Word Hunters

by Nick Earls

  When they reached the third floor, they listened for the sound of typewriters and the clamour of a newspaper office, but all they could hear was a conversation coming from an office down the hall.

  ‘Charles,’ one man said, ‘it’s a fine piece of writing and you know I find it amusing. I wonder, though, about the part where you refer to the Providence editor and say, “If he comes this way he’ll need to have his contribution box o.k.”. I didn’t pick up what “o.k.” was at the start, and I think I’m a good test. Perhaps we should gloss it. Let’s try it with “all correct” between a couple of dashes after the “o.k.”.’

  The hall was dimly lit, and Lexi wondered if she could see a glow coming through the open office door at the mention of the word. She and Al were standing in a kind of entrance area, which had two leather sofas and a large polished wooden desk with turned legs. On the desk they could see several folded copies of the Boston Morning Post dated Tuesday March 19, 1839. There was an inkwell sunk into the desk at the side near the wall, a cup next to it containing metal rods that must have been pens, and a bell sitting in one corner.

  ‘The readers love it, though,’ the man who must have been Charles said. ‘They love the bumpkin spelling and all the initials. They’ve loved it since last summer and they’re always waiting for what we do next.’

  ‘EN – Eye no. I can play around with bumpkin spelling too and I know readers love it. That’s not the point.’

  A chair scraped across the floor. Lexi and Al ducked into the stairwell as the men came out of the office and stopped at the desk. The taller man had a sheet of paper in one hand. A pulse of light was coming from near the bottom.

  ‘I’m planning to run it on Saturday,’ he said. From the sound of his voice, he was Charles.

  ‘The back page?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Charles put the paper down on the desk, picked up one of the pens and dipped it into the ink. ‘We should change these, too.’ He pointed to the newspapers on the desk. ‘Yesterday’s papers are old news already. We should get a boy to bring up a few copies of today’s.’

  He circled the date on the top paper with his pen and wrote something next to it in capitals. Then he turned back to his article.

  ‘Gloss it in?’ he said, and the other man nodded. ‘All right. “O-K dash all correct.” Happy now?’

  ‘IK – ixtremely kontent.’

  Charles laughed, set the sheet down on the pile of newspapers and rang the bell.

  ‘Where is that boy?’ he said as they walked back down the hall. ‘We should fix a bell to ring in the basement, since he’s down there boxing type whenever Joe’ll let him.’

  Lexi and Al moved back to the desk as quietly as they could. Down the hall, they heard an office door close.

  ‘What was that about the boy boxing in the basement?’ Lexi hadn’t expected boxing at a newspaper.

  ‘Boxing type. I think it’s when they take all the metal letters and set up the pages for printing.’ It was the best answer Al could manage without access to Google. ‘Okay, it’s Wednesday today.’ He checked the date on the newspapers again. Charles had written ‘TODAY’S PLEASE!’ ‘The 20th. If it’s like the ad in The New York Times, we’ve got until Saturday evening.’

  Lexi picked up the handwritten article. ‘It’s really there. It’s a joke spelling. “Okay” started off as a joke. Oll korrect.’ The ‘o’ of ‘o.k.’ had turned into a glowing ‘& more’ button. ‘But if we take this, maybe it won’t get published. It looks like it’s the only copy. It’s different from 1929, when they typed it and did about six of them. Remember that copy boy pulling the copies apart?’

  ‘If we take it and bring it back—’

  ‘Then it might not be published on Saturday. The whole word might not—’

  Someone was coming up the stairs.

  ‘Sit down,’ Al whispered. ‘Pretend we’re here for something else. Hide the article.’

  They sat on one of the sofas, and Lexi folded the article to protect the portal and tucked it behind her. A boy around their age appeared at the top of the stairs in no great hurry. He stopped when he saw them there.

  ‘You folks been attended to?’ he said.

  ‘We’re here to see Charles,’ Lexi told him. ‘We’re cousins on his mother’s side. We’re early. He knows we’re here.’

  The boy nodded and checked the desk. He read Charles’s note on the top copy of the paper, and he picked the papers up.

  ‘Sorry.’ He adjusted the papers in his arms so that he could carry them all. ‘It should have been today’s. My fault. I’ll go get some now, hot off the press.’

  Still not hurrying, he walked back to the stairs, leaving Lexi and Al alone in the room. Lexi pulled the article out from behind her and unfolded it. The portal was still glowing.

  ‘This is killing me,’ Al said. ‘We’ve got it already. That should be the hard bit. Grandad Al could be out there somewhere. We’re so close. But we can’t take it.’

  ‘Let’s copy it. Charles rang the bell for that guy to take the article, and he’ll be back with new newspapers. We can copy it and he can take the copy.’

  She stood up, walked over to the desk and pulled open its two drawers. One of them had paper in it. She lifted a sheet out and held it up.

  ‘Good one,’ Al said. ‘I’m pretty sure your writing’s better than mine.’

  She took a close look at Charles’s article and the way he formed his letters. She copied them as well as she could, all the time being careful not to touch the portal. She even fixed up the messy part where he had added ‘all correct’.

  The article was in Al’s duffel bag and they were sitting down again just as the boy came back with a pile of the day’s papers.

  ‘Charles just brought that out for you,’ Lexi said, pointing to the sheet of paper.

  The boy picked it up and glanced at it. He didn’t seem particularly interested.

  ‘Before you go,’ Al said, as the boy turned for the stairs, ‘we’re just passing through Boston – we’re actually heading for Nantucket, but we haven’t made all our travel arrangements. What do you think would be our best way to get there?’

  ‘Nantucket? I can’t imagine why – I’m sure you have your reasons.’ He thought about it. ‘You could try the docks. There must be ships coming in from Nantucket from time to time.’ It didn’t sound promising. ‘Or you could take a coach to the Cape, to Barnstable, then ask around there for the best place to sail from. Maybe South Yarmouth. The coach station’s on Milk Street, in the direction of the harbour. I think that’s what I’d do. If I had the time, money and inclination to go to Nantucket.’

  ‘The money,’ Lexi said once he had gone again. ‘What do we do to get the money?’

  Al already had a plan. ‘We sell papers.’

  They picked up every copy the boy had left and carried them quietly down the stairs. Lexi was worried it was stealing, but Al said they were left there to be given away anyway, to anyone visiting the Post. Even if it was stealing, he was going to take them. They needed to find their grandfather.

  They left the building and turned into Milk Street. The coach station was easy to find. They checked the boards listing departures, and found one headed ‘Cape Cod’ that included Barnstable as a stop on the way to Provincetown. It was leaving in half an hour. That was all the time they had to sell as many papers as possible.

  They walked around the station, selling to people about to depart and, when a coach arrived, they made sure they were standing nearby as people climbed out.

  ‘Morning Post, hot off the press,’ Al called out, holding up a folded copy. ‘Welcome to Boston.’

  It seemed to be a service people liked and the last paper was gone by the time the next coach was empty. When Al added the coins in his pockets to the money in Lexi’s bonnet, it was quite a weight i
n his hands. It felt like a lot of money. He counted it up, and was less positive.

  ‘Three dollars ten.’ It was a lot of coins for three dollars ten. ‘Do you think two people can get to Nantucket for that?’

  It turned out they couldn’t, not even in 1839. The driver of the Cape Cod coach looked at the coins in their hands and laughed.

  ‘But we really have to get there,’ Lexi said. And then further. It was all looking too hard. ‘You can have my boots instead. What about that? They’re good boots. They’re almost new.’

  She lifted her skirts a little and he took a step back.

  ‘They’re not my size.’ He blocked his view of her ankles with his hand, but took a careful look at the boots. ‘I could get a good price for them, though. You’re right – they are good boots.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ she said, before he could tell her it wasn’t.

  So they rode on the coach to Barnstable for the price of a pair of good used boots. Lexi sat with her socked feet showing beneath her skirts, and their fellow passengers all looking the other way. Next they could sell Al’s boots and her jacket if they had to, and they still had three dollars ten.

  ‘I keep imagining him in that daggy orange towelling hat,’ Lexi said as they passed through Weymouth. ‘And holding a fish.’ She tried to picture a 19th-century Grandad Al – the man gone missing from 30 years of family photos, four years older now than when he left and wearing a black narrow-waisted coat and dark cravat, like the men in the carriage.

  The coach stopped in every small town, but only for as long as it took to allow people to get on and off. It moved slowly, though. Al wanted Google so he could find a map and work out how long the journey would take. In Plymouth the driver called a longer break. Everyone got off the coach to walk around. Those who hadn’t brought food went to buy some. There was soup being sold with crusty bread, and Doug poked his nose most of the way out of the duffel bag before Al shook the bag and he dropped back inside.

  They were all hungry, but Lexi and Al didn’t know when they would need their money. Al tried to think about other things, which meant he had five minutes thinking about a hundred different kinds of great food, before he reminded himself this was all about Grandad Al. It would be worth it if they could find him.

  Lexi could feel the cold ground through her socks and her feet were going numb. They walked back to the small coach house, where passengers came and went. As they sat on a bench waiting to be called to board, Lexi realised a man was staring at her.

  She nudged Al and said, ‘Opposite corner, near the door.’

  When Al turned to look at him, the man’s eyes opened wide. He stood up to walk across to them, and tripped over someone else’s bag. He hardly seemed to notice. He pushed past two people and stepped up onto a bench and off the other side.

  Al put his duffel bag on his back. He and Lexi got to their feet and started to back away.

  ‘No, please,’ the man said. He stopped. He looked desperate. ‘Please.’

  It was a crowded room. They were safe enough.

  He grabbed his collar and held it out to show them. That was when they saw the peg key he’d pinned there.

  ‘Grandad Al—’ Lexi reached out to Al’s shoulder to steady herself. The man had wavy brown hair. He was thin and tall. Their grandfather hadn’t looked like that in the photos. He was grinning, pushing the key on his collar out with his thumb.

  ‘Will Hunter,’ he said as he reached them, holding his hand out to shake theirs. ‘Did Caractacus send you?’

  It wasn’t Grandad Al. Will Hunter was 15 in London in early 1918, when he found the Curious Dictionary. He had had it for nine months before his turn hunting ‘Hello’ came. It had been Lexi and Al’s first word, but he had done dozens by then. He had passed safely through the first step in Menlo Park, New Jersey, to the whaler off Nantucket, but the portal had gone to another ship in the fog. He had seen the light and had almost been able to reach it. He had called out, but too late.

  It was Will Hunter they had blocked at the portal, not Grandad Al.

  Lexi stared at the rough wooden floor of the coach house and tried not to cry. They had saved a hunter and that was a good thing. But they had used up their only clue in the search for Grandad Al. He was in some other part of the past, and the past went on for thousands of years. She wanted to shout at Caractacus and demand whatever magic it would take – or knowledge, or whatever stupid thing he wanted to call it – to give her time with the grandfather she had never met.

  At first Will had worked mostly on whalers, in case ‘hello’ came up again.

  ‘But that was one word,’ he said, ‘and I’d already missed it. Every night, the crew were looking into the dark for whales and I was looking for a tiny light. And thinking all the time about other words – words I’d done and words I hadn’t – and where I might need to be, and when. New York’s a better bet than Nantucket. That’s where I’ve been, mostly. I’ve been back in Nantucket the past few weeks, since I can earn good money there, but I’m actually on my way to Boston. If I remember correctly, “okay” is about to go through there.’

  Al laughed. ‘We’ve got “okay” in my bag.’

  Will blinked. ‘The article? You’ve got the article before they published it?’ He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I was sure I only landed there when the article came out, and that’s not until Saturday. When are you from? Why are you here in Plymouth?’

  ‘We knew someone got lost in Nantucket.’ It was the best way Lexi could put it.

  ‘So Caractacus did send you.’ He took a deep breath, and let himself smile. ‘I lost my pegs. Someone stole them from me. I was sleeping in a park. I didn’t know if they’d work for other words or words that I’d done before, but I never got to try. What’s the plan? Have you got pegs for me? Do I get to go home or—’

  ‘You will,’ Al said. It was what Will needed to hear. ‘Not straightaway, but you will. For now you’ll come with us. Then we’ll either pass close to 1918 or more likely go back to Caractacus. He can get you home from there.’ Al hoped it was true.

  Will nodded. However much he’d thought about this moment, it was a lot to take in. ‘I don’t even know how the war’s going.’

  ‘You win. We win. It finishes in 1918.’ Al couldn’t bring himself to say that another world war would come along in just over 20 years.

  Will took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose into it. ‘Good. It’s such a relief to hear it. My brother—’ He scrunched the handkerchief up and rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. ‘It needed to finish.’

  A bell rang. The coach to the Cape was about to leave, but there was no longer any reason to be on it.

  ‘I’m keeping the boots,’ the coach driver said to Lexi. ‘We had a deal.’

  The word hunters left the coach house and walked out to the road. Will laughed as he watched the world of 1839 going on. He had been lost and robbed and now he had his ticket out. He was too happy to notice Lexi gazing blankly at the ground, wanting him to be someone else and wondering how many battles she might have to fight in the huge blank past, and whether Grandad Al would be at the end of any of them.

  ‘Let’s go down here,’ Will said, and led them into a side street.

  Al checked the two pegs in his bag and took out the one that had activated. He opened the folded article and the portal shone brightly.

  ‘Next step’s easy,’ Will said. ‘You’ll be back home before you know it. Do you mind if I—’

  He reached forward and touched the portal.

  This time they veered sideways, then felt blood rush to their heads as they slowed down. It was a longer drop – far longer than the others for ‘okay’. There was a bump as they tumbled from fog into a clear sky.

  Lexi and Al recognised the shape of the land below. It was New York again, but there was no Ne
w York. They were falling to the north, towards a river – towards a single wooden ship under sail.

  ‘Crow’s nest,’ Will called out. ‘Top of the mast.’

  It took a small correction to their fall, but a precise one. Will and Lexi landed cleanly in the empty crow’s nest, but Al clipped the edge and tipped over it face first. By the time he stopped moving there was a hat jammed over his eyes.

  He heard Lexi say, ‘And the prize for best comedy landing goes to—’ When he pulled the hat off, it was no surprise to see that she was pointing at him.

  ‘If the two of you had left any room—’ It was the best excuse he could manage.

  All three of them were dressed as crew, with puffy shirts and pants with a snug fit that, from Al’s point of view, made them too much like leggings. As if the landing wasn’t bad enough. Luckily Lexi seemed more focused on Will this time.

  As he reached into his bag for the peg, Will stopped him.

  ‘This’ll be easy. I’ve done it before and I know exactly where we need to be.’ He pointed down to the stern.

  ‘But why are we here at all?’ Lexi seemed less troubled by the swaying of the crow’s nest than Al. Even a small movement down on the ship meant a lot of movement up here. ‘Surely the job’s done. “Okay” doesn’t go any further into the past than 1839.’

  ‘Fair question.’ Will reached back to grab the edge of the crow’s nest as it swayed the other way. ‘It didn’t take much to start “okay”, but it took a lot to keep it going. It might have died out if they hadn’t used it as a soap name, for instance. And for it to last until the soap came along, Van Buren had to be Old Kinderhook. And for that he needed to have been born in Kinderhook. So welcome to the early 1600s, where we might just find out how that came about. The man on that raised deck in the high boots and fancy collar is Henry Hudson. He’s English, but working for the Dutch East India Company. They’re exploring the river. The ship’s called the Half Moon. One day they’ll name the river after him. He doesn’t know that, and he doesn’t know he’ll disappear in two years’ time, searching for the Northwest Passage. I looked him up in Encyclopaedia Britannica after I got home. Do you do that?’