Charlie Bone and the Red Knight. Jenny Nimmo

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СКАЧАТЬ but they were well aware of its meaning. Their friend’s livelihood had been stolen from him. The Pets’ Café, where every customer was obliged to bring a pet, was now closed. The joyful twittering, the braying, barking and mewing that once had welcomed every visitor was now gone, leaving only a bleak silence.

      Inside the café, chairs were piled on empty tables, the lights were out in the coloured lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and in the kitchen Mrs Onimous endlessly filled the stove with cakes and cookies that no one would eat.

      Thinking of his wife, Mr Onimous took a firm step towards the green door, and then hesitated. A sound at the far end of the alley made him peer cautiously round the corner.

      A figure came striding towards him.

      ‘We’re closed,’ called Mr Onimous. ‘It’s no use coming down here. Besides,’ he added sadly, ‘you haven’t got a pet – unless it’s in your pocket. Go away.’

      The stranger paid no attention. He marched purposefully closer. A boy, thought Mr Onimous, noting the slim build and youthful stride. A yellow scarf covered the lower half of the boy’s face, and the hood of his blue coat was pulled well down over his forehead.

      Mr Onimous backed nervously round the corner. His heart was beating rather fast, but his gloomy mood had been replaced by resentful anger. Who was this silent stranger, marching towards him when he had expressly told him to go away?

      The cats were usually quick to defend Mr Onimous but they stood in the alley with their tails erect, sniffing the air and mewing expectantly.

      A strong breeze accompanied the stranger – a sinister breeze in Mr Onimous’s opinion. Can’t be one of the kids, he thought. Can’t be one of the endowed. It’s Wednesday night. They’re all at school and in bed most likely. He ran across to the green door and, pulling a key from his pocket, shakily inserted it into the lock.

      ‘Mr Onimous!’ The voice was a harsh, urgent whisper.

      The little man turned fearfully, and looked into a pair of familiar sky-blue eyes. ‘Tancred Torsson!’ he cried.

      ‘Sssh!’ Tancred put a finger to his lips.

      ‘Oh, my dear, dear fellow.’ Mr Onimous clasped both Tancred’s hands and squeezed them tight. ‘Oh, you can’t know how you’ve lifted my spirits. We thought you were dead.’

      ‘I am dead, Mr Onimous,’ whispered Tancred. ‘Dead to THEM at least. Can I come in? I’ll explain everything.’

      ‘Of course, of course.’ Mr Onimous unlocked the door and drew Tancred into the empty café. The three cats bounced swiftly after them and Mr Onimous locked and bolted the door.

      Tancred pulled down his scarf and gazed at the upturned chairs with their legs pointing desolately at the darkened ceiling. ‘This is so sad, Mr Onimous,’ he said. ‘We must do something about it.’

      ‘Course we must, but it’s too much for my poor old brain to sort out.’ Mr Onimous led the way round the counter at the back of the café, and into the bright kitchen beyond.

      An exceptionally tall woman with a long melancholy face was spooning jam into some rather pale-looking tarts. There were several plates of them spread across the kitchen table, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs Onimous’s desolate expression, you would have thought she was preparing for a party.

      ‘Don’t say it,’ murmured Mrs Onimous, without looking up. ‘Who’s going to eat a hundred tarts? I couldn’t help myself, Orvil. What else am I to do?’

      ‘Onoria, my darling,’ Mr Onimous failed to keep a squeak of excitement out of his voice. ‘We have a visitor.’

      She looked up, opened her mouth, screamed, staggered backwards and collapsed into an old armchair. ‘Tancred Torsson!’ she gasped. ‘You’re dead!’

      ‘Not so, Mrs Onimous.’ Tancred pulled back his hood, revealing a mop of thick corn-gold hair. ‘As you see, I am very much alive.’

      ‘The news is all round the city. They said you had drowned.’ Two fat tears rolled down Mrs Onimous’s cheeks. ‘A terrible accident, they said it was, but we guessed it was that evil boy Dagbert Endless who had drowned you.’

      ‘Well, he did, in a sense,’ Tancred agreed. ‘I was just about gone when Emma rescued me. And then, soon after my father had carried my lifeless body home, we had visitors.’ Tancred sat at the table and stroked the head of the yellow cat, Sagittarius, drawing a deep purr from his silky throat. ‘I thought you had sent them.’

      ‘The cats!’ cried Mr Onimous, clapping his hands. ‘I should have known it. But they lead a mysterious life. I never know where they are off to.’

      ‘They saved your life too, Orvil,’ said his wife, pouring tea for their visitor. ‘It’s a miracle how they always know when a child of the Red King is in trouble.’

      ‘I’m no child,’ chuckled Mr Onimous, lifting orange Leo into his arms.

      ‘You’re a descendant; that’s good enough for them.’ Onoria smiled as Aries, the copper cat, wound himself round her legs.

      ‘They sat on my bed all through the night.’ Tancred’s eyes took on a faraway gleam as he began to describe the warmth and comfort the cats had brought to his aching limbs, and how their voices had soothed the pain in his head and steadied his faltering heart.

      ‘I know, I know.’ Mr Onimous thought of his own miraculous recovery.

      Mrs Onimous sat down and pushed same tarts across to Tancred. ‘Empty the plate, there’s a good boy,’ she said. ‘And take some home to your mother. We don’t see enough of her down here.’

      ‘She doesn’t have a pet,’ said Tancred through a mouthful of tart. ‘She’s tried dogs and cats, guinea pigs and rabbits, even a pony, but they all ran away. They couldn’t take my dad’s thunder.’

      Tancred’s father was known as the Thunder Man, on account of the violent weather that constantly attended him.

      ‘Does Charlie Bone know that you survived?’ asked Mr Onimous, biting into one of his wife’s tarts.

      Tancred nodded vigorously. ‘So do the others: Lysander, Gabriel and co, but no one else must know. I can do more to help them if Dagbert and the Bloors think that I’m dead.’

      ‘We won’t tell a soul.’ Mr Onimous lowered his voice as though the Bloors might be outside the door that very moment. ‘I feel so sorry for poor Charlie. His parents have been away for more than a month now, and although I don’t like to criticise a fine person like Lyell Bone, it’s a long time to leave your only child when you’ve already been apart for more than ten years.’

      ‘I agree,’ said Tancred, ‘but Charlie’s such a great –’ A loud knocking caused him to stop mid-sentence and stare over his shoulder.

      ‘Whoever can it be?’ Mr Onimous opened the kitchen door and stared across the café at a large figure framed in the window. ‘Bless me, it’s Norton. I’ll –’

      ‘NO, Mr Onimous!’ Tancred leapt up and pulled the little man back into the kitchen. ‘Charlie asked me to СКАЧАТЬ