by Barbara Else
He snatched it up as fast as he could, a small circle like a ring, dull blue metal, warm on his fingers. He stuck his hand through the fence and lobbed it at her. She clanked it into her basket with the others.
“What is it?”
She gave another scornful look. “It’s a cast from the lizards.”
A jolt went through him. “They make casts? You mean it’s their droppings!”
“Only sort of. It’s mostly metal. Wipe your hands on your pants, you’ll be all right.” She held the basket against herself and smiled.
He wiped his hands on his backside as hard as he could.
“I’m Nissy Symore.” It wasn’t a smile, it was a grin. There was an important difference. “You’re Rufkin Robiasson, son of Maria and Tobias Robiasson. You’re to stay with the Mucclacks. I heard them whispering. They’ll be paid for having you and they’ll be nice to you. They don’t like me. My mam’s not rich like your parents. But I will be.” She shook the basket. The lizard casts rattled. “This is how I’m starting out.”
Why should he care about any of her plans? He glanced at the engineering sheds. Still no one in sight. “If you’re not going to help, I’ll run to the Mucclacks.”
“Help? Of course not. You’re only acting some game.” Nissy took a spotted notebook from her pocket and began jotting in it.
What a useless girl.
Nissy put the notebook away and kept scanning the verge of the road for more rings.
“Listen. The boat’s been in trouble since last night, I think,” said Rufkin. “It looks ancient but it must have come ashore in the storm. How else would the kid get there?”
But no. He’d heard the boy call and seen the board with the H and the E right at the beginning of the storm. So the boat must have got there earlier.
“The little kid is all on his own. Honestly. If you don’t believe me, stand on something so you can see better.”
Nissy put the basket aside, stood on a patch of shingle, then set a toe of her boot into the chain-link. She climbed partway. “Nothing.” She jumped down again.
Rufkin set his own boot into the fence and struggled up. He couldn’t see anything either. Some of those mangroves were huge. Which meant the tide would come in deep, he knew that much.
He clambered to the top, swung over, and landed on hands and knees beside her. “Please—the Mucclacks are pretty hopeless and so is their phone. I’ll pay to use yours.” He had that twenty dolleros. No, he didn’t. The old soldier had it.
For a moment Nissy looked interested. “How much pocket money do you get when you’re rich? Do you still have to do chores for it?”
It was none of her business. “Please let me use your phone.”
“Mam would ask why. I can’t let her know I’ve been out,” said Nissy. “For one, Mam’s not keen on the lizards. They’ve grown bad round here and they’re much worse this morning. For two, she didn’t like that storm either. She said it was only over this part of the estuary.” Her forehead crinkled. “Mam’s been working too hard. So have all our mechanics now ordinary metal’s so expensive. And the customer complaints! There’s more each day. You rich people don’t have a clue.”
“My parents give millions to charity,” said Rufkin. “They earn every cent.”
She picked up another cast, then tossed it away. “Not worth it. Broken.”
Rufkin’s hands clenched. “There’s a little boy in trouble.”
Nissy shot him a sideways glance and walked off.
At least Rufkin was on the road now. He ran for the salvage yard gate, down the path to the Mucclacks’ veranda—oops, tugged off his boots and flung them at the rack—then was into the kitchen.
They were in matching brown robes and striped nightshirts. She was stirring what smelled like porridge. He was burning what smelled like toast.
“You’ve not been out already?” Mistress Mucclack said in her whisper.
“Don’t let Tobias and Maria know you slipped out while we were snoring,” added Mister Mucclack.
“Phone!” Rufkin gasped. “Where’s the phone?”
Wanda Mucclack pointed the porridge ladle towards a stack of brooms and a floor mop.
Skully Mucclack guided his wife’s hand with the dripping ladle back to the pot. “Why do you want a phone before breakfast, Rufkin?”
In sentences as short and clear as possible, he told the Mucclacks what he’d seen. “And the tide’s coming in,” he finished.
Both Mucclacks stared at him, then at each other.
“It must be one of his games,” murmured Mistress Mucclack.
Rufkin bunched his fists. “But it’s true. A little boy. That girl didn’t believe me either.”
“Girl.” Mistress Mucclack’s face went even more skinny with disapproval. “That Nissy, I suppose. She’s a stubborn one. Oh, Skully, my dear, here is another problem with having a child. Other children torment and oppress them.”
Mister Mucclack scratched peanut butter on the blackest piece of toast and started crunching. He seemed to say something while he chewed, unless it was only untidy chewing.
“Swallow,” whispered his wife. “Now try again.”
He did. “It would be even worse if you were the parent of a tormentor and bully. Imagine how ashamed you would be, how disappointed in your ability as a young one’s up-bringer. You might disguise your sadness with rage and thus turn into a bully yourself. Did you bully the girl first, before she harassed you?”
Grown-ups were meant to help. “This is abysmal,” muttered Rufkin.
“He said the most difficult word when all he means is ‘very bad’,” Mistress Mucclack said, and smiled.
Rufkin spotted the phone at last, on the wall near the stack of brooms. Most of the wall looked rickety.
“May I?”
Before they could say no, he picked up the handset. There was only a breathy snarl. He pressed O for Operator. It gave a fizz and two hisses.
“Reception’s very bad the last few days,” Mistress Mucclack murmured. “It is abysmal. Something could be nibbling the wires. Water rats. Maybe those lizards. If it is cave-lizards and the Council of Wisdom doesn’t do something, we could hold a demonstration and carry placards.”
Rufkin looked out at the estuary. The tide hadn’t started rushing yet. But it would.
“Dear boy?” Mister Mucclack held up the toast rack. “A slice of the black stuff?” A spark flew from the toaster and there was a bang. “Curtains for that,” said Mister Mucclack.
“Three new toasters in the last three months,” breathed his wife. “And the cost keeps rising.”
Rufkin began to think he’d imagined the riverboat, the puppet on the mattress, the strange little boy. Had he even been outside? Could it have been just a waking dream?
~
Rufkin sat down, remembered touching the lizard cast, jumped up, rushed to the bathroom, and scrubbed his hands with a nail-brush.
Of course he hadn’t imagined it. He was used to illusion. The son of great actors was familiar with make-believe, stage tricks, and so on. There really was a deserted or lost child there in the swamp.
Rufkin had been sent here in the first place to learn to try hard. So he sat at the table, chose the least burnt slice of toast, and spread it with honey. He chewed fast. Then he jumped up and bowed to the Mucclacks as if he were a prince and they were equally important aristocrats. “Thank you for a substantial breakfast.”
They chuckled and nudged each other.
“Now I’ll make myself familiar with the salvage yard. I’ll walk about with care.” He bowed again and left the kitchen.
Behind him Mistress Mucclack chuckled. “He talks like a serious book, the little dear. And he does so poorly at school?”
Rufkin felt his face redden. Lucky no one could see. He jammed his feet back into his boots. The sun and a light breeze had dried off the walkways. Up in the engineering yard there was still no sign of any mechanics. And no sign of Nissy, thank goodness.
He h
opped up on the biggest bulldozer to see past the marina into the mangroves. At first there was no glimpse of the broken boat. Then a glint of sun showed what might be the tip of a mast.
Something splashed near the shore behind him. He jumped and stung all over with fright. But it was a pair of fishermen rowing a large old dinghy. He clambered down and picked his way to the water’s edge, trying to stand on stones that might protect him from any cave-lizard. His boots were solid. He checked that he’d tucked in his pants’ legs.
“Ahoy!” he called.
“Ahoy, boy!” a fisherman called back. They didn’t stop rowing.
Rufkin smiled to show he was friendly, and pointed upriver. “Do you see that boat in the mangroves?”
The men stopped now and shaded their eyes.
“You might not,” said Rufkin. “It must have got stuck there before last night’s storm. There’s only a little boy on board.”
One of the fishermen laughed. “You’re convincing, lad. You should be on stage. Last night was calmer than custard.”
They started rowing again.
“Please, tell the coastguard! Get the police launch!” shouted Rufkin.
They rowed harder, as Rufkin would himself if he had to get some distance from a crazy boy.
“There was a storm,” he said aloud. “I felt it. I heard it. So did the Mucclacks and Nissy.”
All right. He must persuade the kid to come with him to the Mucclacks. They could hardly say a four-year-old didn’t exist if one stood in front of them.
~
Rufkin struggled around the outcrop again. Waves splashed there now. He slipped and soaked one of his boots. He hauled himself along the other side of the fence and back into the engineering yard. The fishermen’s dinghy was motionless in the estuary, like a boat in a painting. A tanker was heading for port in the City of Spires. He hoped its wake would chuck the fishermen out.
By the time he’d crossed to the stone wall, more and more bubbles were bursting down in the mud. There were plenty of lizard rings too, hard with a blue rainbow-ish sheen which might have sounded nice if he’d tried to describe it but really was nasty.
Somehow the boards he’d laid were still in place. And here he was at last, back at the riverboat. This time it took only six kicks to reach the deck.
“It’s me again,” he called. “Hello!” He looked into the cabin.
The puppet still lay on the long cushion but the boy had moved it. Now it had an arm up beside its head. The kid sat on the floor next to it. He held a jar with half a cookie in it and had crumbs on his chin.
“What’s your name?” asked Rufkin again. “Call me Rufkin, because that’s mine.”
He expected it to be too tricky a joke for a four-year-old, but the boy’s mouth twitched in a smile. He didn’t give his own name in return though.
“Do you like toast?” asked Rufkin.
The boy fished the half-cookie out of the jar.
There wouldn’t be toast, anyway, because of the exploded toaster. “What about porridge?”
No reaction.
“Fried banana? Eggs?” asked Rufkin. “Eggs with peanut butter on? Let’s go and find some. Come on.”
“Help,” said the boy, but he didn’t move except to tug the coverlet over the puppet’s blue face.
“Look. You say you want help. I’m trying to give it.” Rufkin noticed he was standing with his hands on his hips, like his father. That might look bossy and bullying, though his dad was mostly neither unless he was acting.
Rufkin had seen frazzled parents at parties and in shopping malls, so he knew there’d be screams if he tried to pick the boy up and haul him along. So he scratched his head, gave his best smile, and held up his hands like little plates in the gesture that said What shall we do? Without a smile the boy copied.
Someone outside called, “Hello?”
Rufkin darted onto the deck and looked over the side. “Nissy!”
She peered up. Her basket was full to the brim with cave-lizard casts. “So you weren’t lying. Not about the ship at any rate.”
Rufkin didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply. “Hurry back and tell your mother.”
But Nissy set the basket down on the end of the last board and took off the green gloves. She jumped a couple of strides and put her hands on the rope. In only four kicks of her pink spotted boots, she was on deck.
He moved his right arm in a welcoming gesture towards the door, then followed her in.
“Oh, my stars,” she said. “I should have believed you.”
Nissy wiggled her fingers. “You’re meant to pinch yourself to see if you’re dreaming. I could pinch him to see if he’s real.”
“Don’t be mean,” said Rufkin. “He was eating cookies. Just feel the crumbs.”
Nissy crouched so she was on the same level as the little boy. For the first time Rufkin liked her—a tad.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The boy widened his eyes then blinked. Maybe the only word he knew was help. But he was clever enough to write it as well, or at least write an H and an E.
A screech sounded outside in the mud. Not a nice sound.
“The Mucclacks’ phone still isn’t working,” said Rufkin. “Now you know I’m not joking, can I use yours? Oh—that is…” Poor people sometimes didn’t have phones, or mechanical message-birds unless they were second- or even third-hand and, therefore, likely to lose a wing or tail feathers and disappear without delivering anything.
Nissy stood up. “We won’t tell Mam I was out here. She might guess, but I’ll say you bossed me. The phone will be working by now, with any luck.”
“Your phone wasn’t working either?” asked Rufkin.
She shrugged. “It’s off, then it’s on again, then it’s off. Now, kid,” she said to the boy, “you have to come with us.”
The boy stayed at the foot of the mattress.
“Suit yourself.” Nissy bent to look at the puppet. “What a mess.” She straightened up. “Come on. We’d better hurry.”
What had Rufkin been saying since he’d first seen her? She was very annoying. “Hang on a tick and don’t worry. We’ll be back,” he told the boy.
“Race you,” he said to Nissy. He swung down the side of the boat and waited to make sure she didn’t slip into the mud.
“Ew, look, bone and bloody bits.” She pointed at a spare leg with no lizard attached. “Part of a dead one. It’s fresh, in the last minute. Do you suppose they eat each other?”
She stopped to grab her basket, but by the time Rufkin had reached the sloping stone wall she was right behind him. She hurried across the marina, up past the engineering sheds to the house.
“Mam!” Nissy led Rufkin in.
What an odd sort of front hall. It had benches around the sides. Notices were pinned on a corkboard. There was a big green board, too, for chalking instructions. Like: Tidy tools save tempers, time and dolleros. His own home had a separate coat room, a circular rug with silver fringing, and a carved hall table with a silver tray for all the fan mail.
A very tall woman wearing thick socks and holding a screwdriver hurried in from another door. “Nissy! Why aren’t you at school? Oh, it’s the weekend—no, it’s vacation—who is this?”
Nissy hesitated. Rufkin stepped forward and held out his hand. “Rufkin, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”
“You’re a Robiasson.” The woman looked testy. Rufkin kept his hand out because normal politeness meant she would have to give it a shake. She made it a quick one with only her fingertips. “I’m Mistress Symore. I hope you won’t try giving my girl the wrong ideas.”
Ideas about what? He gave the Smile-disarming: it needed a medium-fast blink.
“Mam,” said Nissy. “We need some workmen.”
Her mother gave the screwdriver an irritated waggle. “They’re late, the lot of them.”
“Mam, then we need the phone.” Nissy set her chin and began to stride past.
Mistress Symore tugged one
of Nissy’s pigtails to stop her. Once again she waved the screwdriver. “The wretched thing still isn’t working. I’ve had a tinker myself. I managed to get the operator, then it cut out again. Blasted technology. We were better off with message-birds and written letters.”
“The Mucclacks have the same problem,” said Rufkin.
“The steam-car won’t start either. Every time I think I’ve fixed it, something else goes phutt.” Mistress Symore tapped the screwdriver on her chin as if that might help her think. “Just run off and play, but not near any mud. No wrong ideas,” she said again to Rufkin, then disappeared back where she’d come from.
“The tide,” said Rufkin. “How fast does it come in? How long have we got?”
“Tablecloths,” said Nissy. “Wait here.”
In half a minute she was back with red and blue checked cloths folded under her arm. She ran out the door, Rufkin behind her. “Come on!” She tore across the engineering yard to one of its jetties. Rufkin dashed after her.
“Here.” She handed him a tablecloth, flapped one open herself and started to wave it.
~
A police launch was steaming in mid-channel now. Rufkin and Nissy flapped the tablecloths high and hard but the launch steamed on.
The fishing dinghy was still fairly close. “Hey!” Rufkin yelled. “Over here! Help!”
There was a slight wind. If it was stronger out on the estuary, it would be too hard for anyone to hear.
Nissy’s arms dropped. The tablecloth fell round her feet like a puddle. “Why won’t anyone notice? Either they’re all blind or you’re not waving hard enough.”
Behind him Rufkin heard a series of pops from a patch of mud beside the jetty. Cave-lizard circles—dozens, hundreds—made a carpet pattern.
“When are the lizards most active?” he asked.
“Night. That’s why the best casts are there in the morning.” She followed his gaze. “They’re not meant…” Rufkin could see in her face she was very alarmed.
“Go home if you like,” he said. “I’d better run back to the riverboat. It’s awful to leave the boy on his own. I’ll just have to drag him. I’ll tie him up like a parcel if I have to.”
