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As they slowly walked into the forest, keeping an eye out for trouble – well Igon kept an eye out, Valentine kept them both out – our young hero tried to think back to the days of his early childhood but the only thing he could remember was always being at the castle. Victor was his father, Valeeta was his mother and Vernon was his brother. He could not remember any time of his life when he was not at the castle living with them as a Vampire. He had a vague memory of a childhood fight with Vernon and Vernon lost his temper and said something about ‘… and I wish you hadn’t been brought here’, but it was such a long time ago that he couldn’t really be sure. They sat down to rest for a while.
‘Igon.’
‘Master.’
‘How long have you lived at the castle?’
‘All my life. I was born there.’
‘You’re human aren’t you?’
‘Oh yes, Sire. You only have to look at me to see that.’
‘How come you were born at the castle?’
‘Mummy worked there.’
‘What did your … er … Mummy do and where is she now?’
‘Well, she was a nurse to a Doctor Frankenstein’s monster. She used to care for him and get him ready for bed and, of course, when he needed it, she would also change his oil. Then, as far as I know, she ran away with a man from the circus, the tattooed man.’
‘What happened to the monster?’
‘She took him with her. They all went with the circus and I’ve never seen her since.’ He wiped a tear from his eye as he always did when he talked about his Mummy. ‘I never knew my Daddy,’ he continued. ‘He was killed. He fell in a vat of wine and, instead of trying to swim, he tried to drink his way out.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Yes, he hiccupped to death.’
‘Do you remember me being born at the castle?’
‘You weren’t born at the castle.’
‘Go on,’ Valentine urged.
‘Oh no. One night you weren’t there and the next night you were. We were all told you were magic and that you were a special baby but I saw you being brought in by King Victor. You were wrapped in a blanket and he carried you in. That was the only time King Victor came in by the front door and not by the window. He always used the window but not that night.’
Valentine remained silent for a while as he thought over what he had just been told.
‘Do you think I was kidnapped; stolen from my real mother?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Well, if I was kidnapped, that means that the King isn’t my father. The Queen isn’t my mother and Vernon is not my brother.’
‘Am I still your friend?’
‘More than ever,’ Valentine smiled.
‘Well, that’s the only thing that’s important to me.’
After a pause of a few minutes Valentine spoke again. ‘Igon, we must go deeper into the forest. We have got to get away from Katchem.’
Igon rose from the log.
‘Don’t you see, Igon. I’ve got to find out the truth. I’ve got to find out who I really am.’
‘But that’s easy. You are Prince Valentine, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Realm. Last night, tonight and tomorrow night.’ Igon spoke with solemnity and more than a touch of pride.
CHAPTER 5
‘A President!’ the people cry aloud.
King Victor quells an angry crowd.
The moon shone directly on to King Victor’s coffin through the open window of his room. Inside the open coffin King Victor opened his eyes and lay there thinking about the daymare he had just had.
After a moment he majestically climbed out of the coffin. But as he stood up he knew that something was out of line. He knew that one or two things would go astray this night. He felt that his biorhythms weren’t so good.
There was always one thing that Victor liked about being a Vampire and that was, unlike humans, you didn’t have to get dressed when you got up. He was already dressed. He stood there and stretched himself. Then he went into a few late-night exercises. First of all he raised his arms level with his shoulders and practised a few cloak sweeps. He then did a few deep breathing exercises, one every four minutes, and finally sat cross-legged and cross-eyed on the window ledge with the moon full on his face, trying to get a little moonburn.
He had a slight headache but he knew that it was his own fault. He had been sleeping with his top hat on in his coffin all night and the coffin wasn’t long enough for him and his top hat so it had squashed down on his forehead. His mother had always told him, ‘Victor, never go to bed with your top hat on, for two reasons. One, it gives you a headache and, two, it puts a quiff in your widow’s peak.’ He felt the front of his widow’s peak and sure enough, there was a quiff there. Mums are always right.
He had one or two things lined up for the night. He would start off the evening with a few glasses of the red stuff at the tavern, but not too many as it affected his flying. Then, maybe, a little picnic in the graveyard. Yes, that would be nice.
He glided down from the window ledge and went over to the hat rack where the last Mayor of Katchem was sleeping. He looked at the bat who was hanging upside down from the hat rack. Victor thought he would scare the old bat so he stood on his head and, with a flick of his fingers, awakened the ex-Mayor. The bat opened its eyes and thought he saw King Victor standing the right way up so he turned over and fell to the floor.
King Victor laughed so hard the moon hid behind a cloud for a moment. He soon had the bat on his shoulder and, knowing that this bat didn’t like leaving the room by the window, walked towards the door as if they were going to leave that way. Suddenly King Victor turned round and ran as fast as he could for the window. The bat, whose eyes were almost popping out of its head, dug his little claws into the shoulder of Victor’s suit and held on for dear life.
But the King of the Vampires stopped as suddenly as he had started and the impetus took the bat forward and Victor watched him leave the room through the window, alone, as he himself remained firmly in the room.
The ex-Mayor, who was not the best of flyers, fluttered around outside rather like a dragonfly doing its first solo flight. The King, who enjoyed a cruel joke, watched as the bat flew out of control towards the ground. He then left the window and followed the ex-Mayor down. When the bat thought its time had come, Victor dived underneath it and took it safely on to his shoulder.
The bat, who was now so nervous that the fear of flying overtook the fear he had for the Vampire, once more dug his claws into Victor’s clothes and grabbed the Vampire’s ear with its sharp teeth. King Victor, who was no more than three feet from Queen Valeeta’s window, veered with the pain to the left of the window and hit the wall very hard. They both slid down the wall to the ground. The bat let go of his master and flapped his wings as hard as he could to keep himself up in the air. King Victor had nothing to hold on to and continued to slide down the wall to land in the slimy moat below.
Victor’s frightening scream was heard the other end of Gotcha, and most of the inhabitants thought that the end of the world had come. He slowly climbed up the damp wall of his castle, making his way to the Queen’s window. He gingerly climbed into his wife’s room, looking like a not-too-jolly green giant. The Queen, who had been awakened by her husband’s first scream and was now peacefully dropping back into sleep, screamed herself when she saw him.
‘Shut up, you silly olt fool,’ Victor ordered sharply.
‘Who are you?’ the Queen asked.
‘Your husbant,’ Victor said curtly.
‘Are you going to a fancy dress ball?’
‘No, I’m not goink to a fancy tress ball. If you must know, I fell in the moat.’
The Queen settled back in her coffin, saying, ‘Well, you drink too much. That’s your trouble. You’ve been at that bottle of twenty-year-old again, haven’t you? I’ve been watching you lately and you have definitely been coming home well and truly drunk. Every evening we watch you leave by the window heading for the tavern.’
King Victor was looking and feeling a little uncomfortable in his wet clothes.
‘And when you get there it’s straight for the twenty-year-old bottle. It’ll rot your socks, believe me. Look what it did to your father and mother. Your father drank so much twenty-year-old he couldn’t fly straight any more and the doctor grounded him, and he was only young. What was he, ninety?’
The green algae was now starting to dry on Victor and his suit was also starting to stiffen up. He only had one change of suit and that was at the cleaners. Valeeta droned on.
‘I’ll tell you this, Victor. If my mother and father were alive tonight they would turn over in their graves.’
‘Vife. You talk too much. I’m goink to see mine children. They should be outside on a beautiful night like this.’
‘Vernon is up, down in the cellar. I heard him,’ the Queen said.
‘Vhat’s he doink?’ asked the King.
‘I’m not sure. I think he’s making someone. Go and see if Valentine is out and about. As a matter of fact, I’ll come with you.’
The Queen, as beautiful and elegant as ever, rested her arm on that of the beginning-to-pong-a-little King, and together they walked along to Valentine’s room.
King Victor softly opened Valentine’s door. They crept towards the coffin, expecting him to be asleep. When they discovered the coffin was empty they at first didn’t know what to think.
They looked at each other over the open, empty coffin. The Queen looked back into the coffin, not really wanting to look at Victor, while Victor stood there in his now almost green suit, a blue vein quickly pumping on the left side of his white face, his black eyes staring almost unseeing into the coffin. He drew his purple lips back to show his pearl white teeth biting into his pink tongue.
‘He’s gone,’ he hissed. ‘He’s escaped.’
‘How can he escape?’ the Queen asked. ‘And why should he escape? He’s been with us all these years. He knows nothing. Only you and I know how he came here.’
‘And Igon?’
‘Why should Igon know?’
‘Because a fool like Igon knows everythink.’
‘Then we are safe. If Igon is a fool who will believe him?’
‘Don’t spout your female logic at me. The only thing I know is that mine son has escaped. I know he has. I haff a feelink.’
The Queen was not to be intimidated.
‘Nonsense. You are talking nonsense. He’s probably in his playroom listening to his musical boxes. He’s got all the latest ones. Only last week he sent away for Mick Jugular and the Rolling Tombstones.’
‘Vy do you prattle on so? Valentine has gone. Vy has he gone? I vill tell you. Somevon in the castle has told him he is not a Vampire. He knows he is not a Vampire. So beink a human child he wants to fint out whom his real parents are and you prattle on about … er … Tick Tracular ant the Writhing Twobones.’
‘Mick Jugular and the Rolling Tombstones, dear,’ his Queen corrected.
The King looked at his wife for a long time before he spoke, as if he was trying to recollect the past events. ‘You remember the night I brought him to the castle?’
‘Of course,’ the Queen said.
‘I found him, a small, little thing, not much more than a day old. He vas wrapped up in a blanket vit the vords on a piece of parchment sayink “Please somevon vill you take care off mine little boy,” ya?’
‘Yes. Look dear. I know all this.’
‘But dit you know whom his parents vere, eh?’
‘No one did.’
‘You are wronk. I dit.’
‘How?’
‘Because I made it mine duty to find out.’
‘Who? Tell me who.’ The Queen stared at her husband.
‘The Mayor. Ya, Mayor Goop. He vas his father. That is vy I turned him into a bat.’
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