The Unluckiest Boy in the World Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  The Unluckiest Boy in the World

  Andrew Norriss was born in Scotland in 1947, went to university in Ireland and taught history in a sixth-form college in England for ten years before becoming a full-time writer. In the course of twenty years, he has written and co-written some hundred and fifty episodes of situation comedies and children’s drama for television, and has written four books for children, including Aquila, which won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year in 1997.

  He lives very contentedly with his wife and two children in a village in Hampshire, where he acts in the local dramatic society (average age sixty-two), sings in the church choir (average age seventy-two) and for real excitement travels to the cinema in Basingstoke.

  Books by Andrew Norriss

  AQUILA

  BERNARD’S WATCH

  MATT’S MILLION

  THE TOUCHSTONE

  THE UNLUCKIEST BOY IN THE WORLD

  ANDREW NORRISS

  THE UNLUCKIEST BOY IN THE WORLD

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700,Toronto,Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2006

  6

  Copyright © Andrew Norriss, 2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other man that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192763-3

  CHAPTER ONE

  Until he was eleven years old, Nicholas Frith never thought of himself as particularly lucky or unlucky. Some good things had happened to him, like getting his own computer, and some bad ones, like never seeing his father, but nothing really exceptional one way or the other.

  When he was eleven, however, he was very unlucky. On holiday in Spain, he disturbed the grave of Toribio de Cobrales – a man who had been dead for nearly three hundred years – and fell under a terrible curse. Nicholas had never meant to disturb a grave, least of all one with a curse on it, but unfortunately that’s what he did, and this story is what happened to him as a result.

  He and his mother were staying in an apartment at Albunol, a small town to the east of Malaga, and on the fourth day of their holiday Mrs Frith hired a taxi to take them on a trip into the mountains. Driving north, towards the snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada, they drove along roads cut into the side of steeply hanging gorges, and through little villages of white painted houses.

  Their driver, Miguel, pointed out the sights and explained the history of the places they passed. He spoke in Spanish, so neither Nicholas nor his mother could understand what he was saying, but it didn’t seem to matter. Every so often, Mrs Frith would tap him on the shoulder, use her hands to explain that they wanted to stop and he would pull over so they could get out and admire the scenery.

  Towards the end of the day, they had stopped to stretch their legs one last time and were heading back to the car, when Nicholas announced that he needed to go to the toilet.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ he told his mother. At eleven years old, he liked a little privacy for these things and made his way behind a large rock, stuck upright in the ground. Unzipping the front of his trousers, he noticed that the side of the rock that shielded him from the road was covered in writing.

  He could not read any of the words – they were all in Spanish – but he liked the pattern they made as they spiralled round in decreasing circles towards a small nine-pointed star in the centre of the stone. He was wondering, idly, what they might mean when he glanced down and realized that, instead of the water landing on the ground, it was disappearing into a hole at the base of the rock.

  A moment later, as he was zipping up his trousers and about to walk back to the car, he heard a shout.

  ‘Aiee!’ Miguel was standing by the taxi, furiously waving his hands. ‘Alejate! Alejate!’

  He ran up the hill towards Nicholas, grabbed him by the arm and was anxiously pulling him back towards the car, when he glanced at the place behind the stone and froze. He was staring at the hole in the ground and the wet marks splattered around it.

  ‘Madre de Dios!’ he muttered, crossing himself. ‘Qué has hecho?’

  Letting go of Nicholas, he knelt down, peered cautiously into the hole and stepped back almost immediately with a little gasp. ‘Demonio!’ He stared in horror at Nicholas. ‘Has profanado la sepultura de Toribio!’

  Mrs Frith had come to join them. ‘Nicholas?’ she said sharply. ‘What’s happened? What have you done?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ said Nicholas. ‘I was just having a wee.’

  The taxi driver pointed urgently to the hole in the ground. ‘La sepultura de Toribio,’ he whispered, hoarsely, ‘La sepultura de Toribio!’

  Mrs Frith stepped forward, peered cautiously into the hole and went rather pale.

  ‘Oh, goodness…’ She looked accusingly at Nicholas. ‘Did you have to do it here?’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong with here?’

  ‘It’s a grave!’ hissed Airs Frith.

  Nicholas stepped forward and peered into the hole. It was a moment before his eyes adjusted to the gloom but, when they did, he realized he was staring into a face. It was a face that had been dead a long time but in the dry air of the mountains it had been wonderfully preserved. The skin was a deep mahogany colour and, though the eye sockets had fallen in and the skin round the mouth had shrunk to reveal the teeth, you could see it had once belonged to a strong and powerful man. There was a full head of hair on the top of his head and a long beard growing from his chin, and there was also, Nicholas noticed, a yellow liquid dripping gently from the end of his nose, down into his open mouth.

  ‘I am so sorry.’ Mrs Frith had turned to Miguel. ‘He didn’t mean any harm. He just… he didn’t realize it was there, you see, and…’

  But the taxi driver was not listening. He was running down the hill as fast as his legs could carry him. ‘Espera aquí!’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Espera aquí!’ Then, flinging himself into the taxi, he started the engine before he had even closed the door and, in a squeal of tyres on gravel, spun the car back the way they had come and drove off down the road.

  It all happened very quickly and Nicholas and his mother now found themselves alone on the mountainside in a silence broken only by the sound
of a nearby waterfall.

  ‘I upset him, didn’t I,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Yes,’ said his mother, ‘I think you did.’

  They sat by the side of the road, wondering what they should do. There were, Mrs Frith concluded, only two things they could do. They could sit and wait until someone came along who might help, or they could start walking back to the nearest village. Neither choice was particularly appealing.

  If they waited, there was no guarantee that anyone would come, or that they would be willing to stop and help if they did. It was an isolated road and Mrs Frith could not remember seeing a car or even passing one in the last hour. On the other hand, she had no idea which direction the nearest village was, or how long it would take to walk there.

  The more she thought about it, the more worried she became. She had no idea where they were, and in an hour or so it would be getting dark. They had no food, no water, no coats to protect them from the cold night air and there was… something else.

  Across the valley, dark clouds were gathering in what had, only moments before, been a clear blue sky. The mountainside, which had seemed so sunny and open when they got out of the taxi, had become vaguely sinister and threatening. There was a sense of menace and danger in the air that she could not explain but gave her the strongest feeling that staying where they were was not a good idea.

  ‘Come on.’ She stood up. ‘Let’s start walking.’

  Nicholas obligingly pushed himself to his feet, but sat down again almost immediately as the ground shook beneath him, throwing him off balance. It was a small earth tremor, of a kind frequent in the mountains and strong enough to send some stones skittering down the mountainside to the road. Looking up, Mrs Frith was in time to see a rock the size of a man’s fist bouncing down the hill towards them. It landed on a nearby boulder, spun off at an angle and hit Nicholas on the side of the head. His eyes closed and he fell sideways to the ground.

  ‘Nicholas! Nicholas, are you all right?’ Mrs Frith knelt on the ground beside her son and pulled his face towards her. As she did so, she saw the little patch of grass beneath his head was black and withered, as if it had been sprayed with some powerful chemical. It was the same under his hands and his legs. Wherever his skin had touched the ground, anything green beneath it had withered and died.

  Mrs Frith gave a little scream, then scooped up her son in her arms and began running down the road. She had no idea what was happening or why, but she was suddenly certain of one thing: they had to get away. She was not a large woman and it was doubtful how far she could have carried an eleven-year-old boy not much smaller than herself, but she had barely reached the first bend in the road when a car came racing up the hill towards her. It was Miguel in the taxi. He screeched to a halt in front of her and a young man climbed out of the passenger seat. He ran straight over to Nicholas, looked briefly at the wound on his head, then lifted up his eyelids to look at his eyes.

  ‘It was a rock!’ There were tears welling up in Mrs Frith’s eyes. ‘It came down the mountain and hit him on the head.’

  The young man nodded, but showed no surprise. His eyes were anxiously scanning the hillside as if he expected some hidden danger to leap out.

  ‘All right. I will take him now.’

  He took Nicholas in his arms and carried him, briskly, back to the car. Miguel appeared the other side of Mrs Frith, tugging at her sleeve.

  ‘Come!’ There was a fierce urgency in his voice. ‘Come, quick!’

  He pulled her towards the car, where the young man was already laying Nicholas on to the back seat.

  ‘Is he going to be all right?’ she asked. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘There is no time for questions.’ The young man was climbing in beside her son. ‘Please. Get in the car.’

  Mrs Frith got into the passenger seat as Miguel put the car into gear and spun them round in the road.

  They were only just in time. The first bolt of lightning struck as they sped off down the road, splitting the trunk of a tree not three feet from the astonished Mrs Frith.

  *

  Nicholas remembers nothing about that journey, but his mother remembers every second. In a matter of minutes it was dark enough for Miguel to need headlights. And then the rain came. A driving rain that pounded on the roof and sides of the car, making it impossible to speak without shouting.

  Above and around them the thunder boiled and detonated with an unspeakable ferocity and, all the time, Mrs Frith continued to be aware of that indefinable sense of menace, a feeling that they were somehow under attack. It was as if the heavens themselves were trying to reach into the car and grab them all and throw them down the mountainside.

  The lightning struck again and again. It hit trees on either side of the road as they passed, it split boulders, and twice it actually hit the car itself, though with rubber tyres they were shielded from its effects.

  She had no idea where they were going. She tried to ask the young man cradling Nicholas’s body on the back seat, but he did not answer. His eyes were closed, he was holding his hands above Nicholas’s chest and from his half-opened mouth came a deep humming noise, whose vibrations filled the car. She called to get his attention but Miguel reached up a hand to stop her.

  ‘No talk,’ he said, then jerked a thumb to indicate the man in the back. ‘He busy. He… he protect us.’

  As they drove on, the storm around them became even wilder. The rain turned to hail. The thunder crashes were so loud Mrs Frith could feel the shock waves in her ears, and the whole world seemed maliciously bent on preventing them ever leaving the mountain. At one point the road was blocked by a fallen tree, which Miguel pushed out of the way with the nose of the car. A few hundred yards later rocks and earth bounced off the roof of the car as he drove through a landslide and, half a mile after that, there was a bull. An enormous animal with huge horns, facing them in the middle of the road, bellowing angrily and pawing at the surface with one of its hooves.

  Miguel stopped the car and turned to the man in the back as if to ask what to do. The man stopped humming, opened his eyes and looked ahead at the bull. He made a strange sign in the air with a hand, spoke harshly in a language Mrs Frith did not recognize, and the bull, looking slightly confused, turned to one side and ambled out of the way.

  Ten minutes later, they were driving through a grove of olive trees towards a large, stone farmhouse with a tiled roof. By the front door an old woman with a lantern was waiting for them. She did not speak as the car drew up, but merely turned and went back into the house as the young man carried Nicholas inside.

  Mrs Frith followed Miguel into a room where the man was already placing her son on a large wooden table. The old woman took no notice of her but reached forward and tore open Nicholas’s shirt. She was making the same humming noises that the young man had made in the car as she stroked his forehead and then, dipping her fingers in a bowl of mud-coloured liquid, started drawing marks on his chest.

  ‘What is happening?’ asked Mrs Frith. ‘Who is she? What’s she doing?’

  ‘She is a bruja,’ the young man replied in a low voice. ‘An… enchantress.’

  ‘She’s a what?’ As Mrs Frith ran forward to protect her son, the man caught her arm and gently pulled her back.

  ‘Believe me,’ he said softly, ‘at the moment, she is the only one who can save your son’s life.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Nicholas awoke the next morning, he was lying in a strange bed, staring up at a polished wooden ceiling, with no idea where he was or what had happened.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ His mother was sitting to one side, looking rather pale and anxious.

  Nicholas thought about it and decided that, apart from a slight headache, he did not feel too bad.

  ‘I’m OK,’ he said. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘You are in my house.’

  Turning his head, Nicholas saw the speaker was a young man standing the other side of the bed.

  ‘This is Señor Herez,�
�� Nicholas’s mother explained. ‘Miguel went to get him after… after your accident.’

  ‘Accident?’ Nicholas frowned. ‘What accident?’

  ‘You disturbed the grave of Toribio de Cobrales.’ It was Señor Herez speaking again. ‘In consequence, you had fallen under his curse and were in grave danger.’

  ‘Señor Herez knows a lot about curses and magic’ Mrs Frith made a brave attempt at a smile and patted her son’s arm. ‘That’s why Miguel went off to find him. He thought he might know how to protect you.’

  ‘A curse?’ said Nicholas. ‘I’d fallen under a curse?’

  Señor Herez nodded gravely.

  Nicholas stared at him for a moment, then looked across at his mother.

  ‘This is a joke, right?’

  Mrs Frith did not answer.

  ‘I wish with all my heart that it were only a joke.’ Señor Herez gave a long sigh. ‘If you feel well enough, I suggest that you dress and, over breakfast, I shall tell you the whole story. There is much you need to know.’

  ‘But you don’t have to worry.’ Mrs Frith was patting his arm again, still wearing that bright, encouraging smile. ‘Because there’s nothing to worry about. Nothing! Nothing at all!’

  And there was something in her voice that told Nicholas he should be very worried indeed.

  *

  Nicholas’s breakfast that morning consisted of pieces of fruit in a bowl of yoghurt, and some. bread with slices of cold meat. He ate it on the terrace at the back of the house, looking out over a valley that was dotted with fields and orchards, with the mountains rising behind them.

  The air was clean and fresh, the sun was shining and Miguel had brought out a glass of orange juice for him. While he was eating, Señor Herez, sitting in a large high-backed chair of carved wood at one end of the table, did his best to explain what had happened.

  ‘Three hundred years ago, this whole province,’ he said, gesturing to the land in front of them, ‘belonged to Don Frederico de la Cagalla, a most powerful nobleman. He was a grandee, a Comanderia of the Order of Alcantara, and in all this province his word was law and none dared defy him. Except one man.