“Gosh—I’m scared.”
“Do as I say—otherwise we’ll be here all day.”
They had scarcely raised bread to mouth when a scream of rage made Joyce drop her slice; and the harpy came gliding down from the castle walls, its brass wings glittering in the afternoon sun. Henry—who had inadvertently taken a generous bite of bread and jam—spoke with a full mouth.
“Quick—run for the hollow while I turn on the cassette.”
Joyce ran like a cat that has suddenly spotted an ill-tempered dog, and Henry, after he had pressed the play button on the recorder, was not slow to follow her example. Once they were lying face down in the hollow with only their heads peering through a low curtain of heather, he said:
“I say, that jam wasn’t half bad.”
“Never mind the jam—look at that thing!”
The harpy had landed on the plastic mac and was now busy turning the bread and jam into little heaps of blue and red powder, and did not seem to be in the least disturbed when a voice announced:
“This is Radio Four. For the next half hour there will be a recital of early military music performed by the Bradford Boiler-Maker’s Brass Band, conducted by Sydney Brassbottom . . .”
“You idiot,’’ Joyce whispered. “Why didn’t you rewind to the part where the trumpets and things start blowing? That harpy will have finished making a mess of our bread and jam before the racket begins. Honestly—you are the limit.”
“And you could have reminded me that they always rabbit on at the beginning of a musical programme,” Henry protested. “I can’t think of everything. I say—he’s finished. Wait for it.”
A veritable cascade of sound erupted from the recorder; a glorious thunder of blaring horns, raucous trumpets, shrieking bugles, wailing cornets and moaning trombones; all against a background of rumbling drums and clashing cymbals. The harpy temporarily suspended her food-corrupting operation and stared down at the cassette with almost polite interest. The deep sunken eyes—one green, the other red—blinked, the head nodded slowly, then one brass claw began to mark time on the plastic mac. Henry groaned.
“She likes it! As far as she is concerned, it’s Music While You Corrupt! What a pity they didn’t play a tango, then we would have seen a dancing harpy.”
Joyce watched the monster for a few minutes, then, when it began to beat time with a butter knife, assumed an expression of profound disgust.
“Clever dick! ‘Dead simple,’ he says! ‘All we’ve got to do is wait for it to disappear over the horizon.’ All you have done is make it a very happy harpy.”
“But the legend says the sound of a brass instrument will drive a harpy berserk—and I’ve provided an entire brass band.”
“No you haven’t.”
“What do you call that noise? An elephant calling to its young?”
Joyce shook her auburn hair. “Not a brass band. Just sounds on a length of tape. There’s not so much as a brass button in sight.”
After a while Henry nodded. “I see what you mean. A brass instrument has to be seen as well as heard. It’s the brass which is important. Old hag face has to see as well as hear.”
“In one word—yes. I had a feeling that a tape recorder wasn’t the answer.”
At that moment the Bradford Boiler-Maker’s Brass Band appeared to run out of blowing power, for the stirring march suddenly disintegrated into long-drawn-out moans, and one trumpet, which had been sending out a series of particularly well-performed blasts, acquired a sound that was not unlike that of a cat paying compliments to a lady friend on a tin roof. Then, with a final moan, all sound ceased.
“Oh, no!” Henry exclaimed. “The batteries have run down.”
The harpy dropped the butter knife and stared at the tape-recorder with an almost comical look of surprise on its wizened face. One brass claw reached out and gripped the cream plastic box, shook it, tapped it, then raised it to a shrivelled ear. For a while it appeared that the harpy could still hear some sound coming from the defunct machine, until, with a cry of rage, she flung it down upon the ground and crushed it under her right claw.
“That’s it, then,” Joyce remarked when the harpy had completed her task of turning bread and jam rotten and was once again airborne. “You will have to explain how your new tape recorder was smashed into smithereens, and we are no nearer driving that thing away than when we started.”
Henry watched the harpy until she disappeared behind the castle walls, then nodded his reluctant agreement. “Yep. I suppose we could bring Mother and Father out here and let them see it for themselves. Only—that’s sort of giving up. Also, adults will put her into a cage and charge the public twenty-five pence to have a look. And I don’t think that should happen to anything—not even a horror like that.”
“Absolutely not,” Joyce agreed. “After all, she only turns food bad and smashes up the odd tape recorder.”
Henry grimaced. “So says she who never owned one. Come on, we had better head for home. I dare say my really first class brain will think up a master plan sooner or later.”
Joyce made a rude noise.
Joyce was asleep when a hand shook her shoulder and a voice said in a loud whisper: “Wake up—I’ve got it—I’ve got it.”
She sat up and blinked owlishly, then stared indignantly at Henry, who was standing by her bed with a brass toasting fork in one hand and a tea tray in the other. She peered at the bedside clock.
“Why—why have you woken me up at three minutes past two? Really . . .”
Henry waved the toasting fork. “I’ve got it.”
“I can see you have. Well—now you can push off and let me get back to sleep.”
“You are stupid,” Henry protested. “Now pay attention. What have I got in my right hand?”
Joyce yawned. “A toasting fork.”
“And what is it made of?”
“Brass.”
“So?”
Joyce scratched her head. “So—you have a brass toasting fork! Big deal.”
Henry sighed very deeply. “I have in my hand not just a brass toasting fork, but—a brass instrument.”
For the first time Joyce began to display an active interest.
“Are you sure? I thought an instrument was a thing you played.”
“There speaks a little mind that has yet to be lit by the lamp of imagination. Study your dictionary, girl. An instrument is any implement or tool by which something is done. Such as toasting bread.”
“But it doesn’t make a noise,” Joyce stated with some satisfaction. “So there.”
“It will when I bash it on this tray.”
“But it will be the tray which will make the noise—not the toasting fork.”
Henry’s smile was wonderful to behold. “And the tray is made of brass. And what is a tray but an instrument by which something is done. To wit—carrying grub into the dining-room. So there to you.”
Presently Joyce said: “It might work at that. I say, you are bright.”
“As polished brass,” Henry agreed. “I thought we might have a go tomorrow morning. Just after breakfast.”
“Thank goodness this is the summer break. Can I go back to sleep now?”
“If you must. For myself, I will sit up for a while and work out a plan of campaign. Nothing must go wrong this time.”
Joyce slid down between the sheets and smiled sleepily.
“Turn out the light and don’t make a noise. If you are still awake tomorrow morning you can bring me a cup of tea.”
Next morning, the baker said there had been an unexpected run on bread, but he had a nice stale seed cake that he was prepared to sell for fivepence. So it was that the second harpy disposal expedition set out armed with a seed cake, a brass toasting fork, a tea tray, a plastic mac, and a reasonable supply of optimism.