Authors: Kate Thompson
‘I’ll take you,’ said Sandy, glaring defiantly at her mother.
‘You know that isn’t possible, Sandy,’ said Maggie, sternly. ‘Oggy will take him.’
6
OGGY WAS KEEN
to go straight away, but I found I wasn’t ready, yet. There was a bone-deep tiredness in my limbs, and I didn’t feel like making a snowplough of myself down along the white glen. Instead I went out with Tina to meet what she referred to as ‘her babies’.
The goat kid that had nearly strangled me with my scarf was out in the yard with his twin sister. They were bursting with life and stood up against Tina like dogs, begging to be taken for a walk. Tina promised to take them later, but they didn’t back off, and tried to follow us in through the door of Iggy’s shed.
Tina succeeded in keeping them out, but we could hear them complaining loudly in the courtyard for several minutes afterwards.
When my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light inside, I saw the piglets. They were brand new; hot-pink and wriggly as worms against their mother’s long belly.
‘Iggy, this is Christie,’ said Tina.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Iggy, in long-suffering tones. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it.’
‘Oh,’ I said, a little taken aback. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it, too.’
‘You know I was the first, then,’ said Iggy.
‘Oh. Well . . .’
‘The first talking animal to be born at Fourth World,’ said Tina.
‘The first ever,’ said Iggy, pompously. ‘And now I’m the first again. As long as these little milkbags make it.’
‘Make what?’
‘I’m the first to have my own babies.’
‘Mother hopes they’ll talk as well,’ said Tina.
‘Oh, they’ll talk,’ said Iggy. ‘I’m sure of it.’
She sighed hugely and dropped her head on to the clean, yellow straw. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ she went on. ‘This business really takes it out of you.’
We left her to rest and went to visit the pups. Their mother, Sparky, growled ferociously at me until Tina managed to persuade her that I was OK. After that she was quite content, and didn’t seem to mind what we did with her pups.
They were as round and podgy as Tina had said, with squished-up faces and rolls of spare skin all over the place. They weren’t really walking, yet, but when we sat down beside them, one of them wriggled her way over to me and tried to wrestle with my fingers.
I picked her up and held her on a level with my eyes. She wagged her stumpy tail so hard that her whole body wagged with it, and her myopic brown eyes were full of smiles.
‘’Hello,’ I said.
‘’Lo,’ said the pup.
‘She said “hello”!’ I cried.
‘No she didn’t,’ said Tina. ‘She just squeaked.’
‘She didn’t,’ I said. ‘Say it again, pup! Say “hello, Christie”.’
The pup made a mewling sound, more like a cat than a dog.
‘Hello, Christie,’ I said again. And this time there was no mistaking her response.
‘’Lo Ki.’
‘Loki!’ I laughed, and so did Tina. ‘Loki,’ I said. ‘Loki, Loki, Loki. That’s what I’m going to call you.’
We spent a few fruitless minutes trying to get her to repeat it, but her attention had already run out and she was getting dozy. I snuggled her into my lap and stroked her tiny ears as she drifted off, visiting the great unknown she had so recently come from. And, in respect of that awesome place, Tina and I sat quietly and listened to the drip, drip, drip of snow-melt falling from the gutters.
7
LOKI WOKE UP
and mewled again, and I put her back with her brothers and sisters. Her nose was a bit more pointed than the others’ were, and she had more brown around her eyes. I was sure I’d remember her.
‘What do you know about the lab?’ I asked Tina.
She shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘You haven’t seen it?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘No. Sandy says it’s out of bounds. But I want to.’
‘Ask Mother. She might show you.’
I was suddenly irritated. ‘Her name is Maggie,’ I said. ‘Not Mother.’
Tina let it go. ‘Why do you want to see it, anyway?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. Science was the only subject I ever liked in school. I used to think I’d like to be a scientist.’
‘I never wanted to be anything,’ said Tina. ‘Just me.’
The pups were squabbling for position at their mother’s milk bar. I made sure Loki got a good position in the fray.
‘How come the pups are going to be able to speak when their mother can’t?’ I said.
Tina stroked the bitch’s blackhead. ‘I suppose if you start teaching them when they’re young enough . . .’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘Loads of people talk to animals. I’ve got an aunt down the country who has eighteen cats. She’s nuts about them. Talks to them all the time, especially the kittens. “Woodgy, woodgy, woodgy, who’s my little popsy, then? Does ’oo want milkies?” They never say a thing except miaow. Not a single word.’
‘What, then?’ said Tina.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It has to be something to do with the lab. Maybe there’s some chemical she gives them or something?’
‘I don’t think she gives them any chemicals,’ said Tina. ‘She’s put me in charge of all the feeding and there isn’t anything in the food.’
‘How do you know? Maybe it’s already in it?’
Tina shook her head. ‘Anyway, all the babies are feeding from their mothers, so they couldn’t be getting it, could they?’
‘Maybe she’s giving them drops, or injections or something. When you’re not looking.’
Loki unlatched herself from her mother and began to squirm away. Not towards Tina, or the door, or anything else. Towards me. I felt absurdly flattered, and picked her up again.
‘Loki?’ I said. ‘Loki?’
I hugged her against my neck and she licked me with a tiny, wet tongue.
‘I bet it’s something like that,’ I said. ‘It has to be. Do you think Maggie would let me see where the lab is?’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’ Tina picked up another of the pups. ‘Say hello,’ she pleaded. ‘Hello.’
But the pup just wuffled breathlessly, and tried to bite her fingers.
8
THERE WERE OTHER
animals to see, but now that I was on track of a mystery I couldn’t let it go. I went back to the house and, finding it empty, searched it from top to bottom. But there was no lab, no locked door, no clues.
I wandered outside again and followed the slushy path to the hothouses. Danny was there, singing and digging. Oggy and Itchy were lounging in the warmth, watching.
‘Hi, Danny.’
‘Hi, Kissy-face.’
Still Danny, but definitely different. As I watched him work, I wondered whether Maurice had been mistaken all along, keeping him at home and confined. Maybe all Danny had ever needed was something he could do; some purpose to his life; some outlet for his phenomenal energy. He was focused now in a way that I had never seen before, and I was reminded of the words that he had spoken to me that day in Inverness.
‘Mother’s going to show me what I am.’
‘Want to dig?’ he said now.
‘No thanks, Danny. I’m looking for Maggie.’
‘She’s in the lavatory,’ he said.
‘Laboratory,’ said Itchy.
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
The dogs got shifty and wouldn’t look at me.
‘Three old ladies locked in the laboratory,’ sang Danny.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Be like that. Where’s Sandy?’
‘Dam,’ said Itchy.
‘No need to swear,’ I said.
‘No, no,’ said Oggy. ‘She’s at the dam. I’ll take you there.’
As we walked up the hillside, some of Fourth World’s wilder residents came out of the woods and the heather to meet us. A squirrel that I thought I recognised, and a pair of rabbits that sat on their hind legs and seemed to be whispering together. They answered me when I called softly to them, but they kept their distance and didn’t join us.
The dam looked more like a small lake to me, but Sandy assured me it had been man-made; built to collect the water from two strong streams that ran down the hillsides. She was probing beneath the dark water with a long pole as she spoke.
‘Ice in the sluicegate.’
She lifted the pole and plunged it down against the unseen blockage. I suppose it must have been hot work, because her jacket and sweatshirt were slung across a nearby bush, and she was down to her t-shirt. The muscles on her thin arms were so prominent and clearly
defined
that it was like looking at an anatomical drawing.
I dragged my gaze away from them.
‘Why do you need to clear it?’ I asked.
‘No wind,’ she said. ‘And not much sun.’
‘Eh?’
‘It’s where we get our power from, brain-box.’ She slammed down on the pole with a strength that surprised me. ‘We have a water-driven generator.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
The two rabbits had followed behind us and suddenly Oggy woofed and tore off after them. I thought he was serious and that they were in trouble, but a few moments later I realised it was a game; they were all racing in circles in the slushy heather, having a ball.
Sandy gave another mighty heave on the pole. There was a slurp and a gurgle from somewhere below, and then the sound of water running freely through a large pipe.
‘Hooray!’ said Sandy.
She pulled out the pole and laid it down under the cover of the bushes, then pulled on her sweater and jacket. Her mood had clearly improved.
‘We have wind turbines as well, over there.’
I hadn’t noticed them on the way up, but they were clearly visible now, turning very slowly on the brow of one of the hills.
‘And solar panels on the house and sheds. See?’
The whole of Fourth World was spread out below us; the house and buildings, the orchards and hothouses and beyond, another row of buildings that I hadn’t seen before, standing among a range of neatly fenced fields. I asked Sandy what they were, and was disappointed by her reply.
‘Farm buildings. Cow-shed, chicken house, granary, hay-barn.’
‘Where’s the lab, then?’ I asked, trying to sound innocent.
‘The lab,’ said Sandy, ‘is no one’s business except Mother’s.’
‘Have you been in it?’
‘No. I’ve never set foot in it, not since the day I was born.’
‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why does it have to be so secret?’
‘If you don’t know the answer to that,’ said Sandy, snidely, ‘you’re a bigger fool than you look.’
On the way down the hillside Sandy stopped in a sheltered hollow where several tall ash trees had been spared by the wind.
‘Can you climb trees?’ she said.
‘Yes. Of course,’ I said. I wasn’t sure that it was true. I hadn’t climbed a tree since I was about nine.
Sandy pointed to the tallest one. ‘Bet I could get to the top before you.’
I didn’t accept the challenge. My energy hadn’t returned yet, and besides, I didn’t feel that I had anything to prove.
‘I’m sure you could,’ I said, and walked on down towards the house.
9
THAT EVENING WE
had a dinner of eggs in cheese sauce with potatoes and broccoli. I watched Maggie as she served it up, wondering where she got her energy from, and what it was about her that made me feel so self-conscious when she was around. I knew that she liked me; she always had a kind word or a smile. And I found as I watched her that I couldn’t believe she was doing anything wrong here in Fourth World. Nothing bad, at least.
Danny ate mountains of food, ravenous after all his digging. He had entirely finished one of the glasshouses and had made good inroads on a second.
‘You can dig in the outside garden as soon as the snow clears,’ Maggie told him. ‘Get it ready for planting the potatoes.’
‘Potatoes,’ said Danny, his mouth full of them. ‘Growing potatoes.’
For a while we all concentrated on our plates. I don’t know what was in anyone else’s mind, but I was still thinking about Maggie and her mysteries. She glanced across at me and winked. I looked away, trying to hide the blush that I knew was rising to my cheeks. As I did so,
I
realised that one of the things I liked about her was that she didn’t treat us like children. Never had. I remembered the book she had brought for me.
Catastrophe Theory
. That wasn’t a kids’ book. It was a respectful present to an equal.
That was what decided me.
‘Can I see the lab, Maggie?’
Just for a split second, I thought I saw an expression of fear in her eyes. Then it was gone, and the light with it, as though she had turned herself off inside.
‘The lab is out of bounds,’ she said.
‘But I wouldn’t touch anything. I just want to see.’
‘End of conversation,’ said Maggie.
I put down my knife and fork, fuming, unable to believe what I had been telling myself just a few minutes before. That intimate manner was just a trick. Her own way of trying to win us over, that was all.
For a few minutes I succeeded in pulling the mood of the table down to the level of my sulk. Then Tina broke free.
‘One of the pups spoke to Christie today,’ she said.
‘Really?’ said Maggie. ‘What did it say?’
Tina looked at me but I didn’t answer. ‘Loki,’ she said. ‘We think. Christie is going to call her Loki.’
‘Good name,’ said Maggie, trying to engage me. But I looked away, and the conversation went on without me. Soon afterwards Sandy cleared away my unfinished meal, and Maggie
produced
a big jug of cream and a bowl of raspberries.
‘Frozen,’ she said. ‘But still good.’
After the hungry weeks on the road, those raspberries were the most tempting thing I had ever seen. But I was still under protest.
‘No thanks,’ I said, and left the table.
I went outside into the yard and Oggy slipped out behind me. The dripping of the thaw had stopped, and everything was freezing hard again. Above us the stars were bright and cold.
I had left the house with the intention of going to the phone box in the village, but now that I was out there it seemed too dark, too cold, too far.
Oggy stayed quiet, as though the world felt too big for him, too, and after a while we went back inside.
But I didn’t rejoin the others, even though their cheerful chat coming from the kitchen was exactly the warmth I needed just then. Instead I made my way upstairs and got into bed.