Chew Bee or Not Chew Bee (4 page)

‘Maybe he's upset about Ardent's death?'
said Elbows. ‘He drowned in a bowl of soup.'

‘Well, we'll cut that, too,' said Charlie.

‘But why would Waggledagger write those lines anyway?' asked Minty.

‘The yokel's clearly gone nuts!' said Olly.

Willy decided to stay hidden. None of the Skulls—except Yorick—had any idea why Sir Anstruther Skellington had reacted in the way he had. It was safer for everyone if it stayed that way. And Willy didn't feel like answering any awkward questions.

Maybe I
am
nuts to create so much trouble for my friends, he thought.

‘We'll have to keep a very close watch on Master Waggledagger,' said Charlie. ‘We can't afford any more funny business between Waggledagger and Skellington. No more new lines, no more surprises, no more nonsense, is that clear?'

The Skulls nodded their agreement. Yorick scowled.

‘If Waggledagger does turn out to be a problem, we get rid of him straightaway,' Charlie added. ‘It's a shame, I like the lad, but business is business. We can't afford to have him upsetting the King of Denmark Lane.'

As the Skulls went back to work, Willy sat on his ladder for a while longer, nervously biting his thumbnail. Part of him was desperate to give up on The Ghost's mission. The safest thing he could do would be to lie low for a while. Then he could just go back to the Skulls and beg them to believe he wasn't crazy.

But, at the same time, he couldn't let go of the idea that Skellington knew more about his uncle's death than he was letting on.

Willy dug the honey pot out of his breeches pocket, and stared at it.

There was only one place he could think of going next, and it wasn't down to apologise to the Skulls.

Willy waited on the ladder until the rest of the Skulls called it a night and headed back to Mrs McScottish's boarding house. Then he clambered down to the stage, and let himself out the backstage door. Now that he knew for sure that there was some kind of link between bees, Skellington, and his uncle's death, he believed that The Ghost wasn't tricking him.

Out on the street behind the theatre, Willy pulled the honey pot from his breeches pocket once again and stared at the label for the hundredth time.

‘Manufactured at Devil's Dock, London, by
A. Skellington and Co,'
Willy muttered. ‘I have to get myself to Devil's Dock.'

He planned to go to Skellington's honey warehouse to see if there was anything there that connected the fat little man more strongly to the dead bee. It was a pretty shaky plan, but it was the only one he had.

By the time Willy had made his way through the narrow laneways to the banks of the Thames, it was growing dark. London had become a whole lot scarier.

He stood on a rickety wharf and stared across the river. The tower of Devil's Dock Priory was on the opposite bank. Willy's view east was blocked by a great dripping wall that jutted out over the water. To the west, the river curved away into the distance. A pale mist floated above the inky waters. Even so, the river was thick with boats of every description.

‘Ferry, guvnor?' said a gruff voice somewhere near Willy's feet. He turned and looked

down to see a stocky man standing in a boat that appeared to have been nailed together from a few scraps of old wood. ‘Cross the river in comfort, two groats.'

Willy rummaged in his pocket and pulled out an elderly, fluff-covered groat. ‘I've only got one,' he said.

‘That'll take you 'alfway,' said the ferryman. ‘You can swim the rest.' He paddled a little nearer to the wharf. ‘A joke, chief,' he said. ‘Now jump in. Quick, mind. I ain't got all night.'

Willy hesitated before climbing down a rickety ladder and stepping gingerly into the boat. It lurched wickedly and Willy found himself clinging to the side of the rail, with his nose only inches from the stinking water. The ferryman shoved off and Willy pitched backwards, banging his head against a seat. A schooner lurched past, throwing up a bow
wave
that slopped into the tiny ferry. Willy dropped to the floor and gripped the rail so
hard his knuckles turned white. A slim pilot boat, powered by six oarsmen, shot past, only missing the ferry by a sliver.

‘Luvverly quiet night on the water,' said Willy's ferryman. He stood calmly in the stern, steering the ferry with the pole in his hands. ‘It can sometimes get a bit busy this time of the evenin'.'

‘Quiet?' said Willy. ‘This is quiet?' Then he noticed something. A large bridge loomed out of the mist just a few hundred yards downriver.

‘A bridge!' he squawked. ‘Why didn't you mention there was a bridge? I could have walked across for free!'

‘You didn't say you wanted a bridge!' said the ferryman. He chuckled to himself. ‘Now I've 'eard it all!'

He bumped the boat up gently against a dripping black jetty on the far side of the river. ‘The end of the line,' he said, pointing up a set of slippery-looking steps cut into an
embankment. ‘Devil's Dock. This is where you get off, sunshine.'

Willy stumbled ashore. Ramshackle warehouses loomed above him, their pulleys and ropes making a thick tangle against what little light remained in the sky.

The ferryman pushed off from the dock.

‘Ferryman! Wait!' Willy shouted.

‘No waitin'!' yelled the ferryman, smiling and showing a ragged line of greenish teeth. ‘Got a fare waitin' at Bishopsgate Lock, chum.'

‘Where can I find Skellington's honey warehouse?' yelled Willy, as the ferry drifted away.

The ferryman ignored him and was soon lost in the mist.

‘Great,' said Willy. He turned and climbed the steps. At least he was back on dry land and in Devil's Dock. Surely the warehouse couldn't be too hard to find.

Fifteen minutes later, Willy was totally,
horribly, lost. Worse, he was completely terrified. There was no sign of Skellington's warehouse.

It was so
dark.
The lanes and alleys were crowded with overhanging buildings that leaned together so closely they appeared to kiss overhead. The only light came from the drinking houses. Sickly yellow torches set shadows dancing across scenes that Willy would have rather not seen. A stream of raw sewage flowed down the centre of the streets. Rats the size of Shetland ponies sauntered freely down the lanes.

Screeching women had knock-down fights with stumbling men who had fewer teeth than brains. Every few minutes there was a bloodcurdling scream, followed by a splash. Either there was a fairground featuring a waterslide ride nearby, or the Thames was fast filling up with people who'd said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

Three sailors, who were trying to bite each other's ears off, rolled towards Willy in a twisted bundle of arms and legs and swear words. As the sailors drew closer, Willy pressed himself into a doorway and backed deeper into the shadows.

‘I'll go home as soon as those sailors have left,' Willy muttered. He wanted nothing more than to call off this whole adventure. Devil's Dock was too dangerous.

Suddenly the doors behind him gave way.

With a strangled yelp, Willy tumbled backwards into the darkness.

With a teeth-loosening smash, Willy fell through the doorway, down some kind of pitch-black hole, and thudded into something hard. There was a sound like the end of the world, followed by what seemed like dozens of heavy objects bouncing off Willy's head.

Then there was silence.

Willy groaned softly.

Everything
hurt.

Even his toenails. And he was pretty sure some important part of his body had fallen off. He checked his legs and arms. They were throbbing from the fall, but they still
seemed to be where they were supposed to be.

Willy reached up and felt the back of his head. His fingers touched something sticky and warm. Willy had a sudden mental image of a gaping wound in his head. It was all he could do not to faint. He took a deep breath. And coughed. The air was heavy with the smell of something sickly sweet.

Willy reached his hand up to his head again and felt around some more. Underneath the sticky stuff—what was it, blood or brains?— his skull seemed to be fine. So whatever the sticky stuff was, it hadn't come from inside his head.

He hoisted himself into a sitting position and looked around. A faint glow came from the hole he had fallen down. It appeared to be some kind of trapdoor to the floor above. But it looked far too high for him to be able to climb out. He rolled onto all fours and began to crawl.

Something sliced his finger. There were shards of something sharp all around him, as well as a drop or two more of the sticky stuff.

Willy thought about shouting for help but there was something about the atmosphere of the place that stopped him.

A dim slat of light appeared in the gloom. It looked like the gap at the bottom of a door.

Willy scrambled to his feet. He felt for a doorhandle, found it, and threw the door open.

He found himself in a large warehouse stacked from floor to ceiling with wooden crates. A couple of flickering torches sat in sconces.

At first, the place looked deserted. Then Willy noticed the sound of snoring coming from a corner of the warehouse. He padded carefully across the floor and found an ancient nightwatchman fast asleep on a pallet of
sacks, a wineskin dangling from his fingers. He was out for the count.

Willy drew a shaky breath. He hadn't been discovered yet.

Then, from somewhere behind his left ear, came a low growl. He turned to discover the biggest dog he'd ever seen crouched not six feet away, its fangs bared and its eyes glowing yellow. Loops of drool hung from its jaw and pooled on the floor.

‘N-nice doggy,' Willy stammered.

The only answer was a snarl that shook Willy down to his tailbone. Clearly, he was not going to be able to talk himself out of this situation.

‘Good doggy,' whispered Willy, backing away.

‘Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaarrrgh!'
the dog snarled, edging forward.

Willy groped in the pocket of his tunic, hoping he had some leftover sausage from
breakfast. Instead, his hand touched something papery and soft. He fished it out. It was the sheet of parchment he'd used to make his rough jottings when he was rewriting Olly's and Minty's lines. He scrunched up the thick paper into a ball and held it up in the air.

The dog stopped growling and fixed its eyes on the ball of paper. Willy waved the ball from side to side, and the dog's eyes followed.

Willy drew his arm back and hurled the ball of paper towards the far end of the warehouse. ‘Fetch!' he shouted.

The dog gave a yelp of delight and pelted after the ball. Willy turned in the opposite direction and sprinted for a ladder leaning against a large wooden vat.

He almost made it.

With a speed that Willy could hardly believe, the dog came roaring back. It slammed into Willy and sent him crashing to the floor.

Willy rolled onto his back, gasping for breath. The dog pounced on him and pinned his arms to the ground. Its monstrous teeth were just inches from Willy's face. Its foul breath filled his nostrils.

The dog dropped the drool-covered ball of paper onto Willy's chest.

Willy closed his eyes and waited to be eaten.

The dog opened its jaws wide…and began licking the top of Willy's head. Its tongue slavered hungrily over his scalp. Willy giggled. The dog paused, and Willy looked up to see it happily cleaning large globs of yellowish goop from the sides of its mouth. A blob of goop dripped from the dog's mouth and landed on Willy's lips. He gagged. But, even as he was spitting it out, he registered that the goop tasted quite…nice. Quite sweet, in fact.

And then two things came to him in a flash.

The first thing was that the sticky stuff was honey.

The second thing was that he'd found Sir Anstruther Skellington's warehouse.