“Oh crap,” Lucia whispered. The last people you want to run into when you are walking around in public dressed in matching pyjamas are teenagers. The Hardscrabbles looked around for a hiding place and saw a chunky hedge that might do, but before they could duck behind it, the teenagers spotted them.
“Hello, what’s this?” one of them said. “The plonker triplets?”
They all found this hysterically funny, slapping one another on the backs and saying, “Good one, yeah?” They hooted and laughed and staggered around like a pack of drunken idiots as the Hardscrabbles walked by.
If I ever become like this when I am a teenager, I hope someone smothers me in my sleep.
Eventually, the Hardscrabbles came to Saint George’s Taxidermy & Curiosities shop. Much to Lucia’s horror, Max went right up to the door and knocked on it.
“You can’t be serious?” she cried.
He ignored her as he stood on tiptoes and tried to peer through the window on the door. “I think I see him way in the back.” He knocked again more loudly.
“What’s he doing? Torturing hamsters?” Lucia asked.
Max suddenly took a few steps back from the door, clasped his hands behind his back, and waited at attention.
A lock clicked and the door opened. Lucia had the distinct impression that Saint George may have heard that last part. He appeared at the doorway, black apron on, and half a dozen marbles cupped in one hand. His face was pinched with annoyance as he looked them over, taking in their state of dress and the snaky dried trickles of blood on their legs.
“What happened to you?” he said.
“We need help,” Max said.
“Yeah, you do,” he replied and started to close the door.
“We need to get past the dragon in the Great Hall,” Max said quickly, before the door shut in his face.
Saint George paused. If he hadn’t had a face like a Viking, you would have thought he was blushing.
“Piss off,” he said. He shut the door and locked it.
“Oh, yes, well done, Max,” Lucia said. But Max didn’t look at all defeated. On the contrary, he looked extremely self-satisfied.
“I was right,” Max said quietly, but before Otto or Lucia could ask, “About what?” Max had started to hurry around to the back of the shop in a very determined way.
Lucia and Otto followed, mostly out of pure curiosity. Now they could see the barn where Saint George’s ponies must be kept, a tumble-down affair surrounded by a small fenced pasture. Max opened a latched gate and walked through the tiny pasture to a window in the back of the shop. If they jumped, they could grab fleeting glimpses of what was evidently the workshop, a dingy little room whose walls were covered with animal skins. There were rows and rows of shelves filled with glues and paints and whatnot, and in the middle of it all was Saint George, perched on a stool with his back to them. In front of him was the head of a deer stuck on a metal stand. Saint George dug around in a plastic cup that was wedged between his legs and he pulled out an amber-coloured marble. He held it up to the light and studied it for a moment before placing it in the deer’s empty eye socket.
Lucia let out a sound of disgust, which made Saint George look up from his work. The Hardscrabbles had been jumping up and down in order to see into the window, so when Saint George turned around he saw Otto’s head for a second before it disappeared, then Lucia’s head, then Max’s head, then Max’s head again, with a smile on its face. He said something they couldn’t hear but I’m sure it was nothing that could be printed in a book that kids will read, so it’s just as well. He got up out of his chair and the next glimpse they had was of an empty room.
“I told you to go home,” Saint George said gruffly. He was suddenly standing right behind them, looking like he was cursing his Viking ancestors for not having done a more thorough job of wiping every last English person off the map.
“We will,” Max said. “After you tell us what happened to The Kneebone Boy.”
“He’s skulking around in the woods, isn’t he,” Saint George said.
“That’s not The Kneebone Boy and you know it.”
“Max!” Lucia warned.
“What happened to the real Kneebone Boy?” Max asked.
Saint George didn’t answer but he did look around, as though checking to see if anyone were listening.
“Did you ever let him out of the tower to play in the woods?” Max asked. “Mr. Pickering said you wanted to, but your brother and sister wouldn’t do it.”
“Pickering told you that!?”
“He didn’t say your name,” Max told him quickly. “But the thing is, I think a lot. I think about everything, especially if something doesn’t make sense. I can’t help it, ask them. And a lot of things about you didn’t make sense, so I kept thinking until I figured it out.”
“He’s one of the Dusty Old Children?” Otto asked.
“The youngest one,” Max said.
“Are you really a Kneebone?” Lucia asked Saint George. This was a rather fascinating turn of events.
“There’s nothing amazing about it,” Saint George said. “Most people in Snoring know who I am. I don’t hide it.”
“Yes, but do they know why you’re called Saint George?” Max asked.
“Oh, why is he?” Lucia asked excitedly.
“Mr. Pickering said that before they went into the secret passageway, he heard a tap-tap-tapping,” said Max. “Well, that probably was the clock, just as we guessed. And the scraping must have been when they moved aside the clock to get to the cabinet. But the hiss above their heads . . . that was curious.” Max was enjoying himself very obnoxiously now, but Lucia was too interested to be annoyed. “I kept thinking about that hiss and I thought of all the things that could fly over your head and make a hiss. Then I remembered the archery bows on the wall of the Great Hall. An arrow would make a hiss like that as it was shot over your head, wouldn’t it? Someone might have shot the dragon with an arrow in order to get past it. And that made me think of the most famous dragon slayer of all, Saint George, isn’t it, and the story about the dragon that made its nest at the spring of a city’s water supply. The dragon wouldn’t budge, so in order for the citizens to get their water they brought the King’s daughter as a sacrifice. But just as the dragon is about to eat the princess, Saint George comes along and kills the dragon. I thought about that story. And then I started to think about Saint George, this Saint George, I mean, and all the things about him that didn’t make sense.”
It was all so much like the climax of a mystery novel, which as you know Lucia generally doesn’t like, but when it’s happening in real life it’s quite impressive.
“For instance, Saint George’s little white ponies. I guessed there wouldn’t be a lot of room behind his shop to keep horses, even little ones and look, I was right. And little ponies like that . . . well it’s usually old ladies in hats who keep them or else kids, not big, hulking men. But then Mr. Pickering mentioned the little ponies that the Dusty Old Children rode and I remembered that the funeral carriage was a miniature, like a play carriage for children.
“But it was something that you said”—he nodded toward Saint George, who was listening to it all with a harassed look on his face—“that made me quite sure about it all. Remember when you said that Haddie ought to lock us in the dungeon and toss the key into the Abyss. Well, I wondered how you would know about the Abyss in the first place. Mr. Pickering said no one ever went into the folly, and even if you had managed to poke around there, what are the chances that you would have found a little hole hidden behind a tapestry?
“So after much, much thinking I decided that you must be one of the Dusty Old Chi—I mean one of the Kneebones, and that you were the one to shoot the arrow into the dragon and disable him, which made your brother and sister nickname you Saint George.”
“Is he right?” Lucia asked Saint George eagerly.
“No,” Saint George said.
Even though Lucia generally enjoyed when Max w
as wrong about something, this was massively disappointing.
“My brother and sister didn’t give me the nickname, I gave it to myself,” Saint George said. He no longer looked angry, which is as close as possible to saying that he looked pleased. “I deserved the name too. I shot that dragon in the eye every time, and I’d even call left or right one before I nailed it.”
The Hardscrabbles smiled at one another.
“You’ll help us to get past the dragon then?” Max said.
“No,” Saint George said. They waited for him to say that he was just joking, but he didn’t.
“But why not?” Lucia finally asked.
“Because the secret passageway is dangerous. Because there’s no bloody reason for me to do it. And because even if I wanted to, I can’t,” Saint George replied.
“You mean you’ve lost your knack?” Lucia asked.
“No, I’ve lost my arrow,” Saint George said. “It takes a particular arrow, and that arrow was lost years ago. A regular one won’t do.”
“Does that arrow have a funny, jaggedy tip?” Max asked.
Saint George’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen it?”
Max smiled. He’d be a terrible poker player. You’re supposed to keep a straight face when you know you are holding the winning cards.
“Where?” Saint George asked.
“In the Abyss. Stuck in the dirt wall.”
“You mean that old thing we found?” Lucia turned to Max in surprise.
“Idiots!” Saint George cried.
“Excuse me?” Lucia said, her nostrils expanding on the instant.
“Not you, not you,” Saint George said hastily. “Do you have it with you?” he asked Max.
“It’s back at the folly,” Max said. “It’s yours if you help us.”
“It’s mine in any case,” he said.
“True,” Max said, “but we know where it is, and you don’t.”
For a moment it seemed entirely possible that Saint George would pick Max up by the back of his shirt, and heave-ho him straight over the gate.
Instead, he asked, “Why do you want to go in the secret passageway in any case?”
This was a bit tricky, so of course Lucia and Otto looked at Max. Since he had worked out everything it seemed natural that he would have worked out this part as well. But to their shock and dismay, Max was looking right back at them imploringly.
Lucia pressed her lips together and composed herself with a sniff. Then she turned to Saint George and said, “Because it’s a secret passageway, for goodness’ sakes.”
Saint George seemed to accept this explanation. After all, he had been one of the Dusty Old Children once, years ago.
“It’s not a romp in a theme park,” Saint George warned. “There are some treacherous bits.”
“What would be the point of going in if there weren’t?” Lucia said.
A small, smirky smile crept across Saint George’s mouth.
“All right, I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll stop by in the morning. Now get out.”
“No,” Max said. “It has to be now. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Saint George rolled his eyes. “All right then,” he muttered, “Let’s get this over with.”
They followed him out the gate, but he stopped suddenly and turned around. He looked them up and down, taking in their state of dress and their various scraped-up arms and legs. Then he sighed.
“I suppose you’ll want to take a carriage rather than walk?” he said.
“Yes, please,” they answered promptly.
Chapter 20
In which the Hardscrabbles admit they are not normal, not at all
Though the stable looked rough from the outside, inside it was clean and smelled of that yeasty hay-and-horse smell. The stalls had clearly been carefully mended for the white ponies, seven in all, who whinnied in their stalls when they saw Saint George.
“Hello, my lovelies,” he cooed back so unselfconsciously that you could tell it was his customary greeting to them.
The stalls only took up about a third of the stable. The rest was occupied by such an impressive collection of small carriages that Lucia and Max both cried, “Whoa!” in unison and rushed over to get a better look. There was a beautiful white phaeton with red velvet seats, and a black carriage with a deep blue interior striped in gold. There was a small maroon stagecoach with black shades that rolled down, just like you’d see in an old cowboy movie, and a white Cinderella pumpkin-shaped carriage with a round wrought-iron cage surrounding a pink circular seat. And of course there was the funeral carriage in which they had first travelled to the folly.
“Are these all yours?” Lucia called over to Saint George, who was harnessing up one of the ponies.
“They belonged to all us Kneebone kids originally,” Saint George answered. “But when things went sour and we had to sell everything, my brother and sister wanted to sell the carriages, along with the ponies. I bought them out and kept them. What’s he saying?”
Lucia looked over to see Otto’s right hand twisting around the left then linking fingertip to fingertip.
“He wants to help,” Lucia translated. “Let him. He’s good with animals.”
Saint George nodded toward the pony in the stall next door. “He can start harnessing Twinkle. But mind her ears, she doesn’t like them fussed with.”
“Twinkle!?” Lucia snorted, but that fetched such a grimace from Saint George that she shut up fast.
Twinkle was a fat-bellied and good-natured pony, all white like the others except for a star-shaped patch of beige on her neck. She stood patiently while Otto put the harness on her. Lucia stroked her beneath her muzzle. It was hypnotically silky, so that when Lucia felt the swipe of a dry, rough tongue, she jumped and yanked her hand away in surprise.
“Licked you, did she?” Saint George said, coming over and slapping Twinkle’s shoulder affectionately. “She’s part hound, this one. Licks and she chases rabbits and would sleep in your bed if you let her. Her mother was just the same, only not so fat. It’s her in the shop’s front window, you know.” He said this last thing rather slyly.
“What? Do you mean the fake miniature zebra?” Max said.
“You knew she was fake?” Saint George said, surprised.
“Well, I mean . . . a miniature zebra?” Max said, shrugging.
“All right, but most people think she’s real. Had lots of offers for her too. They couldn’t pay me enough for old Beezy.”
Lucia started to snort, “Beezy!” but thought better of it, and instead said, “She makes a good-looking zebra.”
“She was a beauty,” he said. “And smart. Charlie liked to hear about her.”
“Charlie? Oh, The Kneebone Boy!” Max said. “Mr. Pickering said his name. Did you visit him in the tower a lot?”
“Yeah, quite a bit. My parents never knew. They didn’t like us to see him. At first I used to go there with my brother and sister, but after a while I started to go on my own. They always stirred him up too much. He could stay calm and quiet if you knew how to talk to him. And since I was the only one who could get past the dragon, I snuck in pretty often. He liked to hear about the clever things Beezy did.”
“Was he really a monster?” Lucia blurted out.
“Do you mean was he covered with hair and did he have claws and bat ears?” Saint George responded drily. He shook his head. “Charlie was no monster. He was just put together all wrong, poor sod. I reckon he looked very peculiar, but I never noticed much. He was good company.”
“Could he talk?” Lucia asked.
“Talk? No. Not like a regular person. He made sounds, the way an animal does, but we found a way to understand each other. Like the way you understand your brother here. He knew how to laugh though. I always wondered how he’d learned that. He didn’t ever have much to laugh about, spending his life hidden away so that the rest of us Kneebones could live as though everything were just fine. I only wish I’d taken him out to the woods. I always prom
ised him I would one day.”
“Why didn’t you?” Lucia asked.
“The arrow suddenly went missing and I couldn’t get back into the passageway.” Saint George’s voice turned bitter. “I always suspected it was my brother and sister that did it out of spite. Threw it in the Abyss, did they? They were always jealous that I could get in on my own and they couldn’t.”
“What happened to Charlie?” Otto asked.
“He says, ‘What happened to Charlie?’ ” Lucia translated.
“Died,” Saint George answered simply. “At bloody seventeen years old. They all die young . . . The Kneebone Boys.”
“We’re sorry,” Lucia said.
“Ah,” he shrugged. “What can you do?” He adjusted Twinkle’s breast collar. “Strange thing happened a few months ago though. When I was out hunting, I saw this little twist of fog. It was hovering, like, between the trees. When I moved, it followed me. It seemed as if it were trying to play a game with me, hiding behind trees then sweeping around rocks and flying up into the branches. It followed me for a good half hour. If I believed in ghosts, I would have sworn it was Charlie himself, finally free and doing just as he pleased.”
He scratched Twinkle’s neck beneath her mane. “Anyway, I still have old Beezy. She dresses up the shop window nicely. And at Christmas I put a crown on her head and string her full of lights.”
The Hardscrabbles nodded and pretended they didn’t find that at all creepy.
The ponies were ready and Saint George started for the funeral carriage, but Lucia said, “Do you think we might go in one of the other carriages?”
There was a brief argument among the Hardscrabbles over which carriage to take until Saint George told them to shut their gobs or he’d make them walk while he took the carriage himself. Then he hitched the ponies to the handsome black one with the blue velvet seats, which incidentally was the one Lucia had wanted in the first place. Saint George even dug out a plaid wool blanket from an old chest to put over their laps. It smelled a little like mouse droppings but never mind.