The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone Page 4

  He began to jog along, cutting out across a field, the baby pressed against his chest. I ran behind him, tripping on ruts, my bare feet caught now and again by slurping patches of mud.

  We crossed another field and turned along a lane, the boy running faster all the time. He stopped at a stile. I caught him up.

  The rain had eased, so he could speak normally.

  ‘I think it’s along this lane,’ he told me, pointing, and then he pressed the baby into my arms. A bedraggled little form, soaked through. ‘Hush,’ I said, cuddling it closer to my chest.

  When I looked up, the boy had set off in the opposite direction, away from the festival.

  ‘Wait!’ I called.

  He turned back. ‘Along the lane there,’ he repeated.

  ‘But where are you going?’

  The boy smiled. ‘Your swimming is champion!’ he called. ‘I’ve never seen the like!’ Then he turned again and strode away.

  It had stopped raining, but everything still dripped.

  I stood at the edge of a vast, muddy field. Somebody, somewhere, was forging metal, and it was making a terrible shriek. At the opposite edge of the field, a row of brightly-coloured tents drooped and trickled. As I watched, a man prodded at the roof of one of these tents with a long pole—a waterfall gushed over the tent’s edge. The man stepped smartly out of the way.

  The baby in my arms was quiet now and looking up at me inquiringly. I touched its face with my palm and its cheeks were very cold. I began to hurry and squelch across the field towards the tents.

  As I drew closer, I heard people talking and shouting. They were gathered between the first two tents—a small crowd—and all seemed to be pointing in different directions. The metal-forging sound ran through all this at its awful pitch. But it wasn’t forging at all, I realised. It was a woman screaming. She was in the centre of the shouting crowd, and she was lifting her face to the sky and lashing it with her screams. A few in the crowd set off running, scattering, and others kept up their shouting.

  ‘Hello?’ I called, hurrying now, afraid they’d all scatter before I reached them. ‘Hello!’

  One or two in the crowd turned towards me, raising hands to foreheads.

  ‘What’s she got?’ I heard somebody ask.

  ‘Is that a baby in her arms?’

  ‘Has she got him? She hasn’t got him, has she?’

  There was a sudden quiet, and then the screaming woman shot out of the crowd and ran towards me. The only sound now was the woman’s heavy footfall as she ran.

  Her face was terrible, all creased and pouched, her eyes pressed quite together, and then, as she drew closer, she sprinted and screamed once more, her face transforming, the creases vanishing and re-forming into a beaming smile. She launched at the baby in my arms.

  ‘Oh, my baby, my baby boy,’ she cried, sinking to the grass and wrapping herself around the little one, kissing his cheeks, crying, and stroking his head.

  The baby took all this in good grace, but after a moment, he made a small whimpering sound and the woman cried, ‘Oh, you’re so cold! And aren’t you cold?’

  By now, most of the other people had crossed the field and a crowd had formed around us. There were cries of joy and relief, and people called to each other, ‘It’s the baby!’ and ‘The little girl here has brought the baby!’ A few helped the woman to her feet and hurried her across to one of the tents, talking of blankets and dry clothes.

  The others looked at me with great friendliness and interest.

  ‘And who would this be, if she isn’t a young hero, and you’ve brought the baby back!’ That’s the sort of thing they said, all of them gazing at me.

  I told them I was Bronte from Gainsleigh, here to visit my Aunt Sue and Uncle Josh (‘Oh, Sue and Josh,’ they all nodded to each other), and I told how I had seen the baby floating by in a basket.

  ‘Oh, and you did not!’ they all cried, but I did, I told them.

  ‘And how did you get the baby out?’ they prompted.

  I explained about jumping in and swimming, and the boy with no shoes who blocked the basket with a branch and then towed us in.

  ‘I don’t know where the boy with no shoes went,’ I apologised, looking about me. They didn’t seem to mind that. They wanted to tell me how the baby came to be floating down the river in a basket, and I must say I had been wondering this myself.

  Here is what happened, they said, and what happened was this.

  The baby had been taken by the elves.

  ‘The elves!’ I cried, astonished. I had always heard that the elves were a good and law-abiding race!

  ‘Ah yes, and they are, and are they not? Generally speaking, anyway.’

  It was a terrible misunderstanding, the people told me all at once. Each year, before the Festival of Matchstick, a gift was set out for the elves, wrapped in the elven colours of green and white. The elves always took the gift and immediately tossed it from a cliff or threw it into a fire or the river.

  Strange way to treat a gift! I thought to myself, and this must have shown on my face. They assured me that it was the tradition, and that no offence was taken.

  However, this morning, Tabitha Creaksay, as that works on the Matchstick Committee, had brought her little baby along, bundled up in his green-and-white blanket, and sleeping in a green basket with white trim.

  She hadn’t thought for a moment of the colours—although perhaps she might have, somebody said, for aren’t they the elven colours every year? But others hushed this person: you must not be blaming Tabitha, they said, you must not.

  In any case, Tabitha had set her baby down by a tent and set to work with decorations. After a bit, she had noticed the baby was gone, but she had not worried. Oh, my sister must have the baby, she had thought to herself.

  But then the sister had strolled by and said, no, no, I have not taken your wee baby, Tabitha, and Tabitha had begun running about looking for the baby, but still without much worry, for perhaps the baby’s father, Royan, had come by to help.

  Around this time, the Chief of Elves had approached the Chair of the Matchstick Committee, pulled on his trouser cuff, and performed the official Thank You Dance.

  ‘Your Dance is as lovely as ever, sir,’ the Chair had said. ‘But why are you dancing it now? We’ve not yet set out the gift! It’s in the back of the wagon there—that basket of eggs and berries.’

  The Chief of Elves, annoyed to be interrupted in his Dance, had said, ‘Why no, it’s not eggs and berries, it’s a bundle of blankets. We’ve taken it some good hour back!’

  That’s when the terrible mistake had come out, and Tabitha had begun her shrieking.

  Now the crowd exclaimed at the wondrous luck of the elves not having tossed the gift over a cliff or into a fire this year. Next they exclaimed at the marvel of my having heard the baby’s cry and what a swimmer I must be, to take on the river in a storm! The baby had been in dreadful danger, they all agreed, and surely would have drowned, for it is not far along that the river turns into the most violent rapids and then out it flows, into the sea.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, horror-struck, shivering at this idea—at all of these ideas—and at last somebody noticed just how drenched and dripping I was.

  I was rushed to Aunt Sue’s house in the Chairman’s cart, and there were more cries of wonder from Aunt Sue and her family when we arrived and the story was told. Aunt Sue drew a bath for me and sent Sebastian to fetch my bag, shoes and umbrella from the riverbank, and all of this was done in a fever—partly because everyone was excited that I had rescued a baby, and partly because we had to get to the Festival in time.

  The horn blew to signal that the Festival was open, and then it blew again. The sky was now polished and bright, smiling fondly down on us as if it had never even met a raindrop.

  My cousins darted away, vanishing into the crowds.

  ‘Well,’ Uncle Josh asked me. ‘What do you say to our festival?’

  I looked around, considering. Along with the ten
ts I’d seen earlier, there were now stalls and stages, jugglers and fire-eaters, pens of farm animals and apples bobbing in barrels. People wandered about, seeming very low.

  ‘It looks good,’ I said. ‘But why is everyone sad? And where are the elves?’

  ‘Ah,’ Aunt Sue said. ‘And have you not looked down?’

  I had not. I did so now and saw the grass was alive with the hurry of elves, each wearing a tiny tin hat. It was as if hundreds of teaspoons had decided to dress up in colourful clothes and run about in a field.

  ‘But they’ll be crushed!’ I said, alarmed.

  Uncle Josh and Aunt Sue laughed. ‘No, no,’ Aunt Sue said. ‘They use their elvish intuition to avoid footfalls.’

  ‘And you see the care that everyone is taking?’ Uncle Josh added.

  I watched a while and the elves did seem to flow easily between the hurrying shoes. A boot fell perilously close to one little elf, but she gave it a jab with her elbow and carried on chatting with the elf by her side.

  People, meanwhile, walked slowly, with downcast eyes, and this was why I had taken them to be sad.

  ‘Shall we show you about?’ Aunt Sue asked next. ‘Or would you prefer to wander your own way?’

  ‘On my own, please,’ I said, so we arranged to meet at the soccer match, to take place at 6 pm.

  First, I explored the row of colourful tents. I went in and out of the tents, and watched elves doing activities. Now I saw the reason for the paper chains. In the first tent, chains were strung from the ceiling, and elves were clambering up the rings in a race to reach the top.

  In the second, the chains had been laid out in a maze and elves were puzzling their way through this. They worked in pairs and conferred with each other often.

  In the third, the paper chains were used for gymnastics, elves springing in and out of the loops. Each time they landed, they flung their little hands in the air and tilted their faces upward.

  It was not all about paper chains, though. In one tent, elves were chasing beetles with clothes pegs. I didn’t stay there long as I was worried about what would happen to a beetle if one were caught.

  The biggest tent held a stack of matchsticks and these were being used by elves to build remarkable structures: ships and towers, castles and carriages. They worked quickly, humming to themselves as they did.

  ‘So this is why it’s called the Festival of Matchstick,’ I murmured to myself.

  ‘It is,’ agreed a voice, and it was an elf down by my ankle. He was very well-dressed and reminded me of the Butler. Only much, much smaller, of course.

  I bought myself a paper bag of cinnamon doughnuts, and sat on the grass to watch the music. Nearby, my cousins were throwing coconuts at a target (a painting of a Whisperer—you could tell it was a Whisperer because it was a man with very long hair and a cunning, secretive look about him).

  The music was good. Elven and human bands took turns; the elves played on a tiny raised platform in the centre of the stage, and their music was livelier and angrier than the humans’. The little elves pounded on drums the size of thimbles and thrashed at tiny guitars. Their faces scowled in fury as they played. At first I worried that they were offended or distressed. But each time a song ended and the crowd cheered, the elves beamed and bowed.

  Everybody seemed to know that I was the girl who had rescued the baby, and there was much pointing at me and whispering. I saw Tabitha eating corn on the cob. Her eyes were still rimmed in red, and she threw her arms around me and snuffled, ‘Thank you, oh thank you!’ into my hair. She introduced the man beside her as her husband, Royan. He carried the baby in the crook of his arm, but he shook my hand and thanked me too.

  The baby held my little finger, then let it go. We all smiled at him. After a moment, he spotted a leaf that had gotten caught in his blanket, and he said, ‘Oh!’ and offered this to me.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and he gave me a huge smile. There were only two tiny teeth in his mouth, at the bottom.

  I put the leaf into my coat pocket, and I would have it still if it wasn’t for the incident with the flying teacups and avalanche at Aunt Nancy’s. But that all happened much later.

  The Festival of Matchstick carried on and the mood began to change. The chatter grew louder and more excitable, and everyone swarmed towards the far end of the field. What for? I thought, and then I realised it was nearly six.

  I found Aunt Sue, Uncle Josh and the boys. They were painting each other’s faces with stripes of either crimson (for the Dariens) or blue (for the Glassrings). Others around us were doing the same.

  ‘Which colour would you like?’ Aunt Sue asked me.

  ‘Which team should I support?’ I responded, at which the boys all shouted Dariens or Glassrings, back and forth, louder and louder.

  Uncle Josh said, ‘Hush now,’ to the boys, then he turned to me: ‘Dariens,’ he said sternly. ‘You must support Dariens.’

  Aunt Sue smacked the back of his head, and the boys all started up their shouting again.

  ‘Who usually wins?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s about even,’ Uncle Josh said, ‘but the Dariens have won the last three festivals in a row.’

  ‘Then I shall support the Glassrings,’ I said. ‘Because it is their turn.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Sebastian said witheringly, but Nicholas took both my hands and swung me around.

  ‘It’s your choice,’ said Uncle Josh, sighing heavily.

  The match took place on a platform painted with the usual lines and markings of a soccer field, little goals at either end. A whistle blew and a cheer went up, and I felt a rush of excitement.

  And there was the boy with no shoes! He was on the edge of the crowd, and he caught my eye and sent me his friendly smile, but when I looked again, he was gone.

  The elves tore around on the platform, kicking the tiny ball. It is quite strange to me now, to think of that tiny ball sliding back and forth on the field, and how we all stared at it. But we did.

  The Glassrings won. I felt proud of my team. The score was 3-2, and it was a great match, everyone agreed. Both teams brought their best game. The Darien supporters were good sports, and shook hands with the Glassring supporters. Sebastian shook my hand and so did Uncle Josh. Then my cousins began to recreate the game, kicking their own ball around amongst the crowd, ignoring complaints from strangers. They were very good.

  ‘Is that the end of the Festival now?’ I asked.

  ‘Almost,’ my cousin Connor told me. ‘Only the prize ceremony left. In the big tent over there.’

  We trooped across to watch the prize-giving ceremony. It went on for quite a while, elves coming onto a little stage and receiving their medals, and they would weep about their medals and give heartfelt speeches. But they spoke in the elven tongue, so I did not understand. Many elves sat in a grandstand the size of a suitcase, and watched and nodded, applauding the speeches. The people stood about in a crowd.

  The Championship Trophy was presented to the captain of the Glassring Soccer Team, and now the applause turned into a roar. I thought that would be the end of the day, but the Elf Presenter called for quiet.

  ‘We have a final award,’ he cried. ‘It is the Elvish Medal for Bravery, presented only once in every century!’

  Once a century! I thought. This is important then. I wondered who could have been so heroic.

  ‘A girl from Gainsleigh,’ the Elf went on—and I suddenly went cold. ‘A girl from Gainsleigh has rescued a baby from the river. To save a little baby? The baby of Tabitha and Royan? This alone deserves recognition!’ The Elf paused. Around me, people were whispering to each other, and turning to smile and point at me. ‘But this girl has not only rescued a baby,’ the elf declared, ‘she has saved the Elven People. For it was us who threw the baby in the river! Believing him to be our gift! A mere bundle of blankets! Which, I will say, we didn’t think was much of a gift, but that is by the by. We were willing to let that slide. But it was a baby! Now, if the baby had drowned, w
e would have lived the next thousand years in the greatest of shame. All of us would have worn black, and you know how we love to dress in colours.’

  Here everybody agreed with this, both the people and the elves.

  ‘Bronte Mettlestone! Bronte of Gainsleigh! Come forward and accept the Elvish Medal for Bravery!’

  ‘No, no!’ I whispered. I tried to find my voice. ‘I could not! All I did was—’

  Did they not see? It was lucky that I had happened to see the baby floating by, not brave! Of course I had jumped in to get him! In the same way that I brushed my teeth each day, and said ‘thank you’ when I bought my cinnamon doughnuts. But everyone was staring.

  ‘It was not just me,’ I remembered. ‘It was also a boy. He held onto a branch to help. A boy with no shoes—’

  Everybody looked about them. ‘Hello? Boy?’ they called out. ‘Boy with no shoes?’

  Nobody came forward.

  ‘Perhaps she could describe him,’ somebody suggested.

  I tried to do so but everyone either shrugged or asked questions I could not answer. ‘Does he have a little blister on his thumb?’ ‘Is he studying science over at the village school?’ ‘Was he at the post office earlier?’

  In the midst of this, Uncle Josh leaned over and murmured to me, ‘You are a good girl, Bronte. I think it would be a kindness to these elves if you accepted the medal.’

  So when people stopped looking for the boy, and the Elf Presenter called again, ‘Bronte Mettlestone! Come forward and accept the Elvish Medal for Bravery!’, I did so.

  The medal was hung around my neck. It was strung on a soft ribbon, but the medal itself was a heavy, burnished gold. Everybody cheered, stamping their feet, and I worried again about an elf being crushed. But fortunately that did not happen.

  ‘Use that medal wisely,’ said a tiny breath of a voice, a whisper that tickled my ear. I looked down and an elf was standing on my shoulder.

  ‘Use it?’ I said, confused.