys were wheeling their bikes between the trees, searching.
“They did. You saw them too, didn’t you, Jory?”
Jory shrugged. “Looked like it. Maybe they went that way.” He nodded towards the sparkly pink signs for the Princess Pageant.
Demelza made a face at Nessa and whispered, “As IF!” Captain Honkers tried to wriggle out from under her arm, desperate to fly down and peck General Barkley’s skinny waggy tail. “Stop it, Honkers!” she hissed. “I’m not letting you get hurt ever-ever-ever again.”
Nessa was having as much difficulty with the pickled knight. She gagged him with one of her sweatbands and held on tight as he tried to roll out of her arms and down the ramp like a bowling ball.
“I know you want to fight,” she whispered, “but what are you going to do? Nibble their toes?”
“I think they’re going,” said Demelza, eye pressed to the hole. Jory and Trevik were cycling towards the Princess Pageant. Connan poked a stick into the last couple of bushes then called his dog.
“Barkley! Come on, this way, boy!”
“Uh-oh,” whispered Demelza as the dog ignored him and sniffed closer and closer. “Get lost, doofus dog.” But General Barkley was following his nose right to the bottom of the ramp where he threw back his head and howled. Demelza’s heart thudded.
“Jory! Trev! Get back here!” yelled Connan. “They’re in the trees. They can’t get away—they must have taken their bikes with them!”
He dropped his bike and started up the ramp as the other two raced back. General Barkley chased his tail in excitement.
“Nooo! I thought they’d never look up here,” said Demelza. “There’s no way out!”
Nessa pressed a button on the yellow siren on her handlebars. The boys jumped at the ear-splitting wail.
“Police!” shouted Jory as he began to run with Trevik.
“Of course it’s not!” shouted Connan. “It’s coming from the treehouse!”
Captain Honkers wriggled free at last and swept down the ramp to peck at the heads of the boys as they rushed for the ramp. General Barkley barked up at the goose, wild with excitement.
“Aargh, ow! Gerrim off!” shouted Trevik, rubbing his head as Honkers whizzed past and snapped up a beak full of hair.
“Look, we just want that cup you got,” shouted Connan, ducking as the goose dive-bombed them again.
“What cup?” Demelza shouted back, hurling a handful of bangers down at Connan who leapt off the ramp as they exploded at his feet, sending General Barkley bonkers.
“You know what cup!” shouted Trevik, as Demelza rained down more bangers. “We heard you talking about it, and the vet is telling everyone that you cured Honkers by pouring magic water over him from a weird cup. We know you were bringing it here, so hand it over!”
“CAPTAIN Honkers!” shouted Nessa through her bike microphone. She hurled a few bangers along with a handful of conkers. “If you want the cup, you can try and take it!”
“What are you doing?” asked Demelza as the boys ducked the conkers and began dragging themselves up the steep ramp by the rope rail. “There’s no way out!”
“What about that way?” Nessa pointed at two zip-lines which led down from the other side of the treehouse.
“We’d have to leave our bikes,” said Demelza. “Even with the head start they’d catch us in no time on foot!”
“Who said we’d be leaving our bikes?” smiled Nessa, covering the pickled knight with her jacket and plonking him back into her basket. She wheeled her bike to the edge of the long drop down to the ground. “Watch and learn.” She climbed onto the bike and reached up to grab the handgrips hanging from one of the zip lines. Demelza realized what she was going to do. It was risky. Very risky. But she wasn’t going to let Connan get his hands on the cup. She wheeled her own bike over beside Nessa, climbed on and grabbed the handgrips above her head.
