A queue had formed outside already.There were a lot of children, Una noted.This meant nipped fingers and scraped knees that required bandaging, as well as crumpled sweet wrappers to be picked up, and lost dolls and tin soldiers to be restored.
At least they didn’t run through smelling salts at such a rate now that the Renwick Cockatrice had been restored to Renwick.It had been a great favourite of the children.Its effect on adults of nervous disposition had not been salutary, but theywouldinsist on looking at it, no matter the signs Una put up.There had been a visitor who expired looking at it and was buried in Ormby.Everyone had said it had been the man’s weak heart and that he had exercised himself too much walking about the menagerie all day, but in her own heart Una laid the poor man’s fate at the feet—or talons—of the cockatrice.
Una stiffened, a new movement snatching her gaze upwards.It was a cloud of birds, startled out of the tree line down by the river.
She watched the birds tracking across the sky, her mind very sharp.No, please, no,she prayed.
Then the beating wings became a struggling, protesting tangle, and the whole flock tumbled out of the sky as if yanked from it by an invisible hand.
But it wasn’t an invisible hand.Una knew exactly what had happened to those birds.They had been sucked straight out of the sky.
Una deftly sidestepped her way through the crowd surging through the gate, outwardly calm.
Once at a distance from them, she put the whistle to her lips and blew.
Then she began to run.
Violet was by the river with the twins, collecting stones for skipping in a shallow part of the river, when the water level suddenly fell.
Then they heard the whistle.Iggy jerked up straight where he was paddling and Dolly looked up from the glittery rock she had found.
Violet looked at them.
“Is it a specific signal,” she asked, “or justhelp, generally?”
Iggy was indignant.“You didn’t learn the signals?”
There came a tremor under their feet.
Dolly’s eyes gleamed like the wet river rock in her palm.“It meansthey’re awake,“ she whispered.
Una slowed down as she approached the opening to the caves under the cliffs.
The river burbled cheerily from its underground source, as if happy to be out in the sunlight again.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?”Una shrieked.“It’s too early!It’s April!Go back to bed!Go back to your mate!”
A great inky serpent lay like a shadow in the reeds, damming up an area of water.It was immense, bigger than lorries, black as sleep.
But it wasnotasleep, and that was very much a problem.Her problem, specifically.
Una waded up to it.The great head loomed towards her.She found this immense face very hard to read, but she thought its expression at this moment was pitiful, like a child told to go back to bed on Christmas morning.
Shouts from the bushes—the sound of children approaching.
Una’s chest tightened and her thoughts staggered.If Simon didn’t get here soon, things could go very badly.
There had been an incident once—a boy throwing stones at them—that no one had forgotten, and it had happened in high summer when Simon had been nearby to calm them and give the boy a talking-to afterwards.
Violet and the twins burst out of the bushes.Una leaned against the huge flank in relief.
“Oh, thank heavens!Where is your father?”Una asked.
Iggy had already crouched down to give Dolly a boost so she could climb up onto the creature’s back.
“Up on the fells,” said Dolly, slipping about on the silky scales.Violet steadied her.
Iggy slapped mud off his hands.“He won’t be back for hours,” he said.“Don’t worry, I’ve got my electric torch!”
