Krindlekrax Read online

  ‘No, you can have it,’ Ruskin replied.

  ‘You sure? I wouldn’t want to cheat you of your share of the delicious chocolate.’

  ‘I’m sure, Corky! Just tell me … you being chased by the baby crocodile – is that why you left your job in the sewers and became a caretaker instead?’

  ‘In a way,’ Corky replied, licking the biscuit, ‘but … well, there’s still more to tell!’

  ‘Oh, what, Corky? What?’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Well, I stopped going into the sewers, true,’ continued Corky, ‘but I still worked for the same firm. They gave me a job in an office instead. I stayed there for … oh, several years. And then, one day, a worker went sick and they needed someone to go underground in his place to check a few leaks and rusty pipes.’

  ‘And you were the one who went,’ Ruskin said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Corky said, his tongue covered with chocolate. ‘I put my helmet on – this very helmet, with its torch – and went down into the darkness again.’

  ‘And … and you saw the crocodile again?’ suggested Ruskin.

  ‘Oh, not at first,’ Corky said. ‘At first I didn’t even think about it. I just concentrated on walking through the water without slipping over. And … and then I heard it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A roar. A roar like I’d never heard before. Like a million car tyres screeching all at once. It made my bones shake.’

  ‘Were you scared?’ Ruskin asked.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Because you knew what it was?’

  ‘That’s right, my dear boy,’ Corky said, licking the last of the chocolate from the biscuit and throwing it away. ‘I knew that for all those years the baby crocodile had been drinking the dirty water and eating the remains of food. I knew that it had been growing and growing. And I knew something else. I knew that biting my knee had given it a taste for my blood. I knew that it had been growing and waiting for me to return so it could finish me off once and for all.’

  Ruskin leaned forward and squeezed Corky’s hand.

  ‘What did you do?’ Ruskin asked, eyes wide.

  ‘Well, I didn’t panic, my dear boy,’ Corky replied. ‘That’s the worst thing to do. Never panic. So … slowly and calmly … I turned around and limped towards the ladder. I tried to be as quiet as possible. The splashing of my feet in the water sounded so loud to me. And then … then I heard it again. That terrible roar. I knew the crocodile was getting closer.’

  ‘Although it wasn’t just a crocodile any more, was it, Corky?’ Ruskin said. ‘It had got another name.’

  ‘It was Krindlekrax,’ Corky said. ‘I just knew that was its name. The roar of Krindlekrax filled my ears. I saw the ladder and reached out. I could hear splashing coming towards me. I knew Krindlekrax was getting closer and closer. I ran up the ladder. And, in those last few moments, I glanced down to see what was chasing after me.’

  ‘What did it look like?’ Ruskin asked.

  ‘Huge and dark,’ Corky replied, ‘with pointed claws and sharp teeth and breath as hot as fire. It was the most terrible thing I had ever seen.’ Corky leaned back and took his helmet off. ‘When I got home that evening,’ he said, ‘I saw that all my hair had turned white. The sight of Krindlekrax had drained the colour from me.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘So … you left your job. Right, Corky?’ Ruskin asked.

  Corky nodded, saying, ‘Yes. I left, my dear boy. I got a job at St George’s School. Where you and I became friends, so I can’t complain too much.’

  Ruskin smiled.

  ‘But I’ll tell you something,’ Corky continued. ‘Some nights I know that Krindlekrax comes up through the largest drain in Lizard Street. I know it comes up and searches for me. And shall I tell you how I know?’

  ‘How?’ Ruskin asked.

  ‘Because its heavy tail cracks the pavement, and its fiery breath scorches the bricks dark, and its claws put bumps and holes in the road. That’s how I know.’

  ‘But … it’s never … found you,’ Ruskin said nervously.

  ‘No,’ Corky replied, wrapping the old newspaper round the tin helmet. ‘And it never will.’

  ‘Oh, don’t let it,’ Ruskin cried, getting to his feet and hugging Corky. ‘Don’t let it get you. You’re the only friend I’ve got.’

  ‘There, there, my dear boy,’ Corky said, holding Ruskin very tight. ‘Don’t upset yourself. I’ll never let Krindlekrax get me. I bolt all my doors and lock my windows and tuck myself in tight when I go to bed. I’m as safe as houses.’

  ‘If … if I ever see Krindlekrax,’ Ruskin said, ‘I’ll tame him so you’ll be safe forever.’

  ‘None of us is safe forever,’ Corky said. ‘We can only be safe for little whiles at a time.’

  Ruskin was still clutching Corky’s golden medal in his hand.

  ‘I’m still curious about this,’ Ruskin said. ‘Tell me why you got the medal.’

  ‘Not now,’ Corky said. ‘That’s enough stories for one night.’

  ‘Is it anything to do with Krindlekrax?’ Ruskin asked.

  ‘No,’ Corky replied.

  ‘Is it anything –?’ began Ruskin.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ interrupted Corky. ‘Now you get yourself home, my dear boy. Your mum and dad will be worried.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was getting dark outside.

  Clutching the medal tightly, Ruskin walked down Lizard Street towards his home.

  He looked at the cracks in the pavement and the holes in the road and the dark bricks, and imagined Krindlekrax walking up and down Lizard Street – its huge tail cracking, its sharp claws digging, its hot breath scorching – looking for Corky Pigeon. He imagined Krindlekrax looking in through windows, peeping through curtains, watching people sleep and dream. Perhaps Krindlekrax had even seen him – Ruskin Splinter – curled up in his bed, and wondered who this small, thin, red-haired boy was, sleeping contentedly in a room full of actors’ photographs.

  Ruskin stood on the large drain in front of his house. The metal drain-cover wobbled from side to side,

  Ka-clunk! went the drain-cover.

  Ruskin thought, This is the largest drain in Lizard Street. It’s from this drain that Krindlekrax rises when he’s searching for Corky.

  Ruskin got to his knees and put his ear to the cold metal. He listened as hard as he could.

  For a while he heard nothing. And then … then he heard it!

  A distant rumbling.

  The drain started to vibrate.

  The rumbling got louder and louder.

  So loud, Ruskin’s knees started to tremble.

  It was Krindlekrax! Down there in the sewer, it was stomping through endless corridors of water, through chambers as large as cathedrals and waterfalls as high as mountains.

  Ruskin got to his feet, brushed the dust from his knees, then looked up at his house. He noticed the window Elvis had smashed that morning had been covered with a sheet of newspaper. Nearly all the windows were paper instead of glass now.

  Ruskin went inside.

  His mum and dad were sitting at the kitchen table, eating baked beans on toast. His dad, Winston, was still in his pyjama bottoms and a white vest with holes in. The front of the vest was thick with baked-bean and marmalade and egg stains.

  ‘Kiss,’ Wendy said.

  Ruskin kissed her cheek.

  ‘Tea?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes please,’ replied Ruskin.

  ‘Beans on toast?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Every evening Wendy said ‘Kiss’, followed by ‘Tea?’ then ‘Beans on toast?’ (or poached egg or scrambled egg or fried egg), and every evening Ruskin kissed her cheek and said ‘Yes please’ to both questions.

  Ruskin sat at the table.

  Winston’s eyes were glued to the television set in the corner of the room. Someone on the screen was talking about the weather: ‘It’s the hottest summer ever. Lawns are turning brown, flow
ers are drying up and we’re running out of water …’

  Ruskin said, ‘I wish we didn’t have newspaper in our windows.’

  ‘We can’t afford to keep replacing the windows,’ Winston said, still staring at the television. ‘Now the worst thing Elvis can do is rip paper instead of smashing glass.’

  ‘But it looks silly, Dad.’

  ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘Oh, polly-wolly-doodle-all-the-day,’ Wendy said, handing Ruskin some tea and putting some bread in the toaster. ‘Don’t make such a fuss.’

  ‘You should get Elvis’s dad to pay for it,’ Ruskin remarked. ‘Why don’t you go and speak to him?’

  ‘I don’t want to speak to Elvis’s dad,’ Winston insisted. ‘Not now or ever! Besides, don’t forget my motto: “Don’t interfere”.’

  Wendy poured Ruskin a cup of tea and asked, ‘Did you get the part of the hero in the school play?’

  ‘No,’ Ruskin replied.

  ‘I said you wouldn’t,’ Wendy said. ‘Fancy thinking a small, thin, red-haired boy like you with a squeaky whisper of a voice could pass for a handsome, tall, muscular, thunderous-voiced hero.’

  The toast popped out of the toaster. Wendy buttered it, poured some baked beans on top and handed it to Ruskin.

  ‘We have toast with everything,’ Ruskin said.

  ‘I love toast,’ Wendy said ecstatically.

  ‘But we can’t eat all of it,’ Ruskin said, looking at his meal. ‘I mean, what happens to all the toast left over?’

  ‘I throw it away,’ Wendy said, staring at the television set.

  The person on the television was saying, ‘… paint is peeling, walls are cracking, people are getting sunstroke, drains are smelling …’

  Ruskin asked, ‘Where do you throw all the toast?’

  ‘Down the drain of course,’ Wendy replied.

  Ruskin looked at his mum. The light from the television set reflected in her eyes, making them look like car headlights.

  ‘Have you always thrown our uneaten toast down the drain?’ he asked.

  ‘Always,’ Wendy replied.

  ‘The drain outside?’

  ‘Of course,’ Wendy said. ‘After all, it’s the biggest drain in Lizard Street.’

  Ruskin ate the rest of his meal in silence. Afterwards he went up to his room and sat by the window.

  Now he knew why the baby crocodile had grown so big. Corky said that it had been eating toast when he first saw it. And that’s what it had continued to do. For ten years. A daily diet of toast and butter, toast and marmalade, toast and baked beans, toast and poached egg (or scrambled egg or fried egg). And the toast had made the crocodile big and strong, had given it a tail and sharp claws and fiery breath, had transformed it from a tiny, bright-green baby, no bigger than a shoe, into a gigantic, dark monster that drained the colour from Corky’s hair and nightly damaged Lizard Street.

  ‘I’m going to sit here all night,’ Ruskin said, looking out of the window. ‘I’m going to stay awake and wait for Krindlekrax.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ruskin stared down the length of Lizard Street. One by one the lights in windows (what windows were still unsmashed by Elvis’s ball) went out and people went to bed.

  Ruskin knew the street so well. He looked at Mr Lace’s house with its window box full of marigolds. He looked at Dr Flowers’s house, from where came the sound of the hay-fevered doctor sneezing in his sleep, ‘TISHOO! TISHOO! TISHOO!’ He looked at Sparkey Walnut’s house, where, no doubt, Mrs Walnut hoped her shop window would not be broken again by a sleepwalking Elvis. He looked at Corky’s house where Corky was tucked up tightly, his windows locked, doors bolted, protecting himself from Krindlekrax. He looked at the pub, The Dragon and the Golden Penny, where Mr and Mrs Cave smoked endless cigars and Elvis lay in bed, his ball cradled in his arms. And he looked at the school at the other end of the street. The school, with its turrets and railings, was like a gigantic castle against the moonlit, star-filled sky.

  Ruskin took the medal from his pocket.

  There was a pin attached to the medal so it could be pinned on the owner. The medal gleamed in the moonlight.

  The light reflected in Ruskin’s eyes and made him feel tired.

  Ruskin closed his eyes for a while …

  He must have fallen asleep because, suddenly, he heard a noise and jumped up.

  At first he thought it was Krindlekrax.

  Then he realized it wasn’t.

  Da-boinggg! went the noise.

  It was Elvis’s football.

  Ruskin peered down Lizard Street.

  There – at the other end – Elvis was sleepwalking and bouncing the ball.

  Even though Elvis was in his pyjamas, he still wore his American football helmet and the shoulders to his pyjamas were padded.

  The moonlight made Elvis’s shadow very long. It ran down the whole length of Lizard Street.

  Da-boinggg! went the ball.

  It was the only sound in Lizard Street and it echoed from building to building.

  What a nasty boy you are, thought Ruskin, watching Elvis. You grow three times as big and steal my ball and you smash all our windows.

  Suddenly, the ball struck a bump in the road and bounced off at an angle.

  The ball hit Mr Lace’s window.

  SMASH! went the window.

  One by one, the windows of Lizard Street lit up as people struggled out of bed.

  The first on the street was Mr Lace.

  Although he was wearing a long white nightshirt, he still had his scarf round his neck and pencils in his hair. There was a pencil in his mouth as well, confirming the rumour that Mr Lace sucked a pencil in his sleep like babies suck a dummy.

  ‘My window!’ cried Mr Lace, waving his hands in the air.

  Then he looked at the window boxes. A few of the marigolds had been damaged by the ball.

  ‘My flowers!’ Mr Lace cried. ‘My beautiful flowers!’

  Other people were in the street now.

  Mr Flick in his emerald green dressing gown with a velvet collar, Mrs Walnut in an olive green, potato-smelling dressing gown, Mr and Mrs Cave still smoking cigars, Dr Flowers with paper handkerchiefs stuck to his face. They all stood round Mr Lace and tried to comfort him as he bemoaned the state of his window boxes.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ said Mr Flick.

  ‘Outrageous,’ said Mrs Walnut.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ said Dr Flowers. ‘TISHOO!’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Mrs Walnut said. ‘He’s broken my shop window six times now.’

  ‘And my window seven times,’ said Mr Flick.

  Ruskin’s mum and dad were peering from behind their front door.

  ‘He keeps breaking our windows too!’ called Wendy.

  ‘Shhh,’ said Winston, closing the door. ‘Don’t interfere!’

  Mr Cave put his arms round Elvis and said, ‘Look how innocent he is! He doesn’t even know what he’s doing.’

  ‘My poor little Elvy-baby,’ said Mrs Cave.

  Everyone in the street stared at Elvis.

  ‘Now then,’ Mr Cave said, ‘give him his ball back. Otherwise he’ll be upset in the morning and you wouldn’t want that to happen. You know how many windows Elvis smashes when he gets upset.’

  Mr Lace bit a pencil in half and went inside to get Elvis’s ball.

  ‘It’s terrible,’ sighed Mr Flick.

  ‘Outrageous!’ gasped Mrs Walnut.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ exclaimed Dr Flowers. ‘TISHOO!’

  Mr Lace returned with the ball and gave it to Elvis.

  As soon as it was in Elvis’s hands, he started to bounce it.

  Da-boinggg!

  Mr and Mrs Cave led Elvis back to the pub and locked the door.

  The people of Lizard Street looked at each other in silence for a while. Then they shrugged their shoulders, sighed, and went to bed. All except Mr Lace, that is. He got a broom and started sweeping the broken glass.

  Corky came out of his house
and helped Mr Lace sweep the glass into a bin bag.

  ‘He’s a nuisance, that boy,’ Mr Lace said, wiping tears from his eyes.

  ‘Even in his sleep he scares us,’ said Corky.

  Once all the glass was swept away, Mr Lace went into his house and locked the door.

  Corky stood alone in the street for a while.

  He glanced up and saw Ruskin sitting in his window.

  Corky waved his stick in the air.

  Ruskin waved back.

  Corky went inside and locked his door.

  Ruskin sat for a while, waiting for Krindlekrax. But, gradually, weariness overcame him and he knew he had to go to bed.

  He changed into his pyjamas (green and white striped), looked at the golden medal, then closed the window.

  ‘Goodnight, Lizard Street,’ he said.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next morning in school, rehearsals started on the play, Young Hal Oaktree (Hal Oaktree is the name of the hero).

  Elvis, holding a plastic sword and shield (and clutching his football under his arm) stood in front of the cardboard-and-chicken-wire dragon.

  Mr Lace watched from behind the piano.

  ‘All right,’ Mr Lace said. ‘Begin your speech, Elvis.’

  Elvis took a deep breath.

  ‘Oh, you terrible monster,’ Elvis began in a voice that, despite being loud and thunderous, was flat and emotionless. ‘You scary thing of … you scary thing of … the … the …’ Elvis had forgotten his lines.

  ‘Dark,’ prompted Mr Lace.

  ‘Dark!’ Elvis exclaimed. ‘You scary thing of the dark. You will scare us no … no … no …’ Elvis had forgotten his lines again.

  ‘No more,’ Mr Lace prompted.

  ‘No more!’ Elvis exclaimed. ‘You will scare us no more. I am not … not …’

  ‘Afraid,’ Mr Lace prompted.

  ‘Afraid!’ Elvis exclaimed. ‘I am not afraid. I … I …’ Elvis’s voice trailed into silence.