The Secret Book

by Jamie Smart

  ‘It’s so beautiful!’

  ‘That it is.’ Ventillo blinked with contentment. ‘I like to imagine your dad’s still watching it with me.’

  And just then, the rocks began to dim. The insects scuttled away. The glow faded from the water and the cave was plunged back into darkness. Dev could feel a damp chill against his skin.

  ‘We’ll see another wave, in a little bit.’ Ventillo shrugged.

  ‘Dad came here?’

  Ventillo’s smile wavered. ‘He found this place.’ She spoke quietly. ‘When he was very young. He showed me. Just me. And now, I’m showing you.’

  Neither of them said another word. Not for all the time they both sat in the darkness. Not even as wave after wave of flember lit the cave up again. Eventually, Ventillo nudged an elbow into Dev’s ribs and together they left. Squeezing back through the thin crack, clambering up the slippery rocks, shuffling along the dark corridors and then out, into the bracing night air.

  At which point Ventillo stopped and turned to Dev.

  ‘Flember gives to the village. That’s all it does. No fuss, no quarrel, it just gives. You should do the same. Do something good. Show them what you’re capable of, instead of apologising for all the things you’ve done wrong.’

  In the glow of her banana she reached up, gripping Dev’s cheeks between her cold hands.

  ‘Who knows? Maybe they’ll invite you back to Flember Day.’

  13

  An Awful Lot of Bees

  It took a little while, and another one and a half potatoes, for Dev and Ventillo to find their way back towards the lights of Middle Eden. Dev bid his grandmother goodnight at the turn in the road, and headed off home. His mind full of flemberthyst-lit memories. His heart singing, happier now than it had been all day.

  As soon as his house was in sight, the front door crashed open and his mother came running out and hugged him tightly. Then they walked together into the warmth of the living room. Dev sat at the table while his mother took a whistling kettle from the stove and poured into two misshapen mugs.

  ‘Santoro said you ran off. He’s still out looking for you.’

  ‘I was with Nonna.’ Dev grabbed a mug with both hands and sipped at it. Heat flushed down his throat. He considered telling his mother all about the flemberthyst cave, how beautiful it was in there, how magical.

  But as he looked into her eyes, he realised she wasn’t in the mood to hear such things.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dev mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean to worry anyone.’

  She turned back to the stove. ‘Percy came round too, furious he was. Said you brought Mina into our house. Something about breaking her teddy bear?’

  For a brief second, the memory of Boja Bear’s screams rang in Dev’s ears again. He shuddered.

  ‘From what I gather, it’s only Santoro who stopped Percy dragging you back in front of the Mayor. Maybe you should be thanking him for that.’

  She put a plate of fried duck eggs and toast down in front of him, at which his stomach growled angrily.

  Alongside it she slid Dev’s jar, still holding Limpy the flemberbug. He was sound asleep, his furry little body heaving up and down with each breath.

  Dev smiled affectionately before chomping into a mouthful of egg.

  ‘You’re trying your best to make things right, I know that,’ she said, watching as he wolfed down great forkfuls of food. ‘But this is a quiet village, Dev. People here don’t want any fuss, they don’t want drama. They just want to feel safe. Twelve-year-old boys wearing wings, flying around, spraying cheese, building robots, they don’t want all th—’

  DINK!

  They both heard the noise.

  DINK-DINK!

  Dev looked up at the network of pipes above his head, as something DINK-DINK-DINK-ed along inside them.

  ‘Pipe B-52,’ he yelled, leaping up from his chair.

  DINK-DINK-DINK! To the left, to the right. DINK! From one pipe into another, then back down again. DINK-DINK! Down the wall, into the oven, out through its open door. A single bee BZZZZZED right into Dev’s cupped hands, tickling his palms as it bobbed around. He walked briskly over to the iron furnace against the wall, kicked open its door and carefully spooned his hands inside.

  ‘Dev, those BEES,’ his mother growled with exasperation. ‘They’re always escaping!’

  ‘Bee power is the future!’ Dev watched as his bee buzzed around inside, then became lost amongst all the other bees. ‘Even a small hive like this gives off way more energy than the old generators.’

  He stood up, proudly folding his arms. ‘One day, everyone will want bees in their house.’

  ‘THERE ARE BEES IN THE HOUSE!’ his mother screamed.

  Dev had left the door open, and bees were swarming out into the kitchen, billowing like a storm cloud. It took an hour, some saucepans, a curtain and a number of empty jam jars to get all the bees back inside. Dev apologised, apologised again, and then again, but his mother was having none of it.

  ‘Just STOP, Dev.’ She lifted off her helmet and slumped down into a chair. ‘Maybe everyone’s right. Maybe they’re all right. I know you’re trying to help, but it always just makes things worse.’

  A chill ran through Dev’s bones.

  ‘Just go to bed,’ she sighed, burying her head into her hands. ‘Please.’

  He wasn’t sure what to do for a moment. Then he gently slid the stray chairs back under the table, picked up Limpy’s jar, made his way towards the back of the house and closed his workshop door very, very slowly. Taking just long enough to see his mother stare up at the picture frame, the one with the painting of her and his father in it. And he thought he saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  The door latch closed with a CLUNK.

  Dev’s workshop was dark and cold, as if it had been abandoned. It felt unwelcoming now. It felt wrong. Apart from the moonlight shining in through the balcony windows, the only other light in here was a faint glow from beneath a pile of engine parts. From the book with the golden F on its cover.

  But where this book had once sent a thrill through Dev’s chest, now he only remembered Mina crying. Percy furiously trying to get at him. Santoro in the doorway. Smug and bullish as ever.

  He stared down at his Makeshift Flember Transference Device. At the flemberthyst, split into tiny fragments. The whitedrop flower, wilted, its once pillowy petals now grey and brittle.

  He carefully picked it up.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I took all your flember away for nothing. And I don’t know how to put it back.’

  He closed his eyes and said a Jikanda prayer, in thanks for the flower’s life.

  He carefully placed it back on the bench, and climbed onto his unmade bed, placing Limpy’s jar beside him.

  ‘I’ll let you out tomorrow,’ Dev whispered. ‘Then you can fly wherever you like.’

  A sad, weak smile crept into the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice.’

  His eyes closed, and then he too drifted off to sleep.

  14

  A Gift

  Not long after, Dev was woken by a gentle tapping on his balcony window. At first he ignored it. But when it happened again, and more insistently, he forced himself up to investigate, stepping barefoot onto the wooden boards, shivering in the cold night breeze. He looked from one end to the other and couldn’t see anything, but then he caught sight of a round, dark shape resting against the wall. Bigger and wider than him, it was covered with sack-cloth, and there was a note attached.

  Dev’s fingertips ran across the cloth. He could feel ridges beneath it. Delicate little pipes. He pulled at its binding ropes. His brain already knew what was hiding beneath, but his eyes had to see it for themselves.

  Zerigauld’s golden heart.

  In the moonlight it appeared almost ghostly, shimmering and glowing as if it didn’t belong in this world. But here it was. Right in front of him. And even more beautiful than he’d remembered.

  ‘Zerigauld
wouldn’t just give this away,’ he started, and then a curious little thought bobbed up into his brain. ‘Unless … he was worried I might tell someone about the books.’

  He gasped. ‘Zerigauld’s buying me off.’

  And with that, all his questions and concerns disappeared. All gone in an instant. Immediately replaced by that familiar fire in his belly, the overwhelming lure of discovery.

  The many, many thoughts of what he could do with a huge, gold heart.

  15

  Experiment Number 2

  ‘Do something good,’ Dev muttered, repeating Ventillo’s advice over and over, as he sat with his legs dangling over the workshop balcony. ‘Show them what you’re capable of.’

  Occasionally, he would turn back and glance at the gold heart. Just seeing it fired a bolt of adrenaline up through his chest, and spread an uncontrollable grin across his face.

  TWANGGGG! Dev’s fishing line pulled tight. He wound its handle until a magnet appeared. Attached to it was a bendy spring, which he carefully inspected, before pulling it off and flinging it onto the pile of bolts, cogs and old engine parts beside him.

  The last few hours of scrapyard fishing had been quite a success.

  Dev stepped inside, dragging the sheet from his bed and laying it across the floor. Then he rolled the pile of scrap across it, before stepping back out for the heart. It was as heavy as you might expect a huge golden heart to be, but he managed to heave it through. With everything in front of him, he tugged on his helmet straps, and all the spotlights and lenses of his Tinkering Helmet folded out in front of his face.

  Then he reached up for the flember book, opened it, and started reading the bits he’d skipped before.

  Dev’s hands trembled with excitement as he began slotting his scrapyard treasures together. Cogs into cogs. Wires between circuits. Springs inside joints. And for each new part he put together, he drew around it, outlining its shape on the bedsheet. Adding to his plans piece by piece by ever more complicated piece.

  This time, nothing would be left to chance.

  Morning dawned.

  24 hours until Flember Day.

  24 hours to do something good for Eden.

  His mother knocked to say she would be in town till late, helping to decorate the streets. Dev kept his door closed. He didn’t want anyone to see what he was working on, not yet, so he mumbled something about feeling unwell, and when he was sure she had gone, he carried on with his work.

  She popped back mid-afternoon, waking Dev from an accidental nap with a gentle tapping on the door. He peered out, bleary-eyed, accepting her offer of a Triple-Stacked Bobbleberry Delight from Arnold’s Waffle Shop, before closing the door and dragging a bookcase across it.

  No more naps. No more interruptions. He would work on until he was done.

  Some hours later, as the cool evening air swooped in over the balcony, Dev finally heaved himself up from his knees. He stepped back to admire what he had built so far.

  ‘You beautiful thing.’ He grinned. Before him stood something for which ‘beautiful’

  might not be the most obvious choice of words. It was a skeleton, of sorts, three times as tall as Dev and maybe five times as wide. Its large metallic ribcage held all manner of canvas sacks, engine parts and circuitry, and it was flanked by four sturdy limbs, each stuffed with various pistons and bellows. Next to this body, a ‘head’ lay on the floor.

  Two bulbous eyes staring out from a mesh of wires and flashing lights. A rubbery tongue lolling out of its huge mouth.

  And yet, it all still needed a heart.

  Dev rested a ladder against the skeleton. Step by wobbly step, he heaved the golden heart up towards its open neck, before carefully lowering it down inside. It sank into thick, shiny goo, nestling in front of a bulging set of lungs.

  He wired it in.

  Getting there.

  The head next. Again, a struggle to lift but eventually it settled into place. All wires and pipes connected. All bolts bolted.

  Nearly done.

  Now, skin.

  He mixed pink putty together with gum from the spindletrees until it became like clay. Hard enough to hold, but still flexible. He slathered it across the skeleton in big dollops. Then, fur. Bright-red, thick fur, unravelled from a huge roll he kept tucked up in the rafters, and stitched, inch by inch, into the hardening clay.

  After some time, Dev twisted his helmet lamps up, and leant back on his weary, clay-covered arms.

  ‘I think … you’re finally done!’

  He stared up at his most ambitious invention yet. A five-metre tall robot, as red as a bobbleberry, as furry as a snarklecub. With short, dumpy legs, thick, strong arms, a big, black, glistening nose and two furry ears, which nearly skimmed the ceiling.

  ‘You’ll keep everyone safe.’ Dev smiled, flinging his last chunk of lunchtime waffle into the robot’s open mouth. ‘Won’t you, Boja Bear?’

  16

  Just a Spoonful

  Limpy the flemberbug was stirring inside his jar. Rubbing his little legs together to make a sound. CLIK. CLIK-CLIK.

  Flember Day would soon be dawning. Flemberbugs just knew.

  ‘I was supposed to let you out!’ Dev yelped, tilted the jar and twisted off its lid. Limpy slid down inside the glass and plopped onto the floor. He staggered a little. His wonky leg trailed behind him. He fluttered his wings, cleaned his antennae, then looked up at Dev with a sweet, inquisitive stare. Dev smiled and offered his hand, but Limpy had already fluttered up and away from him.

  Heading for the window, bonking into the window frame.

  And then, on his second try, he flew out into the night sky.

  ‘Now! Back to the task at hand.’ Dev grinned, jumping up onto his bed and pulling down all the cables from his ceiling. One by one they PINGED from their bolts, uncurling like snakes from around the rafters. He wrapped them over his shoulder in huge rings, picked up a handful of clamps and then stepped out onto the balcony, climbing over the railings and into the bracken beside the house.

  He knelt down in the darkness, clamping one of the cables around the stalk of a whuppleberry bush. The next he embedded into the spiky bark of a spindletree, and the next he wrapped around a large clump of heather.

  ‘When the flowers are in their fullest bloom.’ Dev imitated the Mayor’s pompous voice. ‘The grass is at its tallest, the trees are humming with life … well that’s why Flember Day is the perfect time for me to borrow a bit of flember. If I take just a drop, from a few different plants, then it won’t be like what happened with the whitedrop at all. I bet it won’t even be missed.’

  Dev trailed the cables over his balcony and back into his workshop. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the flemberthyst crystal from the cave, slathered it with what was left of his clay, and stuck the end of each cable into it. Then he climbed the stepladder up to Boja Bear’s face and wedged the whole sticky ball between the glistening white marble teeth.

  He looked down at the schematics on his bedsheet and ran through every connection in his mind. Then ran through them all again. Then he re-read the flember book, all the way through, right up to the last page.

  Dev flipped the page back and forth, holding it up to the light, peering closely to find anything that might be written upon it.

  But nothing. From here he was on his own.

  He took a deep, deep breath.

  ‘Like taking a spoonful of water from a lake,’ he muttered, yanking the handle from the top of the birdcage, wedging it up into Boja’s right nostril, and turning it.

  Inside its sticky cocoon, the flemberthyst began to hum. Quietly, at first. Then louder. And louder. The cables spilling out from Boja’s mouth writhed around, dancing across the floor, little pinpricks of blue light peeping out of them.

  Flember!

  Suddenly, the lights turned into lightning bolts, jumping from cable to cable. A deafening buzz filled the workshop – it jangled the jars on the walls and set everything inside them writhing and tapping a
gainst the glass. The air itself felt hazy and alive. Dev’s clothes crackled with static and his scarf rose like a nettlesnake.

  ‘UHHHH …’

  It came from deep within Boja Bear, a groan that only made Dev grip the handle tighter, and spin it even faster.

  ‘UHHHHHHHH …’

  The bear’s eyes remained closed. A sweet smell wafted out between his clenched teeth. Dev could see a faint glow coming from inside Boja’s other nostril and then, to Dev’s delight, droplets of bright blue light crackled across his fur.

  ‘B-Boja Bear?’ Dev said.

  ‘BBBBBBBBBB …’

  Dev spun the handle faster, and faster, as fast as his arms could manage. And the faster he went, the brighter Boja Bear glowed, until the whole workshop, from floor to rafters, was bathed in light. Boja Bear’s chest heaved up and down in long, laboured breaths until suddenly …

  Doompf.

  The heart!

  Doompf!

  Doompf!

  Boja Bear’s eyelids lifted to reveal huge, bulging white eyes. Dev let go of the handle but it continued to spin. Faster. And fasterrrrr. Blue light crackled out from Boja Bear’s fur in great blinding arcs. It blasted across the walls, carving through Dev’s workbench, his experiments, shattering through his specimen jars. He stumbled down from the ladder and hid behind a crate, peeking out just long enough to see Boja Bear’s teeth CHOMP down on the flemberthyst, shattering it into a thousand pieces.