Scavengers

by Darren Simpson

  Landfill has lived his whole life as a scavenger, running with wooflings, swimming with turtles and feasting on whatever he can catch. Old Babagoo has always looked after him – on one condition. Follow Babagoo’s rules. And the most important rule of all is NEVER go beyond the wall.

  But Landfill longs to venture Outside. And some rules are made to be broken.

  “A book unlike any other – I was totally unprepared for the twists!” Alex Wheatler, Winner of the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize

  For the children taught to build walls, and the children put behind them.

  Contents

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  Dedication

  PART ONE: THE ROOT

  ONE: CHASING COVER

  TWO: SHADOW TROUBLE

  THREE: BLOOD AND FLOWERS

  FOUR: EVERYTHING

  FIVE: FROM INSIDE

  PART TWO: THE STEM

  SIX: WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

  SEVEN: ESCALATION

  EIGHT: A TRICKY ONE

  NINE: LONGWHITE

  TEN: THE SECRET

  ELEVEN: TRACKS TO NOWHERE

  TWELVE: A CRACK

  THIRTEEN: A STUBBORN MIRACLE

  FOURTEEN: THE BURROW

  FIFTEEN: THE SPIT PIT

  SIXTEEN: PERSPECTIVE

  SEVENTEEN: SKIN-DEEP

  EIGHTEEN: COWARDICE

  PART THREE: THE BUD

  NINETEEN: RED SWELL

  TWENTY: TRICKS AND GIBBERISH

  TWENTY-ONE: LANVILLE

  TWENTY-TWO: WALLFLOWER

  TWENTY-THREE: INSIDE OUT

  TWENTY-FOUR: TIME FOR TEARS

  PART FOUR: THE FLOWER

  TWENTY-FIVE: TRAMPLED

  TWENTY-SIX: MARKED

  TWENTY-SEVEN: STARLIGHT

  TWENTY-EIGHT: BOTH WAYS

  TWENTY-NINE: LOYALTY

  PART FIVE: THE PLUCK

  THIRTY: THE SCENT OF FEAR

  THIRTY-ONE: EXISTENCE

  THIRTY-TWO: THE HUNGER

  THIRTY-THREE: THE SLIP

  THIRTY-FOUR: STRAY

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  INTRODUCING HINTERLAND’S ANIMAL AUTHORS

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About Darren Simpson

  Copyright Page

  The boy growled, dropped to all fours and took one end of the stick between his teeth. The dog at the stick’s other end – a hefty Alsatian with long ears – bared its gums and slobbered.

  Boy and dog, with eyes as locked as the stick between their jaws, circled each other on the cracked concrete. They jerked their heads in a playful tug of war, with hands and paws clawing gravel and moss.

  Landfill could taste the flecks of stick on his teeth. With a snigger and a grunt, he pushed suddenly forward before pulling back. The Alsatian was taken by surprise, loosened its grip, and yelped as Landfill yanked the stick away.

  “Got it, Vonnegut, I got it!” Landfill was on his naked feet, dancing and waving his prize in the air. “Two-one to me, shaggy muttler!”

  Vonnegut hopped and panted in the heat, his tail wagging like the stick in the boy’s hand. Landfill laughed and stooped to rub his face against the dog’s. “Next round’ll be yours, I bet. Now watch this.”

  After wiping a sweaty hand on his bare chest and shorts, he squinted at the complex of metal drums, chutes and vents several metres away, closed his eyes and hurled the stick. He opened his eyes when the stick met its target with a loud clang.

  Some parakeets in the gash of a metal drum started to chirp, and a squirrel – its fur as orange as the rust below – appeared at a chute’s top to investigate the noise. It sniffed the air with twitching nostrils.

  Landfill’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He pointed a grubby finger at the squirrel. “Joyce! Been skulking with parkits, eh? Too lily-livered to play? Get out of there and we’ll see if I can catch you. I’ll even give you a running start. How about that?”

  He stamped his foot and the squirrel bolted, leaping across vines and onto the pipes that left the chutes. Once it had shot overhead, Landfill and Vonnegut gave chase.

  “Scarper all you want, skrill!” laughed the boy. “On a winning streak today!”

  Landfill followed the raised piping with gold hair flowing and his eyes on the rodent. He had no need to watch his bare feet, and hopped over the dandelions, nettles and scrap that pocked most of Hinterland’s ground.

  The squirrel darted through a gap between some metal flues and mounted a squat, wooden tower covered in lichen. Landfill circuited the tower until he reached its ladder. He was making quick progress upward, but faltered suddenly. Fear rippled across his features.

  “Rule twelve,” he muttered. He searched the sky anxiously, barely aware of the fact that he was reaching for the glass blade in his pocket. “Not fair, Joyce.” He pouted at the squirrel. “You know I can’t go that high.”

  A bark from the Alsatian waiting below sent Joyce scampering. When the squirrel hit the tubing that left the flues, Landfill’s grin returned to reveal goofy yellow teeth. He dropped from the ladder and landed with fingers to the floor, the sweat on his back glistening in summer’s glare. On he ran with Vonnegut, until he was following the squirrel to the Gully’s edge.

  While Vonnegut bounded down the Gully’s sloping, concrete bank and through the sludge at its bed, Landfill wormed his way through the Hard Guts – a mossy tangle of pipes that spanned the Gully like the remnants of a bridge. He squeezed past valves bursting with flowers, and a knock of his heel against a conduit filled the air with butterflies.

  Landfill giggled at the tickle of their wings, and sprang from the Guts onto a steel gangway. He followed the squirrel up some metal steps lining the base of the tall, concrete tower at Hinterland’s heart, the Pale Loomer. Turning a corner, he entered the shade of the Thin Woods. Green leaves danced as Joyce leaped from tree to tree, causing a woodpecker to stop its hammering and several grey squirrels to jerk their heads. The boy continued in pursuit, running beneath the conveyor that sloped into the Pale Loomer’s sooty flank.

  Landfill had soon crossed the narrow strip of trees that split Hinterland’s centre, and turned another corner to find Joyce scrabbling up a stout white chimney. The squirrel blinked at the boy, who was now kneeling on mossy concrete. Landfill panted for a moment, wiped his fringe from his eyes and flashed a goofy grin. “No more pipes, little skrill. So come on down. Let’s see if you’re as wily on the ground.”

  Joyce blinked and brushed his whiskers.

  The boy’s blue eyes sparkled. “Gutless twitcher, eh?” He cackled and thumped the ground with his palms. “Tell you what – come down and I’ll give you another running start. That’s more than fair.”

  Joyce tilted his head, scuttled groundwards and sped away. Landfill was soon back on his feet, and Vonnegut caught up to join him in pursuit. The Alsatian yapped and howled, causing other dogs to peer out from nearby toppled railway-carts. Some of them joined the chase, and the boy dropped to all fours to lope among the hounds.

  They raced along the train tracks that extended from the Pale Loomer’s wide concrete opening, hopping on and off the cables that flanked the rusty rails. Baying with the dogs, the boy ran and ran, following the tracks until he was forced to skid to a stop. He watched helplessly as Joyce scaled the perimeter wall.

  The wall spanned far to the left and right, and Landfill took a few steps back to take in its height. He saw Joyce at the top, sat carefully between broken-bottle teeth. The dogs held off too, backing away from the nettles that smothered the wall, tangled around creepers, scraps of mirror and jutting shards of glass.

  Landfill arched his neck and grimaced. He had to shout for his voice to reach the squirrel. “Okay! Game over, Joyce. Shouldn’t go up there. It’s not safe.”

  Joyce rub
bed his tiny paws together. He backed away slightly, towards the other side of the wall.

  “I mean it! Come down!” Landfill was pleading now. His eyes roamed the sky. “Don’t go Outside. Please. Come down, Joyce. You’re safer in here.”

  The squirrel chattered, then was gone.

  “Come back!” Landfill cupped his hands around his mouth to yell, but it was no use. The dogs wagged their tails while his gaze moved down the wall. He stood staring for some time, scratching his calf with a long toenail.

  He crooked a hand and wet his wrist with his tongue, then ran it through his hair. The dogs’ ears pricked up. Landfill tensed. He could hear it too: a distant rumble.

  “The Eye… It’s the Eye!” He whirled around, searching for the nearest place to hide. There were shrubs and bushes, some scraps of corrugated iron, rubble and plasterboard – but nothing provided enough cover. His eyes followed the train tracks to the Pale Loomer’s opening, then zoomed back to a railway cart toppled midway between the Loomer and the wall.

  Landfill ran for it. Behind him the dogs barked at blue sky. The rumbling became louder and he knew this would be close. He could hear the other animals adding to the commotion, only to have their growls, hisses and howls swallowed by the drone.

  It was a long stretch to run – nearly a quarter of Hinterland’s breadth. Landfill’s heart was pounding as he realized how heavy his legs were. He should never have tired himself out so far from cover.

  The noise from above became louder and louder. He could almost feel it bearing down upon him when he sprang headfirst into the cart. He covered his ears, tucked in his legs and pushed his body as far into the cart’s shelter as he could.

  The boy’s panting was amplified by his hands over his ears, but he could still hear the roaring from the sky. It screamed directly above, and he noticed flecks of paint vibrating along the cart’s inner lining. He could see some dogs from another cart – all snarls and teeth and frothing gums – barking skywards while the shadow passed.

  The noise faded, and the dogs settled down. After listening out carefully, Landfill crawled along the cart’s interior and peeked up over its rim. The sky seemed to be clear. Exhaling loudly, he climbed slowly out and kneeled to stroke the dogs that gathered around him. “It’s gone. We’re okay.” He cocked his head suddenly, struck by a thought. “Where’s Woolf? Haven’t seen her around.”

  The dogs trailed him to Woolf’s fallen cart. He stooped to look inside, and when his eyes adjusted he saw the husky on her side on a musty blanket, eyes closed and ribs barely moving.

  “Woolf? You alright? You don’t look…too hunkadory.” He moved in to stroke the grey fur on her neck, but recoiled when he saw her bulging stomach.

  With a hand clamped firmly over his nostrils and mouth, Landfill backed away and turned slowly to the other dogs.

  “Woolf’s got the swelling. Keep your distance – don’t breathe it in. I’ll tell Babagoo.”

  He got up to go, but couldn’t help pausing to scan the perimeter wall’s north side. Finding no sign of Joyce, he scowled, kicked a crumbling bolt and walked away.

  It took some time to reach the Nook, which was wedged into the corner where the perimeter wall’s west and south sides met. Landfill plucked a leaf from the bindweed that draped the Nook’s brick walls, then sat on a rotten pallet and folded it into his mouth.

  He waved at a kestrel as it zipped overhead, but frowned when it went over the wall, its feathers skimming the glass spikes that stuck up through creepers and vines. The leaf became bitter in his mouth and he spat green pulp to the ground.

  The boy shifted his gaze to some waste piled against the wall’s west side, not far along from the Nook: mounds of mouldy carpet; a filthy metal cabinet lying aslant on its back; some upturned chairs with wheels on spindly feet; torn window blinds and tubes of cracked glass. He averted his gaze and nibbled an overgrown fingernail, but was unable to resist looking at the cabinet again.

  “Babagoo?” he called. “You back?”

  After peering through the Nook’s windows, Landfill tiptoed up some carpet rolls and stopped before the metal cabinet. He checked over his shoulder, then slowly reached out to touch one of the three drawers.

  “Caught in the act!” boomed the cabinet.

  Landfill sprang back like a cat and scampered on all fours across the ground. With a metallic crash, the cabinet drawers swung aside to reveal themselves as merely facades stuck to a single steel door. In the sloping doorway stood the scavenger.

  “Babagoo!” cried Landfill. “I was only gandering!”

  Babagoo rose while he finished mounting the staircase hidden beneath the hollowed cabinet. His eyes narrowed beneath his tattered trapper hat. “Don’t give me that, boy. Your factious little finger was practically touching the door! I saw it through the crack, Landfill. I’m not the idiot you apparently suppose me to be!”

  “But—”

  “Save your breath! There’s no excuse for going near the cabinet.”

  Landfill scrunched his face. “It’s Woolf! She’s got the swelling. And you were at the Spit Pit so long. Was worried.”

  Babagoo’s bushy eyebrows flew up into his forehead. His mess of a beard bristled. “Leave Woolf to me, boy. And you can wash that tripe from your jabberhole while you’re at it. To worry you have to care, and if you cared you’d respect the rules. But blatantly you don’t! You know very well you’re not supposed to come looking for me, even if I’m Outside for a thousand cruddly days. Even if you hear me screaming while the Outsiders tear off my skin and banquet on my bowels! Rule number…?”

  Landfill mumbled bitterly.

  Babagoo lifted one of his hat’s earflaps. “Jabber up, lad.”

  Landfill huffed. “Eight! I know the rules.”

  “You do, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what’s rule seven?”

  “Never touch the cabinet.”

  “And what were you doing?”

  Landfill growled and clacked his teeth at the scavenger. The scavenger clacked back. “You’re trouble, young skulk. All these years you’ve respected the rules – but now you’ve decided to start flouting them? Can’t help pondering what other rules you’ve broken today. Hunger’s Eye flew over earlier. Did you follow the rules then?”

  Landfill nodded sternly. “Rule nine – hide from Hunger’s Eye.”

  “Where’d you hide?”

  “Muttbrough. One of the carts.”

  “You’re sure you weren’t seen?”

  “Still here, aren’t we?”

  Babagoo tugged his beard, and glanced sideways before returning his attention to the boy. “And rule ten? Were you close to cover when the Eye came?”

  “I was,” muttered Landfill, eyes to his hands.

  Babagoo shook his head. “Got that fibbing look, Landfill. I don’t like that fibbing look. What is this? A mutiny? I thought we were on the same side.”

  Landfill stamped his foot. “Of course we are!”

  “Enough of that lip.” Babagoo wagged a flaking fingernail. “We’d better be on the same side, because if you’re not on my side you’re Outside. Got that? And for your information, my unruly worrywart, I wasn’t at the Pit any longer than the usual couple of hours. Been back for some time.”

  “I didn’t know that!” Landfill’s arm shot out towards the cabinet. “You were hiding. Lurking like a troll, just to catch me out!”

  Babagoo’s sneer revealed a ruin of rotten teeth. “I was and I did. Thought you were due a test, and it looks like I was right. Wasn’t I right, boy?”

  Landfill paced beneath him like a trapped animal.

  “I had to check up on you,” continued Babagoo. “The Spit Pit gave me trouble today.”

  Landfill stopped pacing. “Trouble at the Pit?”

  Babagoo lowered his voice. “Shadow trouble.” He untied two of several bin bags from the rope around his waist and tossed them through the air. They landed at Landfill’s feet with a fleshy thump, and Babagoo fo
llowed, scrabbling down the mound of carpet rolls and kicking up dust. A large cape made of litter slipped down the slope behind him.

  “Shadow trouble…” repeated Landfill.

  “Morning trip was hunkadory. Found some edible grubbins, a half-decent saw, two half-blankets that’ll make one if I can forage some thread…” He shrugged and tutted. “The things the Outsiders spit out! Perfectly good things, just waiting for use.” He sighed and shook his head. “Maybe all those morning treasures made me cocky. Whatever it was, the afternoon trip taught me a lesson.”

  “What happened?” Landfill’s sour expression had all but gone.

  “Was pulling a gull from a trap. Dropped my guard; didn’t hear an Outsider prowling behind a heap of junk. Luckily I saw it before it saw me. Dropped down beneath my dross cape. It walked by – just a hair’s breadth from my head! – and kept going. Too close for comfort, and that’s when the shadow trouble started. They started creeping up close, getting sly on the scent of my fear. Gave me a bad feeling. So I scarpered.

  “That’s why I thought to check on you. And it’s a good job I did!” Babagoo’s head tilted slowly while he studied the boy. “Don’t go near the cabinet again, my lad. I’ll be waiting there sometimes from now on, just in case you get more of these idiotic urges. And if I see you getting that close again, I’ll jump out and make you regret it. Curiosity killed the boy, remember? Resist it.”

  He leaped suddenly forward and seized the boy’s chin with black fingers. “You understand?”

  Landfill could barely nod in the scavenger’s grip. “Yes.”

  Babagoo’s face came in close, cheeks and lips writhing as his eyes made their inspection. Suddenly his pupils darted downward. “You see that?”

  “See what?”

  Babagoo searched the ground. “Hm. There’ll be mischief.” Cautiously, he untied the knot around his neck and let his cape slide to the floor. He patted the dirt from his corduroys and plaid overcoat. “You tended to the vejble patch?”

  Landfill huffed and nodded.

  “Really? You said you were at Muttbrough when Hunger’s Eye came. Bit far from the patch, isn’t it?”

  Landfill rolled his eyes. “Finished tending early. Played with the wooflers. Can you stop the intigigration now?”