The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer (12 page)

Mel gasped and put her hand to her mouth.

What had been a disconnected heap of metal objects rather like a pile of paper clips miraculously stood up as if it had come to life. And now, that it was standing erect, the loblolly boy saw to his amazement that it had become a tiny skeleton, a perfectly articulated miniature skeleton. The loblolly boy’s eyes widened with disbelief. What he’d thought to be a large ball bearing was in fact a tiny silver skull, with large hollowed sockets and little square teeth
shining like iron filings.

However, the ultimate astonishment was to come. The tiny skeleton ran towards the door and then shimmied up it like a lizard with spread-eagled arms and legs propelling it ever upwards. When it reached the bolt, it climbed fluidly on to the lock. Next it bent double, feet bones on the brass housing of the lock and hand bones and arm bones gripping the hasp. It seemed to strain for a few seconds until, all at once, the hasp sprang free.

‘Good fellow!’ cried the Gadget Man.

He gathered the tiny skeleton into his hand once more and slipped it back into his pocket.

‘It was alive!’ whispered Mel, her voice trembling.

‘Not a bit of it,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘It just looks that way. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.’

He snapped the hasp down again and turned to the others.

‘Well,’ he said clapping his hands. ‘I think we deserve a cup of something. I might be able to find some lemonade for this young lady, and …’ he turned to the loblolly boy, ‘I might be able to find a pair of ears for you, as I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you have quite a lot you’d like to tell me.’

The loblolly boy and Mel exchanged glances. He could sense she might have misgivings, but she gave him a quick little smile and nodded.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Sounds good.’

The Gadget Man clapped his hands. ‘Excellent!’ he said, and then he led them out of the yard and down the narrow alley to the main road.

It wasn’t much of a shop. Around the walls were shelves with bins that contained all manner of old-fashioned-looking bric-à-brac and bits and pieces of the gadget kind. There were meat-grinders, and coffee-grinders and nutmeg mills. There were corkscrews and can openers, devices for turning hair clips into hair-springs and machines for turning butter back into cream. There were larger items, too: old mangles, a dentist’s chair and a large split-cane bird-cage with a moth-eaten parrot fixed to a perch. The parrot had been clumsily stuffed.

There was a wooden counter stretched along one side with shelves and bins behind it and in the middle of the shop was a long trestle table loaded with boxes filled with gimcracks, assorted gewgaws and paraphernalia. All was covered with dust, smeared with grease marks and spotted with paint.

The Gadget Man locked the shop door behind them and then led them through the establishment to a door leading into the rear. This he opened and then he gestured them through.

They found themselves in what was probably his private apartment, although it looked to be just a continuation of the shop, except that the place was a little tidier and the junk while ancient-looking, was a little more
upmarket
, treasured. The loblolly boy thought he’d stepped into one of those rooms from a couple of centuries ago
that are recreated in museums. The walls were covered in old oil paintings of mountains, Greek temples and sailing ships; ancient photographs of grim women with black bonnets and billowing skirts and grimmer-faced men with mutton-chop whiskers; and here and there sad, mounted animal heads: trophies from safaris a hundred years ago. The furniture was all leathery and buttoned with wobbly legs and moth-eaten cushions.

Standing in pride of place in one corner was a life-sized gorilla, apparently stuffed. Its eyes, however, were dark and shiny and seemed to follow you round the room.

Mel gasped. ‘Is it real?’ she whispered.

The Gadget Man shook his head. ‘Oh, no, no, no. It’s not real.’

‘It looks real,’ said Mel.

‘Well, it’s not. I don’t like real things,’ added the Gadget Man.

Mel shrugged. ‘I’m real,’ she said.

‘In your case, young lady,’ the Gadget Man said generously, ‘I’ll make an exception.’

What about me? thought the loblolly boy. Does that mean he likes me?

‘Here,’ said the Gadget Man. He handed Mel a small black cube with white buttons.

‘What’s this?’

‘A remote,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘What does it look like?’

‘A remote,’ grinned Mel.

‘Press a button.’

‘Where?’

‘Point it at the gorilla.’

Mel glanced at the loblolly boy. ‘Okay,’ she said.

She pointed the cube at the gorilla and pressed a button.

To their astonishment the gorilla immediately lifted both arms into the air and moved its head from side to side. More astonishingly, it began to sing a jaunty little song in a reedy voice.

The mouth shut. The head stopped moving. The arms dropped. The eyes fixed themselves once more on the trio in the room.

‘Hey,’ whispered Mel.

‘I had a radio once, but it began to bore me.’

‘Does it know any more?’

‘Hundreds,’ said the Gadget Man airily.

‘Could I?’

The Gadget Man nodded. Mel pointed the remote and pressed …

The gorilla’s head swayed with the music. The raised arms beat time. The reedy voice sang.

At the
Bam Bam
! the gorilla kicked a hairy leg out violently and then immediately stood as mute and as immobile as before.

The loblolly boy’s initial surprise faded quickly. I should have guessed, he thought.

‘Weird songs,’ observed Mel.

The loblolly boy nodded. Parrot? Cockatoo? These were new. He turned towards the Gadget Man to find the man staring intently at him.

‘Does that mean?’

The Gadget Man shrugged.

‘Anything,’ he said. ‘It could mean anything …’

‘A singing gorilla! That’s wild!’ grinned Mel.

‘My new version will cook sausages and eggs as well,’ said the Gadget Man.

‘Hey!’ said Mel.

‘Yes,’ said the Gadget Man dead-pan. ‘It’ll be a singing griller …’

Mel and the loblolly boy glanced at each other, unsure how to take this.

‘Now excuse me, I must put the kettle on. Now what was it, young lady? Lemonade?’

‘Please,’ said Mel, but a little cautiously.

When the Gadget Man came back with the glass of lemonade, he had taken off his dustcoat. He was wearing underneath a loud checked sports jacket with a purple handkerchief tucked into its breast pocket. With his fluffy white hair and disarming smile, he looked like everybody’s grandfather.

The loblolly boy was not so sure. He could hear the words of the Captain’s ballad haunting him.

Now those words were beginning to make a little more sense. They meant that the Sorcerer and this Gadget Man operated by different rules somehow. It meant that right and wrong as he’d always understood these words, didn’t really apply. The Sorcerer didn’t seem in the least perturbed about causing him to lose his father just after he’d found him. Who knew where the Gadget Man might be coming from?

He might have to rely on their help, he realised, but if they gave it to him it would probably be in spite of themselves and not because it was the right thing to do.

The Gadget Man had returned to the kitchen and now came back with a tray carrying a pot of tea, a cup and saucer and a plate of biscuits. He placed the tray on a small table and poured himself a cup of tea.

‘Help yourself to a white duck, young lady,’ he said to Mel. ‘One of my great passions and my only vice, I confess.’

‘A white duck?’

‘Well, a cream quacker to you.’

Mel groaned, and glanced at the loblolly boy. The biscuits provided no problem for her, though, for she took two and then retreated to her chair.

The Gadget Man himself sat down and then turned to the loblolly boy.

‘I hear you’ve had some difficulties, dear boy. I’d love to hear all about them.’

Almost nothing was surprising the loblolly boy at this stage, but he did wonder at this.

‘You’ve heard?’

The Gadget Man nodded.

‘From whom?’

‘From my windy partner.’

The loblolly boy thought, and then he asked, ‘Windy partner?’

‘We play draughts together.’

Mel, in the corner, groaned again.

‘Do you play draughts with the Sorcerer?’ asked the loblolly boy.

‘Sort of draughts,’ he said. ‘I always have to let him win. He’s such a bad loser otherwise and would take the huff. Goodness knows what he’d do then. It’s terribly
unsatisfactory
, really.’

‘You talked about me?’ asked the loblolly boy.

‘He did say he’d met you and that you’d joined him for dinner one evening.’

‘Did he have fish?’ asked Mel.

‘I really don’t know what he had,’ said the Gadget Man, surprised at the question. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps he had rabbit.’

‘If we’re talking about the Sorcerer, he had fish,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘Turbot, to be precise.’

‘Turbot to be, or not to be,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Ah, I’m glad that’s settled.’

‘What did he tell you?’ asked the loblolly boy.

‘Ah, all sorts of things,’ said the Gadget Man mysteriously. ‘He did mention you were having problems arranging to Exchange with your predecessor?’

The loblolly boy nodded.

‘However, my friend is so unreliable, so likely to put a negative slant on things, and so likely to embroider a good story with black threads, I’d much rather hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’

‘From the beginning?’

‘Naturally. Always the best place to start.’

Thus once again the loblolly boy told his tale, this time including his visit to the Captain, his encounter with the Jugglers, and all that had happened since he arrived in the city.

‘Ah, Captain Bass,’ mused the Gadget Man. ‘I once fashioned a very special telescope for him, you know. He tells me it’s been very useful from time to time.’

‘I think I saw it on his mantelpiece,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘He wouldn’t let me touch it, though.’

‘Quite right, quite right,’ nodded the Gadget Man. ‘It can be very dangerous in the wrong hands.’

‘And in the right hands?’ asked Mel.

‘Still very dangerous,’ said the Gadget Man. Then he nodded towards his own cluttered mantelpiece, and the loblolly boy noticed there for the first time a telescope that looked identical to the one the Captain had.

‘Don’t even be tempted,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘I couldn’t answer for the consequences.’

Just as I suppose you don’t answer for the consequences of the other things you fashion, thought the loblolly boy. However, when he saw the Gadget Man’s keen gaze, he sensed that the little man had a very clear idea of what he had been thinking.

‘Well,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘We do have a problem.’

The loblolly boy nodded.

‘I wonder if I might have some sort of gadget that might solve the problem,’ mused the Gadget Man.

The loblolly boy looked at him. This was encouraging.
More than he’d hoped for, really, after his experience with the Sorcerer.

‘Is it possible?’ he asked.

‘Anything’s possible,’ said the Gadget Man, ‘if you can find the right gadget for it.’

‘Do you think you might have one?’ asked Mel.

The Gadget Man rubbed his eyes in thought. ‘Let’s see. First you have to analyse the problem. Once that is done a range of solutions should present themselves. And once that happens it’s just a matter of finding the appropriate gadget.’

The loblolly boy thought about this. It all seemed too ridiculously simple.

‘It can’t be that easy,’ he said. ‘I mean the problem is pretty simple really. I want to Exchange … permanently,’ he added. ‘But Benjy won’t have a bar of it.’

The Gadget Man cocked his head. ‘Perhaps you should offer him a chocolate bar of it. He might find that sweeter!’

‘The hard part,’ continued the loblolly boy, ‘the impossible part, is
persuading
Benjy to Exchange.’

‘Well,’ said the Gadget Man, ‘that’s not so impossible.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Not at all,’ smiled the Gadget Man. ‘We simply eliminate Benjy. I have any number of gadgets that can take care of that.

CHAPTER NINE

S
OLUTIONS

T
he loblolly boy looked at the Gadget Man.

‘You can’t be serious!’ he exclaimed.

‘Why not?’ asked the Gadget Man mildly. ‘I always believe that if an obstacle presents itself then the best course of action is to remove it.’

‘But …’

‘It won’t work,’ said Mel. ‘We already discussed it. If you take out Benjy then there won’t be anybody for the loblolly boy to Exchange with.’

‘Mmm,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘I suppose that is a consideration.’

‘He’ll be stuck,’ said Mel. ‘Forever,’ she added ominously.

‘Exactly,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘So whatever we do, it has to leave Benjy alive and intact.’

It was a problem.

‘Perhaps we should kidnap him and lock him up
somewhere
,’ suggested Mel. ‘Same as he did to the loblolly boy.’

They thought about that for a moment or two. The
loblolly boy looked around at the three of them: Mel was small and skinny, the Gadget Man wasn’t very big and looked to be pretty old. He didn’t really think that even in combination they’d have the muscle power to subdue somebody like Benjy who, while quite weedy himself, would fight like a weasel.

‘No,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Kidnapping won’t work. Too blunt an instrument by far.’

The loblolly boy felt relieved.

‘Like a tuba,’ said the Gadget Man.

‘A tuba?’

‘Another blunt instrument. No,’ continued the Gadget Man, ‘what we need is subtlety. Something subtle and underhand.’

The word
underhand
suggested the Sorcerer to the loblolly boy. He thought about him, suddenly remembering the way the Sorcerer had turned the waiter into a dog. He wasn’t sure how it was done. It may have been hypnosis.

He reminded the others what the Sorcerer had done, and how the waiter had started begging for food and then been sent to fetch the napkin.

‘So that’s what you meant when you said he turned the waiter into a dog,’ said Mel. ‘I thought you were just being weird.’

‘What do you think?’ asked the loblolly boy. ‘You know the Sorcerer. Would he help?’

‘Probably not,’ said the Gadget Man sadly. ‘He’s very averse to doing good.’

‘Are you sure?’ said the loblolly boy.

‘Very sure,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘I mean, I could ask him and he might possibly agree, but if he did I suspect he’d only do so to sabotage the idea and turn it on its head. He’d find that particularly amusing. He’s a dreadful fellow really, the Sorcerer.’

‘I guess so,’ said the loblolly boy despondently.

Glancing at his expression, the Gadget Man said
cheerfully
, ‘However, don’t despair. The idea is a very good one and to execute it we don’t really need the Sorcerer’s help at all. I’m sure I can find a hypnosis gadget somewhere around here, and if not, why I’ll be very pleased to devise one!’

As it happened, the Gadget Man could not find any hypnosis gadget to hand. He told the loblolly boy and Mel to give him a few days during which time he would have either found a device, adapted one or developed an entirely new gadget.

‘If it comes to that, it will be a very satisfying challenge,’ he said, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

All this was very promising and, as they left, the loblolly boy felt happier about possible outcomes than he had for several days. He could only remember the waiter’s transformation from irritated critic to fawning obedience. How great it would be if the Gadget Man fashioned something that could have the same effect on Benjy.

‘Come back in four or five days,’ the Gadget Man said. ‘I should have something to show you then.’

He led them cheerfully through the shop and ushered them out on to the road once more. He was so cheerful, in fact, he was whistling a chirpy little tune. It was only after the Gadget Man closed the door that, with a small start, the loblolly boy recognised that he had actually been whistling the Captain’s strange shanty.

With this realisation, the loblolly boy’s confidence sagged a little. The more he thought about it, the more the Captain’s song seemed nothing more than a succession of warnings, filled with words like
fear
and
beware
.

Was this development going to be yet another fire waiting beyond the frying pan?

Mel must have seen the touch of concern cross his face. She grinned and punched him playfully on the arm.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s only a few days.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘You know,’ he added, ‘the Captain warned me about the Gadget Man. I wished he’d warned me about his awful puns.’

It might have only been a few days, but they were long, interminable days for the loblolly boy. He alternated between his refuge on the church tower and his linden tree in the park. In between times he flew about the city
exploring its highways and by-ways. There was not a lot to explore however, and he soon felt he had the total measure of the place.

At other times he wandered the streets. This was a depressing occupation, though, constantly reminding him of his shadow-like existence, and proof of the old saying that you are never lonelier than when you are in a crowd. If that saying was true for ordinary people, then it was ten times truer for the loblolly boy. He was in the crowd but not of it. He could not be seen. He could not be heard. He could not communicate with anybody. A shadow-like existence? Worse, far worse: a shadow can at least be seen.

Nevertheless, he did walk among people, sit among people, listen to their chatter and ache to say a few words himself.

The few people he was able to talk to were not able to offer much for they were all cut off from him in their various ways. He did not see the Sorcerer, and was glad. Mel was in school most of the day, and he learnt from her at one point that her mother had grounded her for staying too long at the park the day she’d visited the Gadget Man. Of course Mel could not explain to her mother that she’d been eating cream crackers and drinking lemonade with a strange old man in the back apartment of his shop with only an invisible boy and a singing gorilla for company. Instead she simply said that she’d forgotten how late it was and her mother had said, ‘Well you’d better not go out again for a few days until you learn to remember what time it is.’

And nothing Mel could say would sway her.

The loblolly boy did not wish to disturb the Gadget Man. It was really important that he wasn’t distracted from what could be an absolutely critical task.

That left Benjy.

The loblolly boy made a particular point of avoiding Benjy. It was far better that Benjy assumed he was still locked in the little brick shed. Were Benjy to see him flying free, he could well feel threatened and be on his guard. It was far better to let Benjy remain cocky and confident so that when the counter-attack came it would be all the more unexpected.

Thus cut off from all contact the loblolly boy spent several of the longest, loneliest days of his life.

What made the days longer and lonelier was the awful knowledge that this could well be the way he would spend the rest of his existence.

Some days later he was drowsing on a park bench near the stopped floral clock, when a jaunty whistling penetrated his slumber. The melody again was the now quite familiar tune of the Captain’s shanty, and the loblolly boy half-opened his eyes expecting to see the Gadget Man.

Instead, the Sorcerer was standing before him.

‘Hello, little man,’ he said. ‘Not up and about?’

‘Hello,’ said the loblolly boy cautiously.

‘May I join you?’ asked the Sorcerer, sitting down beside the loblolly boy without waiting for any response.

The Sorcerer was no longer wearing his dinner jacket, but was no less elegant. He was dressed in a white linen suit with a pink tie and a pink carnation in his buttonhole. He wore polished snakeskin boots and he was carrying a silver topped cane which he now held before him, both hands clasped on the top.

‘You’re not busking today?’ asked the loblolly boy.

The Sorcerer must have felt this too self-evident to warrant a reply for he said, ‘I understand you’ve enlisted the aid of my good friend the Gadget Man in order to pursue this somewhat foolish quest of yours.’

‘It’s not foolish,’ said the loblolly boy.

‘Ah, but it is, it is,’ said the Sorcerer glancing at him with a measure of pity.

‘Not to me,’ said the loblolly boy crossly.

All the same he felt a slight chill at the Sorcerer’s pitying look.

‘Have you been talking to him?’ asked the loblolly boy.

The Sorcerer nodded.

The loblolly boy remembered that the two played draughts together.

‘Did you play draughts?’ he asked.

Once more the Sorcerer nodded. ‘We play once a week. Daniel always lets me beat him because he’s worried I might react badly if he should defeat me. It’s most unsatisfactory.’

‘Would you react badly?’

‘Of course,’ smiled the Sorcerer. ‘I detest losing.’

Despite the smile, this was said with considerable vehemence. The loblolly boy looked at the Sorcerer with some alarm. After some time he said nervously, ‘Are we playing a game? You and me?’

The Sorcerer laughed. ‘Of course we are,’ he said. ‘People are always playing games.’

‘I see.’

The loblolly boy looked at the Sorcerer again, hoping his eyes were sparkling with good humour. He was disappointed, the Sorcerer’s laugh had been rich and deep, but his eyes were hard and cold, so cold the loblolly boy turned away with a little tremble.

‘Anyway,’ continued the Sorcerer standing up and shooting his cuffs. ‘I’m glad to have seen you as I especially wanted to warn you about our mutual friend the Gadget Man.’

The loblolly boy looked up. ‘You did?’

‘Yes,’ said the Sorcerer easily. ‘The Gadget Man is a brilliant man in many ways and has created some most astonishing devices, but he does, shall we say, get carried away by his enthusiasms and sometimes his devices lack … how shall I put it? Well, they lack finesse.’

‘Finesse?’

‘Yes, finesse. Or, to put it another way, while they are usually aimed in the general direction of the target, they only occasionally hit it. Do you follow.’

The loblolly boy nodded soberly.

He thought he did.

The next day, the Saturday, Mel’s mother had apparently let her off the leash.

The loblolly boy had been keeping well hidden in his tree taking careful note of the comings and goings in the park in case Benjy should turn up. Rather than Benjy, though, it was Mel he saw coming purposefully through the gates. He followed her progress along the path right until the moment she shimmied up the tree to join him in the upper branches.

‘Reckon we ought to go and see what that old guy has come up with?’ she asked.

‘I suppose so,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘It’s about that time, I guess.’

However, the meeting with the Sorcerer had put something of a pall over him, and he had lost his confidence that the Gadget Man would really be able to help him.

Mel, seeing this, grinned encouragingly. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Look at it this way, you’ve got nothing to lose.’

He gave her a smile. ‘You’re right, I guess,’ he said.

‘Anyway,’ said Mel. ‘Wouldn’t it be great to see that rat Benjy have to join a canine obedience class?’

The loblolly boy laughed. ‘I reckon,’ he said. ‘You didn’t see him anywhere,’ he added.

Mel shook her head. ‘None of that lot are down there. They’re probably out smashing toilets somewhere.’

‘Okay,’ said the loblolly boy. ‘Let’s go.’

They opened the door and made their way into the dusty shop. The Gadget Man was sitting on a high stool behind the counter. He was once again wearing the brown dustcoat and he smiled broadly as he waved them in.

‘I have news!’ he announced.

‘Good news?’ asked Mel.

‘Good news, indeed,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Come along in.’

He slid off his stool and, after locking the shop door against possible customers, ushered them into his apartment.

Sitting on a table was a small object that looked a little like a tiny windmill.

The Gadget Man gestured towards it proudly. ‘Look!’ he said.

‘Is that it?’ asked Mel.

‘It certainly is,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘It works like a treat.’

‘Have you tested it then?’ asked the loblolly boy.

‘Not really,’ admitted the Gadget Man. ‘Testing it could be dangerous. But I’m one hundred per cent certain it will do the trick.’

‘Great!’ said Mel.

The loblolly boy did not say anything.

‘So how does it work?’ asked Mel.

‘I’ll show you,’ said the Gadget Man. He was almost bubbly with enthusiasm.

The little windmill-like object was about the size of a small flashlight. It had a similar cylinder to hold and could have been mistaken for a torch except that instead of a light at one end it had a small propeller. It was not an ordinary propeller however. The six blades were flat and were studded with what looked to be small gemstones in a variety of colours.