Barkbelly

by Cat Weatherill

  Barkbelly could feel himself getting sticky. Soon he was coated with a fine sugary film. When he licked his lips, he could taste it. The temperature was rising. The air shimmered around him as if it were bending and melting under the immense heat. But still he rode on. He was tireless. He stopped occasionally for a drink of water. He stopped for lunch and supper. But other than that, he worked incessantly, unaffected by the heat or the scalding splashes of jam.

  From the factory floor, Mossman watched his new worker like a cat watching a robin. The Overseer was so absorbed that he didn't notice the Young Master was beside him until the factory owner spoke.

  “I say, Mossman! What a splendid little chap! Remarkably well suited to this work.”

  “He is indeed, Master Tything,” said the Overseer. “I could use a dozen more like him.”

  The two men gazed up into the rafters. Barkbelly was thundering round the track as if his life depended on it.

  “Extraordinary!” said Young Master Tything. “Quite extraordinary!” He turned to the Overseer and lowered his voice. “We don't want to lose him.”

  “No, sir,” replied the Overseer evenly. His gray eyes hardened.

  “Guard him well, Mossman. No unnecessary risks.”

  “No, sir,” said Mossman, still looking up. “I will treat him as if he were my own flesh and blood.”

  “Mmm. See that you do,” murmured Young Master Tything. Then he turned on his heel and walked away.

  Only then did Mossman lower his gaze. He watched the Young Master wend his way through the machines. “Only he isn't flesh and blood, is he?” he hissed. “And accidents do happen.”

  Chapter 17

  he factory workers had a rest day once a week and Barkbelly was soon spending his with Wick Ransom. They had plenty in common. They were both Stir Boys. They both slept in the bunkhouse. They both liked Mop Mallory. They both hated Mossman. And they were both orphans. At least, that was what they had told each other. But one afternoon, after he had been at the factory nearly a month, Barkbelly learned the truth about Wick's parents.

  The boys were exploring Tythingtown together. It was a sharp winter's day. The back alleys were sulky with frost, but elsewhere glorious sunshine was paving the streets with gold. Barkbelly felt happy for the first time in weeks. He grinned at his new friend and Wick grinned back. They had freedom, sunshine and hot sausage sandwiches. What more could a boy want?

  They climbed up on a wall to eat their lunch. From here they had a fine view of a construction site. An immense building was creeping skyward. A gang of men worked at its base, pumping an enormous set of leather bellows that whooshed bricks up a wind tunnel to the builders high above. Dozens of workers banged and hammered, sawed and drilled, shoveled and filled. There were trucks and wagons, endlessly coming and going, with harness rats sweating in their traces. Just like home, thought Barkbelly. Only these rats weren't sleek and glossy. They were gray and grim. One had died; two men were dragging it out of a wheelcage by its tail. Barkbelly turned away.

  “What are they building?” he asked.

  “It's a jail,” said Wick, his mouth full of sausage.

  “What's a jail?”

  “Don't you know?”

  “No.”

  Wick wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “It's a place where they lock people up. People who have broken the law. Thieves. Murderers. People like that.”

  Barkbelly stopped chewing. He gazed at the thick walls and the barred windows in silence.

  “Don't you have a jail? Where you come from?” said Wick.

  “No,” said Barkbelly quietly. “It's just a village.”

  “Does no one ever do anything wrong?”

  “No.” Barkbelly could feel his heart: thump, thump, thump.

  “My parents are both in jail,” said Wick.

  Barkbelly turned to his friend in amazement. “Are they? I thought they were dead.”

  “No,” said Wick. “That's just what I tell people. They're in Milltown jail. They were workers at the mill—I was too—but there was trouble.” He paused and Barkbelly saw his eyes steeling as the memories returned. “They worked us too hard. I know they work us hard here, but there it was worse. The workers tried to do something about it. There was an uprising and my parents were caught smashing one of the machines. And then when it came to the trial—”

  Barkbelly frowned.

  “A trial is when you have to stand up in front of people and talk about what happened and why,” Wick explained. “And it should be fair. That's the whole point! But this one wasn't. The jury was made up of overseers and mill owners, and they didn't want to hear why my parents did what they did. Nor did the judge! He was a mill owner too, and he didn't want the trouble to spread. So he sent them to jail for life. I ran away, in case anyone came looking for me. And here I am.”

  He fell silent, expecting Barkbelly's life story in return. But it didn't come. Barkbelly sat in silence, screwing up his greasy sandwich bag tighter and tighter.

  “You don't have parents, do you?” said Wick encouragingly.

  “No,” said Barkbelly. He was becoming agitated now, and suddenly, to Wick's surprise, he jumped down from the wall and kicked it hard. “Yes,” he said. “I do have parents. I don't know why I'm denying them. They're good folk. They took me in as a baby. As an egg.”

  “You came from an egg?” Wick's jaw dropped.

  Barkbelly nodded.

  “How big was it?”

  “About the size of a goose egg.”

  “Was it laid by a goose?”

  “No! It was found in a field.”

  “So how did it get into the field?”

  There was no reply. Barkbelly leaned back heavily against the wall. “I don't know,” he said at last. “I didn't think about it for the longest time. When I did, I asked my parents, but they didn't know. I meant to ask my teacher but—” He closed his eyes and slowly rubbed his face. “I don't know what I am or where I've come from. And do you know what? This town is packed with people but I can't find anyone like me. I look all the time. All the time. I can't find anyone.”

  Wick caught the despair in his friend's voice but decided to risk another question. “Why are you here?” he said as gently as he could.

  “I ran away.”

  “Was there trouble?”

  Barkbelly said nothing.

  “Was it Pan?”

  Barkbelly stared at him, wild-eyed.

  “You talk in your sleep,” said Wick hurriedly. “You have bad dreams. You say it over and over.”

  “Do I?” Barkbelly was breathing so hard, he sounded like the bellows on the building site. “I don't mean to. I'm trying to forget. But I can't.”

  Wick didn't dare ask anything more. He shivered. “I'm getting cold,” he said, “sitting around like this. Come on! I'll show you the river.”

  They walked on. But the day had become darker somehow, and it was hard to find pleasure with a head full of jails and judges, nightmares and trials.

  Chapter 18

  as it the chill of that deceptively wintry day? Or was there something poisonous in the mist that hung heavily over the river? Whatever it was, Barkbelly awoke the next morning with a strange fever. His sleep had been troubled again, and when the bunkhouse bell rang for the morning shift, he could barely lift his head from the pillow.

  “Wick,” he groaned. “Fetch Missus Maddox.”

  The Matron swept into the dormitory in a swoosh of taffeta and lace and plumped herself down on Barkbelly's bed. Her skirts settled around her with a sigh.

  “Well, tickle my squealers!” she cried. “You're a sick one and no mistake. Haven't seen such a sweat since poor Mister Maddox had the lurgy.”

  She rummaged in the folds of her skirts and produced a peppermint lozenge. “Here,” she said, and she slid it between Barkbelly's parched lips.

  “Will that cure me?” whispered Barkbelly.

  “Cure you? No, my angel. But it'll stop that dog breath. Don't see we all have to suf
fer. Now, where's that Wick Ransom gone? Wick! Wick!”

  Her voice ripped the air like a rusty saw. Spiders fell from their webs.

  “Wick, tell Mister Mossman Barkbelly won't be coming in this morning.”

  When the Overseer heard the news, his eyes narrowed. He called for Mop Mallory.

  Within minutes, Barkbelly was being pulled out of his bed. Missus Maddox was flapping like a blackbird, but it was no use.

  “I have my orders,” said Mop, helping Barkbelly into his jacket. “Mossman wants him to work.” Mop's face was as white as a bone.

  He carried Barkbelly into the factory and up the stairs to the Stir Bikes. Mossman followed them up and watched as Mop helped Barkbelly put his goggles on.

  Barkbelly grunted. The pain in his head was so bad, his eyes were slits, and with the goggles on he was virtually blind. Suddenly he heard Wick's voice.

  “Mister Mossman! Mister Mossman!”

  “What do you think you're doing? Get back on your bike.”

  “Mister Mossman! Please! Barkbelly isn't well! He's sick! Really sick!”

  “Get back on your bike, Ransom. Now.”

  “But Mister Mossman, he should be—”

  “Don't you tell me what he should be doing, boy! Get back on your bike! Now, boy! Now!”

  Barkbelly felt the platform vibrate as Wick stomped away. Then there were hands helping him onto a Stir Bike. He took hold of the handlebars and breathed deeply. He started pedaling, but every push of the pedals was torture. After just one circuit of the track, he had to stop. He was trembling.

  “Get on with it, boy.”

  Mossman was still there! Barkbelly took another deep breath and struggled on, fighting the fever that battered his body. He started to sway in the saddle. The bike was barely moving now. The unstirred jam was beginning to burn. It splashed wildly. Steam billowed, thick as thunderclouds.

  Barkbelly gripped the handlebars. He reeled in a fog of sweat and dizziness.

  And then he fell.

  Flapping like a moth.

  Down toward the jam pot.

  Down.

  Down.

  Down.

  And—pdoosh!—the jam swallowed him whole.

  “No!” cried Wick, who had seen it happen. “No!”

  Screams and shouts and feet and fingers, running, pointing, calling, crying: “Water, water, bring water, more, more, more….”

  Panic-stricken workers crowded round the pot as the Fire Feeders doused the flames beneath it with buckets of water. “Faster,” they urged, “faster.” But everyone knew it was too late. No one could survive in a pot of boiling jam.

  Finally the fire was extinguished. Mossman called for a ladder. The jam in the pot was still bubbling, so only someone in a splatter suit could climb it. Coat Collins, the eldest Stir Boy, volunteered.

  Barely a sound could be heard in the factory. Just the plurping of the jam. The ticking of the office clock. The thudding of boots as Coat climbed the ladder. Then a cry: “He's alive!”

  Alive? Barkbelly was alive? The workers couldn't believe it. But there he was, clambering out of the pot. Falling into the arms of the Fire Feeders. Soaked in jam to twice his normal weight. Sticky sweet but smiling.

  Wick thought he was looking at a ghost. How did he do that? He must be indestructible. Wick was weak with relief. He had to sit down.

  As he turned away from the crowd, he saw Mossman standing outside his office. The Overseer was quite still. His face was as gray as his suit. There was a splash of strawberry jam on his jacket and his tie was slightly crooked. Suddenly he took a watch out of his pocket, glanced at it and slipped it away.

  “Look at him,” said a tired voice at Wick's shoulder. Mop Mallory. “Soon he'll have all this mess cleaned up and everything running on schedule.”

  And Mop was right. He did.

  Chapter 19

  arkbelly dreamed he was falling again. Tumbling through a thick, inky blackness that seemed to go on and on without end. But now there was an end, and someone was waiting for him there. A tiny figure, down in the darkness, pale as a mushroom. A boy. And the boy lifted his face and smiled, and opened his arms wide in welcome.

  “Have you come to play?” said Little Pan Evans.

  “Ohhh!”

  Barkbelly shuddered awake. He clutched the blankets, pulled them closer and stared into the blackness of the bunkhouse. Listened to his ragged breathing and the raw thumping of his heart. Then a new sound—a rustle of taffeta—and in came Missus Maddox, carrying a horn lantern. She neared the bed, put her finger to her lips and beckoned him to follow.

  And he did. Between the rows of sleeping boys, through the door and across the courtyard he went, following the guarded glow of her lantern. Through an arch, up a staircase and into a room that sparkled like a magpie's nest.

  “You sit yourself down, my sweet,” said the Matron. “Make yourself comfy. I'll fix us a nice drop of something, eh?”

  Missus Maddox disappeared into an adjoining kitchen. Barkbelly heard the hiss of a stove and the clatter of a milk pan. He looked around the sitting room.

  “Flaming foxes!” he said to himself. So many trinkets! Gold and silver and china and glass… there wasn't a surface left unadorned. But the room was so clean! How on earth did she find the time to polish it all?

  “There you go, my dove,” said Missus Maddox as she swept back in. She handed him a steaming mug and eased herself into an armchair. “Bad, was it?” she said. “Your dream?”

  Barkbelly nodded.

  “Was it Mossman?”

  “No!” said Barkbelly.

  “Oh, you'd be surprised how many times it is,” said Missus Maddox. “He bullies by day and night, that one. And after what happened today… well, I just thought it might be him.”

  Barkbelly sipped his hot milk and tasted—rum! It was delicious. He cupped the mug in his hands and breathed in the warm scent. “Mister Mossman doesn't like me,” he said.

  “He don't like anyone, my lovely. It's how he is.”

  “I know, but he really doesn't like me.”

  Missus Maddox tilted her head thoughtfully. “Well,” she said, “I'm not one for gossip, but Mop Mallory did tell me the very same thing. And I can only say this: Mister Mossman is a very simple soul. He don't like what he don't understand.”

  “Am I the only wooden person in Tythingtown?”

  “In the world, I should think! I ain't never seen another.

  Don't know as Mossman has either. And the thing is, you're strong. Mossman don't like that. He can't wear you down. He likes people tired—they're easier to control. But you, my darling, you don't get tired. So he can shout as much as he likes— make life a right old misery for you—but he ain't gonna break you. He knows that and it niggles him something rotten.”

  She smiled mischievously and drank so deeply from her mug, she emerged with a frothy white mustache.

  “How did you hear me?” said Barkbelly. “This room is so far away.”

  “Yes, but I visit in the night, don't I? I listen out for my boys. There's always someone. Muttering. Crying. Having a bad dream. Wetting the bed. You're all so young. So lost. So far from home. Most of you ain't got families—well, none as wants you. You wouldn't be here otherwise. And in the night—when it's dark and it seems like everyone else in the world is sleeping but you—that's when it finds you. The Past. 'Cause it's always in the past but…it don't stay there. I wish it did. But it don't. It's always there, in the dark or in your dreams. You hope it gets better in time, but it don't. Not really.”

  She fell silent. Nothing could be heard except the ticking of a clock and the guttering of a candle.

  “Can nothing be done?” said Barkbelly, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  “What do you suggest?” said Missus Maddox with a faint smile. “You can't forget the past. You think you can, but suddenly something will remind you and—whoosh!—you're right back where you were, bad as ever. You can run away, as fast and as far as you wan
t, but you'll carry it with you. It clings, like a flea on a dog. I don't know…. You can't change things. You can't turn back time. But you can make things better. Well, I hear some people can. It depends what the trouble was.”

  “I didn't mean to do it,” said Barkbelly. “The thing I did… in the past…it was an accident. It was. But knowing that doesn't make me feel any better. I can't believe what I've done. I can't forgive myself. And I can't forget.”

  “Could you go back, my plum? Could you explain? Apologize?”

  “No,” said Barkbelly. “I couldn't go back. It would make things worse. So much worse. If I stay away, perhaps in time they will forget me. I am not worth remembering.”

  “Neither am I, my sweet,” said Missus Maddox. “Neither am I.”

  But there, in the glow of the firelight, Barkbelly knew he would remember her. Remember this night, this room, this wisdom.

  “Don't you ever give up the fight,” she said suddenly. “Maybe you've done bad things, but you ain't a bad boy. I can tell. And it ain't wrong to want peace. So you go out there and find it, my angel. Search for it. Fight for it. Win it.”

  Barkbelly's eyes were shining like two more trinkets. “I will!” he said. “Oh, I will! Thank you, Missus Maddox. Thank you ever so much.”

  And with that, he returned to his bed and he slept.

  Chapter 20

  affeta Tything was a sunny soul who brightened up the factory whenever she entered it. Barkbelly saw her most days. Sometimes she was arm in arm with her father, supporting him as he hobbled rheumatically by. Sometimes she was with her brother. But usually she was alone, humming happily to herself as she went about her business. She looked after the stores, making sure that the sugar was always piled high to the ceiling; that lemons always swayed in baskets from the rafters; that the apricots and plums, strawberries and pears, peaches and cherries, grapes and blueberries were always delivered in the best season.