The Hairy Hand Page 7

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Vee require your vinest rooooom fur mein uzbund und aye und somefink smoll und not too hexpensif fur dis boy, wot is our son and hair!’ Gertrude Plog carried on gamely. The receptionist now looked like he was trying to do complicated sums in his head whilst, at the same time, wanting to pee very badly indeed.

  ‘Sorry sir and madam,’ he said eventually, ‘I still can’t get the ’ang of what you are saying... something about your son’s hair being too expensive, perhaps?’

  Plog glanced nervously around the reception area. It was the most expensive hotel in town and all the people who frequented it were posh. Posh people still made Plog nervous. He sidled up as close as he could go to the receptionist who leaned forward helpfully.

  ‘One decent room, mate, wiv a bath and one of your budget ones for the boy. Ta.’ The receptionist looked demystified but grumpy as Gertrude Plog sailed up the stairs with her head in the air.

  ‘Why didn’t you say in the first place?’ Sept followed behind, reluctantly.

  On days they went into the village market to show off, Sept would see everybody staring at them with a mixture of hilarity and jealousy: Spew laughing but carefully, behind Gertrude’s back; Skrewskint’s thin, cold face watching keenly from an upstairs window. Money didn’t buy friends in Nowhere, but it did get you the sort of hard looks that said, I’ll be nice to you until I’ve worked out a way of stealing what you’ve got. Then you’ll wish you never had so much as a copper penny. Sept especially didn’t like the way Flargh looked at them as he sharpened his meat grinder these days.

  See? They’re too stupid to look after you, signalled the Hand as they followed them down the street. One day this lot will try and take what the Plogs have got, by hurting them, if they have to - and you. It pointed at Blegre who was pretending to be delighted to see Plog in all his new finery - though not quite sure how to act: right now he looked like he was trying to shake Plog’s hand, kiss it and curtsey all at once.

  One day the Hand showed them where to find a broken pearl necklace that had dropped into a muddy bog, many years before, on a picnic trip (when Nowhere and the surrounding area was once worth picnicking in).

  Gertrude Plog had been unimpressed with the pearls, which were rather lumpy and small and grumbled that they would only sell for a few silver coins.

  As she walked down the forest track in the gathering gloom, moaning loudly about how unfair life was and how they had been swindled, she paid little attention to the broken-down barn they passed by. ‘What’s the world a coming to... I’s been robbed,’ she moaned, conveniently forgetting that up until recently, robbing from other people had been their main line of business. She stared at the pearls in her huge hands as if they were rabbit droppings. ‘A few measly thruppeny bits for that necklace is all I expects...’ she glowered at the Hand. But the Hand, perched on Sept’s shoulder, was ignoring her as usual. The track they were on became narrower, hardly more than a footpath that led deeper into the Lost Woods: the foreboding sort of trees with plenty of dark places and eyes that watched.

  Just then, the Hand went rigid and made a bunched-up sign with two hollow eye sockets. Sept already knew this one: The secret sign for the Death’s Head. Danger.

  ‘Mum... Dad,’ said Sept.

  ‘...it’s all that Thingies fault, should be findings us better trinkets whats worth more... why’s It acting all funny?’ Mistress Plog bunched up her face and glared at the Hand.

  A low growl, the sort that can only come from something very large with far too many teeth, came from under the trees.

  ‘The Hand’s saying we’re in danger,’ said Sept.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Plog.

  ‘W - A - R - G - S,’ signalled the Hand rapidly.

  ‘Wargs!’ translated Sept, looking at his parents. ‘I really think we should go back the way we came,’ he suggested. The low rumble was joined by several more barely twenty yards away.

  ‘Too late for that,’ said Plog, ‘if we run they’ll chase and we’re dead.’ That was the moment Plog’s Plog the Sneaker brain kicked in at the expense of his Plog the Protector of Sept brain.

  Sneaker Brain said save yourself at all costs - forget everyone else, including your son. He smiled encouragingly at Sept, ‘now you want to be going on ahead, towards them sounds, making lots of noise, jumpin’ up and down...’

  ‘Er, why on earth would I want to do a thing like that?’ asked Sept.

  ‘Cos they won’t be expecting it,’ Plog looked pained, as if Sept had just asked an especially stupid question. ‘’ere,’ he thrust a half-eaten sandwich he’d been saving for later into Sept’s trembling hands, ‘they love a bit of this meat, they do, they’ll be after you like a pack of... well, Wargs... as it ’appens. Fit lad like you, you’ll soon outrun them - just a bit of exercise. Some excitement, you don’t always want to be with your boring old mum and dad!’ He smiled broadly and pushed Sept forward.

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘But make sure you run good an’ far...,’ he nodded, ignoring Sept, a sickly grin on his face, ‘you’d do that for your old mum and dad... although pr’haps you’d like to leave... that thing,’ he pointed at the Hand with a look of faint disgust, ‘with us... don’t want to be carrying too much weight with you, slow you down.’ At this the Hand made to run into Sept’s inside jacket pocket but Gertrude Plog was too quick. Somehow, whilst Plog was talking, she’d got behind Sept, her arm shot out and she grabbed the Hand, which squirmed in her pudgy grasp.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘safe and sounds... now off you go and do the diversions, we’ll waits here for you with our new friend.’ She leered at the Hand. It was desperately trying to signal something to Sept but unable thanks to Gertrude’s fat fingers squeezing It.

  ‘But what if they catch me?’ Sept wasn’t sure and he felt funny leaving the Hand with them. His dad rolled his eyes.

  ‘Well, ’ow should I know what you should do? Moan, moan, moan, that’s all you ’ear from the youf of today. No initiative. Go awn, get down there and make ’em chase you! You never know, it’ll probably be fun.’

  Without the Hand he felt he had no choice. So Sept walked slowly towards the trees, disappearing from sight around a corner until he came around a fork in the track and an old barn.

  Sept also paid little attention to the old farm building, but stared, instead, at what was on the other side of the path. There were about six Wargs, standing there - huge beasts, twice the size of an ordinary wolf and skeletal thin, their greasy pelts showing a row of huge ribs, as if they hadn’t eaten for days and now their luck had just changed as supper, in the form of a skinny boy, walked round the corner carrying the rest of a sandwich as a nice starter.

  ‘GRRRR!’ said the biggest Warg at Sept who replied, ‘Ah, nice doggy!’ and immediately turned and ran down the other fork in the path.

  ‘WOA, WOAH, WOAHHH!’ The rest of the beasts set off in loping pursuit.

  ‘AAARGH!’ said Sept, waving his arms about like he was trying to take off. ‘Bad doggie, actually... AAAAAAAAARGH!’. Before it occurred to him that running needed all the breath he had got, so he shut up.

  In spite of him running faster than he had ever run in his life, the pack was soon closing in. Slowly. Steadily. And Sept felt hot breath down his neck - it smelled of rotten meat, rancid cheese and wicked thoughts. Long teeth at the end of a long snout went snap millimetres behind his ear. The next bite would be his whole head.

  But Sept had survived the desert and countless other dangers, he wasn’t going to give up that easily.

  Putting all his effort into it, Sept leapt, stretched out a hand and by some miracle or hidden force - perhaps the very same that put him in the path of the cave in the desert - his fingers caught hold of a branch.

  The thin bough bent under his weight.

  It flexed down j
ust as the Warg’s teeth caught the seat of his pants. The Warg pulled. Sept hung on. The Warg growled through a mouthful of pants and extraordinarily huge teeth and pulled harder.

  Gradually, the branch bent back, towards earth and the waiting pack.

  Meanwhile, the Plogs (plus the Hand that was still wriggling frantically) had watched Sept disappear around the corner, heard the howling pack in hot pursuit and breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Sounds like we’re safe,’ said Plog, looking tremendously relieved.

  ‘And we’ve got what’s important,’ said Gertrude, patting the Hand roughly like it was a large mouse. ‘Our bestest friend,’ Very slowly, the Hand stuck two fingers up at her. Gertrude Plog who would probably never master the Secret Language of the Magician Pharaohs, even if she had a thousand years to do so, knew what that meant. She grabbed the Hand roughly, squeezing It with surprising force.

  ‘Oh, you are our bestest friend pointing out lovely things to sell,’ she said, with a horrible grin, ‘you just learns that, or you’lls be squished dead.’

  Then the Hand did a strange thing, It stopped wriggling and actually bowed to Gertrude, as It had done to Sept.

  ‘There,’ said Gertrude with a triumphant smile, ‘I knew you learns quick, now which way to get out of here?’

  The Hand pointed down the path where Sept had gone.

  ‘We’re not stupid,’ said Plog, the man who couldn’t even write his own name, ‘that’s where they went.’ The Hand waved a finger for no and pointed again down the path.

  ‘What?’ said Plog, interested, what’s down there?’ He walked gingerly round the corner and saw the deserted barn. ‘What in there?’ he asked, turning back.

  The Hand rubbed two fingers together, the universal sign for money and Plog began to smile.

  ‘Well, this just gets better an’ better. Mistress Plog, I do think we’ll be getting more out of today than just manky pearls.’

  When he was sure the barn was empty, Plog slipped inside, signalling for Gertrude and the Hand to follow.

  Warm air greeted him along with the unmistakable smell of cows and feathers. ‘Well, well,’ he said to his wife, ‘could probably nick a couple of cows, a chicken and a goose or two. A cow would fetch a gold piece to the right buyer at least. We can also stay in here, nice an’ safe till the coast is clear.’

  Gertrude nodded and sat down on a pile of straw. ‘I needs a rest after all that excitings,’ she yawned and closed her eyes, not noticing the Hand, which scampered up one of the high rafters in the barn.

  Now, whilst the Plogs were abusing the Hand and wondering where to hide, Sept was still having his underpants stretched by a large, hungry Warg. Sept, displaying a strength in his fingers he never knew he had, hung on for dear, sweet life. Meanwhile, the Warg, who was also quite surprised at Sept’s tenacity, but mainly pretty hungry, pulled and growled whilst his co-Wargs slunk about in semi-circles and panted at the very thought of hot young meat to chew on in the very near future.

  And the branch was very bendy indeed.

  Sept, who could see what was happening by turning his head, took a quick peek, then closed his eyes tight.

  But, just as his backside reached a height where the other Wargs could make a grab for him, he heard something snap. At first he thought it was the branch but instead of feeling the hot breath of hungry animals, he felt cool wind rushing past his ears and an even cooler wind further down below.

  Very carefully he opened one eye, then both, in surprise and fear. The branch had held, but his underwear had snapped. Bent down as far as it would go, when released, he had been shot upwards again, with even more force this time. So right now he was sailing through the air with no bottoms on.

  Far, far below him he could see several surprised Wargs looking up at him, one of whom was wearing the remains of Sept’s underpants on his head.

  Over the tops of the trees the boy sailed, deep into the woods, until, as he reached the full height of his trajectory, he suddenly lost the almost pleasant sensation of flying and got a whole new (unpleasant) sensation of falling. Down he shot, narrowly missing some sharp branches, just clearing a pile of jagged rocks and straight into a mud-filled bog.

  And this was not the sort of bog that appears after a bit of a storm. No, this was the sort of mud that would still be there even if the sun shone for the whole summer and not a drop of rain fell. It was the sort of mud that you could lose an entire house in, plus a couple of lorries. Bottomless, burping, mushy mud. It was the sort of mud you could count on to be sticky and very smelly.

  However, it was soft, for which Sept was grateful.

  Landing headfirst in something with the consistency of glue and the odour of rotten eggs was a bit of a problem for the few minutes that it took for Sept to clamber out. Having it stick to him like tar was also not nice (although it did help cover up delicate bits of him that were normally covered in trousers). It got into his eyes and ears and for several minutes he was quite deaf and blind.

  When he did eventually get most of the gunk off his face and out of his ears (with a stick), he almost immediately wished he hadn’t. The first thing he heard was the howl of several Wargs and they seemed to be coming for him.

  Sept froze - partly through fear, partly because he wasn’t sure if he had the strength left to run anymore and finally because he was lost and had no idea where he could run to escape these monsters who were entirely built with two purposes in mind: to chase things; and then eat them.

  And he probably would have stayed that way were it not for something very strange that now happened. As he blinked away the last of the mud and he looked about, he saw the same cat form he’d seen in the desert standing not far off under the dark trees. A steady voice, half way between a purr and a growl in his head, said Run. In his mind’s eye he saw the barn he’d seen earlier. There! The voice came again and the feline apparition padded off in the direction of some bushes. Sept got up and followed unsteadily. Almost immediately he came to a rocky track that led from the bog that had been quite hidden until now. The vision, in his mind’s eye, came again of the barn. The baying cries of the Wargs were much closer now, and he probably only had a hundred yards head start. The feline voice came again.

  RUN!!

  Finally, the boy’s frozen muscles sprang back into life. He leapt towards the bushes.

  And not a moment too soon. As he sprinted along the path, the howling got louder and more urgent - it was triumphant - they could smell their prey and knew he’d be within jaw ripping distance very soon. Sept risked a peek behind him and he saw them, beginning to fan out either side of the path, so he could not swerve left or right and escape. Except for the one with an underpant hat, they could see him now and they increased their loping strides to a full run. It was only a matter of a minute or so before they got to him.

  Sept was exhausted but, just as his legs were beginning to give out, he finally saw safety...

  The Plogs watched as the door opened and a dreadful, blackened creature, reeking of swamps and rotten eggs staggered in, its breath rasping in its throat and arms flaying. Gertrude shrank back in terror but the monster seemed not to see her, nor did it see the water trough by the door. Plog watched it fall forward with a splash and was about to run out of the barn, when the door burst open, its hinges splintering. Suddenly the barn was full of hungry Wargs.

  The next few minutes went badly for the Plogs.

  The lead Warg, with Sept’s underpants still wrapped around its huge head, swallowed a goose in one tremendous bite. The rest gobbled up the chickens, Plog’s hat and Gertrude’s handbag with the pearls. However, even Wargs turn their noses up at someone who washed as little as Plog or as noisy as Gertrude, so they amused themselves by chasing them around the barn, raking them with their long claws, nipping their fat legs and generally terrifying the life out of them.

 
The Wargs only left when the cows started to stampede inside the barn. The Plogs then endured several minutes of being squashed and trampled on by sharp hooves, to add to the claw scratches and teeth marks as the Hand watched from above, looking as smug as something without a face can do. When the cows did eventually run out the barn, Plog looked out of bruised blood shot eyes in despair: everything he planned to steal had either been eaten or run away; his clothes were in rags and his skin had already turned black and blue.

  Something made a splashy noise in the water trough.

  Remembering the creature who had led the Wargs to the barn, Plog groaned in fear. ‘Don’t harm me foul beast.’

  ‘Hello Dad,’ said a now clean Sept. ‘I think that went well. You were right after all.’

  Later, Sept was walking back to home with his battered and bruised parents.

  ‘I really didn’t do it on purpose...’ he tried to explain for the hundredth time. How could he have possibly known they had hidden in that shed?

  I told you, them being nice wouldn’t last. You have to leave, signalled the Hand, now back with Sept, riding on his shoulder. You might have been eaten back there.

  Now? signed Sept back.

  Yes, the Hand seemed hopeful, bobbing up and down. But Sept looked at Gertrude hobbling along in pain and shook his head.

  I can’t explain it, but if I go they’ll only get worse and who will stop them? he said eventually. Also, I think they need me...

  You’re kidding, aren’t you? signed the Hand. Remember, you’ve got a time limit, your birthday is just a few months away.

  ... and you won’t even tell me why.

  And that was the end of the conversation, because the Hand had started shaking again, as if terrified. Sept took It gently from his shoulder and placed It in his inside pocket.