Mumbersons and The Blood Secret, The

by Crowl, Mike

  ‘You don’t even know them,’ muttered Jerry. ‘It’d be like being with strangers.’

  ‘This’ll give me a chance to know them.’

  His grandmother leaned against the bench, enjoying the morning sunshine on her back. She was trying to push her hair into some sort of order. ‘What’s going on, Gerard?’

  ‘Don’t....!’ He sighed. ‘I’ve just heard from Madeleine. My wife. She insists I see her immediately. It’s vital, she says. Life and death. I’ll have to take the day off work. There’s Billy to...’

  ‘Get going,’ interrupted his mother. ‘We’ll look after Billy. It’ll make a great change from hammering rocks.’ She pulled Billy towards her. And held onto him. ‘Bring your wife back with you, Gerard. I want to meet her.’

  ‘That won’t be happening.’ He rushed out of the kitchen to get himself organised.

  Mrs Mumberson made herself a cup of tea. ‘Billy’ she said, ‘what do you want for breakfast?’

  Billy shrugged. He usually got his own breakfast. ‘Eggs on toast?’

  ‘I’m sure I can do better than that,’ said his grandmother. She checked out the pantry.

  Half an hour later Billy ran to school feeling more full than he had in a long time, and not just with food. He had his grandparents in the house. His mother wanted to see his father. His father was driving three hundred kilometres to meet up with her. Maybe they’d get together again. Maybe she wanted to come home. It made his brain dizzy, though in a better way than when the barber cut his ear yesterday.

  Olivia appeared from nowhere, as she always did. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked. ‘You look different.’ Stevedore trailed along behind. He wasn’t allowed to go to school, of course, so he made himself inconspicuous throughout the day until school was over.

  ‘It’s gone crazy at my house. Dad’s Mum and Dad - my grandparents! They turned up out of the blue last night.’

  ‘Were they overseas?’ asked Olivia, keeping up comfortably with Billy’s pace.

  ‘It was weird. They said they’d been prisoners in a diamond mine. It was owned by a witch...’

  ‘A witch! I wonder if she can do real magic.’ Olivia beamed with enthusiasm.

  ‘Not now she can’t. She died.’

  ‘I’d love to meet someone who could do real magic.’

  They’d reached the school gates. The headmistress was ringing the bell for the first class. ‘You’re late, William Mumberson,’ she said, loud enough for most of the school to hear.

  Billy couldn’t concentrate during the day. If he wasn’t thinking about his Mum and Dad, he was thinking about his grandparents. Or the diamond mine. Or the witch - he was glad she was dead. He wasn’t sure he wanted to meet someone who could do real magic. His father always scoffed if he talked about magic. He said there was no such thing; it was no more real than the sleight of hand or conjuring tricks they saw on TV.

  But perhaps there were people who could do it?

  Olivia chattered about Billy’s grandparents and the witch at morning break, and at lunch time, and as soon as school was finished. Billy wished she’d stop so he could think more about them for himself. As usual she followed him home. He paused at the gate, wondering how he could politely tell her not to come in. He wanted to have his grandparents to himself for a while, but Stevedore nudged the gate open with his nose, and Olivia followed him up the path. Oh, well, she’d have to meet his grandparents sooner or later.

  Mrs Mumberson had been baking, which surprised Billy, because he didn’t think there was enough in the house to bake anything with. But she’d somehow conjured up two batches of biscuits out of ingredients in the pantry. They were cooling on airing trays on the kitchen table. Billy wondered if his grandmother could do magic too. Maybe some of the witch’s magic had rubbed off on her. He shook his head: that was stupid.

  His grandfather sat at the table reading the paper. He was eating one of the newly-baked biscuits and drinking tea. Both the grandparents were cleaner and tidier than last night: their hair was done, and there was no sign of dirt. Because they were both so skinny from lack of food, the clothes they’d borrowed from Jerry and Madeleine’s wardrobes hung loosely on them.

  Billy introduced Olivia, and before either of them knew what was happening, they were sitting at the table with a plate of biscuits each, and hot chocolate drinks. Mrs Mumberson had found all manner of things in the pantry, some of which had been forgotten since Billy’s mother had left.

  ‘What was it like in the witch’s diamond mine, Mrs Mumberson?’ asked Olivia, eating her first biscuit.

  Mr Mumberson looked up from his paper. ‘We don’t talk about that, Olivia.’

  ‘It’s too painful,’ said his wife. ‘We want to forget it.’

  ‘But it’s so exciting, and different, and full of magic,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Magic is nothing but trouble,’ said Mr Mumberson.

  ‘I’ve never met anyone who’s been involved in magic before,’ insisted Olivia. Billy gave her a warning glance which she ignored. ‘I think it would be a great adventure, and...’

  She was interrupted by a couple of chirps from Billy’s cellphone. Both the Mumbersons looked on with interest as he checked the text; they’d never used cellphones at all.

  Billy said, ‘It’s from Dad. Come immediately. Meet me at the Factory gates.’ Billy frowned.

  ‘Is he back in Skittleton already?’ asked Mrs Mumberson.

  ‘He can’t have brought her home yet,’ said Billy. ‘Didn’t he go and see Mum after all?’

  ‘Maybe he changed his mind,’ said his grandmother.

  ‘Exactly what he would do,’ said Mr Mumberson, giving the paper a snap to remove the crease.

  ‘Why would he change his mind?’ Billy stood up, leaving a biscuit half uneaten on his plate. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We need to go and find out,’ said Olivia. She grabbed the remainder of Billy’s biscuit off his plate, and gulped it down with the rest of her drink.

  Mrs Mumberson said, ‘But he took spare clothes. He said he was going to be away overnight.’

  ‘And his toothbrush,’ said her husband. ‘Talking of toothbrushes...’

  ‘Why would he be back so soon?’ asked Mrs Mumberson.

  ‘Probably piked out at the last minute. Thought she’d have a go at him.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Mumberson!’

  ‘I need to go,’ said Billy. ‘Dad said come quickly.’ He headed for the door. Olivia was only a step behind him, and Stevedore two paws behind her.

  ‘Ring me and let me know what’s going on!’ shouted Mrs Mumberson from the front door, as they raced down the street.

  Chapter 4 - At the Factory

  ‘Come immediately. Meet me at the factory gates.’ Billy kept trying to puzzle out the message. He hoped his Dad hadn’t changed his mind about meeting his Mum, because he really wanted to see her again.

  The Factory was less than two kilometres from Billy’s house, near enough for Jerry to walk to and from work rather than taking the car most days, so it wouldn’t take long to get there.

  Billy and Olivia ran along Fivefold St towards the steps, then raced down them two at a time. Stevedore panted along behind. Below them some shops were already shutting up for the night. As they came into The Broadway, Billy’s ear stung at the memory of what had happened at Mr Frizzer’s barbershop yesterday. The shop now had different sign on the door: Closed for a Fortnight. Puzzled, Billy stopped for a moment, and Olivia, who was texting and not looking where she was going, banged into him.

  ‘Watch out!’

  ‘Sorry. Just making some background notes. It’s what reporters do.’

  Billy shook his head and carried on running past the shops towards the hill that led up to the Factory, Olivia keeping up and texting at the same time. Billy wasn’t sure what he was going to say to his Dad about Olivia coming, though he had a good idea what his Dad’s reaction would be when he saw her. ‘I see yo
u brought your shadow again,’ he’d mutter.

  They slowed down when they reached the bottom of Habitation Hill. It was the steepest street in Skittleton, and cable cars shuttled up and down the middle of it from early morning till late at night. Olivia was about to jump on the car that was ready to leave when Billy asked, ‘Have you got any money for the fare?’

  ‘No. You keep moving around the outside of the car so the ticket collector doesn’t catch up with you.’

  ‘That’s dishonest. I’ll pay.’ They sat on the outside seat. Stevedore, after a bit of noisy whimpering at being left behind, decided it was time to go home, and headed in that direction.

  As always there were skateboarders zipping back and forth in front of the cable car. They weren’t known as the Ninja Chickens for nothing. Olivia waved at one. ‘Hi, Liam!’ The boy, who was three or four years older than Billy, and more solidly built, grinned and waved back as he bounced his board over the tram tracks, missing the front of the car by inches.

  The car reached the top of the street in three minutes. Billy and Olivia jumped off before it stopped, earning them a telling off from the ticket collector.

  There were lights on in the Factory’s Extension building, because the evening shift had started work. Mr Khafoops would already be overseeing his staff. Like Billy’s Dad, he was in charge of about twenty men and women in the Innovation Unit. They dealt with special requests, jobs that weren’t routinely done in the main Factory. Each of these jobs had to be worked out in detail before they could start; sometimes they had to get the machine shops to make up new parts. Billy’s Dad was proud of the work they did. ‘It requires a lot of creative thinking,’ Jerry said. ‘We get orders from all over the country.’

  Billy and Olivia reached the Factory’s main gate, but there was no sign of Jerry. Strangely, there was no security guard on duty either. And more strangely still, the gate, with its Triple W Sisters logo - three Ws interwoven with an S - was wide open.

  Billy read the text again. Meet me at the Factory gates, it said. ‘Maybe he’s inside, in his car.’ They ran through the gate, which closed behind them, as though it had been waiting for them to come in. ‘Weird,’ said Olivia.

  Billy looked around the car park for his Dad’s blue Fiesta. Jerry, like Mr Khafoops, usually parked his car in the large area to the right, between the old building and the high brick wall that wound around the entire property. There were two or three dozen other cars there, but Billy couldn’t see his father’s anywhere.

  The Factory’s main building had originally been an extravagant three-storey mansion, a private house with dozens of rooms. It had been the talk of the town, because of the huge parties that were held there. But all good things come to an end. When the last remaining family member died, the mansion was sold, and eventually converted into the Factory. Most of the trees and bushes in the magnificent garden were uprooted, and the flower beds concreted over, to make way for car parks. Now the only flower beds were at the front steps of the old building. They contained ugly brown plants with long pointed leaves that looked after themselves, and didn’t need gardeners to keep them tidy.

  Olivia had gone out of sight behind a green Holden when Billy bumped into a security guard. The guard, who seemed to have come out of nowhere, was more than six foot tall, with muscles that made his grey Triple W Sisters uniform look as if it was going to burst. He held a walkie talkie in his left hand. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m meeting my Dad. Jerry Mumberson. He parks his car here.’

  ‘He’s not here. Hasn’t been here all day. I checked the list this morning.’

  ‘He was supposed to go and meet my mother. Out of town. But then he texted me half an hour ago. Look.’ He showed the man the text.

  The man clipped his walkie talkie to his sleeve, and took the phone. ‘He doesn’t say meet him inside the gates. He says meet him at the gates. Can’t you read?’ He thrust the mobile back at Billy. Then, without warning, he grabbed him by the shoulders and said, ‘You’re trespassing. I’m taking you inside. We’ll see what the boss says.’

  ‘I’m not trespassing. My Dad’ll tell you.’

  The man bent down into Billy’s face and sneered. ‘He’s not here to tell anyone anything, is he?’ He swivelled Billy around, and holding him firmly with both hands, pushed him between the parked cars towards the main building. ‘The boss’ll sort you out.’

  Billy stumbled along in front of the man, unable to get away from his grip on his jacket. He slipped the cellphone back in his pocket, and tried to see where Olivia was, but the man forced his head forward. He hoped she’d run back to his house and tell his grandparents. They’d come and sort things out if he was in trouble. He hoped.

  The guard hustled him up the three broad stone steps at the front of the building. When Billy stumbled on one, the guard hauled him up again and propelled him through the large glass revolving door towards a woman standing in the foyer. ‘I found him, Ms Nordal,’ he said to her.

  The woman wore a smart dark trouser suit with the Triple W Sisters logo embroidered on the left lapel. Her hair was long and black, held in place by a large hairpin that twinkled in the light from the candelabra above her. But the ring on her finger sparkled even more. It had an enormous cluster of white stones. She stared coldly at Billy, without any surprise, as if she was expecting him.

  ‘Hold him tight, Lavitch,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him escaping.’ She strolled around Billy, inspecting him. ‘Who’d have thought?’ she said. ‘A lanky eleven-year-old: the solution to all our problems. Not much of a specimen. I wonder if there’s even enough blood in him.’ She poked Billy in the arm, and then nodded at the guard. ‘Take him through. Don’t let him get away.’

  Billy didn’t like that mention of the word blood at all. He wriggled, trying to free himself. ‘What are you doing? I came to meet my Dad!’ The guard, holding him tight, as ordered, launched him forward. Neither he nor the woman said anything more. They moved quickly along a corridor between darkened offices. Neon lights above them buzzed and hummed. They pushed through a door marked Staff Only, into an area that hadn’t been modernised. Billy kept protesting as they headed down a flight of polished wooden steps, but the two adults ignored him.

  There was no one else in this part of the building, because the evening shift worked in the Extension, behind the old mansion. All the old doors down here were heavily padlocked. It was warm, almost too warm, and Billy felt sticky.

  The woman pushed open a door at the end of the corridor, marked Sick Bay. The room was brightly lit. A narrow hospital bed with wheels stood in the centre. A sheet was folded over it, and tucked in, and a flat pillow lay at one end. Two monitors on one wall both ran the same lazy screensaver, and opposite them a dozen squat cupboards, some of them open, revealed bottles, and pads, and other medical things Billy didn’t recognise.

  A man in a loose-fitting white coat was standing at a basin in one corner, washing his hands. He had his back to Billy. Above the basin a large skylight that was divided into three sections revealed the late afternoon sky. Next to the basin a door with a glass panel in it opened out onto rough stone steps leading to the ground above. There was a key with a green tag in the lock.

  Billy shivered, in spite of being so warm. He didn’t like this at all.

  The man at the basin turned around, and Billy recognised him as the barber who’d cut his hair yesterday. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, more puzzled than ever. The man said nothing. Ms Nordal snarled at him, ‘Get on with it, Slaggard.’

  Slaggard pushed a trolley towards the bed. On it was a metal kidney-shaped bowl containing a syringe with a large needle, a plastic bag and two tubes.

  ‘Get the boy up on the bed,’ said the woman. The guard tossed Billy on the bed as though he weighed nothing at all.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Billy shouted. ‘Where’s my Dad?’ The guard clamped one hand over his mouth, so that Billy could only make muffled noise
s, and held him down with the other. Billy kept on trying to shout and wriggle because he didn’t want to give in to whatever it was they were planning.

  Slaggard pulled up Billy’s sleeve and tied a tourniquet tightly around his arm. He swabbed Billy’s inner elbow with a cleanser.

  ‘Matchstick arms,’ said the woman, with a sneer. She stood with her arms folded until her cellphone suddenly beeped. ‘What?’ she snapped into the phone, then listened briefly. ‘No, I’m right in the middle of it.’ The caller said something else before Ms Nordal thrust the phone back in her pocket. ‘I need to meet my sisters upstairs.’ She walked to the door. ‘As always, there’s some crisis they can’t handle without me. Make sure you do the job thoroughly,’ she said to the two men, before slamming the door behind her.

  Slaggard told Lavitch to hold Billy’s arm down so that he could get the needle safely into the vein. ‘He’ll move too much otherwise,’ he said. Billy wriggled anyway. ‘Hold him still!’ he added to the guard, who growled that he was holding him still.