Museum of Thieves

by Lian Tanner

  On either side of him the bones seemed to shiver in the lantern light. Goldie swallowed, trying not to think of Ma and Pa trapped in the House of Repentance with terrible things stalking through the streets towards them.

  ‘This is why we do our best to keep the rooms calm,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘Sinew plays his harp. Dan and Toadspit and I sing. We protect the museum, and we protect the city as well. But despite all our efforts, things are getting worse. The museum knows that something bad is coming.’

  ‘The bombing?’ said Goldie.

  ‘We think that is a part of it,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘But there is a greater danger that is still hidden from us. Sinew is doing his best to track it down.’

  ‘And when he finds it,’ said Herro Dan, ‘well, then we fight. That’s where you can help us, lass.’

  ‘To fight?’ squeaked Goldie. ‘I don’t know how!’

  ‘There’s fightin’ and there’s fightin’,’ said Herro Dan. ‘How many folks d’you know who question what the Blessed Guardians say?’

  ‘Lots of people,’ said Goldie. ‘Everyone I know moans about them in secret.’

  ‘Oh, in secret! We’re all bold in secret. But to do it out in the open, that takes rare courage.’

  Goldie wanted to believe the old man, but she couldn’t. ‘It wasn’t courage,’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t bear it any more. The way they try to squash everyone into the same shape. The way everyone talks so meekly around them, and never dares say what they think. I hate them.’

  ‘And so you became a runaway,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘And a thief.’

  ‘Yes.’ Goldie blushed. ‘Toadspit said that only a . . . a thief can find their way through the museum.’

  ‘That is true,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘We are not sure why. Perhaps there is a wildness in thieves that speaks to the wildness that is here. Perhaps a thief sees the secret paths, the hidden places.’

  She looked hard at Goldie. ‘Listen to me carefully, child. I do not wish to glorify theft. There are people in this world who think they are better than others, or deserve more. People who would rob their grandmother of her last coin and laugh as they did it. I have no time for such people. To move quietly, to be quick of hand and eye, that is a gift. If you use it to hurt others, even in a small way, you betray yourself and everyone around you.’

  She paused. ‘But there’s some things—’ prompted Herro Dan.

  ‘I was coming to that,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘Are you taking the words out of my mouth now?’

  But she was smiling when she turned back to Goldie. ‘But there are some things, child, that you should steal. That you must steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places.’

  ‘Takes a brave thief to do such things, lass,’ said Herro Dan. ‘And you’re brave, even if you don’t believe it. If you want to, you can help us.’

  ‘But only if you truly want to,’ added Olga Ciavolga. ‘If you do not, no one will blame you. We will send you out of the city to a safe place.’

  It was only a little while ago that Goldie had been wishing she had gone to Spoke after all. But now, at the thought of leaving, she felt a jolt of dismay. ‘I’ll stay!’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll help! I’ll even learn to fight if you want me to!’

  She thought Olga Ciavolga would be pleased. But the old woman shook her head. ‘Tsk! Do you take time to think about this question? No, you run headlong into the unknown!’

  She put her hands on Goldie’s shoulders. ‘Listen to me, child. You have been treated like an infant all your life. Now you must grow up quickly. You are bold, and that is good, but you must also be wise. Think carefully before you make decisions. The museum is full of dangers—’

  ‘I will protect her,’ interrupted Broo.

  ‘I know you will do your best, my dear,’ said Olga Ciavolga, ‘but even you cannot guarantee her safety in this place.’

  She turned back to Goldie. ‘Think carefully. Then make your choice.’

  Goldie thought. She thought about that first night in the city, and how frightened she had been. She thought about Morg, and Old Scratch, and the moment when she had stepped around the boulder and come face to face with the brizzlehound. And there’s worse. MUCH worse.

  Was she brave? She didn’t think so. Could she bear to stay in such a dangerous place?

  In the back of her mind, the little voice echoed Olga Ciavolga’s words, We protect the museum, and we protect the city as well . . .

  Goldie slipped her hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the little blue bird. She still wished more than anything that she could rescue Ma and Pa from the House of Repentance. But Toadspit was right. No one escaped from that awful place before their sentence was finished.

  At least if she stayed here she could help protect them from even worse things. She would be protecting Favour, too, and Frow and Herro Berg, and all her other friends.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll stay,’ she said. She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help.’

  .

  here are things you must learn, child,’ said Olga Ciavolga the next morning at breakfast. ‘We will all teach you, whenever we have time. But Toadspit will be your main teacher.’

  Toadspit groaned. ‘Do I have to?’

  Sinew glanced up from his gazette. ‘It’s not so long since you learned these things yourself. I’m sure you remember how hard it can be.’

  Toadspit flushed and looked away. He hadn’t spoken to Goldie this morning, and she hadn’t spoken to him. She didn’t trust him, and was determined not to turn her back on him or let him trick her again.

  She wasn’t turning her back on Broo either. He was there now, in the kitchen, lying small and white at Herro Dan’s feet. But Goldie couldn’t forget what lay just beneath the surface.

  ‘The sooner you start, the better,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘Toadspit, take Goldie to the Shades now and teach her to run.’

  Toadspit didn’t move. ‘What about Sinew? What’s he doing?’

  ‘It’s back to the city for me,’ said Sinew. ‘There are some—’

  ‘I could come with you,’ interrupted Toadspit eagerly. ‘I could disguise myself, pretend to wear a guardchain!’

  ‘No,’ said Olga Ciavolga. ‘You are teaching Goldie.’

  ‘But I might be able to find out—’

  ‘No!’ Olga Ciavolga’s voice was sharp, as if she had not yet forgiven Toadspit for the trick he had played yesterday.

  Good, thought Goldie. Neither have I.

  ‘There are some leads I want to follow,’ said Sinew. ‘I’ll do it best on my own.’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ muttered Toadspit.

  ‘What?’ said Sinew.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did you say, Toadspit?’

  Toadspit glared at the table. ‘It’s all right for you. You get to do something useful.’

  ‘And you don’t think that teaching Goldie is useful?’

  ‘She’s hopeless,’ said Toadspit. ‘She doesn’t know anything.’

  Sinew pushed his gazette aside and stood up. ‘Right, I’ve had enough of this.’ He turned to Goldie. ‘I assume you know some form of fingertalk?’

  Goldie nodded.

  ‘And you, Toadspit?’

  ‘Everyone knows fingertalk,’ mumbled Toadspit.

  ‘But is it the same fingertalk?’ said Sinew. ‘I doubt it. Even in the Old Quarter I’ve seen children using five or six different versions.’

  ‘So?’ said Toadspit.

  ‘So, from now until I tell you otherwise, you and Goldie are only allowed to speak to each other in signs.’

  Goldie glanced at Toadspit and quickly looked away again. ‘What if we don’t know the same ones?’

  ‘Then you must learn each other’s. I don’t imagine it will be so difficult to work out
a common language. If you cooperate.’

  ‘But, Sinew—’ said Toadspit.

  ‘No! Not another word out of your mouth until you return.’ And Sinew picked up his harp and strode out of the kitchen.

  The Shades was a place of mud and moss and stinking ponds. The ground squelched underfoot like a sponge. Even the air felt damp, and there were little biting insects that circled Goldie’s head and tried to settle on her arms.

  ‘This—’ began Toadspit. He broke off and scowled. Then he signed, ‘This is toilet. Don’t fly off fish or you rattle.’

  Goldie stared at him in astonishment. ‘What?’ she signed.

  With a long-suffering expression on his face, Toadspit signed again, very slowly and carefully. ‘This. Is. Toilet. Don’t. Fly. Off. Fish. Or. You. Rattle.’

  ‘Not understand,’ signed Goldie.

  Toadspit blinked, as if she had said something odd. Then he shrugged. ‘Hit me,’ he signed, and he turned his back on her and began to walk down the narrow path that ran between the ponds.

  It was impossible to resist the temptation. Goldie marched up behind him, clenched her fist and punched him hard on the shoulder.

  He yelped and spun around. ‘What did you do that for?’ he said out loud.

  ‘You told me hit you. Like this,’ signed Goldie. And she punched him again.

  Toadspit narrowed his eyes. ‘No!’ he signed. ‘hit me! Like this!’ And he beckoned her to follow him.

  ‘You mean—?’ Goldie made the sign for ‘follow’.

  ‘No! That means—’ Toadspit paused, red-faced. Then he wrapped his arms around himself as if he was cuddling someone. ‘See? I NOT mean that! I mean hit!’

  So Goldie hit him again.

  ‘Stop it!’

  Goldie shrugged. ‘You tell me hit, I hit.’

  Toadspit scowled ferociously. He bent down and picked up a stone, and threw it into one of the ponds. Half a dozen bubbles rose up and burst with an ugly plop. The stink grew worse.

  Toadspit heaved a sigh. Then he signed, ‘Follow me,’ and hurried off, looking back over his shoulder as if he was afraid that Goldie might try to sneak up and cuddle him.

  Goldie was quite sure by now that she had seen Toadspit before, and that he used to live in the Old Quarter, somewhere near Gunboat Canal. But Sinew was right – the boy spoke a very different kind of fingertalk from the one she knew. The small words like me and you and not were the same, but that was all. And if there was danger coming, like Olga Ciavolga and Herro Dan said, they needed to be able to understand each other.

  The further they walked into the Shades, the hotter the air became. Goldie could feel the sweat trickling down her forehead. It was a relief when Toadspit stopped again and signed, ‘Now we dance. Along fish.’

  Goldie didn’t think he really meant either dance or fish. She signed a question, and they managed to work out, after a lot of eye-rolling and scowling, that dance meant run, and fish meant path. After a lot more eye-rolling and scowling, they agreed that they would use Toadspit’s sign for the first word, and Goldie’s for the second.

  Then, without warning, Toadspit took off. He was almost out of sight before Goldie realised what was happening, and ran after him.

  She wasn’t used to running, and the Shades made it harder. The sticky mud clung to her sandals and weighed her down. The path turned this way and that for no apparent reason. The ponds plopped and sighed around her.

  Ahead of her, Toadspit dodged and twisted with every twist of the path. Goldie gritted her teeth and wished she could run like that, sure-footed and swift. Her body felt horribly clumsy, and she stumbled and tripped and almost fell off the path several times. But she kept going, although her breath was coming so hard that she thought her lungs might burst.

  At last Toadspit stopped and Goldie caught up with him. She bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping. The insects descended on her. They seemed to like her even more now that she was hot and sweaty.

  When she had recovered a little, she looked up. Toadspit was watching her with a superior smile on his face. ‘Mud?’ he signed.

  Goldie glared at him. She hated that smile.

  ‘Mud?’ he signed again.

  What on earth was he talking about? What did mud mean in his stupid version of fingertalk? Maybe he was asking if she wanted a drink. Or something to eat. Or a good long rest.

  Then again, he might just mean mud.

  Goldie stopped glaring and looked as innocent as she could. ‘You want mud?’ she signed.

  Toadspit rolled his eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Goldie smiled happily at him. Then she bent down, scooped up a handful of mud and threw it at Toadspit from close range.

  She caught him right in the face. The mud splattered over him, and he yelped with shock and disbelief. Goldie laughed out loud, but not for long. Toadspit, his eyes white and furious, scooped up his own handful of mud and plastered it in her hair before she could back away.

  Goldie grabbed more mud and flung it as hard as she could. At the same time, Toadspit threw more at her. She could feel it sliding down her face and arms and smock, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to get him.

  Toadspit was far more accurate in his throwing, and stronger too. But Goldie’s fury made up for it. She scooped up double handfuls, dumped them on the boy, and then ran back for more. All the time Toadspit was pelting her with the same foul stuff.

  And then, just as suddenly as they had started, they stopped. And looked at each other. They were both black and stinking, and barely recognisable as human. Only their eyes were still visible.

  With an effort, Goldie raised her hands. She pointed at the muck that covered Toadspit. ‘Mud,’ she signed.

  For a moment Toadspit did nothing. Then, very slowly, the black mask of his face split open and he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, and before long Goldie caught it, and she began to laugh too. They laughed almost as hard as they had fought. Every now and then they would stop, and then one of them would sign ‘mud’ and they would start again.

  That was how Olga Ciavolga found them. She raised her eyebrows when she saw the state they were in. The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘that you have been practising your throwing.’

  Which, of course, set them off again.

  Things were a little easier between Goldie and Toadspit after that. The boy was still prickly, and sometimes he scowled at Goldie for no apparent reason. But mostly he did his best to teach her what he knew.

  They ran every morning. Sometimes Broo joined them, leaping out at Goldie unexpectedly, mostly as a little white dog, but once or twice as a monstrous black brizzlehound, so that her heart almost stopped with fright. She learned to think ahead and watch for signs of him, or for anything else that might be lying in wait. She learned to listen more closely to the little voice in the back of her mind, and be always on the alert for danger.

  When they weren’t running, Toadspit taught Goldie how to light fires. He taught her how to dress a wound, and how to track someone across rock and scrub and wooden floors, and how to lose someone who was tracking her. Between them they gradually worked out a common fingertalk and practised it until they were perfect, at which point Sinew finally allowed them to speak to each other again.

  And all the time, Goldie wondered about the trouble that was coming, and when it would show itself. And what she would do when it did . . .

  As she grew stronger and quicker, she began to learn other things. It was Sinew who taught her the Three Methods of Concealment.

  The easiest was Concealment by Sham. This was really just pretending to be someone else, someone who was a bit foolish, or mad in a harmless sort of way. Someone who wouldn’t be taken seriously.

  Concealment by Camouflage was harder. Goldie had to study butterflies and moths and see how they blended with their surroundings. She learned to break up her outline with grass and leaves, and paint her face and arms in unev
en stripes, so that she merged with the shadows. She practised crouching without moving, and breathing so quietly that even Broo couldn’t hear her.

  At first it seemed impossible. But then she got the hang of it, as if it was something she had been on the brink of knowing all along, and had just needed a little push. The first time Sinew walked past her without seeing her, she almost shouted with joy.

  The hardest to learn was Concealment by Imitation of Nothingness. Goldie had lost track of how long she had been in the museum by this time, and the world outside seemed like a distant memory.

  Still, she thought about Ma and Pa every day. And she dreamed about them nearly every night. In her dreams they were threatened by something much worse than the House of Repentance . . .

  ‘Goldie, are you listening to me?’ said Sinew.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Goldie.

  ‘I said, there aren’t many people who can imitate nothingness. Herro Dan and Olga Ciavolga, of course. They’re even better at it than I am. And Toadspit’s not bad. I’ve only ever come across one or two others. But I’ve got a feeling that you’ll pick it up quickly.’

  He walked a short distance away, until he was in shadow.

  ‘The simplest way to do it,’ he said, ‘is to make yourself so uninteresting that even the light slips across you and doesn’t stop. It helps if there are deep shadows, or some other sort of camouflage. But it’s really a trick of the mind. You’ve got to be a part of whatever’s around you, and at the same time a part of nothing.’

  He screwed up his long nose. ‘Funny thing is, your mind seems to stretch a bit when you’re doing it properly. You find yourself hearing things that you shouldn’t be able to hear. Knowing things that you shouldn’t know.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘You probably don’t need to worry about that for a bit. Let’s get you started on the basics first. Here, I’ll show you. Turn around for a minute.’

  Goldie turned around. When she turned back again, Sinew was gone.