Muddle and Win Page 11

  ‘All the time. I still am a bit, aren’t I?’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Greg, again diplomatically.

  ‘Sally’s got to learn that the world’s not perfect. It’s never going to be. She can’t expect it to be . . .’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘She gets that from her father.’

  Greg nodded wisely.

  ‘Damn him,’ said Mum.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘He was a sock fascist.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying “mmm”.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  *

  Ismael looked up to call for his card. But for once Scattletail was not watching him.

  He was looking away at the twin windows on the world. At the lights of the kitchen, where the Outer Billie worked, humming, on her dough. He was looking at the shadows beyond the light.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Ismael.

  ‘Felt something,’ said Scattletail.

  Ismael waited. Scattletail just sat there. He sat very, very still.

  ‘Twist,’ said Ismael eventually.

  Scattletail glanced down at the pack. He seemed to have forgotten all about it. He flipped a card to Ismael and went back to watching the shadows.

  The card was the three of hearts. With his six and eight, that made seventeen. ‘Stick,’ said Ismael.

  Scattletail glanced at the pack again. He turned three cards in quick succession, barely looking at them. ‘Bank’s bust,’ he said. ‘C’mon. Let’s go for a walk.’

  Ismael blinked at the fallen cards. Scattletail should never have turned that last one. He had made nineteen without it. ‘Why did you do that?’ he demanded.

  ‘Dunno. Must’ve been thinking ’bout something else. You coming?’

  ‘Hey! I won. It’s my shout, right?’

  Scattletail glanced at Billie, who had her back to them. He shrugged. ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

  ‘Hey, Bills,’ said Ismael. ‘What say we make an extra one for Sally in the morning? Kind of a peace offering?’

  ‘Awww!’ moaned Billie.

  ‘Just to watch her face when she sees it,’ Ismael wheedled. ‘Guess her jaw will drop a mile, right?’

  ‘Guess it’ll come off its hinges,’ said Billie.

  Scattletail was waiting at the door. ‘Nice one,’ he said. ‘You ready?’

  ‘Sure. Where are we going?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Out? What for?’

  ‘Just for a walk. Oh – you still got that fiddle o’ yours?’

  Ismael blinked again. His ‘fiddle’ – his Celestial Gladivarius violin with its bow of finest spider’s silk – was propped in the back of the cupboard in his room and buried under thirteen years’ worth of copy reports. He hadn’t taken it out since the very early days.

  ‘Yeah. Think so. Why?’

  Scattletail breathed a gout of yellow smoke. ‘Do a spot of busking, maybe. You never know.’

  Busking? thought Ismael.

  Outside?

  Outside was the human world. Humans didn’t hear angelic music – not like that. Not without serious and highly dubious forms of stimulation. There’d be no one out there to listen except angels, demons and the cat. And none of them would be paying. Not to hear Scattletail sing, at any rate.

  They might pay him to stop.

  ‘Muddlespot.’

  Muddlespot started. It can’t be, he thought.

  Here?

  Soft-footed, he hurried down a passage in Sally’s mind. He looked around.

  Nothing.

  ‘Muddlespot,’ came the voice again.

  It sounded like . . . With an ugly feeling, Muddlespot followed it. He didn’t want to have to talk to Corozin again – largely because he had already given all the good news he had to give, and there were one or two things about the way things were here (Windleberry, for example) that were not such good news and that he didn’t want to have to explain about.

  One or two things. By the time he reached the end of the corridor he had counted about eighteen. And as for excuses, he was stuck on three.

  ‘Muddlespot.’

  Panting, he passed under an arch into a six-sided chamber. In the middle of the chamber was a crystal statue with its arm pointing. There was no one else.

  ‘Er . . . did you speak?’ said Muddlespot, feeling foolish.

  ‘Nope,’ said a voice behind him. ‘That was us.’

  Two huge green leathery claws landed on his shoulders. He felt himself being plucked up off his feet. He looked into the grinning faces of Corozin’s two guards.

  ‘Sur-prise!’

  ‘Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!’ said Muddlespot.

  ‘Pleased to see us?’ leered one.

  ‘Poor Muddlespot!’ said the other. ‘Up here in the big world, and all on his own.’

  ‘Er . . . are you staying long?’ asked Muddlespot, trembling with shock.

  ‘Oh no, Muddlespot! Just accompanying the boss on his rounds.’

  ‘I see,’ said Muddlespot, who for some reason was trembling even more.

  ‘Oh yes. He’s got something for you. Something good.’

  ‘Er . . . good?’

  The guards’ eyes gleamed.

  ‘A reward, Muddlespot. For being such a special agent.’

  ‘Come this way.’

  Still gripping him firmly by the elbows, they steered him across the chamber towards the outer passage.

  ‘But – but my post! I can’t leave my post!’

  His legs were no longer dangling. They were bicycling. Unfortunately they were still in the air.

  ‘Oh don’t worry, Muddlespot!’ said one cheerfully.

  ‘The boss will take care of it,’ grinned the other. ‘The boss will take care of everything.’

  *

  Windleberry tried again.

  ‘Sally, look,’ he said. ‘What’s happened? Three grown-ups who don’t know everything that happened have shouted at you. That’s all, isn’t it? Why does it matter so much?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ said Sally.

  In the outer world, she was sitting on her bed with her arms tightly folded. She had switched her light off and got into her pyjamas. She wasn’t going to sleep. In fact, she didn’t think she would sleep at all. But she didn’t want anyone coming in. Not even to say good night.

  ‘I can’t put a foot wrong,’ she said. ‘I’m not allowed to.’

  ‘Sally . . .’

  She folded her arms even more tightly. A series of shapes and ideas danced through the room. Windleberry watched them grimly. Some of them were rimmed with fire.

  ‘You can send them away,’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘All right.’

  They left.

  But they didn’t go far. All down the corridors of Sally’s mind there was a low murmuring. Windleberry could feel it, like something crawling on his skin. In their separate rooms the ideas were pacing, muttering to themselves like prisoners before a riot. They knew something was up. Some of them were frightened. Some were fierce. It sounded as though a fight was starting down in the History cells.

  And there was a peculiar colour to the air. Orange or orange-red, like a fiery sunset – or maybe just a fire. It was almost as if he were watching Sally through tinted glass, except that it was misty rather than glassy. Red mist. Windleberry had heard of it. He had not seen it from the inside before.

  ‘Sally,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t really you the grown-ups were stressed about. You weren’t the main trouble in that classroom. That was the boys. And you aren’t the top worry on your mum’s mind . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Sally grimly.

  ‘But maybe I should be,’ she added.

  ‘What . . .?’

  ‘I said, maybe I should be. Maybe she should worry about me more than she does.’

  ‘Sally!’

  She looked up at him. He looked into her eyes.

  There was something wrong. Something inside the Inner Sally. There were two pairs of eyes, lo
oking at him from her face. Sally’s, and . . .

  A horrible, cold prickling feeling stole over Windleberry’s skin. His jaw clenched.

  ‘Come out,’ he said.

  It was as if he had a moment of double vision. First there was just Sally. And then a shape that was almost Sally’s shape separated from her – a head, a pair of shoulders, a body lounging easily just to the left of where Sally sat bolt upright with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

  It was a man – a very beautiful man. He wore a woolly jumper, a scarf, jeans and branded trainers. He might have been lounging on the back page of a fashion magazine.

  Except for his eyes.

  ‘Get away from her,’ said Windleberry softly.

  Still smiling, the man rose. He strolled away to where the statue of Wizdum slouched over its electric guitar. He smiled. Then he breathed on it.

  Very slowly, the statue drooped, as if it were made of melted ice cream. Its robe dribbled down into a shapeless mass around its waist and knees. The face crumpled from young smooth skin into a hideous, sagging drool.

  The Enemy looked at it, critically. ‘Just speeding things up,’ he said.

  How did he do it? thought Windleberry. How did he get in here – get this close, without me knowing?

  This wasn’t any of the ordinary scum. He knew that. He could feel it.

  This was someone Big. Ancient.

  Evil.

  Windleberry sprang between Sally and the Enemy, arms up, knees flexed, body balanced to spring forward or back. The Enemy looked at him. His smile broadened, a little.

  ‘Oh, my hero,’ it said.

  ‘I can take you, fiend.’

  ‘No weapons? Not even a tin whistle, I think. Shame.’

  ‘With my eyes and with my hands,’ said Windleberry. ‘One on one.’

  ‘Ah, but you see . . .’

  ‘ . . . I’m not alone,’ Corozin finished, as Windleberry crumpled to the floor.

  Sally stood over him, with a little brass hammer in her hand.

  ‘THAT WAS COOL,’ said the man.

  ‘I had to hit something,’ said Sally. ‘He was just nearest.’

  ‘Remind me not to turn my back on you.’

  ‘Don’t. I’m in a mean mood.’ She looked at the hammer in her hand. ‘Is this yours?’

  ‘I’ve several. What’s mine is yours, etcetera. But next time, try giving it a bit more welly. You’d be surprised what that thing can do when you really let yourself go.’

  He looked around the crystal chamber. He studied the long, transparent corridors, the colours pulsing delicately in the walls. ‘Nice place. Well looked after.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Ah.’ He had seen the little door. ‘Very convenient. Normally you have to go hunting about among all the lumber.’

  ‘There’s no lumber here.’

  ‘No?’ He opened the low door. Beyond it was the little room with the trap door. Neatly wound around the catch was the bright little wire of Swiftness, connecting the batteries of Virtue to the primer of Decision and the tubes of Pure Distilled Truth.

  ‘Did you want that lot there?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Sally, studying it. ‘What’s it for?’

  ‘It’s just a little check on your freedom. Entirely well-meant, of course.’

  ‘Get rid of it,’ said Sally.

  Deftly he plucked the batteries of Virtue from the circuit. He opened the hatch. Nothing happened. Windleberry’s device lay dead on the floor at his feet. Carefully he picked up the glistening amber tubes, with the wire and the rest of it dangling from them. Still nothing happened. He too knew about Truth and how to use it (in his case, very sparingly). He dropped them down the hatch.

  Sally came and stood over the void. She looked down into it. She waited.

  No sound came.

  ‘We could drop the stiff down there too. Stop him being a pain, if you like.’

  Sally looked into the void. She heard whispers, and felt a gentle updraught of warm air. She shook her head. ‘He’s part of me. Same as you.’

  ‘He’s not going to be pleased when he comes round . . .’

  ‘We’ll tie him up. I’ve got my old bonds somewhere. We can use those.’

  He shrugged. ‘You’re the boss,’ he said.

  She studied him curiously. ‘Where’s the other one? The little bloke?’

  ‘Muddlespot?’ Corozin smiled. He shook his head gently. ‘He’s gone out. He’ll be . . . Maybe he’ll be a little while.’

  ‘Er, this reward,’ said Muddlespot, a little nervously. ‘Is it, um, a full-sized set of horns?’

  They were making their way along the broad ridge that was Sally’s shoulder, one guard ahead, one behind.

  ‘Nope,’ said the guard ahead. ‘Guess again.’

  ‘Is it demotion?’

  (In Pandemonium, demotion – implying a movement downwards – is very much preferred to the alternative.)

  ‘Ah,’ said the guard. ‘Ah, yes. Sort of.’

  ‘But you have to guess what kind of demotion,’ said the other one. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Here we are,’ said the first, as Sally’s shoulder sloped sharply downwards before his feet. ‘Jump.’

  They grabbed Muddlespot by both elbows and launched themselves into the air.

  Quite a long time later, they landed on Sally’s bedside table. Muddlespot, who had shut his eyes, went flat on his face. ‘Ow,’ he said.

  ‘Quick. Let’s not hang about,’ said a guard. They hauled Muddlespot to his feet and scuttled for the shelter of the lamp stand.

  ‘This’ll do,’ said one, looking around.

  ‘Right, Muddlespot. You stand there. Shut your eyes. When I count to three, you open them. Right?’

  ‘Er, right,’ said Muddlespot, covering his eyes. ‘Do I get another guess?’

  ‘Last guess, Muddlespot. And no peeking.’

  ‘One!’

  ‘By the grace of His Majesty, the Prince of all Pandemonium, the Son of the Morning, the Lord of the Low, etcetera, we his servants—’

  ‘Is it the key to my own palace?’ said Muddlespot.

  ‘Is it the key to his palace? That’s close, Muddlespot. That’s very close. Two!’

  ‘ . . . Hereby bestow thee, Muddlespot, Wartspawn, Slugtrail, Agent a Little Bit Worthy—’

  ‘Three!’

  ‘ . . . With thy duly merited reward. Look up, Muddlespot!’

  Muddlespot looked up. Over him hovered a huge brass hammer. It filled the sky.

  They held it poised over his head.

  ‘Good night, Muddlespot!’

  Grinning . . .

  The hammer coming down . . .

  It seemed to move so slowly. So slowly. And Muddlespot could not move at all. He could not think.

  He shut his eyes.

  He opened his eyes.

  The hammer was lying before him. Flat on its side, it came about up to his waist. Not that he had a waist, but he had an upper part of his body which got bigger as it went down, and then a lower part of his body that got smaller as it went down, and then he had his legs. What’s more, all of it was still attached to him.

  Smattered and scattered in a wide circle around the hammer were the remains of the two guards. They had been torn to pieces: shot full of holes. The holes were shaped like little musical notes.

  ‘Thanks, Ismael,’ said Scattletail, who was lounging by the lamp stand. Beside him, clutching a smoking violin, was an angel. ‘Nice shooting. We owe you one.’

  ‘OK,’ said the angel. ‘So: Billie does the washing up – without being asked?’

  Scattletail seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he said, ‘Sure. Go ahead. Me an’ the kid here’re gonna have a chat.’

  ‘Take your time,’ said the angel. ‘Don’t hurry back.’ He jumped off the table and disappeared.

  ‘But . . . but . . .’ said Muddlespot dazedly.

  ‘Take it easy.’

  ‘You’re with them? The Other Side?�
��

  ‘Nope.’

  Muddlespot stared at the remains of the fallen guards. ‘They were going to smash me,’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But I was doing what I was supposed to!’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And you got that . . .’

  ‘Fluffy?’

  ‘He . . .’

  ‘He did me a favour. We’ve known each other a while, kid. It gets like that. C’mon. Let’s walk.’

  He led the way to the edge of the table and slid down the lamp flex. Muddlespot followed. He caught up with Scattletail on the carpet.

  ‘But – the War!’ he said desperately.

  ‘No compromise, huh? No meeting place?’

  ‘It’s . . . not allowed,’ said Muddlespot. He felt quite weak.

  Scattletail ambled on ahead of him, hands in his pockets. The spaces of Sally’s room were huge around him. ‘Ever look at a human war, kid? No? Very instructive. Ve-ry instructive. You get two sides going at each other. Just like us. It’s ’bout places, mostly. Most human wars’re ’bout places. And both sides’re told it’s a fight to the finish. No meeting place, etcetera. That’s what they say . . .

  ‘But what they do’s a bit different. OK, they think. You want that place real bad. We won’t fight you for it. Not yet. You keep that place, right. We’ll keep this one. Let’s not make too much trouble. Too many of us might get hurt. Most of the time it’s like that. Sometimes they even kick a football around. Sometimes a boss on one side says to a boss on the other, “Hey, pal. I sent some guys over to your side some days back. What happened? They’re all dead? Sure. Only I got to tell the families, see . . .” It happens, kid. Most of the time they’re only fighting just enough to keep the fight going. Mostly they’re leaving each other alone. Trying to keep the holes in their pants down to four.’

  Dazed, Muddlespot struggled to understand. Wars. Places. Humans. Holes. Pants . . .

  Pants with four holes.

  One for each leg, he thought. One for the waist, three . . .

  Oh, most of them would be male. Right.

  So that made four. Got that. So . . .

  ‘But then,’ grunted Scattletail. ‘Then what happens is someone – usually some boss – thinks, OK, you want that place real bad. So we’ll take it. We’ll take it to show you we can. We’ll take it to show you we’re winning. That’ll be good, won’t it? Then you see two sides kicking the stuff out of each other. Bleeding real bad. For what? For a place. A hill. Something that once was a town. Nothing that’ll be worth what it’s costing them by the time they’ve finished. Just a place. Or in our case, it might be a kid.’