Contents
Cover
Also by Sam Gayton
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Super Fleas
About the Author
The Snow Merchant
Lilliput
The Snow Merchant
Lilliput
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First published in 2015 by
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Text copyright © Sam Gayton, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Peter Cottrill, 2015
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.
ISBN 978 1 84939 636 3
For Rita, both of you
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost…
Proverb
Greta hurried over the bridge, autumn leaves crunching under her clogs like beetles. The full moon shone in the sky above and wobbled on the water below. She stopped for as long as she dared and stared down at the river’s silver ripples, trying to make herself see the past: Mama chopping wood, Wuff with his paws crossed by the fire, Papa stirring soup on the stove. He had told her once about the magic in a full moon’s reflection. If you looked long enough, it made a mirror to times long gone. Greta only ever saw her own face stare back. Green-brown eyes, freckles like sawdust, wild brambly hair she never bothered to brush.
She shook her head and blinked until tears rolled down her nose and into the river. It was tradition to cry when crossing the bridge called Two Tears that led to the jetty linking Tumber to the wide world beyond. Her salt mixed with the town’s salt, so even though she left, part of her would always be there until she came back. If she made it.
Across Two Tears, the trees began and the rows of little boats bumped against each other in the shallows. Greta untethered one and lowered in her axe and satchel, checking over her shoulder each time. No one chased across the bridge after her. On the far side, the town lay empty and dark. Only in the ruined Church of Saint Katerina on the Hill were the tinderlamps lit. Tonight was a good night to be a thief. By the time the funeral ended, Greta would be halfway to Avalon with the florins.
She unfurled her fist to look at them again. Three glittering coins. The last of Tumber’s gold.
Slipping her heel from one clog, she tucked the florins one by one under the leather insole for safe keeping. Then, clonking her feet into the boat, she turned to push herself out onto the river.
Tap tap.
Greta froze. At the end of the jetty stood Miss Witz in a black mourning dress, leaning on her cane. The minuscule copper bell hung from her ear on a hoop. A gypsy had charmed it so lies made it ring. When Miss Witz had been her teacher at school, Greta had set the bell chiming many times.
‘Those florins are kept in the stone vault below the mayor’s house,’ Miss Witz said, her walking stick rapping on the wooden boards, ‘which can only be unlocked by the golden key he wears on a chain around his neck. They cannot have been easy to steal.’
All the old babushka had to do was shout. The Tumberfolk would come running down from the church and Greta would be caught. But for now Miss Witz’s voice was just a whisper. Greta kept her hand on the jetty, feeling the current pulling at the boat, but she did not let go. She did not do anything except sit very still and listen to Miss Witz, the way she had in school.
‘I suppose you waited until tonight because the mayor is in the ruined church, mourning with the rest of Tumber. And since he is only wearing black, I imagine he left his key in the hidden drawer of his desk. But you wouldn’t know any of that. Unless, of course, you’ve been spying on him.’ She cackled softly. ‘And I wouldn’t know any of it either. Unless, of course, I’ve been spying on you.’
As she spoke, Miss Witz hobbled closer. Her hair was like a roll of chicken wire and her eyes shone the same steely colour.
‘So I suppose what I want to know first,’ said Miss Witz, ‘is where you are going with all that gold.’
‘What gold?’ Greta said.
The copper bell gave a tinkle. Miss Witz raised her eyebrows that were drawn on with charcoal and gave Greta a very long stare that seemed to say, And now the truth, please.
Greta felt her cheeks go hot. ‘I’m not stealing it.’ The copper bell rang again. ‘Well, I am stealing it, but for good reason, miss. I’m going to Avalon, to buy Tumber another hero.’
‘The mayor chooses which heroes will guard us,’ said Miss Witz. ‘Not you.’
‘The mayor chooses wrong,’ Greta blurted.
Miss Witz frowned, but this time the copper bell did not ring. She half smiled. ‘So you believe what you say. But that does not mean you are right. It means you are either a very astute girl, or a fool.’
‘I tried telling him,’ Greta said, ‘but he doesn’t listen. The heroes he brings back—’
‘Are the strongest in all Avalon, child. And the strongest in Avalon are the strongest in the world.’
‘We don’t need the strongest,’ said Greta. Why was she the only one who understood? ‘It isn’t about being strong. Papa was strong. Mama was stronger. But the strongest will always be Yuk.’
At the sound of his name, Miss Witz flinched. She looked away, pulling at a wispy hair on her chin.
‘Remember the Crimson Knight?’ Greta said quietly. ‘With his sword of boiling lava? Yuk guzzled him, then used his sword as a toothpick. Remember the Stone Golem, chiselled from granite and brought to life with alchemy? Yuk crushed him into gravel with his heel.’
In the Church of Saint Katerina on the Hill, the mourning bell began to toll from the broken spire. It rang once for every life Yuk had taken. Greta sat in the boat, counting each faint chime. On and on the bell went. Even when the tolling ended, Greta knew it had not. It would never end. Next month when the moon was new Yuk would come again – and only one thing could stop him.
‘Every month that passes, there are fewer of us left,’ Greta said. ‘Fewer florins. A little less hope. It has to be me who goes to Avalon. Tumber doesn’t need a strong hero, it needs a giant-slayer.’
Miss Witz snorted. ‘What a ridiculous idea.’
But Greta smiled, because below her teacher’s words, she heard the tintinnabulation of the copper bell.
‘You believe me too—’
‘Enough, child,’ snapped Miss Witz. ‘You are being very foolish. And making me very ashamed. Who was it that taught you to steal in this way? Not I.’
Greta scowled.
‘You were clever in taking the florins,’ Miss Witz continued, coming right up to the boat, ‘but you did not think through your escape.’
She twisted the fox-head handle of her walking stick. With a click, a small silver tongue sprang from its mouth: a hidden blade. ‘Did you think no one would come for you when your thieving was discovered?’
Before Greta could move, Miss Witz stabbed the cane down, slicing the ropes tethering all the other boats to the jetty. With sharp kicks, she sent each one spinning in lazy circles across the river, where the current took hold and swept them away.
‘How will the mayor chase after you now?’ With a wink, she tapped her cane on Greta’s hand that still gripped tight to the jetty. ‘You can let go now, child.’
Greta looked up at her teacher, searching for words.
‘You are right,’ Miss Witz said. ‘Go to Avalon. Go. Bring us the hero we need.’
‘I will,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’
‘I did not see you,’ Miss Witz said, her copper bell tinkling mischievously. ‘I was not here.’
Then Greta pushed out on the river, paddling downstream with clumsy strokes, carrying the last of Tumber’s gold, and the last of its hope.
Towards Avalon, the island of heroes.
To bring back a giant-slayer.
It was no ordinary top hat. It was tall, made of stiff black velvet, with a red silk band above the brim. And sticking out the top was a tiny chimney. The chimney was made of miniature red bricks, stacked tall as a little finger. On frosty nights, smoke wafted up from the flue, hanging over the top hat in grey wisps.
Below the chimney were three rows of square windows. During the day, black velvet shutters kept the windows hidden, but in the evenings the shutters were drawn back. Then the inside of the house-hat lit up with a warm and cosy glow from flickering candles no thicker than matchsticks, and through the windows could be seen the silhouettes of furniture, the glimmer of tiny fireplaces and the flitting, shadowy shapes of the fleas that lived there.
There were twelve of them in all: the biggest, rarest fleas in the world. They looked just like raisins – raisins with extra-long folded-up legs, and squashed little heads with twinkling eyes, and mouths filled with pointy teeth.
All their short lives, the fleamily (just like a family, only smaller and jumpier) had resided together in their fabulous house-hat. There was Min the mummy flea, Pin the daddy flea and their four sons, Burp, Slurp, Speck and Fleck, and their five daughters Itch, Titch, Tittle, Dot and Jot.
Min, Pin, Burp, Slurp, Speck, Fleck, Itch, Titch, Tittle, Dot and Jot.
And of course there was Egg too.
Who was just about to hatch.
‘Can’t wait to have a new sister!’ Dot cried, hopping around the kitchen.
Burp and Slurp rolled their eyes. ‘Egg’s not a girl!’ they said together.
‘Yes, she is!’
‘No, he isn’t!’
Dot turned to the little fluff of cotton wool where Egg sat by the stove to keep warm. ‘Yes, you are,’ she whispered, ‘aren’t you, Egg?’
There in the nest, Egg sat – small, yellow and hard like a rice crispy.
And wobbled.
Dot blinked. ‘See that?’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘I asked Egg, and she just nodded! She is a girl!’
Burp and Slurp stared open-mouthed for a moment, then glanced at each other. ‘Egg wasn’t nodding,’ they hissed back. ‘He was shaking his head!’
‘She never, she nodded!’
‘He shook his head!’
‘She doesn’t even have a head!’
Egg wobbled again. Crack! A thin black line scribbled down its shell from top to bottom. The three fleas jumped so high they thumped their heads on the ceiling. When they landed, they stopped squabbling. Finally they could agree on something.
‘Egg’s hatching!’ they shouted together. ‘Egg’s hatching!’
At once, Min and Pin hurtled in through the door, followed by everyone else. Egg cracked again and again, as two long and powerful legs burst from the bottom. Tiny flakes of shell skittered and bounced across the kitchen’s pebble floor.
The whole fleamily watched as Egg stood up, teetering on new feet, legs crouched… and leaped into the air.
‘Watch out!’ yelled Min.
The fleamily dived beneath the playing card on matchstick legs they used as a table. Egg ricocheted around the room like a bullet, slamming against windows and walls, knocking over chairs, clattering into the thimble pots and pans. Min and Pin hugged each other with pride at their hatchling’s first jumps, while bits of shell and plaster rained down onto the floor around them.
With a hollow thunk, the commotion stopped.
The fleamily crept from under the table to find a little hatchling flea stuck headfirst in one of the thimble pots on the stove, legs kicking in the air.
Grabbing hold of one foot each, Min and Pin gave the little flea a yank. With the sound a wine bottle makes when the cork comes out, the hatchling popped free and landed on the table, blinking and grinning at the ceiling.
The fleamily crowded round. Burp and Slurp elbowed each other, and Dot gave a sigh of disappointment: the newest member of the fleamily was indeed a new brother, not a sister.
‘Hello, little one,’ said Min, very slowly and carefully. ‘I am your Min. This is your Pin. These are your brothers, Burp, Slurp, Speck and Fleck. These are your sisters, Itch, Titch, Tittle, Dot and Jot… We are your fleamily.’
Everyone waved.
The little flea looked at them shyly. He waved back. Then he stared at his hand in amazement and made it wave again. ‘So that’s what waving looks like,’ he said, then gasped and said crossly, ‘Oh no, I just spoke my first word, and it was “so”! “So” is so boring! I wanted it to be a really interesting word. Like nunchucks, or gazebo, or conker…’ He stamped his foot in a tantrum.
(Any human readers might find it strange that baby fleas can talk. But newborn fleas are not really babies at all. Inside their egg, they have spent a great deal of time listening to the world outside. And because their shells are strong but very thin, unhatched fleas hear their fleamily talking for months and months and quickly learn how to speak themselves.)
‘Never mind about your first word, little one,’ said Min gently. ‘How about we give you a name, to cheer you up?’
‘Call him Tot,’ said Jot.
‘Call him Little,’ said Tittle.
‘Call him Peck,’ said Fleck.
‘But I’ve already got a name,’ said the hatchling, and it was the truth. Inside his egg, he’d wondered about many things: mostly questions he could not answer until after he hatched, like ‘What does red look like?’ and ‘Do I like hugs?’ and ‘What happens on Tuesdays?’ But he hadn’t ever wondered about his name. Not once.
‘You already have a name?’ Min repeated in astonishment. ‘Where did you get that from?’
The little flea shrugged. He’d just always known it, as if it was floating around inside the egg before he even got there.
‘Well?’ Pin leaned close. ‘What is it?’
The little flea smiled, because this would be the first time he would say it out loud.
‘I’m Hercufleas!’
The fleamily gawped at the little flea, then at each other, in amazement.
‘Hercufleas?’ repeated Speck.
‘Hercufleas?!!’ Fleck echoed.
‘What sort of a name is Hercufleas?’ scoffed Burp.
Titch, Tittle and Dot shook their heads.
‘Can’t you pick another name?’
‘Something a little smaller?’
‘Something flea-sized?’
But Min told them all to shush. Scooping Hercufleas into her arms, she gave him a gentle nip on his cheek. ‘I think it’s a wonderful name,’ she told him.
‘All right, all right!’ Pin laughed. ‘Hercufleas it is.’ Bounding over the table, he hugged the little hatchling too. ‘Welcome to the fleamily.’
‘Hooray!’ everyone shouted, bundling forward and joining in the cuddle.
In the centre, Hercufleas closed his eyes and snuggled into Min’s arms. He still didn’t know what red looked like or what happened on Tuesdays, but he knew he liked hugs. Especially from his fleamily.
‘Let’s give him the tour!’ cried Fleck, and everyone cheered and nodded.
‘Show him the living room!’
‘Show him the boingy-boing room!’
‘Show him the cellar!’
‘Well, little one?’ Min murmured in his ear. ‘Where would you like to go?’
Hercufleas smiled again, because that was the second thing he had never wondered about. It wasn’t just his name he knew: it was something much more important, and far harder to explain.
He knew why he’d hatched.
What his purpose was.
His destiny.
‘I want to go on an adventure!’ Hercufleas cried, and hopping out from the hug he jumped towards the house-hat’s front door.
‘Now wait just a moment!’ laughed Min, bounding over and tugging him back. ‘You can’t go outside yet, Hercufleas.’
Hercufleas looked up crossly. ‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re only three minutes old,’ she replied, ‘and you haven’t even seen the house-hat yet. If you want to go on an adventure, you should probably start in here before you go out there.’
Hercufleas thought about it. ‘I suppose that does make sense,’ he said eventually.
With a cheer the fleamily seized hold of him, and before he knew it, Hercufleas was whooshing out of the kitchen to explore the house-hat. His fleamily took him down a hallway and up a staircase, where stamps showing princesses and dukes were licked to the wall like portraits. Hercufleas jumped when he saw the last one on the landing: a ferocious bearded man with smouldering eyes and an iron crown on his head.
‘That’s the Czar,’ said Tittle in a spooky voice. ‘He ruled Petrossia, the land to the north, years and years ago. Nothing left of him now but dusty bones, ruined castles and creepy portraits…’
‘Stop scaring your baby brother,’ scolded Min.
‘I’m not scared!’ Hercufleas insisted, hopping away from the Czar as fast as he could.
‘Look here, Hercufleas.’ Min opened the door halfway up the stairs. ‘This is where we sleep.’
Inside the bedroom were a dozen matchbox beds, spaced around the curved wall like the numbers on a clock. On the headboard of the smallest bed, Pin wrote ‘Hercufleas’ with an eyelash dipped in ink. Hercufleas liked his bed very much, with its mattress stuffed with mouse hairs and quilt of woven silk and feathers, but he was eager to explore more of the house-hat, so off they went again.
His fleamily rushed him up to the top floor, to a living room with twelve comfy armchairs and polka-dot wallpaper. Behind another door was a bathroom with a tin cup raised above a candle nub that turned the water hot.
‘We relax in there,’ said Itch. ‘We wash in here…’
‘And up this way,’ said Pin, leading Hercufleas up a straw ladder to the attic, ‘is where we have fun.’
Up in the house-hat’s highest room, all the walls were made from glued-together elastic bands. There the fleamily bounced and whizzed like a dozen balls inside a lottery machine. They called it the boingy-boing room, and it was their second favourite room of all.
‘Whooooooooohooooooooo!’ Hercufleas yelled, hurtling from one wall to the next. He landed by the door and looked up at Min with an enormous grin on his face.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go boingy-boing some more?’
‘We’ll teach you how to do star jumps!’ said Tittle.
‘And somersaults!’ said Itch.
‘And when you’re really good, the double-pike-cross-split-topsy-turvy manoeuvre!’ said Jot.
A long, loud gurgling echoed around the boingy-boing room.
‘Did you hear that?’ Hercufleas said. ‘My tummy just said its first word. What does gurgle-gurgle-glog-glog mean?’
‘It means you’re hungry,’ said Min. ‘Come back down to the kitchen.’
Hercufleas shook his head stubbornly. ‘I’ve already explored there,’ he said. ‘I want to go somewhere new.’
‘Trust us.’ Min laughed. ‘You’ve explored nearly all the house-hat… But we’ve saved the best bit until last.’
‘You mean there’s something even better than going boingy-boing?’ Hercufleas said breathlessly as they hopped back downstairs. ‘What is it?’
Min smiled. ‘It’s called dinner,’ she said.
While Min and Pin set the table, Hercufleas followed the others down to the kitchen’s cellar and squeezed inside. With silent awe, he stared up at the racks of bottles, tiny as dewdrops, each one filled with a red bead of the world’s rarest, most exquisite blood.
He hopped up and down the shelves, reading labels. There was dodo blood, rhino blood, platypus, narwhal and manatee blood. Blood the colour of crimson and scarlet and ruby and vermilion and puce and maroon. Now Hercufleas knew what red looked like. It looked… delicious.
(Unless you are a flea yourself – or a vampire, or a head louse – then the idea of having blood for dinner is probably making you queasy. But imagine you are a flea, and suddenly blood becomes the yummiest thing in the world: like flies to a spider or cabbage to a slug or espresso coffee to a grown-up. Just because you or I might shudder at the very thought of gobbling such things, there will always be some strange creature out there who finds it tasty.)
Hercufleas wandered around the shelves, wondering which blood to pick. No two drops tasted alike, the others told him. Squirrel blood was nutty, dragon blood was fiery, sloth blood helped the fleas sleep and cheetah blood made them very untrustworthy at cards. There was even a drop of reindeer blood, sent over from Laplönd, which Min saved for festive occasions.
His brothers and sisters bustled around him, gathering what they wanted.
‘Hey, Slurp, let’s have hyena blood again. It’s a good giggle!’
‘Titch, how about we all drink chameleon blood, then play hide-and-seek later?’
Hercufleas was bewildered. So many flavours to explore! He didn’t know where to start. The others began clamouring for him to hurry up, so finally he snatched a bottle at random and hopped back to the kitchen table.
Before they ate, Min made the whole fleamily recite a prayer to remind them how wonderful their life was, and how fortunate they were that they did not have to live like other fleas, who were the size of poppy seeds, and had to survive on hosts that did not want them there, and lived under the constant peril of thumbs and soapy baths and flea powder. The prayer was called The Plea of the Flea, and now she taught it to Hercufleas:
The plea of the flea
And the tick and the nit
Is to hop in hope
And only bite a bit.
Run from their fingers
Run from their thumbs
And we’ll all jump to fleaven
When our last jump comes.
‘What’s fleaven?’ Hercufleas asked.
‘The heaven that fleas and all other insects go to after our short lives are through,’ Min answered. ‘All the great and good bugs of the world go there, including Pinocchio’s cricket and Anansi the spider. Now then. Let’s say it together, shall we?’
The fleamily rushed through the prayer, then reached out and unstoppered their bottles. At once an indescribably delicious smell oozed into the kitchen. Hercufleas seized up his bead of blood and glug-glug-glugged it down. His belly’s growl became a purr. A wonderful fiery feeling spread through his body. He felt proud. Brave. Not like a flea at all. He was a CHAMPION!
Before he knew what he was doing, Hercufleas leaped onto the table and roared, ‘Whatever size his enemies, the winner’s always HERCUFLEAS!’
Everyone stared at him. Dot began to giggle. Hercufleas gave her a haughty sniff, but suddenly his courage and pride all drained away. Why had he done that? Blood flushed from his belly up to his face as the rest of the fleamily laughed.
‘Looks like Hercufleas has a taste for lion blood!’ Pin chuckled, leaning forward and reading the label on his bottle.