(A novel about Slugs falling in love and killing each other but not necessarily in that order) By Mike Batt

Chapter 12: Little Else In Danger

The Large Disused Owl coughed loudly and opened the Woodland Daily Trumpet. There was more to him than met the eye. He was a grumpy old soul with an interest in what went on around him, but never said anything. So little did he say that Dotty and Nige thought he could not talk. They were wrong. He could, but he didn't care to. He just sat there most of the time, noticing things. He hadn't talked for so long that he sometimes wondered if he still could if he wanted to, but since he never wanted to, he quite reasonably concluded that it mattered little whether he could or couldn't. Anyway, whoever heard of a talking owl?

It was a rainy morning, two or three days after the barbecue, and the Owl noticed various comings and goings, - fairies and slugs arriving and leaving the Tree House which was now the new slug army barracks and headquarters. The other thing that the Owl noticed was Elsie leaving the helicopter loft, at the controls of the remaining helicopter. Sitting next to her in the co-pilot seat was Ergo, and they were off to meet Horace the piano elf at the Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley Academy Of Music, to which establishment Horace had returned after the excitement of his adventure at Pigfrog Command. The piano was, of course lost, left behind at Pigfrog HQ, but Ergo hoped one day to get it back. In the meantime, the elf had another one - (which he had played on the night of the barbecue) but it wasn't his favourite instrument, and he often felt sad as he imagined big, slimy Ursula Moundrot Pigfrog plonking away at it with her ugly fat fingers.

By now, Ergo was on his fifth lesson, and had learned how to play two-note chords by stretching his knobbly bits wider and squeezing them into smaller points than were normally needed for other jobs. He had a good ear, and could pick out tunes with his right knobbly bits while accompanying himself with his left knobbly bits. His teacher was dead pleased.

"I've never seen anything like it" said Horace, and he hadn't.

Ergo was a natural. Five Woodland shillings was all it had cost to convert a non-musical slug into, well, a slightly less non-musical slug. And soon, because of this, Horace would be known throughout Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley and beyond, as a famous piano teacher. Not only that, but it had been Horace the piano elf who had saved everyone by tricking Ursula into playing a Morse code message when they were imprisoned at Pigfrog Command.

And so life went on in Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley and the little real valley near it, where the tree headquarters stood. Ergo spent a lot of time thinking about what to do next; how to retrieve the helicopter from Pigfrog Command and how, eventually, to defeat the pigfrogs and their nasty old General. It wasn't going to be easy.

Meanwhile, Quirkhardt spied. He spied while he took Ergo his morning mug of pigeon's milk. He spied while he scrubbed floors and he spied while he pruned the plum tree that grew next to Dotty and Nige's tree house, the headquarters of Slug Intelligence. He spied as he was led back each evening, by Arthur Monkberry, to his cell in the jail block which they had specially made for him. He schemed about how, one day, after plucking up enough courage to kill Elsie (which, he had decided, he would do with his eyes closed, as he couldn't bear the sight of blood) he would escape, with all his secret information, back to Pigfrog Command, and to the congratulations of his feared superior, General James Moundrot, D.S.O., B.C.C.C., C.P. (Dead Slug Order, Bronze Cha Cha Cha and Cycling Proficiency).

One night, a fearsome storm howled and raged outside, as the slugs, trolls, gnome-adds, squirreloids and others huddled in their barrack rooms and tried unsuccessfully not to be afraid. Upstairs, Dotty and Nige huddled together in the big bed which they had bought one weekend from Woodland Beds For One And All, using some of the money they had made from Nigel's inventions. The lightning flashed at their window and the thunder growled and groaned until it surged up into big, sharp bangs which seemed to be right overhead.

In the middle of all this thunder and lightning, Malcolm One buzzed. Not just the sound, - he actually felt buzzy. Malcolms Two and Three were loading up the time thimble with chocolate biscuits and ginger beer ready for their next adventure - a trip into the future; a Fact-Finding Mission, no less, into the dark and scary Unknown. Malcolm One was calm and serious on the outside, but as excited as, well, anything , - on the inside. It didn't matter that it was a stormy night, - the Time Thimble was never affected by the weather, because it would soon be flashing through tomorrow, the next day and the day after that, until it would all get faster and faster and spin around and around so that all the colours of the trees and the sky and the houses would mix up in a swishy sort of mush in front of their eyes. No wonder Malcolm felt buzzy inside.

"I hope you'll come back" said Ergo, rather unnecessarily.

"So do we!" chorused the Time Flies. A great big clap of thunder boomed, just at the right time to add a dramatic touch to the blast-off.

"Thanks for staying up late to see us off!" shouted Malcolm Two, as the three waved, yelled and buzzed all at the same time.

With that, they were gone.

"My pleasure..." began Ergo, until he realised that his three newish friends had vanished, - thimble, chocolate biscuits, ginger beer and all. He sighed, turned, and slowly made his way back to bed, where he fell asleep and dreamed once more of Little Else.

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That stormy night, General Moundrot cursed as he stood, heavy and damp, leaning against the rock face at the bottom of the central shaft of Pigfrog Command. Two junior officers from Second Battalion slouched nervously around as a pigfrog mechanic called Rigstay laboured under Dotty's helicopter, trying to work out how to get it going.

"I'm terribly sorry, your Generalness, but I'm going to need another week on this", the mechanic apologised "I can't seem to discover what fuel they are using. It is obviously something powerful, but, funnily enough, it smells almost like...er, tea."

"Tea!", Moundrot exploded."What sort of blithering clot are you? Why would they use tea?"

"With respect, Your Honour, I just said it smelled like tea, not actually was tea".
"Don't tell me what you meant", snapped Moundrot. "I know what you meant and you meant it was tea. I would demote you to the lowest of the low if you weren't already the lowest of the low. In fact, I might even create a new rank, even lower than that, just for you, you nasty, unpleasant little wart. Anybody knows you can't fly a helicopter on tea."

General Moundrot felt better now. He hadn't yelled at anyone all day and he had been beginning to have withdrawal symptoms. Headaches, dizziness, that sort of thing. But however much he was yelled at, Rigstay knew that as he was the only mechanic in Pigfrog Command, the General would not do anything really horrid to him. He needed him too much. Even so, Rigstay had a suspicion that perhaps it actually was tea. Not that he could say so now,- now that the general had pronounced it not to be tea. If he proved it actually was tea, it would be like saying that the General was wrong, - and Rigstay was cleverer than that. Not a lot cleverer, but a bit cleverer.
" I'll give you one more day, and then.." Moundrot began.

And then you'll do exactly what?, thought the mechanic, but didn't say it.

Moundrot didn't finish the sentence, because he really couldn't think what he would do if his only mechanic failed to get the machine going. He turned on his heel and lurched out through the shaft entrance, followed by the two other officers. Rigstay saluted to their departing backs. Not the proper salute.

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While Ergo Slept, Quirkhardt was digging. He had been digging every night for two weeks now, and had nearly dug right under the wall of his cell. During the days, he had worked hard and spied harder. This had not left much time for sleep, and Quirkhardt was tired. But still he dug. As he dug, he thought about the very special secret he had learned from listening at the keyhole of Nigel Farnsbarnes' workshop. The information would certainly put him right back in Moundrot's good books, and his place on Ursula's sherry party list was in the bag. When he arrived back at Pigfrog Command to tell his secret to Moundrot, Moundrot would kiss him and hug him, he knew. Well, perhaps not, but he would be pleased when Quirkhardt told him that the captured helicopter would fly if only they would fill the tank with tea! With two sugars to the Woodland litre. This would be the secret information that would prove Quirkhardt's loyalty and earn him Moundrot's forgiveness for leading Third Battalion to its doom and tying up Mrs Moundrot. He shuddered. Had he really done that? He admired his own guts, just a little. What had he said to Moundrot through the door? He couldn't quite remember, but he knew it contained the words "fat", "slimy" and "scumbag". Would Moundrot really forgive him?

He had supplied Major Accuppa with a few little bits of information at a meeting in the bushes, one week after the garden party when Major Accuppa had first given him the chance to save himself, but this was different. He would break out of his cell this very night, kill Elsie and make his way back up to Pigfrog Command to give old Moundrot the news!

Quirkhardt carried on digging, deep into the stormy night.

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In the morning Ergo awoke, determined. The storm had worked itself down into a pleasant drizzle that made the grass look greener than usual, and Ergo had a feeling that the air wasn't so heavy any more. He had decided that he would take Sodge and Arthur Monkberry up to Pigfrog Command, sneak past the sentries, get round to the top of the mountain and lower himself down into the main shaft (not to be confused with Moundrot's bedroom ventilation shaft!) and get the helicopter. He would then fly it back up the shaft...hang on a minute! He couldn't fly the helicopter, he was only a slug.. So who could he take to fly it? Dotty? Nigel? or...Elsie! But it was too dangerous for the girl fairies, and Nigel wasn't really the type for commando-style operations. Maybe Ergo could ask Elsie, after all. She had shown her tough qualities in the previous action, and was good at piloting the helicopter. He hurried (as much as it is worth hurrying for a slug) down to Elsie's little room, where she always slept in the other little wooden bed bought by Nigel and Dotty at Woodland Beds For One And All, and where the cute little red curtains with strawberry patterns hung at the windows. It was sensible to hang them there, he thought, they would have looked stupid above the fire place, for example, and anyway curtains and windows were sort of meant for one another, - just like himself and Elsie. He knocked on her little door. No answer. Perhaps she was asleep. He knocked a little louder. Then a little louder.

"Elsie?"

He rattled the handle.

"Elsie!"

There was no reply.

He pushed the door and it opened. Elsie was gone.

They looked everywhere for her, to no avail. Ergo got very worried.

"She wouldn't just leave. She must be somewhere".

It was when Arthur Monkberry discovered that Quirkhardt was missing that Ergo realised that things must be bad. He couldn't believe that even Quirkhardt would hurt Elsie. Surely nobody would do such a thing. But there she was, as clear as daylight, - gone. Ergo decided to organise two search parties, one to go North East, towards Pigfrog Command, and the other to go South West, across the edge of Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley. They would both be called Search Party Number One, - a tactic which had worked with the Carol Singing Squads. In Ergo's own party would be Monkberry, Sodge and Nigel, who had volunteered. Another thing Nigel had done, so that squirreloids were not required to breathe food-fuel into the windsocks of the slug wheels any more was to invent the internal combustion engine.
"That's nice" Ergo had said.

The other search party would comprise Dotty, in the remaining helicopter, plus Horace the piano elf, with another troll called Stanley Spick, from Monkberry's Avocado Farmers, who was a dab hand at radio operating. This team would wait one day, and if Ergo did not return, would set out to the South West. In the meantime, Dotty would circle the area in her helicopter, which, incidentally, was blue because it was a Wednesday morning.

Ergo couldn't believe all this was happening. He was becoming very distressed to think of Elsie lost, or worse. Why would she leave in the middle of the night with Quirkhardt? With extra provisions for three days and a large flask of tea he set off miserably with his chosen team of searchers, up the trail that led towards pigfrog country.

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Even though Moundrot had everything a pigfrog could want- power, a lovely wife, - well perhaps not exactly lovely, but a nice person - and a big box of chocolate cigars, he was far from happy that afternoon. He was lounging in his bedroom pothole, looking out of the small window slit and feeling impatient about Rigstay's progress with the flying machine when he felt that his patience was about to run out. In fact, he set his watch to 3.33pm as the time he expected it to happen. Sure enough, exactly at that time, it did. He was always right! This was not the way to crush the slug army, - hanging about waiting for some idiot to mend a blithering flying machine. This wasn't how he got where he was today. He wanted to get out there and squash a few of the little buggers. Yes, squash a few. Squash...a..few. He liked to say it over and over in his mind, enjoying each imagined squash. Squelch, squash, squish, went the sound effect in his imagination. Lovely.

"Right! Forget all this boring mechanical nonsense!", shouted Moundrot to Major Accuppa, who had been topping up the chocolate cigar box for his boss. "Summon the officers in charge of First and Second Battalions! We are leaving to find their nasty little headquarters and jump on it, all at once, from a very great height!"

"But what about Quirkhardt, Sir? He's there, amongst them..." Accuppa reasoned.

"Yes, good, good, good!", dribbled Moundrot, embarking on an upwards spiral of spit-creating frenzy. "We'll descend upon them all - that's what we will do, - DESCEND!"
Accuppa wasn't too enthusiastic about all this squashing stuff. It had been his very reluctance to jump on things fleshy that had led to his applying for the Catering Corps in the first place. Now his boss was going to take the entire Headquarters division of the pigfrog army (since there were only two remaining battalions at Headquarters) and go slug-squashing, - and that included Accuppa. But he would obey, and would alert the cream of the pigfrog officers' mess to the fact that they were to leave imminently for The Bit Near Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley, - where he himself had first located the Slug base. Something else, - something rather timely - had just occurred to Accuppa. Maybe this is what had sub-consciously led his boss about taking immediate action. It was December the twenty-third, and snow had begun to fall. The real Christmas was about to happen, and Moundrot was obviously not planning to let it pass in an unpigfrog-like way.

Two feet trudged up the mountain road with many miles to go before Pigfrog Command would loom up ahead. The owner of the feet was a bedraggled, exhausted but optimistic Quirkhardt, carrying over his shoulder the small but very much alive bundle of Little Else, bound hand and foot. The night before, he had crept into Elsie's room with a sharp dagger, determined to carry out the grizzly task, but to his own disgust had not been able to bring himself to perform the deed. Elsie had awoken with a start, and Quirkhardt had collapsed in tears at the end of her bed and blurted out the whole story. She had been compassionate, listening to his tale with mounting horror and sympathy. He had explained that, even though he couldn't bring himself to kill her, neither could he let her go - his chivalry did not extend so far as to risk his own life when Moundrot realised what Quirkhardt had, or hadn't done. At least if he could deliver Elsie to Moundrot, perhaps he and she could work out a way of her escaping afterwards, so that it didn't look like Quirkhardt's fault. Since he had spared her life, and more importantly, since Quirkhardt was bigger than her and had a dagger, Elsie agreed. So that is how Quirkhardt came to be trudging towards Pigfrog Command on the next day, as the snow began falling, with Elsie over his shoulder.
"Would you like to rest for a while?" asked Quirkhardt to the bundle on his shoulder.
"Well, the blood is rather going to my head, Mr Quirkhardt" said Elsie, trying to be just a tiny bit jolly. She actually felt horrible, and frightened, but didn't want Quirkhardt to know.

"Alright, then, we'll stop" wheezed her captor as he flopped her down on the stumpy grass at the side of the trail. He had really wanted the rest for himself, and yet he couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Elsie. He pulled out a piece of banana cake that he had saved from his dinner the night before, broke it in two and gave the slightly smaller half to her. He stretched out on the grass and looked at the sky, confident that she could not escape, being bound hand and foot. He was feeling weary, and far from confident about what Moundrot would do. The old grouch was known for being deceitful and sly. That's what made him such a successful pigfrog. Quirkhardt wanted to win his approval but wasn't sure that he wanted to see the slugs crushed by Moundrot. But, if it was himself or the slugs dying, there was no contest as to which he preferred. As he thought these things, he looked over at Elsie and noticed a tear in one of her eyes. He turned away quickly so that she would not be aware that he had been looking at her. As he looked away, he saw something that nearly brought tears to his own eyes. Far away, up the gradual slope at the foot of the mountain range ahead of him, about a mile away, he could see, and now he could hear, the entire pigfrog army, Headquarters Division, Battalions One and Two, - and out in front, even at this distance, he could clearly make out the shape, and somehow feel the heavy presence of General James Moundrot, D.S.O., B.C.C.C., C.P.
Quirkhardt's heart began to beat faster.

"Treble Blithering Goo-Gobs!" he muttered.

"And the rest!" added Little Else.

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Not long before you get to read Slugs Chapter 13