Everyone was silent.
Gobsmacked.
Staring at each other.
‘Or have I got that wrong?’ Hamish enquired.
FINLAY
Seemed like a good place to end a chapter.
Still me, though.
‘No,’ I said to Hamish. ‘I think you might have got it right.’
So we made our plan. Tonight, after everyone has gone to sleep, I will sneak into Malik’s cabin and cut off his wristband. One child in each of the other wrecks does the same to their supervisor. I’ll use the scissors we took out of the storage cupboard. The others said they have sharp-edged rocks they’ve collected from the mines which should work to cut through a wristband—the girl with the hoarse voice said she’s going to use her teeth. We considered asking Victor if we could borrow his penknife, as that’d be sharper, but I don’t trust Victor with the plan.
Next, we use blankets to tie the supervisors up. Then we wake all the kids and storm outside. We climb over the chain-link fence, run through the night-time shadows of the Whispering Kingdom, open the three gates, and get away.
I’m not hiding these notebooks tonight. I’m keeping them with me.
The plan is not perfect.
The plan is terrible, actually. What if Hamish is wrong about the wristbands? What if the supervisors can still super-Whisper without them? What if the supervisors’ earlier Whispers—especially the Whisper telling us not to climb the fence—what if they keep their power even without the wristband?
But the plan is all we’ve got.
If it goes wrong, Honey Bee and I have agreed we’re going to jump over the cliff.
Crazy, I know. We probably won’t make it. But we’re jumping with these notebooks. Honey Bee will take half of them and I’ll take the rest, wrapped in scraps of sailcloth we’ve found, to protect them from the water. If we survive the jump, we’ll swim out to the ships—I know that’s daft. We won’t survive and it’s too far to swim. But maybe we will make it? Maybe there’ll be divisions of water sprites down there that’ll help us?
If we don’t make it, we’ll wash up someplace, won’t we? These notebooks tucked into our shirts? Which means the message will get out to the Kingdoms and Empires.
I’m writing this message in the back of all the notebooks so both Honey Bee and I have it with us when we jump:
It’s the wristbands. The super-charged Whispers are all in the wristbands.
Or anyway, we think it is.
Of course, this comes from Hamish.
And Hamish has never been what you might call—well, a genius.
Got to go.
They’re calling us in for bedtime now.
My heart’s drumming like a downpour on a tin roof.
This is probably the end, but I won’t write the end.
Oh, I just did.
Wish us luck.
FINLAY
It’s me!!!!
I’m alive!!!
Impossible, I know.
BUT I AM. Just smacked myself in the face to prove it. Writing this back in Spindrift ‘cause we have to finish up the story. Been back here a week now.
Here’s what happened.
That night, after everyone had fallen into sleep, I snuck into Malik’s cabin and cut off his wristband.
Meanwhile, in the other wrecks, other kids were busy cutting off the wristbands of their supervisors too.
We were a team of stealthy super-spies, is all I can say.
In I crept, one tip-of-the-toe at a time, holding my breath. Moon was full, cabin softly lit, so I could see.
Got my scissors to his wristband and he was still asleep!
He woke up right about then.
Me standing by him, scissors at his wristband.
Snip, I went.
Didn’t work. Scissors too blunt.
‘What the—’ Malik muttered, half-awake.
SNIP, I went again, and this time the wristband fell away. I grabbed it.
He pushed himself up in his bed, squinting. Still half-asleep but he got straight onto the Whispering, of course.
I am going to step back from Malik, I thought, and return to my hammock at once.
Ha!
Nothing but your regular Whisper! A little tickle! The kind Snatty-Ra-Ra used to try in the Town Square!
Wriggled my shoulders and it was gone.
‘No, I’m not,’ I said aloud, nice and bold. ‘I’m going to tie you up here.’
He blinked. Three times. Eyes went to his wrist, hand clutched at it. Felt around all over his bed, under his blankets.
That’s when I knew for certain that Hamish was right.
It was the wristband.
I held it up now, dangled it before him, to save his pointless searching. He pounced, but I’m quick and jumped out of his way.
Panic on his face then. Now he went for me properly, surging right out of bed, but Hamish and Honey Bee were waiting by the door. Pounded in and, between us, we got him trussed up with his own blankets.
He sighed.
‘Well done, children,’ he said. ‘But what now? Where can you go from here, Finlay?’
‘Easy,’ I replied. ‘I’m going to climb the fence.’ I flinched a bit, ready for the Whisper to kick in, but nothing. Beautiful! So it was true! Even earlier Whispers disappeared without the wristband. ‘I’m going to climb the fence!’ I crowed.
‘You’re going to climb the fence, are you?’ Malik repeated, like a really annoying teacher.
We paid no attention. Already there was a heap of noise outside, and we went out and joined it.
All the kids were waking or being woken. Everyone was streaming out of the wrecks. Bigger kids carried the little ones or sick ones. A whole lot of half-asleep, confused kids, wrapped in their blankets, standing on the windswept bluff.
‘EVERYBODY!’ I shouted. ‘WE ARE GOING TO CLIMB THE—’
‘Just so you know?’ called a voice.
And it was Malik. For crying out loud, he’d got himself out of the blanket knots. He was standing on the deck in his pyjamas, well-lit by the moonlight, smiling.
‘Just so you know,’ he called. ‘That fence is electrified. Millions of currents running through it. Tremendously high voltage. We switch it on after bedtime each night.’
We all stared up at him.
‘The Whisper that stopped you climbing it?’ he said. ‘That was for your own protection.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe a word of it,’ Honey Bee scoffed, but with a little question mark on her face in my direction.
Most kids had backed away from the fence. They were looking from Honey Bee and me to Malik and back again. Somehow we’d become the leaders.
‘We’ll test it!’ I announced. ‘Everyone back!’
They were already back.
Honey Bee and I marched up to it.
Now, one thing I know is how to test for electric fences. Glim, the twins and I have done enough exploring for that. I put my head close to it and listened.
Hummmm, said the fence. Hummmm.
‘Hm,’ I said.
Next I picked a handful of grass, soaked it in a puddle of water, and tossed the lot against the wire.
SIZZLE, said the fence.
Most kids heard it.
‘The fence is electrified,’ I told them. ‘It sizzles and it hums.’
The kid with the scratched-up face marched up to me. (His name is Oscar Cheo, by the way—can’t keep calling him the boy with the scratched-up face, ‘cause the scratches will eventually heal.)
‘So we kick it down!’ he shouted. ‘Everyone wearing rubber boots should kick it down!’
Brilliant!
Plenty enough of us with rubber-soled shoes or boots to take down a chain-link fence if we kicked it hard enough!
Or anyway, that’s what we thought.
First, of course, was the problem of explaining to all the kids what we wanted from them. A lot were too scared of the electricity to help.
‘The bigger
kids will be up front,’ we told them. ‘If we get a shock, it’ll only be a little one!’
Plenty of the kids cried at that. They didn’t want any kind of shock. They didn’t want us to get shocked. Next thing, a bunch of smart-alec kids started shouting questions about what we’d do once we’d knocked the fence down—how’d we get through the Whispering Kingdom without more Whisperers coming for us? How’d we get out through the Whispering Gates? What about the soldiers out the front?
All excellent questions.
‘We’ll figure it out!’ Honey Bee shouted. ‘For now let’s kick down this fence!’
Enough kids were willing to give it a go.
And we did. Gave it a real, solid shot.
‘One!’ bellowed Honey Bee. ‘Two! Three!’
Crowd of children, legs out, feet at the ready, hollering to make ourselves tougher and stronger.
Boing!
Bounced right off, didn’t we?
Zing! went the electric charge. It actually hurt a lot.
Kids tumbled backwards, clutching their heads.
More crying started up.
‘AGAIN!’ boomed Oscar. Bit of a leader, that one.
We attacked the fence maybe thirty times. Wham—boing!
Bounce. Tumble. And so on.
Toughest fence you ever met.
That was when things really fell apart.
Kids were everywhere.
Some scrabbled around in the dirt, trying to dig under the fence. A whole crowd were at the gateway, pounding at the padlock with rocks. Clang! it went. Didn’t budge.
A lot of kids started yelling that we’d better go back to our hammocks and pretend nothing had happened.
Most of the supervisors were milling about. Some had got themselves untangled from the blankets like Malik—and littler kids had untied the others, being little and confused.
The worst thing? The supervisors didn’t try to stop us or to get us back to bed. They wandered about, letting us boing against the fence, or tear our fingernails trying to dig under it, with amused little smiles on their faces.
I wanted to kick those smiles sky-high.
But of course they weren’t worried.
There was no way out.
And as soon as the sun began to rise, the Whisperers over at the mines would notice we hadn’t shown up for work. Over they’d come, striding along, and they’d Whisper us back under control long before we could get close enough to snip off any of their wristbands.
‘Should we sneak over to their cottages and cut off all their wristbands while they sleep?’ Honey Bee asked me, like she was reading my mind. She’d been trying to dig under the fence with the others, and was even dustier than usual.
It was not a bad idea, but there were at least thirty Whisperers in the cottages. One would surely wake.
I found Hamish curled up by the side of a wreck, tears in his eyes. ‘I’ve mucked this up, haven’t I?’ he said to me. ‘We’re in for it now.’
‘Not your fault,’ I said.
‘Of course it’s my fault. I told you about the wristbands! And I got that wrong, didn’t I? I always get thing wrong.’
‘No, Hamish. You got it right. You got it exactly right. Don’t you worry, we’ll figure something out.’
But the night carried on, the moon rose higher, and we didn’t figure anything out.
Dawn nudged at the sky.
The supervisors had built themselves a fire and were toasting marshmallows. As if this was a party! They kept their eyes on the mining cottages in the distance. They might have tried walking over there for help, I guess, but they knew us kids would tackle them if they did. Easier to wait for reinforcements who could Whisper us back under control.
Victor was sitting with them. I shook my head at him.
A lot of kids were still working at the gate or the fence, but some had fallen asleep on the grass.
Any moment, the mining Whisperers would wake up. Any moment they’d be here.
And then what?
What would they do to us? How would they punish us?
Honey Bee and I looked towards the cliff edge.
We knew we had to get out of here. We had to tell everyone the news about the wristbands.
We looked at each other. Back to the cliff edge.
‘There’s a light,’ someone called, pointing over to the cottages. ‘They’re up.’
It was true. A lamp moved around over there. Then another. We could make out the sounds of doors slamming.
‘This is over, isn’t it?’ Honey Bee murmured. ‘We’ve failed.’
And that’s when the first dragon landed.
This is Glim.
As you should know, ‘cause I just wrote my name there. Finlay and Honey Bee have asked me to write what was happening back in Spindrift while they were in the Whispering Kingdom. So that the story will be properly complete. ‘But no more than two chapters,’ they said. (Bossy, aren’t they?)
Anyhow, the day that Finlay and the others were taken by the Whisperers, I saw it happen.
Ran down the alley myself when Finlay didn’t come straight back, and then ran about town searching. Caught a glimpse of them climbing into a red motorcar and there went the car, away.
I was scared for them but also proud. Went straight back to the protest in the Town Square and told the twins. ‘He’ll be home soon,’ I said, ‘with all the stolen children.’ The twins swore a bit, as they’d looked forward to being taken themselves, but were philosophical about it, and soon we were back to shouting, ‘SET THEM FREE!’
After a couple of days, the protest in the Town Square petered out. Everyone was hungry and needed a bath, and the Queen had taken no notice at all.
We meant to have more protests and marches, but things got busy. Lili-Daisy was still in the hospital with her influenza, so the bigger kids had to run the Orphanage. Cleaning, laundry, breaking apart fights and so on. Meanwhile, the hospital got so busy that the twins moved in there full-time to help.
There was some fuss about Finlay and the Brathelthwaites having been taken, but nothing could be done about it—and then a string of Ghoul attacks took all our attention. Ghouls spread darkness and you have to run about lighting candles against it.
After that, there was terrible weather for a week. Hammering rain and lightning every day. Everyone complained, but that’s our Kingdom for you. Storms.
One night I woke to the sound of the rain quietening to a pitter-patter, and suddenly I knew something was wrong. Three weeks had passed and they weren’t back.
They couldn’t escape.
I just knew it.
The twins were busy at the hospital. So it was up to me to go in there and get them.
How? In a boat? Through the Whispering Gates? The Impenetrable Forest? Or from the sky?
I chose the sky.
I like the sky.
Everything about it. Clouds, stars, the moon, butterflies, birds, dragonflies, dragons, swans, gnats, kites and balloons.
I think this is because my earliest memory is Lili-Daisy holding me up to the window and pointing out a shooting star. My parents were fisherfolk who drowned in a hurricane when I was two. Finlay’s parents were lost in the same storm. I don’t remember my parents at all but I do remember Lili-Daisy pointing to that shooting star. ‘There?’ she said. ‘See? That’s your mother and your father, Glim. They’re stars now.’ I remember I reached out with my hands and touched her cheeks—the way you do when you’re little and you see something soft and pouchy—and the cheeks were wet. Oh, she’s spilled something, I thought. Now I think it was tears.
So that’s why I like the sky.
Of course, it might be nothing to do with my parents flying around up there as stars, it could just be that it looks quiet. No chores, no squabbles, no slamming doors, nobody kicking a goose so that it honks, nobody telling you to speak.
Or because it’s mysterious, the sky, like a story no one has yet read.
So I chose the sky.
I’ll drop into the Whispering Kingdom from the sky, I decided.
The issue of how to get into the sky, I set aside. I’m like that with schoolwork too. I set aside the important bits, like the list of division problems, and focus on colouring the borders of the page instead.
‘Well now, that’s all right,’ Anita says to the class. ‘Glim comes at things sideways! We need more sideways thinking!’ But now and then, in private, she says, ‘For goodness sake, will you get on with your schoolwork, Glim?’
Still, I didn’t think about how I’d get into the sky, I focused on how I’d drop down from it.
I’d need to break through the Witch-made shroud.
Witches, I thought. Witches must know how.
They’re the ones who made it in the first place.
Now, it did not seem a good idea to travel to the Empire of Witchcraft. For one thing, they were at war against us. They’d joined the Whispering side. For another thing, they’re wicked Shadow Mages. They’d never tell me the secret.
But we have Witches. Perfectly nice Witches.
Right here in Spindrift.
The next day, after dusk, I set off to visit the fairground where all the Shadow Mages and Whisperers were living. Visiting was strictly forbidden, but so was being outside after dark. I stayed in the shadows, and crouched behind barrels or trees if I heard any sounds.
Through the barbed wire fence, I could see that the place was a swampland of mud now after all the rain. Tents sagged. A Sterling Silver Fox was scolding a toddler Witch who’d been rolling about in the mud. A pair of Whisperers was pegging clothes onto a makeshift line. Mostly people sat about campfires talking in low voices and eating their supper.
I saw a surprising thing—the headmaster of Brathelthwaite Boarding School! His bald head caught a glint of moonlight. He wears the most ridiculous flappy collars and sleeves, so I’m sure it was him. He was hurrying between tents. How had he got over the barbed wire? I wondered. And what was he doing in there? Then I heard him speaking—although not what he said—and I also heard the sound of a woman cackling. A Witch’s cackle, it was.
The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars Page 25