“What were you thinkin’
of, Baalfire,” sneers Harald, batting the top of my head. “Bringin’ your little sister? You got squirrel meat for brains or what?” One or two of the other gang members snigger,
so pleased are they to have someone else in the firing line. I let it pass – for now. Avoid trouble. I’ve let a few things
pass. Despite my usual avoidance tactics, I know
there will be showdown one of these days.
Soon.
I suspect Harald is having the same thought,
for he says, “Let me tell you, Mr Disappearing Baalfire, a thing or two about the
great and mighty Harald Ruffsnape. My old dada, night after night with his head
in a pan of cider and his belly resting on
the table, calls from his bed for a flagon of mead. ‘I got demons dancin’ around inside my head,
Harald,’ he says. ‘And they’re all wearin’
them Frenchie wooden sabots. The noise
they be makin’ is something atrocious. A
little mead will settle them, I’m sure of it.’
‘Mead?’ I says, roused from a deep sleep in
which I been wrestlin’ with the strangest forest creatures and chewin’ their
heads off. So I staggers from my bed in
the direction of the barrel of mead. Now
by the age of ten, I have grown quite a fine belly of my own. By then, my arms had the strength of young
men double my age. And by the time I
heat up the mead and carry it to His Almighty Drunken Laziness, I decide the time has come. The time is now. This is it.
So, holding it high above my old man’s grasping hands unable to reach
because of the dancing demons, I upend the flagon. Oh, dear!
It is sticky and it is hot.
Gideon – that’s my old dada’s name – he lets
out the kind of bloodcurdling scream of agony you hear when you slit a pig’s
throat. He jumps out of bed and prepares
to commit murder. This is the moment… You listenin’ to this Baalfire? This is the moment when we stand belly to
belly, so that who’s in charge in this god-forsaken house is about to pass from
his hands to my hands. ‘You… you… you no-good-son-of-mine, you’re goin’ to wish
you were never born!’ That’s what he screams at me. And I says, ‘I already wish that, papa, oh
dada of mine.’
Now he pushes past his only son, finds
himself a hefty stick by the door, and returns only to have it wrenched from
his hands and cracked over his own skull.
‘Fine stick, dada. I couldn’t
have chosen a better one myself.’ My
dada always did have a good eye for the choosing of sticks. But he didn’t do that again. No longer did I let him lie around and have
me do all the work. From that day on,
dada becomes slave to the son. For I had
a lot on my plate besides extra rations of bread, fresh meat and boiled turnip. There are boys to be rounded up. Dogs to be kicked. Ageing villagers to be tormented. And sniveling weaklings to be sorted.”
He reaches out to prod me in the shoulder,
only I push his hand away. He just
grins.
“When you goin’ to tie a pretty ribbon in
that hair of yours, Baalfire, and be a proper girl?”
I save my reply for another day.
BUY IT HERE:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Reptile-Wars-Volume-1/dp/1497594995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405352668&sr=8-1&keywords=the+reptile+wars
