The Icicle Illuminarium

by N. J. Gemmell

  Pin is in shock, utterly silent, at the glorious vision of his brand new mate.

  ‘There was a great debate about whether I should actually make myself known to you,’ Bone continues. ‘The Squeedlys weren’t keen at all, but in the end I couldn’t resist. What, my very own Company T? Brand new mates? Why of course, thank you very much. I’ll risk it. Stop me? They couldn’t.’ He reaches up to a fork in the crossbeam and plucks a soccer ball from it. ‘Now silly me. I forgot the most important introduction of all here. A lapse, Bone Boy, a lapse. This is my faithful sidekick, one Captain Dook. And he’s very pleased to meet you all. Gets bored of my company. Because I talk too much. Well, there’s been no one else. So he gets me all day, every day.’

  It’s a soccer ball. I stare at it. Don’t get it.

  ‘Pass!’ Scruff yells. He obviously does.

  ‘I’m in goal!’ Pin adds. And they’re off racing across the room, just like that. Leaving Bert and me to stare in hopelessness. Shrug. Boys. Balls. Instant best friends. It’s too simple, isn’t it.

  ‘Wait.’ I run after them, looking at my watch. ‘It’s four a.m.’

  ‘So?’ Three shrugs from three boys.

  ‘Were you in this room all along, Bone? While we were here?’

  ‘Bang on, K.’ The grin again that could charm a brick wall.

  ‘But we looked everywhere last night.’

  ‘Not well enough. You obviously need some of my surveillance skills in your life. I observed those Tommys and Diggers and Yankees all the time they were being patched up in here, and learnt a lot. Oh, I could give you a tip or two. Special Ops, how about it? Gunners together? A crack team, us two. Yes?’

  I scrunch up my face. I’m a lone wolf, mate.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ Bert butts in.

  But Bone’s off, with a ballet of moves with his feet. He flicks Dook behind him, then spins and catches it on his knee and volleys it onto his head and lobs it back to Scruff.

  ‘You’ve been here a long, long time, haven’t you?’ I say quiet.

  ‘Oh yes. Lots of opportunities to practise. Over many months. Years. I’ve lost track, K. And now, finally, I’ve got someone to show off to.’ He cuts in on Scruff’s attempt at keeping Dook in the air with his knees and kicks the ball across to me in a beautiful sideways arc. ‘It’s been a long wait, my friends. For company. The right sort.’

  Pin asks why he didn’t say hello to us yesterday, to which Bone answers something that sends a chill up my spine: we needed to be checked out, because we might be together for a very long time.

  ‘What?’ I snap.

  ‘I needed to know that your presence in such close quarters was acceptable.’

  I throw the ball savagely back at him. ‘Hang on. Spool back. A long time?’

  ‘Aye aye, captain,’ he nods, bouncing Dook on his head now, eyes on the ball.

  ‘Damn.’ I clench my fists.

  ‘Dam!’ Pin runs around in circles in triumph, urging Bert to write the thrillingly forbidden word in the notebook he keeps in his pocket for moments like this. ‘Kick swore! Um aaahh.’

  ‘Oh, I can give you plenty more where they came from, P.’ Bone bends down – and proceeds to. Every single swear word we’ve ever heard plus some spectacular new ones from all the wounded service men; every single forbidden spit of a cuss said with a gleeful cackle followed by careful instructions on how to spell them.

  ‘Stop! Stop!’ I command, laughing.

  Pin hugs him tight. This is his best new friend on the planet. ‘I love you, Commander Boney Bone.’

  ‘As you should, old boy, as you must.’

  ‘So what did you deduce last night? On that reconnaissance mission, when you were checking us out.’ Bert flirts. ‘Will we do?’

  ‘Jolly splendid and spiffing, the entire lot of you!’ Bone grins. ‘Now –’ he rubs his hands ‘– as the master of the hidden world in this grand and glorious HQ, is there anything you need while you’re stuck with me?’

  ‘Books!’ I jump in.

  ‘Roger, K. I know exactly where they’re stacked.’ He bows low. Wow. Just like that.

  ‘Proper food.’ Scruff.

  ‘Bang on, S. All the secret stashes are my specialty.’

  ‘A sewing machine.’ Bert.

  ‘Stand by, B. Consider it an order. Or would you prefer Albertina?’ My sister smiles the most ridiculous smile I’ve ever seen in my life. ‘And will you make me a Scottish kilt while you’re at it? I’ve always fancied one.’ Bert blushes again. Oh pathetic.

  ‘A mum!’ Pin says soft.

  We all stop. A prickly silence. Yes, that more than anything. Of course.

  ‘That, old boy,’ Bone says, ‘is Lady Adora’s department, I’m afraid.’ A pause. ‘I’m sorry.’ Another pause. ‘I don’t have a mama either, if it’s any help. We are all alone in this place.’ He looks around. ‘Family together, eh?’

  ‘Where’s yours gone?’ Pin asks.

  Bone shrugs. ‘Mrs Squeedly is the closest I’ve got, P. And she’ll do just fine. I don’t have a dad, either.’ Then ‘Catch!’ he yells too loud and kicks the football over to Scruff, who promptly misses it. ‘The army chaps mucked about with their footies endlessly on the front lawn and I learnt a lot from watching them. Found my Dooky boy one day in a far corner, all alone, just waiting for a friend. He’s been my soulmate ever since. Hangs about something awful.’ Scruff takes a running kick back to him. ‘Now, we just need a pitch.’ Bone indicates the window, the vast outside. ‘Plenty down there, of course.’

  ‘What are we waiting for!’ Scruff shouts. ‘You could get us to them.’

  ‘’Fraid not, S. Her Ladyship would have a fit if she saw me out and about, anywhere in this house. You see, I’m everywhere but nowhere – and we have to keep it that way. Or …’ He runs his finger under his throat. We nod. Got it. Worst luck. ‘And you lot, of course, are meant to remain in the tennis court. If you’re caught anywhere else you’ll blow my cover. I’d attract all the enemy fire for letting you out, and we can’t have that.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ I ask.

  ‘Can’t remember. Too long. Since the year dot. This is my home. And now, yours.’

  ‘Ours?’ A thudding heart.

  He smiles. ‘It’s not too bad. Just remember to consider me lord and master of these barracks – not Her Ladyship – and you’ll be fine. So. My world. Not hers. Got it? My Illuminarium, not hers. Not that she knows it. You see, I can teach you a lot, Company T, but she can’t teach you anything except whimpering into walls and sighing and hopelessness.’

  Bert says with great authority that Darius is in love with Lady Adora. Bone snorts his disgust at the word, Scruff too.

  ‘I know these things,’ my sister continues. ‘But she’ll never love him back. You can see it. She’s stringing him along. She’s far too picky and emotional for her own good. She wants something from him, I’m just not sure what.’

  ‘Ooooh yes,’ Bone murmurs. ‘So just remember, Commander Bone is the one who’ll be finding you chocolate and sewing machines and jolly good fun. Roger? Oh, and books! Most crucially, K, books.’ He stares straight at me, straight into me, and good grief I’m blushing here myself. He likes me, I can tell, it’s in his eyes.

  ‘Really?’ I’m saying wobbly, stepping back, this is going too fast and I can’t quite read him, he’s too bossy and assuming too much and Bert’s staring at me funny but hang on, I need to get this straight, this, our new home? For as long as him? So we’ll end up with skin as pale as his? Big saucer eyes? Black circles from endless nights of haunting sleeplessness?

  No way out?

  He nods, as if reading all my thoughts. Smiles his gorgeous smile all over again.

  Yep, yep, and yep, says his face.

  ‘We have to get out of here, Bone. All together. As soon as we can!’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ he steps back, horrified. ‘This is my home, K. My field of operation. I’ll shrivel and turn into a puff of smoke if I’m taken from
it. And besides –’ he grins ‘– I’ve got friends in it now. It’s perfect. Why would I want to leave?’

  This is getting stranger by the minute. ‘You want to stay here?’

  ‘How on earth do you survive?’ Bert asks.

  ‘Magic!’ He wiggles his fingers and flurries them up her arms. I swear she shivers in, what, girlishness – there’s even, good grief, a squeal.

  At that moment, clomping. Loud, angry, up the stairs. We freeze. Caught! With Bone, who’s not meant to be here or know us. He scuppers up a beam.

  ‘Commander?’ Scruff exclaims. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Situation Scale A. Which means huge,’ Bone hisses. ‘I don’t know who that is on the stairs.’

  Bert leaps up beside him without a second’s thought. ‘Evacuate the frontline!’ She whispers, ‘Come on!’ Bone promptly reaches down, and between him and me we heave Pin up with him quick-smart, then he helps Scruff and me and we all balance wobbly on the beam, in a panicked line, racing to the far side of the room, then we jump over a wooden barrier into the spectator stands.

  Peer over.

  The door’s unbolted. Silent Mountain steps inside. Stands there, in the moonlight, still and quiet, as if waiting for someone, something, to crack in here.

  ‘His eyes are bad. He won’t see us from over there,’ Bone whispers.

  Waiting and waiting, for minutes on end, like he knows we’re in here and he’s not going to move until someone blows it.

  ‘Who is he?’ I whisper to Bone. ‘Does he know you?’

  ‘Now there’s a tale,’ he says soft. ‘I was left as a baby to languish in a Barnardos home for the homeless, in London. Then I was – let’s say – acquired. Long story; family rift, a father who left the fold and all that, but it’s not for now, K. And no, I don’t belong to the Squeedlys. They were my … rescuers, once … but they won’t be rescuing me now. With you. So I’m stuck here, aren’t I? In this room, hiding, with four kids who can’t get out of here. So, Company T, welcome to your very first mission. Any suggestions?’

  ‘We get you out of here secretly,’ Scruff says, ‘then we Caddys surrender and take the flak.’

  ‘My orders are to hold this field. With my men,’ Bone grins, ‘so no can do.’ They salute each other.

  ‘But is he safe?’ I look across at the waiting man. ‘What will he do to us, Bone? To you?’

  ‘If he finds me here with you right now, hmm, not good. Maybe we should just sit this one out, Company T.’

  Silent Mountain stays frozen by the door, silently mountainous, searching the room with his eyes; content to play the waiting game. Pin squirms, it’s impossible for him to be still. ‘You can be my brand new brother!’ he whispers happily to Bone, oblivious to the need to keep quiet. ‘Stay here forever, with us. I get so sick of Scruff. All he does is eat and talk slingshots and army tanks.’

  Bert and I are astounded – Pin never talks mean like this. Exactly who is this mysterious Bone that has everyone so entranced? He just nods in sympathy at Pin, winking at Scruff. ‘I’m not going anywhere, P. That beam above your biscuit – sorry, spiffingly comfy army mattress – is my new bed forthwith!’

  ‘What’s your real name?’ Pin asks, ignoring my urgent shush.

  Bone screws up his face. ‘Lachlan, P,’ he whispers. ‘Lachie. It means from the land of the lakes. But I’d much prefer something that means from the land of the volcanoes or the roaring thunderclouds, wouldn’t you, Company T?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Bert jumps in.

  ‘But instead, somehow I got stuck with brittle, old, lonely Bone,’ he shrugs.

  ‘But you’re the best!’ Pin exclaims loudly and throws his arms around his new best friend in sympathy, which – eeeeek! – wobbles them both off balance and they tumble to the ground in a loud, squirmy, crashing heap. Silent Mountain looks across. Gotcha! Strides straight over to our wooden barrier. Stares up at it, expressionless.

  At all of us, now poking our heads over the edge.

  ‘Mission aborted, Company T,’ Bone says wearily.

  Despite ourselves, we giggle.

  Silent Mountain does not. He’s looking at Bone and Bone only, and his expressionless face melts before him into the saddest, most stricken look; the look of a father, our father, when Scruff’s thrown the cricket ball into the stew or Pin’s drawn finger paintings across the floor with the last of the flour. It’s as if Bone has no idea what he’s just done by being here, with us. Our friend changes in an instant as he realises the anguish it’s caused Mr Squeedly.

  ‘Well then, K, S, B and P,’ he says quietly, ‘I’d better be off. Toodle pip.’

  Our mighty commander jumps down, everything about him different – subdued. Meekly he walks out of the room beside the tall man, without looking back. Silent Mountain puts an arm tenderly, protectively, around the boy’s shoulder just before they reach the door and he does not drop it. The door, which is our only way out. Which is once again firmly bolted shut from the outside, leaving us stuck. And alone, all over again.

  Right. That’s that. Back to square one. Pin starts to cry. ‘But he was my friend.’

  ‘There’ll be others,’ I soothe, not believing it. ‘Come on, let’s get back to bed.’ Which we do, with barely a word, too tired and shocked with all that’s gone on in this room. We curl away from each other on our thin army mattresses, lost in thought, thinking of Dad and Mum and Bone and home, falling into sleep, Pin cuddling his teddy, Banjo, tight like it’s his last friend left.

  ‘But is there anyone else to play with, Kicky?’ he asks suddenly into the dark.

  ‘P, old boy, now there’s the rub. You see, Lady Adora has a daughter –’

  We all gasp. Look up. Bone Boy, of course! Back with us, on his beam holding his ball and completely his old self, grinning his cheeky grin from ear to ear. It’s a sight to behold. Bert’s squeal again.

  ‘You can’t keep me down for long, Company T! You’re just too much jolly good fun to stay away from, despite orders from Central Command. Insubordination? I’m the master of it. Just don’t let on to Mr Squeedly that I found my way back.’

  ‘Really? No,’ Bert giggles. ‘But he seems to like you.’

  ‘Oh, he does, B, he does. He’s just very protective. Doesn’t want me near you lot because you might rub off on me. He’s petrified of losing me. Bad influences, Company T.’ He wags his finger gleefully at the four of us.

  ‘But what’s this about a daughter?’ I jump in.

  ‘Ah yes. To be avoided at all costs. Even though she’s not here very often because she’s always away at boarding school. But urgh, ghastly. Strict instructions: no one’s to go near her. The stories I’ve heard from the Squeedlys, I tell you. They won’t let me anywhere close because she’d turn me in, just like that. Avoid, avoid one Hebe Horatina Ellicott, my friends. You’ve been warned.’

  ‘Hebe what?’ We laugh.

  ‘Yes, that is actually the horrid girl’s name. It sounds like a deadly and contagious disease, I know, but it’s a flower. And you won’t be laughing when you see her.’ He proceeds to tell us stories about her that are legendary: she hits little children on their legs with a riding crop just to see the nasty red welts; she’ll take the one teddy you brought from home and declare that it’s hers now, then stab it with scissors just so she can watch your face; she’ll rip the coat that you’ve carefully accessorised off your back because she’d like it right now, thank you very much. And she certainly doesn’t like pets, which is why the Squeedlys have never been able to have one. Horrified silence; we can’t bear to think. ‘That is the daughter of this house, Company T. She’ll do me in, crash my entire world down, be the death of me. So never, ever mention me to her – or her mother. Got it?’

  ‘But why are we here?’ I ask him in frustration, stalking to the window and peering out, wondering if there’s any way along the roof. Do I dare risk that idea again?

  And Bone relates the most horrifying news: Basti’s Kensington Reptilarium will be s
ecuring the future of this house. His vastly valuable estate will one day end up in the lap of Her Ladyship because she’s absolutely broke and determined that this great ruin will remain absolutely, Ellicottly, Ellicott. In other words: the Illuminarium will never be sold off on her watch. Lady Adora’s going crazy with failure, and she’ll go to great lengths to do whatever she can to keep the estate in her family.

  ‘And until about a week ago, Basti had no family he kept in touch with. No one, really …’

  ‘Except Darius,’ Scruff adds.

  ‘Roger, S. Got it in one. The closest thing to family he had. It was all in his will. But Darius, meanwhile had fallen madly in love with Lady Adora – at the chocolate counter of Fortnum and Mason, no less. Oh, his love may be reciprocated, one day, if Basti’s money is ever delivered to her. Then she’ll marry Darius, or something like that, she’s promised. That’s why he’s always trying to win her over – with empty promises of the vast money he’ll eventually be inheriting. From your uncle. That will save this place.’

  Apparently Lady Adora and Darius were expecting Basti to go quite soon. They thought he was fading. Getting weaker, giving up the ghost, and they had it all worked out. Their windfall was on its way. Because once upon a time Basti’s brother was lost to him and the four kids were off, somewhere obscure, he didn’t care. But now – voila! – here we are. Four enormously sticky flies in the ointment.