The Hidden Boy

by Jon Berkeley

  “Asleep?” said Ma. “What if he was? What do you mean, ‘disappeared’? Disappeared where?”

  “We don’t know,” he said. “Somewhere between here and the Other Side. All that’s left usually is a meow or a cheep, trapped in the Squeak Jar. Nobody knows how it happens, but nine souls is the limit. Always has been.”

  “We didn’t have any pets with us,” said Ma. “We left the neighbors in charge of Theo’s meerkat.”

  Bea stepped down slowly from the bench. A cold tide of dread and guilt was rising in her chest. She reached out for Theo’s backpack and quietly opened the zipper a couple of inches. A nose poked out immediately like a twitching brown button. Bea glanced at Gabby, who was crawling mechanically toward the front of the bus, her head swiveling as she looked under each seat in turn. Bea pushed the meerkat’s nose gently back inside and closed the zipper. She had known that Theo intended to smuggle Nails in his backpack. No, she admitted to herself, it was more than that. She had helped him at the last minute to line the backpack with a plastic bag and stock it with food for the trip. Now Theo was gone, and Nails remained. Could Bontoc be right about the reason for Theo’s disappearance? Could she really be to blame?

  She pushed the idea to the back of her mind with a great effort and looked out of the window. Clockwork Gabby was ratcheting across the grass now, holding the thick glass jar out toward the captain. Bea slung the backpack over her shoulder and followed her outside. Before Gabby could hand over the jar, Ma grabbed it from her with a wild look in her eyes, and began to unscrew the lid.

  Bontoc leaped to his feet. “Don’t open it!” he yelped. He rummaged in his pocket and produced a small wooden horn with a flat end, like the one a midwife uses to listen to a baby’s heartbeat. It had BLUE MOON ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME ADVENTURE HOLIDAYS stamped in gold lettering down one side, and it looked something like this:

  He took the Squeak Jar from Ma’s shaking hand, and placed the mouth of the horn on the lid and the flat end to his ear. Bea, Gabby, Ma and Granny Delphine watched him closely. In the pool behind them Bald Mountain surfaced for a moment, spat out a stream of water, spluttered, “THEO!” for good measure, and submerged again.

  “Well?” whispered Ma.

  Captain Bontoc shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.

  Ma’s knees buckled suddenly and she sat down heavily in the grass.

  “Let me try,” said Bea. She put the end of the horn to her ear and held her breath.

  Now, the pool at the foot of Cambio Falls is not the quietest of places at the best of times, and on this particular night it was noisier than usual. Thirty tons of water per minute thundering into a pool make a hissing roar that you could hide a lot of smaller sounds in. Add to that the rustling of a million leaves, the creaking of branches, the chirping of blats, the who-hooting of howls, and a 250-pound man surfacing from the churning water and blowing like a whale every sixty seconds, and it would take an extraordinarily good listener to find in that din the voice of a lost boy with two missing teeth.

  As luck would have it, Bea had always been an extraordinarily good listener. What was more, she knew from experience that if Theo needed to be heard he would find a way. She closed her eyes and put her finger in her free ear. One by one she drew aside the sounds she did not want, like a series of curtains, until right in the middle of the noise she heard a voice. It was thin and faint but unmistakably Theo’s.

  “What am I going to do now?” said the voice.

  “Theo!” whispered Bea, as loudly as she dared. She felt her voice should match the volume of Theo’s in order to reach him, although that didn’t seem entirely logical. There was no answer from Theo, but she could still hear him sniffling somewhere in the distance.

  “Can you hear him?” asked Captain Bontoc.

  Bea nodded, not wanting to take her ear from the horn.

  “Quick,” said Bontoc in a loud whisper, “ask him to describe where he is.”

  “Where are you, Theo?” asked Bea. Despite the seriousness of the situation she felt slightly foolish speaking to a jar.

  She strained to hear Theo’s voice again. In the background she could hear Bontoc whispering eagerly to Gabby, “If we can find the boy we might find my parrot, Trigger. Lost him on my first crossing thirty years ago.”

  “Right here, of course,” said Theo’s voice, even fainter than before. “Where are we?”

  Bea took her ear from the horn. It was a good question. “Where exactly are we?” she asked Captain Bontoc.

  Ma took the jar from Bea before Bontoc could answer. She put her ear slowly to the horn, as though expecting to hear nothing, and wanting to put off the moment of disappointment. She listened for a long time, then looked up at Bea and shook her head. “It’s the shock,” she said, and she got unsteadily to her feet. Her voice was trembling. “It’s playing tricks with your imagination.”

  “I heard him!” said Bea. “I’m sure of it.” She was not so sure of it, really. It did seem unlikely that her missing brother’s voice would be speaking from a glass jar with a screw-top lid.

  Captain Bontoc tugged the creases from his blazer and attempted an air of authority. “Best thing is to get ourselves to Bell Hoot at once and consult the chart. Wherever he is, he has to show up on the chart. Follow me, if you please. Look lively!” He scooped up a number of cases, balancing some on his head and shoulders. He was about to start up the path when he was arrested by a bellow from the edge of the pool.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” spluttered Bald Mountain. He was clinging to a rock, half in and half out of the water, trying to regain his breath. Pond water ran from his nostrils and soaked into his bushy beard.

  “You won’t find the boy in the water, sir,” replied Captain Bontoc. “The Blue Moon Mobile is completely sealed when she’s under. Couldn’t get an amoeba in or out of her. Tight as a drum, she is.”

  Ma stared around her quickly, as though a last look might reveal Theo standing right there by the bus; then she turned and marched rapidly after the captain, the Squeak Jar clutched tightly under her arm, despite its apparent emptiness. The others followed, stumbling up the path with whatever they could carry, Pa and Phoebe leaving trails of silvery water behind them in the moonlight. The path crested a rise, and they could see pointed roofs among the trees ahead of them.

  Ma had drawn ahead of Captain Bontoc, who nonetheless kept up a surprising pace under the weight of an entire family’s luggage.

  Pa muttered testily at the rear. “Don’t see why we couldn’t bring the bus,” he said.

  “Too noisy,” called Captain Bontoc over his shoulder. “It might attract…might wake people up, shipmate.”

  They strode into the moonlit village, the captain and the tattooed lady setting the pace. Behind them came Bea Flint, her silver-haired granny, her enormous father, their clockwork lodger and the neighbors’ girl, Phoebe Lu, who had yet to meet anything she feared.

  “Beanos,” said Gabby as she clicked along. It was the first word she had spoken for many years, and her disused voice was no more than a whisper. Nobody heard but Bea, and she was so sure she must be mistaken that she didn’t stop to wonder what it could mean.

  Most of the wooden houses in the village were built about ten feet from the ground, supported by sturdy trees, as though their occupants feared that a river might change course and rush through the village at any moment. Chickens scratched around underneath the houses, and here and there pigs slumbered in the shadows. In the center of the village stood a large square building of pale gray stone, and it was to this building that Captain Bontoc was striding like an overladen ant. There were tall windows at intervals around the building. Above the door the words BELL HOOT LIBRARY were chiseled into the stone lintel.

  The captain climbed the few steps to the door and deposited the luggage in an untidy pile. He fumbled in his pocket for a key, but Ma could not stand the wait. She planted her finger on the doorbell and held it there, while the shrill bell echoed inside the building. Bea
glimpsed an expression on her face that she was more used to seeing on Granny Delphine’s. Granny Delphine was frowning and muttering to herself, and Pa kicked angrily at the top step as though it were the stone’s fault that his little boy had vanished.

  What will happen to us all, Bea found herself wondering, if we never see Theo again?

  Squeeze

  Captain Bontoc opened the door into the library and flicked on the lights. “Follow me,” he said. He passed between rows of silent books and hurried up a staircase that climbed the wall at the rear, with Ma following at his heels and the others close behind. At the top of the stairs the captain opened the door to a small office. The lights were on inside, and to Bea’s surprise she could hear the clacking of an old typewriter.

  “Someone’s working late,” muttered Pa.

  They shuffled in through the narrow door, all except for Phoebe, who could not resist sliding back down the banister, oblivious to the sheer drop beside it.

  The office was a small room in the attic of the building. It had a sloping ceiling with wooden beams. Two desks stood side by side in the middle of the room, and at the far wall was a long bench. A number of people sat there in the gloom. Most of them seemed to be asleep.

  On one of the desks sat an iron typewriter that must have been at least fifty years old. A woman of around the same age was tapping away at it with fingers like dancing sausages. “Won’t be a second!” she called out, without looking up. “I’m just typing up your cards.”

  Captain Bontoc strode to the larger desk and unrolled a chart that lay on the desktop. He leaned forward, frowning, and began to trace the lines with a bitten fingernail. Bea looked at the chart with interest. As far as she could see it was an exact copy of the one that the brush-haired man had been filling out at the car wash. She was sure she even recognized some of the strange little annotations the man had made in between the planets. It seemed a long time ago.

  “Will the chart show us where Theo is?” she asked the captain.

  “The little tyke’s gotten himself lost already, has he?” said the lady at the typewriter. She looked up and smiled. She had a double chin and gaps between her teeth. She seemed to know who Theo was.

  “Not exactly, Miss ’opkins,” said Captain Bontoc. “Boy disappeared on the crossing.”

  Miss Hopkins stopped typing and her smile grew puzzled. “On the crossing?” she repeated. “That’s impossible!”

  “Of course it’s impossible,” snapped Ma. She turned to Captain Bontoc. “You said yourself the bus was sealed. He must have gotten off before we started. He’s still at the car wash, and I demand you take us back at once.” She folded her arms and glared. “He’s barely seven.”

  Captain Bontoc looked up from the chart. “You’re in luck,” he said with a nervous smile. “There’ll be another crossing in three weeks.”

  “Three weeks?” said Ma sharply.

  The lady at the typewriter flinched, and those on the bench who were still asleep woke up with a start.

  “Have you found him on the chart?” asked Bea.

  Captain Bontoc scratched his head. “Afraid not, missy. I only know how to plot a crossing, really. Mr. Waxy’s the one who interprets the chart. He’ll find the boy for sure. Everyone has to be somewhere.”

  “But we can’t wait three weeks!” said Ma. “What will happen to Theo in the meantime?”

  “Nothing, ma’am. Long as young…Bea can hear him we know he’s safe.” He gestured at a shelf behind him, where another large jar perched among the dusty books. “My parrot Trigger’s still going strong after thirty years. I talk to him often. Can’t tell me where he is, that’s the problem.”

  Bea could feel Nails the meerkat shifting in the backpack that she carried over her shoulder, and the guilty feeling in her chest shifted with him. She knew she should tell the captain that the meerkat had survived the crossing, but she could not pluck up the courage. She was afraid of what Granny Delphine would say to her, and more than that she dreaded facing her mother with the news that Bea herself might somehow be responsible for Theo’s disappearance.

  “Why don’t you just phone him?” said Ma. “Mr. Waxy, or whatever he calls himself.”

  “Phone him?” said Bontoc. “Phone him?” He looked at Granny Delphine as though for help, but the old lady’s lips were thin and she appeared to be staring at the rafters. “There…er…isn’t a phone line to the Other Side,” said Bontoc. He clapped his hands together briskly. “Now, if you’ll just wait for a moment we’ll sort you out with—”

  He got no further with what he was saying. Without anyone noticing, Pa’s face had been turning slowly redder, like an iron in the fire. Now it had reached a rich plum color. He started toward the captain. Bea stepped hurriedly to one side. Pa had been famous for his bear hugs back in the days when he rode with the Flying Rascals Motorcycle Club. Legend had it that when Bald Mountain put the squeeze on somebody they came around very rapidly to his point of view. Indeed, there were many people who had found themselves a good deal thinner after a disagreement with Bald Mountain than they had been before.

  He stepped around behind Captain Bontoc with surprising nimbleness. He picked the captain clean off the floor in his massive tattooed arms, and he began to squeeze. Bea winced. Ma looked triumphant, as though she expected the solutions to all their problems to be squeezed out of the captain like toothpaste. Bea stole a look at Granny Delphine and so she missed what happened when Bald Mountain achieved maximum squeeze. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of the captain giving a mighty wriggle. A croaking sound escaped him. His shiny skin and whiskered face gave a fleeting impression of a plump seal escaping from a trawler net, and a moment later he was free.

  There was chaos in the room. The typewriter woman let out a delayed shriek. Captain Bontoc, now standing several feet away from Pa, shook himself back into shape. Pa was hugging himself, a surprised look replacing the anger on his face, and there was a nervous rumble from the people on the bench.

  It was at this point that Granny Delphine took command. “Enough!” she said in a shrill voice.

  Everything stopped.

  “There’s nothing more we can do tonight.” She swept the room with her owl eyes, and even the strangers fell silent. “It seems that Theo is in no immediate danger. In the morning we will organize a proper search, and in the meantime Captain Bontoc will show us where we are to stay.”

  “Ah, yes,” said the captain. He turned to the typewriter lady. “If you please, Miss ’opkins?”

  Miss Hopkins opened a drawer in her desk. She took out a small wooden box, placed it carefully on the corner of the desk, and opened it. The people on the bench shifted nervously. One of them, a stooped man in a shapeless felt hat, stood up hastily and addressed the typewriter woman. “Beg your pardon, Miss Hopkins. I’d like to be excused from the line. Just remembered I’ve got to get the plumegranates in this week.”

  “Aye,” said a woman sitting at the end. “And I’ve got to get my ears adjusted on Tuesday. I’ll volunteer another time.”

  “Nonsense!” said Miss Hopkins brightly. She tapped the box with a pudgy finger. A large striped grasshopper appeared, first his long curling antennae, then a triangular green head with eyes like coffee beans. He climbed out of the box in a leisurely fashion and surveyed the row of people on the bench. The man in the hat sat down quickly. The people shrank slowly into their collars, and Bea had the distinct impression that they were all trying to avoid catching the grasshopper’s attention. The insect made up his mind. He jumped suddenly and flew across the room with a clatter of wings, landing squarely on the felt hat of the man with the plumegranates. The man muttered something under his breath. The rest of the people looked relieved.

  “Mr. Miller,” said Miss Hopkins. “You’re the lucky host!”

  Mr. Miller stood up. A reluctant smile broke across his wrinkled face, and he walked forward and stuck out a large bony hand. “Welcome to Bell Hoot,” he said. The grasshopper was still
perched on his hat.

  Ma looked at him blankly, her eyes rimmed with tears. Bea shook hands with the man instead.

  “You’ll be staying with the Millers until we get you settled,” said Captain Bontoc.

  Ma and Pa said nothing. It seemed the fight had gone out of them. Ma looked tired and pale, and there was a thin streamer of pond weed glued to Pa’s cheek.

  They filed out through the narrow door and down the wooden staircase, following Mr. Miller out into the warm, chirping night. Bea thought about the peculiar animals she had glimpsed on the brochure through Granny Delphine’s spectacles, teeming in the undergrowth. A thrill of excitement made her forget for a moment about Theo. She ran a few steps to catch up with their host.

  “Are there any big animals here?” she asked in a loud whisper.

  “Some,” said Mr. Miller. He held up a lantern that cast a pool of light around them. His head turned from side to side, peering into the darkness between the trees. He seemed distracted.

  “Where are we going?” asked Bea. “Is it a sort of guesthouse?”

  Mr. Miller shook his head. “It’s our home.”

  “Do you normally have lodgers?”

  “Nope. It’s our turn, is all. You’ll get your own place by and by.”

  “We’re only here for three weeks.”

  Mr. Miller gave Bea a strange look. He seemed about to say something, then thought better of it.

  “That’s enough questions for now,” said Granny Delphine at her shoulder.

  Bea heard her mother’s voice from the darkness behind. “I have a few questions of my own,” she muttered, “and there had better be some answers.”

  Lifetime

  The Millers’ house was perched among the spreading branches of a massive plane tree. It looked like a collection of boxes wedged into the tree wherever they would fit, topped with slanted roofs that jutted out in all directions. A broad verandah stretched along the front of the house, overlooking the small clearing that separated it from the path. The verandah was about fifteen feet from the ground and was bathed in the warm light of a couple of lamps dangling from the overhanging roof. Bea could see no obvious way of reaching it.