Wychetts and the Key to Magic

Chapter 8- Not Again!

  Edwin sat up and gazed blearily around him. Bryony lay a short distance away, returning his look with an equally dazed expression.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  Edwin shook his head to clear the fuzziness. Once his vision sharpened, he was able to make out their surroundings, and what he saw made him gasp with astonishment.

  They were on a hillside strewn with large, round boulders. Before them, in the distance, was a grey expanse of ocean. Behind them was a vast range of craggy mountains, interspersed with small forests of strange spiky trees.

  “Perhaps we’re dead,” suggested Bryony. “And this is heaven.”

  “Naw.” Edwin clambered to his feet. “If it was heaven, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Bryony glared at Edwin. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t messed around with the Key, none of this would have happened.”

  “You made the Key go wrong,” protested Bryony, standing up shakily. “And because of you we’ve been zapped to who knows where.”

  “It can’t be the island,” pondered Edwin, casting his gaze once more across the unfamiliar landscape. “It’s way too big. And there weren’t any mountains.”

  Bryony shook her head. “Then where in the world are we?”

  “Perhaps we’re not in the world at all,” suggested Edwin. “Not our world, anyway. Perhaps we’re in another dimension, or some sort of lost land that time forgot. Look up there. Pterodactyls!”

  Bryony looked up to where Edwin pointed, and saw a flock of birds circling above them. “They’re not pterodactyls, dumbo. They’re just seagulls.”

  “Oh yeah,” realised Edwin. “But giant seagulls. Their wingspan must be about ten feet wide.”

  “Rubbish,” snorted Bryony. “It just looks like that from down here.”

  One of the seagulls peeled away from the flock to commence a dive in the direction of Bryony and Edwin.

  “I reckon it’s more like fifteen feet,” said Edwin, studying the bird as it swooped closer. “Maybe twenty.”

  “It’s never twenty,” sniffed Bryony. “I’d say eighteen, tops.”

  “That’s still pretty big. For a seagull.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Bryony, as she realised the purpose of the seagull’s descent. “Especially one that’s about to dive bomb us!”

  “Get down!” Edwin grabbed Bryony’s arm and pulled her to the ground. The seagull zoomed over their prostrate bodies, its giant beak missing Bryony’s head by a matter of inches.

  “It’s radiation.” Edwin lifted his head to watch the giant bird flying out to sea. “Secret military experiments. It has to be.”

  Another shriek interrupted his thoughts, and Edwin turned to see a second seagull diving towards them, with a group of six more giant birds in formation behind it.

  “Over here,” called a familiar shrill voice. “Get off the beach as quick as you can!”

  Edwin saw Stubby waving at them from behind a large rock. He scrambled to his feet and ran towards the mouse, dragging Bryony with him.

  The seagulls pursued their targets, dropping a payload of gooey white splats. Bryony and Edwin dodged the blobs of falling bird muck, and reached the shelter of the rock unscathed. The giant seagulls broke off their attack, wheeling skywards with another peal of angry shrieks.

  Edwin caught his breath, and then gave Stubby a grateful nod. “Thanks for that. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Well I’m not,” muttered Stubby. “Especially now you’ve lost the Key, our only means of escape.”

  “That was his fault,” said Bryony, pointing at Edwin.

  “It was your fault,” countered Edwin, pointing back at Bryony. “You’re the one who made the Key go funny. And you zapped my mum.”

  “And what about Dad?” asked Bryony, suddenly remembering her father. “What happened to him?”

  Stubby sighed. “I’ll try to deal with those points one by one. Firstly Edwin, your mother wasn’t zapped. She is here on this island, and just as safe as your or I.”

  Edwin exhaled a sigh of relief.

  “Which sadly isn’t particularly safe,” added Stubby. “But she’s unhurt, or at least she was when I left her at the top of the island. She was in a state of shock, but I think she understood me when I told her to stay undercover.” Stubby turned to Bryony. “I am a little less certain of your father’s whereabouts, but I saw him flying at great speed in that direction.” Stubby gestured vaguely to his right.

  Bryony blinked. “Dad was flying?”

  “Not flying in a calculated, purposeful sort of way,” Stubby clarified. “More like hurtling. Like you, he was blown into the air when the Key overheated.”

  Bryony and Edwin repeated the last word together. “Overheated?”

  Stubby nodded. “When you fought over the Key, you caused a magical short circuit, which resulted in an uncontrolled surge of magic power.”

  “See?” Edwin pointed at Bryony again. “It’s all your fault.”

  “My fault?” Bryony shook her head. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t tried to steal the Key from me.”

  “Please!” Stubby raised a paw for silence. “There’s little point arguing about it now. Our main concern is to recover the Key, and leave this island as quickly as possible.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Edwin. “Apart from the giant seagulls, who knows what other monsters might be prowling around here?”

  “Let me see,” said Stubby. “How about giant mice? That would be scary, wouldn’t it?”

  Edwin stared at Stubby. He hadn’t noticed it up to now, but Stubby was much larger than his usual size.

  Bryony suddenly noticed it, too. “You’re bigger,” she said, pointing at Stubby.

  “Excuse me,” said Stubby. “I’ve been watching my figure.”

  “I meant taller,” said Bryony. “You’re almost as tall as us.”

  “It’s not me who’s grown,” said Stubby. “Those seagulls aren’t giants, and neither am I. And we’re still on the Isle of Lost Souls. Everything looks different because you are smaller. You’ve been shrunk.”

  Edwin examined his surroundings again, and realised Stubby was right. The mountains were actually piles of rubble, and those boulders on the beach were really just pebbles.

  “Not again,” he groaned, remembering all too well his previous experience of being miniaturised. “That’s Bryony’s fault. She wanted to shrink me to the size of a mouse and feed me to the seagulls.”

  Bryony rounded on Edwin. “I wouldn’t have wanted to shrink you if you hadn’t stolen Mr Cuddles!”

  “For the last time,” sighed Stubby. “Arguing will get us nowhere. You’re going to have to work together to get the Key back.”

  “It fell into that old well,” huffed Edwin. “How are we going to get to it down there?”

  “We’ll find a way,” promised Stubby. “But that won’t be the hard part. Getting to it alive will be much more difficult.”

  “You mean with those seagulls attacking us?” Bryony glanced nervously at the sky again.

  “The seagulls won’t be a problem,” said Stubby. “As long as we stay off the beach. That’s why they’re here, to stop anyone escaping. They’re security.”

  “Security? Escape?” Edwin frowned at Stubby. “You make this place sound like some sort of prison.”

  “Because that’s precisely what it is,” said Stubby. “An animal prison.”

  Bryony wrinkled her nose. “You mean a prison… for animals?”

  Stubby nodded. “Crime isn’t a solely human activity. Almost all animal species are involved in one way or another. Apart from slugs. They can’t make quick getaways, and always leave a trail.”

  “That’s rubbish,” snorted Edwin. “I’ve never heard of animal criminals.”

  “You haven’t?” Stubby seemed surprised. “Not even the Ratello Mob, the most feared and ruthless rat gang ever?”

  “N
o,” confessed Bryony. “Anyway, what crimes can a gang of rats commit?”

  Stubby shrugged. “Oh, the usual. They started out with bank robberies.”

  Edwin found that hard to believe. “They robbed high street banks?”

  Stubby shook his head. “No, silly. I mean river banks.”

  Bryony found that even harder to imagine. “Who keeps money in a river bank?”

  “Lots of animals,” said Stubby. “I once had a river bank account, but the interest rate fell, so I transferred all my savings offshore. To a sand bank.”

  “So what else did this Ratello Mob do?” asked Edwin.

  “They were involved in all manner of illegal activities,” continued Stubby. “From acorn trafficking, to making counterfeit cheese. And before you ask, counterfeit cheese is more common than you think. A recent study revealed that one in ten cheeses is counterfeit.”

  Edwin was intrigued. “How can you tell if a cheese is counterfeit?”

  Stubby tapped his nose. “The holes are back to front.”

  “Wow,” said Edwin. “I’ll look out for that in future.”

  “I only hope you get the chance,” said Stubby. “Because this isn’t just any old animal prison. This is a maximum security vermin prison, home to the most twisted minds in the animal underworld.”

  “But they’ll all be locked up in cells,” said Bryony. “So we’ll be safe, won’t we?”

  Stubby shook his head. “There are no cells here. The whole island is a prison, and once interned here, the prisoners are left to fend for themselves. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don’t come out.”

  “You will never leave.” Edwin repeated the words. “That’s what the sign meant.”

  Stubby nodded. “Even by your standards, this is pretty huge in the bodge up department. In fact, I think the bodge up department is going to need an extension to accommodate this particular fiasco.”

  “I get the point,” sighed Bryony.

  “I doubt it,” said Stubby. “You wouldn’t get the point if you sat on a porcupine wearing a pointy hat. Anyway, our main concern is to retrieve the Key before it falls into the wrong hands. Or paws, claws or any other type of animal appendage you can think of.”

  “But they couldn’t use it,” said Edwin. “No one can use the Key except a Guardian.”

  “True,” conceded Stubby. “But the Key is laden with Wychetts’ magic, and could be used against us if someone knew how to extract that power. And who knows, some of the prisoners may have connections with the Shadow Clan. There are some pretty nasty characters on this island, I can tell you. According to legend, this is where they imprisoned the Terrible Fang.”

  Bryony’s dark eyebrows knotted. “Who’s the Terrible Fang?”

  “A creature from the depths of your darkest nightmare,” whispered Stubby. “It was imprisoned here by the Wise Ones many centuries ago, or so the stories say. Let’s hope the stories are just stories, or that already sizeable extension to the bodge up department is going to need the addition of overflow parking, a crèche, and twenty four hour attended customer washrooms.”

  “But how are we going to get into that well?” asked Edwin. “It could be miles deep.”

  “We need to head underground,” said Stubby. “There are sure to be some old drainage channels going down to the well. We need to look out for any holes in the ground.”

  “Like that one?” Bryony pointed to a hole at the base of the rock, just behind where Stubby was standing.

  Stubby wheeled round, and jumped in surprise when he saw the hole. “Why yes. Good. I was wondering when someone was going to spot that.”

  “Let’s get going.” Bryony pushed past Stubby and clambered into the hole. “Everyone follow me.”

  “I don’t think so.” Stubby grabbed Bryony’s arm and yanked her out of the hole. “I should lead this expedition. I am a mouse. I have acute senses, and a natural instinct for detecting danger. Stand aside, please.”

  Bryony reluctantly obliged, allowing Stubby to enter the hole first. She was about to follow, then realised Edwin was standing back. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Still scared of the dark?”

  “It’s not that.” Edwin pointed to the top of the island. “I don’t want to leave Mum alone up there.”

  “OK.” Bryony nodded. “We’ll go look for the Key without you.”

  Edwin didn’t want to leave his mother alone, but the thought of Bryony getting her hands on the Key again was even worse. In any case, Mum should be all right if she followed Stubby’s advice and stayed undercover.

  “Wait for me,” he called, lowering himself into the hole behind Bryony.

  It was dark at first, but after a few seconds Edwin found his vision adjusted, and he could see everything as though he was in daylight. Bryony stood a short distance ahead, gazing around in awe.

  “I can see,” she murmured, examining the smooth walls of the tunnel. “It should be pitch black, but I can see.”

  “That is the Key’s magic,” said Stubby. “You wanted to shrink each other to the size of a mouse. It seems therefore that you have also acquired a mouse’s keen nocturnal vision. And perhaps some other traits.”

  “I’m picking up a strong scent,” said Bryony, sniffing. “Is that a mouse thing as well?”

  “Regrettably yes,” answered Stubby.

  “Why regrettably?” wondered Edwin.

  “Because,” replied Stubby, “having an acute sense of smell is not necessarily a good thing when, like myself, one is forced to spend so much of one’s time in your trouser pocket.”

  “I’m also wanting to chew cardboard,” admitted Bryony, twitching her nose. “And I just twitched my nose.”

  Edwin had the same urges, but tried to push them to the back of his mind. He took a deep breath, and wrinkled his nostrils as he too caught a strange aroma wafting up the tunnel.

  It was a strong, musky smell. For some reason it reminded him of fur, claws and scaly tails. And something else. Something that made his pulse rate quicken, and the hairs on his neck prickle to attention.

  Danger!

  “We should turn back,” he whispered. “There’s something bad down here.”

  “We are quite safe,” insisted Stubby. “As long as you follow me and do exactly as I say.” Stubby headed off down the tunnel, with Bryony close behind. Edwin hesitated, but then realised he had no choice but to follow.

  After a short distance, the tunnel broadened into an oval shaped chamber. That musky smell was stronger here, and Edwin felt his stomach churning as the sense of danger heightened. A series of large circular holes lined the walls, and Edwin thought he glimpsed movement in one of them. He tried to alert Stubby, but his interruption was waved away with an irritated hiss.

  “Please be quiet,” whispered Stubby. “You’re interfering with my keen mouse senses. We need total silence. Any noise we hear could prove vital to our chances of survival.”

  Edwin glimpsed movement in another hole, and heard a scuffling noise from his right.

  But Stubby seemed totally unaware. “If we do not maintain the utmost vigilance, we could be surrounded in a heartbeat, before we even knew what was happening.”

  “Like we are now?” said Edwin, seeing movement and hearing scuffling from all around them.

  Stubby listened, his mouse ears swivelling like radar dishes. “That’s right. Exactly as we are now. Well spotted for a human. Now, as I was…” Suddenly Stubby froze, his eyes wide with terror. “Oh no, we’re surrounded!”

  That musky stench became almost intoxicating. Edwin and Bryony shuffled closer to Stubby, their anxious gaze sweeping the creatures that encircled them.

  They were each about the size of a horse (or at least as large as a horse would be if Edwin and Bryony were normal size), with coats of sleek dark fur, and long scaly tails. Their heads looked like mice, but with more elongated snouts and smaller, pointier ears.

  “What are they?” whispered Bryony.

  “The most vicious type of
vermin there is,” said Stubby, his voice trembling with fear. “Rats!”

  The nearest rat hissed at Edwin, opening its mouth to reveal a pair of sharp yellow incisors…