The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

by Michael de Larrabeiti

  The daylight grew even stronger. About fifty yards away from the platelayers’ shed stood an old man dressed in a faded blue anorak, Brent Council overalls and rolled-over wellies. Beside him stood Sam and Sydney. Sam was eating something from the old man’s hand. Beyond the man were ten more horses and a score of donkeys grazing on the wild grasses and thistles that grew there. Further back were some dogs and goats, the dogs sleeping.

  The wet clouds peeled backwards and showed another layer of sky. The Borribles shivered. In the distance, perhaps a mile away on the other side of this wedge of land, they could see where the ranks of streets and houses took up their march again. Between those streets and the platelayers’ hut lay the bleak depots and the piles of equipment that belonged to the council road-men: hoppers for loading grit, rusty rubbish skips and big yellow machines for digging holes and moving earth. From all sides came the roar of motor traffic, grinding to work. From above came the screaming and whining of jet engines as the fat airliners lowered themselves into Heathrow Airport. London was starting a new day.

  The man turned and went further into the wasteland, threading his way through his horses and goats and donkeys and dogs. Sydney beckoned to the Borribles, then she followed the man and Sam followed her. The Borribles groaned, hauled themselves to their feet and made themselves go forward, but their journey was a short one. After walking for no more than two or three hundred yards they found themselves outside a long low shed made from corrugated asbestos. Its doors were missing and had been replaced by hanging sacks tied together. There was a bench on the southern side of the shed and some of the Adventurers sat on it while the remainder threw themselves full-length on the ground, unable to take another step. It did not matter too much; they were in a kind of hollow and felt safe. No building overlooked them, no one could see them from road or railway line.

  A moment or two after their arrival Sydney emerged from the shed with half a sack of horse feed on her shoulder and poured it on to the ground. Sam began to eat. From inside the hut came the sound of a pan hitting the cooker and then the smell of bacon and bread frying. Sydney disappeared again and in a little while came back, this time bearing a piece of wood sawn from a plank; on the wood she bore eight old bean cans, each one full of steaming tea, and she handed them round.

  The hot tea warmed the Adventurers. Sydney sipped from her tin and looked at her friends. Their faces were so begrimed with dirt and oil that it was impossible to see their tiredness, but she could sense it; their movements were rheumatic, no words were spoken, there was no backchat. Sydney stared at the cuts and bruises on the back of her hands; she looked at what remained of her clothing, torn and frayed and smeared with filth.

  ‘He’s called Mad Mick,’ she said to the others and squatted on the ground, watching Sam eat and stroking his head every now and then, ‘and this place is called Mad Mick’s; but he ain’t mad, not a bit of it. He just likes looking after old horses and donkeys and such. He saves them from the knacker’s yard. People bring him food and things he needs, sometimes they throw it over the walls down there. That’s how we can help while we stay here, going round the walls picking stuff up. The council know he’s here but there’s so much space …’

  Mad Mick shuffled from his shed at this point bearing huge peanut butter sandwiches. ‘Bacon’s cooking,’ he said and went away.

  The Borribles fell upon the food like savages, eating and drinking in great gulps. While they ate Sydney talked. It was as though she had to explain everything after what it had cost to get there.

  ‘He’s been here years,’ she said with her mouth full, ‘but nobody cares. He hands out food to us when we’re short and when he’s short we go and nick some for him.’

  ‘He don’t say a lot,’ said Torreycanyon.

  ‘He don’t need to. He talks to the animals all the time. Still, he told me you could stay here as long as you like, until you’ve completely recovered and got some really good grub down you.’

  ‘I don’t see any markets or shops,’ said Torreycanyon. ‘We’ll need grub all right.’

  Sydney waved an arm. ‘Willesden and Stonebridge are over there,’ she said, ‘and Neasden, where I live, over there. I can come here all the time and see Sam, it’s no distance.’

  As she said this Mad Mick came from his hut with more sandwiches and distributed them, nodding all the while but saying nothing.

  ‘When we’re all rested up,’ said Stonks, ‘and before we leave we ought to make sure Mad Mick has enough grub to last him a twelvemonth. It looks really safe here.’

  ‘Don’t talk about leaving yet, man,’ said Orococco. ‘I’m tired and my legs are aching.’

  ‘I’m not talking about going,’ said Chalotte suddenly, broaching the subject that everyone had been thinking of but had not mentioned. ‘I’m going to wait for Knocker.’

  Stonks took a breath that reached right down to the bottom of his guts. ‘Supposing he don’t show up?’ he said. ‘What then?’

  ‘He’ll be here,’ said Chalotte. ‘It’ll take more than Sussworth to catch him.’

  Stonks was sitting on the bench and he gazed at the ground between his feet, staring past the bean tin he held in both hands. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘when I talked to him the last time it sounded to me like he didn’t think he was coming back; like he had a plan … like he was going to do for Sussworth but like he might get done himself into the bargain.’

  Twilight finished the dregs of his tea and spat a leaf out from between his teeth. ‘You talked to him, Chalotte, through the hole in the wall. What did he tell you?’

  Chalotte looked behind her and watched the horses as they shook their heads and flicked their graceful tails. They were so beautiful, contrasting strangely with their bleak surroundings, and Sam, his soft brown coat now clean of every trace of Knibbsie’s dye and Sydney’s polish, was beautiful too. It had been right to bring him here, a good thing for Borribles to have done, worth all the struggle and sacrifice.

  Chalotte sniffed. Sam had finished his feed and was moving easily to join the other horses browsing on the rough grass which grew in clumps by the side of a square of tarmac that had once been the floor of a building. The horse was happy now, and safe for ever. He had come home and found friends. Chalotte looked back at Twilight and answered his question: ‘He said that there was only one way for him to convince Sussworth that we were all dead. Sussworth had to believe that those dwarf bodies were us, and Knocker reckoned he could do it by leaving Napoleon’s body for the Woollies to find and then letting them see him and chase him through the tunnels. “Eight plus two makes ten,” he said.’

  ‘It wasn’t a bad plan,’ said Bingo.

  ‘Suppose he let himself be captured on purpose,’ said Vulge, ‘so he could be “forced” into telling Sussworth a lie at the same time as making him think it was the truth.’

  ‘He must ’ave,’ said Bingo, ‘otherwise how did we get away so easily, eh?’

  ‘That must be it,’ agreed Twilight. ‘The SBG knew we had to come out of the Underground somewhere but we didn’t see sight nor sound of ’em. Not one van, not one uniform, not one siren.’

  There was silence for a while as everyone thought about what Twilight had said.

  Torreycanyon scratched his head. ‘What can we do?’ he asked. ‘We got Sam here all right, we won the battle, but we lost two of the best, two of the very, very best. What can we do?’

  Chalotte rubbed her red eyes and got to her feet. She shook her dirty hair free.

  ‘Knocker said we had to get back to our own boroughs—he said it would be easy without the horse—back to being ordinary Borribles. He said we must tell the story of our Adventure, all of it, just as it happened, whenever and wherever, to normal kids as well as Borribles. Look for people like Scooter, he said.’

  ‘Bloody Ninch,’ said Orococco.

  ‘We had to stop Sussworth turning Sam into catsmeat, whatever else we did,’ Chalotte went on. ‘Sam musn’t end up as cans on shelves in supermarkets.
’

  ‘What else did he say?’ asked Stonks.

  ‘He said just to carry on, sharing out what we nick, keeping on running and hiding … Don’t be bullied. Stay away from work and money, he said, they’re the killers for Borribles. Be Borrible and live for ever.’

  ‘We’ve seen some things,’ said Sydney, and she glanced round her friends and they nodded.

  Chalotte took a step forward and stretched her arms above her head and looked out across London, many square miles of it visible now where the rain clouds had risen, and the old grey daylight was diffused like silver over a million rooftops, picking out every tile and slate, every brick and chimney. She wiped her eyes clear, a new toughness shining through the grime on her face.

  ‘Knocker said we had to put all this behind us and make a fresh start. Put the grief away, he said, and remember only the good things; and the best things were to enjoy being here, enjoy being alive, enjoy being Borrible.’

  Stonks got to his feet and came to stand by Chalotte’s side. The others stood also and gathered together in a group around the girl from Whitechapel. They gazed towards Sam and the other horses and beyond them to the furthest rim of the city, right to the edge where it became blue and indistinct.

  Stonks put an arm across Chalotte’s shoulders. ‘Did he say what he’d do if he got caught?’ he asked, and his voice broke and he lowered his head and stabbed the ground with his toe.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘He said we weren’t to go looking for him. If he got away he would find us … and if he got caught he … There was something he was going to do.’

  ‘Do?’ said Vulge. ‘Like what?’

  ‘He said he was going to tell our story on the other side; it was the only thing left for him to do. Tell the story before being a Borrible faded completely from his mind … You know, when they make him work.’

  ‘Sod it,’ said Orococco.

  Chalotte shook herself free from Stonks’s arm and took a couple of steps away from the group and wept alone for a minute or two; then she swallowed big gulps of air in an attempt to stop the sobs coming. There was so much more she wanted to say.

  The Adventurers did not move but stood each with his own tears facing London. The clouds were less dark now and a rough wind was beginning to tear them apart, slashing at them and laying bare the white light beyond, scouring deep tracks of fresh colour across the sky. The air was still damp and heavy but nowhere was it raining on the city, and there was the tiniest patch of deep blue out over the dullness above the River Thames.

  ‘He really was the best of Borribles, that Knocker,’ said Sydney. She shook her head furiously to clear her sight. ‘He saved Sam and got him here. He was the best of all Borribles.’

  Chalotte placed her hands on her hips and slowly turned to face her friends, weary and bedraggled as they stood in that sad scattering by Mad Mick’s hut on the wasteland of Neasden. Her eyes were dry at last and alight with a strange and powerful smile.

  ‘Not was, Sydney,’ she said. ‘Is. Remember that.’ She raised a hand and without looking she pointed behind her towards the great ugly mess of London. ‘Knocker is,’ she said. ‘Knocker is.’

  THE BORRIBLE TRILOGY by Michael de Larrabeiti

  Available from Tor Teen

  Book 1: The Borribles

  Book 2: The Borribles Go For Broke

  Book 3: The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis

  MICHAEL DE LARRABEITI was brought up in Battersea. He is the author of two more books about the Borribles—The Borribles and The Borribles Go For Broke—as well as many other books. He has three grown-up daughters and lives with his wife in Oxfordshire.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE BORRIBLES: ACROSS THE DARK METROPOLIS

  Copyright © 1986 by Michael de Larrabeiti

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  eISBN 9781466821026

  First eBook Edition : April 2012

  ISBN 0-765-35007-6

  EAN 978-0-765-35007-7

  First Tor Teen edition: January 2006