“You do a lot to pass the time for a thousand years. She taught us all she knew, but she was always the first, the eldest.”
“The strongest.”
“The smartest.”
“We have time, before the bell rings, to keep her at a distance. And maybe, in the fight, later, we can do some good.”
“And if we win, we’ll send her back and she can stir and sing by her lonesome.”
“And if the black beast don’t like it he can go boil himself in a kettle and call himself soup.”
“Your names?” Mum asked.
“Hazel, they called me.”
“My name is Ash.”
Mum and Dad looked at each other.
Mum nodded. “Go and get Neil,” she said.
“Stand back,” he told us, and we stood back, and he turned into something else—something big and covered in leaves and twigs and branches and full of living creatures. There was a smell of things growing and rotting, and I heard insects and birds. A fox barked, and Dad had long trailing vines for hair and his hands were covered with tree bark and his face was all wrong, lumpy, and swollen, like a ripe fruit ready to burst.
“Do not let them touch that line,” he said, and then he was gone, and there was mud everywhere and flies and worms and the rich smell of high summer.
“Twiggy man!” I said.
Mum put her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
The two hags came through the doorway, younger than ever—their skin smooth, their hair black, their faces sharp.
“The Weatherman in his might goes boldly to the place of his son’s imprisonment,” said Ash. “Green his strength, bright his rage. His shield is the earth. His sword is fire. His spear is of water, and his chariot the air. All empty is the land from his passing.”
“I thought you said you’d do no more of that singing,” said Hazel.
“That wasn’t singing, you oinseach, that was chanting, all solemn and proper for the occasion.”
I looked at the AtmoLab people working around the Weatherbox.
“Will Dad be back in time?” I asked.
“Oh, good heavens, dear, don’t worry your little head about that,” said Ash. “Of course he won’t.”
“Not a hope in the world,” agreed Hazel.
“Right,” I said.
I went to buy more time for the Weatherman—which meant keeping AtmoLab away from the Weatherbox.
CHAPTER 19
NEIL
I was quite thoroughly and repeatedly arrested.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said as I was led down a logging path to the main road, where cars and fire engines, ambulances, and bulldozers, backhoes, and tractors stretched along the verge for a mile in either direction. Eco-warriors and Shieldsmen were being put into white vans. I saw Weisz, his face pale with shock. One of the other Shieldsmen looked over at me and gave a shrug.
Then people in suits and uniforms surrounded me and started fighting over me. The police wanted to stick me in the paddy wagon. The guys from the ambulance wanted to put an oxygen mask on me. The firefighters wanted to put me over their shoulders and carry me to safety. There was a reporter who kept yelling questions at me. There was a man from the county council who screamed and shook his fist at me.
The blue lights of the police cars flashed and turned. Bulldozers and tractors roared and rattled. The buzz of chainsaws and the crash of falling wood came from the forest. One of the eco-warriors was weeping, resting his head on the shoulder of a burly policeman, who was patting him awkwardly on the back.
After being swung this way and that a few times they finally tossed me into the back of the paddy wagon. I sat on the bench next to the door. Weisz was beside me, and there was a line of slumped and tired-looking Shieldsmen sitting on either side, their knees all sticking out and meeting in the middle.
“Full up!” a policeman yelled, and the doors slammed shut and a fist pounded on them and we all rocked and rolled as the paddy wagon pulled out.
“That’s an awful pity, by,” someone said. “They were nice old trees, they were. And what’s the point, like? There’s no money left in this country, so they’ll cut them down, like, and sell the wood and all the profit will go into some politician’s pocket, and then they’ll tear the place up for a while and dig a few holes and pour a bit of concrete and then, like, all the finance will run out and it’ll be left like that, a wreck and a ruin.”
“They’ll widen the road,” someone else said, bitterly.
“Great, by. Nice wide roads and no one left to drive on them because no one can afford a car.”
“Forget that,” Weisz said, loudly. “That’s not important anymore. The son of the Weatherman is present and we have been called. Remember your duty.”
“Are we all going to jail?” I said. “I don’t want to go to jail. How can you do your duty in jail?”
“Don’t worry,” Weisz replied. “They’ll charge us, stick us in the cells, and a judge will set bail and we’ll be out by lunchtime tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? God, Weisz, we don’t have that much time! You don’t understand how urgent this is!” I snapped.
I spent the rest of the journey trying to explain how urgent this was. I ended up yelling at them.
“We’ve got to escape and get home and protect my family from her! We’ve got to get the phone line fixed so the Seasons can change! You’re magic Celtic ninja warriors! Surely you can escape from a paddy wagon!”
The paddy wagon stopped. The doors swung open. We blinked at the light and climbed down onto a footpath in front of a police station.
“Now’s your chance!” I hissed at Weisz, but he just smiled vaguely and shuffled his feet.
I gave up and turned to one of the policemen. “Uh, excuse me, where’s Ed? My friend, Ed Wharton? Big guy. He had a sword.”
“Him and everyone else! But if you mean the big guy with the sword but no kilt, we let him go. Turns out your Mr. Wharton had a permit. Never saw a permit for a sword before, but there you go. Gave him a warning and told him to get out of Dublin. None of the rest of you had permits, though. What were youse doing, anyway? One of those arty street-parade things? We loved the costumes, by the way. Excellent craftsmanship! Let us know if you’re doing a festival, will you? We all want to come along and see you in action.”
Inside the station it was bedlam. There was a mob of shouting, singing eco-warriors, a smaller mob of eco-warrior lawyers, reporters, councilors, and a few workmen and, trying to manage it all, the policemen in their peaked caps and yellow jackets. The Shieldsmen were put sitting in a row on a bench where they started singing some sort of sad and soulful harmony, which was actually quite lovely and everyone quieted down to listen. Someone tried to ruin it by strumming along with a guitar, but a policewoman confiscated it as evidence. When they finished, the whole station applauded, and then got back to the outrage and anger and everybody trying to make themselves heard at once.
The walls were covered with official posters telling me all about the various laws and acts and regulations I might be breaking just by being alive. One of the Shieldsmen was tearing them down and stuffing them into the pockets of her kilt.
Then I was taken by the elbow and led sideways through the mob, up to a tall desk where a massive sergeant was looking out over the whole scene with an air of patient, long-suffering gloom. He was trying to take down the details of an excited eco-warrior who seemed to think he was there to file a complaint about police brutality instead of be arrested.
“Evening, Sarge!” said the policeman. “Keeping you busy?”
“Well,” he said slowly and thoughtfully. “If they weren’t I’m sure you will.”
“Just boost this one through for us, Sarge,” the policeman said. “Then we’ll be out of your hair.”
Sarge sat back in his chair, making the plastic creak and crack. He pointed a big meaty finger at me. “This one, is it?”
“That’s the one, Sarge.”
“That’s the on
e,” Sarge repeated. “What’s he done, may I ask? Murder? Terrorism? Serial killing? Must be a dangerous brute, whoever he is. What are we dealing with here, exactly?”
“Knocked someone over,” the policeman said. “Nearly crippled him.”
“I’m sorry,” I wailed. “I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”
“I see,” said the sergeant, looking directly at me. “You look like the crippling sort, all right. Name?”
“Excuse me!”
Everything fell quiet. The singing and the talking and the shouting and complaining all died down. The air glowed strangely, and the evening sun shone green and gold through the windows. Thick clouds of pollen were flowing through the shafts of light.
Sarge looked up, blinking, eyes streaming. He sniffled and pulled out a handkerchief. “It’s a bit late in the year for hay fever,” he muttered.
“I want you to let him go.”
“Dad?” I said.
A space had cleared behind us, where everyone had pressed back and away from the man standing there—Dad, but different. There was something green about him, something dark, and there was a smell—or a hundred different smells—of plants and dirt and manure and rain on hot dust. In the quiet of the police station, I could hear a buzzing noise, rising.
“And who are you?” demanded Sarge.
“I’m his father,” Dad said. “I’m the Weatherman. Is mise Fear Na hAimsire, and I’ve come for my son.”
A murmur ran through the crowd. I saw men and women in bright woolen jumpers push forward, eyes alight.
Weisz stepped out. “Weatherman,” he said.
“Shut up,” Dad said. “I’m here for Neil. I’m taking him now. Don’t try to stop us.”
Sarge sat back in his chair and studied Dad. “Is that right? I see. Well, of course. He’s only under arrest for assault. We’re only the police. It’s only our job to enforce the law of the land. By all means, off you go.”
He waved his hands, then held up a finger as if he’d just had an idea.
“Or, no,” Sarge said. “Here’s a better notion. You sit yourself down. You shut yourself up, and you let us do our job. How does that sound?”
“No,” Dad said. “We’re leaving.”
“OK,” said Sarge. “Lads?”
A policeman took hold of my arm. Other policemen pushed past the Shieldsmen, reaching for Dad. The Shieldsmen blocked them and tried to pull them back. The policemen turned on the Shieldsmen. Voices were raised. So were fists.
“STOP!”
Dad was taller now, almost to the ceiling, and his skin was green and his clothes were made of leaves, and his hair was grass and his body was wrapped in ivy and briars and brambles. Behind him the doors of the police station blew open and a million flying, buzzing, whirring insects flew in.
That’s when the screaming really started.
Summer hits like a hammer. It’s great after a long Winter and a wild Spring, when everything gets bright and hot and flowers burst and insects buzz and birds dart and fruit ripens, but it is life pushed as far as it can go.
Summer exploded into the police station. A billion insects surfed a blaze of heat and light. Thick dark soil boiled up from the ground under our feet, squirming with centipedes and worms. Trees ignited from cracks in the walls and ceiling, sending out long crooked branches thick with leaves and heavy with fruit that swelled and ripened and died and rotted and fell about us in a couple of seconds. The stench of rot and earth and mad growth would have driven us crazy if we weren’t already insane with buzzing, biting, crawling insects.
On my skin and up my nose, in my mouth, my ears, my clothes. Crawling, touching, buzzing, biting in my hair and all over me, alive, fat, hungry, and thirsty. They were IN MY EYES!
Then I was yanked off my feet, lifted by a giant hand that went around my waist and carried me through the nightmare. People screamed and yelled and prayed and wept and ran around looking for the doors. I was taken through it all and set down outside. I saw nothing because I had my eyes shut tight. I shook myself hard and slapped myself and my hair to get the insects off, and finally I opened my eyes. Inside the station there was golden light and black insects and green growing things and running, falling people clawing their way outside.
I was standing in the car park. There were people all around—eco-warriors and Shieldsmen and police and detectives and criminals, all coughing and rolling and wiping themselves and hugging and weeping and staring, and all keeping well clear of the man standing beside me, fear in their eyes and horror on their faces.
“Dad,” I said.
“It’s OK, Neil. I’ve come to take you home.”
He wasn’t all summery now, though there was still a kind of glow around him—a green tinge to his skin and a dark red in the depths of his eyes. He seemed more sad than anything else.
Ed ran up, red-faced and puffing. “Neil? Neil, are you OK?”
“Hey, Ed. I’m OK. I just feel, you know, like there’s still insects all over me.”
“Uh, there are. Here, let me…”
“Agh! Agh! Get ’em off! Get ’em off!” I yelled.
“Stop struggling!”
“Ow! Stop hitting me!”
“Sorry!” Ed said. “They’re really dug in there!”
“Agh!”
“Still, wow, did you see that? Did you see it? Wow! I didn’t know your dad could do that!”
“Neither did I!”
“I’m glad I wasn’t in there, though. I followed you here and rang your dad. Didn’t expect him to get here so quick.”
“Is that it? Is that all of them?”
“All the big ones anyway. The smaller ones should wash off in the shower.”
“OK, Ed,” Dad said. “Take us home.”
“OK. Uh, couldn’t you just, y’know…” He wiggled his fingers in the air.
“I’m not sure I could bring you with me. Alive, anyway. I sent Neil off on his own and now I’m going to make very sure he gets back safely. How long is the drive?”
“Two hours, give or take,” Ed replied.
“That’s too long. Could you manage it in an hour and a half?”
“Uh, well…”
“Go as fast as you like. No one,” he said, “is going to stop us.”
“It is a racing truck,” I reminded Ed.
“OK,” Ed said. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“Come on then,” Dad said.
“Dad, wait!” I cried.
“What? Why?” he asked.
“Dad, I found them. I found the Shieldsmen! They’re the people in the woolly sweaters. You have to bring them with us! They’ve been waiting so long, and we need them!”
Dad looked around at the ring of men and women in dirty sweaters who had gathered to stand sheepishly in a half circle before him.
Weisz came forward with his head bowed and his arms by his side. “Weatherman,” he said. “We stand ready to serve.”
“Shieldsmen,” Dad said. “Did you serve my son by allowing him to be arrested?”
The Shieldsmen bowed their heads even further in shame. I opened my mouth to defend them, but stopped. I guess it was Dad’s call, in the end.
“Still,” he said. “We all make mistakes. There is a great joy in me to call your exile ended. Come back with me now and guard my fort once more.”
Weisz’s face lit up with joy. The Shieldsmen grinned and thumped each other’s shoulders.
“We’ll never fit that lot in the truck,” Ed said.
“You,” Dad said, pointing at a policeman sitting on the ground with his legs splayed, pulling ivy out of his hair.
“Yes?” he said. “Oh, no, please leave me alone. I’ll be good! I’m sorry we arrested him, I really am!”
“Get me the keys to one of those vans,” Dad told him.
The policeman scrambled to his feet and ran off. He came back about a minute later and held a set of keys out to Dad. They jangled as his hands shook. “It’s OK. You don’t have to bring it back. We�
��ll say it was stolen. It’s the van that all the masks and things were put in. Please don’t come back.”
“I won’t,” Dad said. “Thank you.”
“Er, when can we have our police station back?”
Dad shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not your police station anymore.”
The last few people had run or crawled outside. Grass and earth and trees and water were all squeezing out through the doors and windows now. Crashing noises came from inside as the floors collapsed. Then the roof caved in, and a great halo of insects swooped out and around. Green shoots burst upward.
Dad gave the keys to the Shieldsmen, who went looking for the van. We followed Ed to where he’d left the truck.
“We’d better make a bit of haste,” Ed said. “I think you just declared war on the police.”
“They declared war on me first,” Dad said. “And they lost.”
CHAPTER 20
LIZ
I had my bow in my hand, arrows in my belt, war paint on my face, and crow feathers in my hair. The heat was sticky, and the sky was bright, even though the sun had gone down. I was standing on the phone box and I was pointing an arrow at AtmoLab, hoping that I wouldn’t have to find out whether I was mean enough to shoot at what seemed like a bunch of perfectly nice and friendly people. Mum was standing in front of the door of the phone box with her arms crossed and an expression on her face scarier than a hundred arrows. Owen and Neetch were chasing each other around and around the phone box and Mum’s legs, laughing and jumping. Ash and Hazel stood side by side on the wall.
After Dad left, AtmoLab had carried on, attaching their computers to things that measured the wind, the humidity, the temperature, and a hundred other things that the computers calculated and processed and analyzed. They had pointed lights and cameras and sensors and detectors at the phone box. Clive had opened a small metal hatch on the road beside the phone box and pulled out a cluster of wires and cables, snipping and splicing and pulling and twisting and untangling.
They were reconnecting the phone line, and they seemed like perfectly lovely people, but they were the enemy and had to be stopped. Or at least they had to be stopped until Dad was ready for them. I had screamed my best Shieldsman battle cry at the top of my voice and charged and leaped over the wall and run around with my bow and arrow screaming and screaming like a crazy dangerous person until I had chased them all away. Then I climbed on top of the Weatherbox and told them that if any of them took one step nearer I’d skewer them.
The Maloneys' Magical Weatherbox Page 14
