The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer (18 page)

‘For goodness sake,’ he said. ‘Things can’t be that bad. I do wish you’d stop sulking and skulking.’

The Gadget Man checked the bottom of the cage, ascertaining that nothing appeared to have been eaten. The carrot and broccoli looked somewhat shrivelled.

‘Not hungry?’ he asked. ‘Well, little picky-eater. I’ve bad news for you. There’ll be nothing fresh until that’s eaten.’

The cockatoo looked at him.

‘You don’t even make a noise,’ remarked the Gadget Man. ‘I thought cockatoos were supposed to be good talkers? Better than cocker ones, anyway. Perhaps I should trade you in for a cocker three …’

Then he shook his head in disappointment. At that moment there was a far off knocking and the Gadget Man with a muttered ‘Bother!’ turned and left the workshop. The cockatoo heard the tell-tale click of a key turning in the lock, he heard the clump of his footsteps disappearing down the stairs.

He now lifted his head a little higher and looked around.

Talk? He wondered if he could talk.

He gave a little shrug of his shoulders and tried.

‘Nothing fresh!’ he squawked. ‘Nothing fresh!’

He tried again. Louder.

Then again.

This was better.

He cocked his head to one side. It was not unlike the
sound the Gadget Man had made.

He tried again: ‘Picky eater! Picky eater!’

That sounded even a little better.

He lowered his head again.

It wasn’t much. But it was something.

He must have drowsed for a while. He listened but could hear no sounds of the Gadget Man. Looking around he saw that the room was still empty, and the Gadget Man’s dustcoat was still lying across the table.

He could not get out of his head the crashing unfairness of having to live his life as a sulphur-crested cockatoo, the cockatoo Benjy should have been.

This was not his destiny.

He wondered what his destiny would have been had not the Sorcerer mixed things up for him.

There was no way of knowing.

But then, he realised with a little surprised squawk, there was
one
way of knowing.

The telescope.

The dangerous telescope.

What would have happened had he looked through the telescope ahead of Benjy?

What would his destiny have been? Surely it wouldn’t have been a white rabbit, or a cockatoo.

It would probably have been something really foolish, something with very little brain, something easily manipulated and ready to believe anything. There were all sorts of possibilities, none of them especially pleasant.

And yet, what could be worse than being stuck in a padlocked cage with a stuffed parrot and bits of drying broccoli?

What frying pan could be worse than this particular fire?

There was nothing to lose. It was the only hope he had. The trouble was, whenever he’d taken the only hope he’d had before, everything had turned to custard.

He shook his head, thinking of the old joke: what’s soft, yellow and deadly?

Answer: shark infested custard.

Well, that’s just where he was, neck deep in the old shark infested custard.

Nothing could be worse.

He should grab his own destiny.

He should look through the telescope.

Yes, he thought. I’ll do it. He looked about the room again. The bars of his cage were solid. The door was hooked into place and padlocked. The door to the workroom was locked.

Right, great idea, he would look through the telescope as soon as he’d solved one or two rather pressing problems. Pressing problems? No problem to a resourceful bird, he thought bitterly.

It was then, as he cocked his head and glanced around the room once more, that he saw a glint of silver in a bulging pocket of the Gadget Man’s dustcoat.

The glint didn’t register for a moment, but then he remembered. Once again he saw Mel’s half-amazed,
half-horrified
face as the tiny skeleton pulled itself into being and climbed inexorably up the door and pulled open the padlock on the door to the brick shed.

Could it be the skeleton key?

There was no way of knowing. The dustcoat was well out of reach, and even if it weren’t he couldn’t have achieved anything. His talons could only protrude a few millimetres beyond the bars and his beak even less.

And even if it were the skeleton key, he had no way of operating it.

He cast his mind back, remembering how it all happened. How the little disconnected heap of metal had gathered itself together and stood up.

How had the Gadget Man done it?

And all at once he realised it could be brought to life.

The device was voice activated, he recalled, it had responded to certain words the Gadget Man had said.

The cockatoo racked its brains trying to remember the words. Even if he could, would the skeleton key respond to the words, or to the voice? If to the voice, then could his imitation of the Gadget Man’s voice be good enough.

What were the words?

The Gadget Man had talked to the skeleton key as if it were a little toy, a little pet even. What had he said?
Little
man
, that’s right. He’d called it,
little man
.

The cockatoo strutted over to the side of the cage near the coat. He made a gravely gargling sound at the back of his throat then cried, ‘
Little man
!
Little man
!’ in a
high-pitched
squawk.

He cocked his head and stared at the coat, realising almost at once that these weren’t the words, no matter how well he’d been able to articulate them.

He tried to remember once more. This time he put himself back inside the darkness of his brick cell. He tried to hear their voices again: Mel’s and the stranger’s. Just before the scrabbling sound the stranger had called something out.

He concentrated.

Good Fellow
! That was it.

The cockatoo could not resist jumping from one foot to the other. Again he approached the side of the cage.

‘
Good Fellow
!
Good Fellow
!’ he squawked.

Almost immediately, and to his great delight, the large flap pocket began to heave every which way and then, wonderfully, the little skeleton tumbled out and climbed fluidly to its feet. The tiny figure stood there for a second or two as if gauging its bearings.

‘Then the cockatoo, in a passable imitation of the Gadget Man, squawked, ‘
Good Boy
!
Open the lock
.’

The skeleton swivelled around and located the cockatoo.
Then in a rapid mechanical gait, it hurried towards the cage, observed the padlocked door, and immediately started climbing. It scrambled up the bars and found the lock. It proved no problem. As it had with the larger lock in the yard across the way, it levered its feet on the casing and tugged at the hasp. Moments later the lock was undone. The skeleton key unhooked the catch and then pulled the door open.

Amazing, thought the cockatoo. He leapt up to the door and sat at the now open entrance. Then he leapt into the air itself, using his wings for the first time. He flew about for a moment and then fluttered down and landed on the table beside the dustcoat.

Its job over, the skeleton key had subsided again and once more gave the appearance of being just a small pile of rods, springs and washers.

The cockatoo assessed the situation. He cocked his head at the door to the workshop.

The door he had heard the Gadget Man lock behind him.

The door looked a lot trickier.

The cockatoo was not at all sure that this was a task within the abilities of the skeleton key. This was not a padlocked door. This was a keyed lock and the Gadget Man had locked it from the other side, of course. Had he left the key in or had he taken the key with him? Did it matter?

When there’s only one thing to try, thought the cockatoo grimly, then try it.

He stepped over to the skeleton key and seized it with one claw. He was surprised at his own dexterity. Then he
flapped over to the door and landed just before it.

‘
Good Boy
!’ he squawked. ‘
Open the door
!’

This time, immediately after the skeleton assembled itself, it marched toward the door, then it fell down on to the floor arms and legs akimbo, and finally wriggling back and forth it slid under the bottom of the door. The cockatoo could hear it scrabbling up the other side and then some other activity that seemed to involve small clicks and scratching. None of this took much time, and far earlier than he had expected, the door swung open towards him. In his delight, he scrambled backwards, and almost fell over on his tail. Quickly recovering his balance he had only time to squawk ‘
Thank you
!’ before the skeleton key tottered back across the threshold, and collapsed into its ill-defined heap again.

The cockatoo half-flew, half-jumped down the stairs and into the Gadget Man’s living room. All was quiet. He guessed the Gadget Man was in his shop. He leapt up on to the table lifting his wings for balance, and then looked around towards the mantelpiece and the telescope.

To his huge relief, he saw that it was still there, where the Gadget Man had replaced it the previous evening.

He looked about fluffing his feathers a little and growling with pleasure at his success.

The Sorcerer had said he was a resourceful bird.

How little did he know!

There was a huge satisfaction in this.

Then without thinking any more, he jumped into the air and flapped the short distance to the mantelpiece. It was not a wide mantelpiece and it was quite slippery because of the tiles. He had not realised just what a large bird he was. In his struggle to gain purchase he had to flap his wings and he was worried about the noise he was undoubtedly making.

Then, just as he was able to maintain some kind of an awkward equilibrium, he found, to his disappointment that he was at the wrong end of the telescope: the eyepiece was at the other end. This meant a repetition of the whole noisy, flapping process.

Finally, all was in place but his problems were not yet quite over. Somehow he had to get his eye to the eyepiece. This was a manoeuvre he was not sure he was capable of; in fact he was not sure it was physically possible. As a human he had only been able to lower his head to his chest, now he had to lower his head to his feet. Carefully he shuffled into position and tried. The world turned upside down briefly but then when he opened his eye he found the eyehole just adjacent to his eye.

‘Oh, please,’ he thought, ‘let it not be a guinea pig!’

It was not a guinea pig.

What the cockatoo saw through the telescope was a rather small boy in a red T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

There was a huge crash followed by a clatter.

The crash was Ben falling off the mantelpiece and on to the floor, and the clatter was the telescope, falling onto the tiles.

The noise was enough to bring the Gadget Man running into his apartment from the shop.

‘Goodness me,’ he said, as he saw Ben climbing awkwardly to his feet and rubbing at a suddenly sore spot on his shoulder. ‘How in heaven’s name did you get in here?’

Ben turned to the Gadget Man and shook his head, but could find no words.

‘Who are you, anyway?’ he asked.

‘I’m Ben,’ Ben whispered, ‘I think. I know who you are. You’re the Gadget Man.’

‘Good heavens,’ said the Gadget Man.

‘Do you think,’ said Ben, ‘I could borrow a mirror?’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

E
NVOI

O
ver the next few days, Ben found it very difficult to deal with his father’s questions. While delighted to have his son back again and pleased that he seemed to have abandoned his terrible anti-social ways, Ben’s father had been troubled by the sudden disappearance of Janice and was constantly seeking explanations.

Finally, Ben said to him, ‘Dad, if you’ll sit down, I’ll tell you everything from start to finish. You’re not going to believe a word of any of it, but that doesn’t matter. I want to tell you, I need to tell you. Just to get it off my chest. Okay?’

His father looked at him for a moment or two, and then nodded.

‘Okay, Ben. Try me … Shoot!’

So Ben did. He told him of the very first Exchange and how he became the loblolly boy. He told how he had passed the loblolly boy on and had become Michael and then endured a miserable time in the Great House. He told him of how Michael had returned and how he had Exchanged again.

And then he told his father of everything that had happened since: of the Captain, the Jugglers, the Gadget Man and the Sorcerer. He told him of Mel and how he had been tricked and betrayed and how every time he thought all would be all right he’d been flipped out of the frying pan and back to the fire.

Finally he told his father of the telescope and how Janice had been turned into a rabbit, how he had been turned into a cockatoo.

At that point, his father had put his hand out.

‘Ben, this is a great story and I reckon you ought to write it all down. But I have to say you were quite right, old son … I don’t believe a word of it.’

It didn’t matter to Ben. His father had listened and he had managed to get it off his chest. He could not have expected his father to believe it; he scarcely believed it himself.

However, what telling the story meant was that he no longer had any secrets from his father. That felt really good.

Some days later, there was a knock at the door. His father went to see who it was.

When the visitor was ushered into the living room, Ben was astonished to see that it was the Sorcerer carrying a large wrapped box. He smiled as Ben looked at him apprehensively. ‘I am so pleased to see you,’ he said. ‘I always said you were a resourceful creature.’

His father looked from the tall silver-haired man to Ben with curiosity. ‘How do you know Ben?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’ve known Ben for some time. He’ll no doubt tell you all about me one day.’

‘I have already,’ said Ben.

His father looked at him in surprise. ‘Have you?’

Ben nodded. ‘What’s in the box?’ he asked the Sorcerer.

‘Haven’t you guessed?’ asked the Sorcerer. ‘I thought it would be better to return her. For some reason she was not cooperative enough. There was no way I could get her to jump out of a hat. Or even into a hat if it comes to that.’

Ben nodded. ‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ he said.

At that the Sorcerer took his leave, leaving the box on the floor.

‘What is it?’

‘Have a look,’ said Ben.

His father stripped the paper off. Underneath was a stainless steel hutch. Janice, her nose twitching, sat inside.

‘Good grief,’ said his father. ‘It’s a white rabbit.’ He looked at Ben. ‘Who was that guy?’

‘I told you about him,’ said Ben. ‘That was the Sorcerer.’

The very next night, there was yet another visitor again with a package, but this time much smaller.

It was the Gadget Man. He did not come in. Instead he passed the package to Ben and said, ‘The Captain has asked that I return this. He said you’d left it in his safekeeping …’

Ben opened the parcel. Inside was an oilskin cloth. Ben knew what it would be. He passed it to his father. ‘Look …’

Then he turned to the Gadget Man. ‘Will you …’

He was going to ask him to come in and have a cup of tea, but the Gadget Man forestalled him. ‘No, no. Oh my dear, no. I’m very busy on a new project. The Captain wants me to work on a reverse telescope. One that undoes … you know?’

‘Do you think you’ll be able to?’ asked Ben.

The Gadget Man shrugged. ‘I may, I may. But it will be a challenge, a real challenge and I fear a long challenge. But I’m taking the long view …’

Then he made his goodbyes, and hurried off.

‘And that was?’ asked his father.

‘That was the Gadget Man,’ said Ben. ‘I told you about him too.’

His father stared thoughtfully into the deepening gloom as the figure disappeared.

‘I thought it might have been,’ he said.

The third visitor was much more welcome.

‘Mel!’

She looked at him carefully. ‘Which one are you?’

Ben grinned. ‘The right one!’

Mel wasn’t completely convinced. ‘You’ve changed your hair, but you still look …’

‘I look like me,’ said Ben. ‘I am me. Ben. Believe me.’

Mel shrugged but then demanded quickly, ‘Okay, but before I do, what’s the name of the Gadget Man then?’

Ben’s mind raced and then he remembered. ‘Daniel,’ he said. ‘It was Daniel Flynn. He told us when he unlocked the door.’

At that point, Mel grinned widely. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Had
to do that. It’s just that you’re the spitting image of that Benjy dude. It’s a little weird.’

‘Hasn’t everything been weird?’

‘I reckon.’

‘I should have called you,’ said Ben. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I realised I didn’t know your number …’

‘So?’

‘Even your last name.’

Mel grinned again. ‘Don’t suppose you did!’

‘I mean, if it hadn’t been for you.’ Ben grinned this time. ‘I mean, I really need to thank you and thank …’ His grin faded. It sounded so lame. ‘I have looked for you …’

Mel shrugged again. ‘Yeah. I looked for you, too. I went back to the Gadget Man. He reckoned he hadn’t seen you. I did wonder about a dreadful screeching sound coming from his workshop. Thought he might have been making torture gadgets, or something.’

‘That was a cockatoo,’ said Ben.

‘A what?’

‘A big bird.’

‘How do you know?’

‘That it was a bird?’

‘No, that the Gadget Man had this cocker thing?’

Ben grinned. ‘It’s a long story, and it’s really weird.’

‘It’d have to be. Want to tell me?’

‘Sure. Shall we go to the park?’

‘Yeah. We could climb that old tree and you could tell me all about it.’