The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter
It was heaven to ride in the carriage! The sultan’s awful circumstances were not forgotten, but it was hard to feel weepy while racing through the woods in the middle of the night, your legs warm, if itchy, from the wool blanket and the wind trying to force your eyelids shut. Lucia’s fingers traced the tiny square pillows quilted into the blue velvet seat and listened to the creak-creak-creak of the springs beneath. In a carriage, the night air feels exhilarating rather than just chilly, as it did when they were on foot, and the path was not long and dreary but breathtaking, especially as the carriage began to go downhill. Up front in the child-size driver’s seat, Saint George hulked low, putting so much weight at the head of the carriage that when the road started to dip, the carriage seemed on the verge of flipping over itself. The Hardscrabbles had to brace their backs against the seat to keep from slipping forward until Saint George finally reined in the ponies and they slowed to a walk.
“Saint George,” Lucia said, leaning forward when she suddenly thought of something. “Why did you tell me that it was The Kneebone Boy in the woods when you knew very well it wasn’t?”
There was a long pause, so long that Lucia thought he didn’t hear her. She was about to ask again, when he said, “Let’s just say there aren’t a lot of places in Snoring for wild critters to live, and a taxidermist needs wild critters.”
“Needs to slaughter them, you mean,” she said sharply.
“Whatever you like.” Saint George shrugged. “Unfortunately, these woods don’t belong to Kneebones anymore.”
“Oh. So you were poaching then?”
Saint George didn’t bother to answer her.
“Did you think telling us about The Kneebone Boy would scare us enough to keep out of your way?” Lucia asked.
“It would have if you lot were normal,” he said.
“Well, we’re not,” Lucia said and sat back against the seat. “Not at all.” It felt really good to say that, especially when other people had been saying that about them for so long.
The horses pulled into the clearing and Saint George brought them to a halt and jumped off the driver’s seat.
“Right,” he said. “Everyone out. If you don’t want to wake up the neighbourhood, we’d better leave the carriage here and walk the rest of the way.”
The horses were tied to a tree. Saint George and the Hardscrabbles cut across the stretch of meadow between Kneebone Castle and the folly. From their vantage point, they could only see the castle’s uppermost windows, all of which were black except for one in the northern corner. Lucia thought it might be the one in which she had spotted a man at his desk while she stood on the siege tower, but she couldn’t be sure. The ugly, misshapen castle had pulled up its drawbridge, like a great mouth that had slammed shut. We have the sultan, it seemed to say. He’s in here, in us.
They crossed the folly’s drawbridge, noting with relief that Haddie’s bedroom light was still out. They slipped across the courtyard and into the folly as silently as possible. Max and Lucia went to the Great Hall with Saint George while Otto went down to the dungeon to fetch the arrow.
“So she’s kept the heads up, has she?” Saint George said, nodding at the mounted deer heads approvingly. “That’s my own handiwork.”
“She’s kept everything, I think,” Max said. “She makes us toasted cheese sandwiches in the pink toy oven.”
“Crazy American,” he said, shaking his head. But still he looked pleased. He walked up to the grandfather clock, wrapped his arms around it, and moved it easily off to the side, exposing the little door behind it. Just the sight of it made Lucia and Max take a step backwards. Kneeling down, Saint George rapped on the door lightly with his fingertips. “Remember me, old mate?” he said quietly.
The Great Hall door opened and Otto appeared clutching the arrow in one hand with Chester at his heels. At the sight of the arrow, Saint George stood up slowly. He held out his hand, his fingers beckoning impatiently. Otto handed the arrow to him. Saint George turned it in his hands, examining its white feather fletches and its golden tip.
“That’s her,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Good,” Lucia said. “Now we should get on with it, don’t you think? It’s nearly one o’clock.”
“Right,” Saint George said distractedly. Above the grandfather clock was the collection of archery bows. Reaching up, Saint George took one off its hook. He studied it, running his hand across the bow string, then put it back on the wall. He picked up another one and did the same thing. This one seemed like it would do. He walked back to the little door and crouched down.
“Stand back.”
He didn’t need to tell them that, incidentally.
He pressed the bone button and leapt backwards. The door flew open and instantly the dragon’s head emerged, whipping its neck round and spraying out flames. They missed Saint George by a finger’s width, he was that close. He must have known the exact limits of the dragon’s reach because he stood his ground unflinchingly. Lifting his bow, he pulled the arrow back, his body still and his eyes following the wild movements of the dragon’s head. But he didn’t shoot. He stood like this for a very long time, poised to release the arrow without actually releasing it.
Lucia bent her head toward Max and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. He just needs to wait for the right moment,” Max whispered back.
The very next second, the arrow was launched. It sliced through the air and pierced the dragon’s left eye with a sharp tink sound. The dragon shrieked. His head stopped whipping. It tipped up and its mouth belched a blast of fire before collapsing to the stone floor with a metallic crash.
“Oh, well done!” Lucia cried.
The Hardscrabbles walked up to the dragon and knelt beside it for a better look. It was made of thousands of tiny enameled metal scales, layered so that the head could bend easily. They pried open the jaws and saw a tiny metal pipe through which the fire had shot out. Its eyes, which had looked so alive and menacing just moments before, were now still and blank. Doll’s eyes. The arrow was lodged snugly in its pupil, and as Max pulled it out, Lucia noticed a curious thing. The dragon’s pupils were jagged, like the tip of the arrow. Max saw it too, and he moved the arrow in and out of the eye a few times, studying how they fit together.
“It’s a key,” Max said.
Saint George was watching them, and now he stuck out his hand out. “Give it here.”
“Who made it?” Max asked, handing the arrow to him.
“My grandfather. Put in the dragon and built the secret passageway too. The man liked to make a game of everything. Came from growing up in the castle folly himself, I guess. Our father didn’t want us to have the arrow. He knew it was the key to the passageway, and to The Kneebone Boy’s room, and he didn’t like us to have anything to do with Charlie. But our grandfather slipped the arrow to us anyway.” He blew on the fletches. “Good to have it back.”
“So can we go now?” Lucia asked eagerly.
Saint George stared at them all very seriously.
“Yes, yes, we know. It’s no romp in a theme park,” Lucia said.
“You’ll manage the first part all right,” he said. “A straight shot down the tunnel, then across a bridge. You’ll have to be careful enough on the bridge, but the worst bit is after that. You’ve got to cross a ledge. You can’t walk it. It’s too narrow. You’ve got to cross it sideways, back to the wall. It’s a long drop to the bottom so don’t muck about. You’ll come to an opening in the cliff. Go inside and you’ll find the stairs. Follow them up till you can’t go any further—”
“And that’s where you go through the fireplace,” Lucia interrupted impatiently. “We know. Mr. Pickering told us.”
“I still don’t like it,” Saint George said. “Your aunt should know what you’re going to do.”
“Maybe we should tell her,” Max said.
Otto said something. He had to repeat it, because no one had been looking at him.
He pointed up at the coffered ceiling. Above their heads, streaming out of the helmet visor of a carved knight on horseback, was a shaft of light. Suddenly the light vanished and helmet visor went dark again.
“A spy hole,” Lucia said.
“Brilliant!” Max said.
“I always wondered how our tutor knew we stuffed his car keys in the stag’s ears,” Saint George said, staring up at the ceiling.
They heard soft footsteps above their heads, and when they died away with no sign of Haddie appearing, Lucia shrugged and said to Saint George, “There. You see. She knows, and she doesn’t mind.”
Saint George grabbed the dragon’s head and yanked it hard. Behind it, attached to the base of its neck, was yet another door, a bit smaller than the first one. It swung open revealing only a rectangle of blackness. The opening was so small that the Hardscrabbles had to get down on their hands and knees to crawl in. Once they were through, though, they could stand up very comfortably. Otto switched on the torch and they found that they were indeed in a narrow tunnel made of rough-hewn stones that arced low, just a little above Otto’s head. It was chilly in the tunnel and the air smelled like no one had sniffed it in a very long time. Chester poked his head through the door, sneezed, and backed out into the Great Hall again. Maybe they should have taken that as a sign.
Otto shined the torch down the passage. It illuminated a long tunnel that gradually sloped downwards, stretching out so far that the beam of light faded before it could find a hint of an end. Lucia felt her heart beating in nervous little knocks. Since she was feeling fairly brave at the moment, she knew it was Otto’s fear that was doing the knocking.
“All right?” she said to him.
“I wish I were back in Little Tunks now,” he said.
“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Lucia replied, keeping her voice kind but firm. “And Little Tunks will be exactly the same as it was when we left it, and so will all the people there, but we won’t be. We’ll have done something heroic. We’ll have rescued a sultan. Think, Otto. We may never get the chance to do something heroic again.”
“What about sailing a full-rigged ship and navigating by the stars?” Otto said. “What about rescuing people on islands?”
“Don’t you remember what Haddie said?” Lucia replied. “That people should have all their adventures before they’re fourteen because if they don’t they lose their passion for adventures? What if we get older and forget what it’s like to want a big adventure? What if we become like all other grown-ups, only thinking about how much money we make every year and if we’ve remembered to lock the door at night? I couldn’t bear it, Otto.” She looked at his worried face. “All right?” she asked again.
The shadows cast from the beam of the torch made him look more careworn than a thirteen-year-old boy should. Maybe he’s too old already, Lucia thought. Maybe he already slipped into that grown-up world when I wasn’t noticing, and now it’s too late.
Otto’s elbows quickly bumped against each other. “All right.”
“Good,” she said under her breath, smiling. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. It was icy cold, and it didn’t squeeze back.
Chapter 21
In which Lucia wonders if Big Adventures are all they’re cracked up to be
The stones beneath their feet were slippery, and wearing trainers didn’t help, so they moved along slowly. In the distance they could hear a hollow, quivering sound like the tail end of an echo.
“I wonder why Haddie let us go?” Lucia mused as they made their way through the tunnel. “She promised Dad she’d keep us out of trouble.”
“I don’t think Haddie likes rules,” Max replied. “Even her own.”
They turned round a snaky bend, their eyes squinting into the torch’s beam to find the tunnel’s end. There was only more darkness as far as the eye could see. There was nothing to do but walk and try not to think about rats.
“Imagine Haddie back at Little Tunks,” Max said.
“We’d never have to stay with Mrs. Carnival again,” Lucia said.
“Dad wouldn’t always have that look about him.”
The beam of light from the torch began to dance around so they glanced at Otto.
“Listen,” he said.
They stood still and listened. At first they heard nothing, but soon there was the faintest scurrying sound.
“Rats probably,” Max said.
“No, not really!?” Lucia said, horrified. Her bare legs instantly felt goose pimply and she quickened her pace.
The tunnel seemed to go on and on. It always takes forever to go places when you have never been there before, but when you are travelling subterraneously, with the expectation of rats underfoot, it can feel like an eternity. After a while, though, the passageway took another sharp turn. When they rounded it, they saw that the tunnel walls abruptly ended and opened out into nothing at all. A vista of black sky faced them. The ground dropped off, and the sound of water idly splashing against rocks far, far below warned them that they must be on a cliff.
Otto shone the torch around, and they spied a crooked stone bridge jutting out from the ledge, spanning the void between where they stood and another sheer cliff to the right. This cliff was taller than the one they stood on, and quite jagged with small bushes and stunted trees sprouting here and there in the crannies.
Lucia eyed the bridge warily. There were no handrails, just a dizzying walk high above the sea. To fall off it would be massively unlucky.
“You can crawl across it,” Max suggested when he saw her expression.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lucia said, although she had just been thinking that very same thing. But the way Max said it made her decide not to. “Well, Otto can if he wants,” she added.
“My scarf would get caught,” he said. “I’ll walk it.”
They did. No one fell.
Though there was one awful point where Otto lost his balance and had to crouch down for a moment and grab hold of the bridge. It was a horrifying few seconds for everyone involved so you’ll understand if I just skip it.
Now that they had reached the other cliff, they could see that it was in fact the cliff that Kneebone Castle sat on. If they bent their necks back they could just make out the lumpy stones of the castle’s keep. Mind you, they had to bend their heads back while their spines were pressed against the cliff face because they had come to the most dangerous part of the secret passageway. All that stood between them and the ocean below was a narrow ledge, about the width of your hand if you are over the age of nine and under the age of sixteen. If you press your hand against the bottom of your foot, you’ll see just how narrow this ledge was.
Max was first in line, then Lucia, last of all Otto. Now Lucia truly could not tell the difference between Otto’s thumping heart and her own.
“All right?” Max said, getting ready to move.
And to Lucia’s own surprise she answered, “No. Not all right. Not even the smallest bit all right.”
Otto said something then. Out of the corner of her eye, Lucia could see his hands moving, but she was too scared to turn her head to see what he was saying. Even looking at him sideways made her dizzy so she shut her eyes.
“He says—” Max started to translate, but then he stopped in confusion and asked Otto to repeat it.
“Right. He says,” Max tried again, still sounding uncertain, “that ‘if you look straight ahead, you can see the Orion constellation.’ ”
She didn’t want to open her eyes. Still, after a few deep breaths, she forced herself to. There, dead ahead, was Orion’s belt, the three bright stars each with its pale blue nimbus, surrounded by a cluster of pinprick stars. She had been so scared she hadn’t noticed how curiously the sky encircled them. Where the sky bottomed out, the ocean took over, its black slick waves stretching out to the tail ends of the world in all directions. This must be how it feels to be on a ship, she thought.
Lucia had never had
No, you are on a cliff! her brain screamed back at her.
I’m on a fully rigged sailing ship, she thought, ignoring her brain. I can even hear the waves crashing against the starboard side.
It’s the cliff that the waves are crashing against!
Shut up, it’s the starboard side, she told her brain. The weather’s dirty tonight, lads, and the sea is a demon.
She felt Otto’s hand grab hers. “But my crew is brave and my ship handles well in fair weather or foul.”
Max grabbed her other hand. Then step by tiny step she began to move across the ledge, her eyes and her mind held steady by the sight of Orion’s belt. Each step, she told herself, is one step closer to the sultan. One more, and one more, and—
“Nearly there,” Max cooed.
They say that if you force yourself to laugh when you are feeling especially dismal, you will automatically feel cheerier about things. It’s something to do with glands, I think. That night, Lucia discovered a similar remedy for fear. With her spine pressed straight against the wall and her chin tipped high so that her eyes could remain fixed on Orion, she assumed the universal pose of courage. And do you know, she began, ever so slowly, to feel more and more courageous. By the time she felt comfortable enough to let her mind wander (she was contemplating the sultan’s face when he saw the Hardscrabbles burst into his room), the ledge began to widen. Max stopped. He let go of her hand.
“It’s all right,” he said. “We can walk normally now. Just stay close to the cliff.”
Well, one doesn’t quite walk “normally” while on the edge of a precipice, but it was certainly an improvement. Before long they came to a fissure in the cliff, wide enough for a child or a smallish grown-up to slip through.