by Jamie Smart
Dev folded his arms, one eyebrow raised at the greedy robot bear. ‘Right, well, there are clearly a few things you have to learn about manners,’ he huffed.
Boja burped a little burp. It smelt sweet.
Dev slid from Boja’s belly and heaved the big red bear up and out onto the street. He patted him down, picking dough and sprinkles out from his fur, tutting like a fussy parent.
Boja’s attention, however, was elsewhere. He was staring at the bright orange sun just over the horizon, watching as it struggled to shine through a swirl of thick, grey clouds. He reached out an arm, tweaking his fingers as if he could reach it. As if he could pluck it from the sky and keep it for himself.
‘Mine,’ he repeated.
Dev pressed his shoulder into Boja’s left buttock and, with all his might, began shoving him down one of the narrower alleys.
‘Not yours,’ he wheezed. ‘None of this is yours.’
23
The Spindletree Forest
‘Carry me!’
Dev could hear Mayor Bumblebuss’s voice echoing high up into the sky. The crowd, too. They were angry. He knew they’d all be descending the mountain. They’d want to know what he’d done, and how he’d done it.
They’d want Boja.
So Dev led the big red bear to a place he thought they might be safe. Past his house, past the remains of his workshop and into the shadows of Spindletree Forest. Or at least what was left of it. The trees were bare; the ground a carpet of fallen spindletree needles. Every fern was withered, every flower dead.
Dev climbed onto a large rock, and crossed his legs.
‘I must have missed something.’ He tried to remember each and every page of the flember book. ‘I thought I knew enough. I transferred the flember, and it worked, it actually worked.’ He looked over to the bright, glowing bear. ‘But it worked too well. You got too much flember. And now everything else is dying.’
Boja wasn’t listening. He had found a solitary, wilting danderfly poking out from a crack in the rocks, and as he reached out it blossomed between his fingers, its translucent leaves unfurling to reveal a perfect bubble of danderfly seeds inside. His face lit up with delight. His huge nose twitched towards the flower and he took a great big sniff of it. Such a sniff, in fact, the danderfly burst, and a bundle of danderfly seeds shot up his nostrils. He stumbled backwards, his right eye twitching, his left eye watering, his mouth stretching out like a gargoyle.
‘AAAAAAA …’ He winced. ‘AAAAAAAA …’
The thought of Boja sneezing and giving away their location had Dev scurrying towards him. He jumped frantically around, pleading with Boja to stifle it, to hold it in, to just … keep … quiet.
‘… choo!’
Boja was as stunned as Dev. Not for him a huge, booming splatterfest, but rather a delicate peep.
‘… Choo!’ He sneezed again. ‘Choo! Choo! Choo!’
With each sneeze, globules of flember snot flew from his nose. Splat! Splat! Splat! Onto the rocky ground. Against the thorny bark of the trees. Splat! Choo! Splat!
And then.
‘CHOOOOOO!’
The most almighty sneeze ever sneezed. A thunderous roar that shook the ground beneath their feet. It blasted Boja into a spindletree, which swayed under his weight before it toppled and crashed into another. That, in turn, caught another, which caught another, and one by one a circle of spindletrees crashed loudly down around them in a plume of dust and splinters.
Dev stared at Boja, who stared right back, wide-eyed, with the expression you might expect of someone who had just accidentally flattened a section of forest.
‘Well, at least it stopped you sneezing.’ Dev wafted the dust away, to see not just a circle of stacked, fallen spindletrees, but moss upon them. Spots of grass beneath them. And flowers; beautiful, blossoming flowers, wherever Boja’s snot had landed. He knelt to the ground, running his finger across a small patch of grass. It glowed in the low light of dawn.
‘Maybe you got all of Eden’s flember,’ he gasped. ‘I mean, every last drop. From every flower, and every pojoboplant, and every spindletree on the mountain.’ He ran to Boja’s side and stroked a finger across his fur. Flember trickled out. ‘And maybe you can just … put it back.’
He leapt up, a huge smile across his face. ‘When you sneezed, you sneezed out flember. See where it landed? The little flowers growing out from each patch?’
‘It’s … nice.’ Boja beamed.
‘Nice! Ha ha! Yes it IS! It IS nice! And we need more of it, Boja. A lot more of it. You need to do THAT, all over THIS!’ He waved his arms frantically towards the rest of Spindletree Forest. ‘You’re just going to have to … flemberise everything!’
He grabbed Boja’s paw, rubbing it down a spindletree trunk. It left a sparkling trail, which blossomed into beautiful green lichen.
Boja chuckled.
Taking Dev’s lead, he went to a cluster of dried-out ferns, ruffling their dead stalks back into a full bustling plumage. He spun on his heels, firing his fingers – Plink! Plink! Plink! – pink and orange flowers spinning out wherever the flember landed. He butt-slammed the dusty earth, sending out ripples of thick grass. Plink! Splat! Flump! Wherever flember touched, beautiful, rich foliage returned, and this one little corner of Spindletree Forest looked more beautiful than it ever had before.
Dev danced around in the middle of it all as if he were the conductor of an orchestra.
An orchestra of one.
His miraculous, magical friend.
‘We can put it back,’ Dev laughed. ‘We can put all the flember back!’ He stepped from the grass into the shadow of the other, dead spindletrees. ‘We’ll do it tree by tree, plant by plant. It’ll take a while, but …’
He spotted a lone flemberbug on the ground. It appeared quite dead, its body a dull flaky brown, its legs folded in on themselves.
All but one.
‘LIMPY!’ Dev cried in horror. ‘Not you too! Oh no, no, no, I’m so sorry!’
He turned to show Boja. ‘Boja look, this is my friend. I hoped he might have escaped all this, but he didn’t. You see? He’s very unwell.
He needs some flember.’
‘Flem-buhhh.’ Boja gazed at the lifeless thing in Dev’s hands.
‘Just like the trees,’ Dev said. ‘He needs flember to live.’
Boja, as scared as he was fascinated, extended a large red finger to poke the insect. Wisps of flember swirled out, straining to find something to inhabit, sliding down Limpy’s antennae and into his body. Then Limpy’s legs began to twitch. His bum began to glow. Within moments he had righted himself, spread out his glittery wings and hopped up into the air. He bopped against Dev’s nose, swayed one way, then the other, before fluttering back down into his open hands.
‘Just like that!’ Dev yelped. ‘You did it, Boja, you brought him back to life!’
But Boja wasn’t celebrating.
There was a change in him.
A panic in his eyes.
He gripped the newly revived spindletrees and, as he did, great washes of light trickled out from their bark, along the ground, snaking around Boja’s feet before disappearing inside his fur. Sparkles floated across the air like pollen, surrounding him, sinking into him. All this flember, so bountifully thrown around just moments before, now returning to the big, terrified bear.
He backed himself against a stack of fallen trees, nervously patting down any stray wisps of flember before they could escape from his fur.
‘It’s mine,’ he whimpered.
Dev knelt amongst the wilted ferns and the shrivelled flowers.
‘Oh Boja, you need it too don’t you.’ He sighed. ‘So how are we supposed to fix this now?’
24
The Savagery of Law
The wind whistled through the dead spindletrees, catching on the few remaining needles and playing a disjointed melody. It set Dev’s teeth on edge. Limpy the flemberbug didn’t appear to be enjoying it either, as he scuttled along Dev’s arm,
down his vest and hid inside his trouser pocket.
Then, there came a gnawing against Boja’s buttock.
‘Fervus?’ Dev jumped to his feet.
‘FEVV-US!’ All the fear disappeared from Boja’s face, as if he had completely forgotten the last few minutes.
Fervus, only just noticing the big red bear, leapt back in shock, then hunched down and growled through his teeth.
Boja giggled. ‘Fevvus!’
Fervus edged back towards him, sniffing madly. Boja leant over and did the same, his sniffs so powerful they dragged the little goat off the ground and up into his left nostril.
‘If you’re here,’ Dev said, pulling Fervus back out with a sound like the cork from a bottle. ‘Then the rest of the village won’t be far behind. And they’ll have Mum with them, and Nonna.’
He passed Fervus to Boja and hopped back onto his rock. Limpy emerged too, fluttering up onto Dev’s shoulder as if hoping for a better view.
Together they listened.
For anything.
But besides the deathly tune of the trees, not a single sound came.
‘Hang on,’ Dev whispered. ‘Why aren’t they looking for us?’
The walk out of Spindletree Forest wasn’t easy. Since the nostril incident, Boja and Fervus had become firm friends, and it wasn’t long before the bleating, the chuckling and the ground-shaking hops became too much for Dev to cope with.
‘WOULD YOU BOTH,’ he hissed, ‘just be quiet. We’re trying not to attract any attention.’
Fervus stood motionless as he stared into Dev’s eyes. His cheeks puffed out. His quivering tail lifted up, and then …
Prrp!
A tiny fart, barely even a waft, but enough to send Boja into peals of laughter. Dev fussed around him, lifting his paws to his mouth, shoving him behind a tree. Anything to keep the big bear quiet.
And so it went on. Past the house. Fart. Giggle.
Across the broken bridge. Fart. Giggle. Back towards the marketplace. Fart. Giggle. Fart.
It was here that Dev finally spotted some other villagers – a number of anxious-looking Youth Guild cadets guarding the path into the Old Woods. So before they were seen, he bustled Boja and Fervus in the opposite direction. Down through the Middle Eden back streets, towards the Great Hall.
From where, finally, he could hear voices.
A whole lot of voices.
There were Guild out front, but Dev crept around the back, where the hall flattened itself against a steep wall of rock, and concealed the three of them in shadow. He sat Boja beneath the high window so that he could climb up his furry back, and then he knelt down on top of his head.
‘Keep still,’ Dev whispered, pressing his face against the glass and peering inside.
Mayor Bumblebuss was yelling.
‘ORDER! We’ll not resolve ANYTHING unless we have order.’ He checked the clock around his neck. ‘Procedure must be followed. No time to waste. Tick, and indeed, tick.’
Surrounding him was a mass of villagers, their helmets all clonking together. They jostled and pushed against a barricade of Guild members. One broke through.
‘My petunias are gone! My blue opals!’ Agatha Bloom, from Agatha Bloom’s Floral Adore-All, held up a rather pathetic display of withered flowers. ‘What sort of flower shop doesn’t have any flowers?’
‘Never mind your flowers, what about our fields?’ The farmers pushed out after her, throwing blackened corn stalks to the floor. ‘The wheat, the corn. It’s all dead. Not a drop of flember left in anything, not a DROP!’
The crowd started shouting over each other again.
‘YOU DON’T NEED TO TELL ME,’ the Mayor roared. ‘It’s barely morning, and already my Flember Day is RUINED. The Eden Tree, prize of our village, dead!’
Dev ducked down, as if it would save him from the memory of what he’d done, the people he’d hurt, the village he’d half-destroyed. But the guilt still stung.
Boja smiled up at him. As he did, however, one last danderfly seed must have dislodged inside his nostril, for his mouth stretched up and his eyes began to twitch and his whole head pulled back for another sneeze.
‘NOPPPPPE!’ Dev whispered, reaching down and pinching Boja’s nostrils closed. Then, with his other hand, he gripped Boja’s lips.
Boja’s cheeks ballooned out.
‘No sneezing,’ Dev begged. ‘Just hold it in. Please?’
Boja’s eyes rolled back up towards Dev, and he nodded. Dev cautiously let go. He looked back through the window.
Percy had taken the floor. ‘What Dev brought up to Shady Acres,’ he said. ‘It must be some kind of a machine. He said he invented it, didn’t you hear? He invented a machine. A machine that took all of our flember.’
‘It can’t be true,’ Bastor shouted above him. ‘It just can’t! You can’t take flember out of the ground, it’s impossible. It’s inconceivable. How would he even do such a thing?’
The Mayor’s fluffy white eyebrows creased down over his eyes. He shot a furious glance to Zerigauld, who was cowering beside his table.
‘Something to do with a golden heart, apparently.’
‘I’ll not be blamed for any of this.’ Zerigauld crawled out, his lip turning up to reveal his crooked teeth. ‘That ’eart was my prize, my most beautiful acquisition! A sight for the soul! Had it for years I did, wouldn’t dream of partin’ with it.’
‘Well now it beats inside a machine.’ The Mayor beckoned to the Guild. ‘And that machine is destroying our village.’
Only now could Dev see his mother, Ventillo and Santoro standing at the side of the crowd, flanked by Guild, kept away from the discussion. On the Mayor’s command, however, Santoro was nudged out.
‘Tell ’em it ain’t so.’ Zerigauld turned to Santoro, his beady little eyes shimmering. ‘Tell ’em you didn’t steal my ’eart, that you ’ad nothing to do with this mess. It’s yer brother, int it. He done all this. Some ridiculous plan ’e done by himself.’
‘You leave Santoro alone,’ Ventillo shouted. ‘You daft old bird. You miserable sausage!’
Zerigauld stiffened, flaring his nostrils. A nervous chatter started to build inside the Hall, which Mayor Bumblebuss swiftly silenced with a loud cough.
‘Santoro,’ the Mayor sighed. ‘Were you involved? The theft? The … machine? Eden losing its flember? Were you involved in any part of this?’
Dev grimaced. Despite what Santoro had done and the resentment Dev felt, it was still painful to watch his brother being blamed for things which weren’t entirely his fault.
‘He’s innocent!’ Ventillo shouted.
‘Santoro?’ the Mayor repeated.
For quite some time, Santoro didn’t reply. He stared back at the Mayor without even a flicker of emotion passing across his face.
Then his lips moved, but whatever he said was too quiet for Dev to hear.
‘You’re right. I have made my decision,’ the Mayor snapped. ‘Santoro, whatever you and your brother did, you have endangered our village, and we simply cannot stand for that. Guild, strip him of his colours.’
Guild members surrounded Santoro, gripping his tunic.
‘You are no longer Youth Guild, you no longer have authority in this village,’ the Mayor declared. ‘And if you have any sense, you will stay away from your brother.’
They tried to remove his uniform but Santoro fought back, thrashing and writhing around until his clothes started to tear. Then someone pulled the Guild helmet from his head and his whole body collapsed. Dev could see tears streaming down his cheeks.
And his own eyes began to glisten.
‘—CHOOOOOO!’ Boja suddenly boomed, lurching forwards and splattering Fervus with glowing blue snot.
‘THEY’RE HERE!’ the Mayor yelled, catching Dev’s eye through the window.
The Guild rushed the crowd, the crowd rushed the doors, and suddenly the whole village was clamouring for Dev and Boja.
25
Space Fleet
‘This way
!’ a voice hissed. ‘Lieutenant Dev, over here!’
It came from a crack in the rock face. Sam, still wearing a hedge, was crouched down inside.
‘We can save you from that … that big red space monster!’
Dev slid down Boja’s snotty arm and pulled him onto his feet. ‘He’s not a machine, he’s not a monster. He’s a Boja.’
‘Well, whatever he is –’ Sam squeezed back into the darkness, ‘– you might wanna follow me.’
Dev heard the doors of the Great Hall clatter open, and a sense of urgency rushed his veins. He dived after Sam, pulling Boja in between the narrow rock walls. It was no easy feat, but with Fervus on the outside nipping at Boja’s buttocks, they managed to squeeze him through. Disappearing down, deeper, and deeper, and then out into the grey morning light of Lower Eden, beneath the arch of the main road, and along the brambles of The Wall. Down into Lower Lower Eden.
Home to the forgotten and the abandoned.
The perfect place to hide.
A few collapsed sheds gave way to a large overgrown field. There was grass beneath Dev’s feet, trees rustling in the wind, moss and weeds covering everything like a blanket.
‘Flember.’ Dev breathed in the air. ‘The village still has some left.’
‘Commander Sam, you brought the monster with you?’ Alice poked her head out from inside a barrel. ‘You were supposed to be rescuing Lieutenant Dev from it!’
‘He’s not a monster!’ Dev hurried Boja past them. ‘He’s a Boja. A Boja!’
‘Boh-jah?’ Reginald, still in his pig costume, peered out from a bunker made of old mattresses. ‘He must be an undiscovered alien species!’