Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle

Gil was mumbling in French: “Sorry, Professor, my latest experiment ate my lecture notes.”

He thinks he’s in Paris, does he? Agatha had an idea. She leaned down to shout in Gil’s ear. “Hey, Gil! All of Paris is about to go up in flames and Zola has her head caught in a bucket! Up and at ‘em, hero boy!”

It worked. Gil’s eyelids fluttered and he jerked up into a sitting position. “A bucket?” He shook his head ruefully. “Again?” With a sigh, he swayed to his feet. “Okay, I’m comin.’”

Agatha glanced at Zola’s expression of rage and nodded in satisfaction. “Yessss, I suspected as much.”

When they had been walking for a while, Agatha looked up from the map of the Castle. She had borrowed it from Professor Tiktoffen and it was hand-drawn, much marked and tattered. She looked down the long, enclosed stone corridor, checked the map again, and nodded. She tapped the vellum with a fingertip. “We’re here. And…I’m afraid that the way we’re going is through one of these red marked areas.”

Tiktoffen took his map and nodded matter-of-factly. “Ah. We are indeed in uncharted territory.” He carefully rolled the map back up and placed it in the satchel he carried. “I will scream like a little girl now,” he informed them.

“Please don’t,” Agatha said.

“No, no—I insist.”

“Oh, do let him, Mistress,” the Castle said. “It’s very funny.”

Zola interrupted them. “Are we anywhere near this medical lab of yours?” She glanced back, worry evident on her face. “Gil’s still pretty much out of it.”

This was clear. Gil was ambling along the corridor as though he was enjoying a garden stroll. As Agatha watched, he approached an empty suit of armor and politely addressed it. “Pardonnez-moi, Monseiur, mais où est la catastrophe?”

“And what is that noise?” Zola asked.

Agatha had been trying to calculate their best route back to the lab and Tarvek. When Zola spoke, she realized that there was a noise, and it was growing louder. A terrible banging and clonging noise, like a half-full water tank being dragged fast behind a team of oxen.

A spiked ball of steel, easily the height of two men, came hurtling around a far bend in the corridor. It rumbled toward them, apparently under its own power.

Agatha stared at it in astonishment and asked no one in particular: “Why do I even have one of those?”

Tiktoffen shrugged. “I’d always wondered where that thing went on Tuesdays.”

Zola stared at the onrushing ball and then screamed for help. “GILLLLL!”

This jolted Gil from his distracted mood and he snapped into action. He leapt forward, scooped Zola into his arms and without breaking stride, ran directly toward the ball. Agatha’s heart stopped as she watched. There was no way around. With its spikes, the ball filled the corridor neatly from side to side.

Fortunately, the hallway was higher than it was wide. With Zola shrieking in his ear, Gil spun and jumped towards the wall. Hitting it, he instantly pushed off and bounced towards the other side of the corridor, then back again. As he made his highest leap, the spikes of the ball swept past centimeters below his feet. As the ball rolled on, Gil bounced them back to the floor.

As his feet touched the ground, Gil blinked with the look of a man awakening from a particularly absorbing daydream. “Wait. Back there…” He spun in place and watched the ball crashing away down the corridor. “Was that…Agatha?”

Zola tightened her arms around Gil’s neck and stared at the twisted wreckage of Agatha’s death ray, scattered across the floor where the ball had passed. “Oh dear,” she said breathlessly, “How tragic! I guess my Castle is even more dangerous than I’d imagined!”

“MY Castle!” Agatha’s voice rang out from above. Gil nearly dropped Zola as Agatha drifted down towards them. Professor Tiktoffen was clutching frantically at the arm she had slung around his chest. With her other hand, she held tightly to a small device that looked like another of her little pocket clanks. As she was about to touch down, the little clank burst with a loud crack, and everyone ducked as a barrage of short propellers ricocheted off the walls and into the darkness.

As he ducked, Gil set Zola on her feet and covered her head with his arms. When the clattering died down, he raised his head. “My Castle,” Agatha repeated, glaring at Zola. “And don’t you forget it.”

Gil beamed at her happily. “Agatha! What are you doing in Paris?” Agatha just looked at him. “Are you going to Professor Goodwin’s freestyle reanimation demonstration?” A hopeful thought entered his head. “Afterwards, let’s get some coffee and—”

Agatha grabbed hold of Gil’s shoulders and gave him an impatient shake. “No! You are coming straight to my lab so I can look you over properly!”

Gil felt a blush work its way up his face. That had gone even better than he had hoped! “Wow. Really?”

Agatha just looked at him. “Let’s go,” she said and stalked off.