Truckers (4 page)

“Wow!” The nome got a grip on himself and extended a shaking hand. “My name's Angalo,” he said. “Angalo de Haberdasheri. Haha. Of course, that won't mean anything to you! And this is Bobo.”

The rat appeared to grin. Masklin had never heard a rat called anything, except perhaps, if you were driven to it, “dinner.”

“I'm Masklin,” he said. “Is it all right if the rest of us come down? It was a long journey.”

“Gosh, yes! All from Outside? My father'll never believe it!”

“I'm sorry,” said Masklin. “I don't understand. What's so special? We were outside. Now we're inside.”

Angalo ignored him. He was staring at the others as they came stiffly down the line, grumbling.

“Old people, too!” said Angalo. “And they look just like us! Not even pointy heads or anything!”

“Saucy!” said Granny Morkie. Angalo stopped grinning.

“Madam,” he said icily, “do you know who you're talking to?”

“Someone who's not too old for a smacked bottom,” said Granny Morkie. “If I looked just like you, my lad, I'd look a great deal better. Pointy heads, indeed!”

Angalo's mouth opened and shut silently. Then he said: “It's amazing! I mean, Dorcas said that even if there was a possibility of life outside the Store, it wouldn't be life as we know it! Please, please, all follow me.”

They exchanged glances as Angalo scurried away toward the edge of the truck nest, but followed him anyway. There wasn't much of an alternative.

“I remember when your old dad stayed out too long in the sun one day. He talked rubbish, too, just like this one,” said Granny Morkie quietly.

Torrit appeared to be reaching a conclusion. They waited for it politely.

“I reckon,” he said at last, “I reckon we ought to eat his rat.”

“You shut up, you,” said Granny, automatically.

“I'm leader, I am. You've got no right, talking like that to a leader,” Torrit whined.

“O' course you're leader,” snapped Granny Morkie. “Who said you weren't leader? I never said you weren't leader. You're leader.”

“Right,” sniffed Torrit.

“And now shut up,” said Granny.

Masklin tapped Angalo on the shoulder. “Where
is
this place?” he said.

Angalo stopped by the wall, which towered up into the distance.

“You don't know?” he said.

“We just thought, well, we just
hoped
that the trucks went to—to a good place to be,” said Grimma.

“Well, you heard right,” said Angalo proudly. “This is the best place to be. This is the Store!”

XIII. And in the Store there was neither Night nor Day, only Opening Time and Closing Time. Rain fell not
, neither
was there Snow
.

XIV. And the nomes grew fat and multiplied as the years passed, and spent their time in Rivalry and Small War, Department unto Department, and forgot all they knew of the Outside
.

XV. For they said, Is it not so, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) has put
All Things
Under One Roof?

XVI. And those who said, Perhaps Not All Things, were cruelly laughed at, and prodded
.

XVII. And other nomes said, Even if there were an Outside, What can it hold that we would need? For here we have the power of the Electric, the Food Hall, and All manner of Diversions
.

XVIII. And thus the Seasons fell thicker than the cushions that are in Soft Furnishings (3rd Floor)
.

XIX. Until a Stranger came from afar, crying out in a loud voice, and he cried, Woe, woe
.

From
The Book of Nome, First Floor v. XIII–XIX

T
HEY TRIPPED OVER
one another, they walked with their heads turned upward and their mouths open, they gawked. Angalo had stopped by a hole in the wall and waved them through hurriedly.

“In here,” he said.

Granny Morkie sniffed.

“That's a rat hole,” she said. “You're not asking me to go down a rat hole?” She turned to Torrit. “He's asking me to go down a rat hole! I'm not going down a rat hole!”

“Why not?” said Angalo.

“It's a rat hole!”

“That's just what it looks like,” said Angalo. “It's a disguised entrance, that's all.”

“Your rat just went through it,” said Granny Morkie triumphantly. “I've got eyes. It's a rat hole.”

Angalo gave Grimma a pleading look and ducked through the hole. She poked her head through after him.

“I don't
think
it's a rat hole, Granny,” she said, in a slightly muffled voice.

“And why is that, pray?”

“Because there's stairs inside. Oh, and dear little lights.”

It was a long climb. They had to stop and wait several times for the old ones to catch up, and Torrit had to be helped most of the way. At the top, the stairs went through a more dignified sort of door into—

Even when he was young, Masklin had never seen more than forty nomes all together at once.

There were more than that here. And there was food. It didn't look like anything he recognized, but it had to be food. After all, people were eating it.

A space about twice as high as he was stretched away into the distance. Food was stacked in neat piles with aisles between them, and these were thronged with nomes. No one paid much attention to the little group as it shuffled obediently behind Angalo, who had got some of his old swagger back.

Several nomes had sleek rats on leashes. Some of the ladies had mice, which trotted obediently behind them, and out of the corner of his ear Masklin could hear Granny Morkie tut-tutting her disapproval.

He also heard old Torrit say excitedly, “I know that stuff! That's cheese! There was a cheese sandwich in the bin once, back in the summer of ninety-seven, d'you remember—?” Granny Morkie nudged him hard in his skinny ribs.

“You shut up, you,” she commanded. “You don't want to show us up in front of all these folk, do you? Be a leader. Act proud.”

They weren't very good at it. They walked in stunned silence. Fruits and vegetables were stacked behind trestle tables, with nomes working industriously on them. There were other things, too, which he couldn't begin to recognize. Masklin didn't want to show his ignorance, but curiosity got the better of him.

“What's that thing over there?” he asked, pointing.

“It's a salami sausage,” said Angalo. “Ever had it before?”

“Not lately,” said Masklin truthfully.

“And they're dates,” said Angalo. “And that's a banana. I expect you've never seen a banana before, have you?”

Masklin opened his mouth, but Granny Morkie beat him to it.

“Bit small, that one,” she said, and sniffed. “Quite tiny, in fact, compared to the ones we got at home.”

“It is, is it?” said Angalo, suspiciously.

“Oh, yes,” said Granny, beginning to warm to her subject. “Very puny. Why, the ones we got at home”— she paused and looked at the banana, lying on a couple of trestles like a canoe, and her lips moved as she thought fast—“why,” she added triumphantly, “we could hardly dig them out o' the ground!”

She stared victoriously at Angalo, who tried to outstare her and gave up.

“Well, whatever,” he said vaguely, looking away. “You may all help yourselves. Tell the nomes in charge that it's to go on the Haberdasheri account, will you? But don't say you've come from Outside. I want that to be a surprise.”

There was a general rush in the direction of the food. Even Granny Morkie just happened to wander toward it, and acted quite surprised to find her way blocked by a cake.

Only Masklin stayed where he was, despite the urgent complaints from his stomach. He wasn't sure he even began to understand how things worked in the Store, but he had an obscure feeling that if you didn't face them with dignity, you could end up doing things you weren't entirely happy about.

“You're not hungry?” said Angalo.

“I'm hungry,” admitted Masklin. “I'm just not eating. Where does all the food
come
from?”

“Oh, we take it from the humans,” said Angalo airily. “They're rather stupid, you know.”

“And they don't mind?”

“They think it's rats,” sniggered Angalo. “We take up rat doodahs with us. At least, the Food Hall families do,” he corrected himself. “Sometimes they let other people go up with them. Then the humans just think it's rats.”

Masklin's brow wrinkled.

“Doodahs?” he said.

“You know,” said Angalo. “Droppings.”

Masklin nodded. “They fall for that, do they?” he said doubtfully.

“They're very stupid, I told you.” The boy walked around Masklin. “You must come and see my father,” he said. “Of course, it's a foregone conclusion that you'll join the Haberdasheri.”

Masklin looked at the tribe. They had spread out among the food stalls. Torrit had a lump of cheese as big as his head, Granny Morkie was investigating a banana as if it might explode, and even Grimma wasn't paying him any attention.

Masklin felt lost. What he was good at, he knew, was tracking a rat across several fields, bringing it down with a single spear throw, and dragging it home. He'd felt really good about that. People had said things like “Well done.”

He had a feeling that you didn't have to track a banana.

“Your father?” he said.

“The Duke de Haberdasheri,” said Angalo proudly. “Defender of the Mezzanine and Autocrat of the Staff Canteen.”

“He's three people?” said Masklin, puzzled.

“Those are his titles. Some of them. He's nearly the most powerful nome in the Store. Do you have things like fathers Outside?”

Funny thing, Masklin thought. He's a rude little twerp except when he talks about the Outside; then he's like an eager little boy.

“I had one once,” he said. He didn't want to dwell on the subject.

“I bet you had lots of adventures!”

Masklin thought about some of the things that had happened to him—or, more accurately, had
nearly
happened to him—recently.

“Yes,” he said.

“I bet it was tremendous fun!”

Fun, Masklin thought. It wasn't a familiar word. Perhaps it referred to running through muddy ditches with hungry teeth chasing you. “Do you hunt?” he asked.

“Rats, sometimes. In the boiler-room. Of course, we have to keep them down.” He scratched Bobo behind an ear.

“Do you eat them?”

Angalo looked horrified. “Eat
rat
?”

Masklin stared around at the piles of food. “No, I suppose not,” he said. “You know, I never realized there were so many nomes in the world. How many live here?”

Angalo told him.

“Two what?” said Masklin.

Angalo repeated it.

“You don't look very impressed,” he said, when Masklin's expression didn't change.

Masklin looked hard at the end of his spear. It was a piece of flint he'd found in a field one day, and he'd spent ages teasing a bit of twine out of the hay bale in order to tie it onto a stick. Right now it seemed about the one familiar thing in a bewildering world.

“I don't know,” he said. “What
is
a thousand?”

Duke Cido de Haberdasheri, who was also Lord Protector of the Up Escalator, Defender of the Mezzanine, and Knight of the Counter, turned the Thing over in his hands, very slowly. Then he tossed it aside.

“Very amusing,” he said.

The nomes stood in a confused group in the Duke's palace, which was currently under the floorboards in the Soft Furnishings Department. The Duke was still in armor, and not very amused.