Read Online Hercufleas by Sam Gayton - Free Book Online

at once, it settled down to eat. Its wings began to burn a warm, contented orange. A smell of caramel filled the air. Greta shut the tinderbox and held the flame up to the dark.
    She called out again. ‘Whatever you are, come out!’
    Suddenly something enormous burst out of the undergrowth towards them. Greta’s skin goosebumped with terror. Hercufleas screamed. He wasn’t ready to fight Yuk yet! He wasn’t ready to die! He’d only just started to live! He was so terrified, he pooed a tiny rust-red scab onto Greta’s wrist (since fleas drink only blood, scabs are what they poo).
    But the dark shape wasn’t the giant.
    In a way, it was worse.
    Greta swung the tinderfly around to illuminate Onk-Onk skidding to a stop, his snout snuffling their scent on the ground.
    Ugor stepped off his pig, holding his Bazuka, a rifle from the Orient that fired tiny sticks of dynamite. ‘Move and you die,’ he growled, pointing the gun at them. ‘Good sniffing, Onk-Onk.’ Keeping his eyes on Greta, he called over his shoulder through the trees, ‘She is here, Mr Stickler. With the flea too.’
    Mr Stickler appeared behind Ugor, the house-hat on his head like a lantern. Every window was dazzlingly lit – Hercufleas threw his arm across his eyes. When at last he could look, his fleamily were all crowded on the brim holding candles, waving at Hercufleas.

    Suddenly they were all yelling:
    â€˜Don’t worry!’
    â€˜You’re safe now!’
    â€˜Ugor told us what happened!’
    â€˜Mr Stickler said you’d probably been kidnapped!’
    â€˜We took a boat to cut her off!’
    â€˜Min says you can pick
two
bottles from the pantry for dinner!’
    Seeing them, Hercufleas sighed in relief. Despite everything, his fleamily were all right. Everything was going to be OK.
    Then he remembered that Stickler and Ugor were there too and he realised that wasn’t true at all.
    â€˜Don’t worry, little one!’ Min called to Hercufleas. ‘We won’t let her steal you to sell to some flea circus!’
    â€˜That’s not what she’s doing,’ Hercufleas called. ‘That isn’t what happened!’
    But Stickler was speaking too, and his loud voice drowned out Hercufleas. ‘You tried to blackmail me,’ he said to Greta. ‘Then you murdered Prince Xin. Stole Artifax. Kidnapped one of my employfleas. Now you will face justice.’
    Greta urged Artifax back to the edge of the clearing, swinging her light from Stickler to Ugor.
    â€˜Yes, I’m a thief,’ she said. ‘A kidnapper too. But I didn’t murder Prince Xin.
He
tried to murder
me
! And
you
told him to do it!’
    â€˜Kill her, Ugor,’ Stickler said with a sigh, picking dirt from under his fingernails. ‘Kill her now. We don’t need to listen to any of her lies.’
    â€˜Wait!’ Min cried. ‘What about my hatchling?’
    Under the hat’s brim, the lenses of Stickler’s scopical glasses glinted as he thought. ‘Hercufleas,’ he said at last, ‘jump away from that murdering villain now. Ugor needs to dynamite her.’
    Greta looked down at Hercufleas. ‘He’ll tell you the truth!’
    Stickler hesitated. On the brim of his hat, the fleamily were looking at each other with puzzled faces.
    â€˜What’s she talking about, Hercufleas?’ asked Pin.
    Hercufleas opened his mouth, about to explain everything: the flyte, Prince Xin’s fall, Onk-Onk’s sneeze, the escape across the lake.
    But then, behind Stickler’s back, Ugor swung his gun away from Greta.
    He pointed it at the house-hat instead.
    â€˜Well?’ said Stickler. ‘Are you going to tell us or not?’
    â€˜Go on,’ Ugor sniggered. ‘Tell them the truth.’ And there was something else the villain said, but only with his eyes:
Tell them the truth, and your fleamily will die.
    â€˜Hercufleas?’