by Lissa Evans
And then utter darkness.
SIX
Graham had gone. His hands were no longer squeezing her arm. Fidge’s first thought was that he’d fallen down the cellar stairs and she yelled his name into the darkness, and heard, to her cold amazement, her voice disappearing into the distance, as if she were standing in a vast hall instead of a narrow staircase. She shifted slightly, and felt the crunch of small stones underfoot, and at the same time she heard a noise behind her – a noise that was both familiar and yet also wildly, hugely wrong …
She turned, catching her foot on a metal rail, and saw two round orange lights that grew rapidly, and there was a crescendo of sound —
—and she leaped clumsily aside as a steam train hurtled by – a hammering roar, a blur of smoke, a streak of light, and then it was gone, leaving only the battering wind of its passing. Fidge stood again in darkness, her body pressed against the wall.
‘I’m dreaming,’ she said out loud, but her shoulder hurt where she’d banged it on the wall and her eyes stung from the smoke, so she couldn’t be dreaming, and she wasn’t dead either, unless dead people can feel their ears popping. Not dreaming then, and not dead, but somewhere else – somewhere else and on her own.
‘Graham?’ she called, and when he didn’t answer, she felt the tiniest shred of disappointment because even Graham would have been better than nothing. ‘Mum?’ she shouted. ‘Minnie?’ And then – just because it was good to hear the word – ‘Dad?’
And when (of course) there was no reply, she started walking in the same direction that the train had travelled in, trailing one hand along the wall, using every speck of her willpower in order to remain calm. It was only a couple of minutes before she saw the pale, green-smudged semicircle of the tunnel mouth far ahead and she had nearly reached it and had watched the green smudges turn into steep-sided grassy banks when the rails began to hum and she heard the noise of another train behind her.
She began to run, her feet crunching on the gravel in the same rhythm as the engine, and she reached daylight just in front of the train, and dodged to one side, into the long grass at the base of the embankment. The train hurtled past, puffing neat little balls of smoke. Its engine was a glossy black and the carriages bottle green, with brass fittings. The whole thing shone as if it had been painted and polished ten minutes before, but it wasn’t the newness of the train that left Fidge staring; it was the glimpse of the passengers. They’d sped by too fast for her to see them properly, but the impression she had was of … greyness. Total greyness, without a single speck of colour.
The noise of the train dwindled into the distance and there was silence apart from the shrill scrape of grasshoppers. Overhead, the sky was bright blue, criss-crossed by swallows. Fidge tried to climb up the side of the bank but it was too steep and the grass too short to hang on to. After a moment of hesitation, she jumped down and carried on walking along the track; her footsteps seemed very loud.
She had been walking for nearly five minutes, her mind a determined blank, when yet again she heard the noise of a train. This time she turned to see it approach; it was the same colour as the last one, the brass-work brilliant in the sunlight, the passengers the same blur of featureless grey, but as it passed, she saw something white fly out of a window and dance in the train’s wake. It landed between the rails, far ahead, and she ran to pick it up: a piece of paper, crumpled into a tight ball. It took her a while to smooth it out enough to read the pencilled message.
Fidge frowned. ‘First find the what?’ A terrible and extraordinary thought began signalling from the back of her brain, but she chose to ignore it. She pocketed the message and then – since there was nothing else to do – carried on walking. The embankments on either side were getting lower and she began to jog along the track, eager to escape from this claustrophobic path and find a wider view. Ahead, she could see some bushes growing up one of the slopes, and she broke into a sprint and – still at speed – swerved up the bank, grabbing at branches to help her, and emerged at the top, breathless.
And saw something impossible.
SEVEN
‘No,’ said Fidge. But saying the word didn’t change anything. The rolling green landscape with trees the shape of lollipops stayed the same and the villages of striped and spotted houses and the single bottle-green train rushing round what was obviously a circular track.
Most of all it didn’t change the cylindrical pink figure rushing towards her with its arms outstretched. Fidge turned and hared back down the embankment, yelling, but the train was coming round again and she barely managed to cross the rails before it thundered by. She started climbing up the opposite bank but there were no handholds and as the last carriage whipped past, she turned in despair and saw the Pink Wimbley Woo – because that, without a shadow of a doubt, was what it was – waving to her from the other side of the track. It was about the size of an adult human, but an adult human in the shape of a barrel, with short, bendy arms and legs, large eyes that looked painted on – except that they blinked – a blob for a nose, and a large mouth, which was currently stretched in a smile that covered about a quarter of the cylindrical body. The overall effect was horrible.
‘Go away,’ said Fidge, backing off. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see another balled-up piece of paper, bouncing along the gravel.
The Wimbley bent over and picked up the paper, its whole body tipping in one piece, hinged at the hip. It had, Fidge noticed, four fingers on each hand; all of them seemed to be made of rubber.
‘Oooh look —’ said the Wimbley, unfolding the note; its voice was high yet burbling, like a mouse gargling treacle. ‘—this letter’s meant for you,
So read it, new friend, read it do.’
Still smiling hugely, it held the paper out to Fidge. She hesitated for a moment and then leaned forward very slightly so that she could see what was written. It was another poem.
Fidge took a step back and looked at the Pink Wimbley again; it certainly looked brainless. And harmless. Before she could stop them, some lines from Minnie’s book slid into her head:
Yellow are timid, Blue are strong,
Grey are wise and rarely wrong,
Green are daring, Pink give cuddles …
‘That’s enough,’ she said firmly, more to herself than to the Wimbley. ‘What I need to do is get back home to Mum and Minnie. Before I go completely mad.’
The Pink Wimbley stretched out its arms for a hug, one hand still clutching the note.
‘No,’ said Fidge, flinching at the thought.
‘But if you’re feeling tired or sad
A lovely hug will make you glad.’
‘No it won’t.’
‘A hug a day is so much fun
A hug an hour suits everyone!’
‘Please,’ said Fidge, ‘just go away.’
The enormous smile disappeared, to be replaced by a slightly sulky expression.
‘All right then, I’ll go ahead
And hug someone who’s kind instead.’
‘Yes, you do that,’ muttered Fidge.
The Wimbley swivelled rather huffily, and retraced its route up the scrubby bank. At the top, it turned round, hesitated and then hopefully held out its arms again.
‘No,’ said Fidge.
The Wimbley turned again and disappeared from view.
Fidge closed her eyes tightly.
‘I have to get out of here,’ she said, concentrating hard, trying not to think of where ‘here’ might be – trying instead to visualize normal things, like Minnie’s toy-strewn side of the bedroom, and the scorched brown patch on the living-room carpet dating from when Mum had dropped the iron.
‘I have to get out of here. Right now.’ She waited. The grasshoppers shrilled in unison.
‘Right now,’ she repeated. The grasshoppers were joined by the distant sound of the train coming round again.
‘Right n—’
Her eyes snapped open. A terrible warbling shriek was coming from t
he other side of the embankment, and it was followed by the tremulous voice of the Pink Wimbley.
‘Please loose my arms and let me go
Whose note this is I do not know,
I simply found it by the track—’
‘You’re lying,’ came a shouted reply – a thicker, deeper voice, ‘you’ll be coming back
With us – unless you tell us who
This stranger is in Wimbley Woo.’
The Pink shrieked again:
‘I can’t, because I do not know
Her name – ow!’
‘Hang on,’ shouted Fidge, starting to scramble up the bushy slope. ‘What are you doing?’ But her voice was drowned under the noise of the passing train, and then an entire shrub came away in her hand and she slithered back down to the trackside in a shower of earth. She toiled up again, all ready to launch herself at whoever was hurting the ridiculous pink object, and then stopped in shock, mid-stride, her head just poking over the top of the embankment.
The entire field below her was filled with Blue Wimblies. They were standing to attention, drawn up in columns like an army; each was tall and bulky with weirdly muscled arms and legs; each wore a red sash around its middle. Through their midst, the Pink Wimbley was being forcibly led away.
‘A hug?’ it was suggesting, feebly. ‘Because I’d like to say
A hug will always make your day
So if you’re cross or if you’re sad
A hug’s the thing to make you gl—urk.’
The end of the word was cut off, as a sash was firmly tied around its mouth.
‘Attenshun troops,’ shouted a Blue who, unlike the others, was wearing a maroon beret. ‘We’ll split in two
And scour the land of Wimbley Woo.
An uninvited stranger’s here
And our Blue Wimbley task is clear:
Search every house, search every farm …’
It paused, and the next words were roared out by everyone in the field apart from the gagged prisoner:
‘AND KEEP OUR LEADER SAFE FROM HARM!’
Fidge crouched in the undergrowth and watched the Blues forming into units, feet thudding on the turf. They were well drilled, their expressions fixed and severe and despite the fact that they were basically just large blue dustbins, the sheer size and number of them was actually menacing. In fact the whole situation felt quite … Fidge groped for the right word and to her dismay came up with ‘real’. She really didn’t want to get caught. She was really quite frightened. And she really felt worried about what was going to happen to the Pink Wimbley. She could still see it, being marched away along a lane between two guards, and the word ‘-Ug’ was faintly audible, borne on the breeze.
The two halves of the Blue army fanned out in opposite directions, moving rapidly. Fidge waited five minutes, until the nearest of the soldiers was just a blue dot, and then slithered down the embankment into the field and scampered towards the nearest hedge. Walking in a crouch, she found her way to the gate, and then into the lane where she’d last seen the prisoner and its escorts. She broke into a cautious trot and headed after them
EIGHT
Meanwhile, Graham was sitting on a hilltop, watching a yellow butterfly waver past. The grass beneath him was soft and springy and dotted with white daisies, the air smelled fresh, and the sky was a brilliant blue. At the base of the hill, a sunlit landscape of fields and hedgerows stretched to the horizon, dotted with brightly coloured houses. Somewhere a train whistle blew.
Of course, Graham wasn’t really sitting there – he was just imagining the whole thing. He was certain about that, partly because he never went outdoors these days, so it couldn’t be real – and partly because parked next to him was a human-sized plastic carrot. It was mounted on small orange wheels and had the words MADE IN CHINA stamped on the back.
‘I do hope that the grass is not damp,’ remarked the carrot, in a brisk, no-nonsense sort of voice.
‘It’s not,’ said Graham. He was feeling wonderfully relaxed; one moment he’d been trying to rescue his transitional object in the middle of a violent electrical storm and in the aggressive presence of his boringly average cousin, and the next he was in this peaceful, beautiful world conjured up by his own, quite remarkable, imagination.
‘It certainly looks damp,’ continued the carrot. ‘And if it is damp then you are simply storing up problems for the years ahead. When you find yourself hobbling along on two sticks, groaning with pain, perhaps you will think back and say, “Oh, how I wish I had listened to Doctor Carrot, she was absolutely right about the grass”.’
‘Doctor Carrot?’ echoed Graham, contemptuously. ‘You’re not a doctor. You were a free gift from the supermarket.’
‘I will thank you not to contradict me, young man. If you look on my base you will see my title clearly marked.’
Graham peered at the small platform to which the carrot was fixed, and saw some lettering.
DR VEG PROM CARROT
He snorted. ‘The “DR” doesn’t mean doctor, it’s short for “Douglas Retail” – that’s the name of the shop I got you from. And “veg prom” is just an abbreviation for “vegetable promotion”.’
Grinning, he glanced up at the carrot. She had very small features – spots for eyes and a mouth that was just a horizontal crease. The crease was not smiling back. After a moment or two, the carrot’s wheels started moving; she manoeuvred back and forth a couple of times, like a car performing a three-point turn, until she was angled slightly away from Graham. Silence fell.
Graham turned back to admire the view. It had changed slightly. A line of blue dots had appeared in the field immediately below the hilltop and he watched it for a while, wondering what his amazing imagination had come up with now. The dots seemed to be moving up the hill towards him.
‘What do you think those are?’ he asked. ‘Are they symbolic of something? A worry or a fear?’
There was no reply from the carrot.
The blue dots seemed to have legs.
‘I said, “what do you think those are?”’ repeated Graham, more sharply; he wasn’t used to being ignored. He was also beginning to feel the usual fear sliding back under his skin, like a trickle of cold water. It was a sensation he lived with most of the time, and the fact that he’d just spent ten minutes without it, made its return all the more horrible.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Graham and his voice sounded scratchy with nerves. ‘Talk to me.’
The carrot didn’t speak or turn round, and from the hunch of her shoulders (or whatever you called the top bit of a carrot) it was obvious that she was sulking.
Graham stood up, his mouth dry. The blue dots were making noises, were moving faster. He thought he could hear one of them shouting the word ‘stranger’. He glanced around and saw that there was a steep track behind him leading down the other side of the hill, but it disappeared into a belt of dense woodland, and he was scared of trees, with their creaking branches, and rustling leaves, and shadowy hollows. He couldn’t possibly go into the forest alone.
‘Hey,’ he said to the carrot. ‘We need to go. Come on.’ And when, yet again, there was no answer, Graham realized with a sinking of the heart what he had to do. Something awful. Something utterly pointless and painful.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, right?’
The wheels shifted slightly.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Carrot,’ came the clipped voice.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Carrot.’
‘I’m sorry, Dr Carrot, that I was rude and that I scoffed at your medical qualifications.’
‘I’m sorry, Dr Carrot, that I was rude’ – Graham glanced over his shoulder and the blue dots had now become running blue cylinders with eyes. ‘Come on, we have to get away!’ he screamed.
‘And that I scoffed at your medical qualifications,’ repeated the carrot, grimly.
‘AndthatIscoffedatyourmedicalqualifications. Please! Please!’
‘Apology accepted, although I felt it lacked a
certain sincerity. Now, I believe that you wanted to discuss whether the blue objects approaching us are symbolic of something.’
‘No no no no no, please, not now.’ Graham was almost jumping up and down with anxiety.
‘It’s an interesting idea.’
‘It isn’t, it’s boring! We have to go!!!’ He couldn’t bear to look back at the pursuers with their fixed staring eyes and bulging arms and painted mouths that were shouting something that he was too terrified to understand.
‘We’ll postpone it then.’ Dr Carrot wheeled round, and started heading the other way. ‘Climb on.’
Graham took a clumsy step onto the wheeled base, wrapped his arms around the orange body and closed his eyes. From behind him there were shouts, but they were soon lost under the sound of the wind whipping past his ears as they hurtled down the slope towards the wood.
Dr Carrot shouted something that Graham couldn’t hear.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Need to brake.’
‘Where is it?’
‘What?’
‘The brake.’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘What?’
‘Foot.’
‘What?’
‘Use your foot.’
‘How?’
The reply was lost in the whistle of air. Graham, who had never sledged – or even freewheeled on a bike – thought briefly about sticking out a foot and then thought for slightly longer about catching that foot on a root and breaking his leg in multiple places and ending up on crutches with a metal knee. He kept the foot where it was, closed his eyes and hung on.