Free Fair Wind to Widdershins by Allan Frewin Jones Page A

again, shoving up through the ivy, hot and worn out and sick to death of this stupid tower.
    At last he came to a wide ledge near the top of the tower. He strained up and saw that the huge clockface was directly above him. “Come on, Trundle, my lad,” he panted. “You can do this!”
    He struggled and kicked and shoved and heaved and hauled and squirmed and finally found himself on the ledge, his prickles all covered in twigs and leaves, his arms and legs aching, his fingers almost numb with the effort.
    He heard hearty cheers from below. Clinging grimly to the ivy, he moved to the brink of the ledge and waved down. “I’m fine!” he called.
    There were more cheers from below.
    He was aware of thick layers of bird poo under his feet, sticky and squishy in the heat of the day and very smelly. Yuck! he thought. That’s all I needed.

    He could see quite a distance from this vantage point—across the ruination of the West Ward to where towers and turrets and steeples rose into the sky and windows shone like silver in the sun.
    A rusty iron rail emerged from the darkness of the ivy on one side of the tower. It ran the length of the ledge and then curved back into the hidden stonework. How odd. He wondered what it was there for. Leaning back a little, he looked up at the huge clockface behind its veil of knotted ivy. He felt dwarfed by the round white disk—even the numerals that ringed its circumference were taller than he was.
    Now what? he thought to himself.
    Aha! Just above the numeral VI, he saw a dark keyhole set into the clockface.
    That’s it! That’s where the key goes!
    He assumed that there must be some small hatchway close by, through which, in ancient times, the Winder of the Clock would emerge to do his duty and to keep the clock ticking. But the clock was quite silent now, the hands tangled in ivy tendrils, the ironwork cloaked in a layer of thick red rust.
    Gripping the key between his teeth, Trundle climbed up the VI. The numerals had plenty of scrollwork on them, and it wasn’t too difficult to get to the top. Hanging on with one paw, Trundle took the key from between his teeth and tried to insert it in the hole.
    At first it wouldn’t go in. But he shoved and wriggled and pushed and poked, and finally the key slotted into place. He paused, gasping for breath, his muscles aching from the effort.
    “Try turning the key!” he heard Esmeralda shout up.
    “Great idea, Esmeralda,” he called down with heavy sarcasm. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
    “Sorry. Just trying to be helpful.”
    Catching his breath, Trundle gripped the key and twisted. It refused to turn. He gritted his teeth and tried again, using all of his strength. Very gradually, and with a terrible grating noise, the key turned. A moment later, he heard machinery grinding into motion within the tower.
    Grrrrrnnngggg. Krrrrkkkk. Screeeeeeeeech. Claaaaaaaannnkkk .
    The noise was deafening, and as the workings of the huge clock slowly clanked into action, the whole tower began to shake and shudder. Trundle slipped off the top of the VI and slid down onto the ledge with a bump, clutching frantically at the ivy and almost tumbling off as the crumbling stonework shivered and quivered all around him. Chunks of masonry went crashing downward. Esmeralda and Jack and Percy had to leap away from the foot of the tower to avoid being brained by the falling debris.
    And then from deep inside the tower came the clanging and clonging and dinging and donging of bells and gongs, rattling Trundle’s brains until he thought his head would surely explode!
    And as if that wasn’t terrifying enough, he suddenly found himself in the middle of a great swarming mass of flapping black wings as entire flocks of ravens came pouring out of every hole in the top of the tower, croaking and screaming and battering him as they fled the noise.
    He ducked and dodged the birds as they hurtled past him, but above the horrible din of the chiming clock, he could have