The Hidden Boy (9 page)

“Now, that's a different matter. If your boy do turn up, he must come to us. We got fostering rights.”

“Fostering rights?” echoed Granny Delphine.

“Ask your new friends,” said Maize Ledbetter. She looked away for a moment as she indicated the rest of the Quorum, and Bea felt that her grandmother had won a small victory.

Wispy Beard cleared his throat. “The eldest son of every newly arrived group is fostered to one of the nine clans for a year. It helps to forge ties and avoid…er…conflict.”

“Tell her whose turn it is, Morganfield,” said Maize.

“I can guess,” said Granny Delphine, “but when we do find Theo you may be sure you won't be getting your hands on him.”

Maize Ledbetter laughed. It was a dry croak that
you might expect to hear from a crow with laryngitis. “You don't have a choice,” she said.

“She's right, I'm afraid,” said Mr. Morganfield. “It's always been the rule, since Bell Hoot was founded.”

“Rules are made to be broken,” said Granny Delphine. Bea almost snorted. It was a notion that her grandmother had never allowed anyone else in the family to get away with.

“Not those that were given to us by Arkadi himself,” said Mr. Morganfield.

Clinging to the outside of the tree, Bea and Phoebe looked at each other in puzzlement. Surely they couldn't be talking about the ice-cream mechanic who was hiding in the woods, whittling a meerkat from a stick?

“You have just arrived,” Mr. Morganfield continued, “and I can understand that you are not familiar with the way things work here. Arkadi meant Bell Hoot to be a world that avoided the mistakes of the past. Every family that arrives here joins one of the nine clans. The Millers are part of the Morganfield clan, and so will you be, since they were chosen as your sponsors. As new arrivals your eldest male child must be fostered for one year to another clan, and it is the turn of the
Ledbetters to take him in. It's a finely tuned system, and it works. Every new family must abide by the rules. No exceptions.”

A man stood up who had been sitting directly below the window through which the two girls were eavesdropping. They could see only his bald crown, fringed with gray hair. It looked like an ostrich egg in an untidy nest. The man spoke quietly. “My niece, Tilly Horton, died this morning.” There was a shocked silence in the circular chamber. “She hadn't slept nor eaten for six months. There weren't nothing we could do for her. My sister's heart is torn asunder with grief.” Bea felt the hair rising on the back of her neck.

“There's others in Bell Hoot that are fading fast,” the man went on. “Little Erika Spivey, Jim Hooker, the Miller girl and more.” The man raised a quivering finger and pointed at Maize Ledbetter. “It was her clan that killed my niece, sure as if they'd stuck a knife in her. I move that all rights be denied the Ledbetter clan. No fostering rights. No work. No handouts. Let them starve till they learn to act civilized.”

Maize Ledbetter sneered at the speaker. It was an ugly expression on an already unpleasant face. “See what I mean? They gets a bellyache or a bad dream
and we gets the blame.” She turned to Granny Delphine. “We'll get the boy. You'll see. Ledbetters don't roll over for nobody.”

She turned without another word and descended the ladder. Bea and Phoebe flattened themselves against the bark like geckos, so they did not see which way the Ledbetter woman went.

T
he meeting of the Quorum continued inside the great oak tree. Granny Delphine related Theo's description of his surroundings as Bea had told it to her, but none of the clan leaders could match it to any place they knew of. An agreement was reached that each clan would lend someone to help in the search. The discussion moved on to other topics, but talk of pest control and the price of turnips held no interest for Bea and Phoebe.

They crept quietly down the tree trunk and sat between two of the great roots, on the opposite side to the door. Bea frowned at the thought of Maize Ledbetter's determination to foster Theo for a year. It was unimaginable that once they finally found Theo they would have to hand him over to a surly gang of unwashed burglars.

They heard voices from the far side of the tree as
the clan heads left the Quorum and separated on the pathway. They could hear Granny Delphine stopping awhile to speak to the doorman. When they judged she had gone they stood up to leave.

Granny Delphine was standing on the other side of the root, her arms folded and a patient look on her face. “Are you quite ready?” she said.

Bea nodded sheepishly and shouldered Theo's backpack. Granny Delphine turned and began to march toward the path.

“How did you know we were here?” asked Phoebe, half running to keep up.

“I used my eyes,” said Granny Delphine.

“I didn't see you look up once,” said Phoebe.

“I didn't have to,” said Granny Delphine. “When you looked through the window the light dimmed by just the amount that two children's heads would block, and the spiders and geckos on the far side of the chamber froze for a while, which meant someone was looking in their direction.”

“But it could have been anyone,” said Bea.

“Or a couple of monkeys,” added Phoebe.

“I never heard of a monkey putting a flower behind the ear of a sleeping doorman,” said Granny Delphine.

“Do you think anyone else knew we were there?” asked Bea.

“All of them, I would say,” said Granny Delphine. “Mr. Morganfield has the hearing of a bat. They say he can hear grass growing on a stormy night, and your breathing would have been like two small hurricanes to him. Fred Horton would have felt through the soles of his feet the vibration as you climbed the trunk, and could probably tell your weight to the nearest ounce. You don't get to be head of a clan without a thorough grasp of Mumbo Jumbo.”

“What
is
Mumbo Jumbo?” asked Bea.

“Your mother wouldn't want me to tell you,” said Granny Delphine.

“But it's important, isn't it? Especially…” Bea chose her words carefully. “Especially with Theo gone.”

“It has never been so important,” agreed her grandmother. She looked at Bea with her owl eyes. “You're the one who can find Theo, but then, you will know that from listening to our conversation last night.”

“Sorry,” said Bea quietly.

“Sorry? For what, girl? You have already taken the first step toward a basic grasp of Mumbo Jumbo.”

“Eavesdropping is the first step?”

Granny Delphine snorted. “Knowing what's going on is the first step. Manners are no good to you if they stop up your eyes and ears.”

“Doesn't Mumbo Jumbo just mean
nonsense
?” asked Phoebe.

“It does,” said Granny Delphine. “It was the Gummint who gave it that name, to try to weaken us with ridicule, but ridicule works only if you allow yourself to be offended. We adopted the term ourselves, and so it lost its teeth.” She stopped suddenly in the middle of the path. “What do you know?” she said.

Bea looked about her, wondering what had surprised her grandmother. “What?” she said eventually.

“That was a question,” said Granny Delphine. “What do you know?”

“I know lots of things,” said Bea uncertainly.

“I'm not asking the square root of sixty-four or the capital of Belgium,” said Granny Delphine. “What do you know right now? What are your senses telling you?”

Bea closed her eyes. “We're in a forest,” she said. “I can hear the leaves rustling, so there's a breeze. There are lots of bees….” She felt a little foolish mentioning things that seemed so obvious.

“Trees, breeze and bees,” said Granny Delphine. “It's a start, but you've got a long way to go, child.” She began walking again. “There are twenty-two different flowers growing a stone's throw from here. I'm not familiar with the Bell Hoot varieties, but there are five types of orchid, a kind of honeysuckle, something that might grow to resemble a melon, and two plants that eat insects, among others. One of those is trying to swallow a click beetle. I know that the doorman at the Quorum uses coconut butter on his hair and will be buying a new razor on Friday. That Ledbetter woman will send one of her clan to spy on the two of you wherever you go. It would be twenty-five past six if people used clocks here. It rained for three hours the night before we arrived in Bell Hoot.” She turned and looked at Bea through her owl spectacles. “And you climbed a birch tree to raid a beehive this morning. Why you and not Phoebe? I would have thought that was more her department.”

Bea's jaw dropped. It had always seemed that Granny Delphine had eyes in the back of her head, but how could she possibly know all these things?

“You're wondering how I could possibly know all these things,” said her grandmother. “It's really very
simple, but simple is not the same as easy. The meerkat in your backpack knows these things, because he pays attention to what his senses are telling him. All animals do, except for us. By the time we are thirteen we think we know what the world is about, so we stop paying attention.”

“I think I can see how you would know about the flowers,” said Bea, “but what about the rest?”

“The flowers announce themselves with perfume and color, of course. The sound of the click beetle is muffled, like he's being squeezed, and the doorman's hair smells of coconut. These are the easy parts.”

“How do you know he'll buy a razor on Friday?” asked Bea.

“There was a small square of tissue stuck to the corner of his jaw, where he had nicked himself with a blunt razor. At the Quorum meeting it was agreed to pay him his wages on Friday. When I told him this he seemed relieved, and stroked his stubble with his fingers. I'm not certain he'll buy a razor with his pay, but I'd be happy to take a bet.”

“What about the Ledbetter woman?”

“Maize Ledbetter passed this way after leaving the Quorum. She pushed through those bushes—see how
that twig is broken, and the footprint beneath it?—but it was less than five minutes ago. I know this because she disturbed the bird who nests in that bush. You can see her circling overhead, and she hasn't returned to her nest yet.”

“But Maize left the Quorum at least half an hour ago,” said Phoebe.

“Precisely. That means she stayed nearby for some time after leaving. Since she already knew the kind of business the meeting would move on to, she must have stayed to eavesdrop on you two instead, but you didn't say anything that would be useful to her.”

“How do you know we didn't?”

“Because you don't know where Theo is, and that's the information she wants. She probably suspects we've hidden him deliberately, so she'll send one of her grandchildren to shadow you. Once you know how to pay attention to the present, the future begins to come into sharper focus.”

Bea shivered. “So even Maize Ledbetter knew we were there all along?”

Granny Delphine gripped Bea's elbow and stopped again in the path. “Maize Ledbetter is the oldest Pearlseed in Bell Hoot. It's said she knows the exact moment an apple will fall from the tree before it has started to
grow.” Her voice dropped to the softest whisper. “Maize was a student of Arkadi himself. He taught her everything she knows, and it was he who banished her to Bell Hoot.”

“Who is Arkadi?” whispered Bea.

“He was the founder of Mumbo Jumbo,” said Granny Delphine.

Bea wondered if Granny Delphine already knew they had hidden an ice-cream mechanic named Arkadi in the hut near Cambio Falls. She tried to keep her voice casual. “Is he still alive?” she asked.

Granny Delphine raised her eyebrows. “He was Maize Ledbetter's teacher when she was just a child. Maize herself is almost a hundred years old now.”

Bea frowned. It seemed a strange sort of answer. “Doesn't anyone know for sure?” she said.

“He disappeared many years ago,” said her grandmother. “Not even the Pearlseeds know what became of him, but I suspect he had a good reason for that.”

“What is a Pearlseed?” asked Bea.

“You know how a pearl is formed, I suppose?” said Granny Delphine.

“A bit of grit gets into an oyster, and the pearl forms around it.”

“Precisely so. The grit irritates the oyster, and in
protecting itself the oyster creates a thing of beauty.”

“So a Pearlseed is an irritant.”

“In a sense, yes. Sometimes it's necessary for people to be an irritant to society so that something more valuable might be born.”

“Are you a Pearlseed?” asked Bea, but Granny Delphine put her finger to her lips and dropped her voice again.

“If you had learned anything from my introduction to Mumbo Jumbo you would know that your dinner is ready and your mother is almost within earshot,” she said. “We will speak more about this later.”

“But—,” said Bea.

“No buts,” said her grandmother firmly. She stopped at the edge of the path and pointed to a large white flower shaped like an inverted bell. “Three hours' rain,” she said.

“How can you tell?” said Phoebe.

Granny Delphine flicked the flower, which sprinkled the surrounding leaves with a shower of water. “Any more than three hours and it would have tipped over and emptied itself out. Any less and it would not have been full.”

“Maybe it did tip over, but it rained for six hours,” said Bea.

“That's very good,” said Granny Delphine. Bea felt herself flush with her grandmother's rare compliment. “But the ground would have been softer when we arrived,” added Granny Delphine. “You'll find it was three.”

As they approached the Millers' house they were met by an unexpected sight. The clearing was once again surrounded by people, but this time they were not trying to clamber up to the windows. Instead they formed a straggling line that stretched right around the house and disappeared among the trees. At the head of the line a man was sitting on a wooden stool. He was stripped to the waist, and Ma was perched on a bench behind him, frowning with concentration as she worked. Her buzzing needle flew back and forth with astonishing speed, tattooing across the man's back a lush forest that grew and curled and blossomed with color even as they watched. On the bench beside Ma sat Clockwork Gabby, whom Ma evidently had remembered to wind up. Gabby's eyes were fixed on the tattoo, and she handed Ma inks, tissues and needles with the speed and precision of a robot on an assembly line.

The people at the head of the line were bunched up around them, transfixed by the spreading riot of color,
while those farther back craned just to catch a glimpse, but Ma seemed unaware of their presence. Bea could see that her mother was lost in the world that she was creating, and so contented did she look that Bea tiptoed around behind her for fear of bringing her back to reality. There were thick vines growing up the man's back and curling around his shoulders. Oranges and grapes, plumegranates and other less familiar fruit dangled from the vines. Tiny animals and glittering dragonflies sprang from the tip of the needle. It was certainly mesmerizing to watch, and when the tattoo was finally completed Bea had no idea how much time had passed.

“That will hurt for a few days and itch for a few more,” said Ma as she soaped her hands in a basin. She fitted a new tip to the needle. “Wash with warm water, and don't take a bath till the itching stops. Next!”

Bea felt a light touch on her arm. It was Mrs. Miller, silent for once. She smiled and put her finger to her lips. Bea felt suddenly tired as she followed her up the ladder to the verandah. Phoebe was already there, perched on the edge of a chair and working her way through a bowl of thick stew. Willow was slumped in the other chair, staring ahead with dull eyes. As Bea sat down
she remembered with a chill the words of the bald man at the Quorum as he listed the people who had been afflicted by the Ledbetter clan—
Little Erika Spivey. Jim Hooker. The Miller girl…
It was no wonder the Millers refused to mention the Ledbetters in front of their daughter.

She ate in silence the dinner that Mrs. Miller put before her, while Ma worked on tirelessly in the clearing below. The people in line showed no sign of giving up, waiting patiently for the opportunity to have themselves decorated with pictures of such surpassing beauty, and Mrs. Miller set up a circle of lamps around them as the light faded. Willow rose from her chair and drifted like a ghost into her room, and shortly afterward the verandah began to shake as Pa climbed the ladder. “Still up, eh, girls?” he said. He forced a smile onto his face, and Bea could see at once that he had heard nothing hopeful in his search. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of beer, which he uncapped with his teeth.

“Do you think Ma will work all night?” asked Bea.

Pa nodded. “There's a lot going on in her head right now,” he said, “and it has to come out somehow.” He took a long draft of beer and wiped the back of his
mouth with a sigh. “It's been a long time,” he said.

Bea sank back into the soft cushions of the cane chair. She thought about going to bed, but before she could summon the energy to get up she felt herself slipping away into sleep. The buzzing of the tattoo machine wound through her dreams like an echo of childhood, while above her in the corner bedroom Willow Miller sat propped up by pillows, twisting a corner of her nightgown between her fingers and waiting for the dawn.