There’s no white spots or soft little tail and the head’s completely gone. Still, it’s pretty obvious what it is. Or what it used to be, anyway.
Brook goes, ‘Eat something.’
‘We’re not hungry,’ Blaze says.
‘Eat,’ Brook repeats, as smoke drifts past him. ‘Dot did what she did to the deer for a reason. It wouldn’t be dotly to waste it.’
He watches us carefully, clearly wanting to know exactly how his words are sinking in.
It doesn’t matter how prehealthy the idea of eating the deer makes me feel. Or how, for whatever reason, being so close to the fire suddenly makes me superaware of my dotmarks. I’m just going to have to ignore the way they seem to stretch and pull and drag at my skin.
I have to eat some deer if that’s what Brook and Gil want. It’s possible what they want isn’t the same thing Dot does. But until I figure out how to make Dennis disappear, the best thing to do is not to stick out.
So I tell Brook, ‘We’d love to try some.’
‘Really?’ Brook’s pretty interested in this.
Gil’s by the fire and the deer’s fourth leg is on the grass at his feet. He picks it up, tears chunks from it with his hands and passes the dripping pink flesh to me and Blaze.
‘All Dot’s creatures should be honoured. Even the ones Dot uses as a sign.’
‘Where in the Books does it say that?’ Blaze asks, like he’s really interested to know. As though he thinks the Books actually do say something about eating Dot’s creatures.
Gil’s mouth is ringed with glistening fat and streaks of charcoal. He ignores Blaze.
‘Go on. Eat.’
The deer flesh is still warm from the fire. I think maybe if I hold my breath I won’t be able to taste it as strongly as I can smell it. I open my mouth and feed in the first piece. It’s a solid lump, chewy with little strings that refuse to dissolve in my mouth the way fruit does. Next to me, Blaze chews and somehow manages to swallow.
But the deer flesh won’t go down my throat no matter how desperately I try to force it. Actually, forcing makes things a whole lot worse. Now the flesh coats my tongue and I feel my chin go all wobbly and my mouth fill with a thick, burning liquid.
I can’t let anything prenormal happen. I have to swallow the deer. Does Dot wants me to? I don’t know. But I’m sure if I don’t I’m going to look majorly predotly in front of Gil and Brook.
‘Now we’ve got the taste for it, I know Dot will want us to go on eating the flesh of her creations,’ Gil says. ‘Don’t you think, Wren?’
The hot liquid works its way to the front of my mouth. I clamp my hand over my mouth to keep it back. I can’t have the deer flesh and the hot liquid splashing out in one big sticky mess all over Gil’s bare feet. I turn away from the fire, suck air in through my nostrils. Anything to get rid of that rich, greasy smell. Sweat cools my skin and makes me shiver.
One last intake of breath and I manage to swallow a tiny lump of flesh.
‘There,’ Gil says. ‘I knew you’d love it.’
There’s still a little string of deer flesh caught in my throat and I’m coughing and gagging, my mouth filling with liquid all over again.
‘Take some more.’
Gil watches me bite and swallow, bite and swallow, my throat bulging with each fleshy lump that goes down. And it’s then, right when I’m wondering if I’m going to have to eat the entire rest of the deer, that Gil notices the bird.
Bird, that’s what Gil calls it anyway. And okay, it definitely is up in the sky but that’s really the only way this thing is like any other bird in creation.
The sound it’s making is like no bird I’ve ever heard. It comes towards us, making a jagged whirr, this kind of whoomp whoomp whoomp noise. It doesn’t fly straight or anything either. It banks and swoops, dipping down then rising up and repeating the whole thing over and over again. It churns the air as it heads for the gazebo, rippling the grass and swirling the leaves.
Now it’s close enough for me to see its shiny white body and the circle-shaped blur on the top. I’ve seen one of those things before, except not here. In Julius’s room, on the front of that book.
Hector the Littlest Helicopter. And so I think, That must be the word for this thing then. A hector.
By now, everyone else is looking at the hector too. I mean, they’re really gawking. Obviously they are, because this thing must be pretty extraordinary to anyone who’s never seen one in a book. The hector sweeps across the garden, left to right, all over the place.
Leaves and dirt, dust and grit circle through the air and into our eyes. The entire lawn moves in waves the way the lagoon does on windy days. The sound gets louder until it’s directly above us and low enough to read the single word in blue letters on its belly: POLICE.
Everyone’s shouting at Gil, wanting to know what the thing in the sky is. Somehow, over the top of all the noise, Gil comes up with an explanation. He decides that Dot must’ve sent a gigantic bird with huge talons on the bottom to scoop up anything predotly in the garden.
Animals. People even. Because naturally, anything predotly must be crushed.
Everywhere around, people start to scatter, exactly like ants before a big storm. The hector banks left, heading for the huts, and now I can see there’s another circling blur at the tail.
Jasper and Luna run past, shouting that they’re going to the gazebo, that everyone’s going there to talk to Dot. The crowd streams past me and everyone’s going in the same direction. I’m right in the middle of the heaving, screaming, gritty swell of bodies. I want to run in the opposite direction but I can’t seem to move.
Two arms close around me. They lift me off the ground and drag me sideways onto the lawn. I stumble and fall to the grass and people trample my hair and hands and body in their rush to get to the gazebo.
I feel myself sliding across the grass, pulled by my feet and I open my eyes and it’s Blaze.
He lifts me to my feet and shouts above the noise, ‘That’s not a bird.’
I nod. He’s right. It’s a hector, sent here by Dot so I can complete my test. Now’s my chance. I can show Dot I’m not going to be tempted by Dennis and his stories about Woodend. All I have to do is make sure he gets on board that hector.
‘It’s come from out there,’ Blaze goes on. ‘It’s looking for Dennis.’
I don’t admit to him that I know what hectors are or how I know. I don’t say he has the wrong idea about why the hector’s here. It’s so noisy, that’s part of it. But mostly it’s because I’m too busy imagining Dennis inside, soaring higher and higher until he vanishes from creation, leaving everything happy and golden again.
____________________
Through the fringe, that’s the quickest way to get to Dennis. Now I know I’m close to passing Dot’s test, going in again is a risk I think I can take.
Over our heads the hector makes this whipping, whirring sound, close and then further away. On top of that, even in the fringe, I can hear people shouting and the sound of my own breath in my ears. Ahead of me, Blaze’s footsteps are heavy but fast.
Then we’re through the fringe and into the orchard, with its thick, sweet smell of fruit. On the edge of the orchard, there’s Dennis’s hut. The hector is right above us, dipping low, sending blossoms spiralling into the air. We pass the coconut tree with its empty nail. It doesn’t matter where the knife is now.
The hector is so close, there’s surely no way Gil or Brook can get to Dennis before we do. I mean, the hector’s going to have to spot us soon. And then this will all be over.
We run for Dennis’s hut. Up the stairs because there’s no time for the whole thing with the window. I’m heaving for breath as Blaze opens the door and we stumble through it, plunging from the dazzling sunshine into the still prelight of inside.
‘Dennis?’ calls Blaze. ‘C’mon.’
But Dennis isn’t on the bed and he isn’t looking out through the shutters. He’s not under the bed or inside the wardrobe o
r at any of the other places we search, tearing open doors and knocking sungarb to the floor with a clatter of hangers.
The hut is empty. Apart from his striped sungarb, still damp from last night, there’s no sign of Dennis.
At the same time, me and Blaze head back out Dennis’s door. Around us, animals are circling, darting underneath the huts, looking for shelter from the hector. And the two of us are just as clueless, pretty much. Shouting Dennis’s name and everything.
Both of us desperate for a flash of peacock-blue sungarb.
We head down the path towards the lawn in the middle of creation. I check my hut. I pound on the door of Fern’s. We tear open every door and check all the huts, without knowing why Dennis would be there.
It doesn’t even matter because there’s no sign of him. Creation’s big and Dennis is small. He could be anywhere. Anyone could see him. He could miss the hector altogether and I could fail Dot’s test.
I yell his name again but there’s no reply, only the sound of the whirring coming towards us from every direction at once. Gil’s probably found him by now, or Brook. They must have, I think, and about a million pictures light up in my head.
Dennis with his sungarb all damp between his legs.
The gate, shimmering and impassable. A sparking twig.
Steam from the deer’s cut throat.
The empty nail where the coconut knife should have been.
Dennis’s device and those things that FancyVividBlue wrote about me and Blaze.
A butterfly circling.
Brook.
And Gil, always Gil, smiling just slightly as he says, ‘Anything predotly must be crushed.’
22
I SEE THEM first. Poking out from under Dennis’s hut, there they are, ten white toes, each one ringed with dirt. I run to the hut and Blaze is right behind me. The white toes are attached to white feet. Those are attached to skinny white legs, which are covered with a peacock-blue sungarb. The legs aren’t moving. Underneath the hut, the body is still.
Blaze passes me, lunges for the hut so fast he ends up falling and sliding towards it on his knees. He grabs Dennis by the feet. It takes no time at all for Blaze to pull Dennis out, but somehow it’s long enough for me to imagine what we’re going to find. Sticky blood on Dennis’s chest, a slit in his throat? Who knows what kind of pregood things Gil imagines Dot wants him to do to Dennis?
Then Blaze yanks again and the whole of Dennis appears, unhurt as far as I can see.
Dennis’s eyes screw up against the burst of bright light. A smile spreads across his face, sweet and breezy as a towel unrolling beside the lagoon. His tongue swipes his lips.
Blaze leans in and uses a thumb to pry apart Dennis’s drooping eyelids. Dennis’s eyes are usually grey but they don’t look that way right now. The coloured bit is basically covered by the black circles in the centre.
Huge black circles, just like Gil’s eyes and Brook’s and Fern’s. Like mine used to be, before the dreams.
‘Hey, you guys. What’s up?’
Blaze doesn’t answer. He bundles Dennis up until he’s just a bunch of legs and arms. Then Blaze runs with him and I follow, heading for the orchard, for an empty patch of Dot’s creation where the hector might be able to land. The harder we run, the more Dennis laughs.
When Blaze deposits him on the petal-flecked grass in the orchard, Dennis’s head flops to one side.
‘Why do you have to be so intense the whole time?’
Blaze ignores Dennis. He starts shouting, like the hector can somehow hear him. I’m listening for the sound to build, the way it would if it came swooping towards us again. The same sound it’d make as it flew away with Dennis on board, leaving me in the orchard, test passed, free to be as dotly as I want.
But the hector doesn’t come near us. I don’t want to believe it, but it sounds like it’s flying away. Soon the hector is tiny in the sky, the whoomping noise getting quieter.
‘It can’t leave!’ I shrill. ‘He has to get on! If he doesn’t then … then …’
‘Too late,’ says Blaze.
He looks first at the sky then down at Dennis. Not that Dennis even realises what’s going on. He’s laughing still, and I catch the smell of his breath.
Honey, vanilla, sunshine, frangipani and freshly washed sungarb, the blissful smell of the dotliest fruit in creation.
Dennis has eaten newfruit, I realise. And suddenly the test is about as serious as it’s possible to get.
‘Any more of those silver things?’ Dennis says, feeling in the pockets of the sungarb, ‘I could go another one.’
His voice comes out blurry. ‘Nathe would love these.’
Dennis curls into the grass. His eyes are glazed. His mouth curls into a grin. That look. I’ve definitely seen it before.
____________________
A new picture. I see a flash of an image, this time a guy. The gorgeous one from the park. He’s beside me on a bed. He’s looking up at the pictures on the wall of the room we’re in. Backflip pictures. I recognise this as my bedroom.
‘I should take all those down,’ I stand up, wobbling a bit on the bed. ‘I don’t even know why they’re still there.’
I begin to rip the pictures off the wall. ‘It’s been months since I …’
‘How come you gave up gymnastics?’ the guy asks.
‘I don’t know. I just …’
‘You should keep doing it. Gymnasts are sexy.’
My hand stops on one of the pictures, mid-rip. ‘You think?’
The guy sort of ponders this. ‘They’re okay.’
Still my hand hovers over the posters.
Then he smirks, ‘Not as good as ballerinas though.’
And I tear the picture from the wall.
I guess he doesn’t really care about gymnasts or ballerinas though. Already he’s onto the next topic.
‘Found these in your mum’s desk,’ the guy pulls a little rectangular bag from his pocket, clear, with two capsules inside.
He holds it up. ‘Soon as I heard your mum was a doctor, I knew she’d have something good lying around.’
‘Are they … isn’t that kind of …’
‘Relax, Miss Just Say No. Your mum’s a doctor, right? They’re not street drugs or anything. These are safe.’
‘Mum thinks drugs mess with teenagers’ brains.’
‘That’s kinda the point.’
‘Aren’t they going to … you know … wipe me out? I’m meant to be responsible … I mean, Julius is asleep and Mum’s not back for ages.’
‘You’re still going to be here. We’ll stay all night. You’ll just be more chilled than the average babysitter.’
So I close my eyes and stick out my tongue. The guy lays a capsule on it and I swallow. Then he takes something else from his pocket. A box. He flips the top open and takes out a short white stick. He puts it in his mouth, lights one end and sucks on the other end, his eyes narrowed.
He blows smoke from his mouth like there’s a tiny bonfire inside.
Cigar? No. Cigarette.
The guy holds it between two fingers and pops a capsule into his own mouth. He swallows and starts to laugh.
‘You look like someone’s about to die or something.’
He passes me the cigarette, ‘Here.’
‘No, thanks. I don’t smoke.’
‘One drag.’
I take the cigarette and put it to my mouth, ‘Okay.’
‘There’s a pool here, right?’ the guy says. ‘Let’s go skinny-dipping.’
And as I watch him watching me smoke, I see his eyes widen and darken. On his face, there’s a big, blissed-out smile setting in, same as the one I feel creeping across my face.
23
I’M CRUSHING BLAZE’S hand. I guess I grabbed it when the hector flew away. You know, about the time it sank in that my big chance to make Dennis disappear was gone.
Really, truly gone.
Blaze is just letting me do it. He’s probably thinking I wanted to
leave in the hector, the same as he did. We’re like that, holding hands, just looking at each other dumbly when behind us someone speaks.
‘Wren? What’s going on? I heard laughing.’
At the same moment, me and Blaze turn. Sunshine is streaming down, turning the person standing there into a black shape edged with light. It’s a familiar shape, the same completely adorable one I’ve loved since I first fell from the sky. A short shape, soft and round and sweet.
Then Fern’s voice says, ‘Oh my Dot. Who’s that?’
I can still see the outline of grass pressed into Fern’s arms. There’s even some stalks in her hair. Her sungarb swings from her left hand. In her right, the coconut knife. She must have been harvesting in the orchard and then fallen asleep in Dot’s sunshine. Probably flat on her back, sungarb in a silky puddle beside her, her soft, round tatas pointing up to the sky.
Fern would have to be the only person in creation who could sleep through the sound of a hector.
Fern’s eyes fix on Dennis, the black circles in the centre of her eyes almost the same as his.
‘Wren?’ Fern looks from me to Dennis. ‘Who is that?’
Her nose wrinkles. ‘Why is he so small?’
‘He’s no-one. He’s … um … I mean … I don’t exactly know.’
Nice one, I tell myself. Great answer.
‘Get Gil.’
Fern’s still smiling but I can tell her expression’s just about to crack. Then it does and she looks at me and says, all panicky, ‘Don’t touch him. It. Whatever. Anything predotly must be crushed. That’s what Gil said.’
At this point Dennis opens his eyes. When he sees Fern, he sits up, and then bounces up to standing, practically. But when he gets near to Fern, he can’t seem to figure out what to say.
‘You’re the pretty girl,’ he finally manages.
It’s like Fern’s some beautiful newfruit blossom. Dennis kind of gapes at her in wonder.
‘We have to get Gil,’ is all Fern says, and she doesn’t look dazed or sleepy or dreamy or sweet anymore.
‘Could you hug me?’ Dennis asks. ‘Just once. Please?’
State of Grace Page 13
