Skellig s-1

by David Almond

  Skellig

  ( Skellig - 1 )

  David Almond

  Unhappy about his baby sister’s illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.

  Skellig

  by David Almond

  FOR FREYA GRACE

  Chapter 1

  I FOUND HIM IN THE GARAGE ON A Sunday afternoon. It was the day after we moved into Falconer Road. The winter was ending. Mum had said we’d be moving just in time for the spring. Nobody else was there. Just me. The others were inside the house with Dr. Death, worrying about the baby.

  He was lying there in the darkness behind the tea chests, in the dust and dirt. It was as if he’d been there forever. He was filthy and pale and dried out and I thought he was dead. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d soon begin to see the truth about him, that there’d never been another creature like him in the world.

  We called it the garage because that’s what the real estate agent, Mr. Stone, called it. It was more like a demolition site or a rubbish dump or like one of those ancient warehouses they keep pulling down at the wharf. Stone led us down the garden, tugged the door open, and shined his little flashlight into the gloom. We shoved our heads in at the doorway with him.

  “You have to see it with your mind’s eye,” he said. “See it cleaned, with new doors and the roof repaired. See it as a wonderful two-car garage.”

  He looked at me with a stupid grin on his face.

  “Or something for you, lad—a hideaway for you and your pals. What about that, eh?”

  I looked away. I didn’t want anything to do with him. All the way round the house it had been the same. Just see it in your mind’s eye. Just imagine what could be done. All the way round I kept thinking of the old man, Ernie Myers, that had lived here on his own for years. He’d been dead nearly a week before they found him under the table in the kitchen. That’s what I saw when Stone told us about seeing with the mind’s eye. He even said it when we got to the dining room and there was an old cracked toilet sitting there in the corner behind a plywood screen. I just wanted him to shut up, but he whispered that toward the end Ernie couldn’t manage the stairs. His bed was brought in here and a toilet was put in so everything was easy for him. Stone looked at me like he didn’t think I should know about such things. I wanted to get out, to get back to our old house again, but Mum and Dad took it all in. They went on like it was going to be some big adventure. They bought the house. They started cleaning it and scrubbing it and painting it. Then the baby came too early. And here we were.

  Chapter 2

  I NEARLY GOT INTO THE GARAGE that Sunday morning. I took my own flashlight and shined it in. The outside doors to the back lane must have fallen off years ago and there were dozens of massive planks nailed across the entrance. The timbers holding the roof were rotten and the roof was sagging in. The bits of the floor you could see between the rubbish were full of cracks and holes. The people that took the rubbish out of the house were supposed to take it out of the garage as well, but they took one look at the place and said they wouldn’t go in it even for extra money. There were old chests of drawers and broken washbasins and bags of cement, ancient doors leaning against the walls, deck chairs with the cloth seats rotted away. Great rolls of rope and cable hung from nails. Heaps of water pipes and great boxes of rusty nails were scattered on the floor. Everything was covered in dust and spiders’ webs. There was mortar that had fallen from the walls. There was a little window in one of the walls but it was filthy and there were rolls of cracked linoleum standing in front of it. The place stank of rot and dust. Even the bricks were crumbling like they couldn’t bear the weight anymore. It was like the whole thing was sick of itself and would collapse in a heap and have to get bulldozed away.

  I heard something scratching in one of the corners, and something scuttling about; then it all stopped and it was just dead quiet in there.

  I stood daring myself to go in.

  I was just going to slip inside when I heard Mum shouting at me.

  “Michael! What you doing?”

  She was at the back door.

  “Didn’t we tell you to wait till we’re sure it’s safe?”

  I stepped back and looked at her.

  “Well, didn’t we?” she shouted.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So keep out! All right?”

  I shoved the door and it lurched half shut on its single hinge.

  “All right?” she yelled.

  “All right,” I said. “Yes. All right. All right.”

  “Do you not think we’ve got more to worry about than stupid you getting crushed in a stupid garage?”

  “Yes.”

  “You just keep out, then! Right?”

  “Right. Right, right, right.”

  Then I went back into the wilderness we called a garden and she went back to the stupid baby.

  Chapter 3

  THE GARDEN WAS ANOTHER PLACE that was supposed to be wonderful. There were going to be benches and a table and a swing. There were going to be goalposts painted on one of the walls by the house. There was going to be a pond with fish and frogs in it. But there was none of that. There were just nettles and thistles and weeds and half-bricks and lumps of stone. I stood there kicking the heads off a million dandelions.

  After a while, Mum shouted was I coming in for lunch and I said no, I was staying out in the garden. She brought me a sandwich and a can of Coke.

  “Sorry it’s all so rotten and we’re all in such rotten moods,” she said.

  She touched my arm.

  “You understand, though. Don’t you, Michael? Don’t you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She touched me again and sighed.

  “It’ll be great again when everything’s sorted out,” she said.

  I sat on a pile of bricks against the house wall. I ate the sandwich and drank the Coke. I thought of Random Road where we’d come from, and all my old pals like Leakey and Coot. They’d be up on the top field now, playing a match that’d last all day.

  Then I heard the doorbell ringing, and heard Dr. Death coming in. I called him Dr. Death because his face was gray and there were black spots on his hands and he didn’t know how to smile. I’d seen him lighting up a cigarette in his car one day as he drove away from our door. They told me to call him Dr. Dan, and I did when I had to speak to him, but inside he was Dr. Death to me, and it fit him much better.

  I finished the Coke, waited a minute, then went down to the garage again. I didn’t have time to dare myself or to stand there listening to the scratching. I switched the flashlight on, took a deep breath, and tiptoed straight inside.

  Something little and black scuttled across the floor. The door creaked and cracked for a moment before it was still. Dust poured through the flashlight beam. Something scratched and scratched in a corner. I tiptoed further in and felt spiderwebs breaking on my brow. Everything was packed in tight—ancient furniture, kitchen units, rolled-up carpets, pipes and crates and planks. I kept ducking down under the hoses and ropes and duffel bags that hung from the roof. More cobwebs snapped on my clothes and skin. The floor was broken and crumbly. I opened a cupboard an inch, shined the flashlight in, and saw a million wood lice scattering away. I peered down into a great stone jar and saw the bones of some little animal that had died in there. Dead bluebottles were everywhere. There were ancient newspapers and magazines. I shined the flashlight onto one and saw that it came from nearly fifty years ago. I moved so carefully. I was scared every moment that the whole thing was going to collapse. There was dust clogging my throat and nose. I knew they’d be yelling for me soon and I knew I�
��d better get out. I leaned across a heap of tea chests and shined the flashlight into the space behind and that’s when I saw him.

  I thought he was dead. He was sitting with his legs stretched out and his head tipped back against the wall. He was covered in dust and webs like everything else and his face was thin and pale. Dead bluebottles were scattered on his hair and shoulders. I shined the flashlight on his white face and his black suit.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at me.

  His voice squeaked like he hadn’t used it in years.

  “What do you want?”

  My heart thudded and thundered.

  “I said, what do you want?”

  Then I heard them yelling for me from the house.

  “Michael! Michael! Michael!”

  I shuffled out again. I backed out through the door.

  It was Dad. He came down the path to me.

  “Didn’t we tell you—” he started.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. Yes.”

  I started to brush the dust off myself. A spider dropped away from my chin on a long string.

  He put his arm around me.

  “It’s for your own good,” he said.

  He picked a dead bluebottle out of my hair.

  He thumped the side of the garage and the whole thing shuddered.

  “See?” he said. “Imagine what might happen.”

  I grabbed his arm to stop him from thumping it again.

  “Don’t,” I said. “It’s all right. I understand.”

  He squeezed my shoulder and said everything would be better soon.

  He laughed.

  “Get all that dust off before your mother sees, eh?”

  Chapter 4

  I HARDLY SLEPT THAT NIGHT. EVERY time I did drop off I saw him coming out of the garage door and coming through the ragged backyard to the house. I saw him in my bedroom. I saw him come right to the bed. He stood there all dusty and white with the dead bluebottles all over him.

  “What do you want?” he whispered. “I said, what do you want?”

  I told myself I was stupid. I’d never seen him at all. That had all been part of a dream as well. I lay there in the dark. I heard Dad snoring and when I listened hard I could hear the baby breathing. Her breathing was cracked and hissy. In the middle of the night when it was pitch black I dropped off again but she started bawling. I heard Mum getting up to feed her. I heard Mum’s voice cooing and comforting. Then there was just silence again, and Dad snoring again. I listened hard for the baby again and I couldn’t hear her.

  It was already getting light when I got up and tiptoed into their room. Her crib was beside their bed. They were lying fast asleep with their arms around each other. I looked down at the baby. I slipped my hand under the covers and touched her. I could feel her heart beating fast. I could feel the thin rattle of her breath, and her chest rising and falling. I felt how hot it was in there, how soft her bones were, how tiny she was. There was a dribble of spit and milk on her neck. I wondered if she was going to die. They’d been scared about that in the hospital. Before they let her come home she’d been in a glass case with tubes and wires sticking in her and we’d stood around staring in like she was in a fish tank.

  I took my hand away and tucked the covers around her again. Her face was dead white and her hair was dead black. They’d told me I had to keep praying for her but I didn’t know what to pray.

  “Hurry up and get strong if you’re going to,” I whispered.

  Mum half woke up and saw me there.

  “What d’you want, love?” she whispered.

  She stretched her hand out of the bed toward me.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, and tiptoed back to my room.

  I looked down into the backyard. There was a blackbird singing away on the garage roof. I thought of him lying behind the tea chests with the cobwebs in his hair. What was he doing there?

  Chapter 5

  I ASKED THEM AT BREAKFAST WHAT was going to happen to the garage now.

  “When they coming to clear it out?” I said.

  Mum clicked her tongue and sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

  “When we can get somebody to come,” said Dad. “It’s not important, son. Not now.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  He was going to be off work that day so he could get on with the house. Mum was taking the baby for more checkups at the hospital.

  “Should I stay off so I can help?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “You can take Ernie’s toilet out and scrub the floorboards around it.”

  “I’ll go to school,” I said.

  And I shoved my packed lunch into my sack and headed out.

  * * *

  Before we moved, they asked me if I wanted to change schools as well, but I didn’t. I wanted to stay at Kenny Street School with Leakey and Coot. I didn’t mind that I’d have to get the bus through town. That morning I told myself that it gave me time to think about what was going on. I tried to think about it but I couldn’t think. I watched the people getting on and off. I looked at them reading their papers or picking their nails or looking dreamily out the windows. I thought how you could never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening in their lives. Even when you got crazy people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupidly, and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them, either.

  I wanted to stand up and say, “There’s a man in our garage and my sister is ill and it’s the first day I’ve traveled from the new house to the old school.”

  But I didn’t. I just went on looking at all the faces and swinging back and forth when the bus swung round corners. I knew if somebody looked at me, they’d know nothing about me, either.

  It was strange being at school again. Loads had happened to me, but school stayed just the same. Rasputin still asked us to lift up our hearts and voices and sing out loud in assembly. The Yeti yelled at us to keep to the left in the corridors. Monkey Mitford went red in the face and stamped his feet when we didn’t know our fractions. Miss Clarts got tears in her eyes when she told us the story of Icarus, how his wings had melted when he flew too close to the sun, and how he had dropped like a stone past his father, Daedalus, into the sea. At lunchtime, Leakey and Coot argued for ages about whether a shot had gone over the line.

  I couldn’t be bothered with it all.

  I went to the fence at the edge of the field and stared over the town toward where I lived now.

  While I was standing there, Mrs. Dando, one of the yard ladies, came over to me. She’d known my parents for years.

  “You okay, Michael?” she said.

  “Fine.”

  “And the baby?”

  “Fine too.”

  “Not footballing today?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tell your parents I was asking,” she said.

  She took a gumdrop out of her pocket and held it out to me. A gumdrop. It was what she gave the new kids when they were sad or something.

  “Just for you,” she whispered, and she winked.

  “No,” I said. “No, thanks.”

  And I ran back and did a brilliant sliding tackle on Coot.

  All day I wondered about telling somebody what I’d seen, but I told nobody. I said to myself it had just been a dream. It must have been.

  Chapter 6

  AT HOME, THERE WAS A HOLE IN the floor where Ernie’s toilet had been. It was filled with new cement. The plywood screen had gone. Ernie’s old gas fire had been taken away and there was just a square black gap behind the hearth. The floor was soaking wet and it stank of disinfectant. Dad was filthy and wet and grinning. He took me into the backyard. The toilet was standing there in the middle of the thistles and weeds.

  “Thought it’d make a nice garden seat for us,” he said.

  The gas fire and the plywood were down by the garage door, but they hadn’t be
en taken inside.

  He looked at me and winked. “Come and see what I found.”

  He led me down to the garage door.

  “Hold your nose,” he said. He bent down and started to open a newspaper parcel. “Ready?”

  It was a parcel of birds. Four of them.

  “Found them behind the fire,” he said. “Must have got stuck in the chimney and couldn’t get out again.”

  You could make out that three of them were pigeons because of their gray and white feathers. The last one was pigeon-shaped, but it was all black.

  “This was the last one I found,” he said. “It was under a heap of soot and dust that had fallen down the chimney.”

  “Is it a pigeon as well?”

  “Yes. Been there a long, long time, that’s all.”

  He took my hand.

  “Touch it,” he said. “Feel it. Go on, it’s okay.”

  I let him hold my fingers against the bird. It was hard as stone. Even the feathers were hard as stone.

  “Been there so long it’s nearly a fossil,” he said.

  “It’s hard as stone,” I said.

  “That’s right. Hard as stone.”

  I went and washed my hands in the kitchen.

  “Today was okay?” he said.

  “Yes. Leakey and Coot said they might come over on Sunday.”

  “That’s good. You managed the buses okay, then?”

  I nodded.

  “Might be able to drive you there next week,” he said. “Once we’re sorted out a bit.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Mrs. Dando asked about the baby.”

  “You told her she was fine?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good. Get some Coke and a sandwich or something. I’ll make tea when the others come home.”

  Then he went upstairs to have a bath.