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They entered a funny little shop with advertisements in the window for Jolly Sailor Tobacco and Gumption’s Snuff and a large sign above the door saying SWEETS. Behind the counter was the fattest man Geoffrey had ever seen. He had a stubbly grey moustache, and was wearing a hat with a tassel, and a brightly coloured woollen shawl. What really caught Geoffrey’s attention was the magnificent parrot sitting on his shoulder.
‘Hello, Mister Thwaite,’ said Emma. ‘May I have some Klatchian Delight, please? And what sweets do you like, Geoffrey?’
Geoffrey cast his eye around the shop, which had shelves of sweet jars from floor to ceiling.
‘How about some nutty slack or dragon drops or, if you like, chocolate?’ said Mister Thwaite. ‘I’ve just had a delivery of pig pellets for Hogswatch.’
‘Wonderful!’ said Geoffrey. ‘And if I don’t eat them all I can put some in my poo collection.’
‘Your what collection?’
‘I have a poo museum,’ replied Geoffrey proudly.
‘Well, I never did,’ said Mister Thwaite. ‘You can have this packet of gnoll berries. Goodness knows what’s in them but I can’t shift them for love nor money.’ He turned and reached up to a high shelf. The parrot squawked but continued to watch Geoffrey with a beady eye.
As Mister Thwaite turned, Geoffrey noticed that the back of his shawl was encrusted with bird poo. ‘You must be a very lucky man,’ said Geoffrey, ‘to have all that bird poo on you. Could I have a bit of that parrot poo for my museum, please?’
‘Of course. I like to help a young man with his hobby,’ said Mister Thwaite. And, holding an empty tobacco packet, he let Geoffrey scrape the well-dried encrustation from the fringes of the shawl. Geoffrey put the bags of sweets and lucky parrot poo into his pockets and, having thanked Mister Thwaite, turned to leave. As he opened the door the parrot suddenly sprang into life, flew to its perch and did one of those little dances that parrots are wont to do and then shouted very loudly, ‘NOW PISS OFF.’ Mister Thwaite smiled. ‘Don’t worry. He only says that if he really likes you,’ he said.
Geoffrey and Emma continued on their journey and before long they found themselves looking up at the most impressive gates Geoffrey had ever seen. As they stood there a change in the wind brought a smell of burning and fireworks that hit the back of his throat and made his eyes water. A shower of small sooty particles floated down around them.
‘That can’t be good,’ said Emma. She pushed the gate open in the manner of someone who knew she would always be welcomed, and they made their way into a yard surrounded by a collection of sheds and bigger stone buildings with thick, fortress-like walls. The roofs, however, looked very insubstantial and, in some cases, very new.
‘Those are the dragon sheds,’ explained Emma. ‘If one of the little dears explodes, the blast is channelled upwards. If we’re lucky we only lose a bit of roof.’
‘What happens if we’re not so lucky?’ asked Geoffrey, looking anxious.
‘Oh, you’ll be all right,’ she assured him. ‘We’ve got good protective clothing. It’s only the people who forget to wear it who lose their hair and eyebrows, and sometimes their fingers.’
They went into one of the smaller sheds where they met a girl who seemed to be wearing armour from the neck down and held a large helmet in her gloved hands. ‘This is Emma,’ said Emma. ‘Emma, meet Geoffrey.’
‘Hello, Geoffrey,’ said Emma Two. ‘Let’s get you and your dog kitted up.’ He was lifted up and lowered into big stiff leather trousers that didn’t bend at all, and was given big boots and gloves and a helmet. They even found a small helmet for Widdler, making him look like a snail peering out of its shell.
‘Let’s go,’ said the Emmas in unison, and ushered him from the shed into one of the big stone buildings. At first there didn’t seem much to look at. There was a series of concrete pens with small, grey-green, huddled lumps under piles of sticky ash.
‘Why are they all covered in ash?’ asked Geoffrey.
‘Well, we’ve not cleaned them out yet because Lady Sybil can usually tell what’s wrong with them from the colour and smell of their poo. They’ll have been eating quite the wrong thing.’
‘What should their poo be like?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘And can I have some for my poo museum?’
‘Well, like I said, in a healthy dragon there’s hardly any poo at all. Sometimes it’s just a fine ash that floats away in the air.’2
‘I wish I could get some dragon poo,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I want to get poo from every animal in the world so that people can come to my museum and see it all and be amazed.’
To compensate for the lack of dragon poo thus far Geoffrey was given a baby dragon to hold. It perched on his hand blowing smoke rings and then suddenly, without any warning, deposited a small glowing ember on his gloved palm. Geoffrey couldn’t believe his luck! He closed his fist around it tightly for the rest of the tour in case one of the interchangeable Emmas decided that Lady Sybil needed to inspect it. When they came to leave, it seemed cool enough to surreptitiously transfer to his jacket pocket.
Geoffrey and Emma One set off back home hand in hand, with Widdler following so close to heel that he was often in danger of tripping them up.
Geoffrey kept looking up at the grand houses hoping to see a gargoyle. They were not far from home when they reached a very grand mansion indeed with huge curly iron gates and tall stone pillars on either side. His eyes lit up in delight when he noticed that on top of each tall pillar was a genuine gargoyle holding a shield. ‘You must get very bored just sitting up there all day. Would you like a sweet?’ Geoffrey said to one of the gargoyles.
‘It’s more than my job’s worth,’ said the gargoyle,3 ‘and I don’t get off duty until the end of the week. But Old Pediment over at number eight,’ he croaked, ‘is always on the lookout for interesting tidbits. He’s got a sweet tooth too.’
‘If I leave some sweets on my windowsill at number five do you think he’d find them?’
‘Doesn’t miss a thing. Old Pediment, he clears all the bird-tables this side of the road and I don’t just mean the birds’ food.’
As they walked away, Emma said to Geoffrey, ‘You are funny. No one I know talks to gargoyles.’
