For Rosa, Ru and Ian, who have lived
every second of this book’s journey.
Prologue
This could have happened. Or it could be happening now, somewhere, in a parallel universe.
Imagine yourself circling over a city.
A new golden, sharp-cut city, rising boldly towards the sky from its grubby roots. It teems with people and lights and rats and life and death.
It swarms, it breathes. It grows and shrinks.
But not all of the city is new.
To one side, an older shabbier cluster of houses teeters on the edge of the excitement.
Focus on one slender house. A jade dragon coils around the candlestick, a red-shaded lamp glows in the drawing room, but a bright light shines in the cellar.
Look again. Swing around until you’re over the yard and you can see inside.
It’s not all dark; there are lanterns inside the kitchen.
Train your spyglass in through the tiny window panes. There you’ll find me.
ATHAN WILDE
Chapter 1
BANG!
The pomegranate becomes a red starburst and juice flows down the wall, crawling over the lumps in the plaster before pooling on the flagstones at my feet.
“Ha!” says Mr Chen at my side. “Ha!” And he dances a little jig.
“That,” I say, picking up a small disc from the floor and licking the juice from my fingers, “was magic, total magic! Best one ever.”
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
The clock on the church at the end of the row begins to strike midnight, the bell tolls, shaking through the walls of the old house.
Getting his breath back, and suddenly serious, Mr Chen leans forward and inspects the engine that fired the disc into the heart of the pomegranate. “Not magic, Athan boy, not magic. Not hocus-pocus or some god-fearing fairy dust. It was man that did it. We did it.” He taps his sleek white hair. “With our clever heads.”
“Yours more than mine,” I say, taking a cloth and mopping the juice from the stones. “You’re a genius, Mr Chen.”
Moving silently alongside me Mr Chen closes his soft hand gently around mine. “No, Athan boy, I’m not, and I couldn’t do it without you. Without your ideas. Your skill. You’re as good as I am, in your way.” He squeezes my arm. “Look how far we’ve come this past half a year.” He swings around, touching on the mechanisms we’ve built. The small ones and the large ones, the apple picker and the rat trap, the parasol and the carrot slicer, the lamps, the pumps and finally the engine itself. “Look at it all and have more faith in yourself.”
He coughs delicately into his handkerchief. “Now, before I send you home, I want to try something else. We can’t do this tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday, and you know how your mother and the God-fearers feel about Sunday. But tonight is still Saturday. Go and get the electric box down. It’s heavy and I can’t do it on my own.”
“Really?” I say, blinking away tiredness and feeling suddenly awake. “Are we going to try out the bird?”
“Not yet.” Mr Chen smiles, his eyes disappearing into the creases of his face. “We’ll try her another day. Early one morning, when the days begin to lengthen.”
“Oh.” I wipe the juice from my fingers on to my breeches and duck into the little passage that opens from the kitchen into the store. I’m trying to hide my disappointment. I know it’s the middle of the night but I had hoped.
I find a gap in the heavy velvet curtain and push through it to the heady smells on the other side.
Sulphur and ginger.
Oranges and vinegar.
Cinnamon and tar.
I love it in here. In another house it would be an ordinary larder, but nothing about Mr Chen is ordinary. Yes, there are nutmegs and cloves, pears and hams, but between the familiar packages there are strange brightly coloured bottles and boxes. Some marked with a skull and crossbones, others labelled with careful recipes.
While I’m pulling out a stool to stand on, he potters in behind me, humming and shuffling bottles around the shelves. Cobwebs catch in my hair as I climb but I reach out to the electric box sitting on the top shelf. It lurks blackly between a clear jar of vitriol and a box of raisins. It’s heavier than it looks and I have to slide it down my chin and chest to keep it steady and even then I can feel the liquid slopping inside.
A large spider walks from the box on to my arm and then off my elbow to the next shelf down. I daren’t brush it off; the box is too heavy.
“Here,” I say, passing the box to Mr Chen, watching his old fingers stretch downwards with the weight.
“Excellent, excellent,” he says, staggering from the store into the kitchen and thumping the box down on the table and lifting up the lid.
A sharp smell sneaks out and catches my throat, but the old man doesn’t seem to notice as he adds a clear liquid from a stoppered bottle. “We’re nearly ready to launch the bird, Athan, but where she is, we need a gale, and that gale must be from the north.” He stares into space. “Or perhaps we can come up with another way to make her move fast enough. That can be your task, Athan.” He beams at me. “Invent a launching machine for our bird.”
“Wheels? A horse?” I suggest, taking the bottle from him. “Or we could lug her up to Lansdown, point her downhill, get her off the ground like a kite. If we could run fast enough, you know, trailing her behind.”
Mr Chen laughs. “Perhaps.” He clears his throat. “Ideas worth consideration, my boy, but they depend on who or what is watching.” He fixes his gaze on mine. “We must take care of our bird. You have to understand that our flying machine could change the lives of thousands of people. Not all for the good.” He fiddles with the plates of metal inside the electric box.
“How do you mean? Surely flying would always be a good thing?”
“How,” he says, rearranging the insides of the electric box with a long pair of tweezers, “would you feel if your enemy came from the skies?”
“Like a seagull when it pinches your dinner?”
“Yes,” he laughs. “Like a seagull dropping its bombs, but with bombs made of tar and brimstone – setting fire to the rooftops. How would that be?”
“But we can keep our bird for good people, so that it could do good.”
“Exactly. And that’s why we must be careful who knows about it.”
I listen to the strange tune Mr Chen hums and I try to retain what he’s doing. Ever since he arrived like a kingfisher on a wet day last winter, with his boxes and bottles, colour and noise and laughter, I’ve been learning from him. No one’s ever managed to teach me anything before, but Mr Chen’s different. It’s as if he knows everything – the why of everything, the truth. He annoyed Grandma straight away by knowing more than she did, explaining things, demonstrating things, laughing at her superstitions.
She was furious. Crossed her arms and said he was a devil.
But the devil chose me. I climbed down from the rooftops right in front of him and he looked in my eyes and said, “You’ll do. You’re just what I need.”
From then on, he’s given me work and paid me well.
“Excellent,” mutters Mr Chen, and claps his hands lightly together. “Now, Athan boy – let us try again.”
“Can we try not to break anything of Ma’s this time?”
He shakes his head, remembering Ma’s fury last Tuesday when we destroyed the henhouse. I thought she was going to hit him, and she’s twice his size. “She has a fine tongue on her,” he laughs. “But nothing will go wrong this time, and if it does, we’ll give her some bananas,” he says. “Now, Athan, get me the big engine.”
I rummage in a cupboard and drag out a cluster of brass tubes set into a str
ucture of wheels. It’s heavy, but not as heavy as it looks, as it’s mostly hollow. I set it on the table and unscrew the glass jar that acts as a tank, filling it only a little from a tarred barrel of clear liquid before screwing it back on top.
“Bananas,” says Mr Chen, bending a piece of wire, “are very special, just as science is special.” He slots the wire carefully into the tubes. “Today, science is also loud. Here, stick these in your ears.”
He hands me two scraps of wadding and we crouch behind the table.
And then he touches the wires together.
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
The engine keeps beating, banging and thudding and shaking with a mechanical pulse that makes my eyeballs hurt. Faster and faster and more and more evenly, it beats and purrs and then the explosions become so close, so small and regular that it turns into a hum.
“The fan!” He reaches for an elegant-shaped wooden blade and attempts to jam the stalk of it into a hole in the engine.
But the fan catches, rips itself from his hand and flies across the room, passing us and whirring out of the open window. It bounces once on the cobbles and disappears. I listen for the impact, pulling the wadding from my ears.
Crash!
Glass.
Our window.
Mr Chen peers short-sightedly through the sash at our shop opposite. Three panes on the large window on the front have shattered. Two dresses on mannequins stand open to the weather behind a glittering heap of glass.
“My precious bananas it is then,” he says, handing me a basket of yellow fruit. “And perhaps your kind uncle will be good enough to mend the breakages and send me the bill.”
“Goodnight, Mr Chen,” I answer. “Thank you for these.”
“Thank you for all your help.” He swings a pouch up from his belt and slips his hand inside. “Here.” He drops four gold coins into my hand.
“But you don’t owe me that much,” I say, watching the coins reflecting on the glass of his thick spectacles.
“Take it,” he says. “Just in case.” And suddenly looking very tired, he waves me away.
Chapter 2
My dreams are full of flight. Mr Chen sits behind me, guiding my hand as I steer the flying machine over the city. Bouncing from river to river, spying on the rooftops, ducking the seagulls. We loop and buck and glide, driving straight for the moon, my heart high above my head, my soul free, the old man laughing in my ear. And then I wake.
I lie staring out at the blank upstairs windows of the house opposite, still half in my dreams, until I hear my name called.
“Athan, I need to go down now! Athan! Please.”
It takes a moment for me to work out where and when I am, and when I do, I realise that it’s Beatty shouting from upstairs. Barefoot and part-dressed, I climb to her room on the floor above. She sits bird-like on her bed, her red blanket pulled up over her skinny shoulders, her bright eyes watching me. A big smile spreads over her face as I enter and she reaches her arms towards me.
A fledgling stuck in her nest.
“Athan. Tell me, why’s Ma so cross?”
“Is she?”
“She’s been stamping about this morning. Steaming. And now she’s red with cross.” Beatty screws up her face. “No – worse, she’s white with cross. And it ain’t just because of the windows.”
“Boiling mad?” I asked, my heart sinking.
Beatty nodded. “So why else? Athan, tell me!”
Downstairs, the kitchen’s lit by a small lantern and even though it’s light outside I blink in the daytime darkness. “Chair, Athan,” says Beatty, her tiny fingers curled into my collar. I carry her over, balance her and her blanket on the stool by the range, and hold my hands to the empty fire grate. Almost no heat. A pot of cold porridge sits on the top; it must be hours old.
I reach into the kindling basket.
Empty.
Beatty shivers and pulls her red blanket closer over her shoulders.
“Morning, Poll. Morning, Ma,” I say. “Any bread?”
Polly, my other sister, shakes her head. She sits in the almost darkness, stitching. Our giant ma picks at some embroidery by the window.
“Do something about the range, Athan,” Polly says. “I’ve dye to boil.” She nods here head at Ma, widening her eyes and drawing her finger across her throat.
“She’ll cut you into chops, Athan,” hisses Beatty. “She looks crosser than ever I seen her. I spec she’s sorry you didn’t blow yourself up with the windows.”
“Hush, Beatty,” murmurs Polly.
“Well, I spec she is. Look at her, she’s like she sat on a porcupine.”
Beatty’s right. Ma’s mouth is pinched. The lantern on the table lights her face but the lines seem deeper, her skin rougher. She looks old, tired. Sad.
“Morning, Ma!” I say again, pretending all’s fine.
She doesn’t answer.
Still in silence you could snap, I duck down by the fire and rake out the ash. Through more silence I take the fire bucket into the yard and breathe in the winter air.
Ice and chickens.
The good thing about destroying the henhouse is the firewood that it left. The less good thing is that I’ve been trying to rebuild it out of rubbish from the building sites and I’m not so good at it. The structure I’ve built is a tower, held up more by luck than skill, a pile of badly hammered port wine boxes. The hens haven’t been let out, but they follow me around the yard as I pick up wood because there’s nothing to keep them in. There’s nothing to stop the foxes either, only a branch of blackthorn balanced along the top of the wall. It’s spiky with long nasty thorns, and it would keep everything out if it would just stay there. Which it does for a second before tumbling off.
For a moment I watch the hens pecking around my toes, enjoying their freedom. They shake their wings and jab at tiny insects, brushing against my legs, fearless and free.
I love to see them roam, but they won’t last long like this. I’ll get Tod to give me a hand with the henhouse. He’ll know how to build one. He’s good at that sort of thing.
Back inside, I place a dry leaf on a small lump of ember. I blow on it and the smoke rises in a lazy spiral. Some splinters of henhouse and a piece of newspaper catch and burn for a second before falling apart, and I feed more wood into the heat.
“So first I’m woken by breaking glass sometime in the Lord-knows-when hours of the night and I come downstairs and find the shop window broken and the smell of his burning oils,” says Ma.
“Ah,” I say, looking around for the basket of bananas.
“So I wait for you to come back. I know you can’t get back through the shop door, so I imagine you might climb the wall and come in through the kitchen and I wait on the stairs.”
“Oh?” I say.
“But you don’t,” she says. “And what do I see next?”
I wince. I really hope she didn’t go outside.
“Opposite, I see two boys, shinning up the gutter of the chapel – one of them the spit of Athan Wilde.”
“Did you?” I say. “How … extraordinary.”
“Extraordinary?” says Ma. “Athan, I’ve told you before – you could be killed up there or, worse, left a cripple. As if we didn’t have enough to look after, what with your grandmother and all her…” Ma waves her hands at the petticoats drying above the stove, “…problems, and Beatty’s legs and all.” She sighs.
She’s quite right, Tod and I did go roof running, but I open my mouth to deny it all when Polly shakes her head and points to a brown paper parcel by the door. I jump up from the stove side and grab it.
“Take it to the house with Mary, the pretty girl, where the Clays used to be: New King Street,” hisses Polly.
“Athan, don’t go – listen.” Ma catches my elbow, but her voice softens. “Don’t you understand, boy? Tho
se roofs are tall. Plenty of men have died building those houses. You could fall any time.” She draws a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry, Ma, but…” I hold the parcel up, as if it’s urgent.
“Please, son, you’re a fine upstanding boy – almost handsome – we can dress you up, turn you into something, you can work for the Quality, they’re always needing footmen, carriage boys. You can even work on the sedan chairs, they earn a fortune and they wear a lovely uniform. Get a job with a wig, something I can be proud of,” she pleads.
We’ve had this conversation a thousand times before.
“Ma, I don’t need to be a footman. I work for Mr Chen, I do the things he does. I’m getting to understand the way the world works, what makes things do the things they do. It’s an education AND I’m earning money. Look – he gave me—”
“Oh, Athan!” She’s taking it especially personally this time and her cheeks blotch. “If you wanted an education you’d have learned to read and write like your sisters. But that old man across the road – there’s no future working for him, it’s not a proper job. And,” she says, looking into the small candle in the lantern, “he’s evil. Your grandmother’s right – he’s a devil. It’s not right, all that stuff he says.”
I stand in the doorway ready to leave. “He’s not evil, he’s interested in real life, Natural Philosophy – all the ideas of clever men. It’s different. He’s teaching me—”
Ma slams her palms on the table. “He’s teaching you rubbish. He’s teaching you to make pretty sparks and purple smoke. What kind of thing is that for a grown man?” Her voice drops and she leans forward, into the darkness where I can’t make out the expression on her face. “And I know he’s encouraging you to dance around on the rooftops. You won’t get anywhere on a rooftop!”
“There’s a good reason for that. We’re—” I begin.
“You’re what, angels? Birds? Fly, can you?” she snaps. “If God had intended you to fly you’d have been born with wings. Well, I’ll tell you something, Athan boy, you haven’t got wings and you won’t ever have them. Even those hens you love so much have more chance of getting off the ground than you do.”
The Boy Who Flew Page 1