Doomwyte by Brian Jacques Read Free Book Online Page B

“Either Prince Gonff was an awful speller, or I’ve missed somethin’ on this first line.”
    Dwink enquired, “Why so?”
    Bisky tapped the page. “Look here, ‘The bird has no buries,’ surely that’s not right. If a bird had no berries to eat, that would be spelled like berries , the sort that grow on trees. But the way it’s written here, that’s like somebeast having to dig a grave. He buries the body, see what I mean?”
    Corksnout nodded. “Yore right, young un, so why’s it spelled like that, eh?”
    Samolus ventured, “It could be an anagram.”
    Gullub suddenly began waving the piece of scroll parchment that he had been reading. “Hoourr! Nannygrammer! Et sez yurr ee Gonffen cudd make nannygrammers!”
    Umfry scratched his headspikes. “Wot’s a nannygrammer?”
    The Abbot explained. “The correct name is an anagram. If you split the letters of a word apart, and put them back together so they spell a different word, that’s an anagram. Maybe the word buries means something else.”
    Dwink took a charcoal stick and began using the barrelhead as a writing board. “Er, how do I split buries up?”
    Samolus made a suggestion. “The best way to write it is to form the letters in a circle, like this.”
    They looked at it. Bisky shook his head. “Still looks pretty much mixed up, I can’t see a new word.”
    The Abbot’s eyes were twinkling. “Look closer, Bisky, think what we are searching for.”

    Dwink took a guess. “The eyes that Prince Gonff stole?”
    Corksnout shouted out the solution. “Rubies, it’s rubies!”
    It was Bisky’s turn to snort at the big Cellarhog. “Well, thanks for shouting it out, I almost had it before you started yelling. Rubies, eh.”
    Corksnout shuffled his huge footpaws. “Sorry, I got excited. Go on, you can have the next one.”
    Dwink looked baffled. “Wot next one?”
    Samolus whispered in his ear, “I’d guess it’d be ‘red meals.’”
    Dwink murmured out of the side of his mouth, “Why d’you guess that?”
    Bisky had been eavesdropping; he grinned from ear to ear. “Ha ha, I know wot ’tis without puttin’ the letters in any circles. It’s emeralds!”
    The Abbot’s expression was one of complete surprise. “Great seasons, how did you guess that so quickly?”
    The young mouse winked broadly. “It just suddenly came to me, Father. Rubies was the first one. We’re looking for red stones and green stones, two of each. So I thought, rubies are red, what jewels are green? I looked at the words red meals , and it sprang out at me. Emeralds!”
    Corksnout rubbed his big paws together in a businesslike manner. “C’mon, c’mon, wot’s next, mates?”
    Samolus read the next line out. “‘Two bruise and two mere lads, where are the nests O?’ Give me that charcoal and I’ll write it down. I think ‘two bruise’ first, eh, Father?”
    Abbot Glisam looked secretly pleased. “Don’t write ‘two bruise,’ just ‘bruise’ on its own. In fact I’ve got it, no need to write it down—”
    Dwink sprang up. “Bruise, buries, same letters. It’s rubies again.”
    Bisky chuckled. “So it is. Two rubies and two mere lads. Hah, mere lads. Sounds like an anagram of red meals. Emeralds! Two rubies and two emeralds. What’s the rest? ‘Where are the nests O?’”
    Corksnout puffed out his chest, declaring, “That ole Prince Gonff wasn’t so smart, tryin’ to baffle brains like ours. Huh, rubies an’ emeralds are jewels, they’re precious. ‘Nests O!’ My grannie’s spikes, that’s stones, precious stones!”
    Gullub Gurrpaw left off reading the mole scrolls and took his friend severely to task. “Oi wishes ee’d stop a-showtin’ owt ee arnswers an’ give they’m young uns a charnce, zurr. They’m’ll lurn nawthen iffen ee doan’t give ’em no h’oppertunery!”
    Corksnout was mortified. He sniffed so hard that he unseated his false nose, almost swallowing it. Stalking off down the cellar floor, he called huffily, “I