Truckers (22 page)

Masklin and Angalo looked at each other, and then at the signaler.

“Go fast!” they shouted.

A moment later the entire truck shuddered as the teams tackled the complicated process of changing gear. Then it rolled forward.

“Fast! I said fast!” Masklin shouted.

“What's going on?” shouted Dorcas. “What about the door?”

“We'll open the door! We'll open the door!” shouted Masklin.

“How?”

“Well, it didn't look very thick, did it?”

The world of nomes is, to humans, a rapid world. They live so fast that the things that happen around them seem quite slow, so the truck seemed to drift across the floor, drive up the ramp, and hit the door in a leisurely way. There was a long-drawn-out boom and the noise of bits of metal being torn apart, a scraping noise across the roof of the cab, and then there was no door at all, only darkness studded with lights.

“Left! Go left!” Angalo screamed.

The truck skidded around slowly, bounced lazily off a wall, and rolled a little way down the street.

“Keep going! Keep going! Now straighten up!”

A bright light shone briefly on the wall outside the cab.

And then, behind them, a sound like
whoomph
.

I. Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, All is now Finished;

II. All Curtains, Carpeting, Bedding, Lingerie, Toys, Millinery, Haberdashery, Ironmongery, Electrical;

III. All walls, floors, ceilings, lifts, moving stairs;

IV. Everything Must Go
.

From
The Book of Nome, Exits Chap. 3, v. I–IV

L
ATER ON, WHEN
the next chapters of
The Book of Nome
came to be written, they said the end of the Store started with a bang. This wasn't true but was put in because “bang” sounded more impressive. In fact, the ball of yellow and orange fire that rolled out of the garage, carrying the remains of the door with it, just made a noise like a giant dog gently clearing its throat.

Whoomph
.

The nomes weren't in a position to take much notice of it at the time. They were more concerned with the noise made by other things nearly hitting them.

Masklin had been prepared for other vehicles on the road.
The High Way Code
had a lot to say about it. It was important not to drive into them. What was worrying him was the way they seemed determined to run into the truck. They emitted long blaring noises, like sick cows.

“Left a bit!” Angalo shouted. “Then right just a smidgen, then go straight!”

“Smidgen?” said the signaler slowly. “I don't think I know a code for smidgen. Could we—”

“Slow! Now left a bit! We've got to get on the right side of the road!”

Grimma peered over the top of
The High Way Code
.

“We
are
on the right side,” she said.

“Yes, but the right side should be the left side!”

Masklin jabbed at the page in front of them. “It says here we've got to show cons—consy—”

“Consideration,” murmured Grimma.

“—consideration for other road users,” he said. A jolt threw him forward. “What was that?” he said.

“Us going onto the sidewalk! Right!
Right!
”

Masklin caught a brief glimpse of a brightly lit shop window before the truck hit it sideways on and bounced back onto the road in a shower of glass.

“Now left, now left, now right, right! Straight! Left, I said
left
!” Angalo peered at the bewildering pattern of lights and shapes in front of them.

“There's another road here,” he said. “Left! Give me left! Lots and lots of left! More left than that!”

“There's a sign,” said Masklin helpfully.

“Left!” shrieked Angalo. “Now right. Right! Right!”

“You wanted left,” said the signaler accusingly.

“And now I want right! Lots of right! Duck!”

“We haven't got a signal for—”

This time
whoomph
wouldn't have done. It was definitely
bang
. The truck hit a wall, ground along it in a spray of sparks, rolled into a pile of litter bins, and stopped.

There was silence, except for the hissing sounds and
pink, pink
noises from the engine.

Then Dorcas's voice came up from the darkness, slow and full of menace.

“Would you mind telling us down here,” it said, “what you're doing up there?”

“We'll have to think of a better way of steering,” Angalo called down. “And lights. There should be a switch somewhere for lights.”

Masklin struggled to his feet. The truck appeared to be stuck in a dark, narrow road. There were no lights anywhere.

He helped Gurder stand up and brushed him down. The Stationeri looked bewildered.

“We're there?” he said.

“Not quite,” said Masklin. “We've stopped to, er, sort out a few things. While they're doing that, I think we'd better go back and check that everyone's all right. They must be getting pretty worried. You come too, Grimma.”

They climbed down and left Angalo and Dorcas deep in argument about steering, lights, clear instructions, and the need for a proper supply of all three.

There was a gabble of voices in the back of the truck, mixed with the crying of babies. Quite a few nomes had been bruised by the throwing about, and Granny Morkie was tying a splint to the broken leg of a nome who had been caught by a falling box when they hit the wall.

“Wee bit rougher than the last time,” she commented dryly, tying a knot in the bandage. “Why've we stopped?”

“Just to sort out a few things,” said Masklin, trying to sound more cheerful than he felt. “We'll be moving again soon. Now that everyone knows what to expect.” He gazed down at the dark shadowy length of the truck, and inquisitiveness overcame him.

“While we're waiting, I'm going to take a look outside,” he said.

“What on earth for?” said Grimma.

“Just to, you know, look around,” said Masklin awkwardly. He nudged Gurder. “Want to come?” he said.

“What? Outside? Me?” The Stationeri looked terrified.

“You'll have to sooner or later. Why not now?”

Gurder hesitated for a moment and then shrugged.

“Will we be able to see the Store”—he licked his dry lips—“from the
Outside
?” he said.

“Probably. We haven't really gone very far,” said Masklin, as diplomatically as he could.

A team of nomes helped them over the end of the truck, and they swung down onto what Gurder would almost certainly have called the floor. It was damp, and a fine spray hung in the air. Masklin breathed deeply. This was outside, all right. Real air, with a slight chill to it. It smelled fresh, not as though it had been breathed by thousands of nomes before him.

“The sprinklers have come on,” said Gurder.

“The what?”

“The sprinklers,” said Gurder. “They're in the ceiling, you know, in case of f . . .” He stopped and looked up. “Oh, my,” he said.

“I think you mean the rain,” said Masklin.

“Oh, my.”

“It's just water coming out of the sky,” said Masklin. He felt something more was expected of him. “It's wet,” he added, “and you can drink it. Rain. You don't have to have pointy heads. It just rolls off anyway.”

“Oh, my.”

“Are you all right?”

Gurder was trembling. “There's no roof!” he moaned. “And it's so big!”

Masklin patted him on the shoulder.

“Of course, all this is new to you,” he said. “You mustn't worry if you don't understand everything.”

“You're secretly laughing at me, aren't you?” said Gurder.

“Not really. I know what it's like to feel frightened.”

Gurder pulled himself together. “Frightened? Me? Don't be foolish. I'm quite all right,” he said. “Just a little, er, surprised. I, er, wasn't expecting it to be quite so, quite so, quite so
Outside
. Now I've had time to come to terms with it, I feel much better. Well, well. So this is what it's like”—he turned the word around his tongue, like a new candy—“Outside. So, er, big. Is this all of it, or is there any more?”

“Lots,” said Masklin. “Where we lived, there was nothing but outside from one edge of the world to the other.”

“Oh,” said Gurder weakly. “Well, I think this will be enough Outside for now. Very good.”

Masklin turned and looked up at the truck. It was almost wedged into an alleyway littered with rubbish. There was a large dent in the end of it.

The opening at the far end of the alley was bright with streetlights in the drizzle. As he watched, a vehicle swished by with a blue light flashing. It was singing. He couldn't think of any other word to describe it.

“How odd,” said Gurder.

“It used to happen sometimes at home,” said Masklin. It was secretly rather pleasing, after all this time, to be the one who knew things. “You'd hear ones go along the highway like that. Dee-dah dee-dah DEE-DAH DEE-DAH dee-dah. I think it's just to get people to get out of the way.”

They crept along the gutter and craned to look over the pavement at the corner, just as another bawling car hurtled past.

“Oh, Bargains Galore!” said Gurder, and put his hands over his mouth.

The Store was on fire.

Flames fluttered at some of the upper windows like curtains in a breeze. A pall of smoke rose gently from the roof and made a darker column against the rainy sky.

The Store was having its last sale. It was holding a Grand Final Clearance of specially selected sparks, and flames to suit every pocket.

Humans bustled around in the street below it. There were a couple of trucks with ladders on them. It looked as though they were spraying water into the building.

Masklin looked sidelong at Gurder, wondering what the nome was going to do. In fact he took it a lot better than Masklin would have believed, but when he spoke, it was in a wound-up way, as if he were trying to keep his voice level.

“It's . . . it's not how I imagined it,” he croaked.

“No,” said Masklin.

“We . . . we got out just in time.”

“Yes.”

Gurder coughed. It was as if he'd just had a long debate with himself and had reached a decision. “Thanks to Arnold Bros (est. 1905),” he said firmly.

“Pardon?”

Gurder stared at Masklin's face. “If he hadn't called you to the Store, we'd all still be in there,” he said, sounding more confident with every word.

“But—” Masklin paused. That didn't make any sense. If they hadn't left, there wouldn't have been a fire. Would there? Hard to be sure. Maybe some fire had got out of a fire bucket. Best not to argue. There were some things people weren't happy to argue about, he thought. It was all very puzzling.

“Funny he's letting the Store burn,” he said.

“He needn't,” said Gurder. “There's the sprinklers, and there's these special things, to make the fire go out. Fire Exits, they're called. But he let the Store burn because we don't need it anymore.”

There was a crash as the entire top floor fell in on itself.

“There goes Consumer Accounts,” said Masklin. “I hope all the humans got out.”

“Who?”

“You know. We saw their names on the doors. Salaries. Accounts. Personnel. General Manager,” said Masklin.

“I'm sure Arnold Bros (est. 1905) made arrangements,” said Gurder.

Masklin shrugged. And then he saw, outlined against the firelight, the figure of Prices Slashed. There was no mistaking that hat. He was even holding his flashlight, and he was deep in conversation with some other humans. When he half turned, Masklin saw his face. He looked very angry.