Fleeced (21 page)

XXVI

F
LOCK
, S
HOCK  AND
P
ERIL

Up ahead the first few sheep vanished through the doorway into the garden room. Yet no sooner had they disappeared from sight than their woolly rumps reappeared, reversing back into the passage again and crashing into the others in a muffle of shrieks and insults.

Hex lifted his head like a scaly periscope. “I don't like the look of thisss,” he muttered ominously.

Neither did Alex. To be honest he didn't much like the look of Hex's face either. Drained of its steely shimmer it now looked as if the snake had been dipped in flour. So it was with a rising sense of dread that he began wading through the sea of fuzzy backs, aware that the bleating was dying away around him as a cold fear rippled over the flock.

In the new silence, a different sound became audible. Thumping, dull and regular, and it was coming from the direction of the garden.

Hex gulped.

Pushing past the last few sheep, Alex stepped into the garden room, quickly edged around the wall and, biting his lip, peeped through the window.

And gulped too.

The garden heaved with mannequins. No longer posed and rigid to show off the sorceress's clothes, they were marching from side to side in long, horrifying rows. Alex felt the breath almost stop inside his chest, watching as they turned in unison and began stamping in the other direction, as jerky as robots. They were everywhere – lining the high garden walls, blocking the gate, encircling the swimming pool — filling every patch of lawn like a regiment of eerie sentries and completely obstructing their escape route.

A sudden whoop made Alex jump. Turning his head, he saw Fred skipping joyfully from the direction of the horrible temple-styled crypt, waving his chubby arms over his head as he wove through the shifting rows.

“What is it?” said Aries, clopping over to join them.

Alex looked back at Aries. Trying not to make a noise, the ram was tippyhoofing, hunched down and knock-kneed, across the flagstones, and if Alex hadn't been so leaden with fear he might have laughed.

“What it isss,” said Hex acidly, “isss your fault!” He dangled down from Alex's neck and pressed his cold grey snout against Aries' muzzle. “All that
racket you made in the cellar! Fred mussst have heard you. He'sss only gone and triggered Mistress'sss enchanted mannequinsss!”

“Enchanted?” stammered Alex, as Fred skipped over to the one dressed in Nelson's clothes, standing a couple of lines back, towing a small, wheeled cannon. He remembered creeping past him last night. “You didn't mention that before!”

“I didn't like to,” muttered Hex, wrapping himself around the boy's neck again. “We had enough to worry about trying to free muttonbrain. But the fact isss that Mistressss hasss alwaysss usssed them asss her sssecurity sssystem. When she goesss out she givesss her ssstaff the passssword.”

Alex, Aries and Hex watched as the Cyclops leaned up against Nelson and tucked his right arm into his jacket to copy the Admiral. Looking up at him, his rubbery face broke into a clownish grin, revealing two stumpy grey teeth. At which the Admiral raised his lace-cuffed hand above his head and stuck his nose in the air.

“England expects every mannequin to do its duty!” he cried in a snooty English accent.

Aries frowned and looked up at Hex. “Who does he think he is?”

“Britain'sss greatessst naval hero,” snipped Hex.

“But then, they all think they're sssomeone.”

Alex stared at him dumbfounded. “They do?”

“The mistressss wasss lonely,” explained Hex. “Giving each one the persssonality of the people whossse clothesss they wear made for plenty of guesssts for her Christmasss cocktail partiesss and soireesss on gloomy Tuesssday afternoonsss.”

Which explained Marie Antoinette's dainty steps, Alex now supposed, and the way Captain Smith was wheeling around with a telescope to his eye. He shivered, aware that every mannequin was a souvenir of someone's horrible death.

“Ssstatues, too,” muttered Hex, jabbing his head towards the statue of the girl with the rose basket. Who was, at that moment, stepping down from her plinth, her chiselled features twitching into a sneer. “Though they were more for garden partiesss,” he added quietly.

Alex bit his lip, looking away from the stone girl's sneer to the other side of the lawn, feeling his stomach lurch to see that the dolphin statue had begun moving too, flapping its flippers and snapping its bottlenose like garden shears.

“What are we going to do?” said Aries.

Behind them, the sheep spilled out into the room behind them, bleating and turning in terrified circles,
knocking over giant pots of dahlias and paddling in the water.

“I'll have to think,” said Alex.

“Think?” muttered Aries. “I'm not sure we have time for that!”

Meanwhile, the Cyclops made three big jumps through gaps in the moving rows to stand in front of Marie Antoinette.

“Left left, right!” he cried gleefully, sidestepping as she swished past.

She glanced down and wrinkled her nose at his salute.

Undeterred, he clicked his heels.

“Fred Fred's Army!” he announced and threw his bottom out in a deep clumsy bow.

Army?
Alex felt his mind whirring. He stepped back from the window, blinking, as the queen plucked a pomander of flowers from her drawstring bag and held it to her nose.

“That's it!” he burst out.

“Balls of flowers?” said Aries. Bemused, he looked up at Alex's suddenly bright face.

“No!” Alex turned away into the chaos of sheep
behind them. “An
army
, of course! Don't you see? It's the only way to beat that lot!”

“You don't sssay?” said Hex, his eyes as round as ball bearings. “Well, jussst hold on while I sssee if I can find one for hire in the phone book!”

Except that Alex wasn't listening. He was too busy, pacing through the milling sheep, thinking.

“Listen to me!” he said.

But the sheep stumbled on, stupefied by fear.

Slamming his foot down on the floor he tried again. “I said
everyone
!” he demanded.

Shocked by his tone, the sheep bolted upright and turned to face him. Half-chewed dahlias fell out of mouths onto the floor.

“Right, we've got a job to do here,” said Alex firmly. “And every one of you will play your part. You, with the ringlets,” he said, pointing to three silky Wensleydales, “line up, over here, now!” The sheep shuffled grimly across the room, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, flanks trembling. “Next, you four with the brown fleeces! Well, come on!”

Quickly, Alex arranged the seven sheep into a row before calling for seven more. Muttering nervously amongst themselves, the sheep did what he asked. Edging a rather arthritic Bighorn onto the end of the next row, he looked up, sweating.

“Olaf and Martha!” he said. “I need you two to check the cellar for anyone who's run back. Aries, chivvy the others out of the passageway.”

And whilst everyone is so busy, I'll explain.

There aren't many moments in life where being a zookeeper
and
the son of an ancient Greek soldier is a useful combination, but this was definitely one of them.

Being a zookeeper meant that Alex knew that sheep simply scattered in panic unless a shepherd took control, and that what one did, they'd all copy
31
.

Being a soldier's son he remembered his father telling him of how he'd arranged his men into fighting units, or phalanxes, with the men in tight rows and those around the outside holding up their shields to protect the group. As long as the men stayed together, they could flatten anything in their path. Not that Alex had soldiers, of course, or anything as useful as shields. But he did have sheep's bottoms. And, on the upside, he had sixty-six of them, each one attached to a powerful kick.

“You are the first phalanx,” he said to the quivery bottoms and upturned faces of the three rows of sheep organised in front of him. “You at the front, kick on my command. You in the middle, guide the group. You at the back, slam any attacks to the rear!”

Clever, eh?

And I suppose if there was anything lucky about this dreadful situation, it was that wealthy sorceresses have big houses. I mean, could you dragoon
sixty-odd
sheep in the front room of your house? Well, quite. But five minutes later, Alex had built two more phalanxes. Aries and Olaf stood either side of him, whilst, despite his squeaky protests of being tough enough to fight, Toby had been bundled under an ornate bench and barricaded by cushions.

“Phalanx one, you charge left towards the olive trees,” said Alex, walking around the groups of sheep, inspecting their lines. “Phalanx two, you charge right towards the pool. Phalanx three, in front of me and straight up the middle. Ready?”

Despite their nervousness, the sheep were calmer now, and looked up at him with bright eager eyes, poised and alert, like a flock guided by a sheepdog.

“On my command, we march! Remember that you absolutely must stay together!” he instructed, only just ignoring the sensible voice in his mind that pointed out that sheep rarely did, but scattered instead like flossy confetti. “One sheep on its own can be grabbed. Hold fast, and we'll crush them.”

He looked over at Aries and Olaf. “The doors!”

Quickly, each ram took hold of a door and folded
it back on itself, opening up the wall of the room to the garden and the colonnade of pillars beyond.

Alex took a deep breath, feeling his heart pounding. After all, it's hard to abandon a lifetime of sensible thinking when you're in a terrible situation, and suddenly he felt grimly certain that his idea was crazy, the sort of half-baked notion that Aries would come up with. Out of habit he quickly guessed at their chance of success. But, on discovering his answer to be barely more than zero, he stopped. After all, there were no other options. This was their only chance to get out, to find Rose and Hazel.

It had to work.

On hearing the swoosh of doors, Fred, who'd been busy peering down the mouth of Nelson's cannon, shot upright and stared, his eye goggling in astonishment.

“Attention!” he shrieked.

Around him, the mannequins stopped, spun towards the house and regarded it with eyes as dead as buttons. For a moment the two strange armies stood and faced one another. Silk skirts and feathered headdresses rustled in the breeze.

“March!” cried Alex.

Slowly, the sheep began to move in their appointed directions. Guided by the sheep in the
middle rows, they wobbled like woolly tanks over the lawn, presenting their bottoms to the enemy.

“
Mon  Dieu
!” squealed Marie Antoinette, fluttering her fingers to her face, appalled at the view.

Around her the mannequins sniggered, a sound like plastic boxes being scrunched.

“Attack, attack!” yelled Fred, leaping up onto the funnel of the cannon.

Now the mannequins lurched forwards. Boots creaked and spurs jangled. Bangles clattered down moulded arms. Old silk rustled like brown paper. In their midst, Fred rose, frowning like a furious troll, riding on the cannon.

“Take aim!” he cried.

The mannequins raised their arms, brandishing spears and swords, rifles, nets and ice axes. Not to mention some rather vicious-looking handbags.

Behind the third phalanx, Alex reached down, touching Olaf and Aries' horns, who walked either side.

“Everyone keep marching!” he commanded.

The sheep pushed on as the mannequins closed in, looming over the blocks of sheep. Shivering, Alex met the blank eyes of a mannequin dressed in a cream kaftan, a golden headdress twinkling on her black bobbed wig. We'd have recognised her as Cleopatra. Alex didn't. He only recognised her as dangerous and rather dusty. But her row was close now. And closer. Close enough to smell the must on antique clothes. Close enough to touch. Close enough to…

“Kick!” roared Alex.

Like a reflex, the front row of every phalanx bucked and kicked out hard. Shrieks and squeals tore through the garden as hooves made contact with plastic, sending heads and arms and legs spinning into the air to scatter in the flower beds.

Mindless as plastic zombies, the next row of mannequins stepped forwards.

“Kick!” commanded Alex.

Again, the outside sheep tipped forwards, slamming the figures in front of them. The garden
exploded in another cacophony of screams and crumpling plastic. Over by the swimming pool, Marilyn Monroe doubled over. Gasping through pouted lips, she pitched into the water in a flutter of white skirt. Over by the olive trees, a queen's head rolled away through the trees, striking out four Arctic explorers and a man in puff ball trousers.

Alex turned back and came eye to, well, eye, with Fred.

“Kick!” he commanded.