The Great Troll War

‘How’s it going?’ asked Feldspar, who had wriggled up behind us.

‘Nothing so far,’ I said. ‘We’ll watch and wait for a bit before we rush to action.’

‘Jolly good,’ said the Dragon. ‘Here’s a cup of tea and a KitKat. You’ll have to share, I’m afraid. Listen, is Colin all right? He seems to be in something of a mood.’

‘He’ll be okay,’ I said.

‘Okay, then,’ said Feldspar, and crawled off back to where Colin was waiting.

‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Tiger as we stared at the knot of forest. There were no Trolls and no sign of life. As we watched, a crow perched on a sword hilt of one of the Hollow Men. The pack of clothes suddenly popped into existence as an empty human-shaped entity and expertly cleaved the crow in half. Then, when it observed no continuing threat, it collapsed back into a folded parcel of clothes.

‘I don’t like Hollow Men very much,’ said Tiger.

‘Me neither,’ I replied.

Then, quite suddenly, several of the trees bent apart and opened on one side of the thicket that was wrapped around the mast. The gap stayed open for about ten seconds, then closed again.

‘It’s venting hot air,’ I said. ‘Make a note of the time.’

Tiger jotted in his notebook and started a stopwatch as I stared at the same spot to see whether it would reopen, and we sat in silence for several minutes.

‘Jenny?’

‘Yes?’

‘The key Zambini sent to you via Molly,’ he said. ‘It was for the glovebox of your VW, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

He paused to see whether I would volunteer more, but when I didn’t he said:

‘And?’

‘Portal’s opening,’ I said as the trees parted again. ‘Time?’

‘Exactly twelve minutes.’

‘Good. Let’s see if it does it again.’

‘Okay. And the glovebox?’ he asked again, as Tiger seldom forgot about a question once he’d asked it. I dug into my jacket pocket and passed him a photograph.

‘There was a spare set of headlamp bulbs,’ I said, ‘a car manual and service history, a bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut that was so old I scarcely knew what it was, and this.’

Tiger stared at the faded black-and-white photograph. It had been taken outside the orphanage where we both grew up. Zambini was standing next to the VW Beetle, holding a baby wrapped in a blanket, the Quarkbeast sitting attentively at his feet. Also in the picture was Mother Zenobia. She had run the orphanage for over half a century, and was a craggy ex-sorceress, who had always been scrupulously fair in the treatment of her charges: we took it in turns to sleep under the hole in the roof. The picture might have an innocent explanation, but it looked for all the world as though Zambini was leaving me at the orphanage.

‘He might have … chanced along at the precise moment you were abandoned,’ said Tiger, who was trying to put a positive spin on this even though it sounded as though he thought the same as I – that both Zambini and Mother Zenobia had known all along who I was.

‘And posed with me, Mother Zenobia, the VW Beetle and the Quarkbeast?’

‘I do confess it seems a little odd,’ said Tiger.

‘It’s more than odd, Tiger. The picture being left in the glovebox with a key delivered from Zambini? He wanted me to see this.’

‘You think Mother Zenobia knew your identity and kept it from you?’ he asked in a shocked tone. ‘She would never do that.’

‘I agree – so if she did it was for a very good reason. And it also suggests I was not assigned to Zambini Towers randomly – and that the Quarkbeast didn’t just chance along.’

‘All this was planned?’

‘If so, it was sixteen years in the making,’ I said, staring at the radio mast, to which the entwining trees clung tightly like some sort of massive beanstalk, ‘but if I want answers I’ll have to find Mother Zenobia and ask her. Perhaps that’s why Zambini revealed it to me now.’

‘Is she still alive?’ he asked. ‘I mean, is anyone from the Lobsterhood still alive?’

‘No idea,’ I replied, then: ‘The portal’s opened up again. Interval?’

‘Twelve minutes.’

‘Good. Let’s talk to the Dragons.’

I replaced the photo in my pocket and we picked our way back across the boulders to where the Dragons were waiting. They had eaten their sandwiches, our sandwiches, most of the biscuits and were now playing mah-jong while sipping tea from large tin mugs.

‘Pong,’ said Colin, staring at his tiles. ‘No, wait, Chow. I always get that confused. What news?’

‘The HENRY is a thick knot of beech, mixed with bramble,’ I said. ‘It’s impenetrable, but every twelve minutes the tree trunks part to vent out hot air. They stay open for ten seconds, then close.’

‘Okay,’ said Colin, ‘so one of us flies in there, drops the jars off at the core and comes back out, then we check on them every twelve minutes until they are full, right?’

‘It’s a good plan,’ said Feldspar, ‘but doomed to failure. That HENRY has got “trap” stamped all over it in big letters. Shandar is expecting you to come, expecting you to enter. When that closes with you and me inside, we’re not coming back out until Shandar’s plans have come to fruition. This is playing right into his hands.’

‘You have a better plan?’ I asked.

‘Do you trust me?’