The Beginning Woods

by Malcolm McNeill

  One night, staring at his Forever Parents in the mural, he decided it was the ocean they had been trying to cross in their Balloon.

  They had discovered it.

  It had been named after them!

  Was that his name?

  Max Panthalassa?

  He kept all of this secret from the Mulgans—even his reading. If they saw him with a book there would be a complaint, or a cutting remark, and then there would be a Talk, which would turn into an Argument, and then a Fight.

  So he sneaked books back home and read them out of sight, in his room. If he heard Forbes or Alice moving about outside the door, he would jam the book under his pillow. Then he’d get angry, and imagine what would happen if they came in.

  “You have to start living in the real world,” they’d say, and he would shout back at them: “You can’t make me! YOU’RE NOT MY REAL PARENTS!”

  They never did come into his room, and never said, “You have to start living in the real world.” But that didn’t matter. He imagined they did, and got angry as if they had, and in this way he built up a store of resentment against them for something they had never done.

  Eventually he retreated into the attic. Among the dead wasps and carpet cuttings, discarded toys and boxed-up Christmas decorations, he could read in peace. Sitting with his back against the mysterious stillness of the water tank, he would open his book, and the story would take him like a tornado takes a house, spinning and twisting to another land—far from Forbes and Alice and Bickerstaffes Road.

  He was up there one Sunday, reading in the quietness of the attic, when Forbes came back from the abattoir early. And suddenly the house was full of noise. The front door slamming. Footsteps booming on the stairs.

  Forbes calling out: “Just hopping in the shower.”

  Alice shouting back: “They’re about to start!”

  He put down his book, scooted over to the hatch and edged it open to peep down. Forbes was in and out of the bathroom in a flash and passed underneath in a dressing gown, towelling his hair dry.

  Usually he washed at the abattoir. He must have left in a hurry. And someone must have given him a lift.

  What was going on?

  He lowered the ladder and went downstairs to the kitchen, slowing as he passed the living room. Forbes and Alice were standing in front of the TV. An old man with grey hair and a bushy beard was talking into a microphone outside a museumish kind of building.

  I must apologize for my long absence. Sometimes one must go into the wilderness to discover the truth…

  He went into the kitchen, made himself a jam sandwich and poured a glass of milk. The rich tones of the man’s voice filled the house.

  … in co-ordination with international lawyers and heads of state, I have drawn up a series of emergency measures to be enacted universally and in every country signatory to…

  When he passed the living room Forbes and Alice hadn’t moved. The cigarette in Alice’s hand was turning into a long droop of ash.

  He got back into the attic, arranged his milk and sandwich within easy reach and settled down again for a good afternoon’s read.

  “MAX! MAX GET DOWN HERE!”

  Forbes’s voice was like the crack of a whip.

  He froze, then slipped his book under the water tank and crawled over to the hatch. Forbes was thudding up the stairs again, his beefy legs flashing out beneath his dressing gown.

  “Give it here! Quick! No arguments!”

  Max drew back slightly. He knew he meant the book. “Give what?”

  But Forbes went straight past without stopping and disappeared into his bedroom. After a bit of banging about, he reappeared and clattered down the stairs.

  His arms were full of books.

  Max didn’t even use the ladder. He dropped through the hatch, landed on all fours and sprang at Forbes.

  “They’re mine!” he screamed, hauling on Forbes’s elbow. “Give them back!”

  He managed to make him drop one in the hall, but Forbes just kicked it towards Alice, who was standing by the cupboard under the stairs, holding the door open—she snatched it up and tossed it into the darkness. Forbes bent in after it, his broad back blocking the entire door as he wriggled about in the narrow space.

  Max whirled on Alice. “It’s for your own good,” she said, cutting him off. “Go into the kitchen. I’ll be in to make lunch in a minute.”

  Lunch? How could she talk about lunch? “It isn’t fair! They’re mine!”

  She wasn’t interested. “Do as I say.”

  There was nothing else for it: he stormed through the door and slammed it, jamming a foot against it.

  Let them come! Let them try!

  They stayed in the hall, talking quietly. He pressed his ear to the door.

  “Did you check his schoolbag?”

  “I’ll do it in a minute. I want to hear the rest of this.”

  “What are we supposed to do with them all? We can’t keep them here.”

  “They’ll tell us I guess.”

  “Don’t forget the one in the attic. He hides them under the water tank.”

  “It’s coming back on. I’ll get it later.”

  Their voices got fainter as they returned to the living room. But the TV got louder. Max squeezed his head against the door and held his breath. This time it sounded like two reporters:

  Astonishing news today in Paris—nobody expected anything like this. The repercussions are going to be quite simply unimaginable. Appeals for calm are likely to fall on deaf ears.

  That’s right Terry, it’s going to be the biggest cultural upheaval the world has ever seen. The long-term consequences are unforeseeable.

  For those of you just joining, there seems to have been another delay. We were expecting to hear from the Prime Minister, but now it seems there’s, yes, there’s no word yet of any… no sign of any movement at the Trocadéro…

  “I’d better go check on him. Shout if anything happens.”

  “He’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “He’ll just have to get used to it, won’t he?”

  “Grab me a couple of biscuits, will you? I haven’t had a chance to eat.”

  Max leapt away from the door and sat at the table before Alice came in. She stood opposite him, her arms folded.

  Was he hungry?

  What did he want for lunch?

  Anything special?

  She’d fix him a Welsh Rarebit if he wanted.

  He looked right past her like she didn’t exist. He swore he’d never look at her again. He couldn’t believe she thought a Welsh Rarebit was a fair exchange for his books.

  She waited, staring at him as hard as he wasn’t staring at her. He knew Alice could wait for a long time, but she would want to get back to whatever was happening on the TV. Sure enough, she soon unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips.

  Wasn’t he hungry? OK. He could come and get her when he was ready. He’d need her when he was hungry, wouldn’t he? And he would get hungry. He couldn’t sit there for ever.

  Couldn’t he?

  That’s what she thought!

  She left, and he sat exulting in his victory, which was multiplied by a billion when she had to come back for the biscuits she’d forgotten. On her way past him again, though, she put a couple down in front of him, a masterstroke that turned his victory on its head.

  Then he was alone again.

  For two hours he didn’t move. He stared at Alice’s ashtray, overflowing with cigarettes. He stared at Forbes’s blood-stained overalls crumpled up in the washing machine. He stared at the biscuits. He got bored of being angry and began to daydream.

  It was time to run away, into London, into the world.

  Into the Woods.

  To find his Forever Parents.

  Why hadn’t he thought of this before?

  He would leave a note. He began to compose it in his head.

  I’ve gone to find my Forever Parents because nobody is interested in them
apart from me. Don’t come looking for me because that will be a waste of time and you won’t find me. Anyway I know you don’t really want to find me and I would be better off dead as far as you are concerned.

  He spent some time adding bits and moving things around. Then he wondered why he was leaving a note at all.

  Forget the note.

  Just go.

  Wouldn’t it be amazing to actually go?

  But first—couldn’t he eat one of the biscuits? They were the crumbly, buttery sort with nuggets of spicy crystallized ginger.

  There was no denying it: he was getting hungry.

  He started thinking about the Welsh Rarebit, about whether it would have bacon or not, and this made him hate Alice more than ever, because she was trying to trick him into not leaving—if he stayed and ate the Welsh Rarebit it would be like a trap, he wouldn’t be able to leave ever, and pretty soon he’d be like the fat rabbit in the playground at school that everyone had fed through the wire mesh. It must have realized it never had to budge an inch, because it just sat and ate and got fatter and fatter, until one day it just died.

  No. He wasn’t going to be like the fat rarebit.

  Rarebit?

  Rabbit.

  Welsh Rabbit.

  Did they have rabbits in Wales?

  Whales.

  Whales Rabbit.

  He fought back the urge to scream. His stomach gurgled and his mouth filled with saliva at the thought of hot, melted cheese sprinkled with salt. He groaned and put his head down on the table, next to the biscuits. An inch away from his eyes, they appeared the size of spaceships. He pawed at them. A few crumbs were scattered on the tablecloth, big as rocks. He collected them on the tip of a finger and sucked them off greedily.

  Any minute now, he would get up and actually go.

  Any minute.

  He’d break into the Book House and live there, that’s what he’d do. During the day he’d sit in the cupboard under the stairs and read the Storybooks, and at night he’d sneak out and feast on cakes and sandwiches and write stories wherever he wanted. He’d read the Storybooks until he found out how to go to the Beginning Woods, and if Forbes and Alice came to get him he’d tell them to GET LOST. I get to decide who my parents are, he’d say. That’s what you told me. And I’ve decided—they’re not you! They’re ANYONE but YOU!

  The kitchen door banged and he jerked in surprise, and then Alice was there, like she’d heard it all, and when she saw him still sitting at the table, when she saw that even the biscuits were untouched, she got angry, which was great because it meant he had won—but then she started shouting that Forbes had got rid of the books, that there would be No More Stories, No More Fairy Tales they were DANGEROUS they made people VANISH So it was finished It was over Which Was Good because they Had A Bad Effect On Him ANYWAY and who did he think he WAS treating the PLACE LIKE A HOTEL?

  CRASH!

  Max snatched up her ashtray and hurled it through the window above the sink. Bits of ash swirled between them.

  “SNOWFLAKES!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  Then Forbes was there with a WHAT’S GOING ON IN HERE? that smashed the room to splinters, and with a duck and a dive Max was gone, out of the house and along the street, and suddenly he was doing it, he was running away and it was the best feeling ever!

  At last!

  It was over, and he was free!

  He would never see the Mulgans again! Haha! The Book House was closed on Sundays, but that didn’t matter. Someone Porterholse Porterholse Someone had helped before and he’d help again—especially when he heard what Forbes and Alice had done to the books.

  But… what was this?

  Mr Nesbitt, the owner of the newsagent’s up the road, was also out, and also running.

  This was odd, because normally Mr Nesbitt was only ever behind racks of chewing gum in his shop, listening to his transistor radio and doing crosswords. Now he was struggling along the pavement on the other side of the road with three shopping bags in each hand—three shopping bags absolutely bursting with books.

  What was he doing?

  Had he run away from his parents too?

  His bags were so heavy every step cost him all the breath he had, and he refilled his lungs with high-pitched yawps. Further up the road, someone else was running in the same berserk fashion, lugging a box on one shoulder. Whoever it was veered across the road and disappeared into the turning that led to Newton Fields.

  Mr Nesbitt took the same route.

  Slowing down a bit, Max followed them.

  This new road—known as The Approach—was a long, narrow avenue that led to the park’s main entrance. Usually it was a sleepy place with rustling trees and neatly kept gardens, but today some kind of mass-evacuation was under way. All along the road men, women, and children were leaving their houses, every last one carrying a bag, dragging a suitcase or lugging a box.

  Just like Mr Nesbitt, they all headed for the park.

  Max went that way too.

  What. Was. Happening?

  More people joined the rush at every corner, streaming in from other parts of the neighbourhood. There was such a confusing clamour of shrieks, of parents shouting instructions and children demanding explanations, of OUT THE WAYs and MIND YOUR BACKs and GIVE US A HANDs and JUST COME ONs, that Max could hardly make out a word of it.

  Bewildered, he was caught in the stampede and swept towards the park gates, where the crowd was funnelled into a tight pack. For a moment he was trapped in a crush of jostling bodies and jabbing elbows. Then, with a roar and a sudden acceleration, they were through, surging across the grass and up the hill to swell the ranks of an even bigger crowd that had already arrived.

  “PASS THEM TO THE FRONT!”

  “GIVE THEM HERE!”

  The suitcases and bags, rucksacks and boxes passed over the crowd, carried by arms that rippled up with the precision of centipede legs until they reached the crest of the hill, where they were hurled onto a growing pile.

  “Mind out lad!”

  Max hopped aside.

  An old man barged past with a wheelbarrow. Tottering a little, he turned to haul his barrow backwards up the hill. It toppled onto its side, spilling books across the grass. Max stooped to help him—but then stopped and stood there with a book in each hand.

  Books.

  It was books.

  Everyone was getting rid of their books.

  “Come on!” the old man snapped, holding out a trembling hand. “Those things are dangerous!”

  Max handed them over without saying a word.

  He looked up at the massive pile of suitcases and boxes.

  No!

  Nononono!

  He turned and ran for the Book House.

  Even from a distance he could see the angry mob. The police cordon. The bottles and clods of earth exploding against the shutters.

  Even from a distance he could hear the roar of the crowd. THE BOOKS! HAND OVER THE BOOKS!

  He ran faster. Ploughed straight into the back of the crowd.

  “You can’t take them!” he screamed, forcing himself forwards. “They’re mine!”

  Kicking and wriggling, he reached the front and tried to duck under the linked arms of two constables. But just then the police line broke and the crowd surged around him. Someone pushed him from behind. He fell to his knees, and before he could get up again, he was knocked forwards, flat out. Feet pounded down, crushing his legs, his arms, his hands. He tried to curl into a ball. A body fell on top of him, squeezing him into the ground.

  So heavy!

  He couldn’t move at all!

  He couldn’t even breathe!

  Then abruptly the weight lifted. He gasped and rolled over, sucking in air. A hand grabbed his arm and yanked him roughly to his feet. The Dark Man’s face bent close.

  “Get out of here!” he growled. “Go home! There’s nothing you can do!”

  “They’re MINE!” Max shouted, ripping his arm free.

&nb
sp; Before the Dark Man could react, he darted between two policemen and vaulted over the wall. But his feet caught on the gatepost, and he tumbled into the garden.

  CRACK

  His head whapped off a flagstone, and the world went black.

  Then white.

  Then came back with no sound attached.

  Dazed, rolling from side to side, he looked up at the faces and bodies moving back and forth in a blur.

  Everything had doubled. Two garden gates were sliding across each other. Two walls were rising and sinking. Two-headed policemen were everywhere. Even the Dark Man had multiplied. One Dark Man was wrestling with a man holding a large brick. Shoulders surging, he planted a hand on the man’s chest and pressed him backwards over the wall with pneumatic force. Another Dark Man was trying to get through the gate, dragging two policemen along with him.

  Impossible!

  Blood trickled into his eyes. He blinked. Drew his sleeve across his face.

  Struggled to his feet.

  Took a few tottering steps towards the Book House.

  Get inside.

  Get the Storybooks.

  Get the—

  Halfway up the path, he stopped and blinked again, shaking his head hard.

  The shutters on one of the top floor windows.

  They were open. They were never open.

  They were open. And a man was there, looking down from the shadows.

  A man of impossible size.

  Gigantic.

  Stooping forwards.

  Too big for the room.

  And growing—his face, huge, pale and white.

  Porterholse!

  A bottle slammed into the wall near the window, and suddenly the man was gone, pulling on a rod to close the shutter.

  Max staggered up to the front door: Locked! He pounded his fist against it. Again. Again. Again.

  “Let me in!” he shouted. “Porterholse!”

  Another bottle hit the wall above him, showering him with glass.

  “MAX!”

  He put his back to the door. The Dark Man was free of the policemen, racing up the path. Men were streaming over the wall, their faces ugly and furious. Pelting the house with bottles and stones.

  Pain flared in his shoulder. The impact twisted him, and he cried out. A rock!