Petronella and the Janjilons Read online

  Gesuelda interrupted him. “Stop your rant, man. I want to get this over and done with. I have another person to deal with. That nasty nosy boy outside. He’s kicking up such a fuss. Hard headed as a donkey too, he is, by the sounds of it.”

  “I want to get on with it, too. Can you please tell me my future?” Judge Ormerod said with quivering lips.

  “I think I can see here in the steam a shape... wait a moment... Yes, I can see that you are holding a shield in your right hand. Is it a shield? Maybe not. I can see quite clearly that... Can you see it?”

  “Yes, I can. Rejoice!” Judge Ormerod jumped up in joy.

  “Sit down and keep quiet, man,” Gesuelda said, “let me go on. There’s more, the steam’s still coming out.”

  “What is it? Please tell me,” Judge Ormerod was pleading now.

  “I can see that there is a lot you must do, if you want to get the Golden Shield. And I can see that it’s not going to be easy for you. I see a lot of trouble,” Gesuelda said. “I cannot promise anything. I can only tell you what I see.”

  “Oh, old hag, you’ve always been right in your predictions.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m starting to see double. I can see two people who could possibly be Duke of Westshire. It’s either you or another person. I cannot see this other face clearly. But the skin on this person’s arms is smooth. It’s someone young. Yes, it’s one of the two,” she said.

  “What! What do you mean?! Are you saying that I might not be Duke of Westshire after all? I think that other person in the steam must be my helper.”

  “Well, as I said before, I don’t decide the future, I can only foresee it. And this is what I foresee! Now be gone with you,” she said, walking towards the door then holding it open for him. He got up, gathered his things, and was about to go out when he said:

  “I wonder who this youngster is. Well, it certainly won’t be anyone from The Janjilon Education Centre,” he said. “I’ve never trusted intelligent boys. I’ve always seen them as a threat. And now more than ever will I have to be wary of the little blighters – these upstarts, these pests... I have to keep them hidden so that they are not a threat to me and my ambitions.”

  “Certainly won’t be anyone from The Janjilon Education Centre troubling you. How would they ever get out?” she said.

  “With great, great difficulty,” Judge Ormerod laughed.

  “Great, great difficulty,” she laughed. “Now off you go. You have a fifty percent chance which is more than just about anyone else has. Ah! And, by the way, don’t forget to take some of that other sickly potion with you. Here it is,” she said, handing him a bottle full. “You know what that’s for, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, I do. I know exactly what it’s for,” Judge Ormerod said with a nasty smirk on his face.

  Out of the hut went Judge Ormerod, and in came Soloman pushed in by the two weird sisters, struggling with all his strength.

  “Now, young man, I need to deal with you,” Gesuelda said. “What were you doing spying on me?”

  “I don’t know who you are and I hadn’t met your sisters before either. I was taking a walk in the forest when I saw your hut. I wanted to see what it was so I looked in through the window...”

  “Ah, you looked in through the window, did you? And do you usually do that when you walk past houses?” she asked.

  “No, but... but this was different. It’s in the middle of...”

  “Quiet!” Gesuelda interrupted him. “I don’t believe you. Only a few moments ago I saw that a youngster could become Duke of Westshire. You are out to look for the Golden Shield like all the other power crazy little people of Westshire. You wanted me to help you, didn’t you?”

  “No, no. Really I was walking about getting some fresh air, then I saw your hut,” Soloman said.

  “You lie to me, young man. I think we had better keep you in a cool place until you come to your senses. I believe you are a conniving little fellow. You are dangerous,” she said.

  Gesuelda opened the door and shouted out to her twin sisters: “Sisters, come here. Take this deceitful boy to The Janjilon Education Centre.”

  Gismonda and Gasmina grabbed an arm each and dragged Soloman off.

  CHAPTER 6

  When Jack got home, he headed straight to his bedroom. He slumped himself down on his bed and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. What am I going to do about this tattooed man? he thought. What about those children he told me about? Captured and hidden away somewhere. Some friends of his had moved away from Fort Willow either to live in other towns and a few had even gone to a place called The Janjilon Education Centre, wherever that was. But he had never heard about children going missing. He had to find out. The big question was how would he go about it. Difficult. He’d try with his mother first.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table making a patchwork quilt. Betty was reading. The great thing about Betty’s books was that they kept her quiet.

  “Mum, do you remember that boy, Adrian? He lived the other side of the village in Sycamore Street. He and Eric, the boy from Myrtle Road, were sent off to a private school somewhere. They were bright and were told they could go to a better school than ours, The Janjilon Education Centre, wasn’t it?” Jack said.

  “I remember Adrian,” Betty said. “He had a pet frog...”

  “I’m not talking to you,” Jack said, and turned to look at his mother. Betty always had to say something even when she knew nothing about it.

  “Do you have to worry me about your friends right now?” his mum said. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Anyway, I’m sure they are doing well. Unlike you. Lazing about all the time. If you had put more effort into your school work, you’d probably be at that Education Centre as well. Jack, you need to get yourself some get-up-and-go...” she said. She always said that. That’s what parents do. They repeat themselves all the time.

  “I went out walking today, mum, to get some exercise like you always say I should. And even when I do what you tell me to, you still tell me off,” Jack was a bit cross.

  “Well done for doing that. Some exercise can only do you good,” she said.

  “Mum, when I was out in the forest I met this strange man. He had a rifle. I was really frightened of him at first, but he turned out to be nice,” Jack said.

  “Spooky!” Betty said.

  “What are you doing talking to strange men in forests?” mum said.

  “You told me to get out of the house, to find some get-up-and-go, so I got up and went. And now I’m being told off...” Jack said.

  “You kids worry me sick,” mum said.

  “It’s not me, it’s him,” Betty said, pointing to Jack.

  “So who was this man?” mum asked Jack.

  “I don’t know but he told me that some kids had gone missing from here. That he had seen people dragging them away. He said he saw a boy fighting with some grown ups... He had a tattoo...” Jack was getting worked up.

  “Did you at any time sit down and go to sleep in the forest? I know you. You probably didn’t get very far, sat down and fell asleep. Dreamt it. Do you really think I can believe all this nonsense about boys being kidnapped, men with rifles and tattoos... Can you just let me get on with my quilt and find something to keep yourself occupied?”

  “Oh, mum, you never believe what I tell you,” Jack said, walking out of the room in a huff.

  Betty ran after him. “I believe you,” she said. “Let’s go up to my room and talk about it.”

  “No, let’s go up to mine so I can lie down while we talk,” Jack said.

  “Race you up there,” Betty said.

  They ran up the stairs and Jack threw himself on his bed while Betty sat on a chair opposite him.

  “We need a plan,” Jack began, “we’ve got to work out what we’re going to do. So where do we start?”

  “Why don’t we go back to the forest and see if we get any ideas there?” Betty asked. “Maybe we’ll meet the tattooed man. We can ask him more questions...”
/>   “No, let’s see if we can get any ideas here first. I could go round to Adrian’s house to see if I can find out anything. I haven’t seen him for ages so I can go there and call on him as a friend. I wasn’t that friendly with him but I can pretend I was walking past then knock on the door and ask. We can go to the forest afterwards. What do you think of that, sis?” Jack said.

  “Yes, but I want to go with you. Let’s pretend we were taking a walk together,” said Betty.

  “OK. Let’s go.”

  Betty was so excited. This was just like the stories she had read about. Now she would get to live out all those thrilling adventures. She knew that in real life there must have been excitement like in her books. All those dangers, hidden secrets, mystery, and traps. The life she’d lived up till the present had been so boring. Her imagination was filled with all those frightful fictions and, at long last, the time had come for her to live out some scary stories herself.

  CHAPTER 7

  The weird twins had dragged Soloman all the way to some heavy, wrought-iron gates. They were rusty and tied up with a strong chain held together by a lock. A high glass-sharded wall hid the secrets that lay behind its crumbling bricks. Gismonda pulled a black key out of her pocket and, giving the lock a jerky turn, she released it and unwound the chains.

  “In you go, my lad,” Gismonda said to Soloman, kicking him through the gate.

  When he got in, Soloman could hardly believe his eyes. He saw before him a huge very old castle in a terrible state. This must be The Janjilon Education Centre that the weird sisters were talking about, he thought. Where had these ruins been all this time? He had been to the forest lots of times and yet he had never seen these huge derelict ruins.

  The run-down castle was in the middle and a few out-houses surrounded it. This must have been a fairy-tale palace once. The thing that surprised him most as they went into the grounds were the giant mushrooms, all different colours, some were red-topped and others were black, others were mossy-green, but they were all enormous.

  They walked along a narrow and winding cobbled-stone pathway leading to the castle. There were weeds sprouting up between the paving stones. Moss made them slippery. On either side was tangled undergrowth similar to that of the forest. He couldn’t tell which way they had come. As they walked there, all he saw were trees upon trees. They seemed to have been walking for hours on end, turning in different directions. Soloman knew that he could never find his way out of the forest even if he did manage to escape over that high wall around the whole Education Centre.

  After the seventh bend, they arrived at the big porch of the castle. Soloman saw a rat run past him. Again Gismonda pulled the black key out and turned it in the lock of a heavy wooden door. On the door, were carvings of strange monsters and wild beasts. As the door opened, Soloman saw a gigantic hall.

  Hanging from the ceiling were great crystal chandeliers which had lost their sparkle. Big dark red, and very badly worn down, Persian carpets decorated the black wooden floor. The furniture was dark wood – nearly black – heavy and of top quality. Glass-panelled bookcases with antique and discoloured books in them lined the walls. In the middle was a table set for a banquet: crystal glasses, silver cutlery, candelabras and napkin holders – and even place names. The embroidered tablecloth had turned a light shade of yellow. The white of the porcelain dinner set had lost its brightness too. The blue design had faded to a weak pale colour. And big cobwebs dangled from the items on the table.

  On the right was a finely carved marble fireplace where smouldering ashes looked as if they were about to die out. On the left was a wide wooden staircase carpeted with red pile. And it was up this staircase that Soloman was pushed by the two weird sisters. Soloman thought that he could try a brave escape before he was imprisoned in one of the rooms on the first floor. But what was the point? He might die of hunger in the forest before finding a way out. No, it was useless. It was no good making rash decisions.

  It wasn’t long until Soloman was locked up in a bedroom. But to him, of course, it was a prison cell. It was dirty, dark and old. Had a musty smell about it and damp marks along the outside wall in which a narrow, wired window let in the little light that filtered through the foliage of the high trees opposite. There were bars on the windows. Beyond the trees he could see water – a very dark lake.

  There was complete silence. Not a sound. Soloman sat on the high bed, looked around him and thought about what he was to do next. As he sat there thinking, among the decay, destruction and rubble, he changed his mind. He wanted to escape even if it meant getting lost in the forest – he could eat berries, drink puddle water to survive, but he had to get out of there somehow.

  He’d read in an adventure novel that by knotting sheets you could use them like a rope to lower yourself down from a window. Though Soloman wasn’t sure if two sheets would do the job. He was quite high up. One young man in a book had escaped from a prison that way, by knotting a sheet to one of the bed’s legs, then knotting the two sheets together. So Soloman went about unmaking the bed. But there were no sheets, just the blanket he’d been sitting on and a small pillow. Just his luck!

  As he was looking out of the window and wondering what to do next, he heard a scratching noise on the other side of the wall of his room. Yes, it was definitely a scratching sound. Was there a cat in there?

  “Hello,” Soloman called out, “is there anybody there?”

  Nobody replied. But the scratching became louder and faster. Was that an answer to his call? Could be. He’d try again.

  “Hello, can you hear me?”

  Again the scratching. Faster and faster. But nobody actually said anything. He went to the window, it only opened a crack, and he tried shouting from there. Nobody came to the window in the room next door to talk to him. How strange! There must be someone there but they can’t answer, apart from making this scratching sound.

  He paced up and down the room. Now the scratching was getting quite desperate. Not only. It was coming from two points. There must be two people in there he thought. Two people who couldn’t talk to him for some reason. Then he heard some rummaging around, like furniture being moved and jumping sounds. He went to his door and started banging on it as hard as he could with his shoe.

  “Let me out of here, right this minute!” he shouted. “Let me out I tell you.”

  The scratching was now on the other side of the door where he stood, no longer on the bedroom wall. He looked through the keyhole. Difficult to make out. He could definitely see a couple of pitch-black figures. About half the size of grown-up human beings.

  They weren’t children. As they jumped about in the corridor, and turned somersaults, Soloman just about made out that they were strange creatures. They weren’t any sort of animal he’d seen before. What were they? There were three. One was a little smaller than the other two. They looked like monkeys. But they weren’t. Their heads were shaped like a cat’s. And so were their ears – sharply-pointed – standing up straight on their heads. Their hands were like those of humans. Five fingers, but their nails were very long, like claws. And when they weren’t jumping about or turning somersaults, they tiptoed instead of walking normally.

  One of them came up to the door and looked through the keyhole. Soloman saw a big green eyeball staring straight at him. The rest of the eye was bloodshot. Soloman pulled away quickly. Now trembling, he went back to his bed. The jumping about in the corridor had stopped. There was silence again.

  The creatures had tiptoed back to their room. Someone was coming. Were they frightened off? Soloman heard heavy footsteps, like those made by military boots. It was a human being, very loudly coming up the wooden stairs. The steps stopped right outside his room. There was the clanging noise of a bunch of keys, then the lock in his door turned. And as the door slowly creaked open, there stood Judge Ormerod in front of Soloman.

  “We meet again,” Judge Ormerod sneered.

  CHAPTER 8

  Jack and Betty were walking down Sy
camore Street, where Adrian used to live.

  “Yes, it’s that cottage we’re about to come to,” Jack said to Betty, pointing over the road to his left.

  “Oh, a thatched cottage!” Betty exclaimed in glee. “Ah, and it’s got roses all around its porch as well. Looks like a fairy tale house. I love it.”

  “Stop it, Betty. Calm down a bit,” Jack said. “This is serious, we’re supposed to be looking for my friend.”

  They stood on the road opposite the cottage wondering what to do next.

  “Let’s go and knock at the door,” Betty said.

  “No, let’s sit here on the pavement. Let’s pretend we’re playing and wait until someone goes in or comes out,” Jack said.

  “I don’t want to do that,” Betty said, “I want to knock on the door.”

  “What shall we say?” Jack said.

  “Just say we are calling on Adrian. Pretend you don’t know he’s been sent away,” Betty said.

  “I can’t do that. Everyone knows he’s gone away.”

  “Let’s say that you want to know when he’s coming back,” Betty said.

  “No, let’s wait here a bit and see what happens,” Jack said.

  “Have you got any sweets on you?” Betty asked.

  Jack passed her his packet of jelly babies. And then he said:

  “I’ve got some marbles in my pocket. Why don’t we play? Look you have half of them and we’ll see if I can win them back.”

  They sat on the pavement and started to play marbles. Betty soon got fed up with the game, especially since she soon lost all her marbles to Jack. No movement in the house across the road. Nobody had come out or gone in.

  “I’m going to knock on the door. You stay here if you want to,” Betty said.