The Borribles - Larrabeiti Michael (читать книги онлайн бесплатно полностью без .txt) 📗

Knocker walked back to his house, alone. Lightfinger had gone off on a food raid but Knocker wasn't hungry. He felt thwarted. He knew that there was absolutely no chance of him being considered for the expediton to Rumbledom. He went into the basement of the deserted house and made his way upstairs. As he passed Spiff's door it was thrown open and the steward appeared, beaming.

"Right, lad," he said, "in here, just the bloke we want, look lively, the others want a word with you."

Knocker stepped inside the room and found it crowded with the stewards who had been on the stage with Spiff. The prisoner had disappeared. Knocker took off his woollen cap and held it in his hands; he had good pointed ears showing a high range of intelligence and alertness. The stewards nodded in approval. They were sitting round the room comfortably relaxed on upholstered orange-boxes and little grape-barrels. Spiff settled into a fine armchair that must have fallen off a very expensive furniture lorry or removal van.

"Sit down, lad," he said. "We wanted to thank you for your good work last night, champion that was, champion." He consulted a sheaf of papers. "Now to business; we want to ask your advice. As you may know, there are eight Rumbles in the Rumble High Command. I feel that if we can eliminate them, the rest of the Rumble social structure will fall to pieces and they won't have time to interfere with us any more. So that's why we are sending eight Borribles only, one for each High Rumble. There will be one from Tooting, Hoxton, Wandsworth—you heard all that already. But, Knocker, who are we going to send from Battersea?"

"The point is," said one of the other stewards, "you are out and about a lot, you see a lot of Borribles in action, who do you think would be a good choice?"

Knocker thought for a while. "It's tricky," he said at length, "there's quite a few who are good. There's a bunch of bright lads down by Morgan's Crucible Works, some others under the railway arches at Battersea Park Station, but I think the brightest of the lot, out of the whole Borough, is one who lives up on Lavender Hill, bright as a button and smart as paint."

"Whereabouts does he hang out?" asked another steward.

"Underneath the nick," said Knocker, who had been saving up the surprise.

"Underneath the nick!" cried a dozen voices. "He must be mad."

Knocker laughed. "Oh, no. Bright. There's a stack of rooms that are left empty each and every night. It's centrally heated, blankets galore, constant electricity and hot water. You name it, he's got it. In fact he's got some of the Woollies thinking he's a local lad and in the daytime he often does the odd errand for 'em. You see he doesn't even have to do a lot of thieving; he's got almost everything he needs on the spot."

"I should have known about this before," said Spiff, looking a bit disgruntled.

"I'm sorry," explained Knocker, "but I was hoping to make the boy a lookout for us. I was waiting for the right adventure to come up so that he could get a name, and I think this must be it."

Spiff looked round at the other stewards.

"Carried," he said, and they nodded. "Right, that's settled. Now, Knocker, I want you to send a runner up to Lavender Hill and get that wazzisname down here. As soon as the champions come in from the other Boroughs we shall have to begin a training session. As well as that, I want you to get some volunteers to do some spare-time thieving. We're going to need lots of things for the expeditionary force, grub, weather-proof clothing, good catapults, watches, compasses, anything that might be useful. You are our best lookout so I want you to organise the provisioning of the expedition. I know you've got your own thieving to do, and so have the others, but do what you can. This expedition cannot afford to fail."

Knocker nodded. His heart was bursting with pride, he was being involved, which was more than he had dared to hope. "Is there a chance of anything else, Spiff?"

"What do you mean? You can't go on it, you know, that's a rule."

"I know that. It's, well, you said they would have to be trained. I'm a good Borrible lookout, well, I could train them . . . couldn't I?"

Spiff gave Knocker a long look, a look that went right through the Borrible and saw everything. "Hmm," he said, smiling a secret smile, "you are keen, aren't you? How many names have you got?"

"Just the one," answered Knocker feeling uncomfortable.

Spiff chuckled and looked at the other stewards. "He reminds me of me," he said. "Well, brothers, shall he train the team?"

The motion was passed and Knocker was delighted. He wasn't the chief lookout for nothing and he knew how to get his own way. He got up to go, feeling proud and also grateful to Spiff. The steward detained him.

"Here, take this envelope, it's instructions about the Rumble, he's downstairs in the cupboard. Send him packing, try not to let anyone see him, they might chuck him in the river anyway."

Knocker ran downstairs and opened the cupboard. Sure enough the Rumble was there, his paws still tied behind him and a notice glued onto his fur, which had gone all spiky and dirty.

Two assistant lookouts came into the room and leaned against the wall to watch as Knocker read his instructions. When he had finished he removed the tape from the animal's snout and sat it on a grape-barrel.

"You are being sent home, Rumble, alive. Take that message to your leaders and tell them what you have seen and heard."

Knocker turned to the lookouts. "You two can escort him on the first stage of the journey. This envelope has instructions from the meeting. Take him to the Junction and hand him over. Then he can be taken to the Honeywell Borribles and they can take him up to the Wendles beyond Wandsworth Common, from there the Wendles will take him to Merton Road. This letter goes with him and explains what should be done at each stage. Finally, he should be released as near Rumbledom High Street as possible and allowed to find his way home. Any questions?"

The two lookouts shook their heads.

"Right," said Knocker, "as soon as you've got rid of him come back to me and report. It is very important that he gets back in one piece, though it doesn't matter what he looks like; the rougher the better. We've got to frighten the fur off them."

Timbucktoo jumped to his feet at this. "You don't fwighten me, Bowwible, nor your fwiends. You don't know what you're taking on. We'll be keeping a watch out for you, you'll be skewered on our Wumble-sticks before you get a sight of Wumbledom Hill. You may be safe down here in your gwimy stweets and stinking back-alleys, but Wumbledom is a wilderness with twackless paths that only we can follow. This means war.

Knocker cuffed the Rumble round the ear, almost affectionately. "Go on," he said, "you old door-mat, before I knock that snout of yours through the back of your bonce."

At a sign from Knocker his two assistants hauled the Rumble from the room on the first stage of his long and perilous journey; a journey on which he would be passed from hand to hand like a registered packet in the London post.