The Hidden Boy (6 page)

“Maybe they didn't know you were still in there.”

“I'll hide,” he said. “That's what I'll do. I can hide in the forest.”

“What good will that do?” asked Bea. “You'll have to come out sometime.”

Arkadi shook his head. “I'll think of something,” he said. He didn't look as though thinking of something was his specialty.

“There's a little hut in the woods,” said Phoebe. “I found it just now, when I was looking for the spy. There's some old traps and stuff in it, but it looks like nobody's been there for ages. You could hide there.”

“Okay,” said the man. He smiled suddenly and put his finger to his lips. He looked at Bea, and back at Nails. “Nice doggie,” he said half to himself. He got to his feet, and Phoebe gave him directions—three times over—to the hut she had found. The stranger loped off without another word and vanished from sight.

“T
heo?” said Bea quietly. She sat on the moss-cushioned rock where Captain Bontoc had sat earlier. The listening horn was pressed to the lid of the Squeak Jar, and Bea's ear was pressed to the listening horn. Phoebe crouched in the grass and watched intently, as though she might catch sight of a miniature seven-year-old boy shimmering in the moonlight that filled the jar. The noise at Cambio Falls was as great as ever, but this was where Bea had first heard Theo's disembodied voice, and it seemed the natural place to try to hear it again.

“Anything?” said Phoebe.

“Ssshh!” said Bea. She had located the distant voice, but she had to tune into it before she could make out his words, like a weak radio signal.

“Where did you go?” said Theo's voice.

“I woke up,” said Bea. She wasn't sure if the Theo in the Squeak Jar would remember the conversation she had had with the Theo in her dream. She wondered if he would know what she was talking about.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Theo. “First you were asking if I was in a giant jar, which is a stupid question, I think you'll agree. Then when I looked you were gone. Now you're back.”

Bea let this sink in for a moment. “You can
see
me?” she said.

There was a pause. Bea could picture Theo's face, his nose wrinkled with incredulity. “You've gotten really weird since we came on holiday. Of course I can see you. I don't need glasses, you know.”

“Can he see us?” said Phoebe. Her voice sounded loud, and brought with it a rush of noise. Bea flapped her hand at her urgently, then poked her finger in her free ear.

“What am I doing?” she said to Theo.

Theo sighed patiently. “You're sitting on the branch beside me. You've got your finger stuck in your ear. You're listening to a jam jar through a thingie. Are you going to ask me why next?”

“Why?” repeated Bea.

“I haven't a clue,” said Theo. “Did you bring Nails?”

“Nails is fine,” said Bea. She had not tried to put the meerkat back in the backpack. From the corner of her eye she could see him foraging for beetles in the long grass. Now that he had won his freedom in a daring escape he seemed content to stay close.

“You keep saying that,” said Theo, “but where is he? I caught a big green thing for him, but it keeps trying to climb out of my pocket.”

“Never mind that,” said Bea.

“I do mind. What if it's got a stinger?”

“Theo, listen to me. I know this will sound strange, but…” She tried to think of a way to phrase what she had to say that would not alarm him. “You can see me, but I can only hear you. I'm not actually sitting on a branch; I'm sitting on a rock.”

“No, you're not,” said Theo. “The rock would fall out of the tree. Then you'd fall out of the tree. Then you'd cry, and I'd get the blame.”

“No, it wouldn't fall, because…Look, just describe to me where you are. Pretend I'm blind.”

“Okay,” said Theo after a moment. “There's trees. Lots of them.”

“What kind of trees?”

“Skinny thin ones, mostly. They wave about a lot.”

Bea looked into the forest through which they had just walked. The trees were old and sturdy there. Even the thinnest ones had trunks far thicker than a man's torso. “What else can you see?” she asked.

“Just a bunch of leaves. And the Tree People.”

“What Tree People?”

“The ones who live here. They have tons of pets. They've got about a million cats, and a couple of lizards, and a big parrot called Trigger….”

“Are they there now?” asked Bea.

“Of course,” said Theo.

“Ask them where you are.”

Theo's voice became muffled, as though he were talking away from the phone.

“We're Here.”

“Where's here?” asked Bea. They were both talking now with that sort of exaggerated politeness people use when their patience has stretched to its limit.

“Just…Here,” said Theo. “I think that's actually the name of it.”

“Let me talk to them,” said Bea.

“I'm not stopping you,” said Theo.

“But I can't hear them,” said Bea in exasperation.

“That's because they don't talk with voices.”

Bea searched for a question that might produce an
answer that was of use to her. Her ear was numb from being pressed so hard against the flat end of the horn, and the strain of hearing his distant voice was making her dizzy. “What else can you see?” she said.

“I can see you and that stupid jar,” said Theo. “I can see trees. I can see leaves; I can see the sky. It's nice here, but I want to go back to the busmarine now.”

His voice seemed to be getting fainter as he grew more impatient. Bea could barely hear him, and in desperation she shouted one last question. “What color is the moon?”

The sound of the falls rushed into her ears like water breaching a dam, and if there was any reply from Theo she could not hear it. She called his name again, but there was no answer. She put the Squeak Jar down in the grass and ran her hands through her hair.

“Is he gone?” said Phoebe.

Bea nodded, trying to ignore the clammy feeling in her chest.

“Don't worry,” said Phoebe. “Granny Delphine said you'd be able to find him when you've had some training.”

“I don't think Ma will allow it. She's always hated Mumbo Jumbo.”

“What
is
Mumbo Jumbo?”

“I don't know exactly. It's some kind of secret thing that Granny Delphine belongs to. We were always told never to mention it, ever. Ma says it's dangerous. Pa says it doesn't exist, but he says it in that voice he uses when he's making stuff up.”

“Like when he told us a giant lizard runs the pizzeria?”

“Yes. Or about the chocolate mines of Kathmandu.”

“Did he really think we'd believe those stories?”

Bea shrugged. “Would you have believed him if he had told us about a car wash that sent you to another world?”

Phoebe poked in the grass with a twig. For a while she said nothing; then she looked up at Bea. “You know what this place is, don't you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Bell Hoot is an anagram. Think about it.”

Bea scratched her head. “Boot Hell?” she said. “Tell Hobo?” She knew she wasn't nearly as good at this as Phoebe was.

“No,” said Phoebe. “I reckon it's a bolt-hole.”

“What's a bolt-hole?”

“It's where people go to hide. It comes from rabbits, I think. This must be where people come to hide when the Gummint men are after them.”

“Do you think we'll ever get back?” said Bea. She had been too concerned with Theo's disappearance during the short time they had spent in Bell Hoot to think about much else. Now for the first time it occurred to her that Phoebe might never see her parents again. She pictured Phoebe's dressing-gowned mother, her straw-colored hair showing two inches of gray roots and a cigarette glued to her mouth with scarlet lipstick, and the father who lurked in the sitting room with the curtains drawn, oblivious to anyone who was not holding a fistful of playing cards. Phoebe seldom mentioned her parents, and she certainly seemed to prefer the bustle and chaos of the Flints' apartment to the smoky cave of her own. “Will they be worried?” said Bea. “Your parents, I mean.”

“They won't even notice I'm gone, probably,” said Phoebe.

“Still,” said Bea, “I don't see why you couldn't go back sometime if you wanted to.”

“I don't want to,” said Phoebe, concentrating on the small crater she had dug with the twig. “And I can't. You heard what the captain said. There's always seven more coming through.”

“Yes, but if Bontoc arranged it in advance, maybe
they could bring through one person less.”

Phoebe got to her feet. “If I did want to,” she said, pointing at the opened compartment in the Blue Moon Mobile, “I could just stow away.”

“I think that would still count as—,” began Bea; then she stopped dead. A terrible thought struck her. She stared at Phoebe.

“What?” said Phoebe.

“I thought it was Nails who made Theo disappear,” said Bea.

She saw her friend's eyes widen with the same realization.

“Arkadi!” they whispered in unison.

B
ea Flint and Phoebe Lu hurried back along the path toward Bell Hoot, while Nails the meerkat dozed happily in the jogging darkness of the backpack, his belly full of worms and beetles. The pale ghost of a blue moon remained in the sky. Below it the dawn had begun to spread on the western horizon—a fact that would have seemed strange to the two girls if they had had a compass to point it out to them. They were discussing whether they should tell anyone about the mysterious stowaway on the Blue Moon Mobile.

“We did promise him,” said Phoebe.

“I know, but why was he so worried? Do you think he knows that someone has disappeared because he was there?” Now that they had left the falls behind, Bea could hear again the warm humming she had noticed
earlier. She wondered vaguely what it could be.

“We don't know that for sure ourselves. And he doesn't seem very bright,” said Phoebe, her arms stretched out for balance as she walked along a narrow log by the path's edge.

“I don't think he's as simple as he'd like us to believe. How did he get out of that compartment?”

“Didn't you let him out?”

“No. He unscrewed the panel from inside. How can you undo screws from the pointed end?”

They passed the stone library. The windows were dark, overlooking the square like empty eye sockets. The path that led to the Millers' house seemed unnaturally silent now.

“He did have a tool belt,” said Phoebe. “And anyway, we don't know what they'll do to him if we tell. Maybe they burn people at the stake here.”

“I doubt it,” said Bea. She chewed her lip. “But you're right. We should find out some more. We'll bring him some food later, and see if we can—”

“Bea—” Phoebe interrupted her quietly. She pointed along the path. An eerie scene was unfolding in the cobwebby shadows. A strange mob of people surrounded the Millers' house. They all had similar
features—broad, flat faces and round staring eyes. Their clothes were worn and patched. Most wore fingerless gloves and some had scarves wrapped around their heads like desert nomads, despite the warmth of the night. Their hair—where it could be seen—was long and tangled. It was not their appearance, however, that made Bea stop in her tracks. They seemed to be performing a bizarre circus act. The sturdier members of the group stood just outside the circle of thornbushes that was planted beneath the house. Others had climbed onto their shoulders, and as Bea and Phoebe watched in dreadful fascination a third group of these odd intruders was clambering up to stand on the shoulders of the second. The whole operation was carried out in deathly silence.

Bea reached out to grab Phoebe's arm and pull her out of sight among the bushes, but Phoebe had other ideas. She was already marching along the center of the path and into the small clearing in front of the house. The third wave was just reaching the high windows of the Millers' house when Phoebe spoke up.

“What do you think you're doing?” she said in a loud voice. Several of the intruders jumped visibly, and one of their human towers collapsed, pitching the boy
who made up its third tier into the thornbushes. He was about twelve, and he let out a yelp as the thorns bit him. It was the first sound that any of them had made, and as the boy struggled to extract himself from the thornbush Bea could see he was biting his lip to avoid making another. She forced herself to follow Phoebe, wishing she could be half as fearless as her friend.

An ancient, squat woman appeared from the far side of the house. She said nothing, but the rest of the mob quickly dismounted as though she had given an invisible signal. The woman had the flat face and widely spaced, almost colorless eyes of her clan. It was the paleness of the eyes in particular that gave her stare such an unnerving intensity. Her hair was tied behind her head in a tight bun and she had a thin scarf wrapped several times around her neck. She walked silently up to where Bea and Phoebe stood, and looked at each of them in turn. Bea found it hard to meet her gaze, and even Phoebe's defiant stare seemed to wilt a little. The woman spoke in a voice like a rusty nail. “You're new here,” she croaked. “Who came with you?”

“Captain Bontoc,” said Bea. She knew this was not what the old woman was asking, but she felt compelled
to give an answer, and she hoped that this one would give nothing away.

“Fool,” spat the old woman. It was not clear whether she was referring to Bea or to the captain. “Any more children?”

“No,” said Phoebe, which was at least half true. “What were you doing at the windows of the Millers' house?”

The woman glared at her. “Neighborhood watch,” she said. She looked from one to the other again. Bea felt exposed under her gaze, as if she were in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm, wearing only her underwear.

At that moment the Millers' front door swung open and Mr. Miller's voice called, “Who's there?” through the gloom.

The intruders vanished in a moment. As Bea watched they simply slid away between the trees, all except the old lady and the boy, who was extracting himself from the thornbush, and disappeared from view.

The old woman leaned closer, until her nose almost touched Bea's and her eyes seemed to merge into one pale disk with a black hole in the center. She smelled strongly of mothballs. “There's more,” she croaked
quietly. She turned and strode silently past the house. “Ike,” she said in a low voice as she passed the boy in the thornbush. Ike freed himself with a final push. He ran clumsily after the gray-haired woman, and Bea thought she heard her say, “Idiot boy!” as they slipped away among the trees.