The Slippery Map

by N. E. Bode

  “Never mind about him now,” Hopps said.

  Ringet shook his head, the earrings on his lobes jingling. “But he’s after the Map! The boy should know that he’s going to be a target—if word gets out he’s here. Dark Mouth will know he’s come through the Map. He’ll know it still exists.”

  Ringet and Hopps stepped back and looked at Oyster. Hopps said, “Well, hopefully you look enough like one of us that you fit in, Oyster, and maybe the Goggles won’t look too closely.”

  “Goggles?”

  “Yes, and be quiet around them. Don’t look at them!” Hopps said. Oyster didn’t have much time to ask questions. “Are you bringing the beast?”

  Oyster looked at Leatherbelly, who’d squatted and was now peeing in a corner. “Leatherbelly,” Oyster sighed.

  Leatherbelly looked up and trotted to him, dragging his belly across the floor.

  “Are you going to growl at me?” Oyster asked.

  Leatherbelly looked up at him and whined sadly. The dog shook his head.

  Oyster scooped him up. “I guess I’ll bring the beast,” he said.

  And with that they opened the storage door into the noisy brightness of The Figgy Shop.

  CHAPTER 7

  GOGGLES

  There were so many people inside The Figgy Shop that Hopps could barely open the storage room door. The Perths were jammed in, their pudgy elbows and doubled chins jutting everywhere, shouting out their orders all at the same time. Oyster had never heard so much shouting in his whole life—he was used to an occasional wheezing from Sister Hilda Prone to Asthma, a cough, and an occasional harumph—but mostly he was used to silence.

  “Two pounds four!” an old lady called out.

  “Don’t push with your pinky on the scale! Don’t cheat me!” someone else hollered.

  A man and a woman bustled behind the greasy counter, slapping down oily brown bags of assorted figs, collecting coins as fast as they could. Oyster read the names stitched into their Figgy Shop aprons: Oli and Marge. Marge glanced down quickly at Ringet, Hopps, and Oyster, and peeking out behind Oyster’s cape, Leatherbelly. She poked Oli in the ribs. He wiped his figgy hands on his apron. Oyster kept an eye on Hopps, who was pulling the wheeled leather bag in which the Slippery Map was hidden. The wheels weren’t steady, though, and the leather bag shimmied around wildly. Hopps held one finger to the side of his nose. Ringet looked at Oli and Marge, who put their fingers to their noses for a brief moment.

  “They’ve got it,” Ringet said to Hopps over the shouting customers.

  Hopps started pushing his way through the crowd more vigorously. “Are the Goggles eyeing us?” Hopps asked.

  “No, no,” Ringet said.

  “What’s a Goggle?” Oyster asked.

  “Up on the counter, didn’t you see him?” Ringet asked. “Don’t look!”

  But Oyster was already looking. There on the counter sat an enormous toad, eating chocolate-covered figs, tossing its fat-eyed gaze around the store. It was a puffed toad, with skin as shiny as sausage links and webbed feet with sharp claws. The toad’s roving eyes fell on Oyster. The Goggle lifted its chest and glared, looking like it was ready to strike. Oyster felt paralyzed with the Goggle’s eyes locked on him, but then, for no reason at all, the Goggle broke his gaze and went back to his chocolate-covered figs.

  Oyster felt his muscles loosen. Ringet and Hopps were standing in the open doorway.

  “Don’t lag behind!” Hopps said angrily, stepping outside. “We don’t have time for it!”

  “I was worried,” Ringet said.

  “I’ll keep up,” Oyster said. “I promise.”

  Hopps and Ringet bickered over the best route to take. Outside, it was evening, and the streets were packed with bustling Perths. The air was humid and warm, but a white dusting of what looked like snow lined the streets and awnings and the limbs of a few puny, beaten trees. Leatherbelly sniffed at the white stuff. Oyster reached down and touched it. It wasn’t cold. It was dusty, and it made his fingers white when he rubbed them together. “What’s this?” Oyster asked.

  Hopps and Ringet looked up. Ringet looked desperately sad all of a sudden.

  Hopps answered angrily, “The Devil’s Snuff, that’s what it is. We breathe it in till we die. How many of us with White Lung Disease now, Ringet? How many kids lost to Powder Pneumonia? And all for what?”

  Leatherbelly was licking the powder now, his wet tongue picking it up off the street.

  “Don’t,” Oyster said.

  “It won’t hurt to eat it except that it’s nearly the only thing we can eat. Haven’t you noticed the roundness of Perths? Didn’t used to be so. I’ve stopped lapping it up. Stopped as well as I can. You know why people love The Figgy Shop? Well, because there’s a fig in it!”

  “I don’t like figs,” Oyster said. “I’d only eat the chocolate coverings.”

  “Not if you were only given sugar to eat all the time. This powdered sugar is crammed into every bite: noodles, bread, ricey pies. You’re not allowed to make anything without sugar as the number one ingredient,” Hopps said. “It comes from those.” He pointed to the distant skyline. Towering smokestacks puffed white clouds. “They’re not spouting as much as usual because of the holiday, but you watch: tomorrow the workers for the morning shift will file in—the whole town almost—and the powdered sugar will be snowing down day and night.”

  In the white clouds, Oyster read a blue sign: ORWISE SUSPAR AND SONS REFINERY.

  “Dark Mouth runs it. He is one of Orwise Suspar’s sons—the only Suspar remaining,” Hopps whispered; and he glanced over his shoulder in the opposite direction, where a valley of dark woods stood before the Pinch-Eye Mountains. On the very top, Oyster could see a huge torch, a fire burning, smoke furling into the sky. “That’s where he lives. As long as the Torch is lit, he’s alive and rules over us.”

  “As long as he’s alive…,” Ringet repeated.

  “Not now,” Hopps said. “Goggles.” He peered around. “This way.” He started off toward the valley, and the others followed along. Hopps muttered under his breath, “Spies! Traitors! Those Goggles used to be on our side during the Foul Revolution, but now they’ve gone over to Dark Mouth.”

  “They’ll be in the alleys today,” Ringet said. “Happy Fig Days, they’re afraid of us rising up! And we could rise up, you know! We could!”

  “Stop it, Ringet. You’d never have the courage to rise up!”

  “Not true! I would if everyone else would!”

  “That’s just the problem,” Hopps said.

  The Perths all seemed to be in a rush. They were yelling to one another to hurry and dodging into their small row houses.

  “Where are they all going in such a hurry?” Oyster asked.

  “It’s nearly six. Time for the Vince Vance Show,” said Ringet. “Perths can’t get enough of the ‘Home Sweet Home’ campaign.”

  “Brainwashing!” said Hopps. “It’s all Brainwashing! Television belongs to Dark Mouth. Don’t let anyone tell you different!”

  “I think Vince Vance is very funny,” Ringet said gingerly. “And ‘Home Sweet Home’ programming is nice.”

  “Nice isn’t what we need,” Hopps said.

  Oyster saw a small troop of Goggles who seemed to be staring at him from under boarded-up marquees. He looked away as fast as he could, afraid one might lock eyes on him and freeze him like in The Figgy Shop. He saw more of them peering out of windows from an office building, another group squatting by a gutter grate. “Hopps,” he whispered.

  Hopps didn’t stop. His wheels kept bumping along the brick path. “What is it?”

  “Goggles. They’re everywhere.”

  Ringet swept his head around. “He’s right. There are too many of them. They’re waiting for someone. They’re going to pounce!”

  “Ippy’d know how to handle them,” Ringet said.

  “Who’s Ippy?” Oyster asked.

  “She is the daughter of your parents’ best friends. Your parents—
the high leaders—were best friends with two Perths, Fertista and Pillian. You and Ippy were both born during the Foul Revolution. Your parents lived and hers didn’t. She lives mostly underground,” Ringet explained. “You know about her?”

  Oyster shook his head. “No.”

  “Of course not!” Ringet told himself. “How could he know about Ippy?”

  “She’s my age?” Oyster asked.

  Ringet nodded.

  Oyster wondered if Ippy would be his first real friend, someone his own age, someone he could tell secrets to, confide in. Just then a Goggle lifted his head in the air, nostrils tensing in the breeze.

  “It’s us!” Oyster whispered, nodding toward the Goggles. “They know you have the Slippery Map.”

  “They don’t know,” Hopps told him. “They don’t know a thing. Frog brains. Don’t forget they’ve got frog brains! Fat frog brains. Don’t be afraid. They sense fear. Just keep walking.”

  Leatherbelly trotted nervously beside Oyster’s ankles. “Just act natural, Leatherbelly,” Oyster said. “They sense fear.”

  Just then a young Perth, a woman pushing a baby stroller, came toward them. She was pushing along hurriedly, a Goggle thumping along behind her.

  “Don’t look,” said Hopps.

  Ringet grabbed Oyster by the arm. “Oyster, turn away!”

  Oyster tried not to look, but he couldn’t help it. The young woman started to run, pushing the stroller. Her circular cap flipped off of her head. Now other Goggles hopped out in front of her. They blocked her path, and she stopped, breathless. One Goggle flashed his long tongue, then hissed and reared up, his claws extended. The woman pushed her stroller at them, trying to edge them back, but the Goggles circled tighter. Ringet was now pushing Oyster past the scene.

  “Poor thing,” said Ringet.

  “Aren’t you going to help her?” Oyster asked.

  “Keep walking,” said Hopps.

  One of the Goggles knocked over the stroller. It was empty. The woman started to cry. “There was a baby. I dropped her at my mother’s. I wasn’t transporting goods. I’m not a traitor!” She couldn’t move. The Goggles had paralyzed her.

  Ringet hesitated. “She’s a member, you know, Hopps.”

  “Pretend you don’t know her, Ringet,” Hopps said nervously. “Just move along. We have things to do.”

  “You know her?” Oyster asked.

  Ringet didn’t answer. He stumbled forward on his locked leg.

  “What will happen to her?” Oyster asked.

  “She’ll go missing,” said Hopps.

  “Like Oli and Marge’s boy,” Ringet said quietly.

  “We’ve got to help,” Oyster said, and he peeled out of Ringet’s grip. He shouted to get the Goggles’ attention. “Leave her alone!”

  The Goggles turned, but before they could lock eyes with Oyster, he started to run. He ran downhill, and the clawing Goggles took off after him.

  Ringet, Hopps, and Leatherbelly weren’t sure what to do. They followed the Goggles, Hopps dragging his leather bag with its wobbly casters, Ringet striding over his locked leg, and Leatherbelly jouncing behind.

  “Who was that?” the woman yelled. “Who saved me?”

  Oyster opened his black cape in front so that he could run better. Frog brains, he was thinking. They only have frog brains. He turned down an alleyway so packed with metal garbage cans that there was nowhere to run. And so he climbed on the cans and leaped from one to the next—as he had the chapel pews. The Goggles followed. He could hear their claws clanging against the metal lids.

  And he could hear music rising from the glowing windows. Each house’s television was tuned to the same theme song. And then there was rousing applause. Oyster took a left at the end of the alley and headed downhill. Before the Goggles emerged from the alley, he slipped into an open front door and shut it.

  There was a family of Perths all huddled around the television, eating noodles from a bowl. They turned and looked at Oyster. He put his finger to his lips, and they all listened to the leaping Goggles thudding by on the street. The family looked cozy in the blue light of the TV, and they made Oyster think of the word parents. He had a set of those (albeit dangerous parents in jail). He had a family that, if they had the chance, might not be too much unlike this one, eating noodles in front of the television.

  Oyster glanced at the television. A Perth with blue eyes was talking into a fat, silver microphone. His hair was gelled back off of his forehead. His beard was trimmed to two points on his cheeks. His eyebrows were thick, and they drew up in the center, as if stitched together. Most of all, he was tan, and his teeth—well, his teeth would have made Dr. Fromler jealous. “Welcome to the Vince Vance Show with the Home Sweet Home Players. I’m your host, Vince Vance!” Balloons fell from the ceiling. A band kicked up.

  Something about it all was creepy.

  The leaping claws of the Goggles had passed.

  “I’m sorry,” Oyster said. “Wrong house.”

  The father of the house stood up. “You sure are in the wrong house, I’d say. And you’re not even a Perth, are you?”

  The three children circled around him. They seemed like they could be about Oyster’s age, but they were small and Perthlike. They stared at him. “What is he?” one asked.

  “Well,” his father said, “look at his markings, kids. The grossly disproportionately long arms and legs. Someone’s drawn on the bearded cheeks. He’s got no moles of any kind, and his ears lack any celebration. He’s, well, I think, he’s a Person—the boy kind.”

  The mother of the house now stood and looked at him closely. She had a baby Perth on her hip. It was ruddy and gave out a hacking cough that seemed to rattle its ribs. “You’re right, I think it is a boy Person,” she said.

  “Who do you know around here?” asked the father, still looking him over.

  “I know two Perths,” Oyster said. But since that didn’t seem like enough, he added, “and I have parents.” It sounded strange to his own ears. “But they’re in jail, and I’d like to get them out.”

  “In jail, are they?” the father asked. He turned to his wife and put his finger to his nose. She did the same. It was the same gesture that Hopps had shared with Oli and Marge in The Figgy Shop. Oyster took this as a good sign. “Did you come here through wind and darkness?” the father asked.

  “Well, yes, I guess so,” Oyster said. “I rode in a silver bucket. I came through the Slippery Map.”

  “The Slippery Map!” the father Perth whispered, astounded. “Brigid!” he said to his wife. “Brigid! It’s the boy! Through the Map, he’s come!”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right house, then,” the mother Perth said.

  The father charged over to a closet, pulled out an overcoat. “And imagine, I wasn’t going to go to the emergency meeting tonight. Bullus told me about it in the hardware shop, but I said I was fed up. So many false alarms! I’m Birchard and, my wife, Brigid.”

  “Oyster. Oyster R. Motel.” He remembered that Hopps had mentioned calling an emergency meeting. He suppposed that’s where he’d catch up with Ringet and Hopps again.

  “Good, Mr. Motel, come with me,” he said to Oyster. “I can take you where you need to be.”

  And with that, he hustled Oyster out of his living room and back onto the streets. The Goggles were gone. Oyster followed Birchard down the twisting streets. The white powder on the streets looked blue in the television light pouring from the Perths’ windows. The smokestacks were still coughing up dusty clouds, and, on the other side of the dark valley, Dark Mouth’s torch was still lit.

  CHAPTER 8

  MEETING OF THE HIGH COUNCIL OF PERTHS

  “This place used to be called Arthur and Sons Antiques, but when Dark Mouth took over, everyone lost ownership. So stores are called by simple names,” Birchard told Oyster. “This is The Antique Shop, you see. We’ll find the High Council of Perths hidden away in here.”

  “Like The Figgy Shop,” Oyster said as they walked in t
he back door of an unlit store.

  “Oh, used to be called Oli and Marge’s Fine Figs, but now they just work there. Only Orwise Suspar and Sons Refinery gets to keep its name. Oh, I remember the good old days when Dark Mouth’s father was just a wealthy old man on the hill—a wealthy old man with a beautiful garden.”

  The Antique Shop was dusty and stale and dark. Oyster could make out only the dim shapes of frail furnishings: spindly legs, wingback chairs. They walked softly, but still teacups and Hummels jingled in glass-front hutches.

  “Why do they call him Dark Mouth?” Oyster asked.

  “Only one Perth saw him and lived to tell. He escaped the prison and fought his way back through the valley. When he made it to his own bed, his family all there, poised, waiting for something, he could only whisper two words: Dark Mouth. And so that’s what he’s come to be called. A Winger spy said that he ate and ate and ate until he’d become a massive, sugar-coated form. Sunken eyes, only a stretched hole for a mouth.”

  Oyster felt a shiver even though he wasn’t cold. Birchard walked to a large, wooden grandfather clock with Roman numerals and a door on its chest. He tapped on the clock’s door in a little rhythm: tappity, tap, tap, tap, tappity, tappity, tap, tap, tap.

  “It’s our old anthem,” he explained sadly.

  After a hesitation, the door opened quickly. Birchard dipped inside. “C’mon,” he said.

  A handful of steps later, they were in a small basement filled with Perths, both men and women. It was sour and gloomy, the ceiling hunkered low. The young male Perth who’d opened the door nodded at the two of them, but other than that, Oyster and Birchard were ignored. Oyster could hear someone calling for everyone’s attention. “Please! Order! Order!”

  Someone shouted out, “They’ve lost the boy? They had him and lost him?” The others hissed and booed.

  “Order! Let him talk!”

  Oyster could see only an ocean of backs all wearing black coats. Birchard was trying to get someone’s attention up front but wasn’t having any luck. Oyster tried to jimmy his body through the crowd. Finally he got a narrow view of the front of the room. Ringet and Hopps were standing together on a small platform. Ringet was wide-eyed, wiping sweat from his brow, and Hopps had his hands up. He was trying to explain. “I do have one thing!” he said. “I have one thing that will lead us to the boy!”