Hercufleas (19 page)

‘We're being rescued!'

‘By that girl who kidnapped Hercufleas!'

‘Have you seen him anywhere?'

Greta didn't answer.

She ran for the trunk, green scarf streaming in the wind, swinging her axe as she went.

Hercufleas whipped his sword up as the rattleroot lunged.
M
sliced the thing off at the head, and the root fell down dead. He wiped its poison from the blade and looked up at the octopanzee-thing above him.

‘What did you mean?' he said, jumping up to balance on the thread beside it. ‘Why does Yuk's brain need rescuing?'

The creature blinked its one eye. It mouth hung open, a grey thread dangling out. Then it began to babble excitedly.

‘
At last! We're saved! What a foolish mistake I made… You're not a germ! Now I'm sure. You're the opposite, aren't you? The cure!
'

‘Cure?' said Hercufleas, but the octopanzee-thing didn't answer. It swung from thread to thread, deeper into the brain. Hercufleas jumped after it. ‘Come back! Hey!'

‘
I suppose I should explain
,' the creature said as it went. ‘
I'm a noggin: guardian of Yuk's brain. Noggins connect his thoughts together… But we are being held prisoner. Now you have come to set us free! You can fight the dreadful tree!
'

The Noggin stopped talking and shook hands with Hercufleas eight times. The little creature blinked its grey eye and gave a grey smile, showing grey teeth.

‘Tree? Do you mean… that rattlesnoak on his head?' Hercufleas asked the noggin.

‘
Don't worry, I'll tell you everything. But before we can begin… we really ought to go inside. There'll be more rattleroots coming. We must hide!
'

Turning round, Hercufleas saw the noggin was right: rattleroots were slithering towards them from every direction. The noggin's eight hands tugged Hercufleas back to a hiding place, a part of the web where thousands of strands met together, forming a tiny silken nest.

Hercufleas let himself be bundled inside. The noggin plastered its hands over his mouth as the rattleroots slithered past.

‘
Don't fear! We're safe here.
' The noggin folded and unfolded all his arms nervously. ‘
I haven't been to this part of the brain, since the dreadful rattleroots came. Here, perhaps, you will be able to peek, at some of the answers that you seek… But why do you look so upset? Are you bothered by my rhyming couplets?
'

‘It's just…' Hercufleas looked at the pulsing, flashing weave of threads surrounding him. ‘You said you were a guardian of Yuk's brain?'

The noggin gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up, eight times.

‘Then that makes us enemies,' Hercufleas said sadly.

The noggin turned the colour of ashes. It hung its head. ‘
So you came here to destroy us? I suppose it must be. Go on… put us out of our misery…
'

‘I tried to,' admitted Hercufleas. ‘Then everything went wrong, and I fell into Yuk's nostril, and before I knew it, I was here. Now you're telling me that it's the giant who needs rescuing, and I want to know why.'

‘
Because he's a prisoner! Don't you see? His brain's been invaded by a rattlesnoak tree. I escaped: I'm the noggin in charge of Yuk's rhyme. But the rest have been captured for such a long time.
' The noggin was so upset he broke down, weeping grey tears.

‘I don't have time for crying!' Hercufleas shook the creature. ‘Yuk is guzzling people, and I have to stop him! Tell me what to do. What happened here?'

The noggin looked up, blinking. ‘
It'll take too long to say
.' It sniffed. ‘
But I can tell you the story another way?
'

‘Yes, yes,' said Hercufleas impatiently. ‘Just hurry up!'

From the left, a rattleroot the size of a python sprang up from Yuk's hair. It swayed in the air, tongue flicking at Greta. With one swing of her axe, she lopped the head clean off. The rattleroot twitched and fell down dead. Three more roots slithered up from the right. They were stumps before they could even strike.

Greta held her axe the way a painter holds a brush, the way a sculptor holds a chisel. She wasn't a woodcutter, but an artist. She swung in sweeping arcs, slices, uppercuts. Dead rattleroots thumped the floor around her and she walked on towards the tree.

‘Don't make it angry!' called Pin from the branches.

‘It's not angry,' Greta answered. ‘It's afraid.' Axe ready, she reached up towards the branches. ‘Come on, everyone! Time to go!'

Hopping from the branches one after the other came the fleamily. They clustered together on her hand.

‘Let's get out of here!' Greta called.

Min pointed behind her. ‘Watch out!'

Greta jumped forward, dodging another rattleroot. It lunged past her, and she spun round and lopped off its head. Another two rose up. She cut them down too. But for every one she killed, another two took its place.

Soon there would be too many of them.

She cut the heads off another five rattleroots, but ten more sprouted up to attack. They lunged at Greta from different angles, and her axe spun like a deadly windmill. Nine rattleroots died, but one got through – it knocked the axe from her hand and she fell back with a cry. The snake head lunged forward, hissing. Greta saw the pink inside of its mouth, the flicking black tongue, the teeth like crescent moons.

I
nside Yuk's head, Hercufleas hopped around the noggin's nest impatiently. He wanted answers, but the stupid creature was making him what looked like a meal – a meal of noodles, made up of various threads from Yuk's brain. The noggin had carefully chosen them from around its nest, tugging individual threads free from the web. It sniffed at them, nodded and plonked the whole tangled mess at Hercufleas's feet. It looked a little like grey spaghetti.

‘
Tuck in!
' said the noggin.

‘I'm not eating that!' Hercufleas snapped. ‘Just tell me about Yuk.'

The noggin blinked irritably. ‘
It might not look like much of a treat, but to understand, first you must eat!
'

Hercufleas started to protest, at which the noggin picked up a strand of spaghetti and shoved it in his mouth –

– The high wind tickles your hair

and your belly rumbles like a storm.

Far down, the soup makes noise.

You like that. Noisy food is wriggly fresh.

Which one to guzzle next? Which one looks juicy?

You pick up one by its ankle – old and wrinkly, with

a gold key around its neck. You open your mouth.

In it goes, down it goes, wriggling all the way

down to your belly. Yum yum.

A beautiful white bird pecks your ankle.

You pluck it up and guzzle it too.

‘YUM,' you say. ‘TASTE LIKE CHICKEN.'

Then you get your straw and start to suck

up the Tumberfolk again –

– and Hercufleas spat out the brain spaghetti. He was back in the noggin's nest.

‘That was… I was
Yuk
,' he gasped, feeling sick. ‘I just ate Mayor Witz! I ate Artifax! They're gone… Artifax…'

The noggin grasped him with eight hands and shook him. ‘
It was just a recent memory! I gave it so that you could see: what Yuk is now… and what he used to be.
'

The creature offered up another noodle of memory-spaghetti. More memories? Hercufleas gagged. He could still feel poor Artifax wriggling in his stomach… But the noggin fixed him with a pleading stare. Closing his eyes, he slurped it up –

– The sky is a pale pink above the mountains,

but night still holds fast here upon the Waste.

You stand, swaying in the dark, looking out on the hills.

The emptiness. There is much work to do before sunrise.

Forest to plant, marshes to dredge,

meadows to seed, rivers to –

– and Hercufleas came back to himself again. He sat there, trying to understand the memory he had just experienced. Across from him, the noggin watched intently.

‘Yuk was a green giant!' Hercufleas whispered. ‘Like in the legend Greta told me.'

The noggin nodded. ‘
If I had told you, you wouldn't believe. Words wouldn't do: you had to see.
'

‘But then why is…?' Hercufleas shook his head, reached forward and stuffed the rest of the memories in his mouth. They whirled through him, one after the next –

– You step back, your work done.

All night you worked, sowing life upon the Waste.

Now the sun is coming –

– the first beams touch upon the earth,

and your wildflowers bud and bloom lavender-purple,

blossom-pink, amaranth-red –

– silently you gaze out at the Waste.

The forests surge up in the sunlight –

– you lay down upon the ground. You are tired.

Time to sleep, while the forests grow over you –

– Hercufleas leaped up, trembling all over.

‘The tree on Yuk's head,' he said. ‘It's a rattlesnoak. A seed fell on his head, and the roots grew into his brain.'

The noggin nodded. ‘
The roots invaded him while he snoozed. Now they control his every move.
'

Hercufleas looked out of the nest. Above them was the roof of Yuk's skull, like an upturned basin. Spreading from where the basin plug should be, a knotted twist of thousands of rattleroots wound down into the giant's brain.

The noggin pointed, and now Hercufleas could make out scores of other noggins among the threads. Their hands, Hercufleas saw, twanged the strands of Yuk's brain, as if it was a guitar or a harp. As their eight hands plucked, they sent out flashes of light which were the giant's thoughts.

But coiled like a python around each noggin was a rattleroot.

The poor creatures were like puppets on strings. To make Yuk move, speak or even blink, the rattlesnoak simply tightened its grip around the required noggin and forced it to send out the necessary commands.

‘
The rattlesnoak's what you must fight
,' said the creature beside him solemnly. ‘
It has an enormous appetite. It makes Yuk guzzle constantly. If you could set the noggins free…
'

Hercufleas didn't need to hear any more. He drew
m
from his side and leaped from the nest.

T
he rattleroot's fangs gleamed as it lunged for Greta. Then a dozen black specks hopped onto its head – the fleamily. They all bit down together, and the rattleroot hissed in pain, twisting in the air. Seizing her chance, Greta scooped up her axe and lopped the snake head off. The root went rigid as a stick and fell on her lap, poisonous sap dribbling from its severed neck. She stared down at the tiny creatures that had just saved her life.

‘Bleugh!' said Burp, hopping about and spitting. ‘Rattlesnoak sap tastes disgusting.'

A second flea hopped down beside the first. ‘Be careful, everyone!' Min cried. ‘Resist any urge to slither about and be evil! Remember, you are what you eat.'

‘Yessssssss, Min,' said Dot. She shook her head. ‘I mean, yes.'

Pin hopped onto Greta's shoulder. ‘We'll provide a distraction while you chop down the trunk. Kill those rattleroots at the source, it's the only way we'll escape!'

Greta blinked stupidly at the limp root in her lap.

‘Quick!' Min nipped her hard. ‘Get chopping!'

Jolted by the bite, Greta scooped up her axe, scrambling to her feet. Suddenly the air was full of whizzing black smudges. The fleamily were everywhere, taunting the rattleroots, then hopping away from their lunges. Tittle star-jumped, Itch somersaulted, Jot did the double-pike-cross-split-topsy-turvy manoeuvre. The rattleroots tied themselves up in hissing, writhing knots.