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Copyright © 2012 by Carter Crocker. All rights reserved.
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Published simultaneously in Canada. Printed in the United States of America.
Edited by Tamra Tuller. Design by Amy Wu.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crocker, Carter. Last of the Gullivers / Carter Crocker. p. cm.
Summary: After orphaned twelve-year-old Michael Pine, who seems headed for trouble, meets old Lem Gulliver, he finds new purpose as protector of the Lilliputians who live in Lem’s back garden, even if that means saving them from one another. [1. Conduct of life—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Size—Fiction. 4. Gangs—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction.] I. Swift, Jonathan, 1667–1745. Gulliver’s travels. II. Title. PZ7.C86968Las 2012 [Fic]—dc22 2011003676
ISBN 978-1-101-55047-2
LAST of the GULLIVERS
CARTER CROCKER
PHILOMEL BOOKS | An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Contents
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
For Ms. Brown’s class,
among others
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With thanks to Tamra Tuller and Kiffin Steurer for their guidance and encouragement
FROM THE DIARY OF YOUNG FRIGARY TIDDLIN
Mid-September—
We were only children when this journey began, back in a time and a place I can’t even remember. We have sailed many seas since then, and weathered many storms. We’ve spent endless weeks in windless water, been without compass, lost & drifting.
But now, we have found what we were seeking: the Blessed Isle lies before us. The People there send a dozen boats to guide our tired & tattered ship to harbor. They line the waterfront, we at the rail, each side silent & unsure.
It is our Grand Panjandrum who speaks—
“Citizens, Friends, Brothers, Sisters, we have returned!” he bellows, with a voice full of pride & thunder.
And he is answered by loud nothing. Oh, the looks on their faces! What is it, curiosity, fear?
“We’ve been to a world beyond dreaming,” he goes on, “and seen sights impossible to imagine. We have lived among a race of Giants, battled bloodthirsty monsters & faced unknowable peril. Ours is a story of wonder & woe, of courage & cowardice, of longing & love.”
But there is only more silence. They must think we’ve gone mad from the voyage . . .
PART ONE
SAILING AGAINST THE WIND
CHAPTER ONE
THE VILLAGE OF LIES AND MIRACLES
One year before—
When he was young, Michael didn’t believe in magic or ghosts or dreams. He didn’t believe that a race of Little Folk wandered the clover fields. He didn’t believe in anything, really. He wasn’t curious or adventurous, impulsive or impatient, the way children are meant to be.
Michael Pine was twelve years old, today, and small for that age. He had the broad open face of the country, wary blue eyes and hair that wouldn’t comb. He lived in a small flat with his Uncle Freddie, who was yelling at him: “Ah, crud. You better not be late again!”
“Didn’t know you cared so much about my education,” the boy mumbled back.
“I care if that school sends somebody to hassle me. Go on, go!”
Michael got his books and left. He headed up the wind-washed street and across a bridge on the dry River Stone. He went through the Market Square and past St. Edwards, the town half-hid from him in the cold rain, streetlights only a blush on the mist. Ahead, his schoolhouse rose from a hill and the bell was ringing even now.
They were studying House Sparrows that day and, when the rain let up, the teacher took them to the schoolyard to look for little birds. “All right, who can—Jimmy, don’t put that in your mouth—who can tell me something about sparrows?” Hetty Bellknap asked over the shrill wind.
Michael hid from her view, behind a classmate. It was a skill he’d spent a lifetime on, fading away like this.
“Ms. Bellknap, Ms. Bellknap,” this from Penelope Rees Jones, always Penelope Rees.
“Yes, dear?”
“House Sparrows are tiny, delicate things,” said Penelope.
“Good, anything else?”
“They have small families,” again Penelope Rees, who left no question unanswered and whose own house held a flock of uncles, aunts, cousins, others.
“Females usually lay three to six eggs,” said Hetty. “What about predators?”
“Weasels and Sparrow Hawks try to kill them and eat them,” Penelope Rees told the class.
“And ducks, too.” This from Charlie Ford, the policeman’s son. “I bet a good-sized duck could kill one, easy.” Charlie always had answers, never right ones, and a nose that wouldn’t stop dripping.
“Well, maybe, Charles, but ducks tend to feed around water.”
“Owls and people can hurt them,” Penelope Rees explained.
“That’s true, Penelope. The House Sparrows are very vulnerable.”
“
I was going to say that, Ms. Bellknap,” piped Penelope. “They’re tiny and delicate and very vulnerable.”
“But vulnerable creatures get by, don’t they?” the teacher went on. “They have ways of thriving despite the odds against them.” She sent the children around the yard to look for little birds and Michael wandered to the back fence.
“Over here, eejit.” It was Robby and Peter and the rest of the Boys, calling from the other side.
“Let’s go, squire,” said Peter. “Nick’s waitin’.”
“Can’t,” Michael told them. “Can’t ditch school again. I’d get detention, I guess, maybe exclusion.”
“You’ll get worse, you don’t c’mon,” Robby told him back.
“Let’s move it, Mike,” this from Gordy. “Don’t want to get Nick in a bad mood.”
Michael saw Ms. Bellknap with a noisy gaggle of students: Penelope Rees had found a sparrow’s nest under the eaves. Charlie was a few feet away, by a tree, watching Michael. Charlie was always somewhere near. He had trouble making friends and keeping friends and that runny nose didn’t help.
“You didn’t see me go, Charlie. You don’t say anything to anybody, right, or we’ll both get in trouble. You understand?”
“Hey, I’m not that stupid.”
“If you say,” said Michael. “Go on, now, go back with the rest of ’em.” Michael jumped the fence and followed his Boys into the heart of the village.
Moss-on-Stone was here when the Romans came, back when a river still flowed the valley. The People learned to make wool and the wool made them rich. With the sun-colored rocks that were everywhere, they built a golden city and called it Moss-on-Stone, Where the Wind’s Always Blown.
And there was wind, always. In summer, it blew too hot; in winter, too cold; day and night, it never stopped. This was a lively place once, busy with fairs and festivals. On Market Day, Shepherds brought their herds down Sheep Street, a lane built to funnel the flocks: the street began at full width and narrowed to two and a half feet, so the sheep could be counted as they squeezed through.
In the old days, there was music here, all kinds. It came from street bands, out of pub windows, from old bankers and tired farmers. Everyone in the village made music and people came from miles to hear it.
Back then the world was full of magic and mystery. It was a superstitious time and these folk scratched marks on their fireplaces to scare off witches, had tonics for all ailments, found omens everywhere. They thought a stork nesting on the roof was good luck and they knew for fact that a lost race of Little Folk wandered the clover fields.
But that was long ago. Now the wool is made in other places, the fairs don’t happen, and the storks are gone. And only the crazy ones see Little Folk in the clover.
And listen close. Hear it? These days, there’s no music. Only wind and always wind. These days, they’ll tell you that the beautiful adventures have been had and there are no grand journeys left to take.
But of course they are wrong.
“It’s your time, Michael,” said Nick. “Today’s the first day of the rest of your life. Today’s the day you get to be one of us.” Nick Bottoms was sixteen, leader of the gang, a handsome boy with a good-looking Mom and Dad and all of them useless liars.
“Big day, squire.” “Mikey’s growing up on us.” Gordy and Peter and Phil and Robby were the rest of Nick’s Boys and they were gathered in an alley off Grub Street.
If you’d asked him, Michael couldn’t have told you why he joined this gang. Maybe they were family to him, uncles, nephews, cousins, that big boisterous family he never had. Or maybe they gave some direction to his drifting life.
Just in the door at Tiswas Electric, high-tech toys were stacked in towering display and, at the top, the last glorious Game Machine in the city, maybe the world. “Go for it,” Nick told him.
“Nah, Nick,” said Michael, a whisper. “I’m not ready.”
“What’re you, almost ten? You got to start somewhere.”
“Let somebody else do it,” said Michael. “And I’m twelve.”
“Like I said. It’s your time.” The way Nick saw things, this was a rite, a passage, a crossroads everybody had to reach. “It’s nothing once you’re used to it,” and he pushed the boy on.
Michael stumbled across the street and tripped past the bookshop run by the two Mrs. Daniels, Esther and Stella.
“What are you doing here, Michael. Isn’t there school,” from Esther.
“And Freddie,” from Stella, “has he found a job yet.”
These weren’t questions, but the boy answered: “No school, no job.”
He moved on by the secondhand shop, called Gadbury’s because a Gadbury always owned it. Junk from the store streamed out the door and onto the pavement: an old clock, a plow, chairs, a red bike, magazines, last week’s high-tech toys, all else.
And half-buried in the front window, a model ship that had been there longer than anybody could remember. It was big as a sofa, had three tall masts, sails furled, and rigging fine as a spider’s web. A tiny tattered flag hung from a spar and under that, a figurehead: a lively little mermaid with billows of red-yellow hair and green eyes set firmly on the future. The model wasn’t in good shape, a mast broken, held with tape, and dust over the whole thing. Adventure, she was called.
“Move it, eejit!” came a yell from the alley, across the street. “Before Christmas, eh?” “This ain’t gonna feed the baby!”
And Nick’s voice: “Remember—this is your time.”
Maybe it was. Michael had reached a crossroads and had to make a choice. The boy bit his lip and ran into the store and grabbed the high holy Game Machine, and the rest of the stack came timbering down in an endless crash. He backed out the door and into the street and in front of a large dark car. Brakes screamed and tire rubber burned and the car slid across the shimmering pavement, right into Michael. He fell to the road with a hard hollow thump.
Nick’s Boys didn’t move, but froze where they were.
“Stone me,” one of them finally said. “Nailed him good.” “The dumb squit.” “Is he dead?”
Even Michael wasn’t sure of the answer to that question.
He smelled the sour rubber and felt the car’s heat and heard the blood coursing in his head. He was still alive, lying flat in the street, holding the Game Machine, safe, secure. “Told him I wasn’t ready,” Michael grumbled to himself.
Then there was shouting from every side. Tiswas ran out of his store, cursing, screaming. Frances Froth, the small and excitable woman from the pet shop down the block, was hopping around like a little caged dog. Gadbury hurried from Gadbury’s and tripped on a red bike and fell to his knees with a grunt. Esther and Stella peered from their little bookshop.
When Michael got to his feet, he saw a young girl in the car’s backseat. She was his age, he thought, strawberry blond, green-eyed, a fine band of freckles across her nose.
“Well, that must’ve hurt,” she said.
“I’m fine, I guess,” Michael told her.
He saw her bloodred blazer, the uniform of St. Brendan’s. He saw how she watched him, with a wide wondering look.
“Crazy yahoo!” the driver was shouting.
“Lousy. Cheap. Thieving. Punk!” This was Mr. Tiswas and his cigarette-ruined voice.
“Get him get him get him!” Frances Froth squeaked, squealed, tiny and overwrought like a hamster in a wheel.
And from over in the alley, a last voice, Nick’s voice: “You flat-out fool!”
There was a big cop galloping at him and the green-eyed girl leaned from the car to ask, “Well? What happens now?”
CHAPTER TWO
IN A FIELD OF CLOVER
Michael dropped the Game Machine in the street and went running. The Boys were gone from the alley and he ran alone down
the closing-in Sheep Street and on through the Market Square and past St. Edwards. There was a siren now, and another, another, louder, louder. He turned again, up an alley, and ran harder. He ran across Stow Street, every part of him aching. His breath burned inside him and he was too scared to think of stopping.
He passed the Inn, unlevel with the weight of years, and ran till the shops became houses and these became farms, the village fast-fading in the mist. He jumped a low wall and ripped his trousers on the sharp stone comb. He didn’t know where he was or was going, but he kept on. He followed old tractor tracks through fields of wheat that traced the shape of a never-ending wind.
For a minute, he thought he heard music. But no, these were sirens, howling like a pack of wolves in the valley. Wolves, hungry for him. He ran until the sound and the wind were gone. He came to a meadow, where the air was still, but full of life. A badger ambled into the nettle, and Michael stopped to pull spiky cleavers from his socks.
A Jay was squawking at him from a tree branch. “You think you got problems,” the boy told it. “I ditched school, robbed a store, got hit by a car, chased by cops—and it’s not even lunchtime yet.”
He saw, on the far side of the meadow, a small house—what was left of one—an old stone cottage, rough-walled, whitewashed, roof of thatch. In a better day, it would have been one of those fairy-tale places where tourists stop to take pictures.
But it was a sad sight now, forgotten and falling apart, small diamond windows broken and stuffed with newspaper. By the sagging, uncertain chimney there was a large and empty bird’s nest. The rock wall around the front was mostly fallen in, the walk gone to weed.
The place looked unlived in, unlivable. And, to a twelve year old felon, it looked like a good place to hide for a while.
Michael tried the door, but it was locked or swollen shut. He went to the back of the house and saw a stone wall around the garden, a huge wall, ten feet tall and mossed over. He walked and found no door, no gate, no way in or way out.
The Last of the Gullivers Page 1
