The Ickabog(61)

So the Ickabog Defense Brigade charged through the surprisingly empty cobbled streets of Chouxville and out onto the open road that led to Kurdsburg. To Spittleworth’s fury, he now saw why the Chouxville streets had been empty. Having heard the rumor that an actual Ickabog was walking toward the capital with a large crowd, the citizens of Chouxville had hurried out to catch a glimpse of it with their own eyes.

“Out of our way! OUT OF OUR WAY!” screamed Spittleworth, scattering the common people before him, furious to see them looking excited rather than scared. He spurred his horse onward until its sides were bleeding, and Lord Flapoon followed, now green in the face, because he hadn’t had time to digest his breakfast.

At last, Spittleworth and the soldiers spotted the huge crowd advancing in the distance, and Spittleworth hauled at his poor horse’s reins, so that it skidded to a halt in the road. There in the midst of the thousands of laughing and singing Cornucopians was a giant creature as tall as two horses, with eyes glowing like lamps, covered in long, greenish-brown hair like marsh weed. On its shoulder rode a young woman, and in front of it marched two young men holding up wooden signs. Every now and then, the monster stooped down and — yes — it seemed to be handing out flowers.

“It’s a trick,” muttered Spittleworth, so shocked and scared he hardly knew what he was saying. “It must be a trick!” he said more loudly, craning his scrawny neck to try and see how it was done. “There are obviously people standing on each other’s shoulders inside a suit of marsh weed — guns at the ready, men!”

But the soldiers were slow to obey. In all the time they’d been supposedly protecting the country from the Ickabog, the soldiers had never seen it, nor had they really expected to, yet they weren’t at all convinced they were watching a trick. On the contrary, the creature looked very real to them. It was patting dogs on the head, and handing out flowers to children, and letting that girl sit on its shoulder: it didn’t seem fierce at all. The soldiers were also scared of the crowd of thousands marching along with the Ickabog, who all seemed to like it. What would they do if the Ickabog was attacked?

Then one of the youngest soldiers lost his head completely.

“That’s not a trick. I’m off.”

Before anybody could stop him, he’d galloped away.

Flapoon, who had at last found his stirrups, now rode up front to take his place beside Spittleworth.

“What do we do?” asked Flapoon, watching the Ickabog and the joyful, singing crowd drawing nearer and nearer.

“I’m thinking,” snarled Spittleworth, “I’m thinking!”

But the cogs of Spittleworth’s busy brain seemed to have jammed at last. It was the joyful faces that upset him most. He’d come to think of laughter as a luxury like Chouxville pastries and silk sheets, and seeing these ragged people having fun frightened him more than if they’d all been carrying guns.

“I’ll shoot it,” said Flapoon, raising his gun and taking aim at the Ickabog.

“No,” said Spittleworth, “look, man, can’t you see we’re outnumbered?”

But at that precise moment, the Ickabog let out a deafening, bloodcurdling scream. The crowd that had pressed around it backed away, their faces suddenly scared. Many dropped their flowers. Some broke into a run.

With another terrible screech the Ickabog fell to its knees, almost shaking Daisy loose, though she clung on tightly.

And then a huge dark split appeared down the Ickabog’s enormous, swollen belly.

“You were right, Spittleworth!” bellowed Flapoon, raising his blunderbuss. “There are men hiding inside it!”

And as people in the crowd began to scream and flee, Lord Flapoon took aim at the Ickabog’s belly, and fired.





And then a huge dark split appeared down the Ickabog’s enormous, swollen belly.

By Jasper, Age 11





And now several things happened at almost the same time, so nobody watching could possibly keep up, but luckily, I can tell you about all of them.

Lord Flapoon’s bullet went flying toward the Ickabog’s opening belly. Both Bert and Roderick, who’d sworn to protect the Ickabog no matter what, flung themselves into the path of that bullet, which hit Bert squarely in the chest, and as he fell to the ground, his wooden sign, bearing the message THE ICKABOG IS HARMLESS, shattered into splinters.

Then a baby Ickabog, which was already taller than a horse, came struggling out of its Icker’s belly. Its Bornding had been a dreadful one, because it had come into the world full of its parent’s fear of the gun, and the first thing it had ever seen was an attempt to kill it, so it sprinted straight at Flapoon, who was trying to reload.

The soldiers who might have helped Flapoon were so terrified of the new monster bearing down upon them that they galloped out of its path without even trying to fire. Spittleworth was one of those who rode away fastest, and he was soon lost to sight. The baby Ickabog let out a terrible roar that still haunts the nightmares of those who witnessed the scene, before launching itself at Flapoon. Within seconds, Flapoon lay dead upon the ground.

All of this had happened very fast; people were screaming and crying, and Daisy was still holding on to the dying Ickabog, which lay in the road beside Bert. Roderick and Martha were bending over Bert, who, to their amazement, had opened his eyes.

“I — I think I’m all right,” he whispered, and feeling beneath his shirt, he pulled out his father’s huge silver medal. Flapoon’s bullet was buried in it. The medal had saved Bert’s life.