City of the Falling Sky (24 page)

The crowd settled down and he continued.

“
As soon as I stepped in to
that pod, I knew I was going to make it my life’s goal to become
the best Friction player to ever live. It was as though I’d found
my ultimate motive, my dream. I fell in love with the game, and I
spent my school years practising nonstop.”

Loca was leaning forward in her chair,
looking furious.

“
If he uses this to have
another go at Kimmy, after Kimmy’s just fippin won it for us,” she
hissed. “I’m gonna go up there and strangle the man!”

“
The truth is,” Kolda said,
and he paused for a moment. “The truth is . . . that everyone is
different. And everyone has their own dreams. I’d like to call my
son up here, if I could.”

There was ruffling from the crowd, and Seckry
saw Kimmy making his way nervously up to the stage.

“
Ladies and gentlemen,”
Kolda said slowly. “I’d like to congratulate my son, Kimmy Kod . .
. I’d like to congratulate my son on becoming the Skyfall Maths
Standout of the Year.”

The crowd wasn’t sure how to react, but Loca
started clapping furiously and the rest of the crowd joined in,
even shouting a few cheers for him.

Kolda put his arms out and gave Kimmy a hug,
and Seckry was sure that Kolda said something private to his son in
that moment.

“
And secondly,” Kolda said.
“I would like to congratulate him on such a monumental Friction
performance.”

The crowd roared again, louder this time.

“
I’d also like to call up
Seckry Sevenstars, whose equally outstanding performance has
impressed us all. What a game for a first time
meltdown?”

Seckry made his way onto the stage, trying
his hardest not to blush, even though he knew his cheeks wouldn’t
listen.

“
Okay, and let’s have a huge
round of applause for the rest of the winning team!” yelled Jowe
Kingsfoller. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Eastern
Eidolons!”

Loca, Tenk, Tippian, and a smug Lessana filed
out onto the stage, and the crowd roared again.

It was only then that the situation seemed to
sink in. Less than a year ago Seckry had never even heard of
Friction, and here he was now, being cheered by about fifteen
thousand people.

As Seckry scanned the masses in front of him
he caught sight of his mum, waving frantically and dabbing the
tears away from her eyes with a cloth. Next to her was Eiya,
smiling her unique smile, her eyes glistening at him, and Seckry
couldn’t help but form a huge grin himself.

“
Did you see Mobbin’s face
when he got out of his pod?” Tenk said, popping open a packet of
crisps. “He was absolutely livid!”

“
I don’t think you helped
his mood by teasing him in front of everyone,” said
Tippian.

“
Yeah, well the oaf deserved
it. He would have done the same to me.”

“
I think you took it a bit
too far when you threw that chunk of hotdog at him, though,” said
Loca.

“
Are you kidding? That was
the best moment of my life!”

“
Seckry, what pop do you
want?” Loca said to him. “Red, blue, white, green?”

“
I’ll have some blue.
Thanks.”

The team had been given access to the
Friction training room for two hours for post Meltdown celebrations
and the school had provided them with all manner of drinks, sweets,
and snacks. They’d also let Eiya in with them as a special
guest.

During that time, Kimmy explained to them all
how he’d been attacked down his corridor by artificial intelligence
robots and had been knocked unconscious which is why the
commentators had thought he was out of the game. Then he’d come
back around and the bots had disappeared, leaving him to trek
through a series of obstacles before finding the gravity gun and
retracing his steps with it.

After nearly two hours of talking and
laughing and reminiscing about the game, Loca stood up and said,
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to do all night.”

“
What is it?” Tenk
asked.

But Loca said nothing. She put her pop down
and slowly made her way over to Kimmy, who was staring at her with
glazed eyes. Then she placed her hands on either side of his face
and kissed him for what seemed like a lifetime.

When she stopped, everyone was silent. Tenk’s
mouth was hanging wide open and Tippian was wiping his glasses and
frowning.

“
Well done today, Kimmy,”
Loca said eventually. “You’re my hero.”

Kimmy stammered and looked as though he was
about to faint, but their shock was cut short.

“
Well done tonight, guys,”
said the school janitor, poking his head through the door. “You did
us proud, but I’m gonna have to close this place up
now.”

During the following two weeks, Skyfall City
was treated to a few bursts of snow which unfortunately melted
before anyone could play in it, but which got everybody excited
about Seckramas, the celebration of the coming of Seckraman, son of
Gedin, which was only three weeks away.

Seckry’s mum had been swapping recipes with
her colleagues at work and flicking through Skyfall cookbooks for
the last week and a half, compiling a list of ingredients she
needed for half a dozen recipes she was planning to cook for
Seckramas day.

One weekend she asked Seckry to pick her some
things up at the market, most of which he had never seen or heard
of in his life; some pillowpuff crackers, two coliground roots, a
pound of lumpenlock, and a sprig of binyon, amongst others. Seckry
was beginning to wonder what in Gedin’s name his mum was planning
on making, especially since the coliground roots seemed to be
wriggling in the corner of his eye every time he looked away.

As Seckramas drew closer, the school began
buzzing with excitement, and when there were only a couple of days
left before the holidays, not much work was getting done. Most
lessons were filled with chatter and some teachers let them watch a
film. The only teacher who was having no part in the merriment was
Mrs Cutson, to nobody’s surprise. In fact, she seemed to be taking
the jolliness of everyone around her as a personal insult and had
decided to give the class extra homework as revenge.

Seckry and Eiya spent most of their free time
playing video games with Tenk and Tippian, and Kimmy and Loca were
nowhere to be seen.

“
I bet they can’t pry their
lips apart,” Tenk said. “I bet they’ve been locked in a kissing
fest for weeks.”

During lunchtime on the last day of term,
Seckry and Eiya almost bumped into Ms Butterkins, who was storming
down the corridor clutching a handful of freshly picked carrots and
swinging them so violently that spatters of dirt and earth were
showering the corridor walls.

“
Oh, hello Seckry, hello
Eiya,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare food
processor on you, would you?”

“
Uh . . . sorry miss, no,”
Seckry said, patting his pockets as if searching for
one.

“
Hmmm,” Butterkins said. “I
guess I’ll just have to use the old one. Just a bit slow that’s
all. Right gotta go. Very important business to attend
to.”

“
Where are you going?” Eiya
asked.

“
To the sanctuary, where
else?” Butterkins made to rush off, but paused momentarily. “You
know, I could use a couple of spare hands,” she said. “Would you
like to join me?”

Seckry and Eiya both nodded. They had no
other plans.

When they reached the sanctuary, Butterkins
popped the carrots into her own blender and got Seckry and Eiya to
add a bit of water and purify them while she fetched some kind of
baby bottle from a distant cupboard.

“
What’s this for?” Eiya
asked.

“
It’s for Bubble,”
Butterkins said. “The newest member of our team, and possibly the
most important.”

“
Bubble?” Seckry
said.

Once the carrots were purified into a smooth,
thick liquid, Butterkins filled the bottle with it and led them to
an incubation tank at the far end of the sanctuary.

“
Seckry, Eiya,” Butterkins
said, “say hello to Bubble, the world’s first gimmypug
hybrid.”

The baby gimmypug was tiny and was blinking
its eyes as if waking up from a nap. It sniffed the air and tried
reaching its head out to them and one of its overly large ears fell
down across its face.

“
It’s so cute!” Eiya said
gleefully, clutching her hands together in front of her
chest.

“
What do you mean by a
gimmypug hybrid?” Seckry asked.

“
Bubble is a cross breed
between a short eared gimmypug, the kind you see over here, and the
almost extinct long eared variety.”

“
Extinct?” said
Eiya.

Butterkins nodded sadly, before letting
Bubble suck hungrily on the tip of the bottle.

“
Long eared gimmypugs are
native to Phary, and poaching is common there. The long eared
gimmypug has been hunted for its ears for years and years. They use
the tough gristle to make leather. The institute of animal care
there has done all it can to prevent the extinction of the species
but it’s been a losing battle. There’s only one female left. She’s
being looked after by an expert team over there, but . . . she’s
dying.” Butterkins looked away from them and stifled a
tear.

“
That’s awful,” said
Seckry.

“
We’ll never have pure bred
long-eared gimmypugs again,” Butterkins explained. “There is no
chance of it. The institute have been trying to get male short
eared gimmypugs to mate with Petra all season. They believe this is
the last year she will be able to bear offspring. Giving birth to a
new hybrid breed of middle-eared gimmypugs would be the least we
could do to give the long-eared gimmypugs any form of existence.
And their existence is very important, because the people of Phary
have long believed that the long eared gimmypug's blood holds
special healing powers.”

“
So they got a short eared
male gimmypug to mate with her?” said Eiya.

“
No. They couldn’t. They
couldn’t do it. They tried, but it was pointless. It’s not mating
season for gimmypugs. They only mate in spring.”

“
So how . . . how does
Bubble exist?” Seckry asked.

Bubble yawned and curled up into a ball.

“
Well, that’s where a
certain friend of ours came into play.”

“
Who?” Seckry
asked.

“
Well the gimmypugs in Phary
have a kind of built in seasonal clock. But if a gimmypug had never
been a part of that, had never felt the heat of a Phary summer or
the moisture in the air, then it wouldn’t have a set mating season,
it would be able to mate any time of the year. So I took our very
own gimmypug and gave him the holiday of a lifetime.”

“
You mean . . .” said
Seckry.

“
Yep. Bubble’s daddy is our
very own Mr Peanut.”

“
It was you that stole him!”
Eiya exclaimed.

“
Cutson went absolutely
ballistic over that!” Seckry said. “We thought she was going to
have a mental breakdown.”

“
Well I knew she’d never let
me have him,” Butterkins said defensively. “It was the only way.
You won’t tell her it was me, will you?”

Seckry and Eiya both laughed disbelievingly.
“No miss, we won’t tell.”

“
Did she like her
magnet?”

“
I think you can probably
guess the answer to that one,” Seckry said.

After helping Butterkins take a small amount
of Bubble’s blood with a syringe for testing purposes, to which
Eiya had to look away, they headed back through the corridors and
turned up, slightly late, for their next lesson.

At the end of the day, before leaving, Seckry
ran into Mr Vance.

“
Seckry,” he said, “I’m
afraid there’s been no update in the search for Ropart Sanfarrow
and Kevan Kayne.”

Seckry’s heart sank a little, but he wasn’t
going to let it ruin Seckramas.

“
We haven’t found anything
either,” Seckry told him. “What are you doing for Seckramas
day?”

“
Me?” Vance said. “Oh . . .
I imagine I’ll just be spending it reading a good book if I’m
honest with you, Seckry.”

“
Don’t you . . . have any
family around here?” Seckry asked, hoping he wasn’t probing too
much.

“
I’m afraid not,” Vance said
simply. “And I’m not a particularly religious man. Science and
religion aren’t the friendliest of concepts.”

As Seckry was about to wish Vance a merry
Seckramas and head off, he suddenly thought of something.

“
You can have dinner with
us!” he blurted.

Vance was taken aback for a moment. “That’s
very kind, Seckry but I’m sure–”

“
No, please,” Seckry
interrupted. “Our whole square is having an open kind of feast. The
rule is, the more the merrier. And my mum would love to meet
you.”

Vance looked as though he was about to
protest again, but a glimpse of a smile appeared on his face.

“
It
would
be nicer
than spending it alone. Will your mum be making another one of
those ellonberry tarts?”

“
Are you kidding?” Seckry
said, laughing. “She’s already lined the tin.”