Maddigan's Fantasia (27 page)

‘They’re not boys,’ Garland answered. ‘Not often. Mostly they’re grown-up. We just call them Birdboys. They’re almost like flying gypsies.’

‘Flying!’ exclaimed Timon incredulously. ‘Do you mean they’ve grown wings?’

‘They found a way to make wings and when they have to swing upward they run them from little motors,’ Garland explained. ‘They do a bit of robbery. They swoop down on travellers – not to kill them – just frighten them and rob them.’

‘And that’s enough, isn’t it?’ growled old Shell.

‘Pity you didn’t remind us we were in bat territory,’ Nye said. ‘Hey, Maddie! Did you hear? The bats have stolen our food van. We’re always losing it.’

‘More than that,’ said Maddie standing in the door of her van. Her voice was filled with such grim despair that everyone around her fell silent, staring back at her, waiting for some terrible announcement. ‘The solar converter was in my van. But it seems to have vanished. I checked first thing and it’s not there any more.’

‘Gone?’ shouted Yves. ‘How can it have gone?’

‘Where? Which direction?’ asked Goneril.

‘How can I tell?’ asked Maddie flinging out her arms and then letting them flop down at her side despairingly. ‘Does anyone have a clue? Byrna? Nye?’

‘They took off in
that
direction,’ said Byrna, pointing, ‘I could see the lights for a few minutes, and then nothing. And they
flew
up and away. Well, some of them flew. Flew up and
away. There must have been someone driving the van.’

‘Flying? That might make it complicated,’ said Maddie. ‘Unless we’ve got someone who can read tracks in the air. How on earth could a Birdboy carry off that converter? It was really heavy … Okay! Is there any point in setting off after it right now?’

‘Wait another hour or two,’ said Yves. ‘Even if we set off now with torches, the wheel tracks will be almost impossible to see.’

‘But we can’t let them get away with the converter!’ cried Garland.

‘We haven’t very much choice,’ Yves said. ‘Just think about it. They know the forest by night and we don’t. Anyhow it’s not much use to them. With a bit of luck they’ll sling it out somewhere along the track.’

Looking at the faces around her as well as she could Garland could see other Fantasia people agreeing with Yves.

‘We’ll never sleep now,’ she said, and Yves sighed, then smiled wearily.

‘Sleep? What’s that?’ he asked. ‘It seems to be something I remember from this time last year … ages ago. Never mind! Let’s just do the best we can.’

As soon as the first light
of day slid a transparent grey finger down between the trees Yves was up and about, calling everyone together.

‘Straight ahead,’ he said. ‘They’d have wanted to get free of the trees wouldn’t they? And a food wagon’s not the sort of thing you can fly off with. It can’t be far away. We’re probably too late to save the food … but you never know. There might be a bit left. And somewhere someone has that damned converter which we’ve suffered so much to acquire.’

‘He’s guessing,’ Garland said, talking sideways out of the corner of her mouth to Timon. ‘And anyhow once we get free of the trees how are we going to tell which direction they’ve taken? They could have gone anywhere.’

‘We just have to guess right,’ said Boomer, bouncing in his Boomerish way beside her. ‘And there’ll be tyre tracks.’

But as it turned out there were plenty of clues, for, as they spread out and wandered through the trees on either side of the road, they found things thrown out of the van … cartons and crates, torn or splintered and always empty.

‘A lot of this isn’t our stuff,’ said Penrod, kicking at some of the rubbish. ‘It’s been here for days.’

‘Shows we aren’t the only travellers along this track,’ said old Shell.

This had already occurred to Garland. And later, as they hunted on, she sidled up to Maddie, hunting beside her. ‘Did you dream of
hearing
anything?’ she asked trying to make her question sound almost accidental.

‘Not a thing!’ said Maddie. ‘I could kick myself. Of course I was tired … well, we’re all tired … but I made things worse for myself. I had a little nip of whiskey before I went to bed. I haven’t done anything like that for weeks and weeks and it must have really knocked me out.’

‘Did Yves have one too?’ asked Garland suspiciously.

Maddie laughed.

‘No fooling you!’ she said. ‘We did clink glasses …’ She looked at Garland. ‘We were just talking,’ She said, rather defensively. Garland felt that familiar surge of suspicion once more.

‘You talk to Yves all the time!’ she said. ‘And I think he wants to marry you … he wants to take over the Fantasia and have it all for himself.’

‘Oh, Garland darling,’ said Maddie. ‘You really are impossible. You keep on saying that. Now listen! Yves just tries to help me and that’s understandable. Remember he makes a living for himself and Lilith through the Fantasia. Remember he’s worked with us for years. And as for me …’ She hesitated. ‘Garland, I still feel totally married to our darling Ferdy. But we can’t talk about it now. We have too much else to worry about.’

‘You always say that,’ said Garland.

‘And I’m always right!’ declared Maddie.

And of course she was always right. There was always too much to worry about. Garland hurried ahead, anxious now to catch up with Timon and Eden.

The three of them moved together, picking their way carefully through the ferns that fell away in banks under the trees.
Off to the right and ahead of them they could glimpse Yves, Tane and Nye also picking their way between the trees. And suddenly Garland saw Yves stiffen, holding up one finger signalling silence. They all listened and all heard, faint but distinct, voices laughing and talking. They were too far away to hear the words.

Yves turned and beckoned everyone in around him.

‘Now,’ he whispered. ‘It is our turn to move quietly … to sneak up on them if we can. Remember we don’t know if they are wearing their wings or not … we don’t know anything about them, really. But what we do know is that we might have a chance to get back a few of the things that were ours in the first place, mainly that converter. At least they won’t be able to eat that. So off we go …’ His words were very soft. ‘Spread out! Spread out widely, and let’s work our way inward.’

Yves moved away to the left, disappearing among the trees. Tane moved to the right. Timon and Garland edged together following Tane. Boomer stood nervously trying to work out how he could seem brave without taking any risks. At last, making up his mind, he simply went straight ahead, pushing through the ferns and sneaking almost silently up and over a series of little ledges, softened with green and gold mosses.

Almost immediately he found himself looking down into a hollow filled with a green tangle of saplings and ferns like arrowheads of lace. And there, sitting with his back to Boomer, was a Birdboy – a young one who seemed to be almost Boomer’s own age. He could easily have heard Boomer coming up behind him if he had been listening, but he was concentrating on the bag he was eating from greedily, one biscuit after another. Even as Boomer crawled towards him, he was impressed with the desperate way the boy was eating those biscuits … impressed, too, with how thin he was and the way his shoulder blades stuck out. But, after all, the Birdboys needed
to be thin, thought Boomer. Their wings would not lift anyone too well fed. And, on the ground those wings were a problem. This boy had taken his wings off. They were lying beside him, neatly folded on top of one another, and there on top of them was the little motor that drove them. Boomer found himself staring at them with longing. Since his little motorbike had been ruined he had missed having a machine in his life. Horses were all very well, but there was something about turning wheels and busy pistons that thrilled him.

He must have made some sort of a sound. The Birdboy began to turn. Boomer leapt, caught the Birdboy and bowled him over, at the same time hissing: ‘Shhh! Shhh! You can have the biscuits. Shhh!’ Because after all biscuits were not nearly as valuable as the lost converter.

Perhaps his words had some effect, or perhaps the boy was frightened of being caught with his secret plunder. They rolled over and over together, struggling and tussling, then sat up, both dizzy, both unsure of just which way up they were.

The boy opened his mouth to shout.

‘Biscuits!’ hissed Boomer again. ‘Just shut up and you can have the biscuits.’ He reached out and grabbed a biscuit from those that had spilled from the pack then crammed it into the Birdboy’s mouth. ‘Stick that in your beak and peck it!’ he said. The boy coughed, then struggled to cough silently, rolling from side to side on the ground, and suddenly Boomer was completely sure of what he had only suspected. ‘You stole them, didn’t you? Your lot stole them from us and you stole them from your own lot! OK! You can have them all. I don’t want them back. Can you hear me?
You – can – have – them!’
he whispered.

The boy stared at him, slowly closing his mouth. He certainly seemed to understand what Boomer was saying.

At that moment a wild shouting began from somewhere in
the bush beyond. Boomer relaxed. Out of a curious goodwill he helped the boy to his feet, then passed what was left of the bag of biscuits over to him. ‘Something’s happening. Quickly!’ he said. The Birdboy began to run through the trees to find out just who was fighting who, and who was winning.

‘Hey! Wait! You’ve left your wings behind,’ Boomer shouted, but the Birdboy took no notice of him. Boomer hesitated. He just could not run away leaving that set of fascinating wings on the grass behind him. He just had to pick them up and try to run with them, which proved extremely difficult. They flapped and slapped and though they were very light they somehow managed to tilt him this way and that, and though the motor was small it was somehow complicated to carry. All the same Boomer managed somehow to scramble along, carrying the wings with him.

Bursting out through the trees, he found himself on the side of a forest road with the food van parked to one side of it. In a neat and orderly fashion the older Birdboys had been breakfasting around a small campfire, but now they were confronted by Tane, Nye and Yves. Yves was yelling at them.

‘OK! So you’ve eaten our food! Forget the food! But the converter! Where’s the converter?’ He was sketching the shape of the converter in the air as he shouted.

The tallest of the Birdboys, a gangling young man who seemed to be their leader, frowned as he tried to follow what Yves was saying. He looked at his friends and shrugged, holding out his hands to either side of him. Copying Yves, he also sketched the shape of the converter in the air. But his companions just shrugged as he had shrugged.

‘One of you went into one of our vans … not the food van, one of the other vans, and stole a box from it,’ Yves declared. ‘Where is it?’

‘Something to eat?’ asked one Birdboy carefully. ‘To eat?’ He
mimed putting something in his mouth and rubbed his stomach.

‘No!’ said Tane. ‘Nothing to eat! A box …’ he broke off and turned to Yves. ‘You know,’ he said, frowning. ‘I don’t think they did take our converter. I just I don’t think they’d be interested. All this lot wanted was food.’

‘They might have thought the box had food in it, though,’ suggested Byrna.

The search began, but the clearing was simply a place where the Birdboys had stopped off for a small feast. And, as Tane had said, the boys themselves were just not the sort of thieves who would have looked for anything other than food. Rather reluctantly Boomer put the wings down with the motor on top of them and began hunting along with his Fantasia friends.

As he searched he felt someone pull at his sleeve and, turning, found himself face to face with the biscuit Birdboy once more.

‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘We have to find our converter?’ And he found himself sketching a square box in the air.

The boy frowned, shaking his head and fighting to find words.

‘Not just us,’ he said at last. ‘One other.’ He held up one finger.

‘What do you mean? One
other
?’ asked Boomer.

The boy pointed back towards the Fantasia camp, pecking at the air with his forefinger. ‘Someone
else
there,’ the boy said, watching Boomer, trying to work out if Boomer understood him. Boomer nodded his head. The boy struggled on, anxious to tell Boomer something. ‘Someone …’ he walked his fingers through the air. ‘Watching! I was watching from …’ He pointed upward. ‘In the branches,’ he said at last. ‘I was …’ he took a breath ‘… in the branches. Saw him. Not you! Not us! Another one. Moving very hush.’ He mimed someone tiptoeing.

Boomer looked up, and saw that Yves was listening.

‘Where did he come from?’ Yves asked.

The boy shrugged. ‘Just there. Moving!’ he said. ‘Moving into the …’ he hesitated, and then drew in the air once more.

‘What’s he drawing?’ asked Penrod. ‘It looks like a …’

‘A van!’ cried Boomer. ‘He’s drawing a van.’

‘The food van?’ asked Yves. He pointed over at the food van, just visible through the trees.

The boy looked towards the food van, frowning. Then his face cleared and he shook his head.

‘Another!’ he said, holding up two fingers this time.

‘Did you see him come out?’ asked Yves sharply.

The boy kept shaking his head.

‘Dark!’ he said, and made a sweeping gesture at the air around him ‘Dark!’ he cried, ‘and he – he very dark too.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Yves wearily, and indeed he had every reason to sound tired.

‘Go?’ cried Timon, sounding as if he could not believe what he was hearing. ‘Are you going to let them …’ he gestured vaguely at the bird boys. ‘… are you going to let them get away with stealing the van and robbing your food?’

Yves looked at them and then at Timon. ‘What’s the point?’ he said shaking his head and sounding even more tired than he had sounded a moment earlier. ‘Look at them. There’s no point. Of course we’ll take the van back and anything left inside it. But I believe this kid. They didn’t steal the converter. Someone else did that.’ He paused, and then added bitterly, ‘We’ll arrive in Solis soon and even if we don’t have the converter, well, we can always put on a show.’

‘Punish them! It might stop them next time,’ said Timon.

Yves looked at Timon, then over at Tane and Penrod who both shrugged, puffing out their cheeks, then shaking their heads slightly. Yves looked back at Timon. ‘No point now!’ he
said. ‘Let’s just pile into the van and get back to the Fantasia … go back home.’

And he was right. There was nothing more to be done. The van was recovered and, though a lot of the food was gone, there was no point in trying to punish the Birdboys. Tane looked over at Penrod who understood Tane’s astonished expression and who shrugged and shook his head. Wasn’t it strange to think of Timon, that good-natured Timon, insisting that the Birdboys should be punished? Then they forgot everything except the van. It was going to be hard work, guiding that food van back to the Fantasia camp and there were places where it would have to be pushed. Lucky there were so many of them there to push it. Turning towards the van Tane saw Boomer at its open door. He seemed to be sliding two huge kites into it … at least just for a moment they looked like kites, but then he realized that they were wings – Birdboy wings. Boomer saw Tane watching him and looked back at him defiantly.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘They stole stuff from us. We deserve a bit of payment don’t we? And I wouldn’t mind learning to fly. Wouldn’t you?’

He was talking to the right man. Tane felt a flame of interest run through him. He had always wondered just how the Birdboy motors worked and now, thanks to Boomer, it seemed he might have a chance to find out.

Garland had wanted to hunt with Timon, but in a different direction from Yves. She quite liked the idea of being the one to find the converter. She set off on her own. However she could not find a single Birdboy clue, and in the end, she turned and picked her way carefully home again. Back at the Fantasia camp, Garland moodily watched Eden and Lilith, who seemed to be getting on well together. Eden was teaching Lilith how to shuffle cards, and how to make certain mystery cards vanish
and then turn up in someone else’s ear. Garland knew that if she moved over and asked to join them they would be pleased to show her the tricks too, but she felt too discouraged for company. She certainly did not want Lilith teaching her how to do anything. And something puzzled her. It seemed Eden was actually avoiding his brother, and there was no reason for this as far as Garland could see.