Aliens In The Family

by Margaret Mahy

  "You can't wake a Companion out of a Zahn trance by shouting to it," said the man contemptuously. "Even a Delta function student should know that!" He threw himself at Bond who, still shouting Solita's name, leapt over the counter to brave the steel needles, hoping they were more to frighten him than to kill him. He felt one of them stab his arm as he fell behind the counter taking the bell, invoice book and skeins of wool with him.

  "Solita!" he shouted again. The light changed. The box lit up as if a little fire blazed in it.

  "Bond? Is that you Bond? Is it rescue?" asked a girl's voice. The man appeared astounded and stood as if the steel needles had pinned him into the air in some way.

  "Audio defence!" commanded Bond desperately, trying to recall all he could about this Wirdegen enemy who had appeared out of nowhere and who now tried to grab him and to set a small disc against his forehead.

  "Bond, is that you?" asked Solita again.

  "Audio defence!" screamed Bond. "Yes, this is Bond—Bond. I wouldn't deceive you. Read my bio-phase! Audio defence! This is override instruction." He shouted a series of numbers, thrashing his head backwards and forwards as he cried out. The disc placed against his temple slid down, scraped the side of his face and struck his ear as he managed to knee the man in the side. The woman topped like a heavy doll across his legs, trapping him. But even as it seemed as if he might be caught, a thin, keening sound made itself heard, rapidly rising and swooping up into the range of inaudibility.

  Several things then happened at once. A fine shiver ran through the shop. There was a shocking uproar, not from the transistor but from a little dog tied to a parking meter howling dismally and tugging at its leash. Several car horns sounded in the street outside and could not be turned off, and glasses shattered on nearby tables, exploding into glittering daggers of glass. The woman on top of Bond clasped her hands over her head and tried to crawl towards the door. The bearded figure hanging over Bond suddenly collapsed. One minute it was suspended above him, powerful and menacing, the next it was collapsing with a slow, billowing grace. The pale, goatish face shining between the upper and lower nests of hair, and the live yellow eyes, vanished as if they had been sucked back into darkness. The woman did not vanish in the same way but fell to one side in an apparent faint. Bond pushed his way out from under empty clothes and, shuddering, seized the Companion and clumped out of the shop.

  Once back on the pavement he grew as swift and as graceful as a bird, sliding in and out between passers-by, clasping the black box to his chest as if he was warming it back to life. No-one followed him.

  Four - Patchwork

  Early on Friday morning, the morning on which Bond began his search for the Companion, just when Philippa found she was unable to sleep any longer and David was mumbling, "There's no way round it, I've got to get up and face the world," there was the sound of a terrible fight. The only voice to be heard was Dora's and it went on and on, punctuated with thumps like commas. Then the sound of breaking china came as if it were a full stop. A door opened and slammed. Hasty footsteps made their way down the hall.

  Philippa sat up like a jack-in-a-box, her hair standing on end as if with terror. "What was that?" she said. "Oh dear, oh dear..." Her voice started off in its usual bright tone, but sank down into a whispery mixture of squeaks and hisses like a bicycle pump needing oil and repairs. "Yesterday was awful, but this is worse. Now what's wrong?"

  "Only one way to find out," said David, leaping out of bed and pulling on his dressing gown.

  Jake was standing in the hall already wearing her cowboy hat even though it was only seven o'clock in the morning. Her pyjama top didn't match her pyjama pants, and the sleeves and legs were much too short for her anyway.

  "I said something," she told David at once, "and it started a fight."

  "What did you say?" asked her father.

  "Jake, what's happened?" asked Philippa appearing in the hallway.

  "You take yours and I'll take mine," said David. "Keep them clear of anything valuable and we'll see if we can't work it out. Come on, Jake—into the living room!"

  Jake marched ahead of him like the Lone Ranger with a gun held to his back. "The next time you get married, let's have nothing but boys," she flung at him over her shoulder. Once in the living room David sat on the new, floral settee and patted the empty space next to him. Jake looked at it suspiciously, but after a moment she moved forward and sat down stiffly beside him.

  "Jacqueline—Jake," David corrected himself. "You can't be enjoying any of this very much."

  "What's new!" said Jake sarcastically. Her lips barely opened enough to let the words through.

  "There won't be a next time you know," said David. "You only get married for the second time once, and I'd like to have you here with me as much as I can. Please believe me, even though I may have been a neglectful father this past year."

  "But she's an absolute wimp!" exclaimed Jake. "Not Philippa—she's O.K. I mean the other one. I knew she would be, straight off."

  "Dora," said David. "You know her name."

  "Dora then!" Jake shrugged. "She's got a whole lot of love comics in a box under her bed and she's got some cream called Gro-Bust that she rubs on her chest at night."

  David laughed despite himself, but he looked kind of sad too. He had the sort of talented, lively face which could do both at once. "Poor old Dora!" he said. "She's a dear when you get to know her."

  "She keeps on telling me how crazy you are about her mother," Jake complained, "and what a nice time you had in Australia. It really bugs me."

  "Did you not want to come here?" asked David, sidestepping the issue. "I know Pet wasn't very keen. She's never wanted me to visit you out on the farm either."

  Jake felt uneasy at the mention of her mother. After a pause she said, "Yes, I wanted to come. I really wanted to see you, but now you seem like someone else pretending to be you, and somebody different from the one you used to be."

  "I am different," said David, "but you're different too. And truly, Jake—you still feel like part of me." Jake said nothing. "I'm arranging for us to have some time to spend on our own, just the two of us," he told her anxiously.

  "See?" Jake cried with a sort of sad triumph. "You've got to arrange it, but you don't have to arrange to see them—Dora and Lewis, I mean."

  Now it was David's turn to be silent. "It's not fair, but that's the way it is," he said at last.

  Before his eyes, Jake's tense face relaxed a little and a slightly different expression began to form. "That's right!" she agreed. "As long as no-one tries to fool me about things." She actually seemed comforted although David could not understand why.

  "What was all that noise about, anyway?" he asked cautiously.

  Jake's mouth curled up at the corners. "She got onto me about my hair and kept on about how good her hairdresser was, and I'd look better if it was shaped and you know—la la la!"

  "What does 'la la la' mean this time?" queried David.

  "It means the music going on and on, but no real tune," said Jake. "Just la la la—you know. Anyway, I said if she came to stay with me she could visit my dentist."

  "Oh dear," said David wearily. "She hates those braces."

  "I thought she might. She yelled and threw some books and a china thing at me—a kitten with a basket of flowers or something. She actually got me with one book—Anne of Green Gables I think it was." Jake rubbed her arm thoughtfully. "I have to admit that she was quick on the draw... and she shot to kill!"

  The door opened and Philippa entered, scanning the fireplace for the hearth brush and shovel. "How's yours?" she asked.

  "Struck by Anne of Green Gables but she'll survive," David answered. "What about yours?"

  "Full of despair about her teeth and her broken china kitten. It sure gets the morning going with a swing, doesn't it? Just think—we might have been wasting all this time in bed," joked Philippa.

  Lewis ambled out of the sunporch sucking his thumb. He leaned against the door and si
ghed gustily.

  "I'll always wake up bad-tempered in that room," Jake confided in David when Philippa had gone. "It's like sleeping in strawberry cheesecake. Couldn't I sleep in the sunporch with Lewis?"

  Lewis was so alarmed at the idea that he took his thumb out of his mouth. "No way!" he said vehemently. "Suppose the boys at school heard about it? I can just hear them—'Lewie's got a girlfriend, Lewie's got a girlfriend!' No way!"

  "He's very modest," explained David. "If I come into the bathroom while he's in the bath he covers himself with the facecloth!"

  Lewis looking embarrassed at the mere suggestion that he was ever naked in the bath, vanished back into the sunporch.

  "Let's get breakfast for the others," suggested David. "This is a work day for me. We can carry on our conversation over the toaster."

  "You can send me home if you like," Jake offered.

  "I don't like!" said David angrily. "After less than a day? I'm not so feeble that I give in that quickly, and nor are you. So we've both changed! Big deal. If I'd stayed with your mother we'd still have changed. We're all metamorphic, Jake, we change all the time. If we didn't, it'd be boring."

  Meanwhile, Dora, largely recovered and secretly rather thrilled with the results of her dramatic fury, was helping Philippa sweep up the tragic, broken remnants of her china kitten. She picked up a piece and discovered a kitten's eye looking reproachfully at her. She almost wept again.

  "I've tried!" she stated in a martyred voice. "Lord knows I've tried, Mum, but it's like sharing a room with... with King Kong! I think she's sold herself to the forces of evil."

  "What nonsense, Dora! She's probably just feeling very lonely all on her own," said Philippa.

  "How can she be lonely?" demanded Dora. "We're all here to be friends with!"

  "Yes, but it might take a little time, dear. More than we first thought."

  "But she teased me about my braces!" cried Dora. "Mum, what's wrong with wanting to look nice?"

  "Nothing at all," comforted Philippa in a resigned voice. "That's why you're going to have your hair cut today, though personally I don't think it really needs it."

  "Shaped!" Dora corrected her. "I'm having it shaped, not cut."

  "Shaped then," said her mother. "I think you talk about hair and clothes too much sometimes."

  Dora frowned. Then suddenly her face cleared and she smiled very happily. "I expect I'm insecure," she said, cheering up. "All the magazines say that the children of broken marriages are insecure."

  "Who wants to be secure anyway?" Philippa asked lightly. "Life ought to be a little bit dangerous. That's what makes it exciting!"

  "Jake isn't insecure," Dora went on, sounding pleased with herself. "She's too tough to be insecure."

  "Poor Jake, then, I say," commented Philippa. "There—that's the lot, I think." She picked up the brush and shovel.

  "I wish she'd go home," declared Dora. "Everything was O.K. until she came Lone Rangering along."

  "Dearest, you go and see your father—whenever we can catch him in one place long enough. Jake and David want to see each other too. She is his only child."

  "I thought Lewis and I were supposed to be David's children too," argued Dora petulantly. "Don't we count now that Jake's here?"

  Philippa tapped her on the crown of her head with the hearth brush. "Don't you play games with me!" she scolded Dora. "You know just what I mean."

  Dora threw her arms about Philippa so forcibly that some of the china fragments shot out of the little shovel onto the floor again. Having both hands full, Philippa had to use the hearth brush to show her affection and this time patted Dora's head with it.

  "I meant to be good," said Dora. "I meant to be a wonderful, understanding sister but she doesn't like me. And I don't like her."

  "Come on, honey. It's a working day for David, remember? And I've got lots of things to get done before your appointment with Mr Chopperlox."

  "I love Mr Chopperlox," said Dora in a dreamy voice. "He really understands me. He's a wonderful hairdresser."

  They all sat round the table in the dining alcove. Breakfast was normally eaten off the kitchen bench or breakfast bar, but today the table was properly set and sported a small vase of flowers. This was done in an effort to help them all get over the stormy events of the morning. Dora and Jake carefully avoided looking at each other. Philippa noticed and after a while she swapped places with Dora. "It's easier not to look at Jake from here," she said.

  Lewis ate with enormous care. He was usually rather a noisy eater, crunching apples and toast and drinking with appreciative slurping noises. Now he drank with dainty sips, looking warily from left to right as he did so.

  "It's been a rough morning," said David, trying not to look too anxiously at the clock. "You girls—just cool it for today if you possibly can. I know, I just know there’s a way round this but there you are—we're a very patchwork family. That may be charming in its own way, but it takes a little more effort to make it work." He paused and looked at each one of them in turn. Then he smiled. "Now. Suppose this Saturday we go to that pony-trekking place out on the peninsular—um, Rackham Rides—and have a day just wandering over the hills together. We all know Jake's an accomplished horsewoman—her letters talk of nothing else—and the rest of us can more than get by."

  Jake cast a longing glance towards her cowboy hat. She looked as if she couldn't wait to climb in under its all-concealing shadow.

  "Rackham Rides!" cried Philippa. "David, that's inspired! It'd be lovely to get out of the house—go on a trek over the hills and through Webster's Valley. You'd love it, Jake. It's beautiful."

  Dora's mouth opened slowly. Next to books about families and ballet, she enjoyed books about horses and easily imagined herself on a wonderful palomino mare, winning the dressage and the open jumping sections at a big agricultural show. What perfect understanding there is between this young rider and her horse, the announcer would say, she's getting an extra round of applause from the crowd just because they look so beautiful together. She had always been jealous when David read excerpts from Jake's letters about galloping along the old coach road or jumping hedges and logs. Now they could ride together. But. . .

  "Not Webster's Valley!" she cried in dismay. "Everyone knows it's haunted. The trees change places."

  "The ghosts have never bothered us before," David said, looking surprised. "I thought you'd jump at the idea, Dora."

  "I do, but not in a haunted place," Dora pleaded. "Everyone says it changes, sometimes the trees get taller overnight and paths shift around in it. Everyone knows."

  "The short treks are rather too short for what I had in mind," said David. "I thought we could make a day of it—what do you think, Jake?"

  Jake looked up rather desperately. "But I ride all the time at home! I get sick of horses." She used her Lone Ranger voice. "You all go. Don't worry about me. I'll be O.K." She laughed a little, but nobody else made a sound. There was dead silence.

  "So! No-one likes my idea. We'll have to think of something else then," said David at last in a controlled, neutral voice. "Look, I have to rush. I'm late already."

  Jake hunched her shoulders slightly and colour flooded her cheeks as an atmosphere of disapproval and gloom settled on them again like a grey fog, deadening the taste of marmalade and fresh orange juice. For some reason Lewis felt sorry for her. "I'll show you my collection of feathers later on," he whispered. "I've got a really beautiful one." Jake smiled at him.

  Later on while Philippa washed the dishes, Jake and Dora stood side by side drying them without exchanging a single word. Once or twice Jake was on the verge of telling them that the real reason she didn't want to go horse-riding was not that she was bored with it—but that she was afraid of it. However she knew that everyone would realize at once that she had told David many lies in her letters, and she did not want her courageous, adventurous image destroyed. So instead of speaking out she remained silent, and even smiled proudly though she was not feeling proud. She
wore her cowboy hat and kept it pulled forward so that all anyone could see was a slightly cynical smile and not the worried blue eyes further up under the brim.

  Five - Escaping

  Bond had no idea where he was; Once free of the shop he whirled away, uncertain of whether he was a victim or a winner. He missed the School desperately and missed the vast possibility of the Universe, too large to be merely confusing. He needed somewhere where he could sit and talk to Solita, to find out what a Companion could do for him apart from driving the enemy away. He needed time to remember all he could about the Wirdegen. Yet all the time he drifted he automatically sought out sensations, smells, contrasts of colour, textures and constructions. He matched the way things looked with the way they felt. His fingers lingered on tin, wood and plastic, silk, nylon and cotton, and turned the pages of books. His clever fingers ran over the engraved surfaces and milled rims of the coins passing through his fingers as he bought fruit and bread. He studied and recorded buttons, snap fasteners, greeting cards, magazines, nails and bolts, electronic toys, flowers, bathroom fittings, cassettes, earrings, pottery, cakes and cookbooks. Everything Bond felt he recorded for the Inventory.

  In the window of a video shop various television sets were tuned in to a morning programme intended for women at home. A fair-headed girl looked out of every set. Her face was repeated half a dozen times. Her mouth moved energetically as she spoke but the sound was turned off so nothing could be heard. Her eyes sparkled as she looked warmly and intimately out of each box, but no-one bothered to look back at her or to try and read her bright red lips. She could have been either blessing or cursing the world. Bond nodded to her but as he moved past something happened. The girl's image wavered then split up into seven different images, all overlapping each other and each one a different colour. For a moment she became a rainbow girl, while at the same time the music broadcast into the street went out of tune then howled as if the shop was full of resentful wolves. People looked up as he went by but not at him.