Leo’s nose was pressed into warm, damp earth. His head was spinning. His ears, his hands and the back of his neck were prickling unbearably.
What happened? he thought hazily. Where am I? Did I fall?
He felt a stealthy movement beside him, and stopped breathing. Rough hair brushed his cheekbone. A wormlike tail flicked across his nose. Leo’s whole body thrilled with revulsion. With a yell he sprang to his feet, frantically brushing his clothes, face and hair.
Straw rained down around him as he stood panting and blinking in bright sunlight. He could hear muffled screams somewhere near. As his eyes came into focus, he saw that the screams were coming from a bundle of rags heaving on the ground in front of him.
‘Oh, Leo!’
Leo jumped violently and looked behind him. Mimi was standing there. She had straw in her hair and mud on her chin. As Leo goggled at her, she put her hands on her hips and sighed. ‘We’re in Rondo, Leo,’ she said in a resigned voice. ‘At the farm? Remember?’
The world steadied. Leo stared around, saw white-painted fences, a water trough, a red-roofed barn with a small balcony jutting oddly from its side… His face grew hot.
Mimi shook her head at him and hurried to the shrieking bundle of rags. ‘I’m sorry we gave you a shock,’ she said, putting out her hand. ‘Let me help –’
There was a bang and a flash of light. Mimi screamed and flew backwards, landing on the ground with a thud.
‘Mimi!’ Leo yelled. He ran to her and hauled her to her feet.
‘It’s okay,’ Mimi panted, rubbing her fingertips with her thumb. ‘It just tingled. It’s some sort of force field.’
Leo looked back at the bundle of rags. He had just realised that it was totally surrounded by a layer of air that looked thicker than ordinary air and rippled like water, when he heard the sound of pounding feet.
A large pink pig wheeled round the corner of the barn and came thundering towards them, followed closely by a determined-looking rooster, a ginger cat and a small black sheep. Dozens of small, golden-brown creatures that looked exactly like gingerbread men jumped out of hiding in the long grass and skittered out of their way.
‘Bertha!’ Leo called. ‘It’s all right! It’s only us!’
Bertha skidded to a halt, her hat tilting drunkenly over one eye. The cat swerved nimbly to avoid her but the rooster and the sheep ran into her and bounced back, collapsing in a heap of feathers and curly black wool.
‘Mimi! Leo!’ Bertha gasped, tossing back her hat. ‘Oh, thank goodness! Do you know what’s –’
‘Are Hal and Tye okay?’ Leo burst out, and felt an enormous wave of relief as Bertha nodded.
‘They never went back to Hal’s house by the river,’ she said. ‘He decided it was too risky – and obviously he was right. They’re in Flitter Wood. We’ll go and join them straight away. Hal’s been waiting for you. There’s something he wants us to do.’
‘What?’ Mimi asked.
Bertha hesitated, glancing at the ginger cat who had sat down beside her and was following the conversation with interest. ‘I’d better let Hal tell you,’ she said at last. ‘It’s… well, I can’t see the point of it, frankly. Hal hasn’t been quite himself lately. He’s been under a lot of stress, organising the defence against the queen. And now on top of everything else he’s lost that lovely little house he built with his own hands!’
‘Better to lose your house than to lose yourself,’ the cat put in darkly. ‘As it is, the queen can only have caught a bunch of squirrels and a goat or two. I’ll bet they wish they’d been somewhere else when her power spread. If they can think at all any more, that is.’
Leo’s stomach churned.
‘It’s weird.’ Mimi frowned in thought. ‘The queen’s spies must have told her that Hal wasn’t at home. Why has she bothered to cover the north, when she can take her cloud anywhere she likes? Did she try moving out and attacking anyone before she did it, Bertha?’
‘No,’ said Bertha. ‘We thought Jim and Polly, who helped us in the wood, would be in danger. Not to mention the queen’s stepdaughter, Suki, and the rest of the family, of course. But so far there’s been no attack at all! The first two days after you left – after the queen was repelled from Hobnob – she was really quiet. Recovering, Hal says, from the shock to her power. We did most of our defence organising then, while we had the chance. The third day the blue light in the castle tower got brighter and we all braced ourselves for trouble, but still nothing happened.’
She took a breath and flicked a drooping poppy out of her eyes. ‘The fourth day she sent out swarms of blue butterflies – they were everywhere – and the same thing happened on day five – that was yesterday. I suppose she was trying to find out what we were doing. Then, last night, she smothered the north in smoke. Personally, I think she’s just sulking because the cloud defence committees were organised so quickly, but Hal –’
‘Speaking of defence committees,’ the cat said, gazing at the shimmering bundle of rags, which had finally fallen silent, ‘what happened to Wurzle?’
Bertha sighed and trotted to the rags. ‘Wizard Wurzle!’ she shouted. ‘Drop the shield. There’s no danger!’
The rags stirred. ‘Are you sure?’ a muffled voice quavered.
‘May my new balcony fall to ashes if I’m lying,’ Bertha bellowed. ‘Drop the shield! Please!’
The watery shimmer vanished. As the bundle of rags rose unsteadily from the ground, Leo saw that it was a hooded cloak that had been patched so many times, and with so many different materials, that it was impossible to tell what the original fabric had been.
Huddled inside the cloak’s folds was a thin little man. He caught sight of Mimi and Leo and jumped backwards with a tiny cry.
‘Wizard Wurzle, may I present my friends Mimi and Leo?’ Bertha said quickly. ‘Mimi and Leo, this is Wizard Wurzle, who kindly came here this morning to attend the second official meeting of TUFFS, the Macdonald’s farm defence committee.’
‘TUFFS,’ Leo repeated weakly.
‘Team United For Farm Security,’ Bertha explained, looking very pleased. ‘TUFFS, you see? Isn’t that clever?’
‘You’d better say yes,’ drawled the ginger cat. ‘It took most of the first meeting to work it out.’
Bertha looked at him coldly. ‘This is Marmaduke,’ she told Mimi and Leo. ‘He is the TUFFS Treasurer – that is, he will look after our money. If we ever have any.’
The cat grinned and turned to watch the rooster, who had finally managed to untangle himself from the sheep and was attempting to recover his dignity by rapid preening.
The wizard’s bony hands plucked the front of his cloak. He mumbled into his hood. The only words Leo could hear were ‘straw’ and ‘exploded’.
‘Lawks-a-daisy, Leo, did you have to jump out of the straw?’ Bertha scolded.
‘I couldn’t help it!’ Leo protested. ‘There was something in there with me, and I think it was a rat!’
A pointed nose poked from the ruins of the straw pile. ‘So?’ a squeaky voice said aggressively. ‘I suppose I have as much right to a little nap as you do! More, I daresay. I don’t imagine you were up half the night on cloud-watch!’
‘Oh, hello, Rhoda,’ Bertha said, rather flustered. ‘May I introduce my friends Mimi and –’
‘We’ve met,’ snapped the rat. She emerged from the straw, flicking her tail at two of the golden-brown creatures as they scurried past. ‘The dots are very bad today, Bertha,’ she complained. ‘If you don’t do something about them soon there’ll be a plague!’
‘I have more important things to think about than dots!’ Bertha said with dignity. ‘If you’re worried about dots, Rhoda, perhaps you’d like to have that fox, Sly, back? Sly kept the dots down wonderfully, I understand. Of course, he also nearly ate the whole Flock of Macdonald!’
Marmaduke sniggered. Rhoda glared at him, but subsided into silence.
Having smoothed the last of his ruffled feathers to his satisfaction, the rooster strutted forward. The sheep trotted after him.
‘How do you do?’ the rooster said, nodding graciously to Leo and Mimi. ‘I am Snoot, son of Dawnbreaker, Guardian of the Flock of Macdonald and Vice-President of TUFFS.’
‘Vice-President,’ the sheep bleated behind him. ‘And I’m Sec-re-tary. No one else wanted to be Sec-re-tary, but I did.’
‘That’s right, Barbara,’ Bertha said kindly.
Leo glanced dubiously at Mimi. It didn’t seem to him that TUFFS had much chance of protecting the farm from a dot invasion, let alone an attack by the Blue Queen.
He could see by Mimi’s blank expression that she felt the same way. Bertha, however, seemed quite unconcerned.
‘In my opinion, TUFFS is the most efficient defence area committee in Rondo!’ she told them. ‘We’ve drawn up a roster so that there will be someone on cloud-watch day and night. Any suspicious clouds will be reported to Snoot, who will crow the alarm. Three very loud crows.’
‘Three crows,’ repeated Barbara, nodding her woolly head madly.
‘Immediately on hearing the alarm, everyone will proceed in orderly fashion to one of the official shelters,’ Snoot added importantly. ‘Meanwhile, Wizard Wurzle –’
The little wizard jumped nervously at the sound of his name.
‘Wizard Wurzle might like to explain his role to Mimi and Leo himself, Snoot,’ Bertha said, nodding at Wurzle encouragingly.
‘Oh!’ squeaked the little man, looking terrified. ‘Oh, yes… well, on hearing the alarm, my task is to raise an impenetrable defence shield over W3 – that is, over my defence area. This farm, that is, and the nearby villages and forests and so on.’
‘But – but can you do that?’ gasped Leo in amazed relief, thinking of Flitter Wood and the cottages further north where Jim, Polly, and Suki and their families lived.
‘I do hope so.’ The wizard gnawed at his thumbnail. ‘I’m a bit rusty on large-area shields, I must admit. Normally I just shield myself, you see. But I’ve been practising.’
‘Defence shields are Wizard Wurzle’s specialty,’ Bertha said proudly. ‘We’re so lucky to have him in our area! Imagine being in W7 and having to rely on that impossible Wizard Bing, for example.’
‘Or being in W5 with that hermit wizard No-Name, who’ll only talk to his owl!’ Rhoda smirked.
‘Well, now, I don’t think that’s very fair, you know,’ Wizard Wurzle objected feebly. ‘Bing and No-Name may be a little bit – eccentric, shall we say – but both are very good at defence. As are all the witches and wizards who have been put in charge of defence areas, I might say.’
‘How many of those are there, Wizard Wurzle?’ Mimi asked intently. She had a strange gleam in her eye and Leo wondered what she was thinking about.
‘Oh,’ Wurzle mumbled in confusion, ‘well, there’s me, of course. And Bing and No-Name. That’s three. And then there’s Pandora, the Thorn Witch, and Zillah – all very fine witches – that’s six. And… dear me, who is the seventh?’
‘Wizard Plum,’ Marmaduke the cat put in. ‘And from what Macdonald’s been saying, the townies aren’t too happy about depending on him, either. There’s talk that the shopkeepers have got together to hire a coast witch as back-up.’
‘Yes, I heard that too,’ Bertha murmured, as Wurzle clicked his tongue in distress. ‘But I’m not sure it will help very much. They could only afford to employ her part-time.’
‘Coast witches aren’t reliable anyway,’ the rat sniffed. ‘They’re not licensed. Anyone can set up as a witch on the coast. All you have to do is stop combing your hair and buy a spell book and you’re in business.’
‘This witch seems to be the real thing,’ said Bertha. ‘Jolly says she had very good references. And a wart.’
Snoot puffed out his feathers. ‘Well, fortunately we do not have to resort to coast witches,’ he said. ‘We have Wizard Wurzle, supreme defence expert, on our team, to respond the moment I sound the alarm.’
He bowed to the wizard, who gave a jerky little bow in return.
‘I hate to bring this up again,’ drawled Marmaduke, ‘but what if Wurzle doesn’t hear the alarm? What if a squirrel’s just said boo to him or something and he’s put up his shield? You can’t hear much inside a defence shield.’
Wizard Wurzle blushed and shrank back into the folds of his cloak.
‘We discussed this at the meeting, Marmaduke!’ Bertha said severely. ‘We decided. Wizard Wurzle just has to keep calm and avoid shocks at all costs.’
‘At all costs,’ repeated Barbara.
‘That’s all very well,’ whimpered the wizard. ‘But the whole point about shocks is that… well, they’re shocks, you know. You never know when they’re going to happen.’
‘Just do your relaxation exercises and say your affirmations three times a day, Wizard Wurzle,’ Bertha said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t hold with all that flim-flam,’ the rooster declared robustly. ‘Relaxation exercises! Pah! It’s just a matter of keeping your nerves under control, Wurzle. You have to pull yourself together! We’re all depending on you.’
‘Depending!’ Barbara bleated. ‘On you!’
The wizard shrank further into his cloak and began gnawing at his fingernails again.
‘What’s that?’ the cat asked suddenly.
He was looking up. Everyone else looked up too. Leo’s heart lurched. A dark shape was approaching rapidly from the north.
Wurzle squeaked and the air around him began to shimmer slightly.
‘Your affirmations, Wizard Wurzle!’ Bertha cried urgently.
With what seemed to be a tremendous effort the little man pulled back the sleeve of his robe and peered at the words written in red ink on the inside of his wrist.
‘I … am calm,’ he read in a trembling voice. ‘I am brave. I… am… invincible.’ He swayed. He looked as if he was about to faint.
‘It’s coming right for us!’ panted Snoot, his feathers standing on end. ‘This is appalling! Why was the warning not given? Who is on cloud-watch this shift?’
‘Leo! Mimi! Get behind me!’ squealed Bertha. ‘Wizard Wurzle! The defence shield!’
‘I am calm,’ gabbled the wizard. ‘I am in-in-in-invisible…’ He had his eyes tightly shut.
‘I’m off,’ muttered Rhoda, and darted away like a grey streak.
‘It’s all right!’ shouted Marmaduke. ‘It’s not a cloud! It’s only a dragon!’
And sure enough, as the dark shape dropped lower, green scales flashed in the sun, and everyone could see the dragon’s spiked tail and vast, beating wings.
‘Lawks-a-daisy, what a relief!’ Bertha exclaimed. ‘Oh, I feel quite weak in the knees!’
The dragon swept closer, closer, sailing on the wind.
‘Look at it, Leo!’ Mimi breathed. ‘Have you ever seen anything so…’
Magnificent, thought Leo. He was thrilling with excitement. He’d seen dragons in Rondo before, but never as close as this. He watched, entranced, as the great, glittering beast wheeled above them. Then he caught a glimpse of a cold, flat eye in which rainbow colours swirled, and his heart seemed to stop.
‘It is flying rather low,’ Snoot cackled disapprovingly.
‘It doesn’t look very well,’ Bertha said at the same moment.
Leo felt Mimi’s hand tighten on his arm. He heard Bertha’s startled cry, Barbara’s bleat of fright, Marmaduke’s warning yowl. He gaped, rigid with horror, as suddenly, shockingly, the dragon flattened its wings and dived, straight as a spear. The air filled with screams. The beast’s terrible jaws opened. It roared, and fire gushed from its throat. The straw pile burst into flames.
‘Wurzle! Help!’ shrieked Bertha, pushing Mimi and Leo roughly towards the cringing wizard and trying to shield them with her own body.
‘Run for your lives!’ squawked Snoot, and took off in a flurry of singed feathers. Marmaduke had already gone. Barbara the sheep fell over, scrambled up, shook her woolly head uncertainly and fell over again.
Then the dragon was upon them. Its multicoloured eyes rolled in its scaly head. The cruel talons on its back feet opened like the jaws of twin traps, reaching for prey. Bertha, Leo and Mimi hurled themselves sideways, cannoning into Wizard Wurzle.
Leo felt a cool softness envelop him. A vast shape skimmed overhead, blotting out the sun. In terror he heard a muffled roar, a thin, despairing bleat and the beating of mighty wings. Then the shadow was gone, and he could hear nothing but the cries of Wurzle, Mimi and Bertha, and the pounding of his own heart.