James Munkers

by Lindsey Little

  ‘Which she can’t give.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I look around helplessly. ‘Telephone?’ I suggest.

  ‘They’ve cut us off,’ Peter says.

  ‘Mobile?’

  Claire shakes her head. ‘Only mine, and the battery ran out three days ago.’

  I frown. ‘So in the next few days we have to work out what Grayson’s up to, escape from the Hoarders outside and then stop him, without any outside information or back-up?’

  ‘Correct,’ Pippa says.

  ‘So, what do we do?’ Jem asks from the piano stool.

  Mr Lancer looks around. ‘We? Who is this “we”?’

  ‘Us,’ Peter clarifies. ‘All of us – we want to help in any way we can.’

  ‘Yes, I had a feeling you might,’ Mr Lancer says with a sigh, ‘but I’m not sure we want to drag you all into this.’

  ‘Our parents and brother are being paraded around like mindless puppets by an evil headmaster,’ Peter says flatly. ‘Consider us already dragged.’

  ‘And I’m going to get slaughtered by my parents anyway for disappearing for days on end,’ Jem says, ‘so I’ve got nothing to lose. Besides, Jim’s in it whether he wants to be or not, and we’re not just going to stand on the touchline and cheer him on. They have sissy girls for that.’

  ‘Hey, watch it,’ Pippa and Claire say together.

  ‘I said sissy girls,’ he defends himself. ‘With pompoms.’

  ‘Yeah, where are Kit and Will?’ I ask.

  Pippa stares at me incredulously. ‘We’re talking about sissy girls with pompoms, and this reminds you of Kit and Will?’ she asks.

  ‘No, Jem was talking about sissy girls with pompoms, and his point was that they are nobody in the room, and that reminds me of Kit and Will because they’re not in the room either,’ I explain. ‘See?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘And they’re asleep.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Swinging on back to the point,’ Peter says, ‘we want to help.’

  ‘Well, offer taken, and thank you very much,’ Mr Lancer says, ‘but I still can’t hand out artillery and security codes until we have a battle plan.’

  ‘Which you can’t work out, because you don’t know what Grayson’s doing?’ I ask.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Because you don’t have any evidence?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Evidence that might be in his office?’ I suggest.

  He peers at me. ‘Maybe,’ he says slowly.

  ‘Something that’s important to him?’

  He stares at me, looking much deeper than he should.

  ‘Just asking,’ I say with a shrug.

  Mr Lancer starts to smile. ‘You were in his mind,’ he says.

  I wish I hadn’t brought that up now. ‘It was just a vague feeling,’ I say, trying to back-pedal. ‘There was just a hint of a plan and something that was important to him, and it was somewhere in the office. I was also being hit with a thousand and one other terrible thoughts, plus Mum was smashing my face in and I was confused and tired –’

  ‘James,’ Mr Lancer says, leaning forward and putting his empty bowl down on the coffee table, ‘this thing, this object in the room – are you sure it was particularly important to him?’

  I hesitate, then nod. ‘I’m sure. But I don’t know what it was. I don’t think I got a good think at it.’

  ‘That might not matter,’ Mr Lancer says. He taps his dirty spoon on the coffee table a couple of times, which Will would have twenty thousand fits about if he were here, then stands up abruptly. ‘I think I’ll go wake Kit up.’

  ‘You can’t,’ Pippa says quickly. ‘They’re asleep.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Lancer says, confused, ‘hence the waking up.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re… sleeping.’

  Mr Lancer’s huge eyebrows rise. ‘Oh,’ he says, and sits back down.

  What?

  Oh.

  Once Will and Kit are… awake, Mr Lancer talks to her for quite a while in the kitchen, using a whole lot of words I don’t understand when I just happen to be passing the doorway. Kit turns and asks, ‘Did you want something, James?’ on my fifth passing, so I go and play chopsticks on the piano before Will throws me off.

  There’s nothing like hanging around in a tiny apartment with nothing to do to disenchant you with the other eight people you’re sharing it with. Claire’s hair is all over the place, Winifred’s losing interest in Gwen’s tail and getting squally, Peter keeps talking about all the appliances he could fix around the house if he had the right tools, Pippa’s back to staring at me with a vague expression on her face, and Jem keeps showing off with his weapons. It’s not that they didn’t always do these things, it’s just that it’s intensified.

  Only Will’s mood has improved. Despite the horde of people mucking up his flat, he’s spending his time pottering about with a silly smile on his face. And he keeps whistling, even when he’s doing the dishes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so content. It’s freaking me out.

  I almost bound out of the room when Mr Lancer says they want to talk to me. I calm down a bit when I see how serious they look.

  ‘Listen, James,’ Mr Lancer says. Uh-oh. This can’t be good. ‘I know you’ve had more than your fill of intrusions into your brain of late, but you’ve got some information in there that we need.’

  ‘I know,’ I say apologetically, ‘but I can’t make it clear. I’ve tried, but I don’t know what it means.’

  ‘We know,’ Kit says. ‘It’s okay, Jim. It’s not your memory, and we don’t expect you to be able to tell us any more than you already have. You’re not supposed to understand what it means. But we think we might be able to. In any case, we have to try; we don’t have anything else to go on at this point, and we’re running out of time.’

  I look at her uncertainly. ‘So you want me to explain it again, so you can figure out what it means?’ I ask.

  She takes a deep breath, and looks to Mr Lancer for support. ‘We don’t think that’s going to be enough, I’m afraid. We think we might have to, ah, go in and retrieve it for ourselves, in a manner of speaking.’

  ‘You mean… you’re going to go into my mind?’

  ‘I’m going to try, yes.’

  ‘But…’ I don’t understand this. ‘But you said it was dangerous to do that. You said you’d get all lost and go insane if you do that.’

  ‘I know I said that, but I was talking about you diving in the deep end of Pippa’s brain. I’m going to be a little bit more sophisticated than that.’

  ‘Oh, fine, in you hop then, help yourself, wade around in my simplified, dumb-arse brain, why don’t you?’

  Oh, man, I’m a mug. She doesn’t even have to look stern for me to be filled with shame.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I just really, really don’t want you going insane right now.’

  ‘I appreciate your protectiveness, honey, but it’s a bit different this time.’

  ‘Because you’re a Guardian?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s more than that,’ Mr Lancer says. ‘The reason Kit’s going in and not me is because she has a constant link with someone else who can anchor her to the outside world, and reel her back into it, if necessary.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say in comprehension. They’re talking about Pippa.

  ‘And if Warwick can focus your mind on that particular memory, I shouldn’t need to go around searching for it,’ Kit continues. ‘It’s not a question of whether I can get in and out. It’s a question of whether you’re willing to let us make you concentrate on a memory you’d probably rather not relive.’

  They both look at me, Mr Lancer uncertain, Kit comically hopeful.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I tell them.

  Kit looks somewhat surprised. ‘You’re sure?’ she asks.

  ‘Do you need it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then do it. I trust you not to screw me up any more than you already have.’

  Kit stands u
p. ‘Good lad. Come on then.’

  We go back into the lounge room and Kit shoos Peter and Will off the armchairs. Then she drags one of them so it’s facing the other one, about a yard in front of it, while Will complains about the state of his polished wooden floor. Kit tells him he’s a nitpickety old housewife, and he chases her around the room.

  ‘Right, moving on,’ she says after she’s been caught a bit (yuck). ‘Jim, sit there.’

  I sit down in one of the chairs, and she sits in the other. Pippa climbs into the chair behind Kit and hugs her around her middle.

  ‘Is that part of it?’ Claire asks, bemused.

  ‘Yes. It’s essential,’ Pippa replies seriously.

  Claire pauses a moment, then climbs in behind me and clasps her arms around my chest. Kit grins happily at me. ‘Aren’t sisters nice?’

  ‘Adorable,’ I gasp. Claire loosens her grip a bit.

  ‘Okay,’ Kit says, business-like again. ‘Jim, try to relax. I know, but just try, okay?’ I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Nice attempt,’ she says. ‘Okay, Warwick, start her up.’

  My vision blurs a bit, and I can see two of everything in front of me. Then I feel Mr Lancer’s mind, sturdy and strong, taking one of those visions and rewinding it, while the other stays steady. I’m whizzed through the last few days in the flat, the escape from my parents at home, and the race through the school. Then it slows down as we enter Mr Grayson’s office again. I’m looking at Mum, I’m on the floor, I’m in Grayson’s mind looking at Mr Lancer.

  And then I feel it again – a consciousness of something important in the room with us. There, I tell Mr Lancer. Slow it down there.

  The video of my memory pauses and once again I feel the agony of that moment, clinging desperately to the edges of Grayson’s mind to stop myself from falling. My physical body starts to shake and sweat springs up on my brow. Then I feel Claire’s arms tightening around me, and I find I can take steadying breaths again.

  All of a sudden Kit’s mind is with me, calm and deep and monstrously brilliant. Who knew she was that clever? She doesn’t show it that much.

  Shut your face, she tells me.

  You’re the one who’s opening it all over the place.

  Then I feel her leaving my memory a little, probing into what I can’t understand in it, like a surgeon delving into organs I have and use, but have no idea how they work. She works quickly and efficiently, sifting through the thoughts of both myself and Grayson, before she stops suddenly. I can feel her confusion, but can’t tell what it’s about.

  ‘Warwick, take it back a bit more,’ I hear her say out in the real world.

  A moment later, the memory movie starts rewinding again.

  ‘There,’ Kit says. ‘Stop it there.’

  The vision stops, and I almost throw up into my lap. Mr Lancer’s stopped my memory at the moment where I entered the office and felt that nausea. It sweeps through me just as strongly as it did then.

  ‘And a bit further, Warwick.’

  Again my mind whizzes backwards, and I’m outside, retching onto the grass. Then back we zip again and I’m nearly puking into my poetry book in English class.

  ‘Oh, this is fun,’ I say pointedly, trying to keep my breakfast down.

  Kit takes the hint. I feel her backing out of my mind, Pippa at the other end guiding her back quickly and easily.

  The image of the school flickers off in my mind and suddenly I’m back in the armchair again. I wipe the sweat off my face with my sleeve and scowl at Kit.

  ‘What the hell was that about?’ I ask. ‘If you wanted to make me throw up, you could have just punched me in the…’

  Why is she looking at me like that?

  ‘What?’

  Kit licks her lips and looks at Mr Lancer. ‘Could I have a word?’ she says to him, standing up and nodding towards the kitchen.

  ‘No, no,’ I interrupt. ‘No words in the kitchen. No secret meetings. What’s going on, Kit?’

  Everyone’s staring at her. She sighs and sits back down. ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ she says.

  ‘After all that?’ Peter says, and points at me. ‘Jimmy looked like he was having a fit. You must have got something.’

  ‘Oh, I got something, alright,’ Kit replies. ‘It just doesn’t make any sense. That thing that Grayson was so eager about? It doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What, he’s making plans with imaginary do-hickeys?’ Jem says. ‘Has he gone barmy, then?’

  ‘Yeah, he did seem to have some conflicting emotions while I was in there,’ I say.

  Kit shakes her head. ‘No, his mind is intact – evil, but intact. And he wasn’t making it up; it was there in the office with him in that box of Christmas decorations. It’s just…’ She flounders to a stop, shrugs helplessly and says, ‘It’s Chaplain’s Orb.’

  Pippa gasps, Mr Lancer chokes on his tea and Will stands up so fast he knocks a china plate flying. He doesn’t pay it any attention as it smashes on the ground.

  ‘The Orb?’

  ‘It exists?’

  ‘How did he get it?’

  ‘How do you use it?’

  ‘Can it really –’

  ‘Would he actually –’

  ‘Hold it,’ I say. ‘What’s a chapel orb?’ It’s my sodding memory, I should be allowed to know.

  ‘Chaplain’s Orb,’ Will says scathingly, ‘is one of the most powerful devices of mind-control in this dimension.’

  ‘So legend has it, anyway,’ Mr Lancer says. ‘There have been rumours about it for over a century, but no evidence to prove it actually existed.’

  ‘What sort of evidence?’ Claire asks.

  ‘Well, the Orb for a start,’ he says. ‘Nobody’s actually seen it. It might not be an orb at all. It could be Chaplain’s Magical Starfish, for all we know.’

  ‘Can’t you sense it?’ I ask. ‘It being all magical and stuff.’

  ‘Usually we can sense magical objects,’ Kit says, ‘because they come from either the Twelfth or the Thirteenth. But this Orb – neither the Guardians nor the Hoarders have ever been able to sense it.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Mr Lancer says. ‘It turns out I was standing right next to it and I didn’t feel a thing. Lots of us have taken that fact to mean that it didn’t exist, that it was just a legend.’

  ‘Also, there’s no evidence of it having been used,’ Pippa says.

  ‘Well, there’s evidence of it now,’ Claire says hotly. ‘Just look at Mum and Michael and Garth!’

  ‘That’s not mind-control,’ Will says. ‘That’s body-control.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ Peter asks.

  ‘What’s happened to your family we refer to as mind-numbing,’ Pippa explains. ‘Their thoughts are put on hold and their bodies are controlled from a distance, like puppets. It’s done by taking something from the victim – a hair or nail, something with their DNA – and channelling your will through it to control the rest of them.’

  ‘How did they get anything off Michael?’ I ask. ‘I can see how they got Mum and Garth, but Michael was in the house the day he went all zombie-like and it’s got protection. How did they get to him?’

  ‘Our best guess?’ Kit says. ‘They knocked on the front door.’

  Blimey. So simple.

  ‘Anyway,’ Pippa says, ‘if the Orb worked in a similar way, we’d have noticed all these hollow people wandering around this dimension, but it’s a mind-controlling device, not a mind-numbing one, so the effects wouldn’t be as obvious.’

  ‘And it’s a particularly subtle one,’ Kit says. ‘I was able to find out Grayson’s plans for it, and got a crash-course in Orbology at the same time. For one thing, it doesn’t numb the whole mind; it just changes a part of it, which makes it much more dangerous.’

  ‘How’s that?’ Jem asks.

  ‘Well, it would be like the difference between a drugged person and a brainwashed person,’ Kit explains. ‘If you mind-numb someone, it’s like drugging them. They’ll follow your orde
rs, no problem, but because there’s no brain at work there’s no force behind what they’re doing. But the Orb brainwashes. The person will still be who they are – they’ll still think and reason and have emotions – but they’ll believe whatever you want them to. And a thinking person who believes in what they’re doing is much more dangerous than a mindless person who doesn’t believe anything at all.’

  ‘And if they still seem like themselves –’

  ‘There’s no way of telling who’s been affected, or how they’ve been changed. They wouldn’t even know it themselves.’

  ‘So this thing basically creates undetectable enemies?’ I ask.

  ‘And lots of them,’ Kit says. ‘You don’t need to set one person up at a time, like Grayson did with your parents and Garth. If there’s enough energy behind it, you can take control of a whole crowd in one go – or an entire audience.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mr Lancer raises his eyebrows. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘What?’ Will asks.

  ‘Guess when he’s planning to try out his little toy?’ Kit says.

  Mr Lancer sighs. ‘Tomorrow at the school’s Christmas show.’ He shakes his head. ‘How typically ostentatious.’

  ‘No,’ Pippa says, ‘it’s not just that; it’s very clever. He’s making every single student in the school take part in the show in some way this year, which means most people have a child or grandchild or niece or nephew who’s going to be in it. I’d say ninety per cent of the town’s population is going to be there on the night.’

  ‘Well, it’s going to be one hell of a finale,’ Kit says dryly. ‘It looks like he’s saving the big moment for the Nativity play at the end. He’s gone and embedded the Orb in the head of Baby Jesus.’

  Will lets out an explosive snort. We all stare at him.

  ‘It’s funny,’ he explains.

  ‘Tell me again what you find so endearing about him,’ Pippa says to Kit.

  ‘But why is he doing it?’ I ask. ‘What’s he going to do with an entire village under his control? Come and storm the flat?’

  ‘Oh, I think his plans are grander than that,’ Mr Lancer says gloomily. ‘If he manages to take control of a Guardian during this little escapade, he’s got a foot in the door. The Hoarders could have control of the Twelfth Dimension within minutes.’