The Last of the Gullivers (12 page)

Michael headed on in the morning mist.

Every policeman in the village showed up on Sheep Street. Jane waited until it was safe, then slipped through alleys and out toward the countryside. It took the Fire Department two hours to get Nick and Robby out of the wrecked, wedged car.

That afternoon at Youth Court, Horace Ackerby asked, “Why did you try to drive a car down a street built for sheep?” He took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes and waited.

“Had to get my Spriggans back,” Nick answered.

“Spriggans,” the Chief Magistrate said and said it again. “Spriggans. As in little people.”

“They were stole from us,” chimed Robby. “Those things were ours.”

Ackerby adjourned the Court and Dr. Emmanuel Kirleus was brought in to evaluate Robby and Nick. A week later, he would present his professional conclusions.

“After careful observation,” Kirleus began, “I can say that a traumatic event has led to these delusions. Sensations of panic have caused the break from reality and the young man now sees Leprechauns—”

“Spriggans,” said Nick.

“These Little Folk are only projections of his own smallness, his own inadequacy. The other boy, the weaker personality, has accepted the fantasies as real.”

“Hey, hold on.” Robby this time. “Is this eejit saying we're nuts?”

The two of them were sent to YOI, for a long while, with recommendations for intense counseling.

When they met in Lesser Lilliput, Michael, Jane, and the Little Ones got a good first look at the wrecked Garden City. There was nothing untouched or undamaged by Robby or Nick, the war, the weasels, the flood. The People went to check on houses, shops, and found everything in ruin. The Tiddlin children crawled through rubble to their old rooms; Philament Phlopp's workshop was collapsed and he had to look away.

When the Librarian saw ten thousand books scattered across the ground, she began to cry. The shoe shop was no more than a pile of bricks. The buildings of the Mount Oontitump University lay flattened and the dome of their Great Hall had collapsed.

Chizzom Bannut, Burra Dryth, Mumraffian Rake, no one's home had been spared the violence. Burton Topgallant walked the shattered streets and knew that his Nation would never again be what it had been. He began to wonder if, maybe, this had to happen. Maybe they'd grown self-centered and small. Maybe, if they started over, they could get back to things that had made them a great People. Maybe they could become even greater.

Suddenly, Michael turned and started running.

“Where are you going?” Jane called, but he was gone.

He broke into the locked stone cottage and searched through boxes that he and Lemuel had packed.

“What are you looking for?” Jane was beside him now.

“A key,” he told her, “that opens all locks.”

A few minutes later, with all the Little Ones gathered close, Michael slid the dark key into the muddy vault and turned it, carefully. The barrels clicked and the latch popped open.

The boy lifted the lid, gently, and there it was, untouched by weather or war. There was the First & Only Secret, the Solution to the Infinite Enigma, the Unraveling of the Eternal Conundrum, the Resolution to the Ever-Lasting Riddle, the One Answer to All Questions.

“Well, Quinbus Ninneter?” said Burton Topgallant. “I think we should know. What exactly is in there?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A NEW CHAPTER

I
t was a stack of old paper, as wrinkled as cloth, pages covered with a tight and faded handwriting. Michael read the first words aloud: “Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Captain Lemuel Gulliver.” There was a date in the corner, 1725. Jane remembered the book, had spent time studying it at St. Brendan's.

Back in the old days, handwritten manuscripts were usually destroyed after a first publication, but here was the whole book and more. There was another section, never printed: “Part Five. A Voyage Back to Lilliput.”

“I think,” said Topgallant, “we need to know what's written here.”

Michael and Jane settled in the wrecked village green, the brittle pages laid carefully before them. The Lesser Lilliputians found places to sit and listen, on benches, the ledges of shattered windows, in doorways, perched on broken rooftops.

And Michael began the new chapter . . .

 

CHAPTER I.

The Author's current situation described. A decision is reached. His much-loved ship,
Adventure
, is found after many long years. Some particulars of the voyage back to the Island.

 

AFTER MY RETURN from the land of the noble Houyhnhnm, I made every effort to reintegrate with Society. I vowed to my wife & children that I would wander no more.

In time, I took a position at the Royal Hospital of St. Brendan and enjoyed some success as a Surgeon. But, as weeks became months, the World seemed to grow stale around me. Compared to all I had seen, my own society was trivial & small. My comfortable home, I realized, was not the place I belonged.

I decided I would go where my voyage started, back to Lilliput. When my children reminded me of my vow to stay, I could only tell them that, “Promises & pie crusts were made to be broken.” By chance, I found my beloved
Adventure
for sale in a local port, having been scuttled by its mutinous crew years before. She was filthy & tattered, but I recognized her figurehead immediately—the Mermaid, green eyes set on the future. I had the vessel re-fitted & employed a dependable crew & returned to the sea . . .

 

. . . With a map fresh in memory, I set a course for Lilliput. I will spare Readers details of the Voyage, except to say it was not easy. Pirates bedeviled us & we lay trapped for weeks in the Horse Latitudes. In the vast Indian Ocean, a monsoon nearly sank us.

On March 21st, 1724, we sighted that Blessed Isle, shimmering before us. We made anchor the next day, myself & a crew of 5 heading ashore by dinghy. How my heart raced! To be back, after so many years! As we entered harbor, I found the Port of Mildendo much changed in a quarter century. Buildings & shops were unpainted, unrepaired, walls pitted & pocked as if from gunfire.

I went to find my old friend, the Minister Reldresal. He was aged & frail, his eyesight having failed. He told me that among the younger generation, I had receded to Myth. Lilliputian Schoolchildren knew the legend of a Giant found lying in a field of clover, but none believed it.

Reldresal told me the Treaty with the Blefuscudians had broken & a bloody new war had raged for decades. I saw now that their Civilization was no better than my own . . .

 

. . . I was saddened, sickened, and wanted to leave right away. Several Lilliputians, also grown weary of war, wanted to return with me. But that was forbidden by the aged Emperor.

“I am honor-bound to respect your Nation's Laws,” I told them.

Still, these small souls—among them, the Admiral of their Fleet—were desperate. “And if we followed on our ship?” the old sailor inquired. “Would you stop us?”

I had to admit, I could do nothing if they chose that course.

The next moonless night, they slipped aboard a ship in the harbor and seized control. Four dozen Lilliputians joined the bold escape, bringing horses, cows, sheep, geese, donkeys, chickens, pigs, children, older relatives and a few beloved pets. Leaving a lone guard bound and gagged on the dock, they set sail. Despite a superstition against it, they renamed their vessel
Adventure
, in homage to my own ship . . .

. . . I returned with them to Redriff & my family was delighted by the new houseguests. But others saw them as curiosities, suited for display in a Circus or Museum. We were besieged by gawking crowds. I quickly sold my house & purchased a small Farm outside Moss-on-Stone. I built a high Wall around the back garden & begged the Little Ones never to stray beyond it.

I let them imagine great Monsters & horrible Perils in the world outside. It was not easy to stand by as they dreamed up these awful things. But if it would keep them safe, I would let it happen.

They soon founded a New & Sovereign Nation and called it Lesser Lilliput. With the passing months & years, they seemed to forget their true home. They began to see me as a Giant in their world & no longer saw themselves as small things in my World.

Is it right that I should keep them hidden away? Will the Wall always be here to protect them? Or should I let them see the other World & learn who they really are?

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE
GHOSTS
OF
GIANTS

I
t was late-afternoon when he finished. Michael looked out on the sea of little faces and saw—what?—curiosity, fear. They wanted to know if the story was true. Did these pages tell their
real
story? As the first Lemuel Gulliver knew, they had long ago forgotten where they'd come from and who they were.

“Can it be . . . ?” Topgallant fumbled for words. “Is it possible . . . ? Are we
not
the only ones? Are we part of a larger race?”

“It sorta looks that way,” said Michael.

In small huddled groups, the Lilliputians discussed this and all that it meant. To live so many years, thinking you were the only one of your kind and then to find you were part of some bigger thing . . . Jane brushed the dusty bottom of the vault. “There's something else.” It was a last sheet, a fading map. In the middle of a wide sea, just northwest of Van Diemen's Land, they saw the islands of Lilliput.

Now Michael knew what had to happen. “They're never going to be safe here, no matter what. I have to get them back. I have to get them home.”

“How're we going to do that?” Jane asked.

“I think I know a way,” he said. “You better let me handle it. You could get in a lot of trouble.”

“I'm supposed to be grounded,” said Jane, “but I helped break you out of prison. I'm a runaway. My picture's all over television. Unless you're planning on killing somebody, I couldn't get in much more trouble.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said. “We'll get a good rest, and start tomorrow.”

Michael used Lemuel's phone to call Charlie Ford and ask him to meet in the schoolyard, at dawn, and not tell a single soul.

Charlie had been there half an hour by the time Michael made his way through alleys and back gardens. “I need you to buy me something.”

“I saw you on the news, Michael,” Charlie sniffled. “You and a girl, they say you're missing. Are you, Michael?”

“I'm here talking to you, so I'm not too missing,” he answered. “But that's why I need you. I have to keep out of sight for a while. Will you help me, Charlie?”

The littler boy thought about it and said, “I could end up on TV, too.”

“Yeah,” said Michael. He wasn't going to lie. “You really could, Charlie.”

“That'd be wicked cool.” Charlie wiped his runny nose.

“Will you help?” Michael asked. “It's not going to be easy.”

“Why'd you ask
me
, Michael?” Charlie wanted to know. “You could've asked Penelope Rees or somebody smart.”

“Penelope knows stuff, but she isn't smart. She couldn't help, but I know you can do it, Charlie.”

He thought for a moment and said, “I'll help, Michael, if you tell me what's going on. All of it.”

And Michael told him. He told the whole story: Lemuel and the Lilliputians, the fire in the Garden City, YOI, Jane, all of it.

“All right,” Charlie said when he finished, “that's all I wanted to know. I'll help you. Just tell me what to do.”

“That's not nearly enough money,” Gadbury told Charlie. “You got, what, fourteen, fifteen pounds here. Another twenty in trade for this bike. You got, say, a total of thirty-five pounds here. That thing's worth a hundred fifty, easy.”

“No, it's not,” the boy sniffled as he looked over the ship model. “It's in lousy shape. You'd have to spend another hundred just to get it fixed.”

“It's old,” Gadbury said.

“It's falling apart,” Charlie said back.

“I could get ninety for it and you know it.”

And Charlie did know it. “I have a fifty pound note in my shoe,” he said.

“Sure you do,” Gadbury laughed.

“My nan gave it to me.” Charlie took out the note and smoothed it on the counter. “Altogether that makes eighty-five.”

“Allrightyeahallright,” Gadbury grumbled and took the money.

“I need a way to get it back,” Charlie added. “You can throw in that wagon over there.”

“And all for eighty-five pounds! Are you trying to rob me?!”

“I'm in a hurry, bud,” Charlie sniffed.

“You little runny-nosed brass neck!” But Gadbury helped load the old ship model. “This thing weighs more than you do, kid.” It was as big as a sofa and barely balanced in the wagon, but Charlie set off down the street with it.

Michael waited, by a hedge, at the edge of town. He saw police cars cruising the narrow streets, looking for him, looking for Jane. As he waited, a new wind began to blow across Moss-on-Stone and in it you could smell the sea.

A little after ten, he saw Charlie struggling with the wagon and the big model ship. “Thanks, Charlie. I really owe you.”

“No,” said Charlie. “You really don't.” And he left.

It took a full hour to get the wagon back to the stone cottage. The Little Ones set to work refitting it, caulking its hull, stocking its larder.

Michael and Jane went to the cottage and started searching through boxes. Inside, everything was perfect and still and windless. “Here's one,” Michael called when he found a map of the county. “It's old, but roads don't change. It'll do, right?”

Jane unfolded the map on a table. “Yeah, look, there,” she pointed. “There's a canal, here, just outside Ambridge. It leads to the river.”

“That's what we need,” said Michael.

But Jane shook her head. “It's fifteen miles, Michael. And we have to carry that big ship and all the people. How can we even dream of doing something like that?”