Muddle and Win Page 8

  But yes, he had read the reports on Billie. There was quite a file on Billie.

  ‘Billie’s a good kid,’ said Ismael fiercely. ‘That’s what you guys don’t get. You say, “Why can’t she be like Sally?” She can’t be like Sally because of Sally. Sally’s always there, always better than her at everything. Better marked. Better liked. Just better. All the time. How do you think she’s going to take that?’

  ‘There’s no excusing—’

  ‘No? OK. So Sally gets to be better at everything. But why is it Sally who gets to have 20:20 vision, and Billie who has to wear glasses? Why is it that Sally can eat what she likes and Billie comes out in spots? That’s just not fair!’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be fair. You know that.’

  ‘Yay, verily! So I tell Billie it’s better she comes second to Sally in everything and all she has to do is not mind about it. How far’s that going to get me? You know what? When I saw Sally throw that fit of hers this evening, and all that posse she had looking after her flapped off to have their wrists slapped, you know what I did? I cheered. I absolutely rocked it in here. Just for a moment I wasn’t playing uphill. No hard feelings, Winifred, but my bedtime prayer tonight is that you won’t get too far too quickly.’

  ‘You misunderstand the mission,’ said Windleberry coldly. ‘It is not a choice between one and the other. There can be no compromise. No meeting place—’

  He broke off. He sniffed the air again. ‘You smoke?’

  ‘Officially, it’s frankincense,’ said Ismael, tipping his chair. ‘Unofficially, I smoke, swig, snort and chew anything I can get my hands on just to keep my nerves steady and my eyes on what she’s doing. Don’t give me a lecture, freshie. Wait till you’ve been down here a while and we’ll see how you do. Right now you stink of soap, yay verily.’

  Windleberry leaned across the desk. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he breathed. ‘Maybe they don’t read your reports upstairs. But they read mine. I’ll be filing one about this meeting, as it happens. What would it not be good for me to write?’

  Ismael untipped his chair. He too leaned forward. ‘Ugly talk, Winifred.’

  ‘It’s “Windleberry”. But you don’t need to remember that. Because it won’t be me you’ll be answering to if you don’t bring Billie round. You know that posse of Sally’s that flapped off? They didn’t just get their wrists slapped. They were sent up to be . . . Forgiven.’

  There was a short, thick silence. Angels are perfect in every way. So the very worst thing you can do to one is to find something to forgive it for.

  ‘Sure,’ said Ismael at last. ‘I’ll work on Billie.’

  ‘Better get started, then,’ said Windleberry coldly.

  ‘Billie will get home,’ said Ismael. ‘But not for your sake, Wimple. Or Sally’s. She’ll get there because in the end she’ll want to.’

  ‘You need to be right about that.’

  ‘It’s no business of yours if I am or I’m not. And I kinda hope you’re about to get out of here. You’re making my feng shui come out in spots.’

  Windleberry looked at Ismael. His mouth was a short straight line.

  Ismael looked back. So was his.

  Windleberry put a hand to his Ray-Bans of translucent ebony.

  There’s a reason why angels wear dark glasses most of the time. It is because of the light in their eyes, which is the pure fire of Heaven. For an angel to touch his glasses is like a gunslinger stroking the butt of his Colt .45 in a crowded saloon.

  Ismael put his hand to his glasses too. As if to say – yeah, he could probably manage a couple of sparks himself.

  Windleberry straightened. He strode majestically from the room. His measured steps went clop, clop, clop, fading down the passages of Billie’s mind. Ismael stayed motionless, watching the door.

  After a moment the cupboard coughed. A small gout of yellow smoke exuded from the keyhole. A voice said, ‘Izzie gone?’

  ‘Yeah. You can come out now.’

  The cupboard door opened. Out sidled Scattletail, shiftily, like a word dropping from his own mouth. The smell of smoke was suddenly stronger, and it had a sulphurous flavour.

  ‘Thought he’d sniffed you out there,’ said Ismael.

  There were more thumps from the cupboard. Out came the inner self of Billie. She was wearing her pyjamas, which these days were more brown than pink and too small for her. She was not, of course, where she should have been at this time, which was in bed.

  ‘What a stiff!’ grumbled Scattletail. ‘“You misunderstand the mission.” Would yer b’lieve it! Where did you get him from?’

  ‘I was like that once – I think.’

  ‘Want me to wise him up?’

  ‘Let him find out for himself. Where were we?’

  ‘It was my deal,’ said Billie.

  The chairs were drawn up. A much-handled pack of cards appeared from a desk drawer. Flick, flick, flick they went across the paper-scattered desk.

  A little while later, Scattletail said ‘Three jacks.’

  ‘Dang!’ said Ismael.

  ‘So Billie skips the washing-up again.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Billie.

  ‘Not yet she doesn’t. Deal.’

  Flick, flick, flick went the cards.

  A little while later, Ismael said ‘Dang!’ again.

  ‘You need to smarten up your play, buddy.’

  ‘At least I’ve got you where I can see you,’ growled Ismael. ‘Deal.’

  *

  The path of Truth is narrow. It twists in the darkness. It is watched, by eyes that are not kind. It is easy to stray.

  Windleberry crossed the landing of the Jones household like a nightwalker threading his way through bad streets. He went quickly, warily, looking all around him. He did not try to hide. Hiding only meant that the danger came to you.

  The night crawled with noises. Voices called, angrily, drunkenly, from outside. Car tyres swished on wet road. Headlights turned in the windows, sending irregular, square-edged beams like searchlights across the ceiling. In the shadows was a deeper shadow with wide eyes and pointed ears. It was the shape of Shades the cat.

  Windleberry walked on. He did not falter. He knew the Enemy was near.

  The Enemy! He lay in the clothes-strewn jungle of Billie’s room behind him. He waited in the unknown reaches of Sally’s room ahead. He rose humming in the sounds of late-night football that drifted up the stairs from the sitting room, where Greg lay dozing on the sofa and young men slashed each other with studs upon the screen. He watched, from the darkness, as the tiny figure of the angel passed.

  Shades watched too. When Windleberry looked back, he saw that the cat’s head had turned to follow him. Cats see things that others do not.

  He passed through the crack beneath Sally’s door. Sally’s clothes were folded and put away. She was reading in bed. The book in her hands was Paradise Lost. Her bedside light was an anglepoise, directed low over her page. It threw huge shadows over the walls. The black shape of the book. The black shape of Sally. The shadow of the bed posts, the lamp stand, the cupboards and desk and chest of drawers. Sally’s face was bright light and shadow. Cheeks and lips glowed. One eye glinted. The other was in darkness.

  In the slanting light some of the shadows had horns.

  Windleberry stepped forward.

  THE LIGHTS WERE still on in Sally’s mind. They had a subdued yellow glow, like a hotel foyer late at night when the staff are still sitting up for the last few guests who are lost in the fleshpots of town.

  There was even a desk in the first six-sided chamber. With a sign on it, marked RECEPTION. There was a young person sitting behind the desk. Windleberry thought he recognized her.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ he said.

  She gave him a cool smile and a glance over a pair of glasses that – when he looked at them – were obviously not worn to improve her 20:20 eyesight. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re Sally, aren’t you?’

  She leaned forward and tapped
the desk sign: RECEPTION. And then she resumed her pose and her smile. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Uh – checking in, please.’

  ‘Have you got a reservation?’

  ‘You’ll have a room for me somewhere,’ he said firmly.

  (There always is a room somewhere, in every mind. The booking is made before the mind is born.)

  ‘In what name, please?’

  Windleberry drew himself up. ‘The Name Above All Names, miss.’

  ‘Cool.’ She made a note.

  He waited. After a moment he asked, ‘Do I get a key?’

  ‘We keep the keys.’

  ‘I see.’ He waited some more.

  She looked up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where do I find the – uh – manager?’

  She gestured vaguely with her pen. ‘Upstairs somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  She did not answer so he left her. When he looked back, both she and the desk had gone.

  He passed under a high crystal archway. He climbed a flight of broad stairs. Here was another chamber, much like the first, with six sides and an archway in each one. Down long, softly lit galleries, through walls and floors and ceilings of gently tinted crystal, Windleberry saw innumerable successions of archways and pillars and chambers, vastly intricate. Music seemed to be playing somewhere. He listened to it.

  After a moment he decided he didn’t like it. Whoever was playing was overworking the rhythm section.

  In the middle of the chamber rose a half-statue of a man with a full beard, crowned with leaves, arm outstretched, carved out of ice. Over one archway were the words LOOK FOR THE RIGHT. The outstretched arm of the statue pointed to the archway just to the left of that one.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Windleberry.

  But he went the way that he was pointed. It turned a corner, turned corners some more, and then seemed to double back on itself as if it were teasing him. But eventually he came to a court where a fountain was playing. The fountain seemed to be spouting purple ink.

  Windleberry crossed the open space. On the far side was the higher, wider arch with the words IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE.

  Someone had splashed paint over them. And had daubed the word BREAKOUT! all over them in green.

  ‘I see,’ muttered Windleberry.

  In their niches, the statues brooded silently. Their blank eyes looked down on him. You wouldn’t happen to have a scrubbing brush, would you? they seemed to say. And – er – some soap?

  There was another flight of stairs, wide and very long. Windleberry climbed steadily up it. At the top was another arch. Beyond it was another chamber. This was the place.

  The ceiling was set with stars. A pantheon of crystal statues stood in a semicircle around the centre of the room. Opposite, curving round the far wall, were two huge arched windows. They showed only darkness, because Sally had just switched her light out.

  Windleberry looked slowly around the room. Something was wrong . . .

  One of the statues was wearing a beret. It wasn’t that.

  Another had star-shaped sunglasses. It wasn’t that either.

  The statue of Truth was now called TRUFE. She also carried a guitar.

  ‘There’s something at work here,’ muttered Windleberry.

  On the base of the statue of Wisdom were the words WIZDUM ROOLZ OK.

  ‘Sinister . . .’ breathed Windleberry. And close, he thought. He could smell it. But it wasn’t the statues.

  It was the door.

  There it was; a small, low doorway, in that place where all the archways were high and drew the eye upwards. It was in an area of the wall that was heavily tinted, and was itself tinted so that it was fully opaque. From where he stood, Windleberry could see a long way down many corridors of Sally’s crystal mind. He could see out into the world. But he couldn’t see beyond the little door.

  He went still, like a deer that scents a tiger. He listened.

  Nothing.

  He drew a long breath and . . .

  Yes.

  ‘It shouldn’t be this close,’ he muttered.

  Not this close to the centre of her mind.

  Softly he stole to the door. It was open, just a crack. Noiselessly, he went in.

  It was a small chamber, with opaque walls. There was nothing in it. No clutter, no shut-away nightmares, no madness chained and gibbering to the wall. There was just the trap door.

  There were no signs on the trap door. Neither KEEP OUT nor WELCOME. There was no lock on it either. He lifted the trap and looked down.

  Intelligence had talked confidently of fifty fathoms of diamond block. Intelligence was out of date, it seemed. Things had changed in Sally’s mind. The diamond was gone. There were no steps going down. No lift, no ladder, not even a rope. There was only darkness.

  The darkness that led down to Pandemonium.

  He felt it calling to him, whispering from below. You just step over the void and drop, it said. Drop. You won’t be the first, Windleberry. You won’t be the last either. Drop. Now.

  Softly, he closed it again. From his pack he took a short length of the bright wire of Swiftness. He curled it lovingly in his hands, and snapped it into three pieces. He took out two batteries, charged with Virtue. He took out a small sheet of the silver of Prudence. He took out a primer of Decision, placing it carefully down on the floor so that it would not trigger. And then, very gently and carefully, he took out two transparent tubes filled with a liquid the colour of amber. He held his breath.

  Truth comes in many forms and may be used in many ways. But Pure Truth, pure one hundred per cent distilled Truth, is very rare. And it is very, very explosive.

  With rock-steady hands, Windleberry clipped one tube to either side of the primer. He used the short, bright lengths of Swiftness to link the primer to the batteries and the sheet of silver, and teased the sheet and the wire into position so that if anyone tried to lift the trap door from below the sheet would make contact with the wire and the circuit would be complete.

  You couldn’t block the trap door. Not for ever. Windleberry knew that. You could stand over it with a fiery sword and guard it for an eternity, but in Windleberry’s experience that wasn’t very productive either. On the other hand, a couple of tubes of Truth would give anyone coming up from below something to think about. Assuming, that is, that they left that person any head to think with.

  Windleberry tiptoed back into the main chamber. Gently he pushed the door not quite closed – just as it had been when he’d first seen it. He looked at it for a moment. But there was nothing to give his little device away. He let out his breath. He looked around the chamber, at the statues in their hippy guises. He studied the deliberate misspellings. He smiled, tolerantly.

  He happened to be looking in exactly the wrong direction when Muddlespot waddled smugly round from behind the statue of Trufe.

  Muddlespot was looking the wrong way too.

  So neither of them saw each other.

  For about one-sixth of a second.

  ‘Hold it,’ said Sally.

  She had appeared between them. Like lightning, she stuffed a handful of socks down the mouth of the tenor sax and plonked two more pairs of rolled-up socks on the tines of Muddlespot’s trident. And she caught both of them in an armlock. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, you guys,’ she said. ‘If you’re staying, you don’t fight. And no shouting either.’

  Windleberry winced. For a top-flight celestial agent to be given a Chinese burn by a fourteen-year-old was a new experience. Not to say painful and humiliating. But that was how it was when you were an idea in someone’s head. They could do anything they liked to you. They could twist you, shut you up, or take you apart to see what you were made of. The one thing they couldn’t do was stop you coming back.

  Ouch. He hoped the watchtowers were not watching too closely. The tips of Muddlespot’s trident wavered before his eyes. The one un-socked spike still looked very sharp.

  ‘Uh . . . Do you mind . . .?’ he
gasped.

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ Sally jammed another pair of socks onto the trident.

  ‘Where did the socks come from?’ said Muddlespot dazedly. He was rubbing his elbow where Sally had released him.

  ‘I know where my socks are,’ said Sally flatly. ‘And I keep them in pairs. All of them. Not that I wear them much any more. I’ll take these. No weapons. And I choose the music here, mister.’ She frisked them both, removing the sax, the trident, Windleberry’s shoulder-holstered harmonica and a couple of tar bombs that Muddlespot hadn’t even known he still had.

  ‘Now, I’m off to bed . . .’ she said, carting it all off in an armful.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing,’ she added. ‘No one gets to whisper to me after the lights go out. I want to sleep with a clear conscience.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ said Windleberry, also rubbing his elbow and glowering at his rival.

  ‘I said clear, not clean, mister.’

  ‘So what do we do until morning?’ said Muddlespot.

  ‘Take a break,’ said Sally over her shoulder. ‘Like someone said, there’ll be a room for you somewhere. There may even be a bed.’

  Muddlespot looked at Windleberry. Windleberry looked at Muddlespot.

  ‘You can decide between you who gets it,’ said Sally.

  DARLINGTON HIGH IS a school like any other school. It’s a battleground.

  It’s the sort of battleground where there are lots of battles all going on at once. And most of the people in them haven’t a clue who’s winning. But they’re beginning to think it isn’t them.

  There’s the usual battle to keep cigarettes, alcohol and drugs out of the school. It’s fought by nearly everyone, mostly by saying loudly that there definitely isn’t a problem whenever they’re asked if there is.