Myron grinned. “Oh, I’m as clever as that.”
“You set him up. He never stole anything. It was clever little Myron, all along.”
“Clever little me,” Myron’s grin grew wider, “all along.”
Fenn grabbed him by the thick throat and started choking him. His mother screamed, the cat squealed, ice cream went flying, and Myron gagged for air. It took both father and mother to pull the son free.
The taxi driver had a stubbly beard and teeth browned from cigarettes. Jane asked him to stop down the block from the YOI gate. She gave him an extra ten and told him he could take her back to Moss-on-Stone in a few minutes. He wanted to know, What’s going on?, and she told him, Just wait, please, and he took her money and waited.
Jane carried her rucksack to the chain-link wall around the lockup. The driver watched her through the mirror. This wasn’t the sort of fare he had every day.
Away from the cabdriver’s eyes, she helped the Little Ones from the backpack—Ickens, Phlopp, Mumraffian Rake, Burra Dryth, the Tiddlin children—and begged them to find Michael as quickly as they could. The guard in the Gatehouse saw her and asked what she was doing.
“Nothing,” she called back.
“Then go do it somewhere else,” he told her.
The Little Ones slipped through the fence and across the dew-damp Recreation Yard. They reached a dark corner of the first housing block, next to the Reception Building, and Slack spotted an open vent in the Chaplaincy. “That’s just what we need,” said Ickens.
They had nearly made it to the vent when a dog ran at them, a dusk-colored mammoth, snapping and snarling. Jane saw it from the fence and screamed, sure it was the end of them.
“What d’you have over there, Buster?” the guard called. “Find a li’l snack? Rat, weasel, what?”
Slack took a step, straight toward the dog, as the guard left the Gatehouse.
“Slack Tiddlin!” Phlopp yelled, a whisper.
“Settle . . . settle . . . ,” the child told the mountainous dog.
And the dog did settle and little Slack moved closer. He began to rub the giant, gently, a spot between ear and eye, and the beast grew calm and peaceful.
The guard stopped. “Got away from you, huh, Buster? Don’t worry. The yard is fulla little things for you. Come on back with me.”
When Julien Mallery found his daughter’s note later that night, he made three telephone calls. First he called the police, who began a search and sent an alert through the county. The second call went to his friend at the local television station; the newsman got Jane’s picture on the air quickly, with a plea for information on her whereabouts. And last, he called Horace Ackerby to say he’d be out of a job in the morning.
But Ackerby didn’t answer his phone.
He was on the front walk with Mr. Fenn. “I’ll let it ring,” he told the grocer as the phone rang and rang inside. “Please. Go on with your story.”
And Fenn went on. “When I saw the goo all over the money, I went to my brother’s house and had a—had a talk with that brat and I was right. It was the fool Myron did it, tryin’ to get the boy fired. Michael never stole a thing.”
Horace Ackerby said nothing. It had been a long while since he’d heard good news.
“Michael’s got no business in YOI,” Fenn went on. “Should be Myron in there. You can get him out?”
“Wilson, the prison governor, has gone home by now,” Ackerby answered. “But I’ll be in Ambridge in the morning and see to it myself.”
Even as he spoke these words, three Lesser Lilliputians were crawling through a battered grate and into the Chaplaincy ductwork. The ventilation system was like a carnival maze, a catacomb, and they had no idea where to turn. “We could spend eternity here,” said Mumraffian Rake, “and never find him.”
“I have a thought,” from Frigary Tiddlin.
She began to sing their one song, the ever-same, never-same song, and its melody drifted through the vent tunnels. The others joined her, whistling, humming, singing, tapping out a rhythm on the walls. Their music grew louder and louder in the endless ducts, echoing through the whole prison.
Plenty of boys heard it, but only Michael knew what it was. He stood on his cell bed, close to a vent, and began to whistle along with the tune.
“I hear him,” said Ickens, “down this way,” and he led them through a vent-tunnel. Frigary’s torch lighted a path, past webs full of dust and the broken husks of long-dead bugs. The Little Ones rounded a junction and found themselves facing a mangy mouse, big as a draft horse by their standards. Thudd Ickens didn’t want a fight, but the mouse was more frightened of them and it scampered off into ductwork.
Their journey was almost done now. Michael’s song was coming from the next vent, not far ahead.
They crawled through the clover-shaped grille and Michael set each of them on the rank old bed. Burra Dryth explained, in as few words as she could, all that had happened and all that was going to happen. As she spoke, Mumraffian Rake, the little locksmith, made fast work of the cell door. In a matter of seconds, the group was moving down the corridor, under dim portraits of past prison governors. There was one last lock to pick and then they were outside, in the main yard.
Mr. Phlopp easily sabotaged the prison’s power lines—it took only a paper clip—and every transformer within five miles went up in showering sparks. The baffled guard ran to the darkened forecourt, as the front gate’s lock fell open behind him.
One minute more and Michael was out of the Young Offenders Institute and climbing into the cab. “Jane,” he said when he saw her. “How did you—?”
“Just get in,” she said and he did. The Little Ones slipped into her rucksack and she told the driver, “You can take us back to Moss-on-Stone.”
“How’d you get me out—?” Michael started to ask her.
Jane told him to be quiet and he was. She wanted to tell him everything, but the taxi driver was listening to each word. She gave him a shirt she’d brought, one of her Dad’s, to cover the Institute’s T-shirt.
The driver watched them in the mirror and finally asked, “What’re you two up to? What’s going on? Who’s the boy?”
“Let us out here,” Jane told him when she saw a petrol station and coffee shop.
“You want me to drop you off, two kids, this late at night, middle of nowhere. You said you wanted to go back to Moss-on-Stone.”
“Yeah, but I need a toilet,” Jane lied and nudged Michael and he lied, too. “And me. Really do. Right now.”
The driver grumbled, “Kids,” and pulled into the station and the children got out of the cab.
“Hold on,” the man said. “Maybe I’m going in with you.”
Jane took her rucksack and they hurried into the shop. The driver went to the counter and ordered a coffee and waited while Michael and Jane stepped around a corner to the lavatory. They could hear the driver chatting up the counter girl, and they could hear a news report from the small television on the wall, broadcasting a story about Jane: she’d been missing since six o’clock and anyone with information should call the police, right away.
“You see that?” said the driver.
“Been showing her picture all night,” the counter girl told him. “Hope they find her, the poor thing.”
“She was in my cab,” the driver grunted. “And a boy with her, too.”
“TV said there’s a reward.”
The driver was on his feet, fast as that. “They’re in your loo right now.” He sent the counter girl in to get them.
But they weren’t there. When they heard the report, Michael and Jane slipped out a side door and into the night.
“It’s empty,” the counter girl told him and reached for a phone. “Better call the police.”
“No,” the driver grumbled. “I’m going to
find those kids myself and see I get that reward.” And he, too, went into the night.
With the Little Ones still in the backpack, Michael and Jane started down a farm road from Ambridge to Moss-on-Stone. Jane told him what she knew and the Lesser Lilliputians told the rest, about the giants, the wrecked city, the kidnapping of the People.
When they heard a car coming, the children jumped into a wheat field and hid. The taxi passed once, slowly, but the driver never saw them. It was going to be a long walk back and the night wind was cool and getting cooler.
The sun rose behind morning fog as Horace Ackerby II pulled into Ambridge and through the gates of YOI. He met with Governor Wilson at nine and together they found that Michael had escaped.
Ackerby shut his eyes and said nothing. The boy was blameless—hadn’t robbed the market—hadn’t done a thing—but none of that mattered. Now Michael had committed a serious and unforgivable crime.
Wilson threatened to fire the prison staff then and there. No one, no one! had broken out of the Institute during his time as Governor. He wanted to put out an APW, an All Ports Warning, but Ackerby talked him out of it.
When they reached the city, the children kept to alleys and side streets. Michael went for the bike at Fenn’s and they made their way to Nick’s house.
He remembered the old shed, grown over with weeds and vine. Its door was clear now, and padlocked, and Michael was sure the Little Ones were in there. He found a piece of rusted pipe and, with Jane helping, pried the door off its hinges as softly as they could. They crawled inside, over mountains of junk. “I’ll look on this side,” Michael whispered. “Check that box over there.”
“Just toys,” Jane whispered back.
“Nick’s stuff, I guess.”
“It’s dolls,” she told him. “Must be his sister’s.”
“Nick doesn’t have a sister.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well then.”
They soon found the Lesser Lilliputians, in the farthest corner, trapped in boxes and bins, huddled together, terrified and terrorized, but unhurt.
“It’s okay,” Jane told them. “We’re going to get you home.”
They worked quietly, quickly, and loaded the Little Ones into the bike’s delivery baskets and wire-framed trailer. “It’s going to be a little cramped,” Michael whispered.
“No need to worry about us, Brother Ninneter!” said Topgallant. “We’ll get by.”
Michael and Jane were ready to go, but, once more, they found their path blocked.
“You trying to steal my Spriggans?” said Nick.
Robby was at his side. “Told you, you couldn’t count on him.”
“I tried to help you, Michael,” Nick seemed mad and hurt at the same time, “but you always thought you were better than us. I tried to show you the way, but you never listened.”
When he was younger, Michael thought Nick’s gang was the family he was seeking. Now he looked again and saw wasted lives. “I guess my way went somewhere else.”
There was something new in Michael’s voice, and Nick heard it. There was a confidence, a certainty, a BIGNESS that hadn’t been there before.
“You’re not going anywhere,” from Robby.
“Out of the way, you Blefuscudian Lump.”
“What’d he call me?” Robby asked, just as Michael threw himself at them.
He caught Robby by surprise and they both fell to the gravel. While Robby was catching his breath, Michael punched Nick once in the face and felt a tooth break. Jane grabbed the rusty pipe and started swinging.
Nick and Robby backed away, and Michael told Jane to run. As she went for the street, he leapt onto the bike.
“You can’t have ’em!” Nick cried out. “They’re mine!”
Robby started off, but Nick held him back and spat out a mouthful of blood and tooth and said, “We’ll take my Dad’s car.”
Nick gunned the old Victor and Robby said, “I’m going to beat that eejit to a pulp. I’ll show him who’s a lump.”
Michael was flying up Grub Street when he heard the car tear around a corner. He turned the bike, fast, and nearly went down, the trailer close to tipping, and he yelled to the Lesser Lilliputians, “Hold tight!” Nick and Robby and the Victor were almost on him and there was no way to outrun them. He might have a chance if he got one more block, but the car was barreling at him.
He jumped the bike onto the walk and the car stayed with him, smashing street signs as it went. They passed the Daniels’ bookshop, Tiswas Electric, and the Victor blasted through Gadbury’s sidewalk display. A chair, plow, clock, boxes of magazines flew into shattered shreds.
The car was going to run him down, but there was another turn, a few feet farther, and Michael made it a half-second before the Victor would have hit him.
Nick jammed the brake and the car slid to a stop in a blue fog. He reversed, full speed, and made the turn. Michael was halfway down the block now and Nick had the accelerator flat to the floor. The old Victor was going 45, 50, 55 mph, before Robby saw where they were.
“Sheep Street, Nick, it’s Sheep Street!” But it was too late.
The brick walls closed in on them and squeezed the car, and sparks showered in the narrowing roadway. The old Victor hurtled to a stop, crumpled and stuck.
Michael headed on in the morning mist.
Every policeman in the village showed up on Sheep Street. Jane waited until it was safe, then slipped through alleys and out toward the countryside. It took the Fire Department two hours to get Nick and Robby out of the wrecked, wedged car.
That afternoon at Youth Court, Horace Ackerby asked, “Why did you try to drive a car down a street built for sheep?” He took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes and waited.
“Had to get my Spriggans back,” Nick answered.
“Spriggans,” the Chief Magistrate said and said it again. “Spriggans. As in little people.”
“They were stole from us,” chimed Robby. “Those things were ours.”
Ackerby adjourned the Court and Dr. Emmanuel Kirleus was brought in to evaluate Robby and Nick. A week later, he would present his professional conclusions.
“After careful observation,” Kirleus began, “I can say that a traumatic event has led to these delusions. Sensations of panic have caused the break from reality and the young man now sees Leprechauns—”
“Spriggans,” said Nick.
“These Little Folk are only projections of his own smallness, his own inadequacy. The other boy, the weaker personality, has accepted the fantasies as real.”
“Hey, hold on.” Robby this time. “Is this eejit saying we’re nuts?”
The two of them were sent to YOI, for a long while, with recommendations for intense counseling.
When they met in Lesser Lilliput, Michael, Jane, and the Little Ones got a good first look at the wrecked Garden City. There was nothing untouched or undamaged by Robby or Nick, the war, the weasels, the flood. The People went to check on houses, shops, and found everything in ruin. The Tiddlin children crawled through rubble to their old rooms; Philament Phlopp’s workshop was collapsed and he had to look away.
When the Librarian saw ten thousand books scattered across the ground, she began to cry. The shoe shop was no more than a pile of bricks. The buildings of the Mount Oontitump University lay flattened and the dome of their Great Hall had collapsed.
Chizzom Bannut, Burra Dryth, Mumraffian Rake, no one’s home had been spared the violence. Burton Topgallant walked the shattered streets and knew that his Nation would never again be what it had been. He began to wonder if, maybe, this had to happen. Maybe they’d grown self-centered and small. Maybe, if they started over, they could get back to things that had made them a great People. Maybe they could become even greater.
Suddenly, Michael turned and started running.
“Where are you going?” Jane called, but he was gone.
He broke into the locked stone cottage and searched through boxes that he and Lemuel had packed.
“What are you looking for?” Jane was beside him now.
“A key,” he told her, “that opens all locks.”
A few minutes later, with all the Little Ones gathered close, Michael slid the dark key into the muddy vault and turned it, carefully. The barrels clicked and the latch popped open.
The boy lifted the lid, gently, and there it was, untouched by weather or war. There was the First & Only Secret, the Solution to the Infinite Enigma, the Unraveling of the Eternal Conundrum, the Resolution to the Ever-Lasting Riddle, the One Answer to All Questions.
“Well, Quinbus Ninneter?” said Burton Topgallant. “I think we should know. What exactly is in there?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A NEW CHAPTER
It was a stack of old paper, as wrinkled as cloth, pages covered with a tight and faded handwriting. Michael read the first words aloud: “Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Captain Lemuel Gulliver.” There was a date in the corner, 1725. Jane remembered the book, had spent time studying it at St. Brendan’s.
Back in the old days, handwritten manuscripts were usually destroyed after a first publication, but here was the whole book and more. There was another section, never printed: “Part Five. A Voyage Back to Lilliput.”
“I think,” said Topgallant, “we need to know what’s written here.”
Michael and Jane settled in the wrecked village green, the brittle pages laid carefully before them. The Lesser Lilliputians found places to sit and listen, on benches, the ledges of shattered windows, in doorways, perched on broken rooftops.
And Michael began the new chapter . . .
CHAPTER I.
The Author’s current situation described. A decision is reached. His much-loved ship, Adventure, is found after many long years. Some particulars of the voyage back to the Island.
The Last of the Gullivers Page 12
