The Fabulous Phartlehorn Affair Read online

  On any other evening the living room of the Chalk household would be a hive of activity. Mrs Chalk was studying to become a legal secretary at night school. She and Grace would do their homework together at the table, while baby George played beneath it and Mr Chalk whipped up something nice for dinner. Tonight the atmosphere was far more sombre. The baby had been put to bed early, and Grandpa Trevor and the Chalks were slouched in a row on the sofa, bowls of chicken soup lying untouched on their laps.

  “Do you think they’re being mistreated?” asked Mr Chalk, half-heartedly offering out a round of toast.

  “Of course they’re being mistreated,” sniffed Mrs Chalk. “They’ve been kidnapped.”

  Grandpa Trevor tried to remain positive. “Perhaps they’re enjoying themselves. I know I’d have loved the chance to learn a musical instrument at their age.”

  “Doh, ray, me,” sang Chippy from her perch on the back of the sofa.

  Mr and Mrs Chalk looked at the old man with sympathy. It was their guess that, like them, he’d not had many opportunities in life.

  “Make your own luck, that’s what I’m always telling Grace,” said Mrs Chalk, blowing her nose into a handkerchief. “We can’t just sit around here doing nothing. There must be some way we can help.”

  “Why don’t we revisit the scene of the crime?” suggested Grandpa Trevor. “Have a hunt for clues?”

  “Go to France?” said Mrs Chalk. “But how would we get there? We don’t have any money for flights or train tickets, and we don’t even own a car.”

  The three of them thought for a while. For a brief moment, Grandpa Trevor considered unmooring The Jolly Codger and motoring her across the Channel. But he had to admit that the boat was full of leaks and would doubtless sink before they’d even reached Greenwich.

  “I know!” cried Mr Chalk. “I could drive the rubbish truck! It might take a while, but she’s a reliable old gal, and we’ll get there in the end.”

  “Take the rubbish truck?” exclaimed Mrs Chalk. “Wouldn’t that be illegal?”

  Her husband was already changing into his uniform. “Come on, we can drop the baby off with your sister on the way to the depot.”

  Grandpa Trevor heaved himself up from the sofa. He reached out a hand to Mrs Chalk. “What do you say, Penny? I’m game if you are.”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!” squawked Chippy. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

  Penelope Chalk jumped to her feet. Her face was set with an expression of quiet determination that will not be unfamiliar to those of us who have already met her daughter.

  “I say those Knights Trumplar will rue the day they ever took my daughter…”

  “Order! Order!” The Duke of Phartesia smashed down his ivory gavel. “I will have silence in the Council Chamber!”

  The ten robed knights around the table fell quiet. What could be so important that they’d been summoned from their chambers at this late hour? Why was Monsieur Zidler standing shackled in the dock?

  “Gentlemen of the Grand Council of the Knights Trumplar,” continued the duke, “it seems we have a crisis on our hands!”

  The knights nervously twiddled their moustaches. A crisis did not sound good.

  The duke pointed at Monsieur Zidler. “It has come to my attention that this imbecile has managed to kidnap the son of a world-famous pop diva, the daughter of a Russian billionaire and goodness knows who else.”

  A ripple of shock ran round the council. The duke picked up a leather-bound book from the table. He wedged in his monocle and thumbed through until he had found what he was looking for.

  “Rule number one of the Trumper Talent Scout’s Code clearly states: Lo, though he or she may let rip the most magnificent of parps, any child whose disappearance may create unusual public attention is not to be taken for training in phartistry.” The duke snapped the book shut. “As I understand it, this Xanadu Messiah Brown has even had his own TV show! How could you have been so stupid? Explain yourself at once, man!”

  Monsieur Zidler’s expertly oiled moustache quivered in fear. “It was just a m-m-mistake, Your Excellency,” he stammered. “The boy Trumpet sniffed out looked like a peasant. How was I supposed to know he was at school with a pop star’s son?”

  “Just a mistake?” squeaked the duke. “They were staying at the Hotel Magnificent! Of course they couldn’t have been peasants! You do realize, do you not, that your ‘mistake’ has put the national security of Phartesia at risk! These parents are offering a ten-million-pound reward. That’s not a temptation for anyone as rich as ourselves, of course, but this Shakti Messiah Brown has promised rare tickets to her concerts, and signed T-shirts. Very soon we’ll have a whole bunch of bounty hunters traipsing about our kingdom. What do you have to say about that, hmm?”

  Monsieur Zidler said nothing. The Duke of Phartesia looked at him with disdain. Everything about the Trumper Talent Scout stank of guilt. Once more the duke banged down his ivory gavel.

  “Zachary Zephaniah Zidler, you have broken our most important law. Thus you must suffer the ultimate punishment. Guards, take him to the dungeons. I shall decide exactly how to dispose of him tomorrow!”

  21

  All that Glitters Is Not Gold

  The children were woken at dawn. On this, their second morning at the castle, it was not Monsieur Zidler who came to rouse them, but the duke himself. He was accompanied by his two trusty moustache-bearers and his daughter. Strudel pulled back the curtains and stood with her back to the view. Sunlight streamed in behind her, lighting up her flowing blue robes and flame-red hair, causing her to glow like a figure in a stained-glass window.

  Bruno blinked open his eyes, dazzled by the sight. The countess’s expression was kind and almost maternal. The duke, on the other hand, looked as if he had recently swallowed poison. What could have happened, Bruno wondered, to put him in such a bad temper?

  A bony white finger pointed at Grace, Natasha and Xanadu.

  “The three of you, meet me in the Phartling Hall straight after you’ve f-f-finished breakfast. You managed to impress me yesterday, but there’s a lot of work to do before the concert.”

  The duke took a long look at Xanadu. “And you, boy,” he said stabbing at the air with his finger, “had better go off with a bang!”

  Xanadu’s mouth flapped open and shut in confusion. “W-w-what did I do wrong?”

  The countess gave her father a warning look. “Father! The children are here as our guests!” She turned to Xanadu with an apologetic smile. “Please forgive the duke. He can be a terrible grump in the mornings, but he’s a sweetie really. What he means is that he’s sure you’ll bring the house down.”

  Bruno was surprised to see that the duke, who had been scowling furiously, was now pink with embarrassment.

  “Yes, yes,” he gushed, rushing over to Xanadu, “that’s exactly what I meant. Do please f-f-forgive me.”

  The moustache-bearers struggled to reverse quickly enough as the duke then made a hasty retreat from the room.

  While the other children began scrabbling into their uniforms, the countess turned her attention to Humbert and Bruno.

  “I’ll be waiting for you up in my music room,” she said in her honey-sweet voice. “Just ask any knight to show you the way.”

  Half an hour later, Humbert and Bruno were sitting on either side of the countess at her grand piano. The music room was located at the top of the south turret. It was hexagonal in shape, with tapestries covering the walls and windows that looked out over the forest.

  Bruno breathed in the scent of roses and jasmine that wafted from the countess’s long red tresses. He squirmed in his seat, worried that his own hair might be starting to smell a little fusty. Without Grandpa Trevor there to remind him, it had somehow slipped his mind to wash it. To make matters worse, a large stain of Stunkenstew had appeared on his waistcoat. How was it that he always managed to look such a mess? Humbert was as clean as a surgeon’s scalpel.

  The countess tossed
back her hair. “I’m afraid we have a long day ahead. But by the end, I’m sure we’ll have you phartling like nightingales. Now, let’s begin with some theory.”

  Humbert leant back in his chair and yawned theatrically. “I doubt there’s anything you can teach me. I’ve already passed my grade eight with distinction.”

  Bruno kicked himself. If only he’d paid more attention in music class. Yet the countess seemed strangely unimpressed. She let out a long tinkling laugh.

  “I think you’ll find, Humbert, that the phartlehorn is quite different from any instrument you’ve played before. Now then, can either of you tell me where a phartle comes from? Perhaps your mothers might have explained?”

  Bruno searched his brain for an answer, but to his dismay he found he didn’t have a clue. “I don’t have a mum any more,” he said forlornly.

  Humbert rolled his eyes. “You should count yourself lucky. I’ve got a mother and I wish I didn’t. All she does is nag, nag, nag. ‘Humbert, have you done this? Humbert, have you done that?’”

  The countess spun round to face him. “Humbert! You mustn’t say such a thing! You wouldn’t be here without her!” She took Bruno’s hands in hers. “I don’t have a mother either. Mine died when I was just a baby. So you see we have something in common.”

  Bruno was dumbstruck. Countess Strudel was so beautiful and so talented, and yet here she was confiding in him as if he was a friend and equal. He stared down at their joined hands in wonder. Then, noticing the dirt beneath his nails, he quickly pulled his own hands away.

  The countess produced a pencil and a pad of paper and Bruno watched in awe as her fingers darted across the page, conjuring an aeroplane in delicate grey strokes. When it was finished, she blew on the drawing to remove the little shavings of rubber. The countess looked like a fairy blowing moon dust over a meadow, thought Bruno. But what did all this drawing have to do with phartling?

  “Have you heard the sound a plane makes when it’s flying?” asked the countess.

  Bruno recalled the roar of the St Ermingarda’s school jet and nodded.

  Humbert stared out of the window, determined not to learn anything.

  “Well, just as a plane converts fuel into a loud screech of air, so your body creates a phartle by converting undigested food into gas.”

  Mesmerized, Bruno watched the countess flip over the page and draw another picture on her pad.

  “Phartles are created by the squillions of hungry bacteria that live inside your tummy. As they gorge their way through your guts they let off a constant flurry of little phartles of their own. Just imagine it, hundreds of microscopic bacteria popping off inside you all day long.”

  It was almost like magic, thought Bruno, how one moment the paper was blank and the next it was alive with teeming creatures. Even more thrilling was the thought of all those bacteria trumping away in his tummy.

  “There’s nothing like that living inside my stomach,” dismissed Humbert. “I wouldn’t allow it. I’d find some way to kill them.”

  The countess looked at him with pity in her eyes. “I’m afraid the body is a universe beyond our knowing. And don’t believe anyone who tells you they don’t phartle. If that were true, they’d be as dead as a Christmas goose.”

  Was it really true that everyone trumped that much? wondered Bruno. Even presidents or the Pope? He found it hard to believe.

  Strudel not so much walked as floated across to the other side of the room, where she flung open the doors of a large mahogany cabinet. Bruno caught his breath. Three magnificent phartlehorns gleamed in the darkness. “Come and help yourselves,” she said.

  “Yeeeeessssssss!” The two boys charged towards the cupboard.

  From the moment he had first heard the countess play, Bruno had been desperate to have a go on a phartlehorn. Just as he was about to lift out the shiniest of the three instruments, he felt it snatched from his grasp.

  “Bad luck,” said Humbert with a smirk, hoisting the horn up and over his head. “This one’s mine.”

  Bruno tried to hide his disappointment as the countess took down a rather less grand phartlehorn and helped him to position it correctly on his shoulder.

  “Don’t tell Humbert,” she whispered conspiratorially, “but this is a far superior instrument. All that glitters is not gold, remember.”

  Just how true those words were, Bruno had yet to discover.

  The hours that followed were some of the happiest Bruno had ever known. The horn was heavier than he had expected, but he soon learnt how to balance it so that the weight was dispersed evenly about his body. The countess was a kind and patient teacher. She had a way of explaining things that Bruno found easy to understand. They began with simple scales then progressed to chords and arpeggios.

  Without all the knights watching him, Bruno’s natural talent for trumping quickly returned. By the time they broke for lunch, he was happily phartling out the opening bars of a sonata by Beethoven. The phartlehorn amplified his parps splendidly, making them sound more prodigious than ever.

  Humbert, however, was struggling. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t phartle in tune. When he was meant to be phartling quietly, the noise boomed out of him. When he was meant to be phartling loudly, barely a whisper could be heard. By teatime, Humbert could take it no more.

  “This is a stupid instrument!” he cried, chucking the phartlehorn down onto the flagstone floor. It landed with an enormous clatter.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said the countess. “I think you’d better sit this next piece out. Bruno and I are going to try a little Mozart.”

  “It’s not fair!” shouted Humbert. “Bruno doesn’t even know who Mozart is! I’m the musician! He’s just a stupid nobody!”

  The countess rolled her eyes as Humbert stomped off into a corner. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she whispered to Bruno. “Very few people know the real Mozart. He was an amazing composer, but he was also a true connoisseur of phartistry. There’s one line of his I always remember, from a letter to his mother: Yesterday, we heard the king of farts. It smelled as sweet as honey tarts. Don’t you think that’s lovely?”

  “It’s the most beautiful thing I ever heard,” replied Bruno, bewitched.

  Strudel sat down at the piano and flicked through a book of music. “The Magic Phartlehorn was Mozart’s masterpiece,” she told Bruno. “Although, of course, that’s not the name most people know it by. This is the piece with which the solo phartiste traditionally opens the concert.” Her eyes were moist with feeling. “Such a brief moment in the sun, before it’s all over…”

  “Before what’s all over?” asked Bruno.

  “Why, the concert, of course,” said the countess, smoothing an imaginary crease from her skirt. “Whatever else could I have meant?”

  She gave a quick demonstration on the piano of Bruno’s part. The chords were a little more difficult than anything he had yet attempted, but by the third try he’d just about got it. “One more go,” she said and trilled out the melody.

  Parp. Parp. Parp. Parpagena, answered Bruno’s phartlehorn.

  “Fabulous!” cried the countess. “Let’s take it from the top!” Bruno bent his legs and prepared to squeeze.

  By the end of the piece, both teacher and pupil were breathless with joy. Bruno’s heart swelled with emotions he did not quite understand.

  “Bravo!” cried the countess, and she shook Bruno’s hand in a way that made him feel tremendously grown up. “Your friend Miss Chalk may have been chosen as the solo phartiste, but you’re still a fine musician. Now, how about you take your phartlehorn and head back to the dormitory for some practice? I think I need a little time alone with Humbert. After all, there are only two days left until the concert!”

  22

  The Deepest Phartle of All

  Bruno clutched his phartlehorn tight to his chest as he stepped out into the corridor. It was a long walk back to the dormitory, with many narrow, winding stairs to climb, but Bruno didn’t care. For the f
irst time since yesterday’s disastrous audition there was a spring in his step. Besides, he had a mind to do some exploring on the way.

  The castle building was comprised of four hexagonal turrets joined by long rectangular passageways, the walls of which enclosed the internal courtyard. The countess’s rooms were located in the south turret and the children’s dormitory was in the north. Monsieur Zidler had told them on their first night at the castle that the east turret was strictly off limits to anyone except the duke and his retinue, so that meant Bruno had to travel back via the west turret. It was here that the knights seemed to spend most of their time, and Bruno was keen to know what they got up to when they weren’t marching round in circles in the courtyard.

  As he approached the heavy tapestry curtain that marked the entrance to the West Tower, Bruno’s curiosity began to get the better of him. First checking that no one was coming, he slipped inside. And did a double take. This part of the castle was decorated in a far more modern style than the rest. Stark overhead lighting replaced the candles and chandeliers found elsewhere. Not far from where Bruno was standing was a sealed white doorway. He could hear voices coming from the space beyond, so tiptoeing over, he bent down and put his eye to the keyhole.

  To Bruno’s disappointment, all he could see on the other side was a rather humdrum-looking office. A handful of knights were sitting behind computers. Others jabbed angrily at photocopiers and printers. There were signed photos of actors and pop stars on the walls. Stacked up in the corner was a vast pile of fireworks. Catherine wheels, roman candles and rockets — all Bruno’s favourites were there. He pressed his eye closer to the keyhole. Now, here was something worth investigating. Over in the far corner of the room, a team of knights were gathered around a metal workbench. They were wearing lab coats and goggles, and for some reason they appeared to be slitting open the fireworks and tipping their contents into large plastic buckets. Whatever could they be doing?