The Cockatrice Boys by Joan Aiken Read Free Book Online

before the monsters came.
    â€œWe used to go to Broadstairs for the summer. You ever been to the seaside, Dakin?” He shook his head. “Eh, poor little feller, fancy that! Deary me! Sometimes I wonder what we ever done to deserve having these monsters sent here.”
    â€œYour reckon they was sent, Mrs. Churt?”
    â€œOh, they were sent all right. I did hear, in the old days, factories used to dump all their rubbish in a quarry or out to sea; or, later on, up in the high sky, where they reckoned it’d blow away. Maybe somebody did the same thing with this little lot; just dumped them on us like kittens in a rain barrel. Or, maybe it was done out of spite; somebody had it in for us.”
    Corporal Bigtoe and a couple of privates came in asking if there was any chance of a hot drink. While Mrs. Churt served them, Dakin pondered over what she had suggested.
    Could somebody have wanted to get rid of the monsters and just thought this was the best place to tip them?
    Maybe there was something in what Mrs. Churt had said.
    *   *   *
    On the eighteenth day of travel they approached the outskirts of Manchester. Progress had been extremely slow for the last forty-eight hours. Several bridges had needed a lot of repair; and two of the men engaged on this work had been lost: Private Goodwillie was carried off by a Manticore, while Private Skulk had the misfortune to look at a Basilisk and of course died instantly.
    â€œDidn’t keep his Snark glasses properly greased,” grumbled Sergeant Bellswinger.
    â€œSnark glasses won’t help, not against a Basilisk,” said Corporal Enticknap. “In fact, if you ask me, Snark glasses aren’t much good at all. What we need is a Snark mask, like what Driver Catchpole got issued.”
    â€œIf you know so much, why don’t you go to the colonel and say so?”
    â€œI’ve a good mind to do just that.”
    â€œYou go billocking to the colonel, I’ll put you on wind-vane duty,” growled the sergeant.
    Wind-vane duty was very risky. It meant crawling along the top of the train, often through driving snow, clearing out the vanes, which soon became choked with dust when the train was in motion, and wiping the stellar energy panels. The worst danger was from Flying Hammerheads, but also the train rolled from side to side as it travelled, so there was a fair chance of being flung off.
    Enticknap scowled, but remained silent. But when Dakin took in the colonel’s beautifully polished boots next morning, the latter demanded, “What’s all this about Snark masks?”
    â€œThey’re saying as how the men ought to be issued with them, sir.”
    â€œDo you know how much a Snark mask costs, boy?” rapped the colonel.
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œLord Ealing told me I was only to use them in the last resort.”
    â€œWhere would the last resort be, sir?”
    â€œOh, go away!”
    â€œSir,” said Dakin.
    â€œWell? Now what?”
    â€œSir, I never get a chance to play my drum. Ser’nt Bellswinger won’t let me. He says it makes too much finical row, that it would rouse up all the finical monsters between here and Gretna Green. Sir, when can I play it?”
    â€œDon’t you worry,” said the colonel, rolling over under the velvet bedspread to help himself to another cup of tea. “You’ll get to play it soon enough.”
    At that moment both Dakin and Colonel Clipspeak were greatly astonished to hear a voice apparently coming out of the colonel’s early-morning teakettle. It said, “Hey, we gotta bloke here wants to get to Hempfields. What’s it like out that way?”
    â€œNo go,” said another voice. “It’s a regular breeding ground for Snarks. Tell ’im, if ’e goes, it’s at ’is own risk. The corporation won’t admit liability.”
    â€œOK, I’ll tell him that.”
    â€œYou got Snarks your way