‘How are we going to swallow that?’ wailed the younger children. ‘It’s horrid and not even dead.’
‘I have an idea,’ Milli said brightly. ‘Why don’t we chop it into the tiniest of pieces, think of what we like to eat best and imagine that’s in front of us now?’ One child looked dubiously at her. ‘That’s not going to work.’
‘How do you know if you haven’t given it a try?’ a staunch Milli supporter argued.
So the children thought wistfully about Sweet Nothings, which was the name of Mrs Jube’s confectionery shop back in Drabville, picturing its rainbow awning and rows of lolly jars.
‘I’d give my big toe for a Coconut Wand right now,’ sighed Gummy.
There was a respectful silence as everyone reminisced about the thin tubes of light vanilla biscuit dipped in velvety chocolate and rolled in coconut. The thrill of this treat was the surprise rush of coconut cream that could occur at any stage. Admittedly, it was always disappointing if it came within the first three bites as then the suspense was over too quickly, delicious as the rest of the wand might be.
‘I’d eat up all my lunch for just one Tongue Tickler,’ cried someone else.
Tongue Ticklers were small hard lollies that wreaked havoc on your taste buds by going from sweet to sour within minutes. Most children couldn’t eat the lolly in one sitting and had to take it out to give their tastebuds a breather. Sometimes it had to be wrapped in tissue and finished later, if it hadn’t become too furry by then. At school there were sometimes competitions to see who could keep a Tongue Tickler in their mouth the longest. Milli and Gummy were currently equal best and each privately wondered if there would be another opportunity to continue the friendly contest.
Everybody’s mouth watered as they closed their eyes and pictured the shelves of Ugly Goodies, Scrummy Lumps, Boiled Shells, Gingerbread Bowties and all the other delicious treats that filled Mrs Jube’s shop. But when they opened their eyes there were no lollies, only Oslo glaring at them.
‘There’ll be no games here,’ he commanded. ‘Now, shovel in that protein.’
As they ate, Milli and Ernest tried to keep their minds off the food by speculating about the real objective behind Battalion Minor.
‘What kind of battle could a weasel like Federico Lampo possibly have any involvement in?’ Milli pondered.
‘What kind of army could possibly be made up of us?’ Ernest asked, eating a hunk of bread he had softened by dipping it into the Carpaccio dressing.
The answers obviously lay somewhere outside the gates of Battalion Minor. But what if there was nothing beyond those hills? What if this was the sum total of their new world and there was no one outside to help them and nowhere to go even if they did get out? It was a distressing thought.
The trouble with being at Battalion Minor was that there was barely any time to think. No sooner did one activity end than the children found themselves bustled off to the next.
The gruesome lunch behind them, they were taken to another part of the camp behind the huts, where there was a pond so muddy you would not have been tempted to go paddling in it even in blistering heat.
‘In combat,’ Oslo informed them, ‘a situation may arise when you need to find your opponent in surroundings where obstinates [obstacles] are in your way. You must learn to overcome them. Today your obstinate will be this pond.’
‘Can’t obstacles sometimes help you hide?’ somebody asked, hoping to sound clever, and then cowered immediately behind Ernest.
‘Nooooo!’ yelled Oslo, so furious the veins on his neck bulged. ‘To hide is the worst possible thing a soldier can do! It is worse than surrender! Anyone caught hiding here will be hung up on those trees for the vultures to peck. Do I make myself clear? Is there anyone else wishing to voice an opinion? You’ve no doubt been taught in school that all opinions should be valued. Well, not if they come from imbeciles.’
He paused a moment as if to invite dissent. As none was forthcoming, Oslo made them line up single file and issued the child at the head of the line with a large butterfly net and goggles. To their dismay, he then produced a sack and drew from it a squealing, writhing rat. He tossed it with a plonk into the pond.
Milli glared at Oslo, trying to convey her disgust at his conduct, but Ernest looked seriously worried.
‘I can’t swim,’ he said to Milli’s back. ‘Especially not in rat-infested waters.’
‘Anyone care to pick up the scent before the hunt?’ Oslo asked, offering around the sack the animal had been imprisoned in.
The children recoiled and shook their heads.
Oslo pointed commandingly. ‘Dive and find!’
Had you been strolling nearby at this very point, you would have heard a splash as the first child dived reluctantly into the filthy pond and then surfaced empty-handed.
‘Fail,’ observed Oslo and made a mental note of the child’s name.
Ernest turned in distress to Milli, but he needn’t have worried because she had cooked up a plan that she was about to put into action.
‘You don’t look well, Ernest,’ she said, loudly enough to draw their trainer’s attention. She felt Ernest’s forehead with the back of her hand as she had seen parents do. ‘I hope you’re not coming down with something really infectious.’
Ernest looked panicked, thinking he could feel the infection attacking his immune system, before he caught Milli’s eye and realised she was up to something.
‘Now that I think about it, I do feel quite faint,’ he said joining in.
‘Excuse me,’ Milli called to Oslo, who had been watching them with mounting irritation. ‘I’m afraid my friend will have to sit this class out. He’s allergic.’
Oslo looked sceptical. ‘To what?’ he sneered.
‘Most things,’ replied Milli.
Oslo strode up to Ernest, picked him up by the waist and held him coiled in one arm as if he were a puppy. The dizziness Ernest experienced now from the blood rushing to his head was quite real.
‘Let’s see how allergic he is,’ Oslo said, holding Ernest over the sludgy water.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you—it might cause an outbreak.’ Milli’s voice was chillingly calm.
‘Break out?’ Oslo repeated, hesitation flickering across his face. It lasted only seconds but Milli saw her chance and was not going to waste it.
‘Show him, Ernest,’ she instructed.
Now, it was times like these that the minds of Millipop Klompet and Ernest Perriclof began to work as one. It was almost as if they could read each other’s thoughts. As Oslo put him down, Ernest pointed out a patch of eczema on the inside of his elbow.
‘It’s starting to really itch,’ he said, rubbing it vigorously with his fist.
‘You know you’re not meant to scratch!’ begged Milli. ‘You know what could happen.’
‘I think it’s started already,’ said Ernest, holding out his reddened arm for all to witness.
‘What’s started?’ Oslo asked. ‘Explain yourself!’
‘Well, sir, I break out in terrible boils if I come in contact with anything contaminated.’
‘And what makes you think this interests me?’ Oslo was losing patience.
‘That’s just the thing,’ Milli told him. ‘It’s not Ernest I’m worried about, it’s the rest of us. The boils don’t just make Ernest uncomfortable—they fester and sometimes explode, and the pus flies in all directions. The boils are highly contagious. Could wipe out an army.’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of Boilexplodoitis?’ Ernest challenged. ‘How do you think the plague started? I’ll tell you how—with someone scratching a bothersome boil.’
Oslo’s medical knowledge did not extend far enough for him to know whether or not there was a condition called Boilexplodoitis. One thing he did know, however, was that he was not prepared to take any chances. Not with so much at stake. He backed right away from Ernest, guiding Fiend out of firing range.
‘Oh dear,’ said Milli, peering closely a
t Ernest’s inner arm. ‘I think this one is gonna blow.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nonna Luna’s Apprentice
Due to his potential to spark an epidemic, Ernest was immediately quarantined to Nonna Luna’s kitchen where he spent the ensuing weeks. Oslo’s instructions were explicit: Ernest was not permitted to leave the kitchen, which doubled as the infirmary, until more information regarding his condition came to hand. He was put to use assisting Nonna Luna in simple culinary tasks such as shelling peas and mashing herbs to a paste using a mortar and pestle. Ernest was grateful to be indoors and away from the gruelling pace of Oslo’s training. It was cool and fragrant in the kitchen, and there were no expectations of him that might prove hazardous to his health.
Amidst the gloominess that was Battalion Minor, Nonna Luna’s kitchen was a haven of interesting smells and sights. Copper pots and pans bubbled on the cast-iron stove and there were bunches of aromatic herbs growing in pots on the windowsill. Something looking like salt-encrusted strips of tree bark hung from hooks, which Nonna identified for Ernest as dried cod.
Woven baskets arranged on a rustic dresser bulged with heads of garlic and clusters of onions. The oven, which radiated constant heat, was large enough to stand up in, and there was a giant slab of marble on a bench for the express purpose of kneading dough. Legs of cured meat, protected from flies by netting, and wheels of cheese as large as footstools were stored in the cool room.
Ernest noticed something else that was kept in the cool room. Something that, unlike the meats, seemed to be alive. Hanging from a hook on the cool-room door was a tapestry knapsack. Ernest barely gave it a second glance when he went in to collect a string of chubby pork sausages, until he realised that it was squirming and wriggling, as if whatever lived inside was eager to get out. When Ernest looked more closely he saw that the knapsack was drawn together not by cords but by a pair of black asps coiled around each other. They appeared to be sleeping, but, being sensitive to body heat, awoke with a hiss when he approached. Ernest leapt back in alarm.
Nonna Luna, who had followed him in, patted his arm. ‘Don’t worry. No toucha da sack and nutting happen,’ she said.
‘They must be guarding something very valuable,’ Ernest probed, curious now the danger had passed.
‘Some tings are betta for little ones not to know,’ Nonna Luna answered mysteriously.
The kitchen window looked onto a well-tended vegetable garden, where there were glossy oblong tomatoes growing on stakes, bright horn-shaped chillies in terracotta pots, and plants weighed down by beans in speckled red casings. Clusters of purple grapes hung from a vine twisting its way around a pergola. Arranged on trays were rows of tomatoes drying in the sun.
As for Nonna Luna herself, she was as creased as a walnut. When she grinned you could see she was almost toothless, but that didn’t stop her from grinning as she was a lively soul and easily entertained. Her hands were gnarled like the branches of an old tree, but her eyes still twinkled with girlish mischief. Dark hairs sprouted from a mole on her chin the size of a coffee bean. She wore only black, apart from thick coloured socks, a silk kerchief she wound around her head to keep her hair out of the way, and a red and white novelty apron. The apron read Domestic Goddess and depicted Venus wielding a wooden spoon. It was a treasured gift from Lampo during his more attentive days, and Nonna Luna never took it off, not even to wash it.
Nonna Luna’s attachment to Ernest was instant, heartfelt and unabashed. The undernourished, pale-skinned boy who turned up at her kitchen door forlornly scratching his eczema bore an uncanny resemblance to her own grandson when he was a boy. If she fattened him up a little, he would surely be the spitting image of Federico. Unlike Lampo, Ernest showed himself to be a quick learner, a courteous listener and engaging company. His fastidiousness in particular was a ceaseless source of entertainment for the old woman. She would double over with laughter watching him inspecting cutlery before using it or eating only the iceberg leaves in a mixed salad.
‘We must toughen you up,’ she would comment jokingly.
As Nonna Luna’s apprentice, Ernest picked up much more than culinary tips. As well as being a renowned fortune-teller and a crafty cook, Nonna Luna was first and foremost a storyteller. The hoard of tales she regaled Ernest with had been passed down through generations and were steeped in magic and folklore. Nonna was also highly superstitious and the victims of her stories were invariably foolhardy characters who threw caution to the wind and failed to heed the advice of wiser and older relatives. Almost everything in her tales was either a symbol, an omen or a forewarning of some kind.
It was from Nonna Luna that Ernest learned that if you crossed paths with a priest or a nun wearing black, you must immediately touch something made of iron to reverse the bad luck. Tugging the sleeve of a dwarf, on the other hand, could bring years of prosperity. If someone complimented the baby in your perambulator, you must spit three times on the child to protect it from ill intentions, subconscious or otherwise. Nonna Luna taught Ernest that a ladybird landing on the tip of your finger was a sure sign you would be lucky in love, whilst the sighting of a white cat meant an encounter with death. The spilling of red wine foretold the imminence of good fortune, whilst the spilling of oil would result in hardship only an entire rosary of Hail Marys could revoke.
Some of Nonna Luna’s recommendations extended to health issues. For example, crossing your legs for too long would cut off your blood supply and promote the appearance of varicose veins. Bathing in the sea was unbeaten as a treatment for acne—a remedy Ernest seriously doubted when one considered what ended up in the oceans. Dousing a cut finger in your own urine was the best antiseptic, and the consumption of too much marzipan could result in deformed ear lobes. Red peppers consumed after three o’clock in the afternoon would invariably bring on a night of indigestion. Sleeping on one’s back encouraged nightmares of the worst kind and a thimble of brandy in the morning ensured healthy circulation. Eating from the same plate as a stranger was very ‘dangerose’ because it could inflame the wildest of passions.
The rational Ernest found these anecdotes both mystifying and irresistible. The downside was that Nonna Luna was not content with relating her beliefs; she insisted upon practical demonstrations in order to prove her theories.
One afternoon Ernest made the rash mistake of complaining to Nonna of a mild headache. How was poor Ernest to know that complaining of a headache to an Italian grandmother was tantamount to saying he had come home to find his name scrawled in blood on the walls and the severed head of his favourite goose in the bed? It meant only one thing—someone was out to get him.
Perhaps you have learned in school about the ancient cure for a headache, which involved a surgeon drilling a hole in the sufferer’s head to allow evil spirits to escape. Nonna Luna had similar views on the cause of headaches, but fortunately for Ernest, a drill did not feature in her remedy.
‘Malocchio!’ chanted the old woman, her eyes glazing over. Malocchio, for those of you who have not come across the term, literally translates to ‘evil eye’ and belief in it dates back to medieval times.
Nonna Luna seized Ernest and propelled him into the nearest chair. ‘Lettuce see whether you have been cursed,’ she said. ‘Mebbe someone is thinking bad thoughts on you.’
She proceeded to drizzle into a bowl of water a few drops of the best cold-pressed olive oil, which she poured from a ceramic decanter.
‘If da oil dissolve, you hava the Malocchio sure as I hava corns.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Ernest objected.
‘No, I do hava corns. You want to see?’
‘No, I mean that oil and water are immiscible substances. That means they are incapable of being mixed and oil therefore cannot possibly dissolve in water without defying the laws of science.’
‘What doesa science know?’ Nonna Luna scoffed. ‘Scientists still hava not found a cure for the common cold. Quiet now and watch!’
Before Ernest could object
, her coarse thumb began to trace the sign of the cross on his forehead while she mumbled some words in her broken English which he thought went like this:
Evil Eye, Evil Eye,
Three pairs of eyes have watched you
Three Judas’s have betrayed you
Evil Eye, Evil Eye,
Don’t batter at my door
Find yourself another target
Evil Eye, Evil Eye
Now begone forever!
When the oil dissolved upon contact with the water, Nonna Luna let out a high-pitched wail.
‘Cursed,’ she muttered. ‘My Ernesto has been touched by the Malocchio!’
Taking up the bowl, Nonna Luna hurried outside, threw the water onto the earth and stomped fervently on it with both feet. When Ernest looked puzzled, she explained, ‘To stampa da evil into da ground. Now we must repeat.’ She hobbled back inside and grasped Ernest by the arm. He tried to squirm away but his strength was no match for Nonna Luna who had built up biceps of steel from years of kneading dough. The ritual was repeated until the oil floated in globules on the water’s surface.
‘Now Ernesto is free!’ she declared in triumph.
Not wanting any repeats of this performance, Ernest devised a way for Milli to accompany him on kitchen duty the next day. This was not as difficult as they had imagined. Milli only needed to feign dizziness, the first symptom of Boilexplodoitis, for Oslo to exempt her from the day’s training.
When the children arrived at Nonna Luna’s kitchen, the first thing she did was to pin a red ribbon to one of Ernest’s undergarments.