by Sofie Laguna
What had Matthew done to his friend? His friend, Lewis, who’d found a way back to the cave to rescue Matthew – the same as he’d found his way out of the gutter when he’d first tried to fly.
When Matthew reached the balloon, he could hardly breathe. His heart was beating so hard he thought it would burst. He climbed into the basket. Then, as gently as he could, he took Lewis from his coat. His friend was sticky with blood. ‘Lewis?’
Lewis’s eyes were still closed, his head limp. Matthew saw that the blood came from his chest. He had been bitten by a wolf. Or perhaps it had been the claws of the polar bear; all animals were dangerous when they fought.
‘Lewis.’ Matthew fought his tears. ‘Lewis.’
Lewis opened his eyes, then closed them again. ‘Matthew ...’
‘Please, Lewis, speak to me.’
When at last Lewis spoke, his voice was very soft. ‘Matthew, please don’t worry so much.’
‘Lewis ...I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to be.’
‘It’s my fault.’
‘Perhaps it is mine. It was me who brought you here.’
‘But if I hadn’t run back ...’
‘No need to find blame, Matthew, don’t you see? There is no one to blame.’
‘Lewis, will you be all right?’
‘Everything will be all right.’
‘But Lewis ...’
‘Shhhhh.’
Matthew tore the hood from his coat and set it in the chest. Then he laid Lewis as carefully as he could inside the hood. He took the last of the seeds and the nuts, placed them in a dish beside the bird. ‘Lewis, can you eat?’
Lewis didn’t move or open his eyes.
‘Lewis, you must eat ...’
The bird didn’t respond.
Matthew lifted his head and saw that the sun had risen higher in the sky. Soon the balloon would deflate too much to sail. He had to hurry. If he could get Lewis home then everything would be all right, just like Lewis had said it would be. Matthew could take him to the vet. The vet would mend his injury.
Matthew felt strange – cold and dizzy and weak. And the cry, it was still there, coming and going inside him. But he didn’t care about it anymore. He only cared about his friend.
He would make the bird tea. Lewis loved tea. Tea lifts the drinker to the realms of the gods. He would make his friend a cup of tea, and then he would fill the balloon and they would go home.
As he boiled the water in the tin pot, he heard Lewis singing, softly.
In all the world, never did I see.
This one boy, in all the world...
He is better! thought Matthew, flooded with relief. My friend is better!
‘Matthew?’
‘Yes? Yes, Lewis?’ Matthew left the stove and crouched beside the bird.
‘You need to go home.’
‘We both do.’
‘Matthew, things change ...’
‘What do you mean?’ Matthew said. He felt himself trembling.
‘I mean that nothing stays the same.’
‘I don’t want things to change.’ What did his friend mean?
‘Yes, you do. You want so many things to change. Make some friends, Matthew.’
A wave of pain rolled over Matthew’s chest. ‘It’s not that easy.’
‘How do you know until you try?’
‘I know.’
‘You don’t, Matthew. You don’t know. It hasn’t happened yet, so you can’t know. Try.’
‘But ...’
‘Let me rest ...’
‘Yes, all right. I will fetch your tea.’ Matthew finished making tea for Lewis. ‘Lewis?’ He placed the steaming cup before his friend, just as he had done so many times since their journey had begun. ‘Lewis?’
The bird didn’t answer.
‘Lewis, I have made tea. Are you all right?’
‘Yes, Matthew. Only, I don’t think I will be going back with you.’
‘But ...’ Matthew felt tears stinging his eyes.
‘Matthew, take me down to the shore.’
‘Lewis, I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry. Not for anything.’
‘But ...’ Matthew felt lost. ‘You don’t belong here.’
‘And where do I belong, exactly?’
Matthew looked out at the sea, where the king eiders and the pink-footed geese dipped and flew. His friend’s voice sounded so weak.
‘It wasn’t only you who wanted to come here, Matthew,’ Lewis said softly. ‘I wanted to see it as much as you did.’
‘Oh.’ Matthew hadn’t really thought about what had made Lewis do this – come all this way. What Lewis wanted.
‘Please, take me down to the shore, Matthew.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now.’
Matthew tore off his gloves and held his friend in his hands. How fragile the bird’s body felt.
He carried Lewis to the shore. There was, for the first time since they had come to the Arctic, gold in the sky over the sea. Out there, beyond the gold, was the North Pole. But Matthew wasn’t interested anymore. He never needed to see it again. He wanted only his friend.
‘We’re here, Lewis. We’re on the shore.’
Lewis opened his eyes. ‘Thank you, Matthew.’ All over the sea were the birds – the terns and the barnacle geese and the gulls and the bright-faced puffins. Lewis lifted his head. ‘You are a good friend, Matthew.’
‘You are too, Lewis.’ Matthew started to cry.
‘Oh, Matthew ...’
The birds came all about where Matthew stood – the terns and the plovers and the king eiders, and the geese that would soon migrate – and they flocked around him. So many birds that Matthew could not see through them. He was encircled in wings, as if all the world was made of feathers. And then the birds flew upwards, filling the sky, squawking and keening and singing and calling. When Matthew looked down, he saw that his hands were empty.
Chapter Fourteen
MATTHEW DIDN’T KNOW how he’d made it back to the balloon. He could barely see through his tears. Every part of him ached. He was so cold. Numb. He climbed into the wicker basket and picked up the second tank. It was lighter than he’d thought it would be. Much lighter. He looked closely at the tank and saw a crack at its base. When he opened the lever, he discovered that the tank was empty. It must have happened the night the bear had attacked the basket.
Matthew knew he couldn’t return home without gas. But he was so tired, he hardly cared. His chest ached. He wanted only to close his eyes. Just a small rest, Lewis, and then I will work out what I need to do.
Matthew looked down at his coat – torn, red with Lewis’s blood. He didn’t want to wear it another minute. He pulled it off, tossing it onto the snow outside the basket, its frayed threads blue and silver against the snow. Beside the discarded coat was his walking stick – the long knobbly stick with its single black feather. Lewis’s feather.
Matthew’s chest hurt so much he could hardly bear it. He crawled into the empty chest, pulled the blanket over him, and closed the lid.
Matthew dreamed he was on the ocean with Lewis. He dreamed they were in a boat made of cane, same as the balloon’s wicker basket, being rocked on the sea. He dreamed Lewis sat on the boat’s edge, looking out.
In all the world, in all the world, never did I see, never did I see.
In all the lands, in all the lands.
Just one boy, one boy.
This boy. This boy.
And then Matthew was awake – properly awake. He sat up in the chest, pushed open the lid, and gasped.
Above him were the white bellies of a hundred snow geese, flying in a V-formation, each with a long thread of blue and silver in their beak. Every thread was attached to the wicker basket in which he flew.
And there was his feathered walking stick, tied to the front of the basket like a figurehead. Matthew’s heart skipped a beat: at the apex of the flock, leading the way, was a goose larger than the rest, with wing
s spread as wide as those of the white-tailed eagle.
Matthew looked over the side and saw the North Pole spread beneath them like a quilt of snow, its cliffs and peaks sparkling under starlight. The wild, inhospitable farthest north. It was beautiful, wondrous, precious – but Matthew did not want to stop there.
As the basket rocked and swayed, he lay back in the chest, keeping his eyes on the goose that was leading the way.
Matthew was jolted awake. They had landed. He unwrapped himself from the blanket and stood. The basket was on the roof of his house.
Climbing out onto the tiles, he saw the snow geese circling his roof. The stars and the moon behind him turned them as silver as the North Pole. As the flock turned away, the goose that had led them separated from the rest and circled, once more, over Matthew’s house. Matthew watched, barely breathing, as the goose joined its flock, and was gone.
Matthew remembered when he had first made the journey from his window to the chimney, all that time ago. How frightened he had been; how scared of looking down. He crossed the tiles to his window now with ease, lifted it open, and climbed into his bedroom.
Immediately, he heard it. The crying. The crying he had heard from so far away. He knew now where it came from – where it had always come from. The light was on in the hallway. Matthew walked down the stairs and saw his mother at the kitchen table.
‘Mum?’
She looked up, tears on her face. ‘Matthew?’
‘Son?’ His father entered the kitchen. His eyes were red from crying. Matthew saw how pale his face was, how full of shadows.
‘Hello, Mum. Dad.’
His mother looked at his father, then back at him. Then she went to him. She put her hands to his arms. ‘Is it really you?’
Matthew felt heat come into him through her hands. ‘Yes.’
She looked into his face. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’
His father went to him, took him into his arms. Matthew felt the warmth from his father go all about him. ‘Matthew, where have you been?’
‘I ...I ...’ Matthew struggled to find the words. He didn’t yet know what he wanted to say or tell. ‘How long have I been...away?’
‘Since this morning. You never came down for breakfast. You weren’t in your room. Where have you been?’
‘I have been to ...to the North Pole. I wanted to bring you a baby.’
His mother frowned. ‘Matthew, we don’t want a baby.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, we don’t. We want you,’ said his father, tears catching in his throat.
‘But ...’
‘Matthew,’ his mother said, ‘we love you.’
‘We love you, Matthew.’ His father squeezed his hand. ‘I love you.’
‘Please don’t ever run away like that again.’
Run away? That was never what he had thought of himself as doing.
‘We ...We ...It’s because of us, the way we’ve been. I am sorry, Matthew,’ said his father.
‘I am sorry too,’ said his mother.
Matthew could see how afraid they had been, of losing him. ‘You don’t need to be sorry,’ he said into their embrace.
They held him close, and the crying stopped.
The next morning, when Matthew came down the stairs, his father was at the table and his mother stood at the stove.
‘You must eat, Matthew,’ she said, sounding worried. ‘You didn’t have dinner last night. And I am sure you hardly ate in the North Pole.’ She threw his father a look.
‘I don’t want you to do that anymore, Mum,’ Matthew said.
‘What?’ his father frowned.
‘I don’t want you to worry about me so much. Either of you.’
‘But Matthew,’ said his mother, ‘we love you. You are our son, and—’
‘I know you love me, Mum. But I don’t want you to worry so much. I need ...’ He faltered.
‘What, son? What?’ his father asked.
‘I need you to ...’
His mother’s eyes filled with tears. Matthew didn’t want her to cry. He really didn’t. But he had to keep going.
‘What is it, Matthew?’ his father asked.
Matthew could see that his father was asking. Really asking. ‘I need you to trust me,’ he said.
‘We do trust you,’ said his father. ‘That’s why we were so worried when you disappeared. You have always been a good boy. We know that.’
‘I don’t mean trusting me to be a good boy. I mean … trust me to …’ Matthew worked hard to find the words. ‘I need you to trust me to find my way.’ He suddenly felt older than them. As old as the North Pole itself.
‘Okay, Matthew.’ His mother took his father’s hand at the table.
‘All right, son,’ said his father.
Matthew hugged them. ‘I love you,’ he said.
Later that morning Matthew rode his bicycle along the road, the wheel creaking as it always had. He very much wanted to see the river that flowed at the far side of the park. He looked about at the trees and roads and houses as he pedalled. How warm and bright the sunshine was. How blue the sky.
SOFIE LAGUNA’S many books for young people have been published in the US, the UK and in translation throughout Europe and Asia. She has been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Award, and twice been awarded Honour Book by the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA). She is also a highly acclaimed author for adults. Sofie lives in Melbourne with her husband, illustrator Marc McBride, and their two young sons.
MARC MCBRIDE is the illustrator of Emily Rodda’s New York Times bestselling Deltora Quest series, which has sold over eighteen million copies worldwide and has become an anime TV show. He has illustrated more than two hundred book covers and ten picture books, including writing and illustrating World of Monsters. Marc has exhibited with the New York Society of Illustrators, been shortlisted for the CBCA Awards and Aurealis Awards, and has won the Aurealis Awards twice.
