Sagaria (5 page)

Lying on his back was the most uncomfortable of all (there was something sticking into his spine right between his shoulder blades, and something else making his hip ache) but at least it distracted him from his thoughts, and he was still laying like that as the first gray light of the new day crawled across his ceiling.

If only something could happen that would make people forget all about the dare, he thought leadenly as he watched the sluggish progress of the light. I could always go to Luti Furfoot and beg him to have the dare nullified. Of course, that would be allowing Tod to win, and I’d never hear the end of it. I’d be “Flip Faintheart” for all the rest of my days. Jinnia would be so disappointed in me.

He had a sudden image of Tod swaggering around the village with Jinnia drooping sadly on his arm as his wife, thinking of what might have been if only Flip had not been such a coward.

No. I’m not going to back out of the dare. Even if I die out there in the wastelands, I’m not going to destroy Jinnia’s faith in me!

The dim light made the flower he’d put in a glass of water by his bedside look gray, but Flip could still see its colors.

He stayed in his strangely uncomfortable bed for as long as he possibly could, hoping to catch at least a little more sleep, but as the room grew inexorably brighter, any chance of sleep seemed to drift farther and farther away from him, like a life raft being carried slowly out of reach by the tide. At last, he gave up and climbed clumsily from under the covers, feeling as if someone had pummeled him with a sandbag, devoting special attention to his brain.

He was just about to start wearily brushing his teeth with a frayed twig when he was shocked out of his semi-consciousness by the sound of a scream. Dropping the twig, he rushed to his door and looked out.

Running away from him along the lane around the bend toward her cottage was Mrs. Treelight, clutching a squirming little Treelight infant under each
arm. Running straight toward him up his garden path was Flip’s neighbor Toadbreath, whom he’d never much liked.

“Shelter!” cried Toadbreath. He barged past Flip into the house.

There was obviously some kind of an emergency, but Flip couldn’t stop thinking how little he wanted Toadbreath in his living room.

“What’s happening?”

“Disaster! Doom! Disaster! It’s horrible.”

“
What’s
horrible?”

“Ghastly! We’re all going to die.”

Toadbreath’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed in a faint. Flip noticed the fellow collapsed very accurately, landing neatly stretched out on one of Flip’s couches. Even so, it was obvious Flip was going to get no sense out of him.

When there’s danger in the air, Flip the Adventurer’s there!
he thought, recalling a promotional jingle Dodgem had once made up for him. Flip had never had the bravado to say or sing it in public, but at times like this it was a useful reminder of what his chosen profession demanded.

The center of the village, the hub of Mishmash: that was where he should be. That was where the most people were. Perhaps he could save a few lives from this unknown danger that seemed to be threatening them all. At least he could find out what it actually was.

Without pausing to think (if he thought too much about this, he might crawl under the bed for safety instead), he dashed out of the house and scurried as fast as he could along the lane toward the middle of town. To either side of him, shutters were going up, doors were being slammed and stragglers were finding shelter wherever they could. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, but Flip couldn’t distinguish any of the words.

A shadow crossed the low-lying sun. A swiftly moving cloud?

The big marquee was still standing on the village green, though its roof was sagging and its walls were slumped as if exhausted and hungover from last night’s celebrations – as everyone else probably was. Flip wrinkled his nose at the smell of stale festivities. Littered on the grass around the tent was the rubbish from the party: bits of half-eaten food, empty mugs and platters, scraps of paper and cloth, a broken chair.

No people though. Still panting and gasping from his crazy sprint along the lane, Flip was struck by the strangeness of seeing the village green deserted during the day. It was normally bustling. Everyone must have bolted for cover to escape the threat – whatever the threat was. Everyone with any sense, that is.

Everyone including Tod, who was probably cowering somewhere wondering how he was going to turn this into a story about his bravery.

This last notion made Flip disobey the urgent instructions his legs were giving him to flee for safety like everybody else. Trying to appear casual, he strolled out into the very center of the grass and looked around him. Another of those swiftly moving clouds momentarily blocked out the sun.

Could clouds move that swiftly, however strong the wind?

His next breath seemed to stop halfway down his throat.

Heart thudding, he looked up at the sky for the first time.

There is
no sky.

Instead of the pale gray-blue of early morning, there was just a great expanse of black that seemed to stretch from one horizon to the other. Then he saw bright orange talons, a cruelly curved, muddy yellow beak, black eyes, a crest of silver …

A hawk! Its great black wings bigger than the sky.

And in that moment, the talons were around him and the predator’s shriek of triumph was filling his world. He waited for the agony to start.

Flip. Adventurer Extraordinaire. Eaten alive by a hawk before he could embark on the greatest adventure of his career. So sad. Bit of a fruitcake though. Even his best friend, Dodgem, says he wasn’t the brightest blossom on nature’s branch. We’ll mourn him, of course, but he’s no great loss to Mishmash. Not really. In a way we’re better off without him – without him and his madness. What would the world become if everyone started believing his silly stories about lands behind the mountains? Here’s a funny story, you must have heard it. Our beloved leader, Tod, dared Flip to prove his wild tales and Flip, like an idiot
…

But the pain didn’t come.

Instead, Flip found himself being carried quite gently into the air. The village of Mishmash was getting smaller and smaller beneath him – smaller even than it looked from the topmost tip of the tallest tree. The bird was carrying him higher and higher in a big, lazy spiral that was so easy, so
natural
, that it could have been invented before the world began. The wind pulsed around his ears in time to the beating of the hawk’s great wings as the bird banked around and flew away from the village, before crossing the river – which, from here, was just a twisting thread of mercury – and heading toward the snow-capped mountains.

Old Cobb.

He said he’d help me.

Maybe he has
…

CHAPTER 1

A F
ROG'S
L
IFE

gust of summer breeze blew in through the open window of the classroom and wound briefly around Sagandran Sacks, cooling him just a little before it gently faded away.

Sagandran sighed. On a steaming hot day like this, he could do with every bit of refreshing breeze he could get. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at his watch: 2:35 pm.
Just one more class and I'm out of here.
That was the good news. The bad news was that the next class, the last before the start of the summer holidays, was gym.

But there was still half of the biology class to get through.

Today, the biology teacher, Bodily Fluids Harbottle, had been telling them how to dissect frogs and they'd be doing it for themselves in a few moments. This was a matter of great excitement to many of the kids in the class, though Sagandran had noticed a few of them were turning the same color as the frogs. He wondered if he was too.

“Everyone should have a glass jar with a frog in it,” Bodily Fluids was saying in his clinically boring voice. “Anybody who doesn't, please raise a hand.”

No hands went up.

“Right,” said Bodily Fluids. “Now, the first thing we must do is kill our frog. I've given you each a dish of ether and a ball of cotton wool. If you dropped the cotton wool in the ether when I told you to, it should be thoroughly soaked. With the ball in one hand, lift the lid of the jar with the other and pop in the cotton wool. Make sure you close the lid before your frog has the chance to jump out. Everybody ready?”

Sagandran solemnly regarded the frog in the jar in front of him. It gazed back with big, unblinking eyes.

You'd rather be back home in your pond somewhere, wouldn't you, little buddy?
thought Sagandran.

“Very soon,” droned Bodily Fluids, “your frog will fall asleep. It will have been
anesthetized by the ether. Does anyone know how to spell ‘anaesthetized'?”

Sagandran's frog had been sitting resignedly in the middle of the jar. Now it moved to the side of the container and tried to climb up the glass, but its feet kept slipping. After half a dozen failed attempts, it gave up and went back to staring accusingly at its captor. Sagandran could see it croaking, but he couldn't hear anything because the lid was shut tight.

He looked at the sodden white ball of cotton wool sitting in its dish, and he looked back at the frog. Hard to believe that an object as innocent as a ball of soggy cotton wool could take a life.

There was a sudden
plick
on the side of his head and something dropped onto the desk beside his elbow.

A paper pellet.

Webster.

Webster O'Malley and his two sidekicks, Blunkett and Sprode, were all bigger than Sagandran, and they seemed to have decided that their life mission was to make
his
life a misery. The other kids didn't do much to stop it – they were just happy it wasn't them being bullied. Now, everyone called Sagandran by the loathed nickname Webster had invented for him.

He knew what was coming and he flinched in anticipation.

“Hey, Frogface,” snaked Webster's whisper from behind him, “how come you're lookin' so sick? That one of your cousins in the jar, or what?”

Blunkett and Sprode chortled at their leader's wit.

Sagandran had carefully examined his face in the bathroom mirror many times, and he knew for a fact that he did not look like a frog. It was just that his thick spectacles made his eyes seem bigger than normal, that was all.

His three tormentors clammed up as Bodily Fluids approached, checking to see how the kids were getting on.
That's the thing about bullies,
thought Sagandran savagely. They're scared as all get-out of anyone bigger than them, so they take it out on people who are smaller. Or weaker. Or poorer. Or shorter-sighted. They hope this hides the fact that they're the biggest cowards of all.

He turned back to the frog. Its eyes seemed to be imploring him to have mercy, to not kill it just because he was so much bigger than it was. To not be a bully, like Webster, Blunkett and Sprode.

I can't kill you, little friend,
thought Sagandran. I just can't.

Bodily Fluids was still only halfway up the row. Sagandran swiftly lifted the lid of the jar and slipped the soaked wad of cotton wool in. As soon as he was satisfied that the frog was fast asleep –
and I
do
know how to spell ‘anesthetized,
' Sagandran thought defiantly – he opened the lid again and slid the motionless frog out into his hand. Leaning over as if to pick up something, he furtively
transferred the sleeping creature to the outer pocket of his satchel that was propped against the desk leg on the floor beside him.

He did it just in time. As he straightened up, the tall, stern shadow of Bodily Fluids fell across him.

“And how are we getting on, Mr. Sacks?”

Sagandran hunched his shoulders and spoke in a low, guilty voice. “My frog got away when I opened the lid, sir. I thought it was already unconscious, sir. There can't have been enough ether on the ball, sir.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” hissed Webster.

“You have something to contribute, Mr. O'Malley?” said Bodily Fluids, turning.

“No, sir.”

“I'm glad to know that. I'd hate to have to give you detention on the last day before the holidays.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, Mr. Sacks,” resumed Bodily Fluids, “did you see which way your frog went?”

“No, sir.” Not looking up, Sagandran wondered if he could squeeze between the cracks of his wooden desk top.

“Then I think we must conclude, Mr. Sacks, that it has irretrievably escaped.” Bodily Fluids' voice was dripping with sarcasm, but at least it didn't carry the expected You Are About To Die Painfully tones. “Perhaps the cleaners will find it tonight. In the meantime, you had best work with Miss Cochrane.”

Sagandran could hardly believe his ears. Maybe the fact that it was the last day of school was softening old Bodily Fluids' brains. He hurried across to Jennifer's desk before the teacher could change his mind.

Jennifer was already well ahead with her dissection. She'd pinned the dead creature to her board and there was plenty of blood everywhere, including on the blade of the scalpel she was so eagerly wielding. Whenever he was with Jennifer, the thickwit trio usually left him alone. Webster had once called her and Sagandran names at lunch. Jennifer simply walked up to Webster and emptied her tray all over him. The ravioli-smeared Webster had been stunned. As a coup de grâce, she'd thrown a glass of water on his pants, making it look like … well, anyway after the laughter had subsided, Webster had been very cautious about his behavior and language whenever she was in earshot.

“Isn't it fantastic, Sag?” she breathed as Sagandran joined her.

He wasn't too keen on Sag either, but at least it was better than Frogface.

“It's just like doing a surgical operation on someone. Did I tell you I'm going to be a famous surgeon when I'm older?”

She turned back to her task without waiting for his answer, a spot of the frog's blood on the tip of her nose.

Oh, yeah?
thought Sagandran, and last week during music class you were going to be a rock star, and before that it was an astronaut, and before that it was …

He had to admit that there was a certain gruesome fascination in watching the pathetically small creature being enthusiastically slashed to pieces by Jennifer with her ineptly directed blade, even though the faint but distinctive smell of frog's insides made his stomach lurch. Sagandran felt he owed it to Bodily Fluids for sparing his life to pay attention as the teacher explained what the various organs and other bits were. However, he lost concentration when they got to the liver and Sagandran realized that he, too, had a liver, which was presumably functioning away inside him even as he stood here. From there, his mind conjured an image of him pinned spread-eagled on a board with his innards on display. After that, the rest of the lesson sort of swayed in and out of focus.

As everybody was busy disposing of bits of dead frog, the bell rang at last.

“Have a good holiday, children,” Bodily Fluids was saying, but no one paid him any heed as they grabbed their satchels and prepared to scamper off to gym class. Sagandran checked quickly inside the pocket of his bag to make sure the frog was still snoozing safely; it was. Well, either sleeping or dead, but that couldn't be helped. Then he joined the milling throng heading for the door.

Gym was every bit as bad as he thought it was going to be – maybe worse. The gym teacher, Grunts Loomis, liked Webster. Even when he shouted at him, it was obvious he didn't mind Webster's way of handling arguments. Today, the climbing ropes had been let down and several vaulting boxes laid out in a circuit. Grunts wanted the kids to do the circuit of boxes and climb a rope at the end. Because it was nearly the holidays, the person who had the fastest time would win a prize.

And, of course: “Sagandran Sacks, you go first,” Grunts yelled.

Webster sniggered and Blunkett and Sprode obediently joined in.

Sagandran ran toward the first vaulting box, trying to ignore the sound of their laughter. He got to the box and managed to clamber over it, then onto the next box, and up and over. His legs were feeling like jello, but he forced himself to keep going.

“Faster, Sacks!” blared Grunts, hamming it up for Webster and his cronies. Grunts was as bad as the Thickwit Trio – worse, because he should have known better. “We haven't got all day.”

Sagandran thumbed his spectacles more firmly in place on his nose and kept pumping his legs.

At last, there was only the rope left. It seemed to stretch all the way to the sky. Sagandran grabbed it as high off the ground as he could and launched himself upward, clinging on for dear life with his hands and knees.

Almost at once, he knew he wasn't going to get to the top. If he'd been fresh, then yes, maybe. But his limbs seemed to have turned to rubber, his hands didn't want to curl into a grip, his palms were greasy with sweat …

“Don't just hang there, Sacks,” shouted Grunts. “Climb!”

… and the Thickwit Trio were laughing at him.

I'll show them,
thought Sagandran, and new determination surged through him. He was fed up with being called a weakling and a sissy the whole time. He was fed up with being bullied.

The world roaring in his ears, he made a huge effort and hauled himself up a few feet, then a few more feet. Suddenly, he was halfway up the rope and the gym floor beneath him looked dizzyingly distant. One glance down was enough; from here on, he told himself, he would just keep looking up at the ceiling.

Which was getting closer with every joint-popping yank of his arms. He didn't care that his muscles were screaming; he was going to make it!

Then his palms – his treacherous, slippery palms – lost their grip on the rope and he was hurtling downward. He tried to clamp onto the rope with his hands and thighs, but all he succeeded in doing was slowing his fall a bit. The coarse fibers of the rope burned like crazy as they sped through his fists. Now he
did
look beneath him and instantly wished he hadn't. The floor was getting bigger and bigger, as if someone had spun a zoom lens on a camera.

He landed with a bone-jarring thump. His spectacles dangled by one arm from his left ear. His hands and the insides of his thighs were on fire. The gymnasium was spinning around faster and faster. Someone had poured molten steel into his lungs.

Grunts waited until the laughter had died down a little before he spoke. “Actually, Sacks,” he said grudgingly, “you weren't as much of a moron as usual, but you have to get to the top before I can give you a time.” He gestured with his stopwatch. “Go to the back of the line, and you can have another try at the end if the bell hasn't gone by then.”