Beyond Platform 13 Read online

  ‘It matches your mood,’ Ben joked. ‘That’s such a Cor joke.’

  ‘I just wasted a day hanging out in Vienna with an ordinary kid. We’re back to square one.’ Odge let out a long howl and then went back to hitting her head on the jelly brollachans.

  Ben smiled at Lina. She could tell he was disappointed and worried, but he was clearly kind, so it probably hadn’t even crossed his mind to be horrible to her because of it.

  ‘I can help,’ Lina said, wanting desperately to do something good. ‘I love magic and magical creatures, and I may not be the mistmaker master, but I am a quick thinker – I came up with the solution for getting Ray back here. I also have a handy backpack.’

  ‘How did you know what the mistmakers look like?’ Ben asked curiously as he eyed the mistmaker backpack.

  ‘Mistmaker backpack,’ a rock monster whispered.

  Lina puffed up her chest proudly. ‘I imagined them.’

  ‘Well, in that case, you are very welcome here,’ Ben said with a smile. ‘Everything happens for a reason – I really believe that – and this island speaks to us when we take the time to listen. It’s sent you to us, and that must mean something.’

  Squelch, scream, squelch, scream.

  Lina wasn’t so sure.

  CHAPTER SIX

  NETTY PRUDDLE

  The harpies believed that they had been the first magical creatures to live on Mist, and so that meant it belonged to them. Under their new regime, most creatures were unwelcome on the Island, but there were a few exceptions. The swamp fairies, for example, were needed to form an army, and so they were allowed to stay. But almost every other magical creature was banished and their homes taken. They were told never to return to the Island, because it was never theirs in the first place.

  As a last-minute decision, the harpies decided to keep the hags too, because they believed their large hands would be good for chores, but that was before they’d seen them trying to make a frilly harpy bed.

  Netty Pruddle the hag struggled to tuck in the final ruffled corner then stood back, her eyes closed, awaiting the verdict. Four other beds were lined up in the room, and four other hags – Grunty, Esmergrotsla, Twitlee and Gordon – stood beside them, looking equally nervous.

  They were participating in a gruelling competition to become the handmaid to the new harpy queen. Of course, Netty had no intention of actually being a handmaid; she was working undercover for the resistance. Or, at least, she was trying to.

  ‘NETTY, THIS IS TERRIBLE WORK!’ Mrs Smith, the harpy Queen roared, making Netty’s many boils wobble. ‘WHERE ARE THE DELICATE FOLDS I ASKED FOR? THE CREASELESS SURFACE? THE PLUMP PILLOW?’

  Netty bent double and prodded the pillow with her finger in the hope that it might plump it.

  The three other important harpies – Miss Green, Miss Brown and Miss Witherspoon – grinned smugly.

  Netty gritted her mammoth teeth, thinking of her friend Odge. It’ll be fine, Odge had said. You’ll be able to gather important information, Odge had said. Netty, you can’t lose, Odge had said. Odge had the easy job – she was off having a great time in Vienna collecting the mistmaker master, while Netty was stuck on a mountain making frilly beds for half-human, half-bird women with an attitude problem.

  ‘GORDON, YOUR BED-MAKING IS THE WORST!’ Mrs Smith spat, grabbing the poor hag with her talons and guiding him towards the window.

  Netty heard a sickening thud followed by Gordon’s heavy hag footsteps stomping off down the rocky mountains to freedom. Oh, how she wished she was Gordon in that moment. As she daydreamed, her long eyelashes suddenly flashed blue (which meant wet weather was on the way), just as rain began lashing down outside.

  ‘CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DISPOSE OF THIS I Went to Hans-ome Cheeses and Bought This Cheese PLAQUE,’ Mrs Smith roared, kicking it with her talon straight at Netty’s face. ‘WE’LL DECIDE WHO WINS THE FINAL ROUND WHEN WE SEE HOW YOU’VE DONE WITH MY SHOPPING LISTS.’ And, with that, she flew out of the room, leaving a foul-smelling trail as she went.

  The harpies had originally lived in Central Mist, but when they seized power and threw out all the ogres and trolls, they decided to take over their houses. To anyone other than a troll, a troll’s mountain home was a mansion.

  Netty and the others had been tasked with redecorating the rock mansions to make them harpy-appropriate. First, they had thrown out all the chunky troll furniture – luckily there was a huge crack in the mountain with an endless drop, which was a perfect place to dispose of giant furniture.

  Then they got to work on the shopping lists. Netty had ordered nineteen solid-gold perches (harpies like to perch), four long, thin mirrors (which had all shattered during one of Mrs Smith’s particularly shrill rants), four long beds (which she could not make to the standards demanded by the harpies), two thousand hair curlers, a trunk full of handbags from Evil Clutches and some foul-smelling make-up from Gutsface Inc.

  ‘I give up,’ Esmergrotsla groaned. Her armpit hair was wilting from the stress of the bed-making.

  Grunty and Twitlee nodded along with her.

  ‘Let’s all go,’ Grunty said. ‘I hear there’s a resistance, led by Odge Gribble, and they are hiding somewhere on the Island. We can join them if we can find them.’

  Netty frowned. ‘I can’t. I have to stay here – it’s important. But the others are hidden in the tunnels under Centre Mist – they call it Undermist. Look out for the brollachans, and you’ll find the hidden entrance.’

  The three hags made for the door.

  ‘Good luck, Netty,’ Grunty whispered over her shoulder.

  Netty watched from the window as they all made their escape, scuttling off down the mountain.

  ‘Psst,’ came a voice, distracting Netty from her thoughts of freedom. ‘Psst. Are you Netty?’

  Netty turned to see a kind-looking ghost woman hovering in the corner of the room. She was holding a small scrap of paper and moving it left and right, looking from it to Netty and back again.

  ‘I suppose it looks a bit like you,’ the ghost mumbled.

  Netty stomped over and took the piece of paper. ‘May I?’ she asked.

  The ghost nodded.

  Netty scrunched up her warty face when she saw it. She recognized the artist instantly as Odge. She was a wonderful hag and friend, but a truly awful artist – though she had obviously tried to draw a picture of Netty so the ghost could identify her, which was smart.

  ‘It looks like a lumpy potato in a skirt,’ Netty said.

  ‘I’ve come to collect your message,’ the ghost whispered with a rebellious-looking smile. ‘I’m Miriam Hughes-Hughes. I haunt the gump on platform thirteen of King’s Cross station, London. I ANNOUNCE HOW LATE THE TRAINS ARE GOING TO BE IN THIS ANNOUNCER VOICE I’M DOING RIGHT NOW.’

  ‘Shh,’ Netty begged. ‘They’ll hear you.

  ‘Sorry,’ Miriam Hughes-Hughes mouthed.

  ‘Thank you for coming all this way, Miriam Hughes-Hughes. I’m sure you must be using valuable haunting time to be here.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Miriam Hughes-Hughes said, clearly enjoying Netty’s gratitude. ‘I barely haunt at all these days – kids see so many ghosts on TV that they think I’m nothing more than some sort of high-tech advertisement for a retirement home. They’re more scared of a flock of panicking pigeons. You know, when they go WHOOSH in your face? Sometimes I stomp my foot at just the right moment to send the pigeons soaring and get a sort of second-hand scare out of them, but that’s about as good as it gets these days. And, anyway, I am happy to help with the rebellion. I’ve never liked harpies – they were always very rude if they went through my gump. And rudeness is as unhelpful as a train controller trapped in a toilet.’

  Netty was confused at the last bit.

  ‘That’s a little train-controller humour for you. I’ve been trying my hand at it recently, you see.’

  ‘Well, you are most appreciated, Miriam Hughes-Hughes. A crucial part of this operation. And I’m glad you managed to pick me out
from all the other hag servants based on this potato drawing from Odge.’

  ‘I thought it looked more like a fat toe,’ Miriam Hughes-Hughes mused. ‘But yes – I am glad to have found you. Now, what message should I deliver?’

  ‘Please tell Odge,’ Netty whispered, looking around to check the coast was clear, ‘that I’m in. I’m going to get the handmaid job – by default, because everyone else quit. Oh, and, also, I am working on a plan that involves hair rollers.’

  A bead of sweat ran down Miriam Hughes-Hughes’s face as she tried to write it all down on the back of the drawing. She flashed Netty a smile, told her to stay safe and then floated off out of the window.

  Netty slumped on one of the beds and sighed, as she’d completely squashed it.

  ‘NETTY!’ she heard Mrs Smith roar. ‘YOU WIN! YOU’RE THE CHIEF HANDMAID. YOUR FIRST TASK IS TO HELP US FIND YOUR ESCAPED FRIENDS! ALSO, I NEED HAIR ROLLERS!’

  ‘COMING!’ Netty shouted back, before whispering to herself, ‘We will defeat you.’ She skipped out of the room, her boils jiggling as she went.

  ‘Interesting conversation,’ one of the rocks on the wall muttered to the other.

  ‘Yes, interesting – that message and the ghost,’ said another, about ten hag steps from the house.

  ‘Fascinating hag spy,’ said another, about twenty-nine hag jumps from the house.

  ‘News travels fast in these parts,’ said another rock, on which the Central Mist sign was carved.

  That was the problem with the Island of Mist, rock monsters could be found everywhere – and they were always talking …

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE LITTLE LAKE OF MIST

  Lina took in the sights of Undermist as Ben guided them to a spot to eat.

  Trolls crouched in the cramped tunnels reading books with type as long as Lina’s face. Swamp fairies soaked their feet in bubbling rock pools next to old wizards making rocks glide about in pretty formations.

  Ben took a left down a narrow tunnel filled with a particularly potent smell and came to a halt in a cave filled with cauldrons and witches of every age. When the witches saw them, they began cackling madly, as if someone had just switched them on.

  Ray the mistmaker was slowly beginning to shrink as Lina guided him carefully by the paw to catch up with the others. She’d tried whistling, hoping the music would work, but it didn’t. He flopped about like a wilting leaf, and all Lina wanted to do was make him feel better.

  Odge hadn’t spoken the whole way there, but did occasionally kick herself and yelp – a self-inflicted punishment for mistaking a young girl for the mistmaker master.

  ‘Gribs, we’ll figure it out,’ Ben said kindly to Odge. ‘And look – Ray is wilting again. I think you’re right. The mistmakers are sad about the Island, and it’s making them ill. They exist to protect our island, but without an island worth protecting they’re fading. We need to stop the harpies to save them – I should’ve just listened to you.’

  Odge ignored him and held up three fingers to a witch, who nodded. Lina looked up just as three cauldrons appeared above their heads and tipped up and over, pouring a hot and sticky liquid over her head.

  She screamed, but no sound came out, as if the gloop had swallowed it up. She felt it ooze across her face, moving in all directions as if someone were smearing her with it. When the gloop eventually cleared, and she looked around, she could see they weren’t in the cave any more but somewhere completely different.

  ‘We’re still in the cave,’ Odge said with a smile. It was the first thing she had said to Lina since finding out she wasn’t the mistmaker master, and Lina was relieved not to detect any resentment in her voice. ‘The potions just make it a little more exciting. It can be a bit dull hiding in an underground tunnel.’

  All around Lina, trolls danced on polished black floors that stretched out under painted vaulted ceilings strung with dancing toads on tightropes. A band of fairies hovered overhead, singing too softly to be heard properly over the roar of chatter. Efficient witch waiters glided from table to table, magically making orders appear.

  ‘MENU?’ one asked, plonking down a little maggot on the table.

  Lina stared blankly at it.

  ‘You need to tell it what you want,’ Ben explained. ‘I was confused by this magic when I came here too! It’s not like a menu we’d find in the human world; it’s a MENU. It stands for Maggot Everything Now, Urgently. Whisper something you’d like.’

  Lina felt silly. She leaned in close to the maggot and said, ‘Chocolate bar.’

  The maggot did a little wiggle as the witch tipped her hat and, just like that, the maggot vomited up a chocolate bar.

  Lina picked it up and inspected it – it was exactly the one she had been thinking of, right down to the emerald-green wrapper.

  Odge ordered a large cheese pie and a chocolate coin with her face on it, and Ben went for a milkshake, which was particularly horrible to see a maggot vomit up.

  ‘Where are your parents living in London?’ Lina asked. ‘If you’re the Prince, then they must be the King and Queen. Are they staying at a royal palace?’

  ‘A school canteen,’ Ben said. ‘Some of the witches beyond the gump got them temporary jobs. They’re human, so it’s easy for them to go unnoticed.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Lina said. ‘I could go back to Vienna and find the mistmaker master for you.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘No – the mistmaker master will be spooked now. They say she rarely comes out of hiding. For some reason, she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s the mistmaker master. Odge wrote the letter and hoped she’d be there to meet her, but who knows – maybe she never came. If she did, and Odge didn’t meet her, there will be no convincing her to meet again.’

  Odge stared up at the tightrope-walking toads and exhaled loudly. ‘I ruined everything.’

  ‘Well then I will help stop the harpies,’ Lina said, struggling to bite through her solid chocolate bar. ‘How many of them are there?’

  ‘Well,’ Ben said, ‘there are the main four. Mrs Smith is the boss – she always has been. The other three do what she says. They’re virtually identical, although you can tell which one Miss Green is because of the way she flies. She ate one of the enchantments Cor left around the Island, and now she can only fly backwards. There was a fifth, a Miss Jones, but she disappeared after the gump opened, and we haven’t seen her since.’

  ‘I thought I saw her in Vienna,’ Odge said, more to herself than the others. ‘But I was wrong.’

  ‘Aside from them,’ Ben went on, ‘there are about a hundred other less-important harpies who don’t seem to do much now they’ve got their troll mansions. Mrs Smith is the one to defeat – she is the ringleader.’

  ‘So,’ Lina said, ‘we have two days until the closing of the gump to defeat evil Mrs Smith and get all the banished magical creatures – and Ben’s parents – back home. Then there won’t be anybody shut out any more, so the mistmakers will be happy again, and the Island will be saved.’

  Odge nodded in agreement. ‘You can stay and help, and I hope we can do it. But no matter what happens, at the closing of the gump, we must get you home safely.’

  ‘But we’ll have to disguise you before we even think about leaving Undermist,’ Ben added. ‘The harpies hate almost all creatures that aren’t like them, but they hate humans most of all. What is important to me is that we keep you safe.’

  ‘I’ve got some options,’ a witch said, dumping various costume bits at Lina’s feet. ‘My favourite is the Troll Baby, or possibly the Giant Swamp Fairy … Your choice though!’

  ‘Ooh, are they magic?’ Lina asked hopefully.

  The witch looked annoyed, as if people expected her to be magic all the time. ‘Yes,’ she said, leaning closer to Lina. ‘It’s called the magic of sewing.’

  Lina smiled and lifted the costume sitting limply on the top of the pile. It was a spiky green wig attached to some bright orange overalls. She fished a little dummy made out o
f rock from the pocket.

  ‘You know, I don’t think she’s big enough to be a troll baby,’ Odge said, sounding entirely serious.

  Ben nodded in agreement, lifting some fake fairy wings. ‘And too big to be a giant fairy.’

  ‘What’s this one?’ Lina asked, lifting the third and final option from the floor.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ Odge said with a smile. ‘You’ll be safe wearing that.’

  It turns out rock-monster costumes are surprisingly heavy – something Lina was learning as she tried to balance on the bar stool while disguised as one.

  ‘So, if there’s ever any danger, just drop like a rock and stay very still,’ Odge said. ‘It’s perfect.’

  Lina was hoping she’d be dressed as one of the more magical of Mist’s characters – a baby troll or giant fairy would’ve been much more exciting than a rock monster.

  One of the witch waiters picked up Lina’s mistmaker backpack and looped it on to the rock. ‘There you go, human girl.’

  Lina was about to suggest they try another costume option – any other costume option – when the ghost of a woman came sailing into the cave. She floated straight through Lina, and the whole room began to shrink, the fairy band stopped playing and vanished with a pop, and before Lina could blink she was back in the dark, cramped underground cave with nothing but the witches stirring their big cauldrons.

  ‘Ghosts break most potions,’ Odge explained to Lina. ‘They contaminate them.’

  Miriam Hughes-Hughes looked offended. ‘Well, I’m sorry for interrupting your fantasy lunch burped up by magic maggots, but I bring news from the big toe … I mean the potato … I mean Netty. And a letter from your parents, Ben.’

  ‘Netty Pruddle!’ Lina cried, remembering the name from the journey in Magdelena’s carriage. ‘The hag undercover at the harpy mansion! What news? Is it good?’

  ‘Who is this?’ Miriam Hughes-Hughes said.

  ‘This is Lina,’ Ben said. ‘She’s a human who came here by accident, but she’s staying for a while to help us. Then she’ll need to go back home to her parents.’