Maddigan's Fantasia (19 page)

‘The helix was unravelled,’ put in Rosalind. ‘The contamination was contained.’

‘Nature was allowed to be natural,’ Doppler said rather smugly. ‘The first child born here – well, it was a blessing – an occasion for celebration. Huge celebration! And slowly, slowly we worked our way back to a time when children could be born here. We treasure them.’

‘We don’t oppose them,’ said another voice. ‘Opposition might damage their certainty of self. All the same …’

‘Well, as we came in they met us, and
self
was the only thing they seemed to be certain of,’ said Maddie. ‘And any self has to fit in with other selves … the selves of friends and neighbours and visitors … even parents. Now, did you say you have only the one solar converter that you are free to trade?’

‘… and that you have just sold it to someone else?’ finished Yves.

‘There is another delegation in town you see. A small delegation from Solis,’ explained Rosalind. ‘Their offer is not perhaps as elegant as yours but they were here first and we agreed …’

‘They
can’t
come from Solis,’ Maddie cried. ‘We represent Solis. Where are these traders?’

‘They did tell us you would be here,’ said Scrimshaw, ‘and they did say you would put on a show for us. We do need something to distract us. Our minds have not been focused on manufacture …’

As she tried to listen in to the words of this debate, Garland suddenly became aware of other voices and turned to find a group of children had moved in around their edges and that Lilith had started talking to the boy who seemed to be at the head of the group.

‘Kaanaana?’ she was saying, screwing up her face as if she couldn’t quite work out what he was saying. ‘Bol-ek-kana! Is that your name?’

‘Everyone calls me Kaana. Well, that’s what I call myself, and what I say goes,’ the boy replied, strutting a little. ‘What
were you doing marching along like prisoners, letting the Biggies go first?’

Careful
thought Garland.
Lilith’s going to be in trouble again if we don’t watch out. She’d love the thought of being in charge of herself.

‘Kaana!’ exclaimed Eden as if it were a name he recognized.

‘We always let the Biggies go first,’ said Boomer. ‘People can see them – the Biggies that is – from way off. And if there’s a crowd they can make out the Biggies over the heads of other people. They can hear my drum of course, but they want to actually
see
things as well.’

‘Don’t you ever do what grown-ups tell you to do?’ asked Lilith. There was a dangerous note of admiration creeping into her voice.

‘No! Never!’ said a girl at Kaana’s elbow. ‘We don’t eat what we’re told. We don’t go to bed when we’re told. We’ve broken off from that lot. We live a free life.’

‘I am Kaana,’ declared Kaana once more, thumping his chest in a boastful way, ‘and what I say goes. Anyhow, what are you doing in my city?’

‘
Your
city?’ exclaimed Garland.

Timon and Eden were staring at Kaana as if he utterly fascinated them.

‘They do whatever we tell them to,’ said Kaana grandly.

‘But with us the Fantasia works because our parents work it,’ protested Garland. ‘We’re part of the Fantasia … we’re right in it … but it just wouldn’t work without Maddie … or Yves,’ she added reluctantly glancing over at Lilith. ‘If your father wasn’t there to be ringmaster and to help with shifting the heavy stuff …’

‘We could probably do most of it by now,’ Boomer interrupted her, obviously impressed with the ideas of the Newton children, and Lilith leapt in to agree.

‘These kids are right,’ she said. ‘We could do the Fantasia on our own.’

‘Hey! Look!’ Garland exclaimed. ‘You! You for example. When you hurt yourself you run straight to Yves, wanting a hug. When the weather’s bad, he’s the one who stands out in the wind and rain, tightening the ropes and making sure things don’t fall off the roof-racks. You’re just going along with this lot because you’re a brat – and they’re brats too.’

‘And you just say that because you think you’re the boss of the Fantasia,’ yelled Lilith. ‘You’re always on about how you’re a Maddigan as if just having that name makes you so wonderful.’

‘Forget her,’ Kaana cried to Lilith. ‘Leave her to be a slave. Come with us!’

And, suddenly, as if they had exchanged a secret signal, Kaana and Lilith and the three other children took off, Lilith waving her arms in the air as if she were indeed shrugging herself free from secret and invisible bonds. The ribbons on her looped, brown braids flapped like butterflies keeping pace with her.

‘Lilith! Don’t be stupid!’ yelled Garland. ‘Come back!’ But Lilith did not so much as turn her head. ‘Lilith! Don’t get lost!’ She did not want Lilith getting lost for a second time … it had been so complicated … such a problem … back in Greentown. Not only that Garland was suddenly filled with concern, for, though Lilith really annoyed her, she certainly did not want her lost out there in the unknown streets of a city that was seeming almost hostile. Lilith was part of her own life … she could just remember when Lilith had been born, could remember the death of Lilith’s mother, something Lilith could not remember herself. Memories like that grew into you and became part of what you were.

‘Are you just going to let her run off like that?’ asked Eden, looking suddenly concerned.

‘It’s what she wanted to do,’ said Garland uncertainly. ‘Anyhow she’ll be back.’

‘But she can’t zoom away with a lot of aliens,’ said Boomer.

‘Oh, all right!’ said Garland, a little impatiently. She looked around and saw the grown-ups were talking with one another … wheeling and dealing, Maddie would say. Garland sighed. ‘It looks like we’ve got a bit of time. Let’s find out where they were taking her.’

So, followed by Boomer, Eden and Timon, she turned her back on Maddie and Yves still talking with the grave Newton men and women, turned her back all that adult discussion, to follow Kaana, Lilith and the other children, running through a crowd who made way for them, smiling indulgently as they
jostled
past. They ran down a street set with long, low shops, hard for a Fantasia person to pass by. At the other end of the street Garland could see Lilith trying to slow down so that she could look in at the windows. But Kaana was grabbing her arm and tugging her forwards. Lilith had certainly wanted to go … had certainly wanted to run and leap after sitting in a van for so long … had definitely wanted, in her Lilith way, to be one of the ones in charge of the world, and yet, as she ran with the children of Newton, she suddenly seemed like a captive, taken over by those wild children. And the wild children seemed to be waving her like a sort of captured flag as they ran.

Turning a corner they came into yet another street of shops, with narrow houses built above them. At the end of the street rose a tall grey building, plain, square and somehow aggressive, the tallest building in Newton. Standing around its black, blank front door were a few adults looking as if they were waiting to be let in. Directly above the door was a large window. Another slightly smaller window was set above that first and a third blinked out above the other two. Each had a small balcony curving in front of it. Apart from these three glassy eyes the
wide face of the building was entirely blank except for a large official symbol painted to the left of the windows, a sign that Garland recognized in a vague way, though she couldn’t remember what it stood for.

As Lilith, Kaana and their companions ran towards this curiously sinister building, the front door, which had seemed so tightly sealed, swung open. Garland could see other children crowded in the space behind it, holding it wide so that Kaana, Lilith and their companions could run through. The adults also moved, darting towards the door, shouting some sort of appeal, as if they, too, wanted to be allowed in. But the door slammed quickly behind the children. Those anxious adults were shut out once more.

Garland came up, panting and puzzled, and listened in. It seemed the adults were pleading with the children inside.

‘Do come out,’ a woman was calling. ‘We’re your parents, not your enemies. We can work something out. And we miss you. We really miss you. Do come out.’

The window over the door suddenly opened and a girl looked down at them.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘We’re not coming out. You think you’re the bosses of this town, but we’re the important ones really. We’re the future, we are, and this is our fort. You’re nothing but a lot of Biggies and Oldies.’

‘But it’s dangerous in there,’ called another woman. ‘You know what they stored down below there in the old times.’

‘Ages ago! Out of date!’ another child shouted, looking over the shoulder of the first.

‘Still dangerous,’ the woman pleaded.

‘It never goes out of date,’ said another.

‘We want to be in charge,’ shouted a boy from somewhere in the shadows behind the girl. ‘Children can run the world.’

‘We won’t get Lilith out of there in a hurry,’ said Boomer
dubiously. ‘She’ll be really keen on ideas like those. And that door’s shut and guarded. Hey! We’d better get back and tell Yves.’

‘We should have grabbed her,’ Garland said. ‘But she was off that quickly …’

‘Let’s go back,’ begged Boomer. ‘Yves might have some ideas.’

‘Maddie might too,’ Garland said quickly. ‘She’s the one for good ideas.’

‘Yes, but Yves is taller,’ said Boomer, and they began to run back down between the shop windows, suddenly anxious that they might have been missed, and that there might be trouble in store for them.

They came back to find
the Fantasia people staring angrily across the city square at a group of men sitting outside a tavern, drinking what looked like ale, laughing and toasting one another, while the Newton people flitted around Yves and Maddie, obviously trying to make peace with them.

Garland stared not so much at the ale-drinkers as at the familiar figures sitting with them. Ozul and Maska, looking battered and damaged but triumphant. Seeing them smiling smugly over at the Fantasia she felt she understood everything and was filled with desperation.

‘But who
are
they?’ Maddie was exclaiming. ‘Why are they haunting us? Why have they got it in for us?’

‘It’s to do with Timon and Eden, isn’t it?’ Tane put in. ‘Maybe if we offered to swap the boys for the converter …’

‘Never!’ cried Maddie. ‘They’re Fantasia people now and Fantasia people are true to one another.’

‘I know that,’ Tane cried back. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was joking.’

‘Let’s take them on,’ Yves was saying. ‘Let’s march over there and suggest … just suggest … that they withdraw their offer. We’ve come all this way to get the converter for Solis. We’re not going home without it.’

‘Are you implying violence?’ cried Scrimshaw, cutting in on
the Fantasia debate, as if he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. ‘I tell you we have already come to an agreement with them. Signed and sealed!’

‘Yves! Careful!’ cried Maddie. But she was not altogether attending. She was looking around as if she had lost something, and Garland sighed knowing exactly what Maddie was looking for.

‘Hi, Mum,’ she called, trying to sound reassuring.

Maddie had indeed missed Garland and was certainly not pleased with her.

‘Why
will
you keep running away like this?’ she said. ‘You know it drives me up the wall. And we need help with the unpacking and setting up and so on. They want a full performance. They’re hoping a circus act might bring their children back into the fold.’

Garland could see that, on beyond Maddie, the group of white-robed Newton people had swollen. There were now several women there, apparently arguing with the men. Garland looked back to Maddie.

‘We had to go,’ she said. ‘Lilith ran off first. She skidded away with some of the Newton kids. We wanted to get her back, but we couldn’t.’

‘What!’ cried Yves, swinging around. ‘Did you say Lilith has gone away with those – those ruffians? Why weren’t you watching her? Where did they go?’

‘There’s a building a few streets away …’ began Garland, ‘and …’

‘Oh yes,’ said Scrimshaw, pushing in quickly. ‘The children have taken over a space for themselves in an old building. They call it “The Fort”. Of course we’re not happy about the militaristic element in their games, but …’

‘Where is this fort?’ asked Yves, entirely forgetting the converter for a moment.

But one of the Newton women cut in.

‘That Kaana – he thinks he knows everything!’ she cried. ‘And that old building … We should have got rid of it years ago. I know it’s part of our history, and some people think history’s important. And I know it’s stood up against the earthquakes over the years. And of course it’s hard to know what to do with what’s down in the basement but …’

Other people joined in and the end of her sentence was lost. A crowd of Newton people began moving down the street as if something was going on and they didn’t want to miss it. Maddie and Yves, suddenly alarmed, began to move with them.

‘Why didn’t you stop her?’ Yves shouted at Boomer and Garland. ‘This is the second time you’ve let her get away on you. Heaven knows she’s smaller than you. You could have grabbed her …’

‘She was gone so quickly,’ said Timon. ‘I mean Garland and Boomer were arguing with her and then these other children somehow …’

‘Kaana made her feel she’d have a great time if she joined in with them,’ said Eden. ‘And they – they sort of whisked her off.’

Soon Garland, Timon and Eden were looking up at that square grey building once more, but this time they were surrounded by a mixed crowd of Fantasia performers and Newton people. And there, on the balcony that stuck out like a pouting lip over the door, Kaana stood, legs astride, looking scornfully down at them as if he were king of the world and they were his humble subjects. Mothers and father gazed up at the balcony, trying to reason with Kaana or shouting pleadingly to children who (they knew) were somewhere behind him. Kaana turned. They could see him tugging something and a moment later Lilith was standing beside him, like some treasure he wanted to display. Garland thought Lilith might be looking a little unsure of herself, but it was hard to be certain.
And now Yves was pointing up at the painted symbol.

‘That’s a bio-hazard sign!’ he exclaimed incredulously. ‘Are you letting your precious children play in a building full of toxic waste?’

‘It’s quite safe,’ Doppler said. ‘The waste is shut away in sealed cellars under the building. There’s a layer of lead in that ground floor.’

Doppler fell silent, but now unexpectedly Rosalind wheeled on him.

‘He wants his daughter and I want my Kaana!’ she shouted. She spun round to face Maddie. ‘
I
don’t believe it’s safe. Drums of poison … waste from the old days. We can’t bury it. We can’t empty it into the rivers. It’s been kept there in the bottom of that old house. So there are two risks for the children … the risk of falling out of the windows and the risk of being poisoned. They’ve been warned over and over again. But you know what kids are. They think they can do anything …’

‘… get away with everything,’ called another woman. ‘Doppler, you’re a deep thinker. Work out a way to bring those children down …’

‘… down and out …’

‘I’m sure it is safe,’ said Doppler feebly.

‘Don’t the children realize?’ Yves cried angrily, ignoring Doppler. ‘Don’t they care? Lilith! Lilith! Come down at once. It’s dangerous up there.’

Kaana nudged Lilith.

‘I don’t have to listen to you any more,’ she piped back, her voice sounding thin and not entirely certain of itself. A chorus of childish voices cheered somewhere behind her.

‘Yes, you do,’ called Yves. ‘Come down at once.’

‘Kaana says we’re the future, not you,’ Lilith called.

‘Lilith, I mightn’t be the future, but I
am
your father,’ Yves called back, but by now unseen children were making such a
row Lilith probably did not hear him. If she did she gave no sign of it.

Garland had been staring upward too. But now she glanced over at Timon and Eden. They were standing off to one side, talking rapidly to one another. And, thought Garland, there was something odd about their expressions. They were looking strangely startled, as if someone had given them surprising news. Leaving Yves to argue with Lilith, she wandered towards the boys.

‘You look as if you’ve got ideas,’ she said as she came up to them. ‘Anything useful?’

‘Nothing useful,’ said Timon. ‘Just something weird, weird, weird! Because we suddenly remember something about Newton.’

‘Okay! What?’ asked Garland.

‘In the future there are floods – it’s in the history books – and the city sort of
subsides
…’ Timon began.

‘… sinks …’ put in Eden. ‘And it becomes poisoned too. So the Newton people make for Solis.’

‘Of course they take their knowledge with them,’ said Timon, ‘and they get work there. But it’s partly their knowledge the Nennog uses to – well, to become the Nennog. It’s like a family story to us because …’

Eden interrupted him again.

‘… because Kaana up there – he’s our great great greatgrandfather. I mean he seems pretty dumb now, but once he hits Solis he becomes a great geneticist, and it’s partly his work the Duke of Solis used to turn himself into the Nennog. If it wasn’t for Kaana, we wouldn’t exist. Weird!’

Voices broke in on them. Yves had begun shouting at Doppler again.

‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll come out in good time,’ Doppler said in a soothing voice.

‘Lilith will get bored,’ said Boomer. ‘She’ll start whining. She always does.’

‘Or maybe they’ll throw her over the side,’ said Bannister. ‘You never know your luck.’

And then something happened that somehow changed everything. The ground began to quiver.

At first Garland thought it was something that the children were bringing about, perhaps by stamping and beating the walls, but the quiver grew stronger. It took over the whole world around them. The town around them began creaking and rattling. The very earth under their feet somehow rippled as if a huge wind was blowing up from the centre of the world to twist the land around them.

‘Earthquake time!’ yelled Yves, tilting this way, tilting that way, trying to keep his balance. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to cope with,’ he groaned as he tumbled over.

Garland tilted this way and that as well and then she, too, fell on her back. At last the shaking stopped, but Garland found herself staring into the sky and dancing with a sudden idea.

‘Mum! Yves!’ she cried. ‘We could put on an act down here. Those children up there might quieten down and watch. They might come down to get a better view of us.’

‘They might throw tomatoes at us,’ said Boomer suspiciously.

‘I mean if they were interested they might come down,’ Garland persisted, ‘and …’

‘Worth a try!’ exclaimed Yves. ‘It’s worked before.’ He turned to the men and women around him. ‘And if we solved your problem …’

Maddie cut in.

‘If we solved your problem,’ she said, ‘you might see your way to solving ours. You might pay us with the converter.’

‘Either way I want my daughter out of that building,’ said Yves.

‘Who else wanted that converter?’ asked Timon. He asked quietly but the women heard him.

‘That lot over there,’ said Scrimshaw’s wife, Barbara. ‘They’ve offered a good price but …’

She was pointing towards the back of the crowd, and looking back Garland could see, and knew Timon could see as well, those two tall dark figures watching them.

‘Do what you like!’ Kaana yelled. ‘Be as clever as you can. But you won’t get us out.’

Grown-ups called up to the children above them. The children yelled down, enjoying their power. Garland listened to them and suddenly found she was wondering about herself.

‘Do you think I’m too … too …’ she began, turning to Eden. ‘Too bossy?’

‘OK, you can be a bit too Maddiganish at times!’ Eden said, speaking absent-mindedly. ‘And you treat Yves as if he were some sort of spy from an alien world.’ But he wasn’t looking at Garland, he was staring after Timon. ‘What’s up with Timon?’ he asked her suddenly. ‘Why was he talking in that sort of voice?’

But Garland was not interested in Timon just then. She thought about the possibility that she had been somehow unfair to Lilith, and stared up at the narrow window. ‘Hey Lilith!’ she called. ‘Lilith! Sorry! Sorry if I … anyhow, come on down again. We miss you.’

‘I miss you,’ Yves called, taking a cue from Garland. ‘You’re part of the Fantasia. Come back to us.’

From where they stood they could see Lilith smiling. She looked down at them with a grin that was half-defiant, but also a little ashamed. And then she turned, and it seemed as if she might successfully climb down the stairs and come running out through the front door to join them, laughing and pleased to have worried them. But as she turned, Kaana grabbed her arm.

‘No deserting!’ he was yelling at her. ‘If you want to go down there we’ll push you off the balcony.’

‘We’ll
catch
you,’ called Boomer. ‘We’re champion catchers.’

Maddie turned to Eden. ‘You!’ she said. ‘You’re the magician. Do something – something to get their attention.’

Eden immediately flung his arms wide, juggling stars and bells. As he did this a curious ghostly forest grew up around him. Trees green with leaves, chattering with birds, yet somehow woven out of cobwebs and moonlight arched over his head. Inside the fort a sudden silence fell. The runaway children were fascinated. Kaana felt the fascination too and it made him angry. He bent and picked something up from the floor of his balcony, drew back his arm and threw it furiously at Eden, but Eden was ready. The stone – if indeed it was a stone – broke into two pieces – pieces with wings. One bird flew left. The other flew right. They flew into the cobweb trees and vanished.

And now, at last, not only the children at the windows but Kaana himself grew silent, touched with the wonder of what he was being shown. Eden danced and clapped his hands. Flowers began to fall over the children on the balcony. Eden flung his arms high and suddenly he was holding a rose – a huge white rose which he tossed up to Lilith, who leaned over to catch it and then began waving it triumphantly.

Eden called up to the balcony and the windows above it. ‘This is nothing!’ he cried, panting just a little, ‘this is just a bit of a taste … come down and see the rest of us.’ Then he leapt into the air, flung his arms wide and seemed to drift back to earth like a leaf, while the children at the windows disappeared, and some of the children on the balcony, Lilith among them, turned making for the door behind them. The walls around them seemed to quiver and breathe out dust.

‘Go carefully!’ shouted Yves. ‘Good work,’ he said sideways to Eden. ‘Get to work on that drum of yours!’ he told Boomer.
And within a moment or two the Fantasia band began leading the Fantasia back away from the building with a crowd of Newton people following. And in twos and threes some of the rebellious children began pushing through the arched door and began following the crowd, keeping their distance to begin with, but then relaxing, becoming part of it all as they looked for and found their anxious parents.

‘Stop!’ shouted Kaana furiously. ‘Everyone stop! Come back.’

Lilith twisted around and watched him critically. ‘You’re not really much of a boss are you?’ she said.

And then she screamed – everyone screamed – for the balcony, the building, the whole town of Newton suddenly began rocking again.

‘Just hang on!’ Kaana yelled.

This time the town did not merely groan and rattle. Somewhere behind them there was a huge crash. Somewhere a building had tumbled. And as the people of Newton and the people of the Fantasia were flung from side to side, sometimes crashing to the ground again, the concrete cube of the Fort began to crack in two. A jagged line, fine as a thread to begin with, suddenly ran down from the roof to the top window, then down to the second. Glass shattered. That jagged line widened as it moved to the window above the door and then seemed to stab into the ground. Dust puffed out into the air, fragments of concrete fell around them.