The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (26 page)

Garikayi grabbed a burning branch from the fire and stepped between her and Arm, who still watched from the shadows. "Leave my senior wife alone!" he roared. "You!" he ordered the Spirit Medium. "Cast out those monsters!" The Spirit Medium grasped his
ndoro
and began to chant a spell. The few men who remained reached down for stones.

Borrowdale wasn't full of apartments like the area outside Resthaven, nor was it bustling like Mbare Musika. It wasn't open country like Dead Man's Vlei, although the streets were wide and the air fresh. Each house had a high wall, over which peeped jacarandas, wisteria and Kenya coffee trees, which towered over the other plants. Everything seemed a little run-down. A dog barked from behind an iron gate. Another answered.

They were
real
dogs, not automatic Dobermans. Suddenly, Tendai became aware of a whole range of noises from near and far. A kitten mewed outside someone's door. A rooster crowed. A horse blew noisily through its nostrils. A dog snuffled along a gate as they passed.

People in Mazoe had pets, of course, but it was far more fashionable to own robots. Robots didn't have fleas or dig up flower beds, except when their circuits were old. Most important, they didn't present their owners with a litter of new robots every six months.

"It's so alive," Tendai whispered. The dawn breeze brought him hints of the world hidden behind the walls: flowers, dogs, cut grass.
  
It
 
was
 
different
 
from
 
the
 
air
 
of Resthaven. Resthaven smelled of the remote past, but Borrowdale was close to the world Tendai knew. It was, almost, home.

"What was the address of the Mellower's mother?" he asked. He had to shake Rita to get her attention.

"Twenty-five Horsepool Lane," she muttered.

"And her name?"

"I don't know. Don't bother me." Which was like Rita, of course. She had a remarkable memory for numbers but forgot names as soon as she heard them.

Tendai was afraid they would have to wait until the Borrowdale people woke up when he saw a newspaper robot purring down the street. It paused at intervals and shot papers over the walls.

"Excuse me, do you know where Horsepool Lane is?" Tendai asked.

"Have-you-missed-a-newspaper?" it said.

"No, I —"

"I-cannot-help-you." The robot pivoted around him and rolled down the street. Tendai followed it. Trashman came behind with Rita draped over one shoulder and Kuda over the other. The man didn't seem to mind the extra weight.
Whir,
pause,
kachung,
went the robot as it delivered another paper.
Whir,
pause,
kachung.

"Yes, we have missed a paper!" shouted Tendai. The machine turned abruptly and came back to him. "We live at Twenty-five Horsepool Lane, and our paper hasn't come. The whole system's a disgrace!" he added.

The robot riffled through the papers stored inside its tummy. "That-is-not-true. I-have-not-gotten-to-Horsepool-Lane-yet."

"Very good. Carry on." Tendai followed as the machine continued its rounds. It was tiring to stop and start — whir, pause,
kachung
— but at last they came to a short street with frangipani trees on either side. At the end was Twenty-five Horsepool Lane. THE PADDOCK. '

By now the air was a deep, damp blue. Roosters crowed from a dozen places. A hoopoe called from a Kenya coffee tree and was answered by another. All at once, hundreds of birds woke up and began to chirrup loudly. Tendai rang the bell of number twenty-five. After a few moments, a robot voice called out, "Who-is-there?"

"Friends of the Mellower," called Tendai.

He heard the robot go down steps and along a walk. It creaked badly. It undid the bolts of the gate but left the chain on. "Do-you-have-an-appointment?"

"Yes!" said Tendai before it could close the opening.

"Very-well. Please-wait-inside." It let them in and creaked back to the house. Once, it caught a wheel in a pothole and almost tumbled over. Tendai looked around at their new surroundings.

He saw a dry fountain with a headless mermaid perched on a pillar. A long porch was almost pulled down by an ancient wisteria vine. Weeds grew out of the tennis court; the tile roof of the house was patched with sheets of tin. And yet it once had been a great estate. It was still impressive.

"You miserable rust bucket!" shrieked a voice from the house. "How dare you wake me at this hour! Get out before I take a can opener to you!"

"Visitors-madam. They-have-an-appointment," came the mournful voice of the robot.

"Burglars, more likely. Where's my Nirvana gun? Where's the remote control for the Doberman cage?"

Tendai watched anxiously, but after a few moments the front door opened and a small woman came out. She was dressed in a threadbare bathrobe and wore fuzzy bunny slippers on her feet. She carried a large Nirvana gun. "Don't move an inch till I look at you," she commanded.

"We're children — and he's just like one," said Tendai, pointing at Trashman. "Our father is General Matsika. We were kidnapped."

At the mention of General Matsika, the woman lowered the gun. "Why, so you are," she murmured.

"Please. We're awfully tired, and my sister is sick. Couldn't we come in?"

"Of course. Poor little puppies, you must have had a terrible time — but who's that tramp with you?" She raised the gun again.

"He's not really a tramp," began Tendai.

Kuda woke up and stared owlishly at the woman. "He's my friend," he announced.

"I know a hobo when I see one! You children may come inside, but he has to stay in the garden. I wouldn't feel safe." Tendai was afraid they would have trouble with Trashman, but he didn't seem at all surprised to be rejected. He wandered over to a pile of grass clippings and lay down.

The woman led them to the kitchen. Rita staggered into a chair and slumped over the table. "She certainly looks sick," observed the woman. "Sit up, miss. Let me have a look at you." Rita moaned and obeyed.

Tendai was alarmed to see small bumps on her skin.

"My, my, my. You're hot as a mug of tea." The woman brought a lamp close to Rita's face. "Well, I never! I haven't seen this in years. She's got chicken pox."

"What?"
Tendai cried.

"Everyone caught it when I was a girl. Oh, it's nothing serious. Toughens you up, I'd say. Of course," she paused, and went on more softly, "you'll have to go into quarantine."

"We can't," gasped Tendai.

"Fiddle-dee-dee. Of course you can. You
have
to. Doctors don't let diseases gallivant all over the city. I'll make up cots in the den. If she's sick, the rest of you will certainly come down with it."

Tendai's heart sank. "How long is a quarantine?"

"Three or four weeks. Depends on when the scabs drop off. Don't worry, I'll call your parents and put their minds at rest. You wouldn't want to make
them
sick. Much worse for adults. Land them in the hospital, I should say." Tendai was horribly disappointed, but he helped the woman make cocoa and toast. The cocoa was watery and the toast covered by only a thin layer of margarine, but he and Kuda were
too hungry to care. Rita was unable to eat.

Afterward, he helped the woman make up cots. He wished he knew her name, but the moment had passed to ask. He realized he didn't even know the Mellower's name. The man had cared for them as long as he could remember. After Mother and Father, he was the most important person in their lives, and yet no one ever used his real name. Tendai felt vaguely guilty about this.

When the cots were made up — they were sturdy wooden ones with metal hinges and canvas coverings — Rita was allowed to lie down. Tendai and Kuda were expected to take baths. "You're whiffy. Distinctly whiffy," announced the woman. She trickled two inches of lukewarm water into an old claw-footed bathtub and handed them a slab of laundry soap. "Do the necessary," she instructed Tendai. "I've put some of Anthony's old clothes on the hamper. And drop those — whatever they are — into the laundry basket."

"They're bark cloth from Resthaven," said Tendai.

"You went to
Resthaven?
That makes them museum pieces. Quite valuable, I should say."

Tendai didn't exactly like the way she said
valuable.
 
I've become too suspicious, he
told himself. After all, she is the Mellower's mother. No one could be kinder than he is. But he kept the
ndoro
and his bag of chicken droppings — probably what the woman found "whiffy" — secret. He didn't know why he kept the bag, except that it was made from a scrap of bark cloth and had come from Myanda.

He scrubbed Kuda with a bath brush and washed his hair as well.

"Who's Anthony?" asked the little boy.

"The Mellower, I think."

"No, it isn't; The Mellower doesn't have a name," Kuda said with his usual bulldog tenacity. Tendai didn't bother to argue. He dressed him in a long T-shirt.

The cots were hard and dusty, but Tendai was so exhausted he barely noticed. His head ached. He fell into a confused dream in which monsters pursued him through a dark forest. One had ears like radar disks and another stared at him with the large eyes of a praying mantis. A third had skinny black arms that stretched longer and longer until he awoke, sweating and shivering.

Great, Tendai thought as he stared at the unfamiliar clutter of the den.
Now I'm sick, too.

Twenty-six

"Time to go," cried Ear. The detectives ran as fast as they could. They slipped and slid on rocks and banged into trees. Only fear kept them ahead of the villagers. "Turn here!" gasped Ear as they reached the break in the path. A rock thudded past him to smack into a tree.

"That came from a sling,' panted Eye. "Ow!" A stone hit him in the back. Darkness and the speed they were traveling made most of the stones miss their target, but not all. One struck Arm on the shoulder, sending such a shock of pain that he almost dropped Sekai. She began to wail rhythmically, in time to his pounding feet.

"Open the gate!" Arm shouted. "I'll try to hold them off!" Ear and Eye yanked on the handle, but the gate was so heavy, it moved with excruciating slowness. Stones zinged past their heads.

"Owooo!" wailed Arm, crooking his legs and advancing on the villagers like a giant spider. "Aaaahhhh," he hissed, weaving back and forth. He covered Sekai as best he could with his arms. The villagers halted and crowded back. "Woowoowoowoooo!" shrieked Arm, dancing up and down.

The villagers tripped one another in their eagerness to hide behind trees.
I’m going to get you!"
yelled Arm.
"And you! And you! And you!"

"Come on! The gate's open!" called Ear. Arm gave a heart-stopping scream as he turned and fled out of Resthaven. He ran straight into a group of policemen, who were watching from outside. They collared him and marched him over to Ear and Eye, who were already standing by a squad car.

Behind, the great gate of Resthaven slammed closed. They could hear boulders being rolled against it. The sound boomed even through the thick wall.

"First time I've seen anyone thrown out of Resthaven," said a policeman. "It's too bad, my friends," he told the detectives. "A lot of people would like to live there, but they're as fussy as cats." Arm realized he didn't know they entered illegally.

"A baby!" cried the police captain as Sekai began to cry again, "Oh! It's so tiny. Is it yours?"

"Why — yes, she is," replied Arm.

"Poor thing, she's hungry," crooned the captain. "Is your wife . . . ?" The woman nodded at the gate.

"I'm afraid so," Arm said.

"That's so cruel. Here, Officer Moyo." The captain tossed him some keys. "Get the formula from the medical kit."

Arm was delighted to find that the police carried baby bottles, in case they found an abandoned child. Officer Moyo quickly warmed the food, and soon Sekai was working busily on the first meal of her life. Arm felt a strange sensation as he held her.