A Stroke of the Pen, page 5
With cries of joy the people of Blackbury grabbed knives and forks and set to, and the town was silent except for the sound of chewing.
Fifty miles away Queen Victoria watched a large, crust-like object sail over Windsor and said: ‘I don’t find that at all amusing.’
‘Another time,’ said Brunel, on the church steeple, to Plum who was hanging from the weathercock, just as some seasonal snow started to fall, ‘I’ll just stick to railways.’
And he did.
How Good King Wenceslas Went Pop for the DJ’s Feast of Stephen
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen.
Behind him the radio said: ‘Here is the weather forecast. Deep and crisp and even snow is lying round about, especially on high ground. Tonight’s frost will be cruel. There will, of course, be a full moon.’
Suddenly a movement caught the good king’s eye. Far away among the snowdrifts a poor man came in sight, carrying what looked like an empty petrol can. King Wenceslas’s old heart was touched.
‘Poor wretch,’ he thought. ‘He must be in a bad way to be out on a night like this.’
He sent for his page, Albert.
‘Hither, page and stand by me,’ said the king. ‘Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?’
Albert squinted at the disappearing figure.
‘Him? That’s Jim Sponge, the disc jockey. Haven’t you heard him, sire?’
‘Nay. What is a disc jockey?’
‘Oh er, well, he’s on the wireless and sings and reads out recipes.’
‘Verily he must be in a bad way if that is all he can do, lad. Anyway, where and what his dwelling?’
‘He’s got a pad up towards the Forest Fence, sire.’
The king thought deeply.
‘This is the season of charity and goodwill,’ he said. ‘Bring me flesh and bring me wine and bring me pine logs hither. And my muffler.’
But Albert soon returned with bad news.
‘All we’ve got in the castle is a packet of frozen sausages, half a bottle of port-type pinky sort of wine and two Osocosi Smokeless Lumps, sire.’
For the trouble was that Good King Wenceslas was very short of money. Every year Parliament only gave him £5 and a half-price railway season ticket. Owing to the latest cut they’d even reduced his birthday salute to 11.5 guns. But he knew his duty. He stiffened his upper lip.
‘Pack them up, my boy. We’ll go and bring him Yuletide cheer.’
Ten minutes later the king and Albert left the damp and draughty castle and plodded towards the Forest Fence. The snow came up to the king’s waist and more of it was falling in big white chunks. All that could be seen of Albert was the red bobble on top of his woolly hat.
‘Never mind,’ said the king. ‘Just think of the warmth and good cheer we are bringing to a humble fellow human being.’
‘I’m trying to, sire,’ said Albert, loyally. ‘But it’s difficult, on account of my feet are frozen all the way up to my neck, sire.’
‘If you walk behind me and put your feet in the holes made by my boots, you’ll get along easier. By the way, where are we?’
By now a blizzard was blowing. Albert tried frantically to see through the white curtain. Behind them the snow quickly filled in their tracks.
‘We’re approximately lost, sire.’
They were. They blundered around a bit, and once or twice the king fell into a snowdrift. Then he stumbled into a black and white striped pole.
‘Saved!’ he cried. ‘This, if I mistake it not, is a signpost. Climb up it and tell me what it says.’
‘It says: “Reduce Speed Now”, sire.’
‘Um. Well, at least it tells us we are on a road.’
‘Yes, sire. Sire?’
‘Yes, lad?’
‘May I get down now, sire?’
They trudged on until their chilblains shrieked for mercy. Then, when the good king fell over for the fourteenth time, the snowdrift instead of making a noise like serserscrunch! made a noise like serserscronk!
‘There’s something inside,’ said the king. And there was. Inside the great big snowdrift was a very large car, a Rolls-Royce as a matter of fact. The king rubbed his frozen hands together.
‘I think, Albert, in view of the prevailing conditions, and taking all circumstances into account, weighing the facts and putting two and two together, I must order you to proceed around this vehicle and try the door handles.’
Albert did. The car was open. They very soon dug their way in and sat down on the soft leather seats. It was quite warm inside.
‘I wonder who this belongs to?’ asked Albert. ‘It’s the latest model.’
‘I’m sure they won’t mind. At least we’re snug and warm, and have a bit of food, unlike poor Mr Sponge,’ said the king.
In fact, at that moment Jim Sponge was just arriving – on foot – at the local radio station, carrying his petrol can.
‘What a night to run out of petrol,’ he told the commissionaire.
‘Worse than that’s happened, Jim, they’ve lost the king!’
What had happened was that some radio men had gone along to the castle to record the king’s Christmas message – and the king wasn’t there. Frantic search parties set out at once. People suddenly realized that without the king, ships would go unlaunched, civic buildings unopened, and the only person they could put on their stamps was the Prime Minister.*
‘The king’s page told the castle cook that they were going out after a poor man. Apparently, they saw some chap walk past the castle carrying a petrol can, and you know what an old softie the king is,’ went on the commissionaire.
‘Um,’ said Jim, looking thoughtful.
Very soon afterwards he was tramping back along the snowy roads with a full petrol can. He dug into the snowdrift that held his Rolls and, as he got deeper, heard voices.
‘I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with S.’
‘Seat? Steering wheel? Snow? Switch?’
‘No. No. No. No.’
‘Morning, all,’ said Jim, opening the door. ‘I thought I’d find you somewhere around here. Move over and I’ll drive. Off we jolly well go!’
As the car purred back to the town, Jim explained that disc jockeys were not all that poor, and was astonished to hear that Good King Wenceslas was very poor indeed.
‘We shall jolly well have to do something about this,’ he said.
First of all, he took the pair of them to the poshest restaurant in town, the Sole Bonne Femme, and bought them a slap-up meal, and cigars. Then he took them to the Prime Minister’s house.
‘If you don’t raise the jolly old king’s wages, I’ll jolly well tell all the housewives about this on the JS Prog,’ he told the wretched man. ‘Then they won’t vote for you.’
‘Er . . . well, we never thought about it . . .’ said the Prime Minister. ‘But now that you mention it . . .’
Later on, the king was a special guest on Jim Sponge’s show and helped him read out the record requests and recipes.
The stars were coming out as he and Albert walked back to the castle. He was humming snatches of pop songs.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘Albert, I think this is going to be a good year.’
Dragon Quest
This is a revised version of one of Terry’s stories which was originally published in the Bucks Free Press in 1966, and later again in 2014 in the collection Dragons at Crumbling Castle (Random House Children’s Publishers).
A very long time ago there was the little hilly kingdom of Grig.* In it lived about a thousand people and five thousand goats, and it was ruled – if that’s the word, all things considered – by King Griddlebone the Quite Good.*
One Sunday morning he was sitting up in bed eating an egg when about a dozen page boys trooped in. In those days, of course, there were no newspapers, so the page boys had to remember everything that was going on so they could tell the king.
‘Dragons Invade The Crumbling Castle Area,’ shouted the first page (this was the headline), and then he said in an ordinary voice: ‘For full details hear Page Three.’
King Griddlebone dropped his spoon in amazement. Dragons! There hadn’t been a dragon in the kingdom for years.
After Page Three had told the whole awful story, Page Four added that people were expecting the king to do something about it.
‘Throw them out and give them a penny each,’ said the king to the butler. ‘Then call out all my knights.’
Later that morning he went out into the courtyard and said: ‘Now then, men, I want a volunteer . . .’ Then he adjusted his spectacles. The only other person in the courtyard was a small boy, wearing a suit of chain mail far too big for him.
‘Where’s everybody else?’
‘I don’t know, sire. Someone said something about dragons, and everyone decided they felt far too ill to get out of bed. Except me.’
‘Aha,’ said the king. ‘You’re not afraid of dragons, eh? Good show. Well, I’ll lend you my second-best suit of armour and perhaps you can stop these dragons from rampaging . . .’
So, a little while later, the young knight, whose name was Ralph, whistled cheerfully as he rode a donkey over the drawbridge and disappeared over the hills. When he was out of sight of the castle, he took off his armour and hid it behind a hedge, because it squeaked and was too hot. He put on his ordinary clothes.
All that day Ralph and the donkey followed the winding lane through farmland and neat woods until they reached a forest of oak trees.
‘I don’t like the look of it,’ said Ralph doubtfully, eyeing the shadows between the trees.
‘Full of wolves and monsters, I shouldn’t wonder,’ agreed the donkey.
‘I didn’t know you could talk,’ said Ralph. ‘Fancy that, by St Agham! I never heard a donkey talk before!’
The donkey waggled his ears. ‘By and large, what’s a donkey got to talk about?’ he said and trotted towards the wood.
They hadn’t gone more than a few yards when a great big knight in black armour galloped up to them on a fiery black horse.
‘Halt in the name of the Friday Knight, by St Cernaque!’ he bellowed.
‘All right, but is this the way to Crumbling Castle?’ asked Ralph.
The black knight opened his visor and said in a quite ordinary voice: ‘Well, yes it is, actually.’ Then the visor was snapped back, and he bellowed: ‘But you’ll have to fight me first, by St Magnus!’
The black horse charged forward while Ralph tugged and tugged and tried to get his rusty sword to leave its old leather scabbard. He needn’t have bothered because after about three gallops the black knight fell off his horse anyway and landed with a hey-ho rumbelow on his head.
There was silence for a moment and then a small door in the back of the armour opened, and Ralph saw that the Friday Knight was a very small man indeed.
‘Sorry,’ said the knight. ‘Can I try again?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Ralph. ‘I’ve won, because you’ve fallen down first.’
‘Quite true. Rule VII/2a, The Manual of Chivalry,’ agreed the donkey.
Ralph looked a bit surprised, but that was nothing compared to the expression on the other knight’s face.
‘I shall call you Fortnight. ’Cos I’ve fought you,’ said Ralph.
There was a great deal of clanking as Fortnight clambered out of his armour and then the two of them went on towards Crumbling Castle. After a while they became quite friendly, because Fortnight was really rather jolly and knew lots of jokes and could sing quite well, too.
Next morning, they came across a wizard sitting on a milestone, reading a heavy book. He wore the normal wizard’s uniform: long white beard, pointed hat, a sort of nightdress covered in cabalistic symbols, and long floppy boots, which he had taken off to reveal quite unmagical red socks.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Ralph, because wizards are fairly unpredictable. ‘Is this the way to Crumbling Castle?’
‘Oh yes, by St Transom! But I wonder if you could help me with this little problem?’
He said his name was Pilgarlic and he was sitting by the road because his magical seven league boots had broken down. Magic boots were handy – you could walk miles in them without getting tired – but these needed a bit of attention.
So they gathered round, and since Fortnight knew a bit about mechanics and Pilgarlic knew less than a bit about magic they managed to get one boot working.
‘It’ll only be a three-and-a-half league boot now,’ said Fortnight. ‘You’ll have to hop.’
Pilgarlic was very grateful and decided to join them on their adventure.
Day by day the land around them grew grimmer and grimmer. Foggy mountains loomed up on either side of them. Grey clouds covered the sun, and a cold wind sprang up. They plodded on and came to a cave hidden in a clump of thorn bushes.
‘We could do with a fire,’ said Ralph.
‘A mere nothing,’ said Pilgarlic, and produced in quick succession a small hat, a bucket handle, a trfgrkxjii without feathers, a banana, and a brass candlestick. Then he sighed and took a box of matches out of his hat.
After a small meal they dozed off while the fire collapsed into a heap of grey ashes.
Crack! went a stick in the bushes.
Fortnight woke up. Something was creeping towards them. It seemed to have very large feet. An owl hooted, thought better of it halfway through, and changed it into a cough.
‘Yield, by St Caradoc!’ said Fortnight, picking up his sword and tripping over Pilgarlic. In an instant there was total confusion. Everyone grabbed a sword and rushed into the bushes, where it was so dark they kept walking into each other and treading on thorns.
‘I’ve got it!’ shouted Fortnight and jumped onto something.
‘Me!’ mumbled Pilgarlic from the leaf mould.
While all this was going on something very small crept out of the bushes and began to warm itself by the fire. Then it sniffed at Pilgarlic’s knapsack and ate his tomorrow’s breakfast.
‘Look, there it is!’ shouted Ralph, as they stumbled out of the bushes. ‘It’s a dragon!’
‘It’s a very weeny one,’ said Fortnight doubtfully.
It was about the size of a kettle and green and had very large feet. It looked up at them, sniffed a bit, and began to cry.
‘Perhaps my breakfast didn’t agree with it,’ muttered Pilgarlic, looking at his rucksack.
‘Well, what shall we do with it? It doesn’t look very dangerous, even if it is a dragon,’ said Ralph.
‘Has it lost its mummy, then?’ cooed Fortnight, getting down on his hands and knees and smiling at it. It hurriedly backed away and breathed some smoke at him. Fortnight wasn’t very good with children.
Finally, they made it a bed in the kettle, put the lid on, and went back to sleep.
When they set out next morning, Pilgarlic carried the kettle on his back. After a while the lid opened and the baby dragon stared out.
‘This isn’t really dragon country,’ observed Ralph.
‘It must have got lost,’ said Fortnight.
‘It’s the green variety,’ said Pilgarlic. ‘They grow to be seven metres high, and then they go round roaring, rampaging, setting fire to people’s houses and generally doing wicked deeds.’
‘What sort of wicked deeds?’ asked Ralph.
‘Oh, er, well, I don’t really know. Walking on the grass or squeezing toothpaste tubes in the middle, I suppose.’
That afternoon they came to Crumbling Castle. It was built on a low hill and surrounded by a little town, and in front of the town was a large moat the local people had made by damming up a stream. But there was no sign of anybody – not even a dragon.
They plucked up the courage to knock at the big black door.
‘No one in,’ said Fortnight as the echoes died away. ‘Let’s go, by St Tritan!’
‘You have a try,’ said Ralph to Pilgarlic. ‘Don’t you know any opening spells?’
‘Certainly,’ said the wizard. ‘Trafgreshipofstaetening! Milograshi! Pootle! Er, um, I command thee to open in the name of Bretoloxle!’
The door turned a soft pink colour. Ralph prodded it, then bit off a bit and tasted it. ‘Pink meringue,’ he said.
‘My word, dashed tasty door,’ said Fortnight, after they had eaten their way through.
The courtyard was silent.
‘I don’t like this much,’ said Ralph, ‘I keep getting a feeling something is going to jump out on us.’
‘That’s very nice,’ said Pilgarlic in a withering tone of voice. His nerves were getting rather frayed.
‘It’s all right,’ said Ralph. ‘Dragons are seldom bigger than the average house or hotter than the average furnace. So come back,’ he added, treading on the wizard’s cloak as he tried to run away.
Just then a large green dragon crawled round the corner and raised its eyebrows when it saw them.
‘Good morning,’ it said, which immediately gave our heroes a bit of a problem, because it’s difficult to fight a polite dragon.
‘Well, good morning,’ said Ralph. ‘Er, excuse me, are you one of the dragons that’s been rampaging round and eating people?’
‘Only one or two of the more unpleasant ones,’ said the dragon.
A couple of other dragons wandered up, and one of them said: ‘I suppose you are the gallant heroes who have come to vanquish us?’
‘More or less,’ said Ralph. ‘Where are the people?’
‘Most of them are hiding in the mountains, the beasts.’
‘Why, what have they done?’ asked Pilgarlic, eyeing the dragon’s teeth.
‘They kidnapped the Dragon Prince,’ said the first dragon. ‘My son. That’s why we’re teaching them a lesson.’
Ralph said thoughtfully: ‘Was he about a foot high with big feet?’
‘A tendency to eat other people’s breakfasts?’ added Pilgarlic.
And Fortnight reached into the kettle and pulled out the dragon.
‘We found him lost, miles away,’ said Ralph.
And that about ended it. The dragons were so overjoyed at having the baby back they decided to leave right away, although they gave the people of Crumbling Castle several caskets of dragon treasure to make up for the inconvenience.
