Gerald Durrell: The Talking Parcel

Wilberforce blinked at him.

“I said, how do you feel?” asked Parrot loudly.

“I heard you the first time; there’s no need to shout,” said Wilberforce. “And what’s it got to do with you how I feel, eh? Mind your own business, you interfering bird, or I’ll knock your beak off.”

“Good gracious,” said Peter in astonishment.

“And as for you two,” Wilberforce went on, striding across the lawn and shouting up at them. “What right ha ve you got to insult my name? Put your faces down here, and I’ll knock them through the back of your heads.”

“Good heavens, this is most miraculous,” said Wensleydale. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Wilberforce wheeled round and, before anybody knew what he was doing, he had seized Wensleydale by his lace cravat and was shaking him to and fro.

“As for you,” shouted Wilberforce, “I’m sick and tired of you, you and your pernickety ways, that I am, and it’s about time someone taught you a lesson, that it is.”

So saying, Wilberforce hit Wensleydale, Duke of Weaseldom, in the eye so hard that it knocked him back, so that he hit the tea trolley and upset it. The children gazed in astonishment at Wensleydale lying there covered in buttered toast and me­ringues, while Wilberforce danced around him.

“Get up and fight, you coward,” shouted Wilberforce, “you lily-livered Weasel, you. Get up, and I’ll cut you to pieces, so I will. I’ll cut both your ears off and knock all your teeth out.”

It took the other six gardeners to subdue Wilberforce and to lock him in the garden shed.

“I think,” said Parrot, as they watched the moaning Wensley­dale being carried into the house, “I think that experiment is what you might call an unqualified, universal, and ubiquitous success, don’t you?”

The children agreed wholeheartedly.

When Wensleydale recovered a bit (although his eye was very swollen), he promised that the whole of Weaseldom would now join the fight against the Cockatrices. The children and Parrot went jubilantly back to the Crystal Caves.

Now the Crystal Caves were all bustle, chatter, and work.

The Griffons had rounded up a herd of Mooncalves and es­tablished them in one of the side tunnels, where they produced sheet after sheet of Mooncalf jelly which Penelope, Dulcibelle, and H.H. thought into balloons and other things that they would need. Out in a secluded moon-carrot meadow Peter, now in his element, was training his battalion of Unicorn cav­alry, teaching them to trot, canter, wheel all together as one unit. The Unicorns were very quick at learning, and before long Peter was really proud of their precision and skill.

For several days Ethelred had been missing for long periods, and, although the others had noticed, they had been too busy to give it much thought. Then he appeared one day just as Penelope had thought vast quantities of Mooncalf jelly into seven hundred and seventy-seven fireproof suits for the Weasels and was feeling rather exhausted. To her astonishment, Eth­elred was wearing a tricorne hat with gold braid and a very smart uniform with gold epaulettes and all sorts of gold braid round the sleeves. The coat was a very deep bottle green and the trousers were white. He was wearing a large sword with a silver scabbard.

“Why, Ethelred, you look magnificent,” said Penelope.

“ ’Opes you likes it,” said Ethelred. “It’s me Commander-in­-Chief’s uniform.”

“Really?” said Penelope. “What are you Commander-in­-Chief of?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” said Ethelred. And he led her into one of the side tunnels.

There, to Penelope’s surprise and delight, stood some fifty Toads, wearing lovely scarlet uniforms with brass buttons and pill-box hats with big, black feathers in them, and carrying long, sharply pointed pikes and bows and arrows.

“But where did they come from?” she asked, bewildered.

“Cockatrice Castle,” said Ethelred. “I didn’t want to be the only Toad ’elping you all, so l slipped down there, disguised as a Greek ship owner with forty-two galleons to ’ire, and made all me relatives join.”

“Why, that’s splendid,” said Penelope warmly. “I know that H.H. will be simply delighted.”

Ethelred took off his tricorne hat and cleared his throat. “With your permission, miss, I’d like to christen this bunch— er, brigade—Miss Penelope’s Terrifying Toad Brigade.”

“Of course, you may, that’s most flattering,” said Penelope. “Thank you, miss,” said Ethelred, gratified. “I’m just taking them out for a little archery practice, so if you’d be so kind as to take the salute, like?”

“Of course,” said Penelope.

“Brigade, ’shun!” shouted Ethelred. All the Toads in their red uniforms stood at attention.

“Right wheel,” shouted Ethelred, “quick march.”

The Brigade obeyed him. As they marched past Penelope, Ethelred shouted, “Eyes right,” and Penelope stood smartly at attention, saluting.

“Thank you, miss,” said Ethelred when the Brigade had marched away. “I’m going to give them some target practice now. Some of ’em ain’t ’alf bad shots. One of them yesterday nearly put a h’arrow through me ’at.”

Peter and Simon spent a lot of time in H.H.’s extensive library reading up on methods of attacking castles, and in one book they came across an illustration of a machine which they thought might well be useful. It was a form of giant catapult with a long arm, rather like a soup spoon. You pulled the arm back, put your ammunition in the bowl of the spoon, and then released it. The boys took some Mooncalf jelly and thought up one of these catapults, as an experiment, and it seemed to work. The next question was what to fire out of them, and the Grif­fons solved this. They suggested they make golden cannon­balls. These proved to be a great success, and the Griffons turned out to be very good shots.

Meanwhile, Fenella had returned from Werewolf Island, bringing with her all her friends and relatives. Penelope and the boys watched them arrive one evening after dark, and they agreed it was one of the most beautiful sights they had seen in Mythologia. The Firedrakes came flying over the moonlit sea in a long, wavering, multicolored ribbon that looked like a very vivid rainbow come to life.

As soon as they were installed in the Crystal Caves, Simon began experiments with his balloons. He found that for a bal­loon to lift a basket containing thirty fully armed Weasels it required the power of forty Firedrakes, so he could have a fleet of fifteen balloons. The balloons worked beautifully and the Firedrakes took tremendous pride in the way they could ma­neuver them through the sky.

So everything was made ready: the corridors were full of drilling Toads and Weasels, the Griffons and Tabitha worked hard manufacturing great piles of golden cannonballs, and Pe­nelope spent hours attaching baskets to the balloons with spe­cially thick silk which Dulcibelle had spun for the purpose.

Simon wanted to show everybody, with the aid of a large model he had made of Cockatrice Castle, exactly what they would have to do. The difficulty was to find a place to assemble them all.

“Oh, that’s easy,” said H.H. when Simon put the problem to him. “Use the banqueting hall.”

“I didn’t know you had one,” said Simon.

“Oh yes,” said H.H. “Come and I’ll show you.”

He led Simon along several corridors and threw open huge double doors. There was an immense room with a beautifully polished crystal floor, lit by hundreds of wonderful mushroom chandeliers.

“Why, it’s perfect," said Simon in delight. “We can even fit Oswald in here.”

“It will be nice to have it used,” said H.H. “I built it originally so that we could have balls and banquets indoors, in case of rain, quite forgetting, of course, that I'm in charge of the weather here, so if I don’t want it to rain, it doesn’t. So it’s never been used, which is a pity.”