The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer (6 page)

On a sudden whim he asked. ‘You don’t happen to know
a boy named Ben do you? About your age I guess.’

She nodded, thinking. ‘I know three actually. There’s Ben Faubel. There’s a kid called called Benjy. He thinks he’s a cool dude but he’s quite pathetic. Then there’s Benjamin Streik and, oh, there’s four. There’s Ben Wang, too. He’s from China.’

‘It’s a pretty common name, I guess,’ said the loblolly boy, disappointed. None of these Bens sounded remotely likely.

‘Why did you ask?’

‘No reason.’

He sat thoughtfully for a while, then he looked up at the girl to find she was staring at him with bright eyes. ‘Oh wow,’ she whispered, more to herself than to the loblolly boy. ‘Wait ’til I tell my mates about you.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,’ said the loblolly boy.

‘Why not?’

‘Because probably none of your mates will be able to see me. It’ll be like, hey guys I’ve just met this amazing guy called the loblolly boy and he can fly ’cause he’s got wings, only you can’t see him ’cause he’s invisible to pretty well everybody except me … What do you reckon?’

She stared at him, considering it. Then she nodded soberly.

‘That means I can’t tell anyone about you?’

‘It’s over to you.’

‘What a bummer,’ she said.

‘That’s life.’

She placed her skateboard on the ground and came and
sat beside him on the bench. Glancing enviously at his wings, she said, ‘It must be amazing being able to fly.’

He nodded. ‘It’s pretty cool.’

‘There’s no way I …’

He shook his head. ‘No, and I’m not allowed to carry passengers.’

‘Bummer,’ she said again.

The lobolly boy looked across the park. Not far away, partly hidden by trees, there must have been a skateboard park as he could hear the clatter and skid of kids on boards.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, realising she’d not told him.

‘Melanie,’ she said. ‘But everybody calls me Mel.’

He grinned. ‘Yeah, I can understand that. You look much more like a Mel than a Melanie.’

‘If I can see you,’ said Mel, ‘how come I’ve never seen you before?’

‘Because I’ve just arrived,’ said the loblolly boy.

‘Where from?’

‘Miles away. I flew through the night.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m trying to find some people.’

‘Somebody called Ben?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Where do they live?’

‘That’s the trouble. I’ve no idea.’

‘Bummer!’

The loblolly boy grinned ruefully. ‘Yeah, bummer. That just about sums it up.’

Shortly afterwards, Mel said she’d better be going. Her mum would kill her she said. The loblolly boy was almost sorry to see her go. Despite first appearances, she’d been quite good company. He’d forgotten how lonely it was being a loblolly boy, how very few Sensitives he’d come across. He hoped he’d see her again.

Not long after Mel left, he took to the air again. Curious, he circled low over the skateboard park which turned out to be a large affair of concrete ramps, bowls and mounds. There were a lot of kids there, but none resembling the Ben he used to be. He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. He was just about to fly beyond the park when he did see Mel again. She had made her way past the skateboard park and was now riding her board along an asphalt path around the perimeter of a small ornamental lake.

He was half-heartedly tracking her progress as he rose higher into the air when a sudden flurry of movement caused him to pause in mid-climb. Three bigger boys walking in the opposite direction had suddenly formed themselves into a barrier forcing Mel not only off the path, but off her skateboard as well.

As he swerved in the air to begin a swooping descent, he saw Mel fall heavily on her back. Far from helping her up, the biggest of the boys seized her skateboard and gripped it to his chest.

Angered by this, the loblolly boy screamed ‘Hey!’ as he
plummeted down. It didn’t matter that only Mel could have heard him.

There was another flurry down below and it occurred to him almost subconsciously that it wasn’t only Mel who could hear him. Whatever the reason, the smallest of the three boys had turned and fled the scene well before the loblolly boy landed.

Still, that left two large boys smirking and grinning as Mel stumbled to her feet.

She was very angry.

‘What did you do that for, you eggs!’ she shouted.

‘Temper! Temper!’ goaded the smaller of the two boys.

‘Give me my skateboard back, you thieving rat!’

‘What are you calling me?’

The loblolly boy could see exactly where this was leading. And angry as she was, so could Mel. She was outsized and outnumbered. She glanced at the loblolly boy who had by now landed beside her and gave him a helpless grimace.

‘What are you calling me?’

‘She called you a rat!’

‘Don’t worry,’ muttered the loblolly boy. ‘I’ll deal to these idiots. Play along with me.’

Before forming their blockade, the bullies had dropped their own skateboards on the path behind them. One had also dropped his backpack.

The loblolly boy slipped behind the bullies and picked up a skateboard.

Holding it to his chest he rose into the air behind the bullies. Seeing this, Mel couldn’t help but grin.

‘Give me my bloody skateboard back, egg!’ she shouted.

‘Make me!’

‘Give it back!’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘If you don’t give it back I’ll throw your board into the lake!’

At the unlikelihood of this, both bullies laughed.

The loblolly boy meanwhile had soared up and over the lake and now hovered in mid-air over its very centre holding the biggest bully’s skateboard.

‘Yeah? You and whose army?’

‘I don’t need a bloody army,’ cried Mel. ‘Look!’

She pointed dramatically towards the lake. So startling was Mel’s gesture, and so convincing her cry, both of the boys turned instinctively. What they saw made them gasp. There apparently floating weightlessly above the lake was a skateboard. The boy clutching Mel’s skateboard whirled around to discover his skateboard had vanished. Undoubtedly the hovering skateboard was his.

He turned back to Mel.

‘How did you …’

He spun back wildly at the sound of a loud splash. He had time only to see a disturbance in the middle of the lake and to register that his skateboard had in fact disappeared, into the lake.

‘See!’ cried Mel smugly. ‘Now give me back my board!’

However, the bully seemed too bewildered to do anything.

Mel meanwhile had seen that the loblolly boy had swooped back behind the boys and this time scooped up the backpack.

‘I’m warning you,’ she threatened.

‘Give the bloody thing back, Gavin,’ muttered the smaller boy. ‘This is so crazy. She must be a witch or something …’

‘Give it to me now!’ demanded Mel. ‘Or …’

Once more she pointed to the lake.

Again the boys spun around to follow her pointing finger.

‘Oh, no!’ cried the smaller boy. ‘Do something! Give it back to her for god’s sake! My bloody iPod’s in there!’

What the boys saw was the blue canvas backpack apparently floating about ten metres above the water. The smaller boy did not wait. Crying, ‘No! No! Don’t do it!’ he plunged into the water scattering ducks hither and thither and waded desperately towards the middle. He was about half way there, with the water up to his chest, when the backpack suddenly dropped with a satisfying splosh and sank into the lake.

The largest boy, with a look of pure incredulity at Mel, threw her skateboard at her and then ran into the lake himself, churning through mud and weed into the ever-deepening water in a desperate attempt to find his vanished board.

As the loblolly boy returned to the path, she grinned at him with delight.

‘Hey, that was just great!’

‘No problem,’ grinned the loblolly boy.

‘They couldn’t see you?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Wow!’

She stood silently for a while, grinning at the two boys
who were now up to their shoulders in the water and flailing left and right with their arms. Then she laughed outright as she saw a couple of angry gardeners, rakes in hand, come running towards the lake, shouting furiously at the boys and demanding to know what the bloody hell they thought they were doing.

She turned back to the loblolly boy.

‘I still can’t quite believe that I can see you but the others can’t.’

‘That’s the way it goes,’ said the loblolly boy.

‘What did you say I was again?’

‘A Sensitive.’

‘And you reckon not many kids are Sensitives?’

‘Hardly any.’

She looked at him thoughtfully.

‘But, I reckon the one who ran away just before you landed must be Sensitive.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, when you shouted, I looked up and saw you. The bigger ones, Gavin and Jason, took no notice. I don’t think they heard anything. But the smaller one looked up and I reckon he must have seen you too, because straight away he was out of here at a hundred miles an hour.’

‘He did?’

‘No,’ Mel looked at him excitedly, ‘that’s not all. This is the best part. Remember you asked me about all the Bens I knew?’

The loblolly boy nodded, staring at her intently. This sounded more interesting.

‘Well the guy who took off was one of the ones I told you about!’

‘Which one?’

‘The one called Benjy! The ratty little dude!’

The loblolly boy seized Mel’s arm. He had to find this Benjy boy. Quickly, he tried to work out how long they’d been confronted by the other two bully boys. Too long. The runaway would have had plenty of time to make himself scarce.

‘What does he look like?’ he insisted.

Mel saw his urgency. She tried to think. ‘I don’t know, it’s hard to say. He’s just a kid.’

‘Anything.’

‘He’s just a ratty little kid. Fair hair and — I don’t know — a nose and stuff. He’s just a little oick who kicks around with the bigger kids.’

‘What was he wearing?’

She thought. ‘I dunno. Blue trainers. Jeans. Dark hoody thing with something red on it. A lion or something.’

The loblolly boy threw himself into the air. He flew along the path the boy had probably made his escape along, anxiously scanning the lawns and trees either side. He saw nobody remotely resembling the kid. Was it possible that this was the boy who was living his life? He gave a wry smile. Mel’s description wasn’t very flattering. Ratty?
Weedy? Was that the way he’d appeared to others?

But Benjy?

He’d never been known as Benjy. He’d always been Ben, or — to his grandparents — Benjamin. He hated Benjy. It sounded like some sort of pet. A good name for a cocker spaniel.

The clothes Mel described sounded completely
unfamiliar
, too. It was more than possible, though, that the interloper had managed to get new clothes. He’d been living his stolen life quite a few months by now.

It was unlikely, but it was just possible.

If Mel was right and this kid was a Sensitive, why would he run away in the instant.

It could only be because he’d not just seen the loblolly boy, but also knew exactly who the loblolly boy was. One reason he could know was that he’d once been a loblolly boy himself.

And had Exchanged.

All these puzzles and possibilities.

He had to find the boy.

For the moment though, he seemed to have vanished into thin air.

The path ended at a pair of open wrought iron gates marking the entrance to the park. Beyond was a busy road. Left or
right? To be certain the loblolly boy tried both.

Each proved fruitless, and he returned to a tree near the gate. The difficulty was, there were several shops next to the park, and further down across the busy road a
supermarket
and a couple of large department stores. Moreover, buses regularly travelled up and down the road. The boy could be in any one of these stores or he could easily have hopped on a bus and headed off in any direction.

As he sat in the tree considering these disappointments, he saw Mel once more on her skateboard approaching the gates. He dropped from the tree to talk to her again. She, after all, was a link. She knew this boy Benjy and something of him and would be able surely to tell him more.

As it happened, though, she was not able to give him much more. No, she didn’t really know him that well, only by sight really. He kicked about a bit with some of the kids she sort of knew. No, he didn’t go to her school, in fact she didn’t really know which school he went to. To tell the truth, she’d only seen him at the park with some of the other skateboarding types.

The only useful piece of information was that she did have a feeling he was new to the place, although this was possibly because she’d only become aware of him in the last few months.

She didn’t care for him, anyway. Once again she offered her opinion that he was a lowlife sort of a little rat who tended to hang about with other lowlife rats, like Gavin, like Jason.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally.

‘That’s okay,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘He’s probably the wrong guy anyway.’ I hope so, he thought.

‘Anyway, I really ought to get going,’ said Mel. ‘Mum’ll … You know …’

The loblolly boy didn’t know, but from Mel’s anxiety he rather guessed.

‘Let me know if you can find out more about this guy!’ he shouted after her.

She replied only with a frantic wave he understood to be an agreement, and then she was gone.

Only after she’d disappeared did he realise he had no idea where Mel lived and, foolishly, had not asked for her address.

The loblolly boy flew back to his little platform at the top of the church tower.

He still did not know whether he could trust the dove. He hoped so. It had been very determined about where it was heading. And as soon as he had arrived his instincts had told him he was in the right place. Only his fears had argued otherwise. What should I put my faith in, he asked himself: fears or gut feeling? Doubts or instinct?

Why, at that point, did he all at once jump up onto the little balustrade once more and take off into the air? Instinct?