The Last of the Gullivers (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

THE
EVER-SAME, NEVER-SAME SONG

T
hey knew something had happened, but didn't know what. Their eyes were on him, wondering, all through the school day. The cut on his head was deep and should have been stitched, but Freddie said he'd have a scar and so what?

Ms. Bellknap said nothing and continued their studies. The class learned more about birds, endangered, exotic, extinct, even a mythological bird. The Phoenix, she told the class, was a magic creature that lived five hundred years and could heal suffering with a single teardrop. As its end grew near, the bird built a nest of myrrh and settled itself in and burst into flame. A new Phoenix rose from the ashes of the old.

“We find this myth all over the world,” she told them. “In ancient Egypt, it was called the Bennu bird—a large heron, perhaps a stork—we can't be sure. There are versions in China, the Americas, the Middle East. Now you tell me—Jimmy, leave her alone—tell me what you think the story of the Phoenix means.”

“Ms. Bellknap.” Penelope Rees, as ever.

“Penelope?”

“It means sometimes things die and sometimes babies are born.”

“Yes, Penelope Rees. It does mean that.”

“What I think,” Charlie Ford wiped his nose and said, “it's about tryin' again. It's like gettin' a second chance to get it right.”

Ms. Bellknap thought for a moment. “Well, yes, Charles. It is that, isn't it?”

“Ms. Bellknap.” Penelope once more.

“Yes, dear?”

“Michael is bleeding all over the place.”

“Penelope Rees. Let's mind our own business.”

The teacher gave Michael a tissue for his head and sent him to the school nurse. As the small and lavender-smelling woman cleaned the blood, he looked out the window and saw Nick's Boys waiting for him. They were gathered at the fence, like the stout sullen hawks he sometimes saw in the fields.

When school let out, they were still there, still waiting. But Michael never came. He'd been given a job at Fenn's Market and Hetty Bellknap drove him there as her mother, the Court Clerk, had asked.

The cramped little market was on a far edge of the village, on the road to Ambridge. “All right, come on,” Mr. Fenn spat. He was a solid man, jowly and unmarried, and his words came in wet blasts. “I want every shelf—faced. That means tins, boxes, everything—facing out, lined up, straight across!”

Michael followed him through a storeroom, stacked floor to rafter with boxes, crates, bins, smelling like old vegetables. Fenn shoved a stubby thumb at an open shelf and told the boy to keep his schoolbooks here during work.

They moved down another narrow canyon. “Every day you make sure the shelves are full. Myron will—he'll show you how.”

Myron was Fenn's teenaged nephew, friendless and fuzzy at the edges: it was hard to tell where Myron started and Myron stopped. He was usually in the back room, gnawing a peppermint stick. “Why—me?”

“Why not?” Fenn said as he left.

Myron told Michael what was expected of him and then he said, “Let's get one thing straight. I don't like you.”

“You don't know me,” said Michael.

“I don't have to know you to know I don't like you,” Myron grunted and went back to eating peppermint.

Michael spent the next hours sweeping, stocking, cleaning, learning. As he worked, he quietly counted the minutes until he'd be free. It was almost five, closing time, when the door clanged open a last time.

The boy looked across the store as a man came in, tall, bent, silver-haired, old as earth. It might've been him, no, had to be him, from that night at the stone cottage.

“Codswallop,” Fenn said to himself. “Crazy ol' loon. What's he doin' here?” Michael stood beside the grocer and watched the old man move slowly through the store. “Usually calls it in.” Fenn waited by the counter. “Crazy—ol'—loon.”

When the shopping was finally done, Fenn called for Michael to fill a canvas bag with a half-dozen tins of dog food, a bottle of Scotch whiskey, three cards of sewing needles, and a roll of fine twine.

“Mr. Fenn, do you carry rakes?”

“No, sir,” Fenn coughed.

“I broke mine,” the old man went on.

“Try down the road—DIY store.”

“Happened the other night,” the man was saying. “Heard a sound out back and what do you think I saw?”

Michael was sure the old man knew him and now he would tell Fenn.

“A bear.”

Fenn spat out a total: “Thirty-four—twenty-two.”

“Big as a Galloway cow. Charged right at me and I
whacked
him on the nose. Split my rake half in two. But he left me alone after that.”

Fenn coughed. “There're no bears in Moss-on-Stone.”

“Not anymore.” The man paid Fenn. “I chased it off with a rake, didn't I?”

Fenn headed to the stockroom, but Michael stayed where he was and began to wonder, who
was
this old man?

“Come—here!” Fenn was yelling.

The old man started out and Michael said: “There aren't really bears.”

“There are a lot of things that we never see,” the man shrugged. “There are whole other worlds all around us, if we bother to look.” He gave the boy a coin for a tip, a blackened old coin, probably worthless, and Michael put it deep in his pocket. “Not much to look at it,” the man said. “But sometimes you have to look twice to see the value of a thing.”

“Boy!” Fenn called again and he turned and the old man left.

Michael was walking down Sheep Street when he remembered the coin in his pocket. The clock at the Inn showed five fifteen and that left time to stop by the arcade in the back of the pub. He could try the coin in a video game: his favorite was the one called Cross-Country, steering a 2.4 liter V-8 Formula One over a digital landscape, the whole never-ending world blasting by on a screen.

He crossed the Market Square, where the fairs used to be, and was passing the rusty headstones of St. Edwards, when he heard the wind whistling. But no. It wasn't wind. It was someone whistling the tune he'd heard by the wall.

The boy hid in the yews by the refectory door, and watched and listened. Yes, it was that same tune: somber, silly, pointed and pointless. The doorknob turned behind him and hinges squealed and Father Drapier stepped out to lock the stone-sainted church. “Michael Pine? Haven't seen you in a while.” Drapier looked and saw the old man headed up the road, out of town, whistling as he went. “Well. Haven't seen him in a while, either. Wonder what got him out of his house.”

“Who is he?” asked Michael.

“Mr. Gulliver, who lives past the crossroads. Used to have a sister up there, but she's been gone for some time.” The old priest was going over something in his head. “That man was ancient when I was a child. By now, he must be at least . . .” Father Drapier thought a moment more. “But, no. No. That couldn't possibly be right. Nobody's
that
old.” And he wandered off, still adding it up.

Michael meant to go to the pub then, for the video game, but found himself following the fading song. He kept a distance as he trailed the old man out of the village and past spreading fields of clover.

The road narrowed to a single carriageway, where hogweed and bracken took back the crumbled pavement. He passed the ancient ruins of a church, a cow grazing in its nave, and he followed the old man to the crossroads.

Back in superstitious days, people thought this was a magic place: once the corpse of a witch was nailed to a stake here, to confuse her ghost so she'd never find the way back to haunt her executioners. People used to believe that kind of thing.

The man took the northwest road and Michael kept following. They moved through a forest where there might be bears and to the stone cottage where the old man disappeared in the stillness. The boy moved quietly to the back wall and heard the music again.

There was a half hour left till check-in at the Court and he sat against an ancient oak to listen. The song was lively now, and brooding, shimmering, soft, a memory, a lullaby.

And the boy tried to imagine: What other world lay beyond that wall?

CHAPTER FIVE

INTO
THE
REMOTE NATION

I
can tell you without any doubt,” the tall man roared, “that in another five years, House Sparrows will be gone from this land. Just like the stork. They will be, so to speak, extinct.”

“I imagine there must be some way to help the little things,” Penelope said softly.

“I'm sure you imagine a lot of things,” the man said, smiled. Ms. Bellknap had invited Dr. Emmanuel Kirleus, a bitter old professor, to talk to the students about endangered species. “House Sparrows used to feed on chickweed and dandelion, but we don't let these grow around our homes anymore. That's why the birds will die off.”

“But what if,” Penelope Rees again, even more quietly now, “what if I planted some seeds?”

“You ask too many questions, dear,” Dr. Kirleus said, smiled. “This is science, not a fairy tale. You have to accept it. The birds will be gone in a few years, and forever.”

Hetty squirmed, uneasy. She'd always taught her students that science was all about questions and the old professor's words bothered her. Still, on he droned and Michael could only hear the music, from beyond the wall, playing over and over in his head.

After school was done, he went to work at the little market. At six thirty, he checked in with a court officer, then went home to dinner and bed. This was the new rhythm of his life and he liked it. Mr. Fenn had been frightening at first, but really he was a lonely little man, ordinary and dull, and Michael liked that, too. If shelves were tidy, labels out, Fenn was no problem.

As the grocer began to trust the boy more, he gave him more to do. When Fenn saw that his whole store was organized and orderly, for the first time really, he decided to try Michael on the deliveries.

“Him—!?” Myron choked on a peppermint stick. “That's my job! I make the deliveries!”

“Yeah, and you keep foulin' it up, pig! Takin' scotch to the Daniels ladies, female things to a priest!”

“Well—” said Myron. “Well.” Because Uncle Fenn was right. “But I—have a car. He's not even old enough to drive!”

“That—true? You can't drive?”

Michael nodded, it was true. “I'm twelve.”

“Stop eating my peppermint!” Fenn shouted at Myron and turned to Michael. “You have a bicycle then.”

“No,” the boy answered. “No, sir.”

“Codswallop!” Michael heard rats, or something like them, run across the rafters overhead. “There's one out back. Use it.”

Fenn stalked out and Myron said: “Remember, boy. I—don't—like—you.”

Mr. Fenn gave the boy a list, names, addresses, groceries, and the deliveries took him all across Moss-on-Stone, Where the Wind's Always Blown. Michael wore a blue vest and cap, and the groceries were balanced in baskets, one in front, two across the back, sometimes an ancient little wire-framed trailer hooked on, too.

Small dogs bit at his feet and small children snickered at him, but the boy didn't care. The more stops he made, the lighter his load grew and soon he was sailing along the narrow streets, the sun ahead of him, a warm wind on his face. He turned onto Shepherds Park, four deliveries to go and the Bottoms' house next.

It wasn't a nice place, half-brick, all dirty, everything in the garden dead or dying, a useless car on blocks in the drive. There was a rusted shed to one side, the front grown over with weedy vines. “Nice hat, squit.” Nick Bottoms came to the door and grabbed the cap from Michael's head.

“Here's your Mom's groceries.” Michael took the cap back.

“Awww, you got a job, poor swot,” Nick laughed.

Michael said nothing.

“We're meeting tonight, seven, behind the mill.”

“Sorry, Nick.” The boy set the groceries down. “Can't hang with the boys anymore.”

“Says who?”

“Magistrate,” Michael told him.

“Why not?”

“He says I should do something worthwhile with my life,” Michael answered.

“Who, you?!” Nick laughed again. Michael tried to back away, but Nick stayed with him. “Wearing a stupid hat and a vest is worthwhile?”

“I don't
have to
wear it,” Michael said, though he did.

But Nick only laughed some more.

Michael went to the bike and said, “Okay. Seven tonight.”

It was past six when he finished his deliveries and hung his vest and cap in the stockroom. He started for the lavatory when Myron said, “Uncle Fenn just finished in there. It'd kill an elephant, goin' in there.”

“I need to pee,” said Michael.

“Your funeral,” Myron shrugged.

Michael headed to the Youth Court for his check-in. By the time he was done, at a quarter of seven, the staff had locked the courthouse toilets. He set out for the mill.

But somewhere between here and there, Michael set himself on another course. He had questions and wanted answers.

He went to the stone cottage.

A Blood Moon lit the crossroads, where everything was perfect and still. Michael needed to pee, a serious and overdue pee. He headed into the trees and heard the music—
that
music. He forgot his full bladder and followed the sound. As he moved out of the forest and toward the stone cottage, the melody floated in the air around him, over him, through him.

There wasn't a whisper of light from the little house. The old man was surely sleeping. Michael headed around to the rock-walled garden, choosing his steps carefully in the cold and unwelcoming dark. The stones were moss-slicked, but he found footholds and climbed the full ten feet. Along the top, torrents of red rose cascaded over and left the air thick and unreal. Michael tried to see into the garden, but a fat beech tree blocked his view.

The music was stronger now, pulling him. He climbed down the wall and the song stopped. He stepped around the wide beech and saw it.

Spread across the garden was a city, a whole other world in miniature: Thin cobbled streets snaked among stone houses whose roof peaks hardly reached the boy's chest. There was a slender-spired church, a tumbled row of almshouses, all glowing amber in the gaslight. There was a large town center, an open square where a small fountain burbled, and perfect little shopfronts with perfect-lettered signs. There were pubs, an inn, banks, offices.

The streets off the square led to more houses, some with minute and neatly tended gardens, others plain and bare. Wagons and carriages were parked here and there. A small gulley of a stream wandered past a manor house with a wide green, stables, outbuildings. He saw a broad pond glint in the distance.

The boy moved through a city that was complete in every impossible tiny detail. Who would have built such a thing? And why? Was it the old man? Was this how he spent his time, his money?

If Michael had money, he wouldn't waste it on this kind of nonsense. And that's what it was, nonsense. That's what he felt in his heart.

But in another second, and for the rest of his life, Michael wouldn't know what was and wasn't nonsense.

He was about to take the pee he needed when he heard a soft
clop-clopping
and a man no bigger than his fist came galloping on a horse the size of the boy's shoe. The horse reared and the little man yelled at the top of his little lungs: “Citizens, Friends, Brothers, Sisters—for the Honor of our Nantwuzzl'd Race—to arms!”

Shutters flapped open and People—little
People
, inches tall—appeared at every window, armed. They came at him from all directions, fired tiny guns, shot needly arrows, threw minuscule stones, they screamed, shouted, babbled at him. He would've laughed, but their bullets and arrows were real; they poked, pelted, pricked him like the sting of a thousand bees.

Even as they attacked, Michael saw the looks on their faces: wide, wondering looks, like children, afraid and curious at once. And he knew one thing. He knew that these little creatures, whatever-they-were, wanted him dead. If he stood there long enough, taking enough of their bullets and arrows, they'd kill him.

“Go away, you squits! Go away!” the boy called out.

They were charging him now, by the dozens, no, hundreds, and none more than a half-foot tall. Young and old, man, woman, child, they came at him from every corner—from every building, every house, darting down streets, jumping out of trees, everywhere, whole wagonloads of them, all of them armed, moving in for the kill.

Michael jumped back and tripped, tumbled down a small cobbled street. His head scraped the side of a church and his shoulder hit a streetlamp and knocked it over. A gas-fed fire spread to a hay wagon, then to a wattle-and-wood building.

The one on horseback turned and called: “Citizens, Friends, Brothers, Sisters! We must fight the whumpinwhompinous fire!” The first building burned fast and the flames took another structure. Michael watched the Little Ones scrambling, alarms belling and fire wagons, all rickety and rocketing into the town center. But the conflagration was spreading and red rivers of flame flowed up still more walls.

One of them yelled at Michael, a bulb-bellied man in a cap, tiny arms flailing like a windmill. “Don't just stand there. Do
SOMETHING,
you great Blefuscudian Lump!”

The boy could think of only one thing and that was how much he needed to pee. He unzipped his trousers and let flow a warm gold stream. It flowed and flowed and the flames began to fall back, sizzling, fizzling, as he emptied his stretched bladder.

The little round man was caught in the back splash. “Great Ghost of Bolgolam!” he sputtered, he spat. “I'm
DROWNING
in his poison!”

Now the fire was in full retreat, doused and steaming, and the tiny People had a chance against it. The whole village came together in a bucket brigade and forgot Michael altogether.

He heard a dog's growl and saw the mountainous thing running at him, teeth flashing in the firelight, and the old man's voice from the cottage, “What's going on?” Michael ran for the wall. He climbed as fast as he could, the dog charging, snarling, snapping for his feet. “What's happening out there?”

The boy slipped on the damp stones, but kept his grip and kept climbing. His fingers were raw when he found the top and jumped. He landed hard in gravel on the other side, cutting his hands and his face. He ran into the night, with blood and pure panic stinging his eyes.

He ran back to the small flat and cleaned himself and locked himself in his room. And he sat there, asking himself:
What just happened to me? I had a dream, right? There weren't any little People, no little town. A weird dream. But I'm bleeding real blood. I didn't dream that part.

Michael wanted to tell someone, but who? Not Freddie, never. Not his classmates, not Charlie, they'd think he was out of his mind. He went to find Nick and the Boys.

But when he got to the mill, they were gone. They had stopped waiting for him an hour ago and were breaking into cars now.

The next morning at school, Hetty Bellknap was talking about Captain Cook and his journey across unexplored seas. “Who remembers what year he set sail on his first voyage?”

Charlie leaned to whisper, “Your head's drippin' some blood.”

Michael wiped it dry on his sleeve.

“It was 1768, Ms. Bellknap.”

“That's right, Penelope Rees.”

Penelope went on to share all she knew about James Cook and Michael's thoughts were on the things he'd seen the night before.

“What about Captain Cook's ship? Who can tell me the name?”

“
Enterprise
,” sniffed Charlie.

“That was Captain Kirk's ship,” said Penelope. “It was
Endeavour.
The word
endeavour
means ‘to try.'”

“It does. And why do you imagine Captain Cook tried, what drove him to undertake that journey? He had a nice home, a fine family. It wasn't for money or fame. Why did he set out on such a dangerous voyage?”

For once, Penelope Rees had no answer.

“What do you think, Michael?” Hetty asked, but he didn't hear: his mind was still in the little city. “You want to know what I think? I think he did it because he had to,” she went on. “I think something drove him to explore. There are those among us who are born with some light, some spark inside—a restless soul—a need to make the grand journeys, to have the beautiful adventures. Maybe James Cook didn't
belong
in a comfortable house. And maybe you, Michael,” she set a hand on his shoulder, “belong in this classroom.”

The rest of them laughed and his mind sailed back into the room. When school was done, Michael set out for the job at Fenn's. He stocked shelves and made deliveries and all he could think was this: What was that other world in the garden? And how could he get back to it?