Rattleyard Read online

  The same fear of being caught by his mother came back to him, but he was faster this time as he knew where everything was. It was only when he got to the window to go back out that he realised that the trunk was not going to fit through. He tried the window from the inside in the hope that he might see what was stopping it from opening but there was nothing.It didn’t budge at all. He looked out to Arthur, but he couldn’t call out to him, and it didn’t seem as though Arthur could see him through the glass.

  Crispin hesitated and glanced around the room, unsure what he was looking for. He decided that he would empty the contents of the trunk out, put it back where it had been and take the papers with him loose. He did this at great speed, but as he climbed back out the window, he lost his grip on the documents and notebooks, and they fell clattering on the top of the porch. He froze and looked to Arthur who had frozen as well, his hand in the air telling Crispin to stay where he was for a moment. Arthur was looking into the house. Their mother might have heard the noise and Crispin could imagine her getting up and coming out to investigate.

  Finally, Arthur waved at him to come back down. Crispin bundled the rest of the way out and collected up the papers and notebooks.

  “Here, catch,” he whispered to Arthur. Arthur looked up and waited for the trunk, but he was caught off guard by the flutter of pages that came down to him. He only caught one piece of it, the rest falling to the grass and spread all around him.

  “What’s all this?” he asked

  “The trunk wouldn’t fit out the window,” Crispin said. Arthur nodded.

  “Hang down and I’ll lift you the rest of the way,” he said. Crispin did, and they collected the papers and notebooks and went around to the front of the house to the girls. They let the boys in without a sound and then all of them crept up the stairs and into the boys’ room.

  Chapter 7

  Arthur had one last look out the door before he closed it and came over to the bed where all the papers and notebooks were laid out.

  “Let’s sort them into papers and notebooks first,” he said. Crispin began to gather up the notebooks as the girls clutched at loose leaves of paper. When they were divided, there were seven notebooks and about forty loose pages in two neat piles. Arthur picked up the first notebook and looked at it, flicking through the first few pages.

  “It’s a diary,” he said as he picked up another and did the same to it. “They all are I think. I’ll put them in order.” Crispin and the girls watched him do this.

  The first one was from six years ago, and for the first few pages it was all very mundane, Dick described the town, Caston Valley, he was in and some of the people he had met and said how excited he was about the new job he was starting. They flicked further on, and they noticed that the writing had become sloppier and had none of the finesse of the earlier pages. It had become harder to read as though Dick had scribbled these pages down while in the dark or at least very much of a hurry. Then something caught Arthur’s eye, and he stopped.

  “What is it?” Crispin asked.

  “Dick knew dad,” he answered.

  “Huh?” the girls said in unison.

  “They worked together at some mine in Caston Valley and it says here that they were going to work in Cripple Creek together as well.”

  “Should we tell mom?” Crispin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Arthur said. He read on, and the next few pages started to tell about the locals in Cripple Creek. They did not want a mine built, afraid of some ancient monster from their legends being released and killing everyone.

  “A monster!” Crispin scoffed.

  “A monster called Rattleyard,” Arthur said pointing to the word on the next page.

  “That’s who they said killed the man a few days ago, and who they were going to kill!” Crispin said. Arthur was reading more intently now and looked scared. Crispin tried to see what he was reading, but it was hard to make out upside down.

  “What’s wrong Arthur?” he asked

  “It says here that Rattleyard can move under the ground and when he does there is a ripping sound like what we heard in the back yard.”

  A shiver went down Crispin’s spine as he thought about the night he was out back on his own. He’d heard that noise and was going to investigate. What if he had? What would have happened?

  “This must be him,” Elisha said holding up one of the scraps of paper. It was a drawing of some creature with almost the same anatomy as a man but with a long tail and a long head, almost like a crocodile but not nearly so long. Its eyes glowed red. His legs and arms and even his torso were thin and sharp, like it was made up of blades attached to each other. Arthur took the picture and looked at it.

  “There are more pictures here,” Mary said sifting through the paper pile.

  “And in these notebooks,” Crispin said.

  “It looks like it’s made of metal or steel,” Arthur said.

  “See if there’s anything more in the diaries about it,” Crispin urged.

  Arthur went to the next diary and scanned the pages one at a time.

  “It says that a man was killed at the site, and then this passage mentions the locals saying it was Rattleyard. This one says Dick and dad heard some strange noises in the mine, but they didn’t know what it was. Then someone else was killed...”

  “Did it kill dad?” Crispin asked, and they all looked at him.

  Arthur flicked through more pages until he came to a page that was very badly scrawled upon. He held it up to the light to try to read it, but he couldn’t make sense of it all. Then there was a gap of a few weeks to the next entry. This one went on about Iron and its properties and didn’t seem to have much to do with the rest of the diary. The entry went on for many pages and then there were blank pages at the end of the notebook. He took up the next one, and this started off in a new town a few months after the last entry.

  It was back to normal everyday things but here and there in this notebook, there were mentions made of ripping noises and feelings that Dick was being watched. The rest were the same, Dick’s ordinary workaday life interrupted now and then by feelings of paranoia and fears. Then some more pages on the chemistry and properties of different metals and ores.

  One of the final entries in the last notebook really stood out. It was a single line entry where all the rest were at least a page and a half a piece. It said: He will pay for all those he killed in Cripple Creek.

  Arthur read this line out loud, and they all knew that it meant Rattleyard had killed their father, that he had not been killed in an accident at all. They were silent for a while as each of them dealt with this news in their own mind. The girls were still sifting absently through the loose pages, and Crispin took some and looked them over. Each child had tears welling in their eyes and they avoided looking at one another. Crispin recalled his father slipping in the snow as they made a snowman one Christmas, and he was sure the others were thinking about him just then too.

  “These are all about Rattleyard,” he said, “but it seems to be the same stuff over and over again.” Arthur looked at some of the other sheets.

  “Dick’s been trying to find a way to kill it.” he said. “Look at this.” He showed them a page with a drawing on it. It was of Rattleyard, and arrows pointing to parts of his body with tags - can cut through stone, too sharp to touch, impervious to blunt force. These were repeated over and over in different diagrams of various parts of the creature’s body.

  “It sounds like he thinks he’s found a way,” Crispin said. They looked over the sheets to see if he had written anything about this, but all of the pages looked old and worn, and nothing looked like it was fresh. If he’d written since coming here, it wasn’t in this pile.

  “We better get this back into the trunk,” Arthur said looking at his watch. Crispin didn’t like the idea of this, knowing that he was the one who was going to have to put it back and risk getting caught. Not to mention the new fear of going out into the back garden now that he knew
this monster might be out there.

  They gathered up the pile and Crispin took it into his arms. Arthur looked out and when he saw that the coast was clear they left the room.

  “You two girls go back out the front and watch for...” At that moment, the front door opened, and Dick came in. “Get back into the room!” Arthur said to Crispin pushing him through the doorway.

  Crispin ran back in and shut the door behind him, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He heard voices at the bottom of the stairs. It was the girls talking to Dick. Crispin looked around the room for a place to hide his bundle. The voices from below moved to the kitchen, and his mother’s voice joined in.

  The door opened and Arthur reappeared. “Come on, we better put this stuff out in the shed for now.”

  Chapter 8

  Crispin followed without thinking and crept down the stairs. Arthur opened the front door as quietly as he could. They went out into the night, and it was only when he stepped on the grass for the first time that Crispin felt the fear of what might lay beneath it. He stopped, and Arthur turned to him.

  “What is it?” he asked. Crispin nodded to the ground, and he saw a flicker of fear on Arthur’s face before he was able to bring it under control.

  “There’s no noise now, so there’s nothing to worry about,” Arthur said. Crispin wasn’t sure, and he remained frozen in place. “If we don’t hide this stuff we’ll be in more trouble,” Arthur went on. Crispin still didn’t move so Arthur grabbed the papers from him and scurried along the side of the house.

  Crispin, just as afraid of being left alone now, ran after Arthur and bumped into his back at the corner of the house as he was checking if he would be seen going to the shed.

  “I’ll get up on the porch and try to get it back into his room,” Crispin said, his fear of the room and getting caught there lessened by the terror of the earth under his feet now. Arthur looked blank for a split second.

  “Okay,” he said. Then he threw himself against the side of the porch and put his hands together for Crispin. Crispin was up on the porch much quicker this time around, and he leaned over to take the papers from Arthur.

  “I’ll give the same call if he starts to go upstairs,” Arthur said as he backed away from the porch and into the darkness of the garden.

  Crispin moved fast, and when he got to the window, he pushed the papers right in ahead of him. They made some noise in landing, but he could hear voices in the rooms below, speaking too loudly to have heard anything. He squeezed his frame in through the gap in the window and again landed as softly as he could. When he was upright, he started to collect all the papers and notebooks from the floor. He tiptoed to the chair and brought it over to the wardrobe. Crispin stepped up on it and took the now empty trunk down, placing it down on the floor.

  As he looked into the trunk he tried to remember if the papers and notebooks had been in any order, but all his memory showed was a jumble of papers. He just tossed them all back in and closed the lid. He stood up on the chair again and then he heard it- the signal that Dick was coming upstairs. He pushed the trunk back where it went and dropped to the floor. He lifted the chair and place it back at the table. He rushed to the window, but knew he wouldn't make it as he heard the quick footsteps of Dick on the stairs.

  Crispin pulled the window shut and dove onto the dusty wooden floorboards on the side of the bed furthest from the door just as he heard the key go into the lock. He shuffled quietly and slowly under the bed as the door opened and then shut.

  Crispin held his breath for as long as he could, and then he began to let it out in silent puffs before drawing in a little more. Dick had come into the room, gone to the window to look out, Crispin assumed, and then sat down at the table. He was rustling some of the pages of mine drawings and plans that were there. Crispin wondered what his mother would say if he were caught here a second time. He knew his backside was going to be in for a tanning at the very least. Then he heard someone on the stairs and the top step creaked. A couple of more steps and there was a knock on the door. Crispin watched Dick’s feet as he got up and went to the door, opening it wide. Crispin felt the chill air of freedom as it whooshed into the room and over his prone body.

  “My mother asked if you would like to join us for some tea?” Arthur said.

  “Yes that sounds fine Arthur, I will just change, and be down in a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” was all Arthur said in response. The door closed again, and Dick sat on the bed. Crispin could feel dust mites fall on his face, and he was afraid he was going to sneeze. He could see the springs stretch and click on the underside of the mattress.

  “Are you going to be joining us for tea Crispin?” Dick’s voice said and for a moment Crispin was in shock, but then Dick’s smiling face appeared upside down over the side of the bed. “Eh?”

  Crispin began to cry when no words came to him.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Duggan,” he wailed as he dragged himself out from under the bed.

  “Hey, hey, hey little fella,” Dick whispered. “You better keep it down, or your mother will hear you, and you’ll be in big trouble then.” Crispin was confused, and he did his best to stop crying, but there were still a few tears dropping from his eyes.

  “You aren’t going to tell my mom?” he asked.

  “No need is there?” Dick said. Why was he being so nice about this? Why wasn’t he going to tell Mom? “You didn’t take anything did you?” Dick asked him.

  “No!” Crispin answered, and he patted his pockets and held his empty hands out for Dick to see as proof of his innocence.

  “What has you in here then?” Dick asked, “And how did you get in, do you have a spare key to this room?”

  “No, I came in through the window from the porch,” Crispin answered hoping he had avoided the question as to why he was in here. Dick looked at the window and out at the porch top.

  “You could have hurt yourself,” he said, and Crispin nodded in agreement. He shuffled his feet in the hope that Dick would let him go. Instead, Dick looked around the room and seemed to be in thought. Crispin waited, anxious to get out and into his own room. There were so many things he wanted to ask Dick about his father and this Rattleyard creature but he couldn't without Dick knowing what they had done.

  “Did Rattleyard kill my dad?” he blurted out as though he had just thought it. Dick’s face dropped, and he grew pale. His eyes darted to the trunk on top of the wardrobe and then back to Crispin.

  “Where did you hear that name?” Dick asked grabbing him by the shoulders and kneeling to his height. He stared into Crispin’s eyes, so close that Crispin could see the red and blue veins surrounding the dark brown centre of them.

  “I heard you talking to a man out behind the shed,” Crispin said. He had seen the look in Dick’s eyes when he suspected that he had been looking in the trunk, so he didn’t tell the full truth. Dick let go of him and stood back up, he walked to the window and looked out down at the grass, rubbing his stubbly chin with his hand.

  “I don’t know anything about your father, I’ve never met him,” he said

  “But in the diary....” Crispin stopped, but he knew he had given himself away.

  “So you were snooping in my personal property?”

  “I’m sorry,”

  “Maybe we will have to tell your mother about this after all.” This panicked Crispin and in his childish haste he said the first comeback he could think of,

  “Maybe I’ll have to tell her that you knew my dad and that it wasn’t an accident that killed him!” These words made him feel terribly sad again, and he started to cry but, this time, it was for his lost father. Dick looked at him with a sympathetic face.

  “Does anyone else know what you were looking at?”

  “Arthur does,” Crispin said, wiping away the warm tears that blurred his vision. Dick nodded, and he was thinking again.

  “You and Arthur meet me tomorrow, somewhere away from the house, and we’ll talk there.”

>   “What about the football fields?”

  “We can meet there and go somewhere.”

  “What time?”

  “How early can you both be there?”

  “Maybe ten in the morning.”

  “Fine, ten it is, but in the meantime don’t say anything to anyone else okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now go on downstairs and I’ll be down in a few minutes. We won’t let on that anything has happened, and no one will get in trouble,” Dick said, a little of his normal voice and attitude coming back. Dick opened the door and looked out into the hall. Crispin mused about how much checking that the coast was clear that was going on in this house these days. The thought brought a slight smile to his face through the damp of his tear streaked face.

  “Wash your face before your mother sees you,” Dick said as he closed the door leaving Crispin standing alone in the hallway.

  Chapter 9

  Crispin and Arthur stood in the unshaded sunlight at the football fields where Dick was going to meet them. It was hot out and only a slight breeze did anything to allay the suns assault. The fields and trees around glistened bright green in the daylight. It had passed the time when he was meant to meet them, but not by much. Where they stood offered a long view in all directions, and there was no sign of him in any of them so far.

  “Do you think he’ll bail on us?” Crispin asked, squinting against the white reflected from the footpaths.

  “He could. Maybe he is just buying time so he can get away from the house with all his stuff in case we tell Mom,” Arthur said.

  “Do you think it was Rattleyard who caused the earthquake last week?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There have been earthquakes here before, and it was only a very small one. I doubt anything the size of a man would be able to cause even a slight tremor.” Crispin nodded in agreement, but did he agree?