Barkbelly Page 4

  “He's going!”

  The boar smashed through the poles, lowered his head and charged. Oof! A long black snout slammed into Barkbelly's backside and tossed him into the air, out of the pen, over the men and into a pile of doings.

  “Mud and moonbeams!” cried Farmer Muckledown, pulling him to his feet. “I thought we'd lost you! Have you broken anything?”

  “Er—no,” said Barkbelly. “There's nothing to break. I feel a bit woozy, though.”

  “Aye, you will. That was a belter of a blow. I don't know how you're still standing. Well done, m'lad. Well done! And well done, the rest of you too. Pot—get that kettle on! Shoe? Be a good lad and run to the kitchen. Ask Missus Muckledown for a carrot cake, eh?”

  The farmer threw his arm round Barkbelly's shoulders and beamed at him. “I reckon we've all earned a piece.”

  And with a mopping of brows and a shaking of hands, the men swaggered to the canteen with Barkbelly counted among them.

  “Will he be all right?” asked Barkbelly. He licked his finger and dabbed at the cake crumbs on his empty plate.

  “Course he will,” said Saddle Yates from the next chair. “He's a strong lad, is Brick Pullman. He'll be fine when the blisters heal.”

  “Blisters?”

  “Oh, aye,” said Weasel Watkins, standing by the window. “That was no ordinary urchin back there, you know. He's a Black-Backed Highland Hunting Hog. Very dangerous. Those spikes of his are poisonous—if they prick flesh, they cause blisters. Giant, pus-filled blisters.”

  “And they smell,” chipped in Shoe Mercer, who had fetched the cake.

  “Aye, they smell. The doctor has to clean them before they burst. First he pricks them with a long, long pin”—he held up his hands to show Barkbelly just how long he meant—“then he squeezes them and out comes this stuff…. Oh, you would not believe the smell. It could turn up the toes on a dead man.”

  “Do you have to go to the doctor?” asked Barkbelly, fascinated.

  “No,” said Saddle. “You don't have to go to him. But if you don't, the blisters burst anyway and they make a terrible mess.”

  “Once there was a man here called Hammer Rowland,” said Nail Adams, a gnomish man sitting on an upturned barrel. “He was blistered. Said he didn't want the doctor. And when they burst, the mess was so bad that they had to burn the bed.”

  “And the carpet.”

  “And the curtains.”

  “And the wallpaper. The pus splattered everywhere and it… soaked in.” Nail scrunched up his nose in disgust. “The smell was awful. They just couldn't get rid of it.”

  “Time to get back to work, lads!” boomed Farmer Muckledown, coming into the canteen. “Barkbelly, I want you to carry on with Blister.”

  “Blister?” said Barkbelly. “You don't mean…”

  “I do! That big boar we've just been wrestling with. Blister, he's called. S'pose the men told you why?” His eyes were twinkling. Barkbelly suddenly thought of Fish and his wicked teasing.

  He relaxed. “Were they pulling my leg?”

  “Oh, no! They were telling the truth!” Farmer Muckledown grinned. “That old boar can cause grievous damage, make no mistake. But not to you, boy! Not to you! You're wooden, see?” And he rapped his knuckles against Barkbelly's arm.

  “But he's vicious!” wailed Barkbelly in a panic. “He attacked Brick Pullman.”

  But the farmer wasn't listening. He marched Barkbelly back into the extraction shed, despite his frenzied pleading.

  “Listen,” he said when they reached the boar's pen. “He's calmed down now. You go in there, I'll switch on the machine and you just move this nozzle all over his body. See?”

  Barkbelly saw that Farmer Muckledown was holding a long tube with a copper funnel at one end and a flat leather bag at the other. He had no idea how it worked.

  “Ready? In you go,” said the farmer, and he opened the gate and pushed Barkbelly forward. Then he handed him the funnel end of the strange contraption, bent down, flicked a switch somewhere and—wooooofff!—the leather bag inflated like bagpipes as wind rushed through. When Barkbelly put his fingers over the top of the funnel, he could feel the suction at work.

  At the sound of the machine, the great urchin opened a dark eye and scanned the pen. He had been dozing in the shadows, grunting musically to himself, but now it seemed he was being disturbed again.

  He peered at the intruder. He sniffed the air. Wood? This was something new. He heaved himself onto his feet slowly, heavily. The spines along his back mountained into a black ridge. He sniffed again and shifted his great bristly bulk, steadying himself. He waited for the wooden one to move.

  And Barkbelly did move, but very, very slowly. He inched his way forward, not even lifting his feet. He just slid them toward the terrible Blister, hoping the urchin wouldn't notice. As he drew closer, his hand started to shake. The long tube felt slippery in his grip. He was going to drop it. He curled his fingers tighter and started to stretch out his arm. Closer, closer… the funnel was almost touching the beast's flank. Closer… closer… contact! He felt the funnel seal tight against the boar's hide; the suction took hold. Any second now, Blister would feel the pain as his spikes were ripped out. The screams would begin. Barkbelly closed his eyes and braced himself for the attack.

  But then a curious thing happened. Barkbelly heard a giggle. A high-pitched, girly sort of giggle. A bit like Candy Pie's. Surely she wasn't here to see this!

  His eyes snapped open in horror at the thought. But it wasn't Candy. It was the urchin. The terrifying, ferocious Blister was giggling as the funnel sucked. Barkbelly saw the bristles were being pulled out at the root—where the funnel had been there was nothing but a line of smooth, tawny skin.

  But Blister wasn't feeling any pain. He felt he was being tickled all over. Within seconds, his giggle had turned into a warm, throaty hum.

  Barkbelly found he was smiling. He couldn't help it. And when the great beast flopped down onto his side and started kicking his legs in the air, he laughed out loud, though whether in pleasure or relief he didn't know.

  “He likes it!” he cried over his shoulder to Farmer Muckledown. “He really likes it!”

  “Of course he does!” shouted the farmer over the wheezing of the extraction machine. “They all do!”

  Too soon it was over. The farmer switched off the machine. Barkbelly climbed out of the pen and saw that the leather bag was bulging with spikes. Blister, on the other hand, was completely bald. The huge, naked dome of his body shone even in the dull gloom of the shed, but he was rolling around in the dirt quite happily, coating himself in dust and muck.

  “I can't believe it!” said Barkbelly. “I can't believe it was that easy. I thought it was going to hurt him. I thought he would attack me.”

  “No! Not old Blister. He's soft as snow most of the time.”

  “But he attacked Brick Pullman!”

  “Aye, he did,” agreed the farmer. “But that had nothing to do with the spike extraction. Listen. Urchins love having their prickles out. These aren't ordinary wild urchins we've got here, you know! They're specially bred. Every summer they shed their spines, soon as it gets hot. We could leave them to get on with it naturally, like, but they would shed them one at a time, all over the place. We'd have to spend hours collecting them and sorting them. This way, with the machine, we get them all out in one go and they just need bundling together. And, as you can see, the urchins feel a whole lot better without them. It's cooler for them, and they can get rid of their fleas and ticks. And urchins have a ton of those, believe me! And with the spikes out of the way, they can roll in the dust and that seems to kill the little blighters. That's what he's doing now, ain't you, boy?”

  “But Brick Pullman…,” Barkbelly persisted.

  “Brick Pullman is a great hulking lump of a lad. Good- hearted, mind, but clumsy. So, in he goes with his big fat feet, in his heavy boots, not looking—and he stands on Blister's foot. Well, Blister turned on him. I think that's fair
enough. I wouldn't like it if Brick Pullman stomped on my foot, would you?”

  Barkbelly leaned on the bars of the pen and gazed at the great boar. It rolled and grunted like a baby with its diaper off. “No,” he said with a smile. “I wouldn't like it either.”

  Chapter 9

  arkbelly adored his job. He loved walking to the farm through the morning mist. He loved walking home along lanes heavy with pollen and humming with bees. He loved the urchins, and Farmer Muckledown kept his word: Barkbelly was never sent to clean the sheds. Most days he worked on Spike Extraction and Grading. All the spikes had to be inspected, sorted, bundled and tied after extraction, and with his wooden fingers, Barkbelly could do this in a fraction of the time it took the others.

  In his spare moments, he liked to inspect the prize hogs. The Urchin Cup was approaching and everyone wanted Farmer Muckledown to win it again. His best hope this year was Bramble, the sad-eyed sow. She was a Golden-Spiked Far Forest Hog—a rare, ancient breed from the Northern Wilderness. Mostly her spikes were black, but nestling between her ears were a handful of short golden ones. They were gorgeous. But what were they used for? Barkbelly knew that every spike had a particular use on Muckledown Farm but he couldn't remember seeing anything golden in the display cabinets.

  When the time came to extract Bramble's spikes, she purred like a cat and tilted her head so he could get every last prickle. Then she rolled happily in the dirt while he went to the sorting shed to empty the extractor bag. But when he opened the bag, all the spikes were black. The golden ones were missing.

  Barkbelly was horrified. Those were surely the most precious spikes of any urchin and he had lost them! Farmer Muckledown would be furious.

  He ran back to the extraction shed to examine Bramble. The spikes had been pulled, no doubt about that. The skin between her ears was quite smooth. The spikes must have gone into the bag. They couldn't go anywhere else.

  Barkbelly went back to the sorting table and frantically turned the bag inside out. But the spikes weren't there. They had gone. What if Farmer Muckledown thought he had stolen them? It was too horrible to think about.

  Just then, Barkbelly felt a hand on his shoulder. Farmer Muckledown! No. Pot Williamson, the oldest worker on the farm. He was a kindly man who seemed to do nothing but smoke his pipe and drink tea, but Barkbelly knew the other men revered him. Pot had worked with urchins for seventy years (“Bred 'em, fed 'em and wed 'em,” according to his wife, Plum). What he didn't know about urchins wasn't worth knowing.

  “Made you jump, did I, boy?” laughed the old man. “Got something to hide?”

  “Oh, Mister Williamson, sir, something terrible's happened!” wailed Barkbelly. “I've lost Bramble's golden spikes! I know I extracted them. I know I did. But they're not in the bag. I've lost them!” Barkbelly held his head in his hands and trembled with the worry of it all.

  Pot smiled. “You can't lose what you never had,” he said.

  “But I did have them!” cried Barkbelly. “They were in this bag!”

  “Oh, no, they weren't,” chuckled the old man. “And I'll tell you why. They never left her head.”

  Barkbelly stared at him, struggling to make sense of what he had just heard.

  “Those spikes are still there,” said Pot. “Deep inside Bramble's head. She pulled them in as soon as you started extracting. Pulled them in, like little snails going back into their shells. I know it's true—I've seen her do it myself. And when the rest of her spikes start growing back, well, those golden ones will grow right alongside them.”

  Barkbelly was speechless. If it weren't for the fact that the golden spikes had disappeared into thin air, he never would have believed it.

  “Has no one ever managed to extract the golden spikes?” he asked.

  “Not on this farm,” said Pot, filling his pipe. “But I did hear tell of a young chap over at Westmeadow some years ago. Seems he gave a Golden-Spike a sleeping potion of some kind, and when she was asleep, he pulled one out with a pair of pliers. Well, she didn't stay asleep for long! She woke up in a real fury and bit him in the leg, right through to the bone. And it was a strange wound. Wouldn't heal. The whole leg went black within days and had to be cut off.”

  “But he got the spike out?” Barkbelly persisted.

  “Yes, but …” The old man paused, savoring the moment. “The spike didn't last more than a couple of minutes. It turned to dust and blew away on the wind.”

  “Is that a true story?”

  “Yes,” said the old man. “It is! And if you go to the Urchin Show this year, you'll probably see that young fella there. Rope Daniels, he's called. Course, he's not so young now, but he's still got the leg missing. You ask him, if you don't believe me.”

  “Oh, it's not that I don't believe you,” said Barkbelly hurriedly. “It's just so strange. If the spikes can't be pulled out, do the urchins ever shed them?”

  “Well, I've never found one,” said the old man. “But that doesn't mean they don't. Perhaps they turn to dust even when they're shed. But there's something special about those golden spikes. Way up north, in the Far Forest, there are caves. Explorers found them years ago. And they do say that a whole race of people lived in those caves once, but who they were no one knows. Anyway, the walls of those caves are covered in paintings, and I did hear that one of them shows an urchin just like our Bramble. And she's holding a golden spike in her mouth, as if she's planning to do something with it. Strange, eh? So perhaps the golden spikes can be shed at will. Instead of pulling them in, they just push them out for some special reason. And those spikes don't turn to dust. At least, not straightaway.”

  The old man cracked his knuckles. “So don't worry! You've done nothing wrong! Tell you what. I'll help you bundle these spikes and then we'll take Bramble over to the copse. And we won't hurry back.”

  Barkbelly gathered the first bundle while Pot fetched the string. What curious things these spikes were! With their sleek black shafts and amber tips, they looked like wizards' wands. But the power of a wizard was nothing compared to this pure, primal power. Bramble was a young animal, but her spikes held ancestral knowledge. Ancient secrets passed down through the generations, from urchin to urchin. Just touching them, Barkbelly could feel their potency.

  “Pot,” he said, “what are these black spikes used for?”

  “Furniture, mostly. High-quality stuff. Nothing we could afford. Chair seats, mainly.”

  Barkbelly gasped. That such beautiful, magical things should be flattened by fat backsides in posh houses… What an ignorant world it was.

  Chapter 10

  ummer was nearly over. Barkbelly could hardly believe it, but when he looked at Bramble, there was the proof. Her spikes had regrown, as long and as lustrous as ever. And now, with the Urchin Show just one week away, Farmer Muckledown had given him the task of preparing Bramble for showing. Every day, he had to inspect her for fleas and ticks. Bramble enjoyed the attention. She would nuzzle him and sniff at his pockets for the mushrooms he brought her. But although she was friendly and clearly pleased to see him, Bramble never lost the sadness in her eyes, and Barkbelly couldn't help feeling she belonged in a forest, not a sty, no matter how well cared for she was.

  One morning, Barkbelly was walking to work through the woods when he heard something heavy moving in the under- growth. Entire bushes were shaking as it brushed by, snuffling and wheezing. Suddenly it stopped behind a mound of tangled briar.

  Barkbelly crouched down, crept closer and peered through the greenery. It was Bramble! She had escaped! But how? Last night, he had locked her into her sty. He clearly remembered checking that the bolt was secure. So how… But looking again, he saw that this urchin was bigger, and its spikes were smoky gray instead of shadow black. And when the urchin turned and stared at him with hostile eyes, he knew this was an altogether wilder creature. A creature of wood and forest, mountain and stream.

  Barkbelly froze, not daring to turn his back on the huge urchin in case it decided to cha
rge. He wasn't worried for himself—he was indestructible!—but the urchin was strong, and if instinct took over…He didn't want to hurt the urchin. So he walked away backward, with his eyes downcast, until he regained the path. Then he turned and walked on, wondering whether to tell Farmer Muckledown. He would definitely be interested—Golden-Spiked Far Forest Hogs were rare, after all—but he would almost certainly want to capture it. Barkbelly couldn't bear that. He would keep his news secret.

  That afternoon, Barkbelly was given the job of polishing all the medals, cups and trophies that Farmer Muckledown had won over the years at the Urchin Show. The farmer was planning to display them on his trade stand, so they had to shine. To Barkbelly's delight, he found that Pot was working alongside him. The old man talked for nearly an hour about past winners and losers at the show. Then he mentioned Bramble and started considering her chances.

  Barkbelly seized his opportunity.

  “Where did Bramble come from?” he asked. “Was she captured in Ferny Wood?”

  “No, lad!” laughed Pot. “They don't live round here! All the big hogs—Golden-Spiked Far Forests, Black-Backed Highlands, Silver Ridgebacks, Mountain Bristlers, Coastal Long Snouts and what have you—they all come from the Northern Wilderness. And that's a wild, unknowable place! The forests there are home to many a strange beast. Thumping great rabbits with feet like fence posts. Vicious great squirrels with teeth that'll take your hand off! You know the harness rats? They came from there originally. For some reason, animals in the Northern Wilderness grow to a massive size. Not all of them, mind. I believe the insects are pretty normal. It's mostly the furry ones. But what was I saying before I started on that?”

  “I asked you where Bramble came from.”

  “So you did!” said Pot. “You asked me if she was caught in Ferny Wood. And no, she wasn't. She was bred right here on the farm.” He spat on a medal and polished hard.

  “So Farmer Muckledown used to have other Golden- Spikes?”