Chapter
9
Cruelcliff

The cliff towered above them like a dark, forbidding wall. The wind was blowing a gale and the clouds were dark overhead, blanketing the sinking sun and turning the sea the colour of lead.

And the tide was rising. Already waves were dashing against rocks not far from where they were standing, and foam was hissing into the rock pools that dotted the base of the headland. Spoiler shrank back against the cliff face, looking beaten and terrified.

Conker moved further towards the sea and turned to scowl up at the castle, gnawing his moustache. Everyone but Spoiler moved to join him.

‘We can’t climb that cliff, Conker,’ Leo shouted against the wind.

‘Lawks-a-daisy, of course we can’t,’ cried Bertha. ‘I thought there would be steps cut into the rock, and that would have been bad enough. How in Rondo does the ogre get up and down?’

‘Maybe he uses magic,’ Mimi said. ‘Or lets down a ladder, or something.’

The wind howled. The waves crashed.

‘Freda could fly up with the rope,’ Conker said. ‘But what’s the point? The rope’s not nearly long enough to reach the ground, even if we could all climb it.’

‘Which I certainly can’t!’ Bertha exclaimed. ‘I have my talents, but climbing ropes is not one of them.’

‘How about I have a go at the ogre on my own?’ Freda suggested.

‘Out of the question!’ Conker snapped. ‘We do this together or not at all.’

‘Howdy-doody!’ shrilled a voice at their feet.

They all looked down. A small, weird-looking creature had poked its head out of a rock pool. It would have looked like a golden fish, if it hadn’t been for the slimy green beard that fringed its narrow face.

‘What’s up?’ it piped. When they didn’t answer, it waggled its tail and leaped into the air, performing a neat dive before reappearing at the edge of the pool.

‘You are a fish,’ gasped Leo.

The fish smirked. ‘But what sort of fish am I?’ it asked slyly. ‘That’s the question.’

‘I don’t give two hoots what sort of fish you are,’ Conker growled. ‘You just take yourself off and leave us –’

‘You’re a magic fish!’ Mimi exclaimed, crouching by the pool.

The magic fish, as a matter of fact,’ the fish said. ‘Oh, dear! You recognised me!’

It was clear to Leo that it had been dying to be recognised.

‘Your beard’s made of seaweed!’ Mimi said, staring in fascination.

‘Oh, yes,’ the fish admitted, with a very artificial-sounding sigh. ‘I’ve been in disguise for quite a while now. I had to do something. People kept trying to catch me all the time – to get the three wishes, you know. Ah, well, that’s the price of fame, I suppose.’

‘Three wishes?’ Conker said, suddenly alert.

A wave thundered onto the rocks, and hissing foam surged almost to the pool edge. ‘You’re not safe here, you know,’ the fish remarked. ‘The tide comes in fast, once it starts. If you’re not careful you’ll be bowled over and sucked back into the sea. And that’ll be it for you.’

‘About these three wishes, Fish…’ Conker began.

Magic Fish to you, Hairy,’ said the fish rudely. ‘And you don’t get three wishes just by seeing me, you know. You’ve got to catch me, first.’

Conker bared his teeth. ‘That can be arranged,’ he growled. He lunged forward and grabbed the fish. It slithered through his fingers and dived deep. With a shout of rage Conker plunged his hand into the water. He felt around fruitlessly for a few moments, then gave up and withdrew his arm, which was soaked to the elbow.

The fish reappeared. Tittering at Conker’s expression, it rose out of the water and waggled backwards, balancing on its tail.

‘Leave it to me,’ Freda said, and snapped her beak.

‘No!’ Mimi shouted, blocking the duck’s way to the pool. ‘No, Freda, you’ll never catch it. It’s much too clever for us.’

The fish chortled.

‘Dots to that!’ quacked Freda, looking dangerous. ‘Out of my way!’

Mimi gave her a quick, hard look and crouched by the side of the pool again. ‘You are clever, aren’t you, Magic Fish?’ she cooed.

‘Of course,’ the fish said smugly.

‘And you must be very brave, too, to spend time in this rock pool, when the Ogre of Cruelcliff lives so near,’ Mimi went on, pointing up at the castle. ‘He must pass by all the time.’

‘Oh, the ogre doesn’t give me any trouble,’ said the fish. ‘He doesn’t even know I’m here.’

‘Really!’ said Mimi, clasping her hands.

The fish puffed out its chest. ‘He’s never seen so much as a scale of me,’ it boasted. ‘He’s very shortsighted, for a start. And anyway, as soon as the cliff opens for him to come out, I dive, quick as a flash, and hide till he’s gone. I do the same thing when he’s on his way back. I always have plenty of warning, because he yells the password before he’s even reached the headland.’

‘Aha!’ breathed Conker, and dug his elbow painfully into Leo’s ribs.

‘Excuse me?’ said the fish, trying to peer around

Mimi.

‘Conker was just saying he knows that password too,’ Mimi said hastily. ‘It’s “Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum”, right?’

‘Wrong!’ the fish cried gleefully. ‘Completely, absolutely wrong! It’s not even nearly right. Does “Cruelcliff, open up or else!” sound anything like “Fee, Fie, Fo, Fum” to you?’

‘Nothing like,’ Mimi said, glancing over her shoulder at Conker, who grinned and put up his thumb to show he’d heard.

‘Watch it,’ said the fish as a new wave broke on the rocks with a crashing roar. ‘Here comes another big one.’

It dived to the bottom of its pool. Mimi scrambled up and hurried with the others to where Spoiler stood cringing by the cliff face. The foaming water surged much further this time, hissing almost to their feet before retreating.

‘Good work, Mimi!’ bawled Conker over the sound of the wind.

‘Lawks-a-daisy!’ Bertha said faintly. ‘We’re cut off!’

She was looking back towards the beach. Sure enough, a band of surging water now divided the sand from the headland. They were stranded on the rock shelf.

‘Conker!’ snapped Freda.

‘Cruelcliff, open up or else!’ Conker bellowed.

Instantly, a long, jagged crack appeared in the cliff face right beside them. Leo’s skin crawled as, with a hideous grating sound, the split slowly widened, its ragged edges of broken rock looking horribly like teeth.

‘Tally ho!’ roared Conker, and plunged through the opening, dragging the howling Spoiler behind him. Freda darted after them, and Bertha and Mimi followed.

Move! Leo told himself. But the thought of being swallowed by the cliff, of stepping blindly through those gaping stone jaws into blackness, filled him with dread. His eyes were blurry. His feet seemed fused to the rock.

With a thunderous roar, another huge wave rolled in. The opening in the cliff creaked ominously, and began to close. Deep, foaming water rushed towards the cliff face.

There was a shriek as Mimi shot back out of the darkness and grabbed Leo’s hand.

‘Leo!’ she screamed over the wind and water. ‘Quick! Move, or we’ll drown!’

Leo’s eyes cleared. He woke from his dream of fear into sharp knowledge of real, immediate danger. Together he and Mimi dived for the crack in the rock and tumbled through it just before it grated shut.

Leo hit hard ground and lay stunned, listening to the muffled roar of the wave pounding the cliff face where he had stood just moments before. Angry and frightened voices were echoing around him.

‘… think you were doing? Oh, my heart, liver, lungs and kidneys, you could have…’ That was Conker, roaring.

‘… never been so frightened in my…’That was Bertha, squeaking with distress.

‘… all mad. You’re all mad …’ That was Spoiler, moaning the same words over and over again.

Stop it!’ Mimi shouted. The babble ceased abruptly, giving way to shocked silence.

Leo realised his eyes were screwed tightly shut. He opened them, but it didn’t make any difference. The darkness was complete and he could see nothing at all.

‘Leo couldn’t help it,’ Mimi said. ‘He’s as brave as any of you about most things, but he hates being shut in. And this time he had no warning – no time to get used to the idea. I should have remembered. I shouldn’t have left him alone out there. Of course I had to go and get him. You shouldn’t have tried to stop me!’

‘Langlanders stick together, eh?’ said Spoiler. His voice was flat and toneless. Without seeing his face it was impossible to tell if he was jeering or not.

‘Yes, well, you wouldn’t know anything about that, so you can shut up,’ Conker spat.

‘Let’s have some light!’ Freda quacked.

With a great deal of clattering and grumbling, Conker set about pulling the lantern from his pack.

‘Leo, are you all right?’ Bertha asked anxiously.

‘Yes,’ Leo assured her, though he wasn’t, really. His arms and legs felt weak and floppy as if all their strength had been used up in that desperate leap to safety. He was also trying to come to terms with the fact that Mimi had saved his life, risking her own life in the process.

‘Thanks, Mimi,’ he said into the darkness. ‘You –’

‘It’s fine,’ she cut in quickly, and he knew that if he could see her face it would be quite expressionless, only a stain of colour on her cheekbones betraying what she was feeling.

A minute later, Conker gave a grunt of satisfaction and held up the glowing lantern. The light seemed feeble in the echoing dark, but it was comforting. Leo felt even better when Conker swung the lantern around to show hundreds of stone steps spiralling up into the blackness above their heads. The steps didn’t look inviting, but they were a way out of this closed, rocky prison relentlessly pounded by the sea.

‘Everyone ready?’ Conker demanded.

‘No,’ whimpered Spoiler. ‘I’m not going up there. You can’t make me – ow!’

Leo guessed that Freda had jabbed him on the ankle, and again felt a stab of unwilling pity.

With Conker in the lead they began to climb in single file. The steps were steep and slimy. The lantern flickered dimly, casting leaping shadows. Spoiler floundered and moaned. Bertha kept giving little squeals as her trotters skidded on the slippery stone. Leo climbed behind her, clinging tightly to the iron railing and praying she wouldn’t fall. He doubted he could save her if she did. It was more likely that she would send him, and Mimi, who was last in line, crashing down with her.

The climb seemed endless. After a while, Leo lost all track of time. If someone had told him he’d been staggering up those steps for a week he wouldn’t have argued.

At last, however, they began to see light filtering down from above.

Almost immediately the air became fresher too, and the stairway grew drier and less treacherous. With every step the light grew brighter, until at last they could see that it was spilling through a high, arched doorway not far above them.

They had almost reached the top of the stairs. Instinctively, they all stopped.

‘Stay alert,’ Conker called over his shoulder in a low voice. ‘Mimi, you’d better come up here. You know a bit about ogres, so you should be the one to do the talking.’

Leo heard Mimi give a little gulp. He didn’t blame her. Reading about ogres was one thing. Talking to a real, live ogre was another.

But without a word Mimi edged past him, squeezed past Bertha, and went on up the steps until she was standing above Conker.

‘Right, team,’ Conker whispered, putting out the lantern and stuffing it back in his pack. ‘Now, don’t forget –’

‘Who goes there?’ boomed a terrible voice from above.

‘Eek!’ squealed Bertha.

Spoiler swayed as if he was about to faint.

‘Pull yourselves together!’ hissed Conker. ‘Mimi –’

‘Who goes there?’ the voice boomed, even more loudly than before. ‘Answer, or face the consequences!’

Mimi took another step up. Leo could see her silhouetted against the light. She looked slender and frail, but she was standing very upright, and her chin was raised.

‘Greetings, Ogre of Cruelcliff,’ she called, in the sweetest, most timid voice Leo had ever heard her use. ‘We are poor travellers, strangers to this shore, who have lost their way. We have come to beg shelter for the night, for we fear a great storm is coming. Please, sir, will you help us?’

‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ Leo heard Freda mutter to Conker.

‘Never let it be said that the Ogre of Cruelcliff turns poor travellers from his door,’ boomed the huge voice importantly. ‘Especially when a sweet-voiced damsel begs for his aid. Enter, if you dare! Welcome to the Castle of Cruelcliff!’