Hercufleas Read online

  Hercufleas looked up crossly. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you’re only three minutes old,’ she replied, ‘and you haven’t even seen the house-hat yet. If you want to go on an adventure, you should probably start in here before you go out there.’

  Hercufleas thought about it. ‘I suppose that does make sense,’ he said eventually.

  With a cheer the fleamily seized hold of him, and before he knew it, Hercufleas was whooshing out of the kitchen to explore the house-hat. His fleamily took him down a hallway and up a staircase, where stamps showing princesses and dukes were licked to the wall like portraits. Hercufleas jumped when he saw the last one on the landing: a ferocious bearded man with smouldering eyes and an iron crown on his head.

  ‘That’s the Czar,’ said Tittle in a spooky voice. ‘He ruled Petrossia, the land to the north, years and years ago. Nothing left of him now but dusty bones, ruined castles and creepy portraits…’

  ‘Stop scaring your baby brother,’ scolded Min.

  ‘I’m not scared!’ Hercufleas insisted, hopping away from the Czar as fast as he could.

  ‘Look here, Hercufleas.’ Min opened the door halfway up the stairs. ‘This is where we sleep.’

  Inside the bedroom were a dozen matchbox beds, spaced around the curved wall like the numbers on a clock. On the headboard of the smallest bed, Pin wrote ‘Hercufleas’ with an eyelash dipped in ink. Hercufleas liked his bed very much, with its mattress stuffed with mouse hairs and quilt of woven silk and feathers, but he was eager to explore more of the house-hat, so off they went again.

  His fleamily rushed him up to the top floor, to a living room with twelve comfy armchairs and polka-dot wallpaper. Behind another door was a bathroom with a tin cup raised above a candle nub that turned the water hot.

  ‘We relax in there,’ said Itch. ‘We wash in here…’

  ‘And up this way,’ said Pin, leading Hercufleas up a straw ladder to the attic, ‘is where we have fun.’

  Up in the house-hat’s highest room, all the walls were made from glued-together elastic bands. There the fleamily bounced and whizzed like a dozen balls inside a lottery machine. They called it the boingy-boing room, and it was their second favourite room of all.

  ‘Whooooooooohooooooooo!’ Hercufleas yelled, hurtling from one wall to the next. He landed by the door and looked up at Min with an enormous grin on his face.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go boingy-boing some more?’

  ‘We’ll teach you how to do star jumps!’ said Tittle.

  ‘And somersaults!’ said Itch.

  ‘And when you’re really good, the double-pike-cross-split-topsy-turvy manoeuvre!’ said Jot.

  A long, loud gurgling echoed around the boingy-boing room.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Hercufleas said. ‘My tummy just said its first word. What does gurgle-gurgle-glog-glog mean?’

  ‘It means you’re hungry,’ said Min. ‘Come back down to the kitchen.’

  Hercufleas shook his head stubbornly. ‘I’ve already explored there,’ he said. ‘I want to go somewhere new.’

  ‘Trust us.’ Min laughed. ‘You’ve explored nearly all the house-hat… But we’ve saved the best bit until last.’

  ‘You mean there’s something even better than going boingy-boing?’ Hercufleas said breathlessly as they hopped back downstairs. ‘What is it?’

  Min smiled. ‘It’s called dinner,’ she said.

  3

  While Min and Pin set the table, Hercufleas followed the others down to the kitchen’s cellar and squeezed inside. With silent awe, he stared up at the racks of bottles, tiny as dewdrops, each one filled with a red bead of the world’s rarest, most exquisite blood.

  He hopped up and down the shelves, reading labels. There was dodo blood, rhino blood, platypus, narwhal and manatee blood. Blood the colour of crimson and scarlet and ruby and vermilion and puce and maroon. Now Hercufleas knew what red looked like. It looked… delicious.

  (Unless you are a flea yourself – or a vampire, or a head louse – then the idea of having blood for dinner is probably making you queasy. But imagine you are a flea, and suddenly blood becomes the yummiest thing in the world: like flies to a spider or cabbage to a slug or espresso coffee to a grown-up. Just because you or I might shudder at the very thought of gobbling such things, there will always be some strange creature out there who finds it tasty.)

  Hercufleas wandered around the shelves, wondering which blood to pick. No two drops tasted alike, the others told him. Squirrel blood was nutty, dragon blood was fiery, sloth blood helped the fleas sleep and cheetah blood made them very untrustworthy at cards. There was even a drop of reindeer blood, sent over from Laplönd, which Min saved for festive occasions.

  His brothers and sisters bustled around him, gathering what they wanted.

  ‘Hey, Slurp, let’s have hyena blood again. It’s a good giggle!’

  ‘Titch, how about we all drink chameleon blood, then play hide-and-seek later?’

  Hercufleas was bewildered. So many flavours to explore! He didn’t know where to start. The others began clamouring for him to hurry up, so finally he snatched a bottle at random and hopped back to the kitchen table.

  Before they ate, Min made the whole fleamily recite a prayer to remind them how wonderful their life was, and how fortunate they were that they did not have to live like other fleas, who were the size of poppy seeds, and had to survive on hosts that did not want them there, and lived under the constant peril of thumbs and soapy baths and flea powder. The prayer was called The Plea of the Flea, and now she taught it to Hercufleas:

  The plea of the flea

  And the tick and the nit

  Is to hop in hope

  And only bite a bit.

  Run from their fingers

  Run from their thumbs

  And we’ll all jump to fleaven

  When our last jump comes.

  ‘What’s fleaven?’ Hercufleas asked.

  ‘The heaven that fleas and all other insects go to after our short lives are through,’ Min answered. ‘All the great and good bugs of the world go there, including Pinocchio’s cricket and Anansi the spider. Now then. Let’s say it together, shall we?’

  The fleamily rushed through the prayer, then reached out and unstoppered their bottles. At once an indescribably delicious smell oozed into the kitchen. Hercufleas seized up his bead of blood and glug-glug-glugged it down. His belly’s growl became a purr. A wonderful fiery feeling spread through his body. He felt proud. Brave. Not like a flea at all. He was a CHAMPION!

  Before he knew what he was doing, Hercufleas leaped onto the table and roared, ‘Whatever size his enemies, the winner’s always HERCUFLEAS!’

  Everyone stared at him. Dot began to giggle. Hercufleas gave her a haughty sniff, but suddenly his courage and pride all drained away. Why had he done that? Blood flushed from his belly up to his face as the rest of the fleamily laughed.

  ‘Looks like Hercufleas has a taste for lion blood!’ Pin chuckled, leaning forward and reading the label on his bottle.

  Min pulled him back down into his seat. ‘Fleas can only keep breathing and bouncing so long as they have blood,’ she explained. ‘But be careful, Hercufleas: you are what you eat. The blood you drink becomes part of you, and changes you too. That drop of lion blood…’

  ‘Made me feel like a lion!’ Hercufleas cried, suddenly understanding where his urge to pounce and roar had come from.

  ‘Happens to us all,’ grinned Burp. ‘Last week I drank three drops of bat blood. Now I wake in the mornings hanging upside down inside the chimney!’

  ‘Blood isn’t just food to us fleas,’ said Pin, when everyone had stopped laughing. ‘It’s alchemy.’

  Now dinner was done Hercufleas sat back, sighing contentedly, his body fat and pink. Around him, his fleamily did the same. They no longer looked like shrivelled sultanas, but a bunch of juicy grapes. Pin and Min muttered silly things like: ‘What a fine vintage that was, bottled fresh from the
vein!’ and ‘Yes, the subtle hints of plasma perfectly complement the initial flavours of iron.’

  ‘Where are we going on an adventure next?’ Hercufleas cried, but the fleamily were yawning and slumped in their chairs, and Min said it was time for bed.

  4

  Hercufleas didn’t want to go to bed. He had only been alive for Today so far – Tomorrow was an impossibly long time to wait for more adventures.

  ‘I want to explore!’ he whinged. ‘I don’t even know what’s outside the house-hat.’

  ‘You shall,’ said Min. Ushering him into the bedroom, she tucked him up in his silk and feather quilt. Then, snuffing out the lights one by one, she told the fleas a story, which was an adventure you went on inside your imagination. Burp and Slurp wanted a tale about the Bögenmann, but Min said it was too scary for little fleas only one day old.

  Instead she told them about a talking cricket and a wooden puppet called Pinocchio. She stopped at the bit where Geppetto the carpenter is thrown into prison, promising to tell the rest of the tale another night. Then she fetched her leggolin, which was like a violin, only played with her feet. In the golden light from the doorway, she played the fleamily beautiful melodies too high for human ears to hear, until dreams came and took them off to sleep one by one.

  All except for Hercufleas.

  Long after the lights went out he lay in his bed, listening to everyone around him mutter and snore. He tried not to fidget and to keep his eyes closed, but it was impossible. His legs twitched, kicking off the covers. He sat up and looked at the door.

  Quietly he slid out of bed. Tiptoeing past his parents, he groped for the door. It closed behind him with a click, and Hercufleas was out in the corridor.

  The house-hat was different in the dark. Like it belonged not to the fleamily any more, but to someone else, someone living among the shadows in stillness and hush, who glared from the dark every time Hercufleas made a floorboard creak. His skin prickled and his heart skittered and his legs jittered with each jump. Inside his egg it had been dark, but not dark like this. Not endless and swallowing and chill.

  He stumbled up the stairs, almost shrieking when he came face to face again with the Czar, glaring from his stamp above the banister. He groped around the living room, stubbing his toe on an armchair.

  ‘Ow ow ow!’ He hopped around the room in agony, holding his foot. He tripped on an armchair, slid across a rug and crash! Whoompf! He was in the fireplace.

  Ash and soot flew up in a choking blizzard. Coughing and spluttering, Hercufleas leaped from the hearth, reached for the heavy velvet curtains, pulled up the window, unlatched the shutters and gulped a deep breath of clean air.

  Outside, there was a monster.

  Its head was the size of the whole house-hat, with pale skin speckled like an eggshell, and odd-coloured eyes – one green, one brown. Its hair was a tangled mess. A hideously big mouth twisted into a scowl, with rows of square white teeth, each as big as Hercufleas. The glass buzzed in the window frame, and there was a rumble like thunder as the monster’s mouth started to move.

  ‘Three florins,’ it said. ‘That’s all I’ve got.’

  Hercufleas jumped so high he banged his head on the ceiling. He landed back on the floor, tiny heart thrumming with terror, yelling, ‘Giant! Giant! There’s a huge monster outside!’ He latched the shutters, wrenched down the window, shut the curtains and hid behind an armchair.

  TAP TAP TAP, went something on the window. The whole house-hat wobbled and shook and Hercufleas trembled.

  The giant wanted to come in.

  ‘Hercufleas?’ Min called from the downstairs corridor. ‘Where have you got to? What’s all this shouting?’

  TAP TAP TAP, went the monster on the window again. This time Hercufleas stood up. The giant had already seen him, but there was still hope for his fleamily. He was done for, but they might still get away.

  ‘Run!’ Hercufleas yelled downstairs. ‘Everybody, run. I’ll be the decoy!’

  Without waiting for a reply, he bounded to the curtains and threw them open once more. On the other side of the window, an enormous finger tapped on the glass with a dirty nail. Hercufleas pulled up the window, trying to remember the courage he’d felt after drinking the lion’s blood. He leaped from the house-hat, landed on the fingertip and bit it as hard as he could.

  There was a deafening yelp as the giant’s blood filled his mouth. It was bitter and fiery and it made Hercufleas feel hollow inside. The giant’s other hand flicked him into the air, knocking the breath from his lungs. He fell, bouncing on the floor and skidding to a stop.

  He lay dazed, hearing shouts and curses all around. He hoped his fleamily had escaped. He hoped he’d saved them.

  Looking up, the enormous pink hand was coming towards him. He closed his eyes and his life flashed before him, which took about a nanosecond. He waited for the enormous thumb to squish him flat…

  Here lies Hercufleas, he thought. He liked hugs from his fleamily and going boingy-boing. But he never found out what happened on Tuesdays…

  The giant didn’t squash him. It plucked him up, dangling him in the air.

  ‘Can I have this, but in a bigger size?’ it said.

  5

  Hercufleas was at the kitchen table, sipping koala blood to calm him down. Min gave him another hug and a nip on the cheek. Pin was outside, smoothing things over with the monsters. Apparently there was more than one of them, and they weren’t monsters at all, but creatures called humans.

  ‘We were going to tell you about humans after breakfast,’ Min said. ‘They can be a little… overwhelming… when you first see them, can’t they?’

  Hercufleas nodded.

  ‘But the truth is, dear, they’re not scary at all,’ Min continued. ‘All fleas – even big, talking fleas like us – are parasites. We can’t live unless we have a host to live upon. Who do you think wears our house-hat?’

  Hercufleas looked down at his feet. It felt strange to think that the whole house was teetering on top of an enormous human head.

  ‘We’re not like normal fleas,’ said Min. ‘We’re bigger. That means that we can’t hide on our host, like other fleas. In fact, our host invited us to live in this hat.’

  Hercufleas didn’t understand. ‘Why would he do that? Doesn’t The Plea of the Flea say that humans call us pests and want to squish us?’

  Min smiled. ‘Our host is nice man called Mr Stickler, and he would never do that. We work for him, Hercufleas.’

  ‘We do?’

  She nodded. ‘We’re his employees. Or, in actual fact, his employfleas. How else do you think we can afford blood from exotic animals all over the world, and to sleep on mouse-hair mattresses and light our rooms with candles? All these things cost money, and we have to work very hard to earn it. You too, eventually.’

  Hercufleas slumped in his chair. What about the destiny he’d always known was waiting for him? What about adventures?

  Something occurred to him. ‘We won’t lose our jobs, will we? Because of me biting our host, I mean? He won’t think we’re pests and make the fleamily leave his head?’

  Min tried to smile, but she couldn’t hide the worry in her voice. ‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘It was just an accident, Hercufleas. A misunderstanding. But, you see…’ She sighed. ‘You didn’t bite our host, you bit another human. A girl. One of Mr Stickler’s customers. And this customer is very important to him. She has money, and she was about to pay him when you… well, when you made your mistake. Do you see now?’

  Hercufleas nodded. Because of him, the girl might not feel like paying Mr Stickler, which meant he would lose business – and then the fleamily really would be pests to him.

  ‘Will you come outside with me now and apologise?’ Min asked.

  Hercufleas was very nervous about seeing humans again. They were so big – so monstrously ugly. But Min needed him to say sorry, so he nodded. She leaned forward and nipped him on the cheek.

  ‘What a sweet little hatchling
you are. Come follow me, then. Don’t be scared.’

  Min led him out through the front door. They stood on the brim of the house-hat together. Despite all the koala blood, Hercufleas’s legs were quivering. He suddenly realised he knew almost nothing about their host. He didn’t even know what the customer wanted to buy.

  So he asked Min, and just before they jumped onto Mr Stickler’s shop counter, she whispered, ‘He sells Happily Ever Afters.’

  6

  ‘You bring the quest, we’ll do the rest’ – that was the motto at Happily Ever Afters. Mr Stickler had it embroidered in gold thread across his blazer pocket. Standing nervously on the counter with Min and Pin, Hercufleas gazed up at him. Stickler wore a crisp suit the colour of banknotes. His wet eyes blinked, magnified behind scopical glasses. A thin black moustache squiggled across his lip like a signature on a contract. He had no visible neck; years of wearing the heavy house-hat had pushed it down into his shoulders.

  So this is our host, thought Hercufleas, turning around. And this is his shop.

  The walls of Happily Ever Afters were covered with posters advertising Avalonian heroes: paladins with swords, cossacks with bows, uhlans with long feathered lances. There were special offers like: ‘Half price for quests involving beautiful princesses!’ and ‘Now with 33% more courage!’

  ‘Mr Stickler rents heroes out to people who need a Happily Ever After,’ Min explained in a whisper.

  One day I’ll be on that wall too, Hercufleas decided, imagining a poster with ‘Whatever size his enemies, the winner’s always Hercufleas!’ written across it in bold.

  ‘Well?’ said Mr Stickler, glaring at Hercufleas. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Oh!’ Hercufleas was jolted from his daydream. He turned to the girl on the other side of the counter: the customer, who stood sucking her bleeding finger. ‘Sorry for biting you.’

  ‘Please forgive my little Hercufleas,’ Min grovelled to the girl. ‘He only hatched yesterday.’