Un Lun Dun (29 page)

“B
LING
!” he said. A big silver-furred locust crawled out of his mouth.

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, though. You’re getting lairy.”

“L
AIRY
!” Mr. Speaker crooned, emitting a baby-sized thing with one staring eye.

“Yeah. Don’t diss me.”

“D
ISS
!”
Diss
was a six-legged brown bear cub. Mr. Speaker was almost crying with delight.

“So that’s enough, brer,” Deeba said. “Now you have to let us go.”

“B
RER
!” Mr. Speaker said, and sighed as a big bumblebee with human hands flew drunkenly from his throat. “L
OVELY
! L
OVELY
!”

“There,” said Deeba. “I’m sorry we spoke without permission. Now…would you let us go, please?”

“L
ET YOU GO
?” said Mr. Speaker. “O
H
, I
DON’T THINK SO
. I
HAVEN’T HEARD WORDS LIKE THAT IN MY LIFE
. I
CAN STILL TASTE THEM COMING OUT
. L
OOK AT THEM
!”

It was true. The slang utterlings looked particularly healthy and energetic. Mr. Speaker stared at Deeba greedily.

“N
O NO NO
. N
OT GIVING THAT UP
. Y
OU’RE STAYING HERE
. Y
OU GET TO TALK TO ME WITH THOSE LOVELY WORDS
. T
EACH ME ALL THE LANGUAGE YOU KNOW
,
FOREVER AND EVER
.”

60

Insurgent Verbiage

“No way!” Hemi said. “That’s not on!”

“You promised!” the book said.

“I
CAN DO WHATEVER
I
WANT
,” M
R
. Speaker said. “A
PROMISE IS WORDS
. I’
M
M
R
. S
PEAKER
! W
ORDS MEAN WHATEVER
I
WANT
. W
ORDS DO WHAT
I
TELL THEM
!”

His voice echoed in the enormous room, and the utterlings jumped up and down enthusiastically. Deeba looked around at the utterlings holding her, felt the strength of their grip. She thought quickly.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.

Silence settled, and all the eyes in the room turned to Deeba.

“W
HAT
?” Mr. Speaker said.

“Well,” said Deeba. “I don’t think words do what
anyone
tells them all the time.”

Hemi was looking at her with at least as much bewilderment on his face as Mr. Speaker had.

“What are you on about?” Hemi said.

“Y
ES
,
WHAT
ARE
YOU ON ABOUT
?”

Deeba paused to admire
about,
an utterling like a living spiderweb.

“Words don’t always mean what we want them to,” she said. “None of us. Not even you.” The room was quiet. All the people and things in it were listening.

“Like…if someone shouts ‘Hey you!’ at someone in the street, but someone else turns around. The words misbehaved. They didn’t call the person they were meant to. Or if you see someone at a party and they’re wearing something mad, and you say ‘That’s some outfit!’ and they think you’re being rude, but you meant it really.

“Or like if someone says something’s bad and people think they mean
bad
bad and they mean
good
bad. Or…” Deeba giggled, remembering one of the Blyton books her mother had given her, saying she had enjoyed it when she was Deeba’s age. “Or like that old book with a girl’s name that just sounds rude now.”

The utterlings were twitching, and staring at her. Mr. Speaker was flinching. He looked sick.

“Or even,” Deeba said, “like some words that mean something but they’ve got like a feeling of something else, so if you say them, you might be saying something you don’t mean to. Like if I say someone’s really
nice
then I might mean it, but it sounds a little bit like they’re boring. You know?”

“Yeah,” said Hemi.
“Yeah.”

“The thing is,” Deeba said, eyeing Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might
want
to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.”

“T
HIS IS OUTRAGEOUS NONSENSE
!” Mr. Speaker spluttered, burping four confused creatures, but Deeba interrupted him.

“So, you might think all these words have to obey you. But they don’t.”

“N
O MORE SPEAKING
! U
TTERLINGS
,
TAKE HER AWAY
!”

The utterlings were staring at Deeba, absolutely still, their eyes enormous. None of them moved. Mr. Speaker’s face went dark purple with rage.

“U
TTERLINGS
!” he shrieked.

“Even
your
words don’t always do what you want,” Deeba said. She wasn’t looking at Mr. Speaker, though. She was looking at the utterlings, and she raised her eyebrows.

“T
AKE HER
AWAY
!”

Some of the utterlings tightened their grips, but others were loosening them. Standing in a little group nearby, looking at Deeba uncertainly, were the silver locust, the many-legged bear, the bee, and the staring thing: the utterlings of London slang.

“I bet you could shut him up,” Deeba said to them. “I bet you don’t really have to do what he says.”

Hesitantly, the four utterlings turned and looked at Mr. Speaker. They moved towards him.

For a moment it was only those four, but very quickly, others joined them. The four-legged four-armed little man who had captured Deeba was one of a crew bearing down on Mr. Speaker, who was so apoplectic with rage he wasn’t even saying words—just screeching.

Other utterlings stood protectively before him, and the two groups began to struggle. But it didn’t last long. The loyal utterlings were confused. The others, the rebellious words, started in a minority, but grew in numbers quickly. Deeba felt the hands gripping her let go one by one.

“S
TOP
!” shouted Mr. Speaker, and spat out one last enormous utterling, a bewildered three-legged blob, but then the renegade words swarmed him. They clambered over Mr. Speaker’s body, and he flailed his weak arms and legs, trying and failing to bat them away.

Something like a long saggy hat wrapped a tentacle around his mouth, and others held him down. Mr. Speaker squashed down in his throne, and struggled and
mmmmm
ed and tried to look fierce with only his eyes.

It was no good. His obedient utterlings had scattered. His words had revolted.

“What d’you reckon they’ll do?” Hemi said.

“Dunno,” Deeba said.

It was dawn. Awhile after the utterlings had subdued their speaker, they had ceremoniously ushered Deeba and her companions to sleeping quarters and given them supper, all with immense exaggerated bows. The travelers had slept, and woken refreshed, and Deeba was eager to get going.

They were escorted by a gaggle of the silently squabbling utterlings that were attempting to organize things. The utterlings showed them out with pomp and politeness.

“Might not last,” the book muttered. “The smaller ones’ll ebb and disappear before long. Mr. Speaker’ll be trying to whisper new ones all the time, and he’ll try to talk more loyal ones into existence. And there must be some who want to get back to obeying him, waiting for the right moment…”

“God, don’t you ever stop moaning?” snapped Deeba. “Miserable git.” She could see Mr. Speaker, still trapped and gagged in his chair. “Give them a chance.”

The utterlings made
Where?
motions.

“Where
are
we going?” said Deeba, stroking Curdle.

“That way,” Hemi said, pointing into the streets.

“We’re looking for a forest,” Deeba said. “We have to find something. Quickly. In fact…” She looked at the utterlings. They were small, but strong, and inquisitive. “In fact, do any of you want to come with us?”

“What?” said the book.

“Why not? The more the better.”

The utterlings looked at her and at each other. After a few seconds, the majority, with ostentatious mimes of
Thanks
and
Regret for not being able to accompany you,
went back to the rest of their silently squabbling kind. But three came to stand with the travelers.

One was the silver-furred locust; one was the bear with a pair of legs too many; and one was the four-armed four-legged several-eyed little man. They looked at Deeba and Hemi shyly.

“That’s brilliant!” said Deeba. “Cool. Let me see if I remember…” She pointed at the bear. “You’re Diss,” she said. It nodded and reared on its hind four legs. It had no mouth, but Deeba knew it was smiling.

“And you…” She pointed at the locust. “You’re Bling.” The arm-sized insect fluffed up its silver coat.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are,” she said to the many-limbed man. “You got spoke before I got here. What are you?” The man sketched shapes in the air.

Deeba shook her head. “What is it…? Paraffin? Paintbrush? Purpose?”

The utterling shook its mouthless head.

“Redcurrant?” said Hemi. “Blackjack?”
No,
it mimed.

“Quiddity?” said the book. “Sesquipedalian? Oh this is ridiculous. We’re never going to guess like this. Out of all the words in the whole language, how—”

“Cauldron,” Deeba said, looking at the utterling with her head on one side. It jumped up and down and nodded and threw up its four arms and spun in a jig.

Hemi stared at Deeba in openmouthed delight.

“How could you
possibly
tell?” the book said.

“I dunno.” Deeba shrugged airily. “Doesn’t it look like the word
cauldron
to you?”

They set off under the early light of the UnSun, leaving the utterlings to bicker and bargain with each other and chaotically start to make decisions. Deeba, Hemi, Curdle, and the book walked out of the Talklands to look for a forest in a house, accompanied by the words Cauldron, Diss, and Bling.

61

Hired Help

“So you know where the forest-in-a-house is?” Deeba said.

“I do,” the book said. “It’s written in me. And I’ve no reason to think
that’s
wrong. But we’re stopping off somewhere else first.”

Deeba could not help being self-conscious at the head of such a peculiar group, but no one they passed paid them any particular attention. People were too busy keeping an eye on the skies for Smog attack, their unbrellas at the ready.

“Why?” Deeba said. “We should hurry.”

“How much money do you have?” the book said.

Deeba sifted through the few out-of-date pounds, dollars, a little pack of marks and francs and pesetas from before Europe got the euro, and many dog-eared rupees. As she gathered it, Hemi hesitated, then pulled out the notes she’d given him and added them to her pile.

“You can
owe
me that,” he said. “If it’ll help to have a bit extra now. Pay me back later, alright?”

“Right, cheers,” she said, carefully not looking at him. “That’s what we’ve got. Why?”

“Perfect,” the book said. “Because where we’re going, we’ll need some help. We’re going to hire someone.”

“When we get into the forest-in-a-house,” it said, “we’re looking for a bird. A particular bird. Its name’s Parakeetus Claviger. We need something it has.”

“The featherkey,” said Deeba.

“Exactly. And it’s going to be nigh-on impossible to get it. The chapter in me about the Shwazzy getting hold of the featherkey makes a point of telling lots of stories about how many people’ve failed because they can’t find Claviger, or understand it, and so on.”

“And hiring someone’ll help?”

“Just wait,” the book said. “It’ll be indispensable.”

It led them to an area of old wooden buildings, interspersed with the reconstituted junk of moil tech.

“So who is this bloke?” said Deeba.

“There’s no shortage of hireable bravos in UnLondon,” the book said. “And I was wondering who we should approach, when I remembered one in particular. He doesn’t live far. His name’s Yorick Cavea. He has all sorts of the usual qualities necessary for endeavors like this: once he fought off an entire horde of giraffes armed only with a corset-stay, believe it or not.” The book let that sink in. “He also fancies himself a bit of an explorer, which combined with the money’s why we’ll probably be able to entice him. Let me do the talking. Here we are.” They stood by a front door.

“Have we got time for this?” Deeba said to Hemi. “Do we need him?”

“Yeah, and are we going to have to go up against
giraffes
?” said Hemi.

“How’s this Cavea going to help with Claviger?” Deeba said. Then the door opened, and she said, “Ah.”

Yorick Cavea was a tall man. He wore a silk dressing gown and held a glass of whiskey or something. But on his human shoulders, Cavea’s head was an old-fashioned bell-shaped birdcage. Inside it was a mirror, a cuttlefish bone, and a small pretty bird gripping a little swing.

The bird chirped.

“Ah, Yorick,” the book said. “Nice to see you again too.” Cavea shook Deeba’s hand, Hemi’s, and Cauldron’s with its human arm. The bird whistled.

“Always straight to the point, eh, Yorick?” the book said. “Well, this young lady has an offer she’d like to make you. Deeba?”

Deeba fanned out a chunk of her money. The bird stared at it. “Tweet,” it said, and Cavea’s man-hands steepled together.

“Well of course,” the book said. “I wouldn’t expect you to be swayed merely by something so vulgar as money. But there’s more at stake. You wouldn’t expect me to go into detail here—one never knows who’s listening. But suffice to say…it’s going to be quite the expedition.”

Cavea pondered. The bird twittered.

“Dangerous, certainly,” the book said. “And suited to your unique capabilities.”

Another whistle.

“Yes, of course we’ll wait.”

Yorick Cavea disappeared for a minute in his house, emerging in an old-fashioned khaki safari suit and swinging an unbrella.

“Wait,” said Deeba. “You can’t bring that.”

The bird sang a few questioning notes.

“Sorry old chap, rules of this particular engagement,” the book said. Cavea stood still for a moment. In the cage-head, the little bird sang on its swing. “It’d take too long to explain, but she’s right, it’s for the best.”

Cavea threw the unbrella back in the house and closed the door, complaining in vociferous avian tones.

“Don’t worry,” the book said. “We’ll keep watch for Smog. Half up front. That’s only fair.”

Deeba tucked a wad of the cash into Cavea’s inside pocket. They followed the book’s directions into the UnLondon afternoon, through different landscapes of the abcity, at last into a warren of narrow streets.

Deeba tried to make conversation with Cavea, but while it was obvious that the bird in the cage could understand her polite questions, she didn’t understand any of its whistled answers. Mr. Cavea took the book under his arm. The bird plumped its plumage and warbled.

At some points the streets were crowded: at other times they were the only people they could see, and Cavea’s lovely singsong was all they could hear, apart perhaps from the tiniest whisper of houses. Hemi and Deeba walked side by side.

“What you looking for?” said Deeba. Hemi was examining chalk- and scratch-marks on some of the houses they passed.

“Just seeing who’s who and what’s what round here,” Hemi murmured.

“What you on about?”

“There are signs only a few of us know how to read,” he said. “For stashes, caches, emptish houses, that sort of thing.”

“Signs for who? Ghosts?”

“No, for…” He scratched his chin. “Alternative shoppers.”

“Thieves?!”

“Right then,” the book interrupted.

They were by an anonymous brick terrace. The houses were three stories high, in conventional red brick with black slate roofs. Shoppers milled where the road met others, and people leaned at several of the front doors, chatting to neighbors. If it weren’t for the eccentric look of some of the inhabitants, it could almost have passed for a residential street in London. Almost.

“We’re here,” said the book.

“We never are,” murmured Hemi.

One house was bursting with leaves. They pressed up against the glass of every window from the inside, blocking off any view within. They squeezed out from below the panes, and through the gaps at the top and bottom of the front door. A little plume of ivy poked from the chimney.

The caged bird on top of Mr. Cavea’s body began singing fervently, the book interjecting.

“Come come,” the book said. “I’m not denying it’s dangerous. That’s ridiculous. There were no false pretenses. Well then there’s no problem—just walk away. Of course. But then there’s no payment. And you won’t be part of the expedition that gets deep into the forest.” Mr. Cavea hesitated, the bird fluttering in agitation.

“No one’s asking you to do anything much,” the book said. “Honestly? All we want you to do is engage someone in conversation. Aha. That’s right, you’ve got it.”

The bird stared at the money, its head cocked on one side.

“You’re not heading in, are you?” The speaker was an elderly man, sitting on the doorstep opposite. He was dressed in a skirt of animal tails. He scratched his beard and sipped a hot drink and shook his head wisely.

“I’d not,” he said. “See them there?” He pointed at a rope stub emerging from behind the front door. “That was where the last lot of explorers set off. That’s where they set up a base camp, they did, but never saw ’em again. Heard rumors though. Heard noises at night. It’s a rum place, the forest, full of noises. No one knows its paths. I’ve lived here near on fifty years, and I’ve never been in nor never would. No, if I was you—”

Cavea squawked an interruption.

“I agree,” muttered the book. Mr. Cavea’s human body yanked open the front door. “He says he’d go in even if we weren’t paying him anything. Just to get away from that bloke.”

Deeba followed them. The utterlings and Hemi went with her. The old man opposite was left watching openmouthed as they hurried into the dark interior of the house, and into the forest.