Hercufleas by Sam Gayton

I told you he wasn’t. He’s not interested in saving Tumber.’
    â€˜Pff!’ said the babushka. ‘It shows only that Hercufleas
believes
he is not. There is a difference. But not a great one. Believe something and it is halfway to being real. Besides, I say,
So what?
Many heroes have come to Tumber before, and all failed to protect us. Yet Hercufleas has bought us some time.’ The copper bell rang on her ear, and she smiled. ‘Yes, I suppose that isn’t strictly true. It was those two villains and that pig who filled Yuk’s belly for another month. Now he is gone, sleeping somewhere deep in the woodn’t. But as always, he will wake up and come back. So we must prepare to fight once more, and if we win, perhaps Hercufleas will see his fleamily again.’
    Hercufleas thought of Min and Pin and the others, in that broken-down house-hat on Yuk’s head. Miss Witz was right. If they could survive up there for a month, the giant would bring them back to Tumber when he next came to guzzle.
    â€˜But we are getting ahead of ourselves,’ Miss Witz said. ‘Hercufleas, you must tell me – if you are not a hero… who are you?’
    Greta scowled. ‘I’ll tell you who he is,’ she said. ‘A coward. A liar. A weakling.’
    â€˜I did not ask you, Greta.’
    Hercufleas stood on the windowsill, looking at his reflection, searching it for an answer. It stared back, blank-eyed. Who was he? A sad little sultana-sized flea with a cracked arm and a broken heart, sitting on the windowsill.
    â€˜I’m alone,’ he said. ‘I see,’ said Miss Witz. ‘And now that you know what you are missing, you can tell me what you want.’
    Once, Hercufleas would have cried out,
Adventures!
But he was not a little hatchling any more.
    â€˜I want my fleamily back,’ he said, turning to look at Miss Witz and Greta. ‘I want to stop Yuk from taking anyone away, ever again. But how can I do that?’
    Miss Witz said very solemnly, ‘That is the question that only your quest will answer.’
    â€˜Quest?’ Greta shook her head. ‘Is this a joke? Why isn’t your bell ringing? Heroes go on quests. Hercufleas isn’t a hero!’
    â€˜Good,’ Miss Witz said. ‘No hero can defeat Yuk, because no hero can wield a weapon big enough to destroy him. To Yuk, Excalibur is a toothpick. An arrow from Rama’s bow is a pinprick. Ugor’s Bazuka did nothing much. A blade big enough to chop off Yuk’s head would need to be many houses high. Who could lift such a thing? This is what Greta made me realise, the night she stole the florins and went to Avalon seeking a
giant-slayer.
And she found one: you.’
    â€˜Me?’ Hercufleas groaned. ‘Haven’t you been listening to Greta? I’m not a giant-slayer. I’m just a flea.’
    Miss Witz’s face wrinkled into a smile. ‘Which is very lucky indeed. For a flea is exactly what Tumber needs.’
    Hercufleas looked up. ‘It is?’
    â€˜Yes. Because there is only one weapon capable of destroying Yuk. And only a flea can wield it.’
    Miss Witz sat on the desk by Greta and took from her pockets two knitting needles and a tangle of wool. In her lap she began knitting her wool into a green scarf; in the air, she began weaving her words into a story.

20
    â€˜L ong ago,’ Miss Witz began, ‘your ancestors, Hercufleas, were more than just pests. They made a name for themselves as the greatest giant-slayers of all. Across the world fleas went, killing humans who were ten thousand times their size. To people, fleas were like grains of sand, yet they killed them with a single nip of their fangs.’
    Hercufleas looked at Greta. Were fleas really once so mighty? It sounded like a fairy tale.
    â€˜It’s true,’ Miss Witz whispered hoarsely, ‘every word I say. And you may wonder, Hercufleas, why your ancestors killed