Free Hercufleas by Sam Gayton Page A

pig charged, snout belching fire and flames. Two cannonballs hit Yuk with a thud. The giant staggered back, but didn’t fall. Not this time. He lunged forward to snatch the barbarian and his pig, cramming them into his mouth.
    â€˜TASTE LIKE CHICKEN,’ he said.
    Hercufleas scanned Yuk’s mohican tree for the house-hat… There! The impact of the giant’s fall had wedged it between two branches. A few of the windows still shone faintly, like a cluster of fallen stars.
    Hercufleas cried out for Min and Pin and all the others. Jump, jump, they had to jump now, before it was too late! But his shouts were too small, and came from too far away.
    Yuk patted his belly. A burp erupted from his lips, sending the leaves around Hercufleas trembling.
    â€˜THAT GOOD GUZZLE,’ he said. ‘YUK FULL. NOW YUK NEED SLEEP. SOMEWHERE HE NOT GET WOKEN UP BY BIG BOOM-BOOM.’
    Hercufleas watched him stomp away. To the horizon and beyond. Carrying the tiny winking lights of the house-hat with him.

19
    H ercufleas woke in a matchbox padded with cotton wool. He turned his head and found himself on a windowsill, lying in a sunbeam. Outside was a road strewn with rubble. A wonky sign said ‘Merit Street’.
    He didn’t know where Merit Street was. This wasn’t the woodn’t, or Avalon, this was somewhere he’d never been. How long had he been asleep? Grimacing, he sat up. Dull pain shot through his broken arm. Someone had sewn up his cracked skin with cotton thread, fixing it back in place. He was mending. Some parts of him, anyway.
    There was nothing else to see on the street, so he turned his gaze inwards to the room. It had been a school once. Now half the roof was gone and the desks had rotted in the rain. Old books, swollen with damp, sprouted on the sill beside him like fungi. A faded display lined the far wall – pictures painted in bright colours by little children. Names were printed below them. Ilsa. Ivan. Greta.
    This must be Tumber.
    Greta’s painting was of a small girl, a man, a lady, a donkey and a goat. She’d painted smiley faces on everyone, even the sun.
    Hercufleas noticed her then. She was asleep on the floor, curled up by the blackboard, cuddling her axe the way other children cuddle dolls. Hercufleas watched her for a long time. She was having a good dream, he could tell. She was smiling, ever so slightly.
    Why hadn’t she abandoned him, the way he’d abandoned her?
    Down the corridor came the echo of footsteps. An orange glow grew brighter in the doorway. Quickly Hercufleas lay back down in his matchbox and pretended to snore. He kept one eye open. Into the classroom came an old babushka with hair like chicken wire and a tiny copper earring in the shape of a bell. She’d dusted her cheeks with flour and drawn her eyebrows on with charcoal in an attempt to look glamorous. One hand held a walking stick with a brass tip and a carved fox-head handle. In the other, a fat orange tinderfly burned on the stub of a sugarstick.
    The babushka looked from Greta to Hercufleas, shaking her head. She muttered something in a language Hercufleas didn’t know, setting the tinderfly down. She gave Greta a gentle poke with her stick.
    â€˜Five more minutes, Mama,’ Greta mumbled.
    The babushka sighed and brought her stick down on the floorboards with a sharp crack. Greta groaned. ‘Mama, Wuff is barking again.’
    The babushka went over to the blackboard and raked her long nails down it. They screeched like broken violins. Greta sat bolt upright, awake and scowling again. She had feathers in her hair from the pillow propped beneath her.
    â€˜Wake him,’ said the babushka, plucking the feathers out. ‘I must tell you what will happen.’
    Greta yawned. ‘Can’t it wait another hour?’
    The babushka
tsked
. ‘Greta Stump. Even in class you were always with the questions and not with the listening. Less than a month now until Yuk