‘Thank you, Mr Kyte,’ said a woman in the front row. ‘If you don’t mind, would you please shed further light on exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow? Are you going to journey into the Forbidden Land?’
Everyone nodded eagerly.
‘Well, actually I do mind,’ said Kyte testily. ‘I mind because I cannot stand to hear what lies beyond the boundary referred to as the “Forbidden Land”. It is idiotic to suggest that we’ve been “forbidden” from there, by anyone or anything. The land beyond the boundary is there to be discovered, just like everything else. And we will discover it.’
‘But how do you intend to get to the centre of it?’ said the woman. ‘How exactly will you …’
‘That’s a secret,’ Davidus snapped. ‘Next question.’
The room burst into life again. The journalists all jumped to their feet and started leaping around, stretching their hands up as far as they could.
‘You, second row, bad tie,’ said Davidus.
‘Thank you, Mr Kyte,’ said the man, blushing. ‘What exactly is the aim of this new Expedition?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Davidus snapped. ‘You heard me – we’re going to discover what’s at the centre.’
‘Well, what if you do?’ said the journalist. ‘What do you plan to do with it once … or rather, if you’ve succeeded?’
Kyte sighed. ‘There is no “if” here,’ he said tersely. ‘This Expedition combines established understanding of the so-called “Forbidden Land” with the most cutting-edge technology available. We cannot fail.’
‘Well, excuse me for saying so, Mr Kyte,’ said the reporter, ‘but they’ve always said that.’
There was a collective gasp of astonishment, followed by total silence. Alex guessed by the way the journalists trembled that Kyte would be glaring at them.
‘I mean,’ said the man nervously, nervously rifling through a wad of notes in front of him, ‘when the Order first set out to discover the centre, they were certain they would make it. They didn’t. So did the Twenty-fourth Head of Expeditions, when he glued bird wings to his arms and threw himself off an enormous wooden diving board. He didn’t. And when the One Hundred and Sixty-seventh Head of Expeditions used an enormous catapult to fling himself over the trees, and when the Three Hundred and Third Head of Expeditions ordered the building of the great Unfinished Pier to the centre …’
‘Get to the point,’ snapped Davidus.
‘… Well, I guess what I’m saying’, the man continued shakily, ‘is that even on the last Expedition, the great explorer Alex J. Jennings assured us absolute success. What makes your Expedition any different?’
There was a dreadful silence. Someone took a photograph.
Kyte snorted. ‘Well, let me start by saying that I greatly resent having my Expedition compared to that disaster,’ he said. ‘The last Expedition failed for one reason and one reason alone – Alex J. Jennings.’
Under the table, the young Alex’s face burned.
‘His poor decisions – his arrogance – his inability as Head of Expeditions,’ Kyte continued, ‘all doomed his attempt from the word go. You only have to look at the state of him now to see that he was never capable of leading an Expedition in the first place.’
Some of the journalists in the audience sniggered. Their papers had made a lot of money writing about Alex’s father over the last few years. Alex clenched his fists and fought the urge to leap out and beat all of them senseless.
‘In short,’ said Kyte, ‘I don’t plan on making the same mistakes as him. Next questi––’
‘But aren’t you forgetting what Jennings said he saw in there?’ someone interrupted. ‘Surely what he says can’t just be … disregarded?’
This was met by laughter from the audience. Davidus snorted into his microphone.
‘What, about there being “nothing in the centre”?’ he scoffed. ‘Jennings said a lot of things. Let’s not forget he said he was a dog, too.’
The audience burst into laughter. Alex watched them slap each other’s backs, wiping tears from their eyes that weren’t really there, and he trembled with silent rage. Davidus Kyte got to his feet and pushed himself away from the table.
‘The launching ceremony is tomorrow morning at nine,’ said Davidus. ‘No further questions.’
Everyone groaned. Without further ado Kyte’s shoes disappeared from beneath the tablecloth, and the journalists leaped to their feet and flew outside after him, grabbing phones and shouting orders to cameramen. Soon, silence had once again fallen over the room.
Alex lay on the carpet beneath the table, his heart thumping, his eyes brinking with furious tears. It had never been easy hearing people talk like that about his father. It stung just as hard every time. His mother still cried every time someone made a joke about his father in the street, or in the papers, or on the news.
Alex screwed his eyes shut.
His mother.
She had cried a lot over the past few years. Alex had learned that it usually helped to hug her when she did. Usually. Sometimes she shut herself in her room because she didn’t want Alex to know she was crying. He could still hear her though. He would wait until she had stopped, and then pretend he was playing when she finally came out.
She hadn’t always cried so much. It had started when Alex was about four years old. That was when his father first began to change.
He started going out for longer and longer walks. Soon he was sleeping on top of the duvet, and then curled at the foot of the bed, eating without using his hands. Alex’s mother came home one evening to find him pacing the garden, digging holes. She began to realise that he wasn’t pretending any more.
Then one night, when Alex was four, his dad ran away to the Cusp. He started trying to step back over the boundary.
The first few times it happened the Order had allowed him to come straight home without pressing any charges. But that all changed when Kyte became Head of Expeditions. They started arresting him. They’d let him back home, when it looked like he wasn’t trying to break into the Cusp any more, but he would always run away again the moment they did, and would have to be dragged screaming from the wire fence, crying out loud Stop it stop it please, can’t you see, I’m a dog, I’m a dog.
He started getting ill. His hair came out in clumps and his breathing became more and more painful. He began to look like a man twice his age. Alex’s mother said it was because of the time he had spent on the Expedition. It was making him age faster than normal people.
They stopped trying to send him home. They started keeping him in the hospital. Even then, he kept trying to escape.
Soon people from the Order came round the house to ask Alex and his mother questions about why he kept doing it, questions that sometimes went on all night. And his mother would cry the next day when all the newspapers would print the same stories about Alex J. Jennings, the failed explorer, the lunatic, the mad dog-man.
What an embarrassment, they would say. How difficult for his wife. How painful for his son.
And then they would stand outside all day, taking pictures of the house.
‘No,’ said Alex out loud. ‘Not again. Not this time.’
Alex wiped his eyes and crawled out from under the tablecloth. The room was empty now, and Alex was alone. He looked out over the rows of empty seats ahead of him. He knew what he had to do.
‘I won’t let you do it,’ he said to the room. ‘Not to him. Not to me.’
But Alex, said the voice. There’s nothing you can do. You said so yourself.
‘No,’ said Alex defiantly. ‘There is. I’m going to find him.’
He glared out over the room, across the empty chairs. In his mind it seemed like they were still full of journalists, laughing and pointing at him.
‘Laugh all you want,’ said Alex. ‘I’m going to find him, and I’m going to get us both out of here.’
The journalists were changing now, morphing into the grinning faces of all the bullies a
t school. They changed again and again, into the howling face of Mr Braker, the scowls of the policemen, the sneer of Kyte.
‘We’ll run away,’ he said. ‘Far away from all of you. You’ll never find us again.’
And again they changed. From each of the hundred chairs, his mother looked back at him. Alex’s stomach once again tied itself in knots.
‘We don’t need you,’ he said. ‘We don’t need anyone.’
Suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him round. Alex gasped and stared up at the face before him. It was a man in thick, mud-smeared glasses. His cheeks were covered in a patchy five o’clock shadow, and his eyes were crazed. He was wearing vicar’s robes. Alex tried to pull himself free, but the man grabbed at him feverishly, his breath coming out in a rabid croak.
‘Alex …’
‘Jeremy?’ came a voice behind them.
Alex flipped round. Standing at the entrance to the room, waving her French horn, was Martha.
‘Where have you been?’ she gasped. ‘You missed the rehearsal!’
‘I … er …’ Alex turned back to the man, but he was already sprinting away across the stage. He flung himself through a door and was gone. Martha ran down the aisle towards him.
‘So it turns out we’re performing at the launch of the Expedition tomorrow,’ said Martha. ‘How good is that? We couldn’t rehearse without you, though. We had to give up the slot to someone else on the Rota. Steph cried and ate a bit of her clipboard. It was brilliant.’
‘I …’
‘It’s OK, you don’t need to explain,’ she said. ‘I know why you ran away.’
Alex’s eyes widened. ‘You do?’
‘Yep,’ said Martha. ‘You don’t know a thing about the French horn, do you?’
Alex considered the best answer.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Thought not,’ she said. ‘And you’re not a bully either.’
‘No,’ said Alex.
‘Are you actually Jeremy Butterworth?’
‘No,’ said Alex.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Alex Jennings,’ said Alex.
Martha frowned. ‘What, the famous explorer?’
‘No, his son. I’m running away from the police because they think my dad’s some kind of maniac terrorist and I’m helping him, but I’m not. I just like dogs.’
‘I see,’ said Martha.
‘Only now I’ve ended up where they were trying to take me in the first place, and so I need to find where they’re keeping my dad and help him escape from prison, and then get us both out of here before anybody sees me.’
‘Right,’ Martha said, nodding calmly. She looked as if she was deciding how best to style his hair.
‘Well, first things first,’ she sighed, grabbing his hand, ‘let’s get you back to the barracks. There’s no chance of getting out of this place now. The launch ceremony tomorrow morning’s your best bet – everyone’s going to be too busy watching the Expedition set off. Until then we need to make sure nobody else suspects you’re a fraud, so you’d better listen to everything I say.’
She started dragging him out of the hall. Alex smiled.
‘Martha …’ he said.
‘Yes, Alex?’
‘How did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That I wasn’t a bully?’
Martha snorted. ‘Let’s just say that jumper does you no favours. And no offence but when you try to talk cool you sound like a total idiot.’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Thank you, Martha.’
‘You’re most welcome, Alex,’ she said. ‘So, who was that weird old man standing next to you?’
10
Matthew stood with his back to the stage door, his heart thundering against his chest. Alex and the girl’s voices disappeared into the distance, out the auditorium behind him. He gasped and wiped his brow. He thought he’d blown his cover when the girl arrived, but it looked like they weren’t following him. Matthew beamed. He had done it. He had found Alex.
Not that the boy had recognised him. But then, looking down at the state of himself, Matthew wasn’t really surprised. He had spent the entire night clambering over barbed-wire fences and being chased by guard dogs. The night watchman’s uniform had been caked in mud and ripped to shreds before Matthew had even stepped a foot inside the base. Realising he’d be found out if he didn’t get clean clothes quickly, he’d hidden in an alleyway and knocked unconscious the first person who walked past. Matthew looked down at his cassock in dismay. It wasn’t his fault. How was he to have known that there’d be an elderly vicar wandering round a top-secret army base in the middle of the night?
His phone started ringing. It had been ringing all night.
He pulled it out of his pocket, and looked at the screen. It told him that he had 142 missed calls, all from Cloisters School, and that they were trying to phone him once again. Matthew sighed, and answered.
‘Mrs Beaumont,’ he said.
‘Matthew!’ she cried. ‘Where are you?!’
‘… Mrs Beaumont?’ Matthew repeated. Something didn’t sound right. He was sure he could hear some kind of engine revving in the background. ‘Is everything OK?’
‘You have to come back, Matthew!’ she cried. ‘It’s the children! They’ve taken over the school! They’re like animals!’
‘What?’ Matthew gasped. ‘But how …’
‘First Day Festivities!’ she sobbed. ‘Laurence Davy went around telling everyone you said it’s school rules to break into cars! They’ve been doing doughnuts over the rugby pitches all night!’
‘Oh no,’ said Matthew, putting his head in his hands.
‘And that’s not the worst of it!’ she continued. ‘They started saying there was no Headmaster any more, and the school was theirs! It’s mob rule, Matthew!’
Matthew’s face turned pale. In the background he could hear cars honking, and what sounded suspiciously like an explosion.
‘They’ve tied the staff to the rugby posts!’ Mrs Beaumont cried. ‘So far Mr Braker’s been keeping them at bay with his splendid aim, but we’re running out of shoes to throw – oh heavens, I think they’re starting a fire …’
‘Ah, there you are, Reverend!’
Matthew looked up in horror. A waiter was strolling down the corridor towards him.
‘Come on, Reverend!’ the waiter smiled obligingly, taking him by the arm. ‘Everyone’s been looking for you!’
He began steering him down the corridor. Matthew struggled in his grip.
‘Please, I, er, I have to …’
‘Hurry, Matthew!’ came Mrs Beaumont’s screams down the phone. ‘They’ve started weeing on the sundial!’
‘Everything all right, Reverend?’ said the waiter suspiciously.
‘Yes, fine, fine,’ said Matthew, snapping his phone shut and stuffing it back into his pocket. ‘One of my flock.’
The waiter nodded sympathetically and led Matthew through a set of gilded doors at the end of the corridor, past a sign reading Order of the Sword and Torch: Press Conference Celebratory Luncheon. The room inside was lavishly decked in drapes and chandeliers, its enormous round tables laden with white tablecloths and silver cutlery. Around each one sat at least a dozen members of the Order, the women nattering away excitedly and the men grunting like walruses. The waiter led Matthew to the largest table in the room, which was surrounded by a group of especially fat diners, the men in black tie and tails and the ladies in full evening dress. They were all wearing metal helmets with enormous feathered plumes. Matthew realised with horror that it was the head table. He made an attempt at escape, but was tugged back into place by the waiter.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the waiter. ‘May I introduce the Reverend Trebell. He’s come all the way from Zanzibar to visit the Cusp for the press conference. Reverend, these are the most esteemed members of the Order of the Sword and Torch.’
The diners n
odded obligingly, doffing their helmets. The waiter sat Matthew down a little forcefully and danced off. At once the man sat to Matthew’s right belted him on the back like he was trying to knock a pillow into shape. Matthew gagged and started choking.
‘Fantastic to have you with us, Reverend!’ said the man, leaning over to brush his face with a whiskery moustache. ‘All the way from Zanzibar, eh? Some trip I imagine!’
Matthew pointed to his throat and spluttered.
‘No, don’t try to talk, you must be exhausted,’ said the whiskery man, turning to the table. ‘He’s come from Zanzibar you know!’
‘We all heard him, Major,’ sighed a hugely fat man opposite them. He picked indulgently at a roll. ‘Well, at least we’ll finally have a new face round here. These Order luncheons have been tremendously dull of late.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said the lady to his left, taking a slug of red wine. She looked like a pickled herring. Matthew finally finished coughing.
‘So, what was your take on the conference, Reverend?’ asked the Major, leaning back in. ‘Pretty interesting stuff, eh?’
Matthew’s eyes widened. ‘Er …’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, your entrées.’
A host of waiters swanned up to the table, their arms laden with beautifully arranged bowls of oysters. The diners immediately forgot about Matthew and pulled themselves as close to the table as possible, guts permitting. The fat man picked up an obscene piece of oyster cutlery from the selection in front of him and nodded snootily over his shoulder.
‘How interesting,’ he muttered. ‘I see that the Grand High Pooh-Bah has not joined us this evening. Nor has our, ahem … host.’
Matthew looked over to where a pair of chairs, slightly larger and grander than the others, stood empty at the opposite side of the table. The lavish namecards read His Lordship the Grand High Pooh-Bah and Davidus Kyte, Official Head of Expeditions. Matthew gulped.
‘And what’s that supposed to mean, Charles?’ the Major snorted. Charles smiled.
‘Well, I’m just saying’, he said, grabbing at the next oyster, ‘that I suppose it’s no surprise our host cannot join us, given that things aren’t looking very well organised in the Cusp at the moment. They’re still putting up those warehouses as we speak.’
Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door Page 8
