“Why didn’t they grab him?” Tom asked.
Kipper watched as the Squeakers returned to their eggs and bacon. “It’s townsfolk. I think it must be that they hold underlings in such low regard that they just don’t notice them.”
Fish continued a little farther down the canal bank, then began waving to the other boxtrolls on deck to join him. A small procession of boxtrolls marched down the gangplank, passed the Squeakers (who hardly gave them a second glance), and joined Fish.
A small procession of boxtrolls.
“Well, blow me down!” muttered Tom. “Where do you think they are off to?”
“Off to find themselves breakfast,” said Kipper, sounding very sorry for himself. “I wish I were an underling!”
Twenty minutes later Willbury and Titus were sitting in the captain’s cabin, when Titus, playing with the miniature cabbagehead by the window, gave a squeak. Willbury got up and joined him at the window. Back along the towpath came the boxtrolls, and they were all carrying sacks.
“Oh no!” said Willbury. “Now what’s going on?” He rushed up on deck just as the boxtrolls walked straight past the policemen and up the gangplank.
Marjorie was up on deck, watching. “Good, isn’t it?”
Willbury looked baffled.
“Them Squeakers just don’t pay them any attention,” explained Kipper. “So used to thinking of them as nothing, they just don’t seem to notice them.”
Titus looking out of the window.
Fish and his group of friends emptied out their sacks. Piled in the middle of the deck was a large stack of cakes, biscuits, treacle, boiled sweets, toffee, shortbread, pasties, anchovies, pickled onions, raspberry jam, and lemonade bottles. The crew’s eyes lit up, and the pile soon disappeared under a crowd of bodies.
Willbury, however, frowned. “You know that Titus and the other cabbageheads don’t like this sort of food. Didn’t you think to bring anything for them?”
The boxtrolls looked a little grumpy. Shoe picked up a small sack that was still lying beside him and threw it huffily forward. Willbury emptied it, revealing a pile of fruit and vegetables. He smiled at the sulking boxtrolls.
“Thank you; that is very thoughtful of you. I’ll take these down to the storeroom to keep them safe for later.”
Once he returned, Willbury stood a few feet away from the melee, watching the crew gorge themselves on the food. Marjorie joined him. She was tucking eagerly into a doughnut. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.
Fish and his group of friends emptied out their sacks.
“How could I be hungry at a time like this?” Willbury said fretfully.
Marjorie looked carefully at Willbury, then said in a low voice, “I have a dreadful feeling that this is all my fault!”
“What do you mean?” asked Willbury.
Marjorie led him away from the group. “It’s my invention. I think I know what has happened to it. I’d an idea, but when the Trouts turned up with Snatcher, I knew . . . . I just knew.”
“The Trouts?” said Willbury, looking puzzled.
“Didn’t you see the men who had hold of Arthur?” asked Marjorie.
“Not really—I was so focused on Arthur himself.”
“It was the Trouts; I swear it. They looked pretty rough, but I am sure it was them.”
“So Snatcher has your invention?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’s all these little creatures.”
“The little creatures?”
“The invention that was stolen from me was a resizing machine,” whispered Marjorie.
“A RESIZING MACHINE!” Willbury was flabbergasted.
“Yes, I discovered how to take the size out of one thing and put it into another. In the wrong hands it could be very dangerous . . . and I think it has definitely got into the wrong hands.” Marjorie looked mournful.
“How does this machine operate?” asked Willbury, staring at Marjorie.
Willbury was flabbergasted.
“It consists of two parts. If you have two objects of equal size, one side of the machine drains the size out of one object, and the other side of the machine pumps the size into the other,” Marjorie explained.
“Do you mean it shrinks one thing and makes the other thing bigger?” asked Willbury.
“Yes, exactly. And Snatcher and his mob have got hold of it. I don’t know quite what they are doing with it, but I bet it’s something rotten.”
Willbury thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, we know what they’re doing with it. They’re shrinking the underlings!”
“Do you mean it shrinks one thing and makes the other thing bigger?” asked Willbury.
“Yes . . . but that’s only half of it.” Marjorie paused. “Where is all the size going?”
Willbury thought to himself, then muttered. “Oh, my word! I hadn’t thought of that.” Then he asked Marjorie another question.
“Why underlings?”
“It only works on living creatures. I guess they thought that nobody would notice or care if they used underlings.”
“Then I wonder why they have been blocking up the holes to the Underworld,” Willbury pondered. “Surely that would stop the underlings coming aboveground and falling into their clutches.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. I think they must be blocking up the holes to help trap them in some way. Perhaps there is only one hole still open, and they lie in wait for the underlings there, knowing it is their only way to the surface____I don’t know,” answered Marjorie.
“This is truly awful. What ever possessed you to build a machine that could resize living creatures?”
Marjorie looked very embarrassed.
“Truthfully?” Marjorie looked very embarrassed. “I was very interested in the scientific principles involved in making it. I just wanted to see if it would work. I hadn’t really worked out what it was going to be used for,” said Marjorie.
“I wonder what it is they are making bigger,” Willbury asked again.
“I don’t rightly know. And I have been trying to work out how the cheese comes into it.”
“It must somehow.” Willbury then spoke in a determined manner. “I have a very bad feeling about this. We have to get Arthur back and stop whatever is going on! Let’s call a Council of War!”
The man in the iron socks.
chapter 32
THE MAN IN THE IRON SOCKS
Against one wall was a bed.
Alone in the cold, dank dungeon, Arthur looked around his cell. Against one wall was a bed. It had probably not been very comfortable even before it had been used by the trotting badgers, but now it was covered with bite marks, and he thought he would get peppered with splinters if he tried to use it. Shreds of an old blanket had been used to form a kind of nest in one corner of the cell. This did not look very inviting either. It looked full of fleas, Arthur thought.
The only other things in the cell were a filthy bucket and a few strands of straw scattered about the floor. Arthur looked out the bars. About six feet away lay his doll!
If only I could reach it, I could get in touch with Grandfather, and he might be able to help me, thought Arthur.
He dropped to the floor and reached as far as he could. If only he could get the doll back. It lay a few feet from his grasp, almost as if it had been positioned deliberately to taunt him. He looked about his cell to see if there was anything he could use to help him. There was nothing.
“This is useless!” he moaned. Feeling completely at a loss, he got up and kicked the bed in frustration. After a second or so, there came a distant, dull thump in return. Arthur was puzzled. What was that?
It lay a few feet from his grasp.
He waited for a few moments but there were no more sounds, so he kicked the bed again. There was another thump. He didn’t think it was an echo, but to be sure, he kicked the bed twice in rapid succession. After a couple of seconds came a Thump! Thump! Thump!
> “It can’t be an echo then!” He kicked the bed again. The thumping started again but did not stop. Arthur pulled the bed from the wall and put his ear to the stonework. The thumping was coming from the next cell. There was definitely someone—or something—in there. Then Arthur realized that the cell next to him was the boarded-up cell that the boxtrolls had been so frightened of. He began to wish he hadn’t attracted the attention of its occupant. He half wondered if it was starting to come through the wall.
The thumping got louder and louder. Arthur looked down and noticed one of the bricks in the wall moving toward him.
It is! It’s coming through! Arthur panicked. He jumped over the bed, then smashed the brick as hard as he could into the wall, sending it shooting back in.
Someone shouted “Ouch!” and the thumping stopped.
He jumped over the bed, then smashed the brick as hard as he could.
Arthur waited.
There was a muffled cry, an even louder thump, and before Arthur had time to react again, the loose brick flew out of the wall and almost hit him.
There was a pause; then a hand holding a stub of candle appeared through the hole. Arthur froze.
“What’s all this noise about? Can’t a prisoner get any sleep around here?” came a very grumpy voice. “I’m the only one around here allowed to make a din.”
Arthur bent down and peered into the hole. A face covered by a mask peered back.
“Who are you?” asked Arthur.
A face covered by a mask peered back.
“I’m Herbert!” came the reply. “And who are you? You are not one of these cheese wallahs, are you? Can’t stand cheese or anything to do with it! Used to love it, but you can have too much of a good thing!”
“No, my name is Arthur.”
“Where you from?” Herbert asked curtly. “And what are you doing here?”
“I’m from the Underworld. But I’ve got stuck up here in Ratbridge, and now I’ve been caught and put in this cell.”
“Blimey. You’re in for it. I’ve heard what they’s up to. Blooming evil! You’s going to get shrunk!”
Arthur peered through the hole. “Did you make this?”
“ ’Course I did! I make lots of holes. Trouble is that when I do, it makes so much noise that the cheese wallahs always come and fill them in again. Never seems to get me anywhere. Been trying to get out of here for years, but never been lucky. If I could get these socks off, they wouldn’t be able to hold me.”
“Socks?” asked Arthur.
“Yes. The cheese wallahs shoved me into a pair of iron socks to slow me down. They still don’t dare come too close!”
“Why is that?”
“The cheese wallahs shoved me into a pair of iron socks to slow me down.”
“They is scared of me, what with me mask and me walloper. I made me a mask out of a bit of my old boots, and a big walloper out of me bed, and if they come near me . . . wallop!”
“What’s a walloper?”
“It’s me big mallet! It’s great for all kinds of walloping. I love it!”
“You wallop them with it?”
“I wallop everything with it! Trouble is, the cheese wallahs got tired of it and fixed up a way of stopping me walloping them.”
“I wallop everything with it!”
“So if I cause any trouble . . . they just turn the magnet on . . . boink!”
“How?”
“They stuck these socks on me and a huge electromagnet in the ceiling above me cell, so if I cause any trouble . . . they just turn the magnet on . . . and boink! I stick to the ceiling. Blooming iron socks!”
“Is that painful?” asked Arthur.
“Only when they turn the magnet off! I drops to the floor, you see . . . Bonk! But I still usually manage to wallop one or two of them.”
“Why are you locked up here?” Arthur inquired.
“Me? Can’t remember. Something to do with me and hmmm . . .” Herbert’s voice trailed off.
“How long have you been here?”
“Can’t rightly say. But I know that I have walloped more that a hundred and thirty of them over the years!”
“A hundred and thirty!” declared Arthur.
“Well, some of them might be the same person I walloped a few times. It was much easier in the early days before they put me in the socks. These days I am lucky to get even one of them!”
“Do you know what they are up to?”
“Well, I know they are shrinking underlings what they trap and steal,” Herbert told him. “Don’t know why.”
“You say that they’re trapping underlings?” asked Arthur.
“Yes, I heard them talking about it when they brought some in. They got some kind of way down into the Underworld . . . and they set traps.”
“Do you know how they get into the Underworld?” Arthur asked, his interest rising.
“No, but I think they must have some way down from ’ere at the Cheese Hall, ’cause it don’t take ’em long.”
Arthur’s mind began to whir. If there was a route between the Cheese Hall and the Underworld, then maybe there was a way for him to get back to Grandfather after all. If only he could tell Grandfather what he had learned, perhaps they could come up with a plan.
If only he could tell Grandfather what he had learned.
Snatcher climbed onto a table and took a look out through the boards that covered the tearoom windows.
chapter 33
GOING DOWN!
“You worry too much.”
Snatcher climbed onto a table and took a look out through the boards that covered the tearoom windows. It was raining again.
“Well, is it raining?” asked Gristle.
“No!” Snatcher lied, and climbed back down off the table.
“I still don’t like it. It’s getting very wet down there. Last time we were up to our knees in water.”
“You worry too much.” Snatcher chortled at the nervous-looking members assembled before him. They didn’t look convinced. “One more load of them monsters and a few more cheeses, and all will be tickety-boo for our plans for Ratbridge.”
“The traps were nearly empty on the last two trips.”
“I know,” said Snatcher. “Why else do you think I got you to grab them rats and monsters from the shop? Now, get on with you!” Snatcher fixed on Gristle with his good eye. “Or perhaps I could come up with a substitute for monsters . . . . If you get my drift?”
“Last time we were up to our knees in water.”
Gristle turned pale. “No . . . err . . . I’m sure we can find something in the traps.”
“Very good. Just make sure you do!” said Snatcher. “The Great One needs ’em, and we need the Great One. Our plans rely on ’im. If you get a good haul, this will be the last time, and after that we can seal up the Underworld completely.”
“Promise?”
“Promise!”
The members looked happier.
“All right then!” said Snatcher as he walked over to a large cupboard and opened its doors. “First trapping party inside!”
A small group of the members carrying sacks reluctantly entered the cupboard. Snatcher gave them a wink and pushed the doors closed. Then, taking hold of a bellpull next to the cupboard and giggling, he said, “Going down!” and pulled. There was a grinding noise, then muffled screams that quickly faded away. After a couple of seconds there was a distant splash, followed by a bell ping.
A small group of the members carrying sacks reluctantly entered the cupboard.
“Maybe it is a little wet,” Snatcher guffawed. Still, he waited for a few seconds before tugging the bellpull again. Soon there was another ping, and Snatcher opened the doors. The cupboard was empty, apart from two inches of dirty water that ran out onto the carpet.
“Second trapping party, please,” he ordered.
The members looked very, very nervous and all shuffled backward.
The cupboard was empty, apart from two inches of dirty wa
ter that ran out onto the carpet.
“Second trapping party, PLEASE!” Snatcher snapped.
Reluctantly, the remaining group stepped into the cupboard.
“Not you, Gristle!” Snatcher said. “You can go down on the last load with me.” He closed the cupboard and sent the members on their way. Then he turned to Gristle and took a banknote out of his pocket. “But first I want you to pop down to the shops quick and get me a pair of wellies.”
Gristle with wellies.
Kipper and Tom disturb the meeting in the hold.
chapter 34
THE COUNCIL OF WAR
Willbury, Marjorie, and the captain sat behind an ironing board.
It was early evening and it was raining . . . again. In the hold of the Laundry all the dirty clothes had been pushed to one end to make space for the Council of War. Willbury, Marjorie, and the captain sat behind an ironing board, facing the crew and underlings. Even Match, the miniature cabbage-head, and the freshwater sea-cow were there. The freshwater sea-cow had been adopted by some of the crew and was swimming about in a small barrel on wheels among her new guardians, who kept sneaking her lumps of cucumber. The only ones missing were Kipper, Tom . . . and Arthur.
Willbury looked about, and then asked the captain, “Where are Kipper and Tom?”
“We needed someone to act as watch on deck, and as it was raining, I gave them the duty as punishment. They should never have let Arthur go into the Cheese Hall alone.”
“Oh . . . right then. Well, then we better call the meeting to order and get started.” Willbury stood up, and the hold fell quiet.
The freshwater sea cow had been adopted by some of the crew.