Simon felt chilled. What was going on?
“No way you jumped eight feet,” Jimmy jeered. “Who d’you think you are? Superman or somethin’? You don’t wear tights, for cryin’ out loud.”
“I believe him,” Ivan spoke. “You know that fat ass Seymour? One time when he was floatin’ on Scotch I seen him climb a buildin’ like that hero Spiderman …”
The rat was still ignoring the sausage. Simon wanted to find out why. That’s why he drifted off from Henry and wafted cautiously in the rat’s direction. He could have rushed it but something told him to be careful.
“That spook I mentioned,” Henry said, “he’s on the prowl.”
“Shut up about spooks,” Jimmy growled. “Let’s change the talk already.”
Simon was hovering near the rat — he could see a couple of fleas in its fur. He approached the skull, admiring its orb-like eyes. Then he started. The rat and Gilles were whispering to each other — at least, there were bolkhs inside them who were having a chat. Despite his screaming nerves, he listened in.
“Listen, Serdho,” the rat was saying, “this is really big news.”
“You don’t think I’ve heard that one before, Pebhlo?” Gilles replied.
“This lead is strong,” the rat insisted. “A kaba was found this very evening. He was definitely bolkh but not vrindh or limnl. You know what that means?”
“You’re saying he’s a woplh!” Serdho practically sneered. “The one that gave Tarhlo the slip years ago?”
“That’s what I’m saying! And where there’s a woplh, there’s a hamax!”
“Yeah, well, who found this woplh?”
“Cletho — of the Khrastin tribe.”
Again Simon started. Cletho? The same Cletho who’d robbed him some hours before? How had he managed…?
“… He was able to find Irdho who was riding a bird. He tells Irdho it’s urgent and to pass the news quickly. Within hours it reaches Tarhlo and stirs his interest.”
“I’ll bet it does.”
“He’s so interested that he’s making his way to Vancouver.”
“Tarhlo’s coming here?”
“That’s what I’m saying. We’re meeting at Koblansky’s, at midnight tomorrow. It’s the smell of blood, you know. Tarhlo loves it.”
“He really thinks we’ve found a hamax?”
“He doesn’t think. He knows. You’ll be coming, I hope?”
“Are you kidding? If Tarhlo thinks it real, that’s good enough for me.”
Simon wanted to linger but his kaba was thinning. If he remained outside much longer, it wouldn’t be good. That’s why he moved off from the pair and plunged back into Henry. He sighed, glad to be inside again. But the question remained, who were these kabas and what did tomorrow’s gathering mean?
“… I’m tellin’ you,” Jimmy said, “if we don’t change this subject, I’m outta here.”
“Speak to Gilles and that rat,” Henry declared. “They can ver’fy what I’m sayin’.”
“What are you talkin’ ’bout?” Jimmy laughed.
“Don’t do it!” Simon yelled to Henry, cursing himself for baring his thoughts so clearly. “Those demons you’re referring to are out to get us.”
“You mean, they’re out to get you,” Henry thought with a laugh. He cleared his throat and spoke aloud. Simon tried to stop him but he was too clear-minded to control. “That spook I mentioned? He said there’s one inside in Gilles. ’N that rat beside him? It’s got one too.”
A hush seemed to fall on the group. It was followed by a laugh from Jimmy who was about to tell Henry he was full of crap. But Gilles beat him to it. Jumping to his feet, he stalked over to Henry. For a guy who was drunk, his movements were graceful.
“WHO ARE YOU? WHAT’S YOUR TRIBE? WHY ARE YOU HERE?”
The sound caused Simon to shake inside Henry. The vibrations hounded him and spun him in circles. The volume was so loud it seemed to swallow him whole.
“SPEAK UP! WHO ARE YOU? WHY DIDN’T YOU GREET US? I WANT AN ANSWER!”
As Simon bowed beneath this shock wave, he realized with a start that Henry didn’t feel it. Serdho was speaking bolkhin and could be heard by Simon and no one else. From far away he heard Henry tell Gilles that he was crowding him in.
“LISTEN CLOSELY, BOLKH! ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS OR WE’LL HURT YOUR SHATL. WE’LL RIP HIM TO PIECES AND DRIVE YOU OUT!”
Without awaiting an answer, Gilles let Henry have it. Much to the old man’s shock, he was punched in the face and knocked to the soil. As the others yelled and climbed to their feet, Gilles was preparing to hit Henry again. And the rat was scurrying forward, its yellow fangs bared.
“He’s going to kill me!” Henry cried in fear. “I can see it in his eyes!”
“Don’t worry. He’s after me,” Simon said. “I’ll quit your body and he’ll leave you alone. Many thanks, Henry. You’ve been a great help.”
Simon leapt into the air. Henry screamed that the spook was gone and, sure enough, his attackers let him be. Moving off from the fire, they scanned the area around them.
“WHO ARE YOU?” Serdho yelled. “DON’T THINK THAT YOU CAN HIDE! WE WILL FIND YOU AND WHEN WE DO …”
Simon had flown fifty metres or so. The vibrations were making him shiver and once again his kaba was starting to thin. He looked round frantically. Below him were some railroad ties, half overgrown with weeds, and in their midst a rat was skulking. Without hesitating, Simon swooped into this beast.
The rat posed no challenge; its kaba retreated and yielded its “controls.” An instant later Simon was off and running. His goal was to escape these brutes and watch them from a distance. What had Cletho called an occupied body? Not demins or hemans … hemindhs, that was it.
From behind he heard Jimmy yell, “Gilles! What’s bugging you?”
Seconds later, Simon felt a hulking shape above him. Trusting his rat’s instincts he skittered right — just in time: a boot came down and almost squashed him flat. He ducked into a line of bushes, glancing back quickly. While his rat’s pupils made everything blurry, he could see that Gilles was closing in. And his pal Pebhlo was charging too.
Gilles’ body landed mere inches from him, tossed like a rag doll by Serdho within. His hand tried grabbing Simon, who dodged it by entering a length of PVC tubing. Pebhlo followed in hot pursuit, gnashing at his hindparts to slow him down. Three times his fangs flashed out. A tooth grazed a leg and sliced it open.
Simon emerged from the tubing, his hind leg dragging. Pebhlo was behind and getting ready to pounce. Simon rolled to throw him off but he rolled too and managed to keep up. Again his fangs flashed and missed him by a hair — Simon heard them clatter together. There was an intake of air as Pebhlo lunged and …
A railroad tie came crashing down. It weighed fifty kilos at least but Gilles had thrown it effortlessly. Pebhlo’s rat was in the way. It squeaked miserably and that was all.
With his vadh killed, Pebhlo was out of commission. But Serdho kept after Simon, twisting and turning in a way that wasn’t human. His movements reminded Simon that he could push his vadh further. Focusing hard, he tensed the rat’s muscles and, releasing them at once, jumped ten metres. Serdho tried to keep up, but Simon jumped again and again, until he reached an overpass and climbed its girders expertly.
The overpass led to Terminal Avenue, which even at that hour was busy with traffic. Three enormous rigs roared by, one with a Lab sticking its head out a window. Even as Simon considered his options, something struck him hard from above. What the…?
It was a gull. Pebhlo must have squeezed inside it.
The rat fell twenty metres. As he spun in the air, Simon spied Gilles waiting below. He was grinning widely. Realizing the rat had served its purpose, Simon deserted it and took to the air.
Regaining Terminal Avenue, where he could see Pebhlo turning the gull in circles, Simon saw the rigs that had passed just seconds before and shot off in their wake. They were moving fast and he had to hurry. Because of hi
s shock and exposure outside, his kaba was weakening with each passing second. He pushed himself impossibly hard, shaking like a building on the brink of collapse. Just when he was certain his kaba would pop, he managed to duck inside the Lab.
The dog barely noticed and kept hanging out the window. Its owner, a beefy guy who smelled of cigarettes and beer, was humming a country and western tune, “I Walk the Line,” one of Mrs. Carpenter’s favourites. Normally Simon would have cringed at this music, but he was so glad to have escaped that he actually grinned.
Terminal Avenue ended and the truck continued on Quebec Street. Creekside Park appeared on the left. While it didn’t have a lot of trees to boast of, the ones it had were swarming with starlings. On impulse, Simon abandoned the dog and settled in a nestling.
He was one bird in a million and safe for the moment.
Chapter Eight
The bell echoed across the schoolyard. It could be heard in the playing fields, the Japanese garden with its bamboo bridge, and the parking lot and picnic area where students smoked when the coast was clear. The clangour even travelled to the streets beyond, straight into the thick of the tree where Simon was hiding in the vadh of a gull and keeping an eye on the approach to the school.
His old plan was pointless. Since leaving Henry’s body, he hadn’t spotted any shatl that he could take over. He hadn’t dared look, in fact, because such bodies were uncommon and might contain a foreign spirit. After his close call with Serdho, he wanted to stay away from bolkhs. But that meant he couldn’t visit his family and tell them how Cletho had driven him out. After all, how could he speak to them in the guise of a bird? For want of any other ideas, he’d decided to follow Ian and Cletho about. That was why he was by the school — he was waiting for them to show so he could watch them from a distance.
So, where were they?
At the same time, Simon needed information. There was more to this tale than the loss of his shatl. According to the talk between Serdho and Pebhlo, there was a meeting scheduled for later that evening, an important one by the sound of it. By tagging along he might learn something more about these bolkhs: who they were, what they were planning, and how he was connected to them. It might be helpful, too, to catch a glimpse of their leader. What was his name? Carhlo? No. It began with T. Tarhlo. That was it.
But how was he to attend this meeting? Vancouver was an awfully big city. The meeting spot was at a place called Koblansky’s, but the name didn’t ring any bells. Obviously he had to look it up, on one of the school’s computers perhaps. Although this would be far from easy: his vessel wasn’t human and he had no hands to work with.
As if to prove this point, Simon shifted his wings. They felt as if they were a part of him now and as natural as his arms had been when he and his body had been joined together. He was making progress with this transmigration.
And why not? He’d been busy practising these last few hours. After hiding among the starlings awhile, to throw any lingering bolkhs off his scent, he’d decided to test his talents out. Cletho had said he couldn’t ride a vadh that was smaller than a mouse’s, but Simon wondered if this applied to him too. Having taken over a mouse already, he’d been curious to see if he could control something smaller. He’d combed Creekside Park until he’d found what he was looking for: a Chafer beetle.
His dad was always cursing these pests because of the holes they left in the lawn. Simon’s had been the size of a dime. Getting into it was like a man squeezing into a lunch box. He’d circled the beetle over and over, lunged several times and — the feeling had been crazy — wrested control of a leg or antenna. Then the narrow space had conquered him and forced him to back off. After failing five times, he’d tried something different. He’d compacted himself, over and over. His kaba, he’d discovered, was like a sheet of paper that he could fold almost without limit. In this new, compressed form, he’d “attacked” the beetle again. This time he’d managed to roll inside, with some space left over.
He’d become more ambitious. From the beetle, he’d packed himself into a snail — it had been like steering a bowl of hardened jelly — then an ant, a tick, and, finally, an aphid. And he hadn’t stuck to animals only. By flattening himself as thin as a hair (that was the only way to describe it) he’d been able to merge with a tree, a bush, and a dandelion. He’d even occupied a blade of grass and laughed as the wind had blown him about.
All the while he’d been wondering where these powers came from and why his parents didn’t share in them. Who was Simon Carpenter exactly? What was his relation to Cletho? Why could he project and not the rest of his family?
He shook himself and drew up straight in the tree. There — Ian and Cletho were fast approaching. They were running together and sharing a laugh, not caring that classes had started already. Looking on, Simon felt jealous. It had been a while since he’d made Ian smile. He often disagreed with Ian and they could quarrel over tiny things. But Cletho was treating him like a long lost friend and causing him to collapse with laughter. Maybe Ian liked this version of “Simon” and didn’t want the old one back.
But these thoughts were unproductive. There was stuff to do.
Simon quit the gull and drifted to the school. He didn’t feel so panicked now when he roamed outside a vadh or shatl. The choking sensation didn’t hit him as hard and he didn’t think his kaba was thinning. He really was mastering this projection business.
He shot past Cletho and entered the school through a window. Once inside, he toured the hallways, on the lookout for Sherkhan — the janitor’s cat. Because Sherkan roamed the school at will, and entered classrooms whenever it pleased, it was the perfect vadh to stash himself in. He explored the gym, the library, the staff room until he finally stumbled on the puss.
Sherkhan wasn’t expecting him. One moment it was stretching, the next Simon was inside it. In a blink he commanded the grace and strength of a cat. But again, his vision was quirky. Everything was blurry, the objects near and far away. And while he could see variations of blue (the colour in students’ jeans for example) the reds amounted to different shades of grey.
He set out after Ian. His brother was leaving the principal’s office, where he’d received a late slip before heading to class. Cletho was with the secretary. Judging by her expression he was giving her lip. As Simon tailed his brother to the juniors’ wing, he was thinking he would have to apologize for Cletho, if he ever got his shatl back.
Ian entered a classroom and Simon trotted behind. The students chuckled when they saw him dogging Ian and laughed even harder when he stretched out on a sill. Ms. Morris, the instructor, was teaching the Pythagorean Theorem. Simon yawned and groomed his fur.
His plan had been to watch Ian briefly, then proceed to the library to look up Koblansky’s. But as Ms. Morris talked about adjacent angles, he couldn’t keep himself from dozing off. He was exhausted and slept for forty minutes or so, awaking only when the school bell rang. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was. His kaba was bobbing against a windowpane, like a fly or mosquito trying vainly to escape, while a line of kids was heading out the door, joking and talking, and knocking into each other.
It’s recess, he thought dimly. He’d drifted off and lost his grip on Sherkhan. The cat’s kaba had resumed control and steered the vadh somewhere else in the school. Where was it now? He had to find it before …
Wait! His kaba! It hadn’t thinned while he’d been sleeping, never mind it had been floating around outside. More interesting was the fact that it had dozed to begin with. If he needed sleep, the bolkhs would as well. But the crucial point was that he’d broken loose of Sherkhan. That had to mean bolkhs wandered when they dozed. In which case, Simon thought with excitement, he could watch Cletho closely and when his bolkh nodded off, rush his shatl and take it over. Well, well.
But first things first. He had to look up Koblansky’s. Drifting off in search of Sherkhan, he found the cat in a distant hallway. Simon nabbed it but flinched as an unfamiliar taste struck h
ome. Cat food. Yuck. Salty it was, with something sour mixed in. Wagging his tongue to get rid of the taste, he wandered past a mob of students, one of whom gave him a sandwich in passing. He licked it tentatively. Peanut butter. That was better than cat chow.
He moved into a hallway, which was crowded now. Everyone seemed huge, even the junior students. Manoeuvring between them was like threading a forest, only one with trees that were able to walk. It was a strain, too, to be craning upward, although the artwork on the walls, when seen from below, was weird and psychedelic, beautiful even.
The noise was awful. Each sound was strangely magnified, from students’ voices to the echo of them walking. And music was bleeding from a few sets of headphones. Even in this muted guise, the notes stirred his nausea and made him feel dizzy. He wondered what would happen if the music were to hit him directly.
“Hey Dog Bone!” a familiar voice called out.
“Dog Bone! Wait up!” a second voice echoed.
Simon jumped. Peter and Winston. They were addressing him, or Cletho really. The hemindh was emerging from the boys’ washroom.
“How’s it going, Dog Bone?” Peter cried, blocking Cletho’s path. Winston was beside him and clutching a laptop. Simon paused and cleaned his paws.
“What do you two losers want?” Cletho snarled.
“That’s not nice,” Peter said, his smile fading slightly. “We only want to tell you how impressed we are.”
“Yeah?”
“You sure dazzled Ms. Guzman in biology class. How do you know so much about cavemen? Are your parents cavemen? Did you grow up in a cave?”
“Yeah. Sure. Look, nothing personal, but I don’t like your tone. The same way I don’t like this Dog Bone crap. Why don’t you guys move along before someone gets hurt?”
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