The Curse of the Giant Hogweed Read Online Free PDF

didn’t—er—take wing?”
    “Meaneth ye did he fly away? Methinks one so learned might try to talk straight. Nay, he took not wing. Some of them would have said so gin he had flown, would they not? Anyway, Ffyff’s right wing hath bothered him these past few days. Syglinde hath been rubbing it with warm eel grease.”
    Stott raised his eyebrows, slowly so as not to tax the facial muscles. “Eel grease? I should rather have thought a decoction of—”
    “Right, Dan,” said Peter. “Sir Torchyld, can you tell me precisely what your uncles and your cousins and your aunts said with regard to the griffin’s disappearance?”
    “How many times will ye ask, druid? They said he was there and then he was not. Poof.”
    “Did they go looking for him?”
    “Aye, they looked. Great-uncle Sfyn drove them to ye hunt like partridges before ye beaters. They hunted high, they hunted low, e’en in places too small for Ffyff to fit into.”
    “How big is he?”
    “Ordinary griffin size. Gin he standeth on his hind claws, he can just about rest his front ones on my shoulders. He cometh thus to me when he craveth his chin whiskers to be scratched.”
    “I am reminded of our prize boar, Balthazar of Balaclava,” said Daniel Stott. “There is a certain poignancy about the endearing little ways of very large beasts.”
    “No doubt,” said Peter. “Well, boys, it looks to me as if we’re not going to get anywhere with this case of the gone griffin unless we hightail it straight to King Sfyn’s castle and hear some firsthand accounts of Ffyffnyr’s disappearance for ourselves. Dan, you and Sir Torchyld can compare notes about Ffyffnyr and Balthazar on the way,” he added kindly.
    “What way?” snarled their difficult new acquaintance. “Think ye we should ever get back to ye castle, druid? Dwydd hath by now barred ye path by many a fell enchantment.”
    “Who’s Dwydd?” Tim wanted to know.
    “King Sfyn’s resident hag,” Peter told him.
    “Oh, he’s got one, too, has he?” Tim knew all about resident hags. “Then what’s the big mystery? I’d be willing to bet my shirt, if I knew where the hell I left it, that griffin’s around the castle somewhere. Stuck up over a downspout disguised as a gargoyle, most likely. How the hell did we get into this, Pete?”
    “Don’t ask me, Tim. All I know is, when you and Dan went into the men’s room of that pub, I walked on ahead into the bar. There wasn’t a soul around, not even the bartender. I was standing there working up a thirst and thinking how shiny the pump handles were when, as Sir Torchyld here would say, poof. Here I was and there he came. That’s my story. What’s yours?”
    “Same thing, just about. When Dan and I went into the bar, you weren’t there. We thought you must have stepped out to take a gander at that hogweed down in the meadow, so we were going to go ahead and order our drinks. But the bartender wasn’t there, either. We coughed and flapped around, you know how you do, thinking somebody would hear us and come out, but nobody did. So then I said to Dan, why didn’t we go ahead and draw one for ourselves? If the guy never showed up, we could just leave the money. So we both went behind the bar. Dan was getting us a couple of glasses and I was trying to figure out which pump was for the bitter when we poofed, too.”
    “Your hypothesis, Peter,” said Daniel Stott, “is that we are sharing a dream. May I venture an alternative suggestion? I believe we are jointly experiencing something quite other than a mere sleep-induced vagary.”
    “Such as what?”
    “Simply a situation of a type that appears to be relatively frequent in this part of the world. As you know, I have been bountifully blessed with offspring. When my children were small, we maintained the homely old custom of reading aloud. Knowing this, my sister Matilda kept us well supplied with what she deemed to be suitable reading matter. Matilda’s penchant was for British