The Secret Book

by Jamie Smart

  whatever holds your heart together

  Contents

  Title Page

  An Introduction

  1 The Village of Eden, in the Mountains

  2 A Little Faith

  3 The Carrot is Important

  4 Bastor

  5 The Goat-Powered Washtopus

  6 The Great Hall

  7 Zerigauld Sourface’s Antique Shop

  8 Just Trying to Read a Book

  9 An Experiment

  10 An Awful Screaming

  11 Santoro

  12 Flemberthyst

  13 An Awful Lot of Bees

  14 A Gift

  15 Experiment Number 2

  16 Just a Spoonful

  17 Boja Bear

  18 Preparations

  19 The Parade

  20 The Charge

  21 The Everdews

  22 Flight

  23 The Spindletree Forest

  24 The Savagery of Law

  25 Space Fleet

  26 Eden Cemetery

  27 What Was Left of Shady Acres

  28 Persuasion

  29 A Good Heart

  30 You Can’t Save Everything

  31 Jikanda

  32 The Fix

  33 An Everdew Family Meal

  An Ending

  A Beginning

  Acknowledgements

  About Jamie

  Also by Jamie Smart:

  Copyright

  An Introduction

  There is an island.

  It lies just over the horizon.

  Always, just over the horizon.

  Except, that is, for the unlucky few who chance upon it, those who sail off course and sail too close. Their ships tear like paper against the huge jagged rocks of the coastline. Dark, swirling oceans drag them under, pick at their bones and then spit out their remains across the poisonous black sand of the beaches.

  This island, Flember Island, has secrets it does not want to give up.

  1

  The Village of Eden, in the Mountains

  Nestled upon Flember Island’s southern most mountain, like a beacon of light in the darkness, was the small village of Eden. And whilst Eden might have looked scary from the outside – being, as it was, concealed behind a ten-metre-high wall of sharpened tree trunks – on the inside flember, the energy of life, thrived. Forests bustled, meadows swayed, ponds glistened. Waterfalls crashed. Rivers trickled.

  Villagers ambled about in the morning sunshine.

  Our story starts here, in Eden, but away from the orange and blue rooftops of the streets. Down a winding path, across a crumbling stone bridge, in a clearing before Spindletree Forest.

  Where a small house was to be found.

  Around the back of the house was a workshop, hanging dangerously over the edge of a cliff. Alongside it a series of rickety wooden platforms had been stacked. They swayed to the left or to the right, depending which way the breeze was blowing. And there, standing on the highest platform, was a boy called Dev.

  He had sparkling, inquisitive, emerald-green eyes. A faint wash of freckles across his nose. A tumble of messy hair wedged beneath his cat-eared helmet. He wore a black vest, backpack, chunky blue boots and a long orange scarf, which fluttered out behind him like a writhing fibbler eel.

  BOILK. His stomach lurched.

  Were he to fall from this height, he’d fall for ages. Bouncing against the steep cliff face all the way down into Percy’s Scrapyard. Probably landing on some deeply uncomfortable sticky-out thing.

  A cold sweat prickled out from his skin. He closed his eyes. Deep breath. All thoughts of falling forced from his mind.

  Everything fell calm.

  Everything was silent.

  Only the quiet ruffling of his wing feathers.

  And then, the shouting started.

  ‘WINGS?’

  Calm, remember? Caaaalm.

  ‘Dev, I know you can hear me! You’re wearing WINGS?’

  Dev readjusted the harness around his shoulders. ‘I plucked a lot of chickens to make these! They’re perfectly safe, Mum!’

  He opened one eye. There, on the workshop balcony below, stood his mother. Dressed all in green, from her boots to her helmet. Glaring up at Dev through a few stray ringlets of red hair.

  ‘The RAMP, though!’ She pointed to the boards and panels sloping down from the top platform. ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘It curves up at the perfect angle to propel me into the sky!’ Dev replied. ‘To fly among the flemberbugs!’

  His mother stared at him in disbelief. ‘FLY?’

  Dev pointed at a tiny dot fluttering across the sky. ‘THERE!’ he exclaimed, lifting a glass jar from his belt and watching the dot pass behind it. ‘The first flemberbug of the season! I want to study it!’

  Her face fell into a stern frown. ‘This is NOT one of your better ideas, Dev. No one ever flew with chicken-feather wings. Even the chickens struggle to.’

  ‘Oh! I’m not just using the wings.’ Dev grinned, clipping the jar to his belt. ‘I’ve also invented … CHEESE BOOTS!’

  He pointed down to his boots. Around the heel of each was a small round canister, and inside, an unpleasant looking splodge of white unpasteurised cheese.

  ‘The Cheese Emporium’s finest.’ Dev beamed. ‘Or worst, depending on how you look at it. The yeasts in cheese are fascinating, Mum. Did you know, if you let cheese rot for long enough, it gives off an almighty blast of energy? Enough, I worked out, to send me flying …’

  ‘Dev, this is DANGEROUS!’

  ‘I KNOW!’ Dev’s stomach BOILKED again. ‘I’m only sixty-three per cent sure it’ll work.’

  He closed both eyes, gulped and readied himself.

  ‘I’ll let you know if it doesn’t!’

  His hands slid into the harness straps, flapping out his long, white, fluffy wings to their full extent. His mother shouted something, but it was lost to the breeze – Dev leapt from the top platform and CLOMP CLOMPED loudly down the ramp.

  ‘Now, Cheese Boots,’ he whispered under his breath, stamping his heels on each step.

  BOILK! BLURK! BRPPT! The boots spluttered.

  ‘NOW, CHEESE BOOTS, NOW!’

  BLRPPPTTT!

  ‘NOW, NOW, NOWWW!’

  But it was too late.

  A sense of intense regret crackled through his veins as the ramp disappeared from beneath his feet, and Dev P. Everdew was in the air.

  And he was screaming.

  And then squealing with laughter.

  ‘I’m FLYING!’ he yelled, tilting his wings to catch the wind. Every breeze yanked him higher into the sky, knocking a little more breath from his lungs. Tears spilled down his cheeks. His heart felt like it was going to burst from his chest.

  It was utterly, utterly wonderful.

  He watched his shadow roll across the towering chimneys of Percy’s Scrapyard. A small figure scrambled between the rusting metal hills, splashing through the shiny black puddles. Even from up here Dev could tell who it was.

  White helmet, bunches of bright blue hair spilling out from either side.

  Small.

  But fast.

  ‘I can see you, Dev!’ the young girl yelled, lifting a pair of goggles from her eyes. ‘Dev, can you see me?’

  ‘Mina! Do you like my wings?’ Dev replied. ‘They’re made from chickens!’

  ‘I can’t hear you!’ Mina produced her favourite red teddy bear, and waved it above her head. ‘You’re too high up!’

  ‘I think I’m too high up!’ Dev laughed. ‘I can’t hear you!’

  ‘Can you hear me though?’ Mina reached the scrapyard gates, and excitedly jumped up and down on the spot.

  Dev tilted again, rising higher, until soon he was gliding above the rooftops
of Middle Eden. He breathed in the deliciously sweet smells from Rousseau’s Bakery, the delicate fragrance of Agatha Bloom’s Floral Adore-All, before gagging at the pong from Rosa Mildew’s Cheese Emporium.

  A small group of children followed his shadow. They wore a variety of random objects as helmets, and one even had a cape that flapped behind him as he ran.

  ‘Space Fleet!’ Dev shouted. ‘Think I can make it to the moon?’

  Space Fleet’s commander, a small boy named Sam, raised his fists in the air.

  ‘I bet you can, Lieutenant Dev!’ he yelled from inside his slightly-too-large helmet. ‘And you’ll bring us back an alien!’

  The other three children running alongside all cheered, until one by one they were grabbed by their parents and hustled back indoors.

  ‘Well, I’ll try,’ Dev chuckled. ‘If it’ll fit inside my jar.’

  ‘We ain’t following if you go over!’ a stern voice shouted up.

  A number of angry-looking men in uniform spilled onto the path, their helmets clonking together as they ran, their thin swords waving in the air.

  ‘The WALL!’ another shouted.

  ‘You’re about to go over The WALL!’

  And then there it was, erupting up from a thick tangle of brambles. The Wall. A huge towering barricade of tree trunks, their tips sharpened to a point, as tall as two houses stacked on top of each other.

  Whatever else lived on this island, The Wall looked sturdy enough to keep it out.

  ‘The flemberbug!’ Dev gasped, suddenly remembering why he was up here. ‘I only wanted … the … flemberbug!’

  He slammed his foot against the tip of The Wall and pushed himself back towards the village. And then he could see it again – that little black dot, still skittishly circling around in the sky as if it were lost. Dev followed it around the western side of the mountain, over the scrapyard, to where the rock face sloughed away in a vertical drop.

  Just a little further. Dev gritted his teeth.

  The flemberbug came to rest on a grass-tufted pillar, a thin slice of rock so tall and perilous it would be unreachable to anyone except a boy wearing chicken wings. Dev arrived seconds behind, his hands scrambling to grip the grass as he hauled himself up onto his knees. His arms felt like they were on fire. His lungs felt like they could burst.

  And a surge of excitement crackled up his spine.

  ‘CAUGHT you!’ he wheezed with delight, slamming the jar down upon the flemberbug. It blinked back at him, inquisitively. Then its beautiful blue wings quivered out and its chubby, transparent body padded back and forth, with one rather sad-looking leg trailing behind.

  ‘Oh no! You’re hurt!’ Dev carefully, very carefully, tilted the jar and screwed on its lid. ‘I promise I’ll be careful with you, Limpy. How’s that for a name? Limpy. Limpy the flemberbug!’

  Suddenly, a sharp gust caught Dev’s wings, yanking him backwards and slamming him into the mountainside. He gripped the jar handle between his teeth and, with all the strength he could muster, launched himself back into the air.

  But his wings weren’t working. At least, not as before. Something inside the frame had broken. He flapped as hard as he could, struggling to keep on top of the breeze. Leaning left as he tried to steer right.

  ‘Would you get away from my scrapyard?!’ A man waddled between the rolling mounds of twisted metal below. His clothes were smeared black with oil, his face squished beneath a helmet of welded metal. It made his already furious face look even furiouser.

  ‘Schorry, Perschy!’ Dev shouted down through clenched teeth. ‘I schink I broke my wingsch!’

  Percy gestured wildly towards the scrapyard furnace, inside of which a huge fire roared, belching thick black smoke from each of its four tall chimneys. Dev struggled to glide between them, but only avoided one column of smoke by turning into another, and suddenly it was all around him. Racing into his lungs, burning his throat with every spluttering cough. He spun around. And around. And around and around and then suddenly …

  The clear blue sky.

  The whole mountain swung into view below his feet.

  Lower Eden, Middle Eden, Upper Eden. Treetops like tiny paint splots. Rivers like whisper-thin veins. A network of roads and alleys threading between hundreds and hundreds of tiny little rooftops.

  ‘It’sch beautiful!’ he gasped.

  And then he started plummeting back down towards it.

  2

  A Little Faith

  The rooftops of Middle Eden spun up towards Dev in a dizzying spiral. His face began to stretch, a thin line of spit trailing across his cheek, his body flapping around helplessly like a doll thrown into the waves of the sea.

  Then he remembered something.

  He slammed a fist onto the straps of his backpack and in an instant it all ballooned out around him.

  ‘SCHANK YOU, PORTABLE AIRBAG!’ he yelped, thudding into the rooftop of Gristle the Butcher’s. He bounced back into the air, across a few more rooftops, before finally crashing down onto the cobbles of the marketplace.

  ‘Dev’s back from space!’ Sam called out, as he and the other three Space Fleet cadets ran towards him. They helped Dev up and dusted him down.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he wheezed, struggling to stuff the portable airbag back down. ‘I’m OK. I’m alive!’

  He patted himself down just to double check.

  ‘DEV!’ his mother’s voice wheezed from across the street. She barged through the cluster of Space Fleet helmets, wrapping her arms around Dev’s head. ‘Don’t ever, EVER, do anything as crazy as that again.’

  ‘It worked though, Mum!’ Dev grinned. ‘I got a flemberbug!’

  The jar spun on the ground by his feet. Limpy bonk-bonk-bonked around inside. Dev picked it up, fussing over his little friend, tapping the glass to check if he was all right.

  Limpy turned away in a sulk.

  ‘Flemberbugs always know when to come to our village.’ Dev smiled. ‘The exact same time every year! I’m going to find out how they know, and then I’m going to write a book about it.’

  His mother took the jar with one hand, and pinched his lips shut with the other. ‘You’re going to do no such thing. You know full well that B-double-O-K-S aren’t allowed in Eden. The Mayor would have it confiscated immediately.’

  But Dev barely heard her. He had pulled away, and was hopping around, flapping his arms furiously, his face scrunched up in sheer delight. ‘I FLEW!’ he yelped, as Space Fleet giggled and hopped around with him. ‘Just like a Flemberbug! High above the rooftops. I flew! I FLEW!’

  The giggling became laughter which, somehow, became chicken noises, to which even Dev’s mother raised a smile. Then, one by one, Space Fleet tumbled to the floor, red faced, doubled-up in hysterics, until only Dev was still hopping.

  Hop.

  Hop.

  And then – WHAM! He slammed his heels into the ground with just the right amount of pressure to activate his cheese boots.

  A sickeningly loud SPLUTCH! echoed around the marketplace.

  Dev turned slowly, reluctantly. Behind him, Zerigauld Sourface’s Antique Shop was buried beneath a thick layer of three-month-old cheese. Dev stared in horror at the cheese-covered sign, dripping onto the cheese-covered antiques stacked in front of the cheese-covered window. And the cheese-covered door, blown open by the force, only to reveal all the shop’s cheese-covered contents inside.

  His stomach dropped like a lump of cheese thrown into a cheese river.

  ‘I think I’m in trouble,’ he sighed.

  ‘Oh, Dev,’ his mum said, pulling her scarf up over her nose.

  Then, quick as a flash, Dev’s frown spread into a wide, excited smile.

  ‘I can fix it though …’ he said. And before his mother could protest, he was squinting up at the sky, then down to his shadow.

  ‘Half-seven. Hmm. Zerigauld doesn’t open his shop until eight. That gives us half an hour to clean up his shop before he notices …’

  On the outside, Dev loo
ked thoughtful, tapping a finger against his bottom lip. But inside his heart was blazing like a hundred suns, the thrill of a new challenge rippling through his body.

  A new problem to solve.

  A new thing to fix.

  He clonked his fist against the side of his helmet. The top opened and a large glowing lightbulb poked out. It gave off a gentle heat, just enough to warm Dev’s head, to stir a few more ideas around inside his brain.

  He sank to the ground, cross-legged, resting his chin on his hands, staring at all the shops around the marketplace. The old wooden carts. The humming power lines that criss-crossed between the trees. He looked over to the grassy bank in the middle of it all. The stone fountain, carved in the shape of a fish being sick, with water belching out of its mouth and splashing into the pool below.

  Big, sparkling droplets of water.

  All … that … water.

  ‘THAT’S IT!’ Dev jumped back to his feet, the bulb disappearing into his helmet. ‘I know how I can fix this!’

  His mother looked at him suspiciously. Dev grinned a wide, wide smile.

  ‘I’m going to need a carrot.’

  3

  The Carrot is Important

  ‘Dev’s going to fix it!’ Sam jumped up and down on the spot.

  ‘Please, Dev.’ Dev’s mother’s voice was sterner now. ‘Not another dangerous invention.’

  ‘Dangerous? Pfft! As if!’ Dev wafted his hand as though the word itself was a bad smell. Then he crouched down in front of Sam and whispered in his ear. ‘What I have planned IS going to be dangerous. Very, VERY dangerous. Do you think Space Fleet are up to such a dangerous mission?’