“You misunderstand me, little people,” the Doctor chewed. “’Tis not my nose I wish to be plumbed. Mr Durham? Geoffrey? Come through, please.”
A third giant entered the kitchen.
“Oh, my giddy aunt Flo,” Adora spluttered, and turned away.
Geoffrey Durham’s bright red face looked as if two armies had fought on it with weapons made of wet pus. Geoffrey had a nasty case of something nasty. And he couldn't stop coughing.
No way was he their next customer. The only things going through Geoffrey Durham’s head today would be his thoughts.
“I wish to observe you treat a…difficult case,” said Doctor Lincoln.
Geoffrey Durham’s difficulties streamed from his nostrils. He wiped them non-stop with his sleeve. Doctor Lincoln pointed at him.
“We’ve tried lancing, bleeding, and holding a hen whilst glugging treacle from eggshells. I don’t understand it – nothing has stopped the illness spreading. Perhaps your serfs can.”
“But his pipes have already burst,” John Kent said. “Bit late for my serfs to assist.”
“You advertise them as plumbers,” replied the Doctor. “Since Roman times, plumbers have known pipes contain liquid…”
John Kent hesitated. “What do you think, Perkins?”
Perkis shook his head. “It’s horrible…” he said.
“My nose is blocked, not my ears,” Geoffrey Durham exclaimed. “I hear what you’re saying about me.”
“Mr Durham.” Doctor Lincoln’s words oozed like Geoffrey Durham’s snot. “Sometimes a patient is resistant to treatment. On this occasion, your treatment appears resistant to you.”
“So you’ve wasted my time,” the giant said sourly.
“I will overcome the resistance.” He turned to the gang. “It’s just a cold,” he said.
“If that’s a cold,” Perkis murmured, “I’m Baron Bigge in disguise. He has the Plague, Finch!”
“Could we pretend?” Finch asked. “Geoffrey wouldn’t know if we were up there or not.”
“The others would,” Adora said. “Can we get them to leave the room?”
“How would your dad get out of this?” Perkis asked Finch. “What lie would he tell?”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Mr Fool-Who-Believes-Anything?” Finch snapped.
“Well, he was going to get us money – that’s a lie. He’s kept it all.” Perkis walked over to John Kent. They were going to need giant help.
“I’ll go,” Finch volunteered. “I’m not my dad, alright?” he hissed at Perkis.
Finch beckoned Geoffrey Durham to come closer. The bucket he hurled at Geoffrey’s greenish snot-pool stuck fast. He grabbed a brush and struggled up into the right nostril. He made sure to stay away from nose hairs.
“What did you say that for?” Adora said.
“I thought he thinks the same about his dad as I do.”
“Shows you haven’t got one, then.”
“Are those two joining their friend?” Doctor Lincoln asked John Kent.
John Kent scratched his chin, as if everyone had suddenly started speaking a language he didn’t understand. Perkis scowled at him. Adora wouldn’t look at him. Finch had disappeared.
“The brave one is the leader, then?” Doctor Lincoln inquired. Nobody answered.
Perkis and Finch had been friends forever. They didn’t do this to one another. Perkis even hid his loathing of green things to hang out with Finch. What was Finch thinking? And where had he gone?
After what felt like an age, Geoffrey Durham bent down and pressed the outside of his nostril. He exhaled hard, and Finch shot out backwards on a wave of green gloop.
They rushed towards him. His eyes flickered half-open. His clothes had turned to snot. Panting and sighing, he staggered to his feet.
Perkis was steaming with frustration. “Mate, what were you doing?”
“Are you okay?” Adora asked. She used her sleeve to wipe the gloop from Finch’s tunic. It smelled of metal and mud.
Finch had trouble speaking. Three little words bubbled up from his throat.
“That went well…”
And then he sneezed.
CHAPTER Six
Perkis and Adora walked Finch home. “It was disgusting…” Finch said, sneezing again.
“Last time you did something crazy like that, you couldn’t sit down for weeks,” Perkis said. “Missus Tuppence chased you out of the chamber. Remember?”
Finch nodded and tried to force a smile.
“Why did you do it?” Perkis asked.
“I don’t know. You slagging off my dad…”
“You couldn’t have yelled at me? You had to jump into an ocean of bogeys?”
Adora patted Finch’s arm. “Well at least it’ll be a quick death. Your dad’ll kill you for this.”
His house was empty. Finch lay down on his thin straw mattress, Finch sounded weak. “Not feeling so good. Going to sleep.” As Perkis and Adora were creeping out, he spoke again so softly that they struggled to hear him. “The bucket…”
“The bucket? What about the bucket?”
“You forgot it.”
“I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Don’t worry. Get some rest.”
“Where do you go with it?”
“It’s empty,” Perkis said gently. “The gloop went all over you, mate.”
Finch smiled and closed his eyes. Perkis didn’t want anyone discovering the destination of the bucket’s contents. If even the other nose plumbers found out it ended up in –
“I’ll find Old Finch,” said Adora, interrupting his thoughts.
Perkis watched Finch sleep. According to Auntie Stan, the best way to cope with anything bad was thinking happy thoughts. Happy thoughts helped her get over her sisters’ deaths from dancing mania, and her father being eaten by a sea monster. As a girl she had calmly handled coming third in a “Kent’s Got Talent” contest held to keep people cheerful whilst the Plague raged. Forced to juggle with her arms bound to her body after some unpleasant treatment involving leeches, and despite winner and runner-up both dying mid-contest, she had still ended up with the bronze medal. Happy thoughts got her through.
So Perkis tried the positive approach. He had risked his life to save the village from John Kent’s sneeze. The village didn’t care. The giant offered him money to turn professional. He hadn’t seen a groat of it. He was angry with Finch’s dad, and insulted Finch without thinking. Now Finch lay sick and possibly dying. Happy thoughts were few and far between, given the mess he was in.
“What were you thinking?” Old Finch railed when he appeared with Adora. “Why didn’t you stop him?” He pressed his hand to his son’s forehead.
“He wanted to make you proud of him,” Adora added, bending the truth.
“He’s boiling hot. Plague, isn’t it?”
“We don’t know for sure,” Adora said unconvincingly.
“Call a Doctor of Physic…”
“No!” Perkis pleaded. Old Finch was too impressed by the ways of giants. “They’re lethal. We need to wait it out.”
“I blame you, girl. And you,” Old Finch glared at Perkis. “You got him like this.” He went outside, and came back with two wet cloths and a somewhat startled chicken.
“Not the hen,” said Perkis. “Please.”
Old Finch laid a cloth on his son’s forehead, applied the other to his own brow, and soothed the chicken in the crook of his arm. “You two…I don’t know…” he moaned.
Finch slept all day and night. Adora went to work, but John Kent and Old Sampson each gave Perkis the next day off. That afternoon, when Adora had returned, Finch opened his eyes.
“That was close,” Adora smiled.
Finch’s voice was croaky. “Yeah. You nearly had some work to do.”
“You’re better, then,” Perkis said. “Coming back to work?”
Finch coughed. Just then Old Finch showed Frank Tyler into the little house.
“I’ve called a meeting of Olds from all the vi
llages,” Tyler said loudly. “This can’t go on. How you feeling, young Finch?”
“Better,” Finch coughed again.
“You look terrible.” Tyler turned to Perkis. “We’ll help you, son. You okay with that?”
“How?” Perkis asked excitedly.
“That’s good,” Tyler said, taking a stab at Perkis’s response, and missing by a distance. “The nobles can’t work you to sickness and death. You clean out their noses. Get any money?”
Old Finch, standing behind Tyler, flapped his hands as if to tell Perkis to say no.
“A groat,” said Perkis.
“That’s nothing, for putting your lives at risk,” Tyler said. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow. And taxes too,” he said to Old Finch. “It’s protesting time.”
“Let’s see how much protesting gets done,” Old Finch sneered after Tyler had gone. “Anyway, he’s angrier about taxes than bogeys.” Perkis didn’t believe him.
A roar came from outside. “That’s a week! Time’s up! Baron Bigge will judge you!!”
Farmer Farnes hammered to be let in. It shook the little house. Old Finch opened what was left of the front door.
“You’ll pay for that!” Old Finch matched Farmer Farnes’ roar. But his was closer to a moan.
“Your son will pay for what he’s done first,” Farmer Farnes menaced.
Finch sneezed in the direction of Farmer Farnes.
“If he lives,” Old Finch said sadly.
Farnes seemed surprised. “You as well? Plague’s back, then.”
“My dad told me Vernon Vernon the blacksmith’s dead from picking his nose,” Adora chipped in.
“Another victim,” Farnes said, bowing his head.
“Well, Vernon was studying a bogey he’d picked when his anvil fell on his head,” Adora added. “So technically, perhaps not.”
“Two of my farm boys are sneezing. And my cows,” Farnes said.
“Sell you a brush?” Old Finch improvised.
“A brush? Can’t milk a brush…” Farmer Farnes scratched his cauliflower ears.
“They work on the giants. If it’s good enough for a giant…eh?”
“Oh, this is your snot scraping.”
“Nose plumbing, we call it.” Old Finch puffed out his chest, as if he had invented it.
“How did your farm boys get sick?” Perkis asked, trying not to sound too interested.
“No idea,” Farnes said. “They go into my barn, they’re fine. Come out coughing and sneezing.”
“Weird,” Perkis mumbled awkwardly. He didn’t think Adora and Finch had noticed.
“Tell you what, you can have four brushes for a groat. Two short, two long. Good for boys and cows.” Old Finch yanked a fistful of bristles from Finch’s brush. “I’ll throw in a couple extra.”
“Dad!” Finch wheezed.
“What? You won’t be needing them any more,” Old Finch said, matter-of-factly.
Farnes suddenly remembered why he’d come. “He won’t need them when he meets Baron Bigge. Foot roaster if he confesses. Head crusher if not. You too,” he said, pointing at Perkis. “Want to admit what you did?”
“They didn’t do anything!” Adora shouted.
“My eyewitness saw bones being dug up by boys in the churchyard.” Farmer Farnes folded his arms and straighted himself up to his full height. His head was at the ceiling. He had grown some more.
“Ten brushes for a groat if you don’t have an eyewitness,” Old Finch replied.
“They can’t have an eyewitness if we didn’t do it!” Perkis joined in.
“Ten for free says I do, but I might not listen to him so carefully.”
Perkis was amazed. Old Finch had managed to start Farmer Farnes haggling!
“My son’s sick,” said Old Finch.
“Sick in the head, I’d say. Bones. Disgusting.” Farmer Farnes stroked his red and white boil, which was more disgusting than Finch could ever hope to be.
Old Finch began counting out brushes. “One – more – many – square…”
Farmer Farnes left with pieces of the front door in his hair and a handful of brush bristles. He gave his word that he would leave the boys alone for now.
“Can’t trust him, though,” Old Finch said, and went off to the tavern.
“We need an eyewitness,” Perkis said. If Farmer Farnes had made something up, so could they. “How about Blind Pew?”
Blind Pew lived with his mum in a hovel on the farthest edge of land belonging to Baron Bigge. He was having his monthly bath. Enormous fleas leapt out of the tub as he washed the soles of his feet.
“Sure I’ll help,” Blind Pew told Perkis and Adora. “What did I see?”
“Nothing!” Adora instructed.
“Obviously!” Seeing things was not Blind Pew’s speciality.
“No,” she went on. “you didn’t see Perkis and Finch do anything with graves, so – ”
“Not good enough,” Perkis said. “You need to have seen someone else there.”
“What if I say they were so quick, I couldn’t see their faces? But they were much fatter than you. Or taller. Different anyway.”
It wasn’t perfect, but not even Perkis had any better ideas.
“Perkis, you know who’d be useful right now?” said Blind Pew.
Perkis’s eyes lit up. “Who?” he asked.
“Your brother Ferkis. He was great. Always helping me. That’s why I want to help you guys. What goes around comes around, right? Except the Plague! Hopefully!”
CHAPTER Seven
Hundreds of peasants attended Tyler’s meeting. He talked to the crowd about unfair taxes. They cheered and shouted their agreement. He mentioned the nose plumbers once, towards the end. By then, Perkis and Adora were a bit bored. Adora had spotted Old Finch in the crowd.
“Old Finch looks very smart,” she said. He wore a gleaming white silk shirt no peasant could hope to afford on a weekly wage. Old Finch caught them staring. His face fell. At that instant, Perkis knew without a doubt how he had paid for his finery.
They went up to him at the end of the gathering. He was talking to Uncle Ethel.
“Boy’s better today. Run along and see him,” Old Finch told them. “We have a protest to organise.”
“The King’s new tax hurts us all,” Ethel said. “But there’s a strike to support you, too.”
“Is there?” Perkis and Adora had missed that bit of the speech.
“Not for long,” said Old Finch. “We want the King to pay attention to our demands.”
“Is that why you’re dressed up?” Adora glowered at him. “In case the King comes by?”
“Well, you never know, we might need to…um…negotiate – ”
“Like you negotiate as our manager?” Perkis said.
“Um…” Unusually, Old Finch was lost for words.
“Manager?” Uncle Ethel tilted his head.
“Yes, Uncle. John Kent pays us two groats for nose-plumbing. We give it to Old Finch. He’s our manager.” Perkis flashed his best angelic smile.
Uncle Ethel loomed over Old Finch. “Is this true? Where’s the money these workers earned?”
Old Finch gulped. “I’m…” They had to strain to understand the rest of his answer. He gave it from inside a tight headlock in Uncle Ethel’s arm. It sounded like he said “…saving it.”
“Show us the money,” Adora said.
“Here. Silk shirt.” Old Finch stuck out the one arm he could move. “Investment.”
They felt the shirt. Just as Perkis had suspected – all their money had gone.
“Nice. Why isn’t PERKIS wearing it?!” Ethel roared. “Remember What Tyler’s words? An employer must not hold a labourer’s money overnight…remember?” He squeezed hard again. “It’s like the boys are working for you!”
“Looks good,” Old Finch spluttered. “Do deals with giants.”
“Go easy, Uncle,” Perkis pleaded. If anything befell Old Finch, it might harm Finch’s recovery. He ran to where Frank Tyler
was talking to a group of men, and gestured him to follow. Old Finch was rubbing his recently freed neck.
“Can a serf look after another serf’s money?” Perkis asked him.
Once Tyler understood that he wasn’t being asked about Perkis’s mummy, he pointed out that investments were a very good use of wages. Yes, Old Finch had lied (he told everyone the shirt was a family heirloom). But if he now admitted the shirt belonged to the nose plumbers, Tyler decreed there was no need to punish him by Spanish tickler, lead sprinkler, knee splitter, pear of anguish, pendulum or crocodile tube.
But Old Finch could no longer collect their wages. He also had to be the one to tell John Kent that the nose plumbers were now on strike.
Then Tyler took Perkis aside. “I don’t know if you realise,” he whispered, “but I can’t hear very well.”
“I had my suspicions,” Perkis said softly.
“No idea? Great. I hide it well. But could you look in my ears before you hang up your brush? Maybe they’re…blocked. I must hear the Barons, when we protest. We want to make things better for everyone. Unless we change the world, your lives will be short and nasty like ours.”
So if I don’t manage to help him, Perkis thought, peasants will always be poor. No pressure, then. On the other hand, they’d be able to carry on blowing raspberries behind his back to cheer themselves up while they waited for a painful, stupid death.
“Can you do it, boy?” Tyler asked.
He had to try. Like Tyler, he needed to make a new start. They went to the technical support hut, where the brushes were stored. Adora followed along.
“Perkis,” Adora said, “maybe What Tyler can help us with our other problem? Getting on the right side of Farmer Farnes?”
“What did she say?” Tyler asked with a shamefaced smile.
“I empty the buckets in Farmer Farnes’ barns,” Perkis said.
“I didn’t hear that!” Tyler admitted.
“Good,” Perkis said.
“I didn’t hear it either!” Adora said in disbelief. “Are you kidding? Farnes will go crazy when he finds out.”
“Crazier.”
“We have to move it.”
“Where?” Perkis asked. “I couldn’t think of anywhere else to put it.”
“Shouldn’t you have worked that out before you started?”
“We didn’t do a business plan! It doesn’t work like that with a giant for a boss!”