Wed Wabbit Page 11

  And then the phone rang.

  Even as Fidge thumped the button, she could see that the Blues had stopped dead and were looking up at her.

  Minnie’s voice wailed out of the speaker. ‘I want my Wed Wabbit, please, Fidge, bwing me Wed Wabbit!’

  The Blues were already sprinting to the rollercoaster, and within seconds the two fastest had vaulted the barrier and started climbing up the track, blocking any chance of escape.

  Minnie was really sobbing now, her voice weak and wild. Fidge could hear her mother anxiously calling for a nurse.

  ‘I’ll get him for you, Minnie, I promise,’ said Fidge. ‘I promise.’ She peered over the side of the car and saw the Pink standing on the ground below. It was staring drearily into space, oblivious to all the noise.

  ‘Turn it on!’ She shouted. ‘Turn on the rollercoaster! Didn’t you say it goes right back to town?’

  The Pink gaped up at her.

  ‘I ought to go and tidy my shed,’ it said.

  ‘Please,’ shouted Fidge, with desperation.

  The Blues were halfway up the track and she could hear their angry shouts.

  ‘Oh please. This is so tiny compared to all the huge, brave things you’ve done already. Just go and press the ON button. And then you can tidy your shed!’

  Slowly, the Pink nodded. Slowly, it turned and disappeared into the operating booth of the rollercoaster.

  The Blues were nearly at the last car now.

  ‘Fidge!’ Called Minnie. ‘Fidge!!’

  ‘What is it, Minnie?’

  The car jerked forward with a ratcheting sound. There was a shout of frustration from the Blues.

  ‘It’s weally, weally, weally important. When you find Wed Wabbit, you’ve got to give him—’

  The car gave a lurch and with a noise like a million marbles being tipped down a staircase, it roared down the slope.

  ‘What?’ shouted Fidge, clinging on with one hand, her other arm flung across the phone to act as a seatbelt. ‘Give him what?’

  But the drop was too steep. Minnie’s mobile tipped forward over her arm, and fell through the air, its lights still twinkling. It turned an elegant somersault, hit the ground and smashed into a thousand pieces.

  Fidge yelled – a yell of rage, of frustration, of misery – and she went on yelling, the fairground blurring beneath her. The car climbed and twisted and then dropped again, throwing her through one corkscrew turn after another, the sky and the ground changing places, her stomach dancing around somewhere near her neck. And then she was the right way up again, and the track had become a long, gently sloping descent that curved lazily around a sports field and an outdoor swimming pool, and juddered to a halt at the end of a street of striped and spotted houses on the outskirts of Wimbley Town.

  Fidge climbed out on shaky legs. A curtain twitched in one of the houses and she glimpsed a Yellow Wimbley looking fearfully out at her. Two Oranges were sitting on a nearby garden wall, and as she wavered across to them, still dizzy after the journey, they nudged each other and dissolved into the usual giggles.

  ‘Which way’s the library?’ She asked, too tired for politeness.

  The giggles continued.

  ‘If you don’t tell me where it is,’ said Fidge, wearily, ‘then I’ll just have to show you the graze on my elbow.’ She began to roll up her sleeve. Instantly, both Oranges stopped laughing and pointed left.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, and trudged off, yawning.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Fidge woke, and for a moment – a wonderful moment – she thought she was in her own bed. And then came a squeak of wheels and she opened her eyes to see Dr Carrot rolling across Wimbley Library towards her, accompanied by Graham.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Graham, glumly. ‘There’s a roof terrace upstairs and this morning, after you told us about all the colour disappearing, we went up and looked and we couldn’t see anything, but we’ve just been up again and this time it’s visible. A thick white line all along the horizon. So whatever it is, it’s getting closer.’

  Fidge sat up, blinking. ‘How long have I been asleep then?’ She asked.

  ‘Hours and hours. It’s nearly sunset.’

  She rubbed her eyes and stretched. When she’d arrived at the library she’d been so tired that after a couple of sentences of explanation she’d noticed a pile of beanbags in the corner and had found herself going over there just to have a little sit down. The next second, she’d been fast asleep, and now another whole day had disappeared.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Ella, noticing that she was awake. ‘Toast?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Come and have a look at what we’ve been doing,’ said Graham, pointing to the whiteboard. ‘There’s just one word missing.’

  Fidge picked up the pen and wrote Squeamish in the blank space beside ORANGE.

  The others looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘they’re terrified by the sight of blood.’ She looked again at the prophecy written at the top of the board. ‘Isn’t there a bit missing from the end of that? Wasn’t there a line about doing something difficult?’

  Ella nodded, and took the scroll from her skirt pocket. ‘It says:

  And finally, just one of you

  Must find the hardest thing to do

  And when it’s done – and only then –

  You’ll find your way back home again.’

  ‘The hardest thing?’ repeated Graham. ‘Well, what’s that? Climbing Everest? Working out the diameter of the sun?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on the person,’ said Fidge. ‘What’s hard for one person might be easy for another.’

  ‘A good observation,’ commented Dr Carrot.

  ‘Well, let’s not bother with that until we’ve worked out everything else,’ said Graham. He looked at Fidge. ‘You did manage to find the phone, didn’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And did you speak to dear Minnie?’ asked Ella.

  Fidge nodded again, more reluctantly this time.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Well, she’s quite upset, she wants Wed Wabbit back. She’s missing him really badly.’

  ‘But she gave you some answers, didn’t she?’ asked Graham.

  Fidge hesitated as the memory of her useless conversation came sliding back, and when she spoke, it was in a mumble. ‘I asked her what to do about Wed Wabbit.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She said … she said we should have a little word with him.’

  ‘WHAT?’ Shouted Graham.

  ‘That’s the phrase our mum always uses when she’s going to tell someone off. And I asked how we could fight the Blues. And Minnie said that she didn’t like fighting, she liked playing games. And then I asked her how we could get back home again. And she said …’ Fidge swallowed. ‘She said we should get the bus. And she told me that when we found Wed Wabbit, we had to give him something.’

  ‘Give him what?’ demanded Graham.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s when the phone broke.’

  There was a pause, and then Graham lay down full-length on the floor.

  ‘Could I enquire what you are doing?’ asked Dr Carrot.

  ‘I’m going to lie here until either somebody rescues me or I die. Whichever comes first.’

  ‘Minnie’s only four,’ said Fidge, defensively. ‘And she’s not well. She didn’t really understand the situation.’

  ‘Well maybe that’s because you didn’t explain it properly.’

  ‘Yes I did! I suppose you think you could have done better, like you do about everything.’

  ‘I can’t help being intelligent. I’m not going to apologize for it.’

  ‘What would you have asked Minnie, then?’

  ‘I’d have asked her to suggest a strategy.’

  ‘Have you ever met a four year old?’

  ‘I imagine that they’re not very different from you.’

  ‘Says the person who’s lying on the floor
having a tantrum!’

  A loud chinking sound cut through the shouting and Fidge turned to see Ella hitting a teacup with a spoon.

  ‘Now, darlings, let’s not argue,’ she said. ‘Especially when you’re both right.’

  ‘Huh?’ Said Graham and Fidge, simultaneously.

  ‘Graham’s correct in that we need a strategy, but Fidge’s wonderful questions have provided us with exactly that.’

  Fidge and Graham exchanged a baffled glance.

  ‘It’s all in the interpretation,’ said Dr Carrot. ‘We are clearly required to have a serious discussion with Wed Wabbit, but if we go anywhere near him, we’ll be arrested by his Guards. We can’t fight the Blues – they’re too strong and too numerous – so instead we need to use Minnie’s suggestion to distract them from their job.’

  ‘What, you mean we should play games with the Blues?’ asked Fidge, uncertainly. ‘What sort of games?’

  ‘Team games,’ suggested Ella. ‘After all, the prophecy tells us to “team new weaknesses and skills”.’

  ‘Team games with sweets as prizes,’ added Graham. ‘We know Blues are greedy. We could use that greediness to lure them away from the castle.’

  ‘But we can’t get any sweets,’ said Fidge. ‘They’re all locked away in the Rewards Room.’

  ‘True,’ said Dr Carrot.

  There was a long, long pause while they all thought about it. Ella flapped her ears, Graham looked at the floor, Fidge looked at the ceiling, Dr Carrot did some squeaky, on-the-spot manouevres. And then the Oldest and Wisest of the Greys cleared its throat.

  ‘Since “thinking” is the thing Greys do,

  My thoughts have raced ahead of you

  And worked out that we can’t begin

  If we’ve no sweets for those who win.’

  ‘Genius,’ said Graham, sarcastically.

  ‘Unless,’ continued the Grey, ignoring him,

  ‘we can detain the Blues

  By making sure they always lose.’

  ‘Genius!’ said Graham, again, but this time his tone was quite different, and his expression – usually a cross between irritation and misery – was suddenly alight, as if there were fireworks going off behind his eyes. ‘Don’t you get it?’ He asked the others, crossing rapidly over to the whiteboard. ‘We’ve worked out all the different words for Wimblies so what we need now are team games that make use of those different words. So, for instance, Yellows are really fit, so if they competed against the Blues in a cycling race, then the Yellows would be certain to win.’

  Fidge stared at him, open mouthed, hope stirring inside her.

  ‘Oh, but that’s marvellous!’ exclaimed Ella. ‘And the Purples are theatrical so they could challenge the Blues to charades!’

  ‘And Pinks are brave,’ said Fidge, ‘so they’d be good at something like dares. And Greys float, so they could have a swimming contest. We’d have to get them off the train first, of course …’

  ‘They’re only stuck on it because none of them can operate the brake – not because it’s jammed or anything, but because they can only “think” not “do”,’ said Graham. ‘We were told all about it earlier. In incredible detail.’ He flicked his eyes towards the Grey, and mouthed the words ‘two hour lecture’ at Fidge.

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘well, maybe if we—’

  ‘Blues!’ called Dr Carrot, sharply. ‘I can hear them talking.’

  In the momentary hush, they could hear the harsh, deep gurgling tones of the guards coming from just outside.

  ‘I thought they never went near the library,’ whispered Fidge, and then she heard the outer door opening. There was no time to run, or hide. The five of them stood frozen as a troop of Blues marched in.

  Except, they didn’t march, they drifted, slowly and aimlessly.

  And they weren’t blue, they were only blueish, the colour of an early morning sky. The only things that hadn’t faded were their sashes which looked, if anything, a darker, nastier red than before.

  One of the guards wandered up to Fidge. She took an instinctive step back.

  ‘Do you have a book about different types of shoe polish?’ It asked.

  Fidge shook her head, her eyes sliding towards the other four guards. One of them had picked up a leaflet on careers in banking, while another was staring at the floor.

  ‘That carpet needs a bit of a Hoover,’ it said, dully.

  ‘I think this must be the patrol I saw at the fairground,’ muttered Fidge. ‘The same thing’s happened to them, as happened to the Pink.’ And she wondered, with a tweak of sadness, whether her companion was still standing next to the big wheel, or whether it had found a shed to tidy.

  ‘They’ve stopped rhyming,’ said Graham.

  ‘They’ve stopped living,’ added Ella.

  ‘It nearly happened to me too,’ said Fidge. ‘I felt as if I was stuck in concrete and all I could think about was boring things like bank accounts. If I’d stayed at the border any longer, I think I’d have ended up like them.’

  ‘But that border’s getting closer all the time!’ said Graham. ‘If it catches up with us we might as well be dead. And even if we manage to have a word with Wed Wabbit, how’s that going to stop all the colour disappearing?’

  ‘Because it’s Wed Wabbit who’s making the colours disappear,’ said Fidge. ‘He’s like a giant sponge, soaking it all up – it’s just like the Purple said.’

  ‘When rage soaks up the joy and fun and colour out of everyone,’ said Ella. ‘Yes, Fidge is right. We have to talk to him and stop him.’

  ‘Fast,’ added Graham. ‘Really, really fast.’

  ‘Then we need to come up with a detailed plan,’ said Dr Carrot. ‘And we have to explain that plan to every non-Blue Wimbley in the country. We must have a public meeting.’

  ‘But won’t the Blues come and break it up?’

  The Grey raised a hand.

  ‘Please, darling,’ said Ella, ‘in the rather urgent circumstances, can you make an extra special effort to be brief?’

  The Grey closed its eyes and appeared to think hard.

  ‘There are no Blue patrols at night,’ it said, with an effort.

  ‘They’re in the castle, locked up tight.’

  ‘You see!’ exclaimed Ella. ‘That was terribly impressive and helpful. And where would you suggest we hold an extremely large after-dark meeting? In that fabulously short way you’ve just discovered.’

  The Grey appeared to blush slightly.

  ‘There’s room for all

  In our Town Hall.’

  ‘Urk,’ it added, as Ella enfolded it in a huge, congratulatory hug.

  ‘We know what to do,’ said Dr Carrot. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was after midnight, and all over Wimbley Land, scurrying figures were whispering beneath hedgerows, cycling silently through the darkness, knocking softly on doors, and waiting for clouds to ease across the moon, before darting through the deep-shadowed lanes.

  Apart from the Greens, who were bellowing to everyone within a half-mile radius about the exact time and location of the meeting, and the Oranges, who were running in circles, shrieking with excitement.

  For more than an hour, a river of Wimblies poured into the town, along the narrow main street and up the steps of the Town Hall. Fidge, waiting at the side of the stage, saw the huge room gradually become a shifting sea of colour, the Yellows clustering nervously around the exit doors, the Pinks with their arms around one another, the Oranges revolving slowly, fixed and idiotic grins on their faces, the Purples standing in a fog of incense, humming slightly, eyes half-closed, and the Greens practising free-climbing up the coat hooks at the back.

  And when the street was at last empty and the hall full, Fidge bolted the outer doors against unwelcome visitors, and joined the others on the stage.

  The Grey held up a hand for silence, and the restless murmur of the audience died to a rustle of whispers, followed by an ear-crushing shout from the
coat hooks:

  ‘We mustn’t make our speakers wait,

  So quiet, all, and concentrate!’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dr Carrot, wheeling forwards. ‘What I am about to say is very serious, so I would be grateful for your full attention. Wimbley Land is under threat, not just from the dictatorship of Wed Wabbit’ – there was a stir of panic from the Yellows – ‘but also from something else, something new and urgent, as our colleague Fidge here will illustrate for you. Try and keep it low-key,’ she added to Fidge, in a whisper. ‘We need to inform, not scare.’

  Fidge walked nervously to the front, holding a corkboard onto which she’d pinned a map of Wimbley Land. Taking a marker pen, she drew a circle on it, with the castle at the centre. ‘Inside this circle,’ she said, ‘Wimbley Land still looks quite normal. Outside it, though, all the colour’s disappearing from the landscape, and what’s slightly worrying is—’

  An orange hand shot up at the back of the hall and waggled frantically.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Fidge.

  ‘We’re not too sure of what you mean,

  Or where it is, or what you’ve seen

  To help us try and understand

  Please use a map of Wimbley Land.’

  ‘But I am using a map,’ said Fidge.

  Behind her, Graham stood on a chair and peered out at the audience, before giving a grunt of frustration.

  ‘The Oranges are all facing the back of the room,’ he muttered. ‘Just ignore them.’

  ‘As I was saying,’ said Fidge. ‘What’s worrying is—’

  This time, the hand that shot up was pink.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fidge, already guessing what was coming.

  ‘As Orange heads are in a muddle

  I think that what they need’s a cuddle.’