The Cubit Quest

By Trevor Leck

Twelve-year-old Charlie Watkins could have inherited his dad's massive intellect.

He got his massive feet instead.

Perhaps if Charlie had that intellect he might have been able to figure out why so many men in suits were suddenly following him or where his dad hid the Cubit - a mythical object that men have sworn to protect and even more have died trying to possess - before his so-called accident.

If starting yet another new school wasn't bad enough, Charlie meets Mr Leopold, a disfigured, mind-reading lunatic and discovers that he alone must find the Cubit if he is to save his dad. The Brotherhood, however, have other ideas. Led by the ruthless Draganovic, they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. With the help of Mr Leopold and fellow new boy Elvis, Charlie sets out on The Cubit Quest.

Hunting for the Cubit, playing football, lessons with the dreaded Funeral Face and unsuccessfully avoiding school bully Grimshaw by day, Charlie finds his nights no less complicated. Stalked in his dreams, he's soon immersed in a world of power struggles, battling dragons and duels to the death. With the Brotherhood hot on his heels and as the bullets begin to y, there are no guarantees that Charlie, or anyone else, will make it to the end in one piece.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clink Street Publishing
• Release date: Mar 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911525288

Trevor Leck

Trevor Leck lives in Shropshire and has been dabbling in writing for over fifteen years. A fan of gripping adventure stories, he has taken inspiration from his favourite authors including John Grisham and J K Rowling, and the towns and cities he grew up in - especially North Shields - to create his Young Adult series. The Cubit Quest is Trevor’s first book,

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The Stuff of Nightmares

Charlie Watkins wasn’t bothered that it was dark, or that he was wearing pyjamas, or that the large pipe was toasty underfoot, or that he’d never been out this far. The wires. They bothered him. They were new. Wrapped around the pipe on which he was standing, they followed it into the unknown.

Smiling, Charlie felt like the Road Runner from one of dad’s beloved Wile E. Coyote cartoons – the same cartoon at which his dad would roar with laughter while rooting for the hapless coyote. What he wouldn’t give to hear his dad laugh one more time.

They were only wires, so what harm could it do to follow them a little further? Charlie soon got his answer. Spotting the box with the plunger on top, he froze. It might as well have had TNT written on the side. Movement caught his eye. A shadow from the darkness. It was no Wile E. Coyote, but the result would be the same – the Road Runner was finally going to get it! Spinning on his heels, he sprinted back down the pipe. The last thing he wanted to hear was the zip sound as the plunger was pushed home.

Zip.

For a second nothing happened and Charlie took solace from the fact that he’d put another ten yards between himself and whatever was going on behind. At least there wasn’t a boom to rock his world.

A sudden boom rocked Charlie’s world. The ear splitting noise wasn’t a problem. The pipe shaking beneath his feet wasn’t a problem. The rock under the pipe splitting in two: that was a problem.

The ground opened up. The pipe exploded beneath his feet. Charlie was running on fresh air, just like Wile E. Coyote did on countless occasions. Unlike the coyote, he doubted he’d survive the fall. The chasm opened wider still. Thankfully, his momentum drove him to the other side. ‘You’re going to make it!’ the voice in his head screamed.

It was only partially right.

Crashing into the steep-sided wall, Charlie instinctively got his fingers over the cliff edge and clung on for dear life. The respite was short-lived. Another massive explosion shook his fingers free. Losing his grip, he began to fall, towards the darkness, towards the unknown.

Frantic, Charlie reached out for something, anything. In every television programme he’d ever seen there was always a branch. All he had to do was grab it at the right moment.

There wasn’t a branch.

Desperate, he dug his fingers into the rock wall. Nails splintered and cracked. He didn’t slow down. Something flashed before his eyes. He snatched at it with his left hand like his life depended upon it. It did. Friction burned his palm, but instead of releasing his grip he tightened it. He slowed down. He gripped harder still. He stopped.

Realising that he’d grabbed hold of the wire – the same innocent-looking wire that had brought so much destruction – Charlie looked down and saw that he only had three inches before it ran out. Looking up, he wondered what else could go wrong.

It started to rain.

Hanging on by no more than a strand of wire he figured it could have been worse – a few drops of rain he could handle. Closing his eyes, he opened his mouth to taste the raindrops. The spit was instinctive. He knew of only one liquid with that thicker-than-water quality: blood. More drops came down. Blood splattered his face. Looking up, he realised it was coming from the fractured pipe. No wonder it was warm underfoot.

Hearing shuffling on the cliff edge above his head, Charlie clamped his eyes shut. If he could have, he would have blocked his ears too. That way he wouldn’t have to hear the next boom, the next explosion that would end it all.

BOOM!

1

The Whispering Trees

BOOM!

Jumping out of bed, Charlie flicked on the bedside light. His ears were ringing from the explosion of noise, but it was his hands that caused him concern. Thrusting them in front of his face he saw an angry-looking burn on the palm of his left hand. It must have slipped down the bed and touched the radiator pipe. He remembered his mother saying something about ‘testing the heating system’ and gingerly touched the top of the radiator – stone cold. ‘Typical!’ he cursed. ‘Doesn’t anything work in this house?’ He flexed his fingers on his right hand and winced. His nails were sore. Catching sight of the gouges in the hideous flowery wallpaper, the same wallpaper that his mother would soon obliterate, he realised he’d raked his nails down the wall. Breathing a sigh of relief, he muttered, ‘Just another dream.’

Suddenly the room turned blue and another BOOM split the air in two. Windows rattled defiantly in their frames. The storm was right overhead. Looking up, Charlie wondered how much more the roof could take. He half wished it would give up the fight. That way, everything would be different. That way, he wouldn’t have to face what was to come.

Looking down, he was certain of one thing: he was no average boy. He could have inherited his dad’s massive intellect. He got his massive feet instead. Even with twelve birthdays behind him he knew the day when his age caught up with his shoe size was still some way off. Other than the feet he was just like any other kid. He had yet to discover what extraordinary talent lay hidden within, talent that would set him apart from the rest. And whether this talent was football, singing, mathematics or tiddlywinks, there was always something.

A flash of blue light. A whip-crack. An ear splitting boom. Charlie didn’t care about the storm. What lay ahead… well, that was another matter. For today was the day that every child, youth and (if truth be known) teacher dreaded. Today was the beginning of a new school year.

For Charlie, however, it felt much worse this year. Being older hadn’t helped. Moving into a tiny, almost falling down, house hadn’t helped either. Everything was different about this move. There was no new job for his dad. No research for him to complete. Hardly any dad left at all. The accident had seen to that. So it was his mother who’d made the decision to move. She’d brought them back to where it all began. Back up north to the small fishing town of North Shields. Back to the only place she considered home.

So Charlie was used to moving, used to leaving good friends – so used to it in fact that even his imaginary friend got fed up and left one day – but he’d never had nightmares before. Perhaps it was the thought that he’d be starting Year 8, the second year of high school, without a friend in the world? The prospect made his stomach turn.

Suddenly, he flinched. Something rough and wet had touched his foot. And Charlie knew of only one thing that was prepared to lick his huge, often unwashed, feet. He said in a hushed voice, ‘Sausage, come here boy.’

A scraggy head popped up from under the quilt and a tongue lashed across Charlie’s face. ‘Uhh, dog breath,’ he said, screwing up his face. He pushed the dog away just in case he tried it again – he always tried it again.

To a six-year-old, naming a dog Sausage was the funniest thing in the entire world. It wasn’t funny anymore, especially when Charlie had to shout the dog’s name in the local park. One thing hadn’t changed though: the two were seldom apart. Charlie’s mother turned a blind eye when she caught Sausage sneaking into Charlie’s room. It had, after all, been a stressful time of late, with the move and everything else that had happened.

Stuffing his head into Charlie’s armpit, his favourite sleeping position, Sausage was soon fast asleep. Slowing his breathing to mirror the dog, Charlie closed his eyes.

On the landing two shapes stood motionless, their green eyes glinting in the moonlight. Like Sausage they too were dogs, but that’s where the similarity ended. Sausage was as scraggy and dirty as a dog could be. His favourite pastime involved running in a circle trying to bite his own tail. However this pair, one male and one female, were Doberman Pinschers, the very proudest of dogs. Famed for their guarding abilities and ferocious bite, these two were more than capable of supporting that viewpoint. Unlike the house, they were in excellent shape; their jet-black coats were sleek and their muscles toned. Charlie’s mum didn’t like them wandering round the house, not least because their black hairs showed up terribly against the new cream carpet in the hallway.

When the Watkins family moved into No.13 William Street, the cream carpet was, without doubt, the newest thing in the house. Its simplicity contrasted sharply with the remainder of the 1970s decor. Wallpaper with large, bright flowers adorned every wall. And when Charlie’s mother had asked about it, the estate agent had simply skirted round the issue.

Facing each other, the Dobermans smiled. A knowing smile. Everything was going to plan. The boy was having trouble sleeping and the father was still alive, in body if not in mind. Passing each other like well-drilled soldiers, they patrolled the landing as quietly as a pair of mice.

*

‘Charlie! Breakfast!’ came the shout from downstairs. It was the second time of asking.

Forcing an eye open, Charlie’s stomach tightened. The day he’d dreaded was finally here. Ten minutes later he entered the kitchen wearing an old T-shirt and ripped jeans, the hole in the knee testament to yet another fall-over-his-own-feet disaster. Too early to wear his new uniform, he’d be drenched by the time he got back from taking Sausage for his morning walk.

Charlie loved having dogs but on days like this, when the rain pelted hard, he wished he had a hamster instead! And given that Sausage would follow anyone who so much as waved a packet of crisps in his direction, he knew that letting him off his lead was a recipe for disaster.

Seated at the table, Mr Watkins stared blankly at his newspaper.

Filling his cereal bowl with milk, Charlie stopped just short of the rim. ‘Morning, Dad.’ No reply. ‘First day of school today,’ he persisted.

Mr Watkins coughed. It could have been an answer or he could have just had something stuck in his throat.

‘Actually, I’m not going to school today… I–I’m running off to join the circus… Or perhaps spend all day in the arcades,’ Charlie quickly added, thinking of somewhere he’d rather be than the circus. He had fond memories of the arcades, trying to beat his dad at pool or air-hockey. Those days seemed like light-years away now. Frowning, he could barely remember the last time they’d had a decent conversation. He longed to hear his dad use one of his goofy sayings like the key to enlightenment is to have an open mind. Turning to his mother he whispered, ‘Dad is going to be OK, isn’t he?’

Five months ago, way back in April, he’d asked his mother that very question. Then, she couldn’t stop her eyes from welling up. Now, she was much stronger. Putting an arm round Charlie’s shoulder, she gave him a squeeze. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said softly into his ear. Looking up, she stifled a grin. ‘I think he’s trying to tell you something.’

Sausage was facing the door with his lead in his mouth.

Rolling his eyes, Charlie dropped his empty bowl into the sink.

‘You take him now and I’ll take the other two later. Oh and here, you’ll need this.’ His mother held out an empty shopping bag. Charlie opened his mouth to protest. ‘You know the rules. You promised to look after him.’

‘Don’t remind me,’ he moaned, stuffing the bag into his pocket.

Without warning, Mr Watkins stammered, ‘T-Take… d-d-dogs.’

Charlie shot his dad a look. He’d said more in the last moment than he had in the last month.

‘You heard the man,’ his mother beamed. ‘Take Egg and Chips with you.’ She would wear that same grin for the rest of the morning.

‘Come on you two,’ Charlie said grudgingly. He hated shouting King Edward even more than hated shouting Sausage. So he became ‘Chips’, while his mother thought it only right to name Queen Aubergine ‘Egg’.

The Dobermans trotted reluctantly after Charlie. Their job didn’t involve getting wet, well not usually anyway. However, they’d already resigned themselves to the fact that orders were orders.

Fortunately, Alexander Scott Park was only a stone’s throw from Charlie’s house. A shadow of its former self, the swings, slides and climbing frames were long gone. Glass from a broken bottle littered one path, while a pile of dog poo sat on another. At least the grass offered a place to kick a football around. Charlie loved football; football didn’t love him. The last one picked to play, he spent most of his time trying not to fall over his enormous feet.

Looking down, he grimaced. His jeans were wet and a dark blue line was steadily creeping up his leg. Sausage tugged hard on his lead, causing it to pull tight around his fingers. He was always trying to get to the next bush, which was always out of reach.

Despite being attack dogs, there was never a need to put a lead on Egg or Chips. If they could help it – and they always did – they never went near other dogs, and other dogs always gave them a wide berth. Egg walked on Charlie’s left side and Chips on his right, like they were guarding him from some unseen enemy.

‘Do your stuff, Sausage, I’m freezing,’ moaned Charlie, shivering next to a large weeping willow that creaked in the wind. He clutched the shopping bag his mother had provided. She insisted that he brought back Sausage’s mess. Egg and Chips never did their business in front of him.

Charlie snapped his head up. He’d heard something. It sounded like a soft whisper coming from above his head.

‘The finger of Fate has chosen.

Destiny is unstoppable.’

Turning, he looked for someone, anyone, but there was nobody there. ‘It’s just the wind playing tricks,’ he assured himself. Then, just as he thought he’d imagined the whole thing, he heard it again.

‘The finger of Fate has chosen.

Everything your heart desires will soon be yours.’

There was definitely no mistaking it. The trees were talking to him! However, Charlie was no fool. He knew that was impossible. At least he was alone, he told himself. At least nobody was there to see him freak out.

‘Have you just seen a ghost?… Is that why you’re freaking out?’

Spinning, Charlie nearly gave himself whiplash. Egg and Chips spun too. Sausage merely cocked his leg on another, extremely unfortunate, bush.

Every nerve in Charlie’s body screamed that he’d been on his own. Yet, there he was, sat on a bench. And it wasn’t as though he could have missed him. A yellow Hawaiian shirt, complete with mini surfers, was hardly common on a miserable September day.

‘So did you?’ the man asked, his voice deep.

Charlie opened his mouth and closed it again. He simply couldn’t take his eyes off the scar. Starting from each ear it ended at the corners of his mouth, giving the man opposite the world’s largest smile. It looked like someone had tried to cut the top of his head off, and not made a particularly good job of it! ‘Did I what?’ he asked, finding his voice.

‘See a ghost?’

Charlie caught sight of Egg and Chips. Some twenty metres away, sat bolt upright in that proud manner of theirs, their heads moved from left to right like a pair of synchronised swimmers. Those dogs get weirder and weirder, he thought. Remembering the question, he said matter-of-factly, ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’

‘Of course not,’ the man acknowledged with a nod. ‘Of course not.’

It was then that Charlie noticed something else. Unlike himself, the stranger wasn’t shivering. Not a goosebump to be seen. Charlie wondered what he was doing there dressed like that. Perhaps he’d escaped from a mental hospital and the shirt was the only thing he could find.

‘I bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here dressed like this?’ Looking himself up and down, the man laughed. ‘You probably think I’ve escaped from a mental hospital and the shirt was the only thing I could find.’

Charlie gasped. It was as if he’d just taken the words right out of his head. However, try as he might, he couldn’t take his eyes off the scar.

The stranger didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what the boy was thinking. ‘It’s not pretty, is it?’

There were many words to describe it: new, raw, large, grotesque – ‘pretty’ wasn’t one of them. Charlie concluded that he was in the presence of a first-grade lunatic.

Suddenly, the man threw back his head and roared with laughter. The huge scar made it look like the top of his head might fall off at any second. ‘You must think you’re in the presence of a first-grade lunatic.’

‘He did it again!’ the voice in Charlie’s head screamed as fear squeezed his organs like a vice.

‘Breathe, boy, breathe,’ the man said, suddenly concerned. ‘Where are my manners? My name is… Mr Leopold.’

A scolding finger flashed through Charlie’s head. His mother had drummed the ‘never talk to strangers’ speech into him, yet here he was talking to the very strangest of strangers.

‘I believe the custom is for you to introduce yourself.’

‘I’m Charlie, Charlie Watkins.’

‘I will call you Mr Watkins.’

Charlie was just thinking that nobody had called him Mister anything before when Mr Leopold stood up, taking him by surprise. He made up his mind: if Mr Leopold took even the smallest step towards him, he’d be off as fast as his enormous feet could carry him. However, Mr Leopold didn’t move his feet. He bowed his head in a graceful manner and sat back down.

Unsure what to do, Charlie returned the bow as if etiquette demanded it. Looking beyond the scar, he saw the trace of a smile on Mr Leopold’s lips.

‘You remind me so much of your f…’ Mr Leopold stopped himself. ‘By the way, have you experienced any strange occurrences of late?’

‘What do you mean occurrences?’ Charlie exaggerated the word ‘occurrences’ just as Mr Leopold had done.

‘Oh you know…’ Mr Leopold waved his hand in a theatrical manner. ‘Strange dreams, maybe even the odd nightmare?’

‘The odd strange dream,’ Charlie admitted, ‘but who doesn’t?’

‘Who doesn’t indeed,’ Mr Leopold said. ‘Perhaps you’ve experienced something you simply can’t explain?’

‘No.’

‘Thought your eyes were playing tricks on you?’

‘No.’

‘Any recent blackouts?’

‘No.’

‘Not passed out, not even once?’

‘No,’ replied Charlie. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what Mr Leopold was on about. ‘Just a little trouble sleeping, but that’s it. And I’m sure that’s only because I’m starting at a new school today.’

‘That would explain it. After all, what other reason could there be?’

Charlie decided that things were getting far too weird for his liking. ‘I, erm, have to go – I have to get ready for school.’

Mr Leopold smiled. ‘School and destiny wait for no man.’

Charlie yanked hard on Sausage’s lead, making him yelp. Despite the steaming lump of mess, this was definitely not a time to use the plastic bag.

Mr Leopold’s smile grew wider. ‘Strange dreams and trouble sleeping,’ he said when Charlie was out of earshot. ‘I’d say that somebody is on the verge of joining our little club. We’ll meet again soon Mr Watkins, you can depend upon it.’

As Egg and Chips caught up, Charlie spat, ‘Huh, fat lot of good you two were.’ Nearing the park gates his mind raced into overdrive. He couldn’t get the idea out of his head that Mr Leopold was somehow reading his mind. Mimicking his deep voice, he said, ‘Perhaps you’ve experienced something you simply can’t explain?’ However the only thing he couldn’t explain was Mr Leopold!

‘The finger of Fate has chosen… but chosen what or who?’ Charlie said to himself. ‘Destiny is unstoppable,’ he added as more words popped into his head. He knew that his destiny lay in a new school packed with hundreds of unfamiliar faces. His stomach turned. Reaching the gates, he turned to make sure that Mr Leopold wasn’t following him.

Mr Leopold was nowhere to be seen.

2

The Old Toilet Gag

Thinking of his mother’s joke as he’d left for school, Charlie smiled. ‘Nobody gets their head shoved down the toilet… not on the first day.’ And, now that he was wearing his new grey trousers, bright-red jumper and polished (albeit enormous) shoes, he didn’t feel half bad.

Spotting the yellow and black smiley faces daubed along the bridge that spanned the train lines, he smiled again. Turning left at the pub just as his mother had instructed, he eyed the rusty green fence up ahead. He couldn’t tell if the sharp tips were meant to keep people out or keep people in. Either way they looked up to the task. Looking ahead, his breath caught in his throat and the milk he’d consumed at breakfast churned in his stomach. He’d reached the site of his impending doom: Ralph Gardner High School.

Once a handsome, red-bricked building fashioned into a giant figure-of-eight, the façade was noticeably uglier thanks to the box-shaped gymnasiums that had been bolted on either end. Tired, the place needed a boatload of cash to restore it to its former glory – cash that nobody was ever going to spend. Not that anybody had bothered to count them, but there were exactly one hundred and twenty-seven leaks in its roof and the heating system should have been retired to a museum long ago.

Making his way to the main entrance, Charlie looked towards the heavens. It had stopped raining – finally, a good omen. Putting the meeting with Mr Leopold out of his head, he told himself that everything was going to be just fine.

*

Standing in a lane facing the school, two men watched Charlie with interest. ‘He’s very small, my Lord,’ the Russian said in perfect English.

Mr Leopold’s massive scar swallowed the wry smile. He was unrecognisable as the man in the park. The designer, figure-hugging suit was both exquisite and expensive. ‘Who would have thought it Dimitri… that we would have to pin our hopes on one small boy?’

It wasn’t the ‘hopes’ that concerned Dimitri: it was the lives of those depending upon him.

Suddenly, three men in suits came round the corner: a powerfully-built olive-skinned man, a thin man with a neat scar on his cheek, and a stocky man bringing up the rear. The olive-skinned man’s eyes burst open. ‘You!’ he exclaimed, his accent unmistakably Italian. However, he wasn’t looking at Mr Leopold; he was looking at Dimitri.

Dressed in something infinitely more manoeuvrable than a stuffy suit, Dimitri reacted with cobra-like speed. Smashing his fist into the Italian’s nose, there was a sickening crack as it split in two. A blistering punch to the temple followed. The Italian’s knees buckled. He was already out cold. An uppercut. The thin man’s teeth clacked together. A lightning-fast jab and he too fell to the ground. Turning to the third man, Dimitri pulled back his fist and… stopped.

The stocky man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. A second later he dropped to his knees before falling flat on his face. Dead.

Dimitri looked at his poised fist. He turned to Mr Leopold who, other than close his eyes, hadn’t moved a muscle.

‘I am not without the means to defend myself.’

‘Of course not, my Lord.’ Dimitri was well aware of Mr Leopold’s devastating abilities.

Mr Leopold frowned. ‘They must not be discovered by the authorities.’

Crouching, Dimitri ran a hand over the olive-skinned man’s neck. Finding a weak pulse, he grabbed the near-invisible wire and pulled. An earpiece came free. A microphone followed. In perfect Italian he said, ‘Men down near the school… Mario is amongst them.’ He knew that mention of their leader would send the Italians into a frenzy. He turned to Mr Leopold. ‘That’s the clean-up sorted. I’d say we have about two minutes.’

‘How did they know we were here?’

Dimitri pictured the shocked look on Mario’s face. ‘They were not here for us. The Italians are the advance guard, surveillance specialists.’ He caught Mr Leopold’s questioning eye. ‘It’s who I would have sent.’

‘If they weren’t here for us, then…’ Mr Leopold turned towards the boy.

*

Charlie felt the knot in his stomach tighten. It was quiet, too quiet. Suddenly, everything wasn’t ‘just fine’. The milk churned again. He checked his watch – a quarter to nine. Where was everyone? Spotting a man weeding under a bush he asked, pointing at

Reviews for The Cubit Quest

[Sailu B · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The cubit Quest is a beautiful book and I loved it.