Chapter 4
By day, when Lord Thurgo is forcibly educated at the Slough Central School for Overlords, we goblins tend to lurk. Lurking is something we all do well, even Oooof. Daylight never agreed with me. Sunshine removes all mystery from the world, stealing away possibilities and putting in their place dull facts and inconvenient truths. I feel taller at night. Also better hidden.
We often lurk by lying around the toy box in the living room, playing the first-one-to-move-is-a-pixie game. We’re all dead good at it. The toy box is a great disguise for us. We lie around among the real toys, and High Queen Claire, who even gets to boss around Lord Thurgo, just ignores us. Sometimes she scoops us all up, even Captain Bort, and heaps us in the box before vacuuming the carpet. We hate that. She gets rid of all the good crumbs and we go hungry all day. She’ll even toss Sir Terror-Knight into the box if he’s downstairs. As if he were a mere child’s plaything. She doesn’t appear to know he devastated the land of Mythica or that he laid waste to Sim City. How someone gets to be high queen without knowing stuff like that I couldn’t tell you. I know I wouldn’t vote for her.
Today, lying completely motionless on the carpet for the fifth hour in a row, my stare fixed upon a scrap of grey spider web up by the ceiling, I’m more concerned with my own thoughts than with not being a pixie. Pixies aren’t that bad anyhow. And I reckon I could carry off the pointy hat. I’ve always looked good in a hat.
I blink, hoping none of the others noticed, and refocus my thoughts on that black SUV from last night. What were minions doing watching the street? And whose minions were they? And what did they have for breakfast? I have a bad feeling about this. I get bad feelings sometimes and they almost always come true. Like yesterday when that bucket of wooden blocks toppled off the edge of the table and I was sitting right underneath looking up... I had a bad feeling then. And *boom* a little bit later I was proved right. And then there was the running with scissors thing... I had a bad feeling about that too and it turned out to be the worst idea ever. One-Eye would probably agree with me right now if he wasn’t being perfectly still.
I try to concentrate on being worried about those dark suited minions watching the street...
All I can see now is those wooden blocks tumbling end over end as they dropped towards my head. The blocks belong to Princess Pukey. Princess Pukey is Lord Thurgo’s younger sister and second in line to inherit the throne of Claire if the high queen ever does go to that spa she keeps talking about and never comes back. Princess Pukey is the source of, and also our main competition for, crumbs. She eats by aiming her food only roughly in the direction of her face and then singing nonsense and dribbling instead of chewing. This creates a wonderful quantity and variety of food splatters for us goblins. Unfortunately she also crawls around the floor for hours afterward picking up and eating anything that will fit into her mouth. We’ve lost no end of crayons that way. She’ll even tackle a full-grown goblin. It’s no fun having your whole head inside the mouth of a drooling maniac. And now she has a tooth she can give quite a vicious nip. And then there’s the puking! It’s like she only ever borrows a meal for a limited period, before hurling it without any warning in the least convenient direction. Captain Bort predicts great things for Princess Pukey. He says she has the soul of a goblin and the killer instinct of a Queen of Terror.
Black SUV! Must keep focused. It had some writing on the side. That’s a clue right there that is. If I could read I’d probably have solved the mystery by now. Maybe I should learn. It can’t be much harder than eating coal. That’s tricky that is. The art is to break the coal up without breaking your teeth up. Not recommended unless you have plastic teeth.
So, where was I. Oh yes, lying still, doing nothing, thinking. The writing even looked kinda familiar... Hmmm.
Anyway, the lights have gone off, and it’s time for wickedness. Lord Thurgo must have had to draw up some important plans for world domination today, because he vanished upstairs as soon as he got home from school. I caught sight of him later when he came down for dinner. It took the high queen three yells, two bellows, and roar to get him down. She should just go straight to roaring, who cares what the neighbours think? Anyhow our evil overlord scarfed down fish fingers and beans like they were the forces of good or something, and was off upstairs again. Lord Thurgo could even teach Alphonso a thing or two about eating and Alphonso eats as if his only ambition is to be spherical. As it happens it is his main ambition, but he also has ambitions to perform on Britain’s Got Talent. There’s a lesson in there about not judging goblins by their bellies, or something.
We get up off the floor and troop out of the living room. I snag a nice-looking crumb off the carpet, catching it in between my toes. I’ll have that later. We’ll go down into the coal cellar now. We like it down there. Nice and damp and dirty and dark. Great. It’s an ideal place for plotting. Plotting is like planning, but with more evil stirred in. Meeting up with Prince Stupid’s robot horde last night to finish our battle – that was a plan. Shaving a rude message into Linda Mank’s cat – that was a plot. Not a plot that worked – cat’s have awful sharp claws – but a plot none the less!
Sir Terror-Knight is waiting for us on the stairs, on the bottom step. He’s standing very straight and just where the light falls from the lamp outside the front door, so he’s all lit up and his badge of office glimmers. It’s all most unusual. He doesn’t often bother addressing the lower ranks.
“Minions!” He booms – but quietly so High Queen Claire doesn’t wake up. “Minions!” he repeats. “And Captain Bort.” He often forgets Captain Bort isn’t technically a minion. Sergeant Yellow-Fang’s minion status remains undecided. Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t. If Lord Thurgo sends down a message, “All the minions have done very well this week!” then Sergeant Yellow-Fang gets One-Eye to pat him on the back. If the message is more along the lines of, “All minions report to the wood chipper for recycling!” then suddenly Yellow-Fang is officer class. Very puzzling.
“Minions!” booms Sir Terror-Knight for the third time. “I have in my hand a plot from Lord Thurgo himself!”
Our expectant silence becomes an awed hush. The plot being brandished in Sir Terror-Knight’s gauntleted and spiky fist looked suspiciously like a wrapper from one of the toffees Queen Claire keeps behind the lentil jar, but even so... a PLOT FROM LORD THURGO! It’s enough to make a goblin think in CaPItaLS.
Sir Terror-Knight coughs like they do on the TV when they’re not really coughing just telling you to shut up. We all go still as stoats. He spreads out the plot wrapper and begins to read. My attention drifts to his shiny badge of office. Lord Thurgo made that for him with his very own hands. The cutting on the cardboard is so perfect that the badge is almost circular and the crayon work is exquisite. The words themselves are in felt tip of three different colours. I blink at them. Words make me sleepy. Tonight the shapes of the words on Sir Terror-Knight’s badge look vaguely familiar... Captain Bort told us they said ‘Counsel to Thurgo, Overlord of Slough’. That means advisor. Which means if Lord Thurgo asks his opinion he gives it. Which is what any of us would do if Lord Thurgo asked. I mean, if Thurgo the Awesome stops and says, “Well minion #247, do you think it’s going to rain tonight?” I’m hardly going to ignore him am I? Anyhow Sir Terror-Knight has a badge that says he’s a counsel. And it’s a great honour.
“And that, minions, and Captain Bort, is the evil plot!” Sir Terror-Knight wraps up by wrapping the wrapper up. “Any questions?”
Alfonso immediately opens his mouth to ask about dinner but thankfully Jabber jabs him and he says “Oooof!” instead.
“Not a question,” says Sir Terror-Knight, and turns to Oooof since he was mentioned. Oooof just stands their blinking in surprise and Sir Terror-Knight, realising that he’s not supposed to know individual minions’ names anyhow does another pretend cough and marches through our ranks toward the door. “To the park then!”
At this point I wish I’d listened to the evil plot ra
ther than staring at Sir Terror-Knight’s badge wondering where I’d seen the words before.
“Park?” I ask Gobber, but Gobber just spits and shrugs, then spits again.
“Park?” I ask One-Eye.
“Big green thing behind the houses opposite us,” he says.
“I know that! I wanted to know why we were going there,” I hiss.
One-Eye shrugs and blinks... or winks... you can never tell.
“It’s the plot,” says Alfonso, helpfully.
“Yes, but what is the plot?” I ask. We’re heading out the door now into the dark and the rain.
“It’s like a plan, but with more evil,” Jabber says, glancing back at me over his shoulder. “Everyone knows that!”
“Oooof!” says Oooof, walking into the doorframe.
“Did anyone listen?” I’m getting angry now... though I’m not sure why because if I didn’t pay attention there’s no reason why they should. That’s a good thing about being on team evil - you don’t need a good reason to get angry.
It turns out that none of us know why we’re going to the park. We trudge on through the rain behind Sir Terror-Knight, keeping to where the streetlamps cast the deepest shadows. There’s no sign of that black car tonight and that relaxes me. I had a bad feeling about that car.
I walk on, the rain dripping from my nose. We’re all excited despite the weather. Most of our plans and plots are brewed in the coal cellar. Often we carry on what’s been going on during the day. Like when we finished off the battle with Prince Stupid’s robots. Sometimes Captain Bort will just concentrate very very hard and right at the point where his eyes are about to pop out of his head like extremely messy party poppers... he gets a great idea. Guided always by the principals of Thurgo: be bad, be naughty, Beyonce, be awesome. Lord Thurgo likes Beyonce. Can’t see the attraction myself, but then we he-goblins look for different things in our she-goblins – like spines, and retractable dagger-claws.
Anyhow – the big deal with Sir Terror-Knight, and other 2nd in commanders like Prince Stupid’s Power-Bot Nine, is that they can listen to the overlords’ dreams and the plots they bring down from on high are the truest of all plots. It’s just as if Lord Thurgo came down in his pyjamas and told us himself. And when you’re on a direct mission it’s hard to care if it’s raining and you’ve just stepped in something squishy, and nobody knows what they’re supposed to do. You don’t care about minor stuff like that. You’re on a direct mission and it’s all win!
The park is inky black. We cross the road with Captain Bort looking both ways at once. Sadly while he’s looking left and right he can’t look forward and he trips over the curb, bringing Oooof down on top of him. Sergeant Yellow-Fang helps them up whilst Sir Terror-Knight watches on, tapping his steel-clad foot impatiently.
Once we’re all safely across we slip between the green-painted iron railings and into the impenetrable darkness beneath the bushes on the other side. Being goblins we all see fine at night – the darkness beneath the bushes is impenetrable because of all the tight-packed little branches, crisp packets, crumpled coke cans, and random stuff that gets kicked and tossed and blown there – it’s a gold mine I tell you! In the end we give up and skirt around the bushes, heading through the penetrable darkness between them, and on into the park.
Sir Terror-Knight draws up in front of the bandstand and points a bony finger out toward the pond where, on the central island, stands a statue of Slough’s most famous citizen. His name escapes me, but he’s very famous, and especially popular with pigeons judging by the way they’ve ‘decorated’ him. It will take more than rain to wash that lot off!
“There, gentlemen, there is our target.” Sir Terror-Knight is always calling us gentlemen, even though Lucy (minion #215) and Gut-ripper (minion #190) are definitely she-goblins.
Sir Terror-Knight waits. Waits a bit more, then waits. At last Captain Bort peers up at him with his hopeful eye and asks, “If you could remind us about the plan?”
“Plot!” booms Sir Terror-Knight.
“Plot! Sorry! Plot.” Captain Bort bows and nods, eying the pond behind him mistrustfully.
“Was it the bit with the ducks that confused you?” Sir Terror-Knight booms in a questioning tone.
“Well, yes.” The captain nods again, and bows twice more. “Also the bit without the ducks.”
Sir Terror-Knight slumps a little and begins to explain, again. “We’ll need to capture and harness the ducks to get across to the island. Once we’re there we can hang the banner across the statue of what’s-his-name.”
“What banner?” asks Gobber, spitting out a long jet of rainwater.
Sir Terror-Knight slumps a little more, looking rather like a question mark now. A long tall armoured question mark. “The banner that tells everyone to vote for Lord Thurgo as class president.”
“No, I’m mean what banner?” Gobber spreads his hands and looks pointedly left then right.
Slumping so far that I’m worried his helmet will fall off Sir Terror-Knight turns his head toward Captain Bort. “Who did you have bring the banner, captain?”
Captain Bort casts a mistrustful eyed glance in my direction. “Kevin – where’s that package I asked you to carry?”
“Back in a minute!” I say, and I’m off like a pair of hedgehogs carrying a toaster. Only a bit faster.
Pounding along through the puddles and down the path to the park gates I see a dozen or more robots busy papering the trees with posters showing Prince Stupid’s ugly mug. Frank is halfway up an oak, hammering a drawing pin in. I wave as I go by to show there’s no hard feelings. He waves back at me, with his fist, eyes flaring red as he slips and drops like a robot-shaped stone into the muddy tangle of roots far below.
“Sorry!” I shout over my shoulder.
Seconds later I skid to a halt. The Grimster’s army are spilling in through the main gates. As evil overlords go the Grimster is one of the worst. She has hundreds of minions. Well, practically a hundred. Well, lots anyhow. Little ponies most of ‘em. The sight of them prancing through the gates is enough to freeze a goblin’s blood, and goblin’s blood is made of antifreeze! Dozens of them, clip-clopping along, looking like a leprechaun ate too many rainbows and barfed up the lot right over them. A soaking wet banner lies draped across the brightly coloured backs of about ten of the hoofed vermin.
“Looks like the Grimster has her eyes set on class president too,” I say. Then I stop because I’m all on my own and who am I talking to? I back into the bushes. It’s not as if I could get any wetter.
Looming behind the little ponies comes Killerella, The Grimster’s 2nd in command and the last thing a goblin wants to meet on a dark night. Taller than Sir Terror-Knight, a better loomer than Sergeant Yellow-Fang, long red hair, cold blue eyes, and a bow that’ll send an arrow to part your hair at fifty paces...
I push back through the dark and glossy leaves, deeper into the bush, further back, cold rainwater running down my neck. Through the thickness of leaves and branches I catch bright glimpses of marching ponies. Killerella looms closer. Another step back... and... I trip over something. I fall backward, between the park railings and out into the windswept street.
It’s a case of out of the frying pan and into a much bigger and hotter frying pan that’s full of liver. Nobody likes liver. I’m so pleased I don’t have one.
I lie sprawled on the pavement and looking up at two vast minions. These guys in their dark suits (and sunglasses that must make it very hard to see) could pick up Killerella and Sir Terror-Knight both in the same hand! Their black SUV is parked at the roadside, the strangely familiar lettering gleaming beneath the streetlights. There are more of the minions in the back of the car, lurking.
The rain keeps filling my eyes as I lie there, still as any goblin not wanting to be a pixie, doing my very best to look like a dirty old stick. I’m pretty sure I’m managing the dirty part of it at least. Every now and then I blink to clear my vision. I’m very curious about what they’r
e up to. The pair of them seem to be fixing some kind of sign to the park railings. I wonder if they are also putting up messages about the election for president of class 3c. What was it Sir Terror-Knight called it. Proper something? That’s it! Propaganda. It’s pretty scary to think Lord Thurgo is not only up against Prince Stupid and the Grimster but some kid whose minions include four grown men in a sports utility vehicle!
I lie there while they finish securing their sign and watch as they get back into their car and drive away. I lie there a bit longer since it’s a tiring business all this hiding and sneaking and I’ve got a long run back to the house ahead of me, and later I’ll be wrestling ducks. I keep lying there. Wrestling ducks sounds dangerous.
Eventually I get up and have a look at the sign. The words in the biggest print at the top look familiar. The heap of little words underneath look familiar too but they just remind me of the tracks a spider will leave if dipped in ink first. My gaze returns to the big words. I don’t know what they say but... I scratch my head very hard to help the idea come out. But... I bang my head against the park railings to see if that helps. It doesn’t. But... but... ah! The words are the same as on the side of the car and... they look quite similar to the words on Sir Terror-Knight’s badge. Not the same, but similar. Maybe in a different order or that sort of thing.
All along the jog back to number six I’m thinking about the words. Except when crossing the road of course. Then I’m thinking – please don’t squash me. Also I’m watching and waiting because Lord Thurgo paid good money for me and doesn’t want any more minions wasted.
I pick up the banner and head back to the park, carrying it in a great bundled heap on my back. With a little bit flapping over my head to keep the rain off.
The round trip takes less than three hours all told and I’ve no idea why everyone looks so grumpy when I reach them.
“Yoohoo!” I shout and I cross to the bandstand to drop the big sodden mass of the banner, splat, right at Sir Terror-Knight’s feet. He has a lot of grumpy stuff to say about being kept waiting but I’m too busy staring at his badge of office to listen to many of the words. One of them was imcompoop, which I think is a fine word and one I will try to use later in conversation. I think it’s how you say ‘incompetent nincompoop’ when you’re too cross and wet to get the words out straight through your visor. Sadly three hours of heavy rain have reduced our glorious leader’s badge of office to a soggy mess of cardboard from which I can deduce little save for the fact that three colours of felt tip pen will run together to make brown.
Captain Bort directs four minions to untangle the banner. Sir Terror-Knight draws himself up to his full and towering height of two foot one inch and leads off with Sergeant Yellow-Fang at his heels. “Follow me, goblin scum – let’s go get us some duck!”
“Come on.” Gobber strides passed me, spitting rain. “Nice weather for ducks.”
I trudge on behind, wiping the wet from my face. I have a bad feeling about this.