Stefan Seitz - Nettlewooz Vol. 1

It was pitch dark, apart from the pale moonlight which fell through the window. However, Primus soon found his bearings. He knew where to find the till, and he knew where the cake trays were. He crept on tiptoe across the room, gradually becoming accustomed to the dark. Finally, he saw the shelves. His mouth watered. He hadn’t expected there to be so many cakes. The trays were practically bursting with them.

Enraptured, Primus shut his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent. “Raspberry cake,” he sighed with delight. “Even tastier than cherry cake.”

The night hadn’t been a disaster after all. He immediately dived into the first tray, hopped up onto the counter, and started to fill his stomach. As always, it was a veritable feast.

“Ahh … delicious,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cake. “One of the best I’ve ever eaten.” He took a bite out of another piece and rolled his eyes. “No, it’s the very best. No two ways about it.”

It was always the same. Every time Primus snitched cakes, he declared them to be the best he had ever eaten.

After some while, he had finally eaten his fill. Now he just had to deal with his friends’ requests. He opened a drawer behind the counter, fished out the sunflower seeds, and filled his pockets with them. He was sadly unable to find any redcurrants, so took a few sesame seeds instead. Primus knew Bucklewhee well enough to know that he liked them just as much.

Finally, he grabbed a large sheet of kitchen roll and wrapped two pieces of raspberry cake in it. These were for Snigg. The pumpkin could quite easily have troughed an entire cake, but there was a limit to how much he could carry in his bat form. Once he had finished wrapping up the cake, he put the package on the floor and pushed it through the cat-flap.

Primus was just about to follow it, when his eye was caught by a couple of bottles on a shelf by the door.

“Cherry juice,” the label said. “Freshly squeezed.”

He pondered. Then he reached for one of the bottles with his pointy fingers, uncorked it, and took a long swig.

“Not bad,” he said. “Though I wouldn’t have expected anything else.” He nodded decisively. “So, my dear Burdockians. You think I’m a vampire? Well, in that case, I won’t disappoint you.”

He put the bottle to his lips once more and took another swig. This time he held it in his mouth. If Madam Pastry Chef had come in at that moment, she’d have fainted on the spot.

With a diabolical expression and slightly lowered head, Primus stood by the window in the moonlight, and let the red juice run slowly out of his mouth and down his chin.

“HIHIHIHIHIH!” With a shrill laugh, Primus – in his bat form – whizzed outside.

He grabbed the cake packet, flew off to the market place with it, and tucked it away in a hidden corner.

“Now for the fun bit. Wakey-wakey time!”

With a loud cry, he flew up above the market place. He could see lights flickering on. Before the locals could stumble out of their houses, however, he clapped his wings together loudly and then lay immobile beneath the lantern, wings outstretched, as if he had just fallen from the sky.

“Where is he? Where’s the shadow?” the people cried. “Have we caught him at last?” They looked around. “Over there!” someone shouted. “Look! The catapult on the steeple worked!”

A murmur went through the village.

People were streaming out onto the streets, clad only in nightclothes and slippers. The inn door opened, and a swarm of drunkards staggered out. Several women with frilled nightcaps gave their menfolk stern looks. Then they stared again at Primus, who was still lying flat on the ground.

“Is he dead?” a man whispered. “What are we going to do now?”

“Who cares?” said another. “The main thing is that we’re rid of the pest.”

The crowd fell silent and stared at the bat.

A fat woman with chubby scarlet cheeks leaned forwards. “I don’t think he’s dead,” she said in a trembly whisper. “I think he’s just unconscious.”

“Perhaps we’d better investigate,” came another voice. “You can never be too certain.”

A nervous murmur ran through the crowd. One man cautiously picked up a branch to give the bat a poke. The villagers held their collective breath. Everyone fell completely silent as the branch touched the bat.

It was the moment Primus had been waiting for.

With a screech and a cloud of smoke, he turned himself back into a human and jumped up onto his feet. He opened his eyes wide and bellowed at the crowd, baring his blood-red cherry-saturated teeth.

That did the trick.

The villagers turned tail and ran as if the Devil were on their heels. Someone wanted to grab something; someone wanted to shout orders; but nobody could string together a full sentence. They merely shrieked in panic as they ran around like headless chickens, arms flapping, while Primus chased after them, screeching loudly.

“THE SHADOW’S ALIVE!” the people yelled. “HE’S ALIVE! The monster’s alive. And he’s been sucking blood!!!”

Cue even more uproar.

Then came Primus’ most favourite scene of all. As the villagers started to calm down and come to their senses, they started to use their weapons to launch a counter-attack. Primus quickly turned himself back into a bat and sailed through the throng towards his hidden package. He grabbed it in his claws and then headed towards the lantern. He then made great looping circles around the lantern as the villagers once again pursued him, armed with shovels, pitchforks, and flares … round and round … round and round …

Finally Primus became fed up and, laughing, set off homewards through the Dark Forest and towards his tower. The return journey took a bit longer, as he was slightly weighed down by cake. He also had to be careful not to snag the bundle on a branch. Snigg had expressly warned him about this. When he finally returned home, Snigg was still sitting on the garden wall, watching out for him.

“So, my fat friend,” Primus said. “Breakfast is served!”

Snigg’s eyes lit up as Primus unwrapped the package on the garden wall. He ate the first piece with one gollop.

“Marvellous,” he managed to say through a mouthful of crumbs. “Raspberry cake, fresh from the baker.”

Primus laughed and sat down next to him on the wall. He removed his top hat and brushed his hair out of his face.

“You were right,” he said. “It was foggy. But still great fun.”

A couple of weeks later, summer began and the weather turned hot. At long last. After an endlessly long and dreary spring, it came as a welcome change for everyone. Initially, at any rate. For the good cheer soon ended as the temperature rose. The hot air lay above the land like a dome; there wasn’t the tiniest cloud in the sky. The Dark Forest became a sticky oven in which it was hard to breathe. The trees groaned with dryness, and the running tufts of grass plodded oh-so-slowly across the forest floor. The heat itself was bad enough, but it also caused the stinking puffballs to burst of their own accord and scatter their evil-smelling clouds of fungal spores right across the forest. As a result, they proliferated with astonishing rapidity so that some parts of the forest quickly became a no-go zone for anyone with even the faintest sense of smell.

The old tower, with its creaking and squeaking timber beams, also groaned round the clock under the heat all day and all night. During the day, the sun blazed down on the walls so that they heated up. When it cooled down slightly of an evening, the heat retained by the stones continued to make the rooms even warmer. Living in the tower was like living in the midday heat 24/7; it was at its worst in the garret. Bucklewhee couldn’t cope in his clock case any longer. He spent his whole time perched on the outstretched concertina arm, bouncing up and down, trying to create a bit of a breeze.