‘There’s only one door open on the landing,’ whispered John, peering cautiously out. ‘Dumpsie must have dashed in there. Come on, quickly, while they are all staring at Carbonel. Keep in the shadow.’
They slipped unnoticed out on to the gallery, and keeping close to the wall crept round to the open door. It led into a bedroom. By the light of the moon which flooded through the wide window, they saw the Scrabbles, massed in a semicircle at the foot of a four-post bed, gazing upwards. Peering down from the safety of the roof of the bed was a pair of shining green eyes.
‘Dumpsie?’ cried John. ‘Is that you?’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Rosemary anxiously.
‘Give or take a handful of fur, as good as ever I were,’ replied Dumpsie. ‘I told you as Scrabbles can’t climb. But I don’t think I’ll come down till you’ve got rid of ’em.’
‘That’s all very well, but how?’ asked John.
‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure,’ said Dumpsie, in an off-hand way. ‘I’ve done my share.’
‘And super bravely too!’ said Rosemary.
‘If I got a chair I could lift you down,’ said John.
The Scrabbles, twittering and squeaking among themselves, watched him suspiciously with their back eyes, while never ceasing to stare up at Dumpsie with their front eyes. As he turned to fetch a chair, with surprising speed a number of them detached themselves from the main body and quickly enclosed him in a circle, muttering angrily, and bouncing up and down on their bandy legs. When he tried to move, one of them nipped him sharply on his ankle.
‘Ow!’ said John. Not to be outdone, he tried to jump over the ring of Scrabbles. But even this did not work. Because they could see both ways, and move both ways with surprising speed, they had already judged exactly where he would land, and he came down in a circle of the creatures, already formed to receive him. They were squeaking now in a lighter key. Could it be with laughter, wondered Rosemary? But John was very far from laughing.
‘Now I suppose I’m as stuck here as Dumpsie is up there,’ he said. ‘You’re the only one left, Rosie. It was you tinkering about with magic that brought the things alive. Can’t you do something about them now?’ He knew this was unfair as he said it.
‘I might be able to,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘Not with magic though.’ She turned to the creatures, who watched her with unwinking shining eyes. ‘Scrabbles, do you remember it was me who wished you out of your holes in the road?’ A chorus of squeaks greeted this. ‘Well, so far, the holes you came from are still empty, but tomorrow a man is coming to fill them up with new studs. If that happens, you will be homeless, with nowhere to go to when all this is over!’
At this the Scrabbles forgot both their prisoners, and joined together in one agitated twittering, squeaking crowd. Shriller and shriller they grew, then, as though they had come to some agreement, suddenly fell silent, and without a sound, save the pattering of their paws, turned, and streamed out of the room. When John and Rosemary reached the door to peer after them, they had already disappeared.
‘Down the back stairs, I suppose,’ said John. ‘Phew! I’m glad that’s over. I’m sorry if I was beastly.’
When they turned back into the bedroom, Dumpsie had already jumped down from the four-post bed.
‘Them Scrabbles!’ she said. ‘Useful it must be, having no backwards.’
‘Look out, Rosie!’ said John suddenly. A cloud had drifted over the moon, and in the momentary darkness she had nearly stepped backwards into a large bowl filled with water, carefully arranged on a towel in the middle of the floor.
‘What a dotty place to leave it!’ said John.
‘I believe it’s Gullion’s bath, it’s a silver bowl!’ said Rosemary. ‘Just look at all those scent bottles lined up behind! Lavender, Musk, Violet ...’ With a spurt of laughter she read the labels, picking up each bottle in turn.
‘What? No Toad of Cologne?’ said John, and they both began to giggle, but a blood-curdling ‘Miaowk!’ outside cut their giggling short. They dashed to the door again. Carbonel still stood at the top of the stairs, but Grisana, slinking low, had crept up another step.
‘My ancient enemy Carbonel!’ she hissed. ‘The Witch-Woman lied to me. She promised that when the moon rose, is she set you free, you would walk unsuspecting into my trap!’
‘It is no fault of hers I did not,’ said Carbonel, looking down at her disdainfully. ‘But we have changed places. She is now the prisoner, and I am free!’
‘Free?’ repeated Grisana, and she laughed an ugly, bubbling cat-laugh.
‘You are on enemy ground and alone, have you forgotten? With the fiercest of Broomhurst fighters surrounding Tucket Towers to cut off your escape.’
‘I challenge the fiercest fighter of them all to single combat!’ cried Carbonel. There was a stirring and a muttering among the cats below.
‘Splodger! Splodger!’ yowked Grisana. ‘Do your duty!’ And the animal with black and orange patches they had seen at the bookshop, came loping up the stairs. She drew back and he paused for a moment on the step below Carbonel, his powerful body wriggling low as he prepared to leap. Then he hurled himself on his enemy. Locked together, spitting and struggling, they rolled and tumbled about the gallery, fur flying everywhere; Grisana urging Splodger on, and the Broomhurst cats streaming up the stairs with wild cries of encouragement.
‘At him!’
‘Pull him down!’
‘Roll him over!’ they cried. The two fighting animals separated and closed again and again, but at last, with a swinging blow, Carbonel sent Splodger rolling, vanquished, down the stairs. There was a howl of fury from the Broomhurst cats.
‘Avenge your comrade!’ called Grisana. ‘Defend your Queen!’ And the crowd of cats, who needed no encouragement, surged up the stairs and hurled themselves on Carbonel. He disappeared under an avalanche of cats, who clawed and tore each other in their eagerness to get at their fallen enemy.
‘You cowards!’ yelled John. ‘He’s one against the lot of you! Carbonel won his single combat in fair fight!’
‘Oh, why doesn’t Calidor come?’ cried Rosemary desperately.
‘Hark!’ said Dumpsie, whose cat’s ears, so much sharper than those of humans, heard something in the distance.
‘Cease your fighting!’ yelled Grisana, who had heard it too. ‘Stop, I say!’
And stop fighting they did, one by one, until Carbonel flung off the remaining half-dozen cats and rose to his feet, battered and torn, but with his old dignity undimmed.
‘Be quiet when I command, and listen!’ called Grisana.
Complete silence fell on Tucket Towers, but far away, nearer and nearer, came the sound of what most humans would have thought nothing but the moonlight caterwauling of idle cats.
‘What is that?’ said Grisana uneasily.
Carbonel stood alone, shaking each paw in turn to see they were all still in working order. Then he said lightly: ‘That? It is the Marching Song of the Fallowhithe Alley Cats.’
‘With Calidor at their head!’ added Dumpsie. And this is the song they sang:
Who so quick with the unsheathed paw?
With a miew and miawk and a yowl!
With wits as sharp as each curving claw,
With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!
Who but the Alley Cats? Who but we?
Wandering far and scavenging free,
With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!
Who so silent on padded feet?
With a miew and a miawk and a yowl!
Who so invisible, who so fleet?
With a miew and miawk and a yowl!