A Box of Nothing

by Peter Dickinson

  Hurrying enough to make himself pant, he came to a place where the slope levelled out into a flat, grey space as big as a football field. The cliff he was aiming for was a bit farther up the slope on the far side of it. It really was a cliff, far too big to have been a cupboard, but still the mauve and yellow it had been painted when it hung in someone’s kitchen. The yellow was rock, and the mauve was some kind of streaky stain. Halfway between the grey patch and the cliff lay a white box. From this distance it looked like a perfectly good fridge, only for some reason it hadn’t gone fossil like everything else. Funny.

  The grey patch had a greasy, sticky look, but at least it was flat. James was just going to step out onto it when in front of him it rose into a hummock. The hummock swelled until it was almost a yard across, then a hole appeared in the top and it collapsed with a whistling sigh and a plop. Plus a really foul smell. All across the patch the same thing was happening, sigh, suck, plop, like an enormous pot of greasy soup boiling. It wasn’t going to be much use looking for the box if it had fallen anywhere in that mess. He began to pick his way around the edge.

  Halfway around, he came to a path that ran along the edge of Soup Lake for a bit and then slanted up the slope below the cliff. A path meant people. Or things. James wasn’t sure he wanted to meet anyone in this strange place, but the path was going the way he wanted, and besides it seemed to be getting dark. Yes, the sun was low and the sky that way was all pink and gold, although James could still taste the cleanness in his mouth from brushing his teeth after breakfast only an hour ago.

  He was striding up the path, looking left and right among the jumbled rocks because he was getting near the area where he thought the box should have fallen, when his leg caught in something. He staggered forward and grabbed at a rock by the path to stop himself from falling. Then he felt the pain in his shin.

  “Ouch!” he said, though there was no one around to hear.

  He stood on one leg, rubbing his shin and looking to see what had tripped him. Nothing. Oh, yes, a trail of loose wire. It had been stretched across the path on purpose to trip people and he’d busted it by walking into it so hard. Stupid idea of a joke. He limped on.

  The path ran close by the white box he’d seen from the other side of Soup Lake. It was a fridge, no use any more because of its door being loose. Why hadn’t it gone fossil and huge like everything else? Perhaps one of the gulls had picked it up on the shore and dropped it here, the way ordinary gulls do with mussels and things, to bust it open and get at the food inside. Still, just because it was different, James decided to have a look.

  The box of nothing was lying against the back of the fridge, wedged between it and an upside-down tin bucket with its bottom rusted out. The bucket hadn’t gone fossil either. James picked the box up and turned and looked at the sea. It was still there. No different. Perhaps when he got back down to the shore

  He glanced toward the sunset to try to guess how long he had before it was dark. There, black against the gold-tinged sky, floated three great winged shapes. The gulls were coming.

  James stuffed the box into the pocket of his anorak and crouched down. It wasn’t any use. They’d spot him from miles away in his blue jeans and scarlet anorak, the only blob of colour on the grey mountain slope. The gulls weren’t hurrying. In fact, as James watched them, wondering what to do, he saw them circle back and right around before gliding on. They must be actually trying to slow down. They weren’t interested in James yet because they were interested in something underneath them. Something moving this way.

  Something or someone had put a trip wire on the path. Better not stay so close to it.

  Still crouching, James squirmed and scrabbled his way up to the foot of the cliff. There might be a rock there, leaning against it, making a little cave he could wriggle into. Something like that. But there wasn’t.

  The gulls were getting closer. They’d pretty well certainly spot him if he tried to scuttle away along the foot of the cliff. Spot him if he stayed too.

  As he huddled himself against the cliff, watching the approaching gulls, a new feeling came over him, a sort of shrinking chill and stillness. Somebody or something was watching him. Close, close by.

  He managed to force his head around. A crack had opened in the yellow rock. In that narrow slot of dark something glistened, a curving gleam, the lens of a large eye.

  “We thought we felt an alarm go off,” said a voice. “The patrol will be along in a minute. You had better come inside.”

  It was a machine voice, the sort that computers talk with.

  “I’m all right,” said James.

  “Until the patrol finds you,” said the voice. “We strongly advise you not to allow that to happen. In fact, we insist.”

  The slit widened. A furry yellow arm with no proper fingers came through, took James gently by the elbow, and pulled him into the dark.

  Chapter 4: Rat Patrol

  The rock closed and the arm let go. James wasn’t as frightened as he might have been because what he’d been really afraid of was the gulls and whatever they were following along the path, and he was safe from them now. But when he looked at his rescuer his heart jumped.

  There was only a faint pale light from somewhere overhead, so it wasn’t easy to see, but the thing standing in front of him certainly wasn’t human. It didn’t look like a proper animal either, or if it was one it must have had some kind of terrible accident. It stood on its hind legs like a human, but its head was more like a donkey’s, with two long ears and a muzzle. One huge eye gleamed in the dim light. The body was a shapeless lumpy bag wearing what looked like a sailor’s shirt. One arm was short and stubby and the other long and thin. The legs were in shadow, but they didn’t seem to match either.

  “How do you do?” said the computer voice, spacing the words out.

  “Hello,” James managed to say. “I’m James.”

  The creature paused.

  “Call us Burra,” it said. “Yes, the Burra. We are the Dump Burra.”

  It sounded as though it had only just decided what its name was.

  “What did you mean about the patrol?” said James. “I saw some gulls.”

  Again there was that slight pause.

  “Rats,” said the Burra. “You must have set off one of their trip wires. Come and see. This way, if you please.”

  In a lopsided, clumping walk it led the way across what seemed to be a small cavern. The dim light came from a short length of tube poking out of the far wall. Just below the light a door opened before the Burra reached it. Beyond was a flight of stairs, much more brightly lit because the tube ran the whole way up. As he climbed them James saw that he’d been right about the Burra’s legs—they weren’t just different lengths, they were different kinds. The right-hand one belonged to a camel or something, but the left one was human, except for being made of wood. It had a proper knee and ankle and foot, and a shiny black dancing shoe. It clumped on the stair treads. The same with the arms. The furry one came off a teddy bear, but the other was thin and green and had three fingers so it must have belonged to a Kermit. In fact, the Burra was somehow made of a lot of bits of different toys.

  As they went up the stairs the light came, too, coiling along like a tame luminous worm overhead. The Burra led the way into another cavern, much larger than the one below, with patches of twinkling small lights here and there and full of mild hums and whirrings. The light tube coiled along the roof, tied itself into a knot, and let down a loop of light over a table in the middle of the floor. The Burra clumped across to the far wall of the cavern.

  “Come and look, James,” it said.

  A slit opened in the wall. It wasn’t a window. In fact, it was much more like an eyelid, opening upward. As soon as it started to open, the light went out and all the whirrings stopped. The red and gold of sunset shone across the cavern. James crossed the floor and climbed a step to stan
d beside the Burra and gaze out.

  Just outside the window was a tangle of rusty wire thick enough to screen the slit, so that anyone looking at the cliff would have seen just a mess of wire caught on a ledge halfway up. But James could see out quite easily, a bit like hiding in a bush and peering between the leaves. He was about as high above the path as if he’d been looking out of the upstairs window of a house. Beyond the path lay Soup Lake, and the slope he had climbed, and the iron sea, all lit by the fiery sky.

  The rats came into sight almost at once. They were as big as Labrador dogs. They wore caps and belts, but no other clothes. Most of them carried their guns slung across their backs and ran on all fours, but some were walking more awkwardly on hind legs, with their guns in their front paws ready and pointing at the sky. James knew which was the officer because it had a sword in its belt and a band of gold around its cap.

  The officer squeaked. The patrol halted. More rats rose to their hind legs and aimed their guns at the sky. Five rats from the back of the patrol quickly assembled a small anti-aircraft gun. As soon as they’d got it loaded and ready the rest of the patrol split up and scurried around, searching the slope. The officer went and inspected the broken trip wire.

  They all moved like ordinary rats, scuttling along with their noses close to the ground and their whiskers quivering. Suddenly one gave an excited squeak and began nosing around the white fridge. Two others joined it and together they came squeaking up toward the cliff.

  “I think they’ve picked up my trail,” whispered James.

  “Smelled you?” said the Burra, after the usual pause. “We should have thought of that. We do not have any special smell, ourselves. Well, now, let us see …”

  It did not sound especially worried. In any case, James was distracted by a wild squeak from one of the rats near the cannon.

  All the other rats stopped what they were doing and aimed their guns upward. James heard the whimper of wings and saw the gull for a moment before it soared away out of sight. The rats stayed on the alert for another swoop.

  Something nudged against his jeans. He looked down and saw a hairy leg, torn at the top and with sawdust spilling out, nuzzling against him like a too friendly dog. When he tried to back away it followed him.

  “Stand still, please,” said the Burra. “We must get your smell on us.”

  James saw that the Burra was standing on its wooden leg now, and it was the camel leg that had come loose and was doing the nuzzling. He put up with it until the leg seemed to have had enough and went hopping away into the dark.

  The rats on the slope below had just relaxed their guard and were starting to search again when there was an explosion of squeaking. Several guns aimed at the cliff, but James couldn’t see what the target was until the leg came into sight, darting in zigzag hops across the slope. The nearest rats rushed at it, trying to catch it, which meant that the others couldn’t shoot without hitting them, but as soon as it had dodged clear they started blasting away. They weren’t very good shots, James thought, though the leg was obviously a tricky target, darting around like that. They all missed and the leg could have got clear away, only it suddenly stopped hopping around and stood still on a boulder, outlined against the red sky. It was almost as though it was teasing the rats for their bad shooting.

  Several guns banged together. The leg was blasted sideways. Puffs of sawdust shot out and a bit of cloth flapped loose. The leg struggled onto its foot again, although it was cut almost in two halfway up. More guns banged and it toppled over, twitched, and lay still.

  With excited squeaks the rats scuttled toward it, but before they reached it James heard the rush of wings as one of the great gulls came skimming low over the slope from the other side. It almost brushed the backs of the scampering rats as it passed them, scooped the leg into its beak, and slipped away over the ridge and out of sight. The rats only started shooting after it had gone.

  The officer was jumping up and down. When it stopped doing that it rushed at the gun crew and beat them with the flat of its sword until one of the rats came back from where the leg had fallen. It was carrying something in its mouth. The officer turned with snarling lips, but took the offering, sniffed it, and calmed down. It looked like the bit of cloth that had been torn off the leg by the bullets. The officer stuffed it into a pouch and squeaked orders. The patrol packed up its gun and filed away into the dusk.

  James was very glad now that the rats hadn’t found him on the slope. Even the idea was frightening, though it hadn’t happened. And he felt like crying for the brave leg that had been shot to bits instead of him.

  When the slit closed and the light came on, he realized something was wrong with the Burra. It was jerking around and making an extraordinary noise, like a mechanical dog trying to bark.

  “Are you all right?” asked James. “I mean it was awful about your leg.”

  “We thought it was funny,” said the Burra. “Correct us if we are wrong. We have only recently begun to see jokes.”

  James realized that the noise must be the Burra’s idea of laughing.

  “It was funny about the officer getting so mad,” he said. “But it was sad about your leg.”

  “We have got plenty more,” said the Burra.

  “But didn’t it hurt?”

  “Sawdust does not feel pain.”

  “Oh. Then it might have been funny. I suppose. The gull darting in like that too.”

  “Good. Now help us across, will you?”

  The Burra’s furry arm clamped around James’s shoulders. With a clump and a clump and a clump, hopping on its wooden leg and resting its weight on James, it crossed to an old tin trunk. On the top, in sloping white letters, was written “General Omar B. Trout, U.S. Residency, Foochow.” Without the Burra telling it, the trunk opened its lid, like a clam in an underwater film. Inside was a mess of coloured legs and arms and heads, which had all once been parts of dolls and cuddly toys. Nine legs wriggled free and lined up in front of the trunk. With James’s help the Burra hopped along the line, patting each leg in turn with its green Kermit hand. Third in line was the pair to the one the Burra was already wearing, but it hopped straight past it.

  “Excuse me for asking,” said James. “Why don’t you have that one? I mean, it matches.”

  The Burra paused even longer than usual.

  “Not fair to the rest of us,” it said. “Got to keep a balance, especially when it comes to human members. They can be very opinionated, if you don’t mind our saying so.”

  In the end it chose a blue felt leg, which might have come off something like a lion. It fitted the leg under its shirt and stood swaying from side to side, adjusting to the new feel.

  “Now,” it said, “we suppose you would like something to eat.”

  “Yes, please,” said James.

  He was extremely hungry, in spite of having had breakfast not all that long ago. But it was night time now, and he’d missed his dinner and missed his snack, and he really felt like that. The Burra led the way over to the table, but just as he got there James was struck by an awkward question. What would a creature like the Burra think of as food? Sawdust? Rags?

  “If you’ve got anything,” he said.

  “If we have got anything!” said the Burra. “We have got everything! People throw everything away, so we have got everything!”

  Chapter 5: The Box Effect

  The Burra went into a sort of trance. Its large eye seemed to go dull, but that might have been the loop of light dimming. From the other end of the cavern James heard a rumble, which came nearer and nearer until an old freezer and a gas cooker trundled up to the table. The freezer opened its lid for James to look inside. It was packed with food, icy cold. He chose hamburgers, chips , and strawberry-ripple ice cream for dessert. The cooker switched on two burners, two pans flipped into place, and the chips and burgers unwrapped themselves and hopped into
the pans, turning over when they were brown on one side. A chair walked up. One of its legs didn’t belong so it walked with a limp, but it was perfectly steady when James sat on it. The food hopped onto the plates when it was cooked, and the plates skimmed themselves onto the table. The freezer and cooker trundled away, and at the same time the light brightened and the Burra seemed to wake up.

  James stared at the good food. His mouth was watering. But …

  “Is it alive?” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, then I can’t …”

  “It is less alive than it was when it was a cow and a plant. It is less alive than it will be if you eat it. It never chose to become chips and hamburgers, but since that has happened it would prefer to go through with the job. If you do not eat it, it will become garbage again. We do not like being garbage. We are trying not to be.”

  James chose the smallest fry and nibbled the end off. It tasted just ordinary. So did the burgers. He was chewing a proper mouthful when another thought struck him. The way the Burra kept talking about “we.”

  “Is this food part of you?” he said.

  “It was some of us.”

  “That’s not English.”

  “Then it must be Dumpish. In any case, it is now becoming part of you.”

  “Some of you—inside me?”

  “We do not see what you are worrying about. After all, you are inside us at the moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The Burra waved its green arm at the walls of the cavern.

  “All this is us,” it said. “This part here”—it tapped itself on the chest—“this part here is only what you might call a central committee. The Burra Council. Ho, ho.”

  “Oh. Is that why there’s a sort of gap before you say anything?”