Jody Richards and The Secret Potion (14 page)

“That’s right,” said an agitated Bag Man. “It’s a long story and it would be better if we told you later. I suggest you come with us now.”

“What do you think, James?” inquired the Billy Bunter look-alike, not unexpectedly referred to by James and Nick-Knack as ‘Bunter’. Despite the warm climate, the boy wore an old brown jumper which pulled across his large stomach and had holes in the sleeves where his protruding elbows had caused the wool to wear away.

“I’m tempted, Bunter,” James answered. “But I’m just worried about what Jody said yesterday about her being my sister and taking me home. I don’t remember her and I certainly don’t remember anything about having a home or any parents.”

“Look,” shouted Jody, becoming annoyed. “I’ve risked my life coming to Tamila to try to rescue you. If you don’t want to come then stay here chopping trees for the rest of your life.”

“You’re right,” said James. “What have I got to lose by coming home with you? It can’t be as terrible as this, can it?”

Jody grinned at him. “Not unless father is in a bad mood,” she joked. “But getting home might not be an option any more. I have now had to use up the second and last wish that Wiffle, the wizard of kindness, granted me – so I can’t just wish us home any more.”

“Why did you do that?” asked Bunter. “Why did you use the second wish you had?”

Jody tried not to sound indignant. “Augustine The Awful had transformed the Bag...whoops, sorry, I mean Milo, here, into a frog. So I had to use the wish to reverse the spell and place it on Augustine The Awful instead. Now he’s a frog and he’s in the moat around the castle where the magical water has made him lose his memory.

“The problem is that Augustine The Awful’s notes on his formula for everlasting life are still somewhere in the castle.”

“Everlasting life?” Bunter questioned.

“Yes,” said the Bag Man impatiently. “You boys have been unwittingly helping Augustine The Awful to make the formula by providing him with two of the main ingredients.”

“So that’s why he has had us cutting down so many golden berries and pulling out plant life from the river-bed,” said James.

“That’s right,” confirmed Jody. “We found several barrels of berries and one full of plant life in the castle storeroom being guarded by a grotesque monster. It was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen – far worse than a dragon.

“The monster had already eaten a witch who tried to steal some of the potion and it was getting ready to eat us, too. But we managed to poison it and tip acid into the barrels.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to search for Augustine The Awful’s notes revealing the exact formula. There’s a third potion somewhere.”

While she spoke two of the guard dogs began to stir.

“Look,” urged the Bag Man. “We can’t afford to waste any more time talking. Are you coming or not?”

“OK,” said James. “You’ve convinced me. Come on, lads – let’s go with them right away before the dogs wake up.”

The ginger-haired boy was still pondering the situation, which prompted Bunter to tell him: “Come on, Nick-Knack – chop, chop.”

But before they could move they heard the sound of bushes being pushed back.

They looked round to find themselves confronted by the imposing figure of Hugo Toby.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“WHAT have we here?” bellowed Hugo Toby. “Am I interrupting a meeting?” he glared at them with his piercing eyes and raised his black, bushy eyebrows questioningly.

“And what are you doing here little girl?”

Jody knew what she had to tell him. “I am a very naughty girl who cannot be trusted,” she said.

“You don’t have to tell me – I already know that,” Mr. Toby answered, showing the same tendency to sneer as his brother had done. “But you’ve changed somehow – your nose... it’s longer. Perhaps it got bigger because you kept poking it into other people’s business?”

He laughed at his own attempted joke and then confided: “I certainly didn’t expect to see you again.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” said Jody, staring past his own long, pointed nose into those glaring pools that passed for eyes. “You sent me into a whirlpool to die.”

“I was merely trying to help you get to where you wanted to go,” chuckled Hugo Toby. “I presume you have found your missing brother. Let me guess – he’s this blond lad. Now would you be so good as to explain to me what you are doing here? Why you have stopped these boys working and why my brother’s dogs are asleep?

“And perhaps you can also tell me where my brother is? I asked the pixie in the castle and did not get a satisfactory answer. But even if the little fellow had twice as many brains he’d only be a half wit – certainly not on your IQ level, Milo.”

“Not even on yours,” Milo retorted.

“Very witty,” replied Hugo, tersely. “But I’ve no time for banter and my patience is wearing rather thin. Now can I have some answers?”

There was a brief silence, as the boys looked one to the other and then to Jody, hoping that she could think of some suitable explanations.

It was the Bag Man who spoke. He said: “The dogs are just dozing. Your brother is letting Jody take the boys home because he no longer needs them. His quest to find the secret of eternal life is over.”

“Has he found it?” demanded Hugo Toby. “Does it work?”

“I don’t know, but he certainly looked transformed when we last saw him,” replied the Bag Man.

“In what way?” asked Mr. Toby, rubbing his short, prickly, black beard – a habit Jody had noticed when she first met him. “Does he look younger?”

The Bag Man’s mind seemed to go blank so Jody spoke up. “He seemed more lively and was bouncing about like someone half his age.”

“Yes,” chimed in the Bag Man, picking up on the misinformation Jody had provided without a word of a lie.

“Your brother was very excited. He left in a hurry. He didn’t say where he was going, but he knows you can use your magic powers to join him if you get tired of waiting for him.”

“Perhaps this gentleman’s powers don’t extend that far,” James goaded.

“After all, he doesn’t know where his brother is, does he?” added Bunter.

“Nonsense,” scoffed Hugo Toby. “You only have to ask your sister about how I transported her to the whirlpool to know what I am capable of doing. I personally usually prefer to be transported by coach, but I’m willing to give you a demonstration if you wish me to banish you somewhere.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Jody interrupted. “I know to my cost that this gentleman has magic powers.” She looked anxiously beyond Mr. Toby as another of the dogs started to show signs of waking up.

Hugo Toby stroked his black beard again. “How do I know that if I transport myself to join my brother it won’t be some kind of trap?” he rapped suspiciously.

The Bag Man answered his question with another. “How can it be a trap?” he inquired. “You have the powers to transport yourself right next to your brother if you want to, so you must believe you could then return the same way? But if you don’t wish to do that then you can simply wait for your brother to return.”

“I’m getting tired of waiting,” snapped Hugo Toby. “I can’t hang around all day. If Augustine has found the secret of eternal life I want it, too. So maybe I’ll take your advice and transport myself right next to my brother. I’ll just toss my lucky coin to make sure it’s the right thing to do.”

Hugo Toby took his golden coin out of his pocket and flipped it high in the air – a little too high as it happened because, instead of falling in the palm of his hand, it hit his thumb and landed in the long pink grass. “Now where’s that gone?” he cursed. They all looked in the grass and James was the first to spot it. He picked it up and, with a brief hesitation, he called out “Heads.”

“That means I go,” said Mr. Toby, snatching the coin out of the boy’s hand.

Jody’s eyes lit up and she turned away so that Hugo Toby could not see her delight. But her expression soon changed, because the malicious wizard added menacingly: “First, I’ll make sure you can’t run off. You might be telling me lies – so I’ll make certain you don’t slip away until I’ve spoken to my brother.”

He clicked his fingers and the three boys, Jody and the Bag Man suddenly found themselves surrounded by a cage with long iron bars.

“Uga Oooo,” yelled the Bag Man in anguish.

“We’re trapped,” screeched Nick-Knack.

“Let us out,” cried Jody as she and James rattled the bars in vain.

“You’ll stay there until I find my brother,” Hugo Toby told them.

“But we could starve,” protested Bunter.

“That’s a risk I’ll just have to take,” chided Hugo. “And to make absolutely certain you don’t escape I’ll make you all smell of raw meat. That way the dogs will eat you alive if you get out of the cage.”

The wicked wizard clicked his fingers again and suddenly the five captives reeked of uncooked meat.

“You can’t leave us like this?” Nick-Knack protested.

“I can and I will,” sneered Mr. Toby. “And if I find out from my brother that you have been lying to me then I’ll stick barrels full of snakes in the cage with you. In fact, I think, as a precaution, I’ll put that spell on you now.”

“Please don’t,” pleaded Nick-Knack. “I hate snakes.”

But Hugo clapped his hands and muttered an incantation. “Consider it done,” he said. “Barrels of poisonous snakes will be tipped into the cage with you by this time tomorrow unless I return to break the spell. So it is in your own interests that I am safe to return in 24 hours time.”

An alarmed and agitated Bunter started to protest: “Don’t go....there’s something....” But before he could complete the sentence the Bag Man had kicked him in the shins.

“What’s that you were saying?” asked Hugo Toby, looking at the quivering rotund boy.

Before Bunter could reply, the Bag Man interjected: “He doesn’t want you to go and leave us stuck in this cage stinking of meat.”

“That’s too bad,” chuckled Hugo Toby, squeezing his long nose together at the tip to prevent the aroma of the raw meat going into his nostrils. “The smell won’t kill you – but the snakes WILL if I don’t get back in time.

“Well,” he sighed. “I’ve enjoyed our talk, but I can’t spend any more time with you exchanging idle chatter. I’m going to wherever my brother is and discover the secret of eternal life.”

He clicked his fingers again and was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“WE’RE in a real mess now,” said Bunter, ruefully, turning on the Bag Man. “We are locked in a cage in the middle of the forest with no means of escape. And to add to our worries we’re going to have loads of poisonous snakes tipped in here with us in 24 hours’ time.

“Why didn’t you let me stop Mr. Toby from going? Now he’ll end up next to his brother in the castle’s moat, and Jody has told us that the magical water in the moat will make him lose his memory. So he’ll never return.”

“It’s a chance we have to take,” said the Bag Man.

“Yes,” James agreed. “By going into the moat and losing his memory Hugo Toby cannot rescue his brother or get his hands on any notes Augustine may have left about the formula for everlasting life. At least this way we have 24 hours to get out of this cage.”

“But if by some miracle we do get out the dogs will attack us,” pointed out Nick-Knack, as Bodger and one of the other large animals staggered to their feet. Despite being drowsy they immediately picked up the smell of the meat and began to prowl menacingly around the cage.

“This is our punishment for telling Hugo Toby lies,” Jody muttered, looking accusingly at the Bag Man.

It is so important to be truthful and honest, both Wiffle and her father had told her.

“I promised my father and Wiffle that I would always be truthful.”

“We didn’t tell him lies – we simply misled him,” protested the Bag Man. “As a frog, his brother was transformed – which is what we told him. Augustine was certainly livelier and was jumping about like someone half his age, just as we said. Besides, if we had told Hugo Toby what we did to his brother he would probably have killed us. It’s much better that he and Augustine are up to their necks in a moat full of stinking water.”

“They couldn’t stink more than us,” Jody reminded him.

“Yes,” added Nick-Knack, looking at Bunter. “I didn’t think it would be possible, but you now smell worse than you used to do.”

“What I don’t understand,” said the Bag Man, “is why Hugo’s lucky coin betrayed him.”

“It didn’t,” James told him. “I called ‘heads’, but the coin actually landed on the ‘tails’ side.”

“That was clever,” agreed the Bag Man.

“But how did you know that ‘heads’ would send him to the moat?” Nick-Knack queried.

“I didn’t for sure,” James confessed with a grin. “But I assumed that, as it was his lucky coin, it had always given him the right answers in the past. Therefore, it would provide him with the correct answer again. So when I saw it had come down ‘tails’ I guessed that Toby must have said to himself that ‘tails’ would indicate he should NOT go looking for his brother.”