‘You…children…have…a…terrible…case…of…tartar…buildup,’ said one of the Grin Bandits. ‘The…teeth…must…be…extracted…immediately. We…humbly…offer…our…services.’
‘No, sir-ee,’ said Finn angrily. ‘We’ll keep the tartar. You’re not even qualified. Now let us out of here.’
The tallest Grin Bandit chuckled nastily. ‘We…Grin…Bandits…collect…teeth. We…are…passionate…about…them. The…only…thing…that…will…keep…us…from…adding…yours…to…our…collection…is…if…you…can…solve…our…riddle. You…have…three…guesses.’
Milli was just about to object to the unreasonableness of such a pact when Ernest, who could rarely resist such a challenge, boldly cried out, ‘Let’s hear it then.’
The clowns chuckled and rubbed their hands together with glee before reciting their riddle.
‘I…am…a…gum…that…cannot…be…chewed…yet…without…me…you…can…never…chew…in…peace. What…am…I?’
‘Are you out of your minds?’ Milli demanded. ‘That is complete nonsense. I doubt it even has a solution.’
The chief Grin Bandit smiled with a grim satisfaction and wagged a finger at her.
‘That…answer…is…incorrect.’
Two of the clowns charged with lightning speed and seized Fennel, wrapping their arms around her like a coil. With a shout, Finn tried to dart forward but his path was blocked by the head Bandit. Finn threw a punch at him, but it bounced off the creature’s padded suit. Milli wondered if there was actually a body beneath the fabric. The children watched in helpless dismay as Fennel’s mouth was stuffed with cotton wool so that her cheeks bulged. She couldn’t speak other than to utter a few strangled sounds.
‘Two…more…guesses,’ the chief Grin Bandit informed them.
‘That’s not fair! You’re trying to trick us. We
haven’t had a first guess yet!’ Finn shouted, his face turning beetroot with rage.
Milli and Ernest could see that reasoning clearly was not going to be an option, so they steered Finn into a corner where they could confer privately.
‘They have no right to take Fennel’s teeth,’ Finn hissed, clenching his fists. ‘I’ll knock the stuffing out of them!’
‘They’re twice our height,’ Milli said, ‘and much stronger.’
‘Besides,’ Ernest added, ‘it seems that they make the rules in the Wood of Tartar.’
‘So what do we do?’ Finn urged, conscious of his sister’s growing discomfort.
Milli glanced at Ernest, thinking that now would be a good time for him to reveal superhero powers, bowl over the clowns and claim their freedom. When nothing happened, she turned back to Finn.
‘We’re going to have to try and solve their riddle,’ she said.
The next few minutes were spent in desperate deliberation…to no avail. The best the children could come up with under duress was ‘gumboots’.
After all, they were definitely something you would not want to chew, and wet feet might well interfere with digestion.
The toneless response rang out even before they had finished elaborating on their second guess.
‘That…answer…is…incorrect.’
The Grin Bandits now felt confident enough to pick up the pliers and test their effectiveness by passing them around to one another. They held them threateningly above Fennel’s mouth and pranced around her chair discussing their strategy for the extractions. The children saw Fennel’s body tense and heard her breathing become rapid. Looking around the room, they could not see the slightest hint of anaesthetic or even an alcohol swab to numb the pain.
Finn began to imagine having a toothless sister who would need to be fed mush and never laugh openly again, whilst Milli wondered how the clown-dentists might be distracted long enough for them to grab Fennel and make a getaway. Ernest, proud of his proficiency with language, was downright bothered by the idea of being outsmarted by creatures whose skills
were usually limited to juggling balls and tumbling. Solving a riddle ought to be a trifling matter. You just had to shift your thinking to a level beyond the obvious—like taking an underwater dive with your brain. It is not that easy to do under normal circumstances but nigh impossible when under threat of being turned into geriatrics before your time.
‘I need to think,’ Ernest announced and began pacing the room, ruminating on the problem aloud as the Grin Bandits slipped on surgical masks.
‘No pressure,’ said Milli, ‘but the fate of all our grins depends on this answer.’
‘Gumberumph!’ said Fennel through a mouthful of cotton, which most likely meant, ‘Fifty per cent of a girl’s beauty lies in her smile. Please don’t mess this up!’
Ernest buried his face in his hands and tried to think logically. Solutions whirred though his mind but they were all too risky. They could not afford another mistake. The others would never speak to him again if they lost their grins, for he was sure the Grin Bandits would not stop at Fennel. He repeated the riddle in his head. Could
there be a hidden meaning in it somewhere? When at last he could think of nothing else, Ernest fell back on an old trick hoping it would provide some clues. If as part of some inane school project you have ever been asked to find rhyming words, you have probably tried mentally going through the alphabet, hoping a systematic approach might yield more than random thinking. Well, that is just what Ernest decided. Rhyme had nothing to do with his task but he was desperate. A to G yielded little. J to K was not too promising either. He was running out of inspiration. Ernest paced faster and tried to pluck the answer from the air, as if it were hanging there like an imaginary apple.
‘Umm…L…gum,’ he muttered aloud.
The pliers dropped with a clang as all three clown-dentists turned with astounded faces.
‘Amalgam,’ they chorused reluctantly. ‘That…answer…is…correct.’
‘How can that be right?’ Ernest scoffed. ‘Why, it’s not even spelled with a—’
Milli launched herself at Ernest and tackled him to the floor. Ernest was stunned but mercifully silenced.
‘Now would not be the time for a spelling bee,’ she hissed in his ear. With shouts of ‘We’ve won!’ Milli hauled Ernest up and they performed a triumphant jig around the room, their smiles now bigger than those of their assailants.
By contrast, the Grin Bandits’ mouths now began to droop until they had melted into scowls, and tears streamed down their gaudy faces. The straps binding Fennel’s arms and feet loosened and she scrambled out of the dentist’s chair to join the others.
‘Goo wob,’ she mumbled, as she had not yet finished extracting the cotton rolls tucked under her tongue. But the praise and relief in her tone as she patted Ernest’s back heartily were an unmistakable indication of her gratitude.
‘You…have…solved…our…riddle…and…defeated…us,’ the clowns said in between sobs. ‘You…are…free…to…go.’
The four children edged their way carefully out of the cottage until they were standing in the clearing again. They half-expected more Grin Bandits to leap from the trees in an ambush, but no one came after them. They took a moment to congratulate each other.
‘That was close,’ Finn said, hugging his sister.
‘You were brilliant,’ Fennel declared, looking at Ernest with unadulterated admiration.
‘All in a day’s work for an etymologist,’ he replied humbly.
Even Milli had to admit she was impressed.
‘That was definitely not piffle,’ she declared.
The children’s relief dissipated as they heard the robotic tones of the Grin Bandits behind them.
‘Unfortunately…we…are…not…gracious…in…defeat,’ the voices echoed around them. This announcement was followed by loud, sharp snapping sounds.
The children looked back to discover that the Grin Bandits had waited until the last moment to unleash their most deadly weapon. An enormous set of dentures that hung on the surgery wall had come to life and was crashing through the doorway towards them. All four fled, pursued by the snapping jaws with teeth that had taken on a blade-like sharpness. It caught hold of Fennel’s dress as she ran and ripped the hem clean away.
The only advantage for the children was their ability to dart nimbly between trees while the teeth were forced to crunch their way through. Boughs splintered around them and rained down like hail. They ran like they never had before, but despite their efforts the teeth were gaining on them. Unlike the children, the dentures did not tire. When his breath came in shallow gasps and he could hardly run another step, Ernest was reminded of Nonna Luna’s advice about the parcel she’d wrapped for them.
‘Milli,’ he panted, ‘the hairnet in the bundle!’
‘What about it?’
‘I think we need it now!’
Skidding to a stop, Ernest wrenched open the tea towel and drew out the flimsy hairnet. The dentures galloped and snapped towards them even faster. With all his remaining energy, Ernest hurled the item at the approaching jaws. It felt like a pathetically insignificant gesture of retaliation and Ernest could not think why the idea had even popped into his head. But it worked. No sooner had he thrown the net down than something magical happened.
It began to stretch and unravel in size so that the fast-approaching jaws became caught and tangled. The net wrapped itself around the teeth, forcing them together and bringing them to an abrupt halt.
The children did not linger to see if the dentures would chomp themselves free but bolted out of the wood with renewed vigour. Silently thanking Nonna Luna and her magic charms, they stumbled through the trees until they were free of the Wood of Tartar at last.
O
nly when the wood was a blur behind them did the children feel safe enough to stop and rest. They lay on the ground laughing and panting in turn; the kind of laughter that verges on the hysterical and usually accompanies the relief that follows dodging a near-fatal encounter. With visions of deadly dentures still uppermost in their minds, the children did not notice how thick and lush the grass was beneath them or that the sky was as blue as a baby boy’s blanket and the happy chirping of swallows filled the air. It was only when they felt a peculiar lifting sensation swell in their chests and looked around properly that
they realised they had come to the end of their journey.
Nestled amidst the greenery ahead was a colossal toadstool. Despite being a member of the fungi family
(Fungus horribilis)
and generally mistrusted by children for its slimy texture and questionable flavour, the toadstool was the most beautiful sight they had set eyes on thus far in their journey. How was it possible for something to look as strong as a fortress and yet as delicate as a flower? Beams of sunlight danced across its freckled top like golden fingers. The children worried that if they moved too close the lovely vision might fade, leaving nothing more than a pale memory. But the toadstool remained fixed, and closer inspection revealed little windows with yellow shutters carved into its rubbery base. Ornate balconies made of silver lattice curved up the stalk and chimneys smoked in its raspberry roof. Unlike the chaos of Rune, serenity lay over the province of Mirth like a mantle. In contrast to the looming form of the jade citadel, the toadstool palace seemed to beckon the children and they quickened their step so that they might reach it faster.
So this was Mirth, the home of the legendary Fada, Milli thought. It looked as enticing as an iced cupcake. Quaint acorn cottages were dotted about the place like speckles on an egg. Despite its size, the toadstool did not cast a shadow across these little homes or any other fairy abodes. It simply curved over them as protectively as a wing.
Milli and Ernest stood in silence, not daring to believe they had finally reached their destination while the twins let out a combined whoop and turned a series of quick back flips in joy. Resisting the urge to celebrate on the spot, the group contented themselves with a few congratulatory pats on the back before walking on.
The gates to the city were guarded by two white bulls wearing military uniform with the outline of a daisy (the emblem of the province) embroidered on their lapels. Wings sprouted from their sturdy shoulders, heavy and feathered like those of angels and flecked with colours like lilac and rose. Their hoofs and horns were solid gold. The bulls, whose muscular haunches left no doubt as to how
fierce they would be in battle, inclined their heads formally in greeting.
‘You have come to see the Queen,’ one of them said. The words were solemn and more of an announcement than a question. The bull’s voice was not harsh, as you might expect, but sounded like the patter of rain against a windowpane. If you have ever heard such a sound you will know it has the same soothing effect as a lullaby. The children were so calmed by the bull-sentinel’s voice that they almost neglected to answer.
‘We have,’ Milli said, remembering herself. ‘And our message is an urgent one.’
‘Follow me,’ the bull replied.
Once inside the white gates, the children were disappointed to find that the toadstool palace was not as close as it had first appeared. It was positioned at the highest point of an incline, its top almost in cloud due to its great height. A winding path stretched all the way to the toadstool’s entrance.
To the children’s left, a flight of steps descended into a ravine. As you might imagine,
it came as quite a shock when the bull led them in that direction rather than towards the toadstool that looked and smelled like it was made of marshmallow.
‘Are you ready to play?’ the bull asked gravely.
‘Play?’ Milli said. ‘We don’t have time to play. We must see Queen Fidelis right away!’
‘I am afraid everyone who wishes to see the Queen must attempt the game,’ the bull replied in a voice that was both firm and patient. ‘Only those who succeed are granted an audience.’
‘We insist on seeing the Queen immediately. Please inform her of our arrival,’ Ernest said in what he hoped was his most commanding tone.
The bull looked at him with limpid eyes.
‘You do not know our history,’ he said. ‘The Fada have many enemies in the Realm. A great many of them have attempted to enter our peaceful land. We cannot afford to trust anyone. The game is the only way we are able to differentiate between friend and foe.’