Blood Brothers

by Ruth Fox

  “It’s been a rough night for us all,” Andy said grimly. “But we have to keep our heads.”

  Zach was sitting on the back tailgate of an ambulance while an EMT wiped the cut on his cheek. “Can’t do much about the bruises,” she said. “You’ll be in pain for a while.”

  Zach nodded distantly.

  He was wondering where Monster-boy was. And Lex. He was wondering, dazedly, if Lex liked lemon pudding when a worried voice punctured his reverie.

  “Zach!”

  Mrs. Morgenstern ran across the road and scooped him into the tightest hug she could manage. It made Zach’s many aches ache even more. “Mum!” he gasped, wriggling free. But moments later, Mr. Morgenstern was doing the same thing.

  “Oh, Zach,” he said. “We thought we’d been keeping you all safe, and then . . . We found the window partly open . . . Did they hurt you? What . . . when . . . how . . . did you . . . where . . . are you . . .” He lost the thread of his speech.

  “We weren’t kidnapped, Dad,” Zach said. “Actually, we . . . um . . .”

  “He went to save the Vanished kids.” Monster-boy’s familiar quiet voice came from behind them. His broken claw had been bandaged, but he was still covered with the dust and dirt of their flight.

  Mr. Morgenstern looked from Monster-boy to Zach, then back again. “You went to . . . you saved . . .”

  “He did,” affirmed Monster-boy. “It’s thanks to him that they’re all here and safe.” He was looking down at his shoes, just as he used to do, and his face was shuttered. “I think you’ll probably want to reconsider having me as your adopted son after this. I mean, apart from the . . . what happened with the monsters. There’s going to be trouble. And I missed my evaluation with Dr. O’Grady. So they’ll probably want to take me away. They’ll make things difficult for you. And it’s . . . it’s for the best.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Morgenstern looked completely stunned.

  Zach leapt up.

  “Morton’s not going anywhere,” he said defiantly. “Mum and Dad, we’ve got heaps to tell you. You’re probably going to be mad. Especially when I tell you that I kind of ruined the watch you gave me, and the monsters confiscated your penlight. But I’m glad we did it.”

  He stood firm, daring his parents to say that they were going to give Morton up, that he’d have to go back across the Wall. They can’t say that, he thought. No matter what happens, we’re sticking together from now on.

  His parents—well, they were Morton’s parents too—moved at once, wrapping them both in tight hugs. “Let’s go home,” said Mrs. Morgenstern. “All of us.”

  And then a dog started to bark.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mrs. Morgenstern dug out the huge green container of Zach’s home-made chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream, and piled it into bowls. They all sat at the kitchen table, (except for the dog, who sat underneath, with his own bowl of home-made sausages), just as they had a month ago, when they’d announced they were thinking of adopting a child. The sound of Channel Twelve News drifted through the door from the lounge room:

  “Philip Nielson, reporting live from Main Street, where the latest development is unfolding . . . yesterday, we brought you coverage of a protest that turned into a full-fledged riot, with citizens marching on the Wall and even crossing into South Silvershine. It’s believed that shots were fired from retaliating monsters, and bullets may be responsible for wounds suffered by several members of the community, including Walter Majewski, local butcher and potential mayoral candidate in the upcoming election. These people were taken to the hospital . . .”

  “How many people were killed?” asked Zach, looking at his bowl of ice cream. It didn’t look like a mountain this time. It looked like icebergs floating in the ocean. A warm ocean that was swallowing them up. All the little chocolate-chip penguins were leaping off in fear, or swimming hopelessly in the chocolate sea, trying vainly to find safety.

  “No one has died,” Mr. Morgenstern replied, and Zach looked up sharply, a flicker of hope rising in his chest. “A few people were injured. I don’t think the monsters really wanted to fight. The group who made their way to the Other Side of the Wall were locked in those sheds for a night and a day, but when the Silver Works started to collapse, one of the monsters set them free. I think they wanted to scare people, not hurt them—at least, not yet. Fortunately, people like Mr. Majewski are very easily scared.”

  Zach wasn’t so sure about that. The monsters would have done anything the Grelgoroth had wanted them to. He was sure Mr. Majewski wouldn’t have given up so easily if the monsters hadn’t backed down. Things could have gotten much, much worse if the Grelgoroth hadn’t been killed.

  “. . . children have recovered, and are back with their parents.” continued Philip Nielson. “It appears that the children who had initially escaped their captivity were led to safety by a, er, a dog.” He coughed. “I’ll take you to Tommy Granger, now, who describes the experience.”

  “. . . I woke up in one of those cages,” Tommy said. “And it was so HORRIBLE, like I was there, but I wasn’t there! It wasn’t like being sick, when you just get to lie around feeling TERRIBLE and Mum gives you Red Raspberry Gummy Frogs. It was like I couldn’t feel anything, like I was in a BUBBLE, and everything was just grey and blurry and I couldn’t be bothered even talking! And then I remember a dog licking my hand. The monsters must have forgotten to lock the cage door because it opened when I pushed on it. I just knew I HAD to follow the dog. He was like the ONLY real thing inside the bubble and he took me into the tunnels and I knew I had to keep walking, but the further I went the more tired I got—but the dog wouldn’t let me lie down! He kept nudging me with its nose and trying to get me to go on, until I couldn’t keep going anymore . . . I thought I could die! But then I woke up and everything was fine because Monster-boy and his friends SAVED us!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Morgenstern both heard this. Their eyes were shining as they looked at their sons. Zach lowered his head and let his spoon land—splat—in his ice cream sea. To distract them and cover his embarrassment, he asked, “What about Morton’s evaluation?”

  “Ms. Cutter was not happy when she called to ask why Morton wasn’t at the Shady Elms Clinic,” said Mr. Morgenstern, with a humourless laugh. “I don’t know exactly why she’s so set against having Morton stay here.”

  Zach didn’t say anything, but he thought he knew why Ms. Cutter hated Morton. It had something to do with Morton getting his wristband back. The only reason she hadn’t reported their break-in to police was that she couldn’t do that without confessing that she’d been stealing things from the kids. But it was also about the type of person Ms. Cutter was. She was greedy and malicious. She could hold a grudge until the end of time. And she had enough influence over people to make things very unpleasant for anyone she didn’t like.

  “Morton’s a hero now,” Zach said. “He saved the kids, after all—the human kids.”

  “Well, yes,” Mr. Morgenstern agreed. “And I think that will certainly help convince the authorities that he should stay here with us. I just hope that’s enough.”

  “And . . . and what about Mr. Rivers?” Zach asked. “Will Morton be able to go back to school?”

  “It’s not going to be easy,” Mr. Morgenstern said. “Nothing is. I don’t know how this will work out, boys. But you have to know we’ll do everything we can to make sure the Morgensterns stay together.”

  Zach looked down at his iceberg ice cream and thought he might just be able to manage some after all.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Later, Zach and Monster-boy dragged themselves up to their bedroom, but even though they were exhausted, neither of them felt like sleeping. Monster-boy motioned to his Cave, and Zach followed him inside. A furry nose poked its way through the blankets, and the dog jumped in with them.

  “Did all that real
ly happen?” said Zach after a long silence in which the dog sniffed the deflated Lucky Lanes balloon and the repaired model F-15 Strike Eagle, then settled down to chew on a corner of an Ace Fighter Wars comic book.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” said Monster-boy quietly. He placed the remains of Zach’s watch on the bedcover and fiddled with them. His one clawless, bandaged finger allowed him to pick up the tiny pieces more easily, and Zach had a sudden thought—Donovan had been so derogatory about monsters’ abilities to do delicate, precise work, but Morton had fixed the stabilizer fin on Zach’s Strike Eagle. Monsters were still building cars over in South Silvershine, too—probably other things, too.

  “Can I ask you something, Morton?” said Zach. He was bursting with questions. Morton had been with Donovan and the Grelgoroth for hours before Zach was brought down to the Testing Chambers, and the Grotto. What had he done in that time? “Did you ever really want to join the Grelgoroth?”

  Monster-boy looked away. “When we were making our plans to infiltrate the Grotto, I thought it might be a way to find out more about my grandfather. And when those monsters told me his last name—I knew I had to go with them, not just to find out more about the Grelgoroth, but to learn about him, Bertram Highborn.

  “I really wanted to know about him, Zach. My grandfather was the only person who really cared about me on the South Side. When he died, I felt like a part of me had died, too. But I shouldn’t have done it, though. I shouldn’t have left you and the others in danger.

  “They took me to see the Grelgoroth. When the Grelgoroth recognised who I was and told Donovan, she was . . . nice to me, nicer than she was to any of the other monsters. She made me feel like I was important, and for a while, I thought they were both right, and maybe this was the reason I’d gone there in the first place.

  “But then Donovan showed me what they were doing to the Vanished children. It was horrible. I thought I’d made the wrong choice—that now you were all going to be sucked dry by the Grelgoroth, and it would all be my own stupid fault.

  “I thought about killing the Grelgoroth. Stabbing him with my knife while I was alone with him. But I . . . I wanted him to tell me more about my grandfather. Guess I wasn’t strong enough to do it alone.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked, anyway,” Zach pointed out. “The knife shattered when you tried, remember? It was only luck that I remembered what the Grelgoroth said about the humans having to take a sample of DNA from the roof of his mouth using a needle made out of his claws.”

  “That was brave, Zach,” Monster-boy said, disregarding everything Zach had said about luck and chance. “I got what I wanted, I guess. I found out more about my grandfather. But I’m not sure I like what I learned—that he created the smog cloud, and caused the Wall to be built. That he was helping the Grelgoroth, that he was being . . . groomed . . . to lead a revolution, and that he wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I’m not sure learning this was worth what I did.”

  “It was worth it,” Zach said. “If what the Grelgoroth said is true and your grandfather created the smog cloud, then he also stopped a war, didn’t he? He saved everyone—the monsters and the humans. They would have killed each other otherwise. And your plan worked out in the end, right? And it was thanks to you that I got let out of the freezer.”

  Monster-boy gave a little noise that, if Zach didn’t know better, might have been a laugh. “When I heard Donovan complaining about the food, I told them you were a good cook. I hoped if they let you out of the freezer you could move around freely, and I knew Donovan would want to see you because she was starving for human company.

  “But I could only hope she would bring you to the Testing Chambers, or to see the Grelgoroth. And that I would find you there. I had to make sure you didn’t have anything on you that you could use to try and escape on your own.” He poked at the cogs and pins in front of him with a sigh. “If you did get out with the others, if you weren’t there to help me, I don’t think I could have done it. Killed it, you know. The Grelgoroth.”

  Zach nodded. He wished he could have seen this before, instead of spending all that time thinking Monster-boy was so awful. But then, Morton’s plan had counted on him thinking just that, so maybe it was just as well.

  “It might have all gone wrong,” Morton said. “Donovan might have put you on one of those beds and sucked the Virya out of you. I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for being so stupid.”

  It was the longest speech Monster-boy had ever made, and, as if exhausted by the flood of words, he was silent for a moment.

  Then he said, “But the answer is yes. I did want to join the Grelgoroth. At least, at the start I did.”

  He didn’t need to say any more. Zach knew why he felt that way. Why Monster-boy liked the idea of humans paying for what they did. There was Mr. Majewski, throwing him out of his store. There were the kids at school, staring and whispering about him when the rumours about monsters causing the Vanishings broke out. The mayor, making him carry that yellow permit . . . and Ms. Cutter.

  “I wanted to join it, too,” said Zach, thinking of how he had felt under the influence of the Virya. “You know what, though? Donovan joined him, and he gave her all that stuff. The power to live forever and power over others. But whatever the Grelgoroth did to her, he made her different. Kind of . . . obsessed and crazy. I don’t think she would have done those things—building the Donovan Institute, kidnapping kids, Testing them, all that—if the Grelgoroth hadn’t made her do it.”

  Monster-boy nodded. “Neither of us joined him in the end.”

  Zach shivered. “I suppose I better go to bed,” he decided, climbing out of the Cave and trying not to disturb the dog, who had curled up at the end of Monster-boy’s bunk. “Hey,” he said, stopping suddenly. “I’m sorry about calling you Monster-boy. I don’t know why I did it. That’s not who you are. I won’t do it anymore. I won’t even think it. Anyone else who does—well, I’ll—punch them.” He thought about this. He wasn’t that great at punching people. “Or something.”

  Morton waited a beat, thinking over what Zach had said. “I actually don’t mind,” he answered at last. “I never really liked the name Morton. You can call me Monster-boy if you want.”

  Zach grinned. “Whatever you want, brother.”

  But in the darkness, his grin faded. There was something under his pillow, something sharp that was pricking his neck.

  It was the file he’d stolen from Ms. Cutter’s office.

  Monster-boy’s file.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The next morning, much later than Zach would normally be up and about, he and Monster-boy climbed the hill to Herman’s old house.

  That morning, Mr. Morgenstern had gone to the supermarket to buy a leash. When he came back, he looked at the dog a bit miserably.

  “I don’t suppose we can keep him,” he said.

  “He’s not ours,” Mrs. Morgenstern reminded him. She was a little bit less attached to the dog, given that she’d discovered her favourite shoes had been chewed up and slobbered on this morning, but she still had a pained look on her face. “If Mr. Sanders decides to give him away, that’s his choice. But he has to go back to his home.”

  She’d been reluctant to let Zach and Morton walk up to Herman Sanders’s house by themselves, though. “I’m just not sure it’s truly safe. Especially now there’s another hole in the Wall.”

  “Mum,” Zach said exasperatedly. “We crossed the Wall last night. And we drove a bulldozer, got locked up, nearly had our brains sucked out, and escaped from a collapsing mine. I think we can walk the dog up to an old man’s house. Besides—you don’t want him in your new car. He’ll get hair on the seats.”

  At this, she gave in, but she was reluctant. “I’m just worried,” she said. “Who knows what will happen now?”

  She wasn’t the only one wondering ab
out what would come next, as Mr. Morgenstern, who was turning up the volume of the TV in the lounge room, pointed out.

  “This is Philip Nielson, live and on-site with North Silvershine’s Mayor,” the voice drifted from the TV. “Can you tell us how you intend to handle this?”

  The mayor launched into his prepared speech without further prompting. “. . . just to say that the events of last night, unfortunate as they were, are actually positive when looked at in the right light, see? We must look to the future and not the errors of the past. We must turn our mistakes into opportunities. And this is why I’m going to complete the Opening of the Wall. There will be no more South and North sides of this city. I have contracted Silvershine’s leading scientists to renew their work on neutralising the smog cloud, a Grand Gesture indeed! And once that cloud is gone, I plan to repeal the Edict. For eight years we’ve kept the monsters secret from the outside world, and for almost a century—since the silver ran out—we’ve kept our island a secret. But now, the rest of the world is at our doorstep, my fellow Silvershiners. Silvershine Island will well and truly be back on the maps!”

  “There you have it,” Philip Nielson said. “Several new laws have been drafted to deal with monsters’ rights, and I have heard a rumour that a Mr. Joel Rivers Junior, a Principal at Silvershine High, has a plan to open a school on the Other Side of the Wall. It certainly looks like a new boom era for Silvershine! Stay tuned to Channel Twelve for all your news—you heard it here first. I’m Philip Nielson!”

  Zach and Monster-boy walked slowly to Greentree Hill. Zach looked down at the Wall, at the second gap they’d made. Even from this distance he could see figures gathering on the other side and peering curiously through this smaller opening.

  Monsters.

  The dog strained excitedly at the lead, all the way to the front gate of number 294. Then, as if he’d just realised where they were going, he started to hang back. Then he started to walk backwards. Then he whined a little bit.