by Zizou Corder
‘You should think about it,’ said Finn, reasonable as ever. And maybe if I’d been a sensible person, clear-headed and not in a state of shock from having a book read him stories about lions being born of the moon, I would’ve gone up and handed myself in, and got my botty smacked and helped clear up the murder just by letting them know it was nothing to do with me and they needed to look elsewhere. And then, let’s imagine, best possible scenario, they’d be so pleased I’d helped them they’d protect me from Mrs Asteriosy… as if… and even so, no. It all led to trouble, and back to Mum and Dad and school. I wasn’t going back.
Crike. Dad would have seen it if I was in the papers.
He’d know where I’d hide! He’d taught me everything I know! He’d use the same logic I used and track me down in no time.
He wouldn’t go to the police, that’s for sure. Ravens don’t go to the police.
He might come down here though. Mariani! I’d have to move on.
‘I ran into Billy,’ said Finn.
That’s all I need.
‘And?’ I said. I had to concentrate on this stuff. Never mind the book for a moment. Pin your mind to what Finn’s telling you.
‘He’d seen about it. Wanted to know had I seen you, and it was hard, Lee – I told him I hadn’t though. He’ll slaughter me when he finds out. Anyway he said it’s lucky Dad’s away, he’s gone to Paris on some job, but he’ll be back next weekend.’
By my reckoning today was Sunday. A lot could happen in a week.
‘And… er…’ Finn was trying to say something. ‘I brought the papers. I… er… I could read ’em to you…’
It was understandable that he should be reluctant to offer. I’ve clocked people for trying to help me that way before now. But not Finn. Finn’s not like that. Anyway, I needed to know what was going on.
This is what Finn read:
When he’d finished Finn looked up at me. ‘So did you nick that manuscript then? Have you got it?’
‘No,’ I lied automatically. My head was reeling. It wasn’t just the great amount of trouble I was in, or the ever-larger number of people I was in trouble with. Now there was caio involved!
Twenty-five thousand dirhams is a load of money.
I don’t want anybody thinking I’ve got anything worth that much on me. It ain’t safe.
Twenty-five thousand dirhams! If I played my cards right, I could get that. Me! Stupid Lee!
‘Pity,’ said Finn, ‘cos if you did have, obviously you wouldn’t be able to take it back and get the reward what with they think you’re the thief, so you’d need someone you trust, like, you know, your brother or something, who could take it for you and then you’d be really rich. And you’d give them a cut of course.’ He looked at me with a hopeful expression, bug-eyed, like a frog with ideas.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Well, if I had it, I’d probably do just that.’
But I did have it, and I wasn’t doing that.
Why not?
Twenty-five thousand dirhams!
I was going to have to have a think. Twenty-five thousand dirhams could change a boy’s life.
Finn went soon enough after that. I was left alone with a couple of questions burning.
What in crike was this book?
And how exactly did I feel about 25,000 dirhams?
Well, looked like I’d have plenty of time to find out.
I unfolded it from its hiding place and took it back to our cosy little spot under the ventilation shaft.
‘OK, Hercules!’ I said cheerfully. ‘Let’s see!’
Half of me thought it wouldn’t happen again. Seeing Finn had brought me back to reality. I must have been hallucinating. It happens. There’s weird things in the air down the shores.
Well, soon as we sat down, soon as I opened the book, the story started again. I didn’t even have to look at the page. I shook my head in relief and disbelief, and after a while I settled myself on my back on the floor, holding the book next to my heart, and let the story sweep me away.
I lay there all day.
The cold seeped into my back. My legs grew stiff. My mind and my heart filled up with the story. I was really really happy. Even after Hercules finished his twelve labours, I just lay there with a stupid grin on my face. Happy. Going over the story in my mind. Hercules was like a flusher, cleaning out that filthy stable! I was happy.
It was so quiet that a little mouse ran over the book as it lay warm on my chest. Then another! I just flicked at them with my hand.
After about half an hour of this quiet happiness, I heard the voice again.
‘Excuse me,’ it said.
Another story! Great beginning. I thought about sitting up, to encourage it, but decided against. As if my behaviour would affect what it did! Either it was some miraculous piece of kit, some bit of electronica from a richer world than I’ve ever seen, some top-of-the-range antique-styled info-pod, or it was – well, a miracle. A magic thing. Either way – and to be honest I knew it wasn’t an info-pod – it would hardly care about me.
It gave a small cough.
Now that confused me. I knew a story could start with ‘“Excuse me”’ – followed perhaps by ‘sneered the fat man, stroking the white cat, “but I think you are under some misapprehension…” ’; or ‘squawked the Duchess, and Murdoch the Wonderthief knew immediately that the game was up…’; or… Well, anyway, it could, but I didn’t see how any story could begin ‘Excuse me’ followed by a small cough. I don’t suppose anybody knows how to spell a small cough. They’d write, ‘The Duchess gave a small cough’ wouldn’t they? I don’t know a lot about writing, obviously, but it seems…
Anyway, then it coughed again and said, ‘Urn, do you want another story?’
And that certainly wasn’t the beginning of a story. That was an invitation. An offer.
That was conversation.
It said, ‘Because if you do, that’s fine, but if you don’t, would you mind closing me?’
I sat up quickly. A bit too quickly. The book fell from my chest to the floor.
It said, ‘Ouch.’
And then I swore. Quite a lot.
And it said, ‘Gosh.’ Like some vicar in an old film.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
‘No,’ it replied, ‘not at all. I’m filled with admiration. That’s some vocabulary. Could you pick me up?’
And I thought, I’m talking to a book and a book is talking to me.
There must be something very strong in the sewers of Soho tonight. Maybe all the pee from all the nightclubs is full of drugs… Maybe…
But it felt so real.
I picked it up. Brushed it off gently.
‘Thank you,’ it said.
My mouth fell open, but I didn’t swear again.
CHAPTER 7
The Story According to the Book
I did not mean to speak to the boy. Not even to tell him a story. I know I gave him the fright of his life – I’ve done that many many times before – but really, what was I meant to do? Giving them stories is my job. It has been for thousands of years. So if he can’t read, what am I meant to do? And then he leaves me lying open right over his story-hungry heart? I had no choice. I had to get round it somehow.
And odd as it may seem, I’ve never really met an illiterate person before. You’d think I would have, over time, but all this time, I’ve always been in libraries and monasteries and so on. Not by choice – you think I get any choice where I go? You try being a book. You go where you’re put, and that’s it… Where was I? Oh yes, and when I was out in the world, in the old days, I was in Mesopotamia and everyone could read then.
When his brother had left, and he turned and picked me up again, he had a question burning in his blood and I felt it. I felt it as strongly as I had felt his inability to read, when he had rested his head on me the night before. I had to answer it.
It was a joy to tell him of the Labours of Hercules, lying on his heart. I could feel his pulse race at the exciting bits, h
ear his held breath at the suspense, his relief when things went right.
But then, when he left me open, for half an hour… well, he couldn’t know it, but when I am open I have to tell a story. Usually I just have it in place in writing, and can wait for someone to come and read. But lying there, on his heart, having been speaking – speaking! – the compulsion was so strong, the link so close… But I couldn’t tell a story till he turned back to the beginning.
I couldn’t keep it in. I was going to burst. So I asked him.
I thought he took it rather well.
After the swearing, I asked him again, very gently, and, still in shock I think, he nodded.
He settled himself back down on the floor in that rather dark undergroundy place – I hoped we weren’t going to stay there too long – and turned to the beginning.
‘Would you like the story of me?’ I asked him.
‘Oh yes,’ he murmured.
Of course he would. I like to give people what they want.
‘Many thousands of years ago,’ I began, ‘there was a young god called Nebo. He had fine dark eyes and a curly beard. He was young and handsome and extremely clever, and he rode on a winged dragon called Mushusshu, who really belonged to his father, Marduk, but Nebo was allowed to use her whenever he wanted and after a while he just took her over, because his father preferred his chariot and never took her out. Mushusshu was not the cleverest dragon in the world but she was extremely loyal and she had lots and lots of babies, whom Nebo loved very much. They were extremely sweet, actually. All different colours, sparkly and gleaming. There was one very dear one called Squabo, who played such tricks… Well, previously Nebo had been in Sumeria, where he had been a woman, but it was when he went to Babylon, to his city of Borsippa, that he came into his strength and the great days of his existence, and this is how it happened.
‘One day Nebo was out walking by the River Tigris in the Garden of Eden, and he saw his father down on the river bank. The river is wide and beautiful there, the land flat and green around it, with palm trees and rushes growing, and smooth red mud in the curves along the banks. (At least it was like that then. It may be very different now.) Marduk (he has plenty of other names, but we’ll stick with Marduk for simplicity) was standing there, on the grass, looking around. He had only recently made the world, separating off the light from the dark, and the heavens from the earth, and the earth from the waters, and he was taking a rest, admiring what he had made – how clean and beautiful it was, so colourful and clear and imaginative, and full of details. Now he was thinking about making living things for his beautiful new world, to live in it.
‘I could have ones that creep about on the ground, Marduk thought, and ones to swim in the river, and really pretty ones to fly in the air and catch the light on their wings… and I’ll make one that looks like me, to give them names and look after them all…
‘First he made a little manikin: he took a lump of clay from the river bank and squidged it in his fingers to give it arms and legs and a head, with a tuft of reed fronds for hair, and a little face. It looked cute.
‘“That’s nice,” said Nebo. “What is it?”
‘“Man,” said Marduk. “It’s only a prototype. The real thing should be bigger.” And he carved out a big pile of squidgy red clay from the river bank, about as big as a man. Then he worked in the warm sunlight of only the sixth day of the world’s existence, with a sweet gentle breeze coming off the river, and the swishing green reeds singing to him, and he started to make a model of himself. He was on his knees for much of the work, leaning over it like you do when you make a sandcastle, balancing himself on one arm, getting red streaks on his robe, smiling to himself as it took shape. Two good legs, two strong arms, a head and a torso…
“‘What shall I call him?” he said after a while.
‘Nebo, squatting down nearby and watching the work, said, “How about Red Earth, after what he’s made of?” Red Earth in their language is adam – so that’s what he was named.
‘Marduk had made Adam’s chest too broad, so he scraped it down with a sharp stone (a stick might have been better but there were no sticks because no branches had fallen off any trees yet). He squished the extra bits of clay into a lump and dropped them on the vivid new green grass by his side.
“‘Is he ready?” asked Marduk.
“‘Looks good from here,” said Nebo.
‘So Marduk leaned forward and breathed life into his first man.
“‘Ahhh,” said Nebo.
“‘What do you think?” Marduk asked.
“‘Nice,” said Nebo. He picked up a bit of the discarded clay. “Can I have a bit?”
‘“Of course,” said Marduk. “Careful what you do with it though. I breathed on that bit too.”’
I paused for a moment. The boy was lying still, happy, interested.
‘That was me,’ I said, pausing for effect. But then: ‘What do you mean,’ asked the boy, ‘that was you?’
I was rather surprised at this.
‘Young man!’ I said sternly. ‘When humans read you, they cannot interrupt. Please!’
‘They can close you and put you down,’ he said.
‘Yes, I know…’
‘They can fall asleep while they’re reading and leave you in the middle of a sentence.’
‘Yes, they can, though I do wish they wouldn’t…’
‘And they can let you slip from their fingers and fall on the floor.’
‘Yes, yes, all right…’
‘And they often have questions, I bet.’
Now that hadn’t occurred to me.
‘Do you think so?’
‘Sure – like when they look things up in the back and they’re not there and they get narked.’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘So, what do you mean about being the lump of mud?’
‘Hush,’ I replied. ‘All in good time.’
‘But you’re not a lump of mud. A book ain’t a lump of mud.’
‘Shh,’ I said. ‘Patience. All will be revealed. All right?’ And I continued.
‘That evening, Nebo sat in his courtyard, with his lantern twinkling in the dusk like a firefly, washing me in cool water, removing the odd worm – that was Marduk’s mistake, he left the worms in Adam – and bits of grass and so on that I had picked up down by the river. Then he left me for a day or two to dry out. I came to on a stone slab in his courtyard, out of the sun, and with a jar of water to keep me soft, he began to slap me about and shape me. (I didn’t mind – it was what I was for.) He flattened me and he smoothed me down and he rinsed me off, and then he took a sharp little blade and he stuck it into me. Over and over.’
‘What’d he want to do that for?’ exclaimed Lee. ‘That’s not very nice.’
‘It’s what I was for,’ I said. ‘Listen, and you shall learn. He was inventing writing. On me! He stuck the blade into me, leaving a little shape like an arrowhead. He made them large and then small. He made them in groups, in patterns. He made patterns for numbers: simple. He made patterns for goats and chickens. He made collections of patterns, lines like stars and specks and arrowheads and arrowtails. He made patterns for money. He made the names of gods. He wrote about what his father had done by the river, creating man. Then, before I dried out, he smoothed me again and rinsed me down and rekneaded me and started again.
‘And he gave writing to mankind. This is why he was so loved, so honoured and worshipped. For what good is all the knowledge in the world if it isn’t written down? Nebo gave mankind the means to remember everything they ever learned, and to pass their knowledge down through the generations, and to build upon the knowledge that had come down to them. Without him, mankind would still be living in holes.
‘And he gave them stories as well. He made a long long pattern, a story about somebody called Gilgamesh, how he was set up against a man called Eabo, the adventures they had together. There was a monster in the forest, a great voyage, a wise man. The friend died. He had to go t
o a great lake under the earth, where all the dead people hung around. Gilgamesh, who was still alive, went after him, to find out what had happened, and how he could escape death.’
‘Do you still know that story?’ asked the boy.
‘I know all stories,’ I replied. ‘That was a good story, and it was the first, but there have been better ones since.’
‘Um… Can I ask you something?’ he said.
‘I do wish you’d stop interrupting,’ I said. ‘How are we going to get anywhere if you keep interrupting?’
‘Are you telling me a story? Or are you talking to me?’
‘Well, I’m trying to tell you a story…’
‘Because, you see, I had just about started to think I might be able to get my head around the idea of a book telling me a story out loud, and now it looks like this is more of a conversation, know what I mean?’
‘Yes, I know what you mean by the word conversation. I am, after all, a book.’
‘Yeah but…’ he said.
‘Yeah but what?’ I replied, patiently I thought.
‘Yeah but you’re chatting away –’
‘Well, yes…’
‘And I had just thought, well, maybe you were like some kind of MP9 player or something, you know, a fancy one, but now… I don’t know what you are.’
‘I’m a book,’ I said. ‘I would have thought that was quite obvious.’
‘Yeah but…’
‘Yeah but what?’
‘We’re having a chat. It’s not usual, is it?’
I had to concede that indeed it wasn’t usual.
‘I’m talking to a thing,’ he said, with an air of metaphysical puzzlement.
‘Less of that, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I may be a thing, but you don’t need to say so.’
‘Do you talk to everybody?’ he asked.
‘Well, no,’ I said.
‘Did you talk to Mr Maggs?’
‘Of course not. There was no need,’ I replied.
He didn’t need to ask why I did need to talk to him. He knew he couldn’t read.
The boy was quiet for a moment. Then: ‘Are you magic?’ he said suddenly.