The Fabulous Phartlehorn Affair Page 15

  “Don’t just stand there,” she shouted at the children and the prisoners. “Fight for your lives!”

  The children snapped out of their trance. Dressed in their black-and-white suits, they looked like a battalion of penguins. But penguins don’t have weapons at their disposal — and the children did. Metal clanged against metal as they fended off the knights’ swords with their phartlehorns. The duke jumped down from the Royal Box, drew out his sword and charged at Desiree Draws. A furious duel broke out between them. Meanwhile, the other guests, anxious to escape the scene of the crime, were scrabbling out of their seats and running for the door.

  Bruno thwacked away a knight, then glanced back across the stage. Humbert, Xanadu, Natasha and Grace were all doing their bit. Mrs Chalk was duelling with the countess. Grandpa Trevor was using a candelabra to batter Sir Oswald. Mr Chalk was thumping Jobsworth with his thermos flask. Was that really his mum and dad Bruno could see fighting valiantly with a pair of music stands?

  The duke broke free from Desiree Draws and tried to make a run for it across the stage. Bruno stuck out his foot and he stumbled to the floor.

  “Good work, cutie!” shouted Desiree Draws.

  Bruno gave her a grin.

  Too late, he turned to see the duke staggering back to his feet clutching a heavy wooden clog. Time seemed to pass in slow motion as the duke raised the clog in the air. Bruno’s heart somersaulted in his chest. Was it his imagination or was there smoke billowing from the duke’s ears?

  There was!

  Suddenly, the duke dropped the clog and clutched his hands to his stomach. His skin turned a deep purple and his eyes began to bulge in his face. His throat was making a strange rattling sound. More smoke streamed from his ears as he ran round and round in little circles. Then, as if someone had released the end of a balloon, the duke whizzed up into the air and did a loop-the-loop around the ceiling, letting off a long, squelching raspberry of a phartle.

  Hypnotized, Bruno’s eyes followed the duke’s journey through the air. As he flew up to greet the painted cherubs, his moustache snagged around a branch of the chandelier. For a few seconds he hung there, legs kicking wildly. Then, KABOOM! KAPOOF! The duke was nothing but a shower of silvery ash raining down upon the stage.

  “We did it!” cried Bruno, shaking the soot from his hair and running towards Grandpa Trevor and his parents. “We’re sav—”

  But before he could finish, Bruno felt the fizzing feeling in his stomach again. There was no mistaking it this time. It was as if he had swallowed a box of washing powder and it was bubbling away in his guts. Bruno thought he heard his mother calling his name across the theatre. Then his whole world went black.

  Too late for him to see, Agent Frogmarch and a hundred British troops came crashing through the doors.

  37

  Reaping the Rewards

  Two days later, when Bruno next opened his eyes, he found himself staring straight up into the face of an angel. An angel who looked remarkably like the film star Desiree Draws.

  “He’s awake!” exclaimed Grandpa Trevor, pushing the angel out of the way and planting a big wet kiss on his grandson’s cheek.

  “Oh, Bruno, you’re alive!” cried Grace, rushing over to his bedside.

  Bruno looked around the white room filled with white furniture and bleeping white machines. “What happened?” he asked, looking from Grace to Grandpa Trevor to the angel in amazement. “Am I in heaven?”

  “’Fraid not,” chuckled his grandpa. “This is a top London hospital. The doc says you’re to stay in bed for observation, but they don’t think there’ll be any lasting damage.”

  Slowly, the clouds in Bruno’s memory began to clear. “I don’t understand,” he said, goggling at Desiree Draws. “You were there at the concert … but then you rescued us.”

  A stout, ferocious-looking woman with bobbed helmet-hair jumped up from a chair in the corner. She snorted in disgust.

  “Double Agent Draws and the French intelligence service may try to take the glory, but your rescue came courtesy of Her Majesty the Queen of England! I am Agent Frogmarch and I saved you … along with a crack team of SAS troops.”

  “Double Agent Draws? French intelligence service?” repeated Bruno, mystified. “But I thought you were a famous Hollywood actress.”

  “Well now, cutie,” drawled Double Agent Draws before reverting back to her natural French accent, “movies are just something zat I do on the side. Every spy needs a cover. I find that acting and espionage go together like champagne and frogs’ legs. Though while we’re in the business of handing out credit, it was actually you and Grace here who saved the day by swapping those potions. Oh, and we mustn’t forget your Grandpa Trevor, who parachuted in to find you.”

  Bruno looked up at Grandpa Trevor in awe. “You jumped out of a plane?”

  His grandfather grinned his tobacco-stained grin. “Chippy came too, disguised as an owl.”

  “Twit-twoo,” squawked Chippy. “Twit-twoo!”

  Bruno laughed until his ribs hurt. “What about the others?” he asked. “Natasha, Xanadu and Humbert? They’re all OK, aren’t they?”

  “They’re all fine,” Grace reassured him.

  Desiree Draws smiled. “As a very close friend of mine likes to say, they’re shaken but not stirred.”

  Bruno giggled. It was strange, but he was even glad Humbert was all right. The days in the castle had brought everyone closer together.

  “What about the knights?” he asked. “The duke and his daughter?”

  “All gone up in smoke,” replied Agent Frogmarch, brushing imaginary dust from her hands. “Thanks to you, phartistry is finally a thing of the past. There’s not a single person left on the planet who’d pay to hear you phartle!”

  Bruno knew he should be pleased, but instead his heart sank. He’d found the one thing in life he was really good at and now he’d never be able to do it again. Then an image of the prisoners standing onstage in the Phartling Hall came to him through a fog of memory. He turned to his grandfather.

  “I thought I saw Mum and Dad with you there in Phartesia. The elixir must have made me imagine things.”

  Grandpa Trevor blinked back another rush of tears. He glanced up at Agent Frogmarch. She gave a curt nod. The old man struggled to pull himself together. “The doctors asked us not to tell you… Said the shock would be too much… But, well, it doesn’t seem right to keep it from you…”

  Agent Frogmarch was looking impatient. “You can come in now,” she barked.

  Two familiar figures appeared in the doorway. Over a year had passed since the day they floated out of his life, and Bruno couldn’t believe that at last they were here again.

  “Mum! Dad!” he cried.

  Overwhelmed by emotion, his parents ran to his bedside. “Oh son, I was so proud of you,” sobbed his mother, squeezing him tight. “Your phartling was incredible!”

  “You heard me play the solo in The Magic Phartlehorn?” asked Bruno, incredulous.

  “Of course we did,” said his dad. “We were waiting tied up in the wings. And if those knights had killed me, I’d have died a happy man.”

  “Hallelujah!” squawked Chippy. “Hallelujah!”

  Bruno could hardly take it all in. Never had he felt such happiness. Who cared about becoming famous? He had his family back together again!

  Just as Mrs Pockley began to explain how they’d come to be in Phartesia in the first place, there came the sound of a scuffle outside in the corridor. Bruno felt a stab of pain in his ribs as he coughed. He could have sworn there was a whiff of smoke in the air.

  “I don’t give a toasted turnip that you’re the nurse in charge,” shouted an angry voice, “I demand to see the boy this instant!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you in, Mr Oblonksy. Visiting at this time is strictly for friends and family.”

  Natasha’s father burst into the room. His foul-smelling cigar stuck out of his face like a factory chimney as he barged his way over to Bruno
’s bed. “So this is the little squirt, is it?” he puffed. “Why, if it wasn’t for him, my beautiful daughter would be—”

  “Nothing but a putrid pile of ash,” finished Desiree Draws, plucking the cigar from his mouth and grinding it under her heel. “Which, my darling, is exactly what you’ll be if you keep on smoking these revolting things. There, look how much more handsome you are without it.”

  The tips of Mr Oblonksy’s ears had turned bright red. “You could at least have let me finish my sentence,” he grumbled. “Natasha told me everything that went on in that castle. I promised a reward to anyone who could bring her home to me in one piece.”

  Mr Oblonsky reached into his pocket. He pulled out his cheque book and a fountain pen made from solid gold. “From what my daughter tells me, it’s Bruno and Grace who deserve that reward. I’ve come here to give it to them. Here’s one for you, Miss Chalk,” he said, signing his name with a flourish. “And here’s one for you, Mr Pockley.”

  Bruno’s eyes widened. Never had he seen so many noughts. He counted them on his fingers.

  “Charity begins at home,” squawked Chippy, pecking at the cheque. “Charity begins at home.”

  Bruno laughed. “Don’t worry, Chippy,” he said. “From now on you’ll only eat the finest organic mango.”

  Agent Frogmarch escorted Mr Oblonsky from the room. Double Agent Draws turned to the children with a smile. “And as a small token of gratitude from French intelligence…”

  She handed Grace a small white envelope. Grace tore it open and pulled out a photograph of a black-and-white puppy. Written on the back was: Buster — who can’t wait to meet his new owner, Grace!

  Grace gasped. “But how did you know that’s what I’ve always wanted?”

  “We’re spies, Miss Chalk,” said Desiree Draws, and winked. “It’s our job to know what a person most desires.”

  “A skill I hope you’ll learn from us someday,” announced Agent Frogmarch, stomping back into the room. “For in recognition of your impressive strategic planning in the face of danger, Her Majesty’s Secret Service would like to offer you a spot of work experience.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Grace. “That’d be awesome.”

  Meanwhile Desiree Draws had disappeared out into the corridor. She returned with a box, wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a small chest of drawers.

  “This one’s for you, Bruno,” she said with a smile.

  Chippy helped Bruno to pull back the wrapping. Inside was a cracked leather case. Bruno tried the lid, but it was locked.

  “You’ll need this,” said Desiree Draws and handed him a small golden key. Bruno turned it over in his palm. The fob was sculpted into the shape of a man with a long handlebar moustache. The ancient symbol of the Knights Trumplar!

  Nervously, he turned the key in the lock. The faintest clicking sound. Then the lid sprang back. Bruno blinked. Nestling inside the case was the most beautiful instrument he had ever seen. It was a phartlehorn — but not like any of the phartlehorns Bruno had seen in Phartesia. The one he had played at the castle was hammered from brass. This was hewn from sparkling gold and set with rubies and emeralds. The body of a dragon was engraved around the tube.

  “A gift to Monsieur John Pujol from the Emperor of China,” explained Desiree Draws. “We confiscated it from the duke’s treasury. I think Pujol would have wanted you to have it.”

  “Who’s John Pujol?” asked Mrs Pockley.

  “John Pujol was the greatest phartiste ever to have lived,” explained Bruno.

  “Apart from you, of course!” cut in Grandpa Trevor. He turned to Agent Frogmarch. “I thought you said phartistry was banned?”

  “It is, Mr Pockley,” she assured him. “But we’re spies. Sometimes it’s our job to see everything. Sometimes it’s our job to turn a blind eye.”

  “You mean I’m allowed to play it in public?” asked Bruno.

  “Not in the playground,” warned Agent Frogmarch. “But I’m sure a few private concerts could be overlooked. Her Majesty’s Secret Service believes that every child has a talent. Where would this great country be if we stood by and let those talents go to waste?”

  Bruno watched, speechless, as Agent Frogmarch picked up the phartlehorn and wrestled it down over her stout frame.

  “Always wanted to try one of these things,” she muttered. “Purely for research purposes, of course. Tell me, how does it work?” The special agent struggled to squeeze out a phartle.

  “That’s the way to do it!” squawked Chippy. “That’s the way to do it!”

  Acknowledgements

  Anyone can tell a story, but it takes lots of people working together to make a book, and I would like to thank all of the people who have helped in the creation of this one.

  First of all, huge thanks to my agent, Jo Unwin, for plucking me from the slush pile to be her first ever client and for all the support she and the rest of the team at Conville & Walsh have given me along the way. Thanks also to Jane Winterbotham, Jacky Paynter, Rebecca Harper and all at Walker Books, and especially to my editor, Emma Lidbury: without her beady eye, everything in this book would be silver and happen at midnight.

  No author could hope for a better illustrator than Hannah Shaw: she might be allergic to musical instruments but she sure draws a mean phartlehorn. Special thanks are also owed to Mouse Matthews for loaning me Bruno’s surname, which is of her own invention; and to Grace, Jules and Penny Chalkey for lending me their real(ish) names if not their characters. I must also thank Jules and his creative partner, Nick Simons, plus my very own Great Producer, Keeley Pratt, for their help with the launch marketing campaign. Thanks are also due to my old friend Eliot Wykes, with whom the idea of a very different story about musical farting was first discussed. For his professional expertise and moral support, I owe a debt of gratitude to David Allen Green; as I do to the Arvon Foundation: my determination to complete a children’s book was fortified by a week of scribbling, daydreaming and dancing on the tables at their centre in Moniack Mhor, an experience I will never forget.

  Before I could read, my parents read to me: the greatest gift you could ever give a child. Nor must I forget my sister, Beth, whose friendship has been invaluable to me whilst writing this book. Finally, the biggest thanks of all must go to Kit, who gave me the best gifts I could have wanted as an adult: time to write, and love, and, most crucially of all, who invented the rare breed Trumpenhund.

  Megan Peel cannot play any musical instruments other than the ruler, which she was forced to take up at school after repeatedly forgetting to bring in her recorder. She recently moved to the Yorkshire Dales with her husband, two cats she fished out of a dustbin while on holiday in Greece, and a huge fluffy white dog that looks suspiciously like a Trumpenhund. When Megan is not writing, she enjoys gardening in stilettos and feeding badgers sugar puffs. In another life, she would love to work for the secret service. This is her first book.

  Hannah Shaw is probably the most unmusical person in the world and is allergic to all musical instruments (especially phartlehorns). She is, however, quite good at drawing and writing. Hannah has illustrated lots of picture and chapter books for children, and some of them have won awards - Evil Weasel, Crocodiles Are the Best Animals of All and The Great Hamster Massacre.When Hannah isn’t drawing or throwing paint around, she likes walking in the Cotswolds and doing dog agility with her long-legged hound, Ren.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated, as they may result in injury.

  First published 2012 by Walker Books Ltd

  87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ

  Text © 2012 Megan Peel

  Illustrations © 2012 Hannah Shaw

  “Ain’t No Mountain High Eno
ugh” by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson © 1967 reproduced by permission of Jobete Music Co. Inc./EMI Music

  The right of Megan Peel and Hannah Shaw to be identified as author and illustrator respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

  a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-4063-3972-7 (ePub)

  www.walker.co.uk