Diggers (5 page)

Gurder and Angalo had really got the hang of
that
. The trouble was that neither of them was entirely certain he was right, and the funny thing was that people who weren't
entirely
certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves. Gurder was not certain, not
entirely
certain, that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) really existed, and Angalo wasn't entirely certain that he didn't.

Eventually Angalo noticed Masklin.

“You tell him, Masklin,” he said. “He wants to go and find Grandson Richard, 39!”

“Do you? Where do you think we should look?” Masklin asked Gurder.

“The airport,” said Gurder. “You know that. Jetting. In a jet. That's what he'll do.”

“But we
know
the airport!” said Angalo. “I've been right up to the fence several times! Humans go in and out of it all day! Grandson Richard, 39, looks just like them! He could have gone already. He could be in the juice by now! You can't believe words that just drop out of the sky!” He turned to Masklin again. “Masklin's a steady lad,” he said. “He'll tell you. You tell him, Masklin,” he said. “You listen to him, Gurder. He thinks about things, Masklin does. At a time like this—”

“Let's go to the airport,” said Masklin.

“There,” said Angalo, “I told you, Masklin isn't the kind of nome—what?”

“Let's go to the airport and watch.”

Angalo's mouth opened and shut silently.

“But . . . but . . .” he managed.

“It must be worth a try,” said Masklin.

“But it's all just a coincidence!” said Angalo.

Masklin shrugged. “Then we'll come back. I'm not suggesting we
all
go. Just a few of us.”

“But supposing something happens while we're gone?”

“It'll happen anyway, then. There's thousands of us. Getting people to the old barn won't be difficult, if we need to do it. It's not like the Long Drive.”

Angalo hesitated. “Then
I'll
go,” he said. “Just to prove to you how, how superstitious you're being.”

“Good,” said Masklin.

“Provided Gurder comes, of course,” Angalo added.

“What?” said Gurder.

“Well, you
are
the Abbot,” said Angalo sarcastically. “If we're going to talk to Grandson Richard, 39, then it'd better be you who does it. I mean, he probably won't want to listen to anyone else.”

“Aha!” shouted Gurder. “You think I won't come! It'd be worth it just to see your face—”

“That's settled, then,” said Masklin calmly. “And now, I think we'd better see about keeping a special watch on the road. And some teams had better go to the old barn. And it would be a good idea to see what people can carry. Just in case, you know.”

Grimma was waiting for him outside. She didn't look happy.

“I know you,” she said. “I know the kind of expression you have when you're getting people to do things they don't want to do. What are you planning?”

They strolled into the shadow of a rusting sheet of corrugated iron. Masklin occasionally squinted upward. This morning he'd thought the sky was just a blue thing with clouds. Now it was something that was full of words and invisible pictures and machines whizzing around. Why was it that the more you found out, the less you really
knew
?

Eventually he said, “I can't tell you. I'm not quite sure myself.”

“It's to do with the Thing, isn't it?”

“Yes. Look, if I'm away for, er, a little bit longer than—”

She stuck her hands on her hips. “I'm not stupid, you know,” she said. “Orange-colored juice indeed! I've read nearly every book we brought out of the Store. Florida is a, a
place
. Just like the quarry. Probably even bigger. And it's a long way away. You have to go across a lot of water to get there.”

“I think it might even be farther away than we came on the Long Drive,” said Masklin quietly. “I know, because one day when we went to look at the airport, I saw water on the other side, by the road. It looked as though it went on forever.”

“I told you,” said Grimma smugly. “It was probably an ocean.”

“There was a sign by it,” said Masklin. “Can't remember everything on it—I'm not as good at the reading as you. One of the words was res . . . er . . . voir, I think.”

“There you are, then.”

“But it must be worth a try.” Masklin scowled. “There's only one place where we can ever be safe, and that's where we belong,” he said. “Otherwise we'll always have to keep running away.”

“Well, I don't like it,” said Grimma.

“But
you
said you didn't like running away,” said Masklin. “There isn't an alternative, is there? Let me just try something. If it doesn't work, then we'll come back.”

“But supposing something goes wrong? Supposing you don't come back? I'll . . .” Grimma hesitated.

“Yes?” said Masklin hopefully.

“I'll have a terrible time explaining things to people,” she said firmly. “It's a silly idea. I don't want to have anything to do with it.”

“Oh.” Masklin looked disappointed but defiant. “Well, I'm going to try anyway. Sorry.”

V. And he said, What are these frogs of which you speak?

VI. And she said, You wouldn't understand.

VII. And he said, You are right.

From
The Book of Nome,
Strange Frogs Chap. 1, v. V–VII

T
HERE WAS A
busy night. . . .

It would be a journey of several hours to the barn. Parties went on to mark the path and generally prepare the way, besides watching out for foxes. Not that they were often seen, these days; a fox might be quite happy to attack a solitary nome, but thirty well-armed, enthusiastic hunters were a different proposition, and it would be a very stupid fox indeed that even showed an interest. The few that did live near the quarry tended to wander off hurriedly in the opposite direction whenever they saw a nome. They'd learned that nomes meant trouble.

It had been a hard lesson for some of them. Not long after the nomes moved into the quarry, a fox was surprised and delighted to come across a couple of unwary berry gatherers, which it ate. It was even more surprised that night when two hundred grim-faced nomes tracked it to its lair, lit a fire in the entrance, and speared it to death when it ran out, eyes streaming.

There are a lot of animals that would like to dine off nome, Masklin had said. They'd better learn: It's us or them. And they'd better learn right now that it's going to be
them.
No animal is going to get a taste for nome. Not anymore.

Cats were a lot brighter. No cats came anywhere near the quarry.

“Of course, it might all be nothing to worry about,” said Angalo nervously, around dawn. “We might never have to do it.”

“Just when we were beginning to get settled down, too,” said Dorcas. “Still, I reckon that if we keep a proper lookout, we can have everyone on the move in five minutes. And we'll start moving some food stores up there this morning. No harm in that. Then they'll be there if we need them.”

Nomes sometimes went as far as the airport. There was a trash dump on the way, which was a prime source of bits of cloth and wire, and the flooded gravel pits farther on were handy if anyone had the patience to fish. It was a pleasant enough journey, largely along badger tracks. There was a main road to be crossed, or rather, to be burrowed under; for some reason pipes had been carefully put underneath it just where the track needed to cross it. Presumably the badgers had done it. They certainly used it a lot.

Masklin found Grimma in her school hole under one of the old sheds, supervising a class in writing. She glared at him, told the children to get on with it—and would Nicco Haberdasheri like to share the joke with the rest of the class? No? Then he could jolly well get on with things—and came out into the passage.

“I've just come to say we're off,” said Masklin, twiddling his hat in his hands. “There's a load of nomes going over to the dump, so we'll have company the rest of the way. Er.”

“Electricity,” said Grimma, vaguely.

“What?”

“There's no electricity at the old barn,” said Grimma. “You remember what that meant? On moonless nights, there was nothing to do but stay in the burrow. I don't want to go back to that.”

“Well, maybe we were better nomes for it,” mumbled Masklin. “We didn't have all the things we've got today, but we were—”

“Cold, frightened, ignorant, and hungry!” snapped Grimma. “You know that. You try telling Granny Morkie about the Good Old Days and see what she says.”

“We had each other,” said Masklin.

Grimma examined her hands.

“We were just the same age and living in the same hole,” she said vaguely. She looked up. “But it's all different now! There's . . . well, there's the frogs, for one thing.”

Masklin looked blank. And, for once, Grimma looked unsure.

“I read about them in a book,” she said. “There's this place, you see. Called Southamerica. And there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called bromeliads and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground and the world is full of things like that and now I know about them and I'm never ever going to be able to see them and then
you
,” she gulped for breath, “want me to come and live with you in a hole and wash your socks!”

Masklin ran this sentence through his head again, in case it made any sense when you listened to it a second time.

“But I don't wear socks,” he pointed out.

This was apparently not the right thing to say. Grimma prodded him in the stomach.

“Masklin,” she said, “you're a good nome and bright enough in your way, but there aren't any answers up in the sky. You need to have your feet on the ground, not your head in the air!”

She swept away and shut the door behind her.

Masklin felt his ears growing hot.

“I can do both!” Masklin shouted after her. “At the same time!”

He thought about it and added, “So can everyone!”

He stamped off along the tunnel. Bright enough in his way! Gurder
was
right, universal education was not a good idea. He'd never understand women, he thought. Even if he lived to be ten.

Gurder had turned over the leadership of the Stationeri to Nisodemus. Masklin felt less than happy about this. It wasn't that Nisodemus was stupid. Quite the reverse. He was clever in a bubbling, sideways way that Masklin distrusted; he always seemed to be bottling up excitement about something, and when he spoke, the words always rushed out, with Nisodemus putting “ums” in the flow of words so that he could catch his breath without anyone having the chance to interrupt him. He made Masklin uneasy. He mentioned this to Gurder.

“Nisodemus might be a bit overenthusiastic,” said Gurder, “but his heart's in the right place.”

“What about his head?”

“Listen,” said Gurder. “We know each other well enough, don't we? We understand one another, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Then I'll let you make the decisions that affect all nomes' bodies,” said Gurder, his voice just one step away from being threatening, “and you'll let me make the decisions that affect all nomes' souls. Fair enough?”

And so they set off.

The good-byes, the last-minute messages, the organization, and, because they were nomes, the hundred little arguments, are not important.