City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  The next morning, Coralle let Seckry and Eiya sleep in until half past ten, and when they emerged into the kitchen area, they found she had made them each a glass of fresh orange juice and a heap load of pancakes drizzling with syrup.

  As they indulged themselves happily, Eiya suddenly turned around to face the TV, which had been buzzing in the background without Seckry noticing.

  “Seckry, look,” she said.

  The morning news was playing. Eiya upped the volume a notch.

  “It’s the seventeenth murder in what is believed to be the most brutal, most horrific serial killer case in the history of Skyfall,” read the presenter. “Ederith Umbercotton, a sixty five year old librarian from the north partition, was found dead in her bed in the early hours of this morning, her body brutally mutilated. The room was left in tatters but no possessions were stolen from Mrs Umbercotton’s property, leaving little doubt in anyone’s mind right now that this is the latest work of the infamous Rabbit Man. The big question everyone is asking right now is, when will this stop? When will this mysterious man have had enough blood?”

  “Why would anyone want to murder a sixty five year old librarian?” Eiya asked in distress.

  Seckry shook his head. He didn’t know. And neither did anyone else in the city, it seemed.

  The presenter stood to one side and a graphic map of the city appeared beside her.

  “Let's take a look at where these murders have taken place,” she said.

  Little red rabbit icons started popping up all over the map.

  “So far there have been four in the west partition, six over here in the east, three in the south, and now four in the north. Patrol officials say there are more and more officers being assigned to this case every day and are determined to stop this evil killer before he strikes again.”

  That weekend, Seckry and Eiya spent their time trying to find alternative meanings to the word ‘retneot,’ but uncovered only that it could also mean the awful smell of the stew as opposed to the stew itself. They also searched for the word ‘Silversong,’ but found no entry in the dictionary and no definitive answer on the internet.

  When Monday came around, they realised that they weren’t any closer to finding out where this Sanfarrow or Kayne could be hiding than they were before meeting the band. They showed the letter and the picture to Mr Vance, who made a copy for himself and found the information very intriguing, but even he had no idea how to decipher what was written.

  Seckry spent most of the day listening to Tippian describe excitedly the features of his latest Friction purchase – some kind of electronic glove for Apocalyptia called the Glove of Destruction.

  “You just place your hand on a piece of wall, activate the power surge, and kaboom!” Tippian said with excitement. “Guys, imagine the shortcuts we can take with this. Never mind finding our way through another Section 52 maze, we can blast our way straight through it!”

  As they were leaving the school that day, after a particularly pungent osmology lesson, Tippian jumped in front of them and said, “I got thinking just then, what if Apocalyptia’s Glove of Destruction was real? I mean, it’d only take two transistors connected to a–”

  “Tipps,” Tenk cut in dryly. “You’d better be kidding me.”

  “Chill out, Tenk, I ain’t gonna go around blasting things to pieces. I’d never be able to create a blast with that much force. It’d be cool to have a glove that gave a nice, solid shock though, you can’t deny that.”

  Tenk shook his head. “One day, man, you’re gonna be sitting on a rock with just rubble around you and you’ll be wondering why you’re the only person left alive in the world.”

  On Tuesday morning, Tippian joined them at the school gates and said, “Tenk, my good friend. I’ve known you for several years now and I’ve never had the decency to formally introduce myself. Please join me in a long overdue handshake.” Tippian stuck out his hand which was encased in a bright blue glove that seemed to be emanating a fuzzy glow.

  “Tippian, you didn’t go ahead and make one of those things for real, did you?” Seckry said in disbelief.

  Tenk was backing away.

  “Don’t you come near me with that thing, you nutter.”

  Tippian was laughing.

  “Wanna see this thing in action? Give me something you don’t need or want.”

  Tenk pulled a soggy sandwich out of his backpack.

  “Here, it’ll save me chucking them in the bin when I buy some chips at lunchtime.”

  Tippian took the sandwich with his free hand and eyed it with distaste.

  “What does your mum put in these things, Tenk?”

  “Gherkins, marrowmallow, bit of mingroot I think.”

  “What’s that brown stuff?”

  “I don’t know, gimmypug meat? I don’t ask and I don’t eat.”

  “Well, stand back,” said Tippian. He picked the sandwich up with his gloved hand.

  “I’ve installed a button inside the thumb to activate and deactivate the power. Here goes.”

  With a loud crack, the sandwich disappeared. A few moments later there were a few wet slaps as bits of the sandwich hit the floor. A chunk of something landed on Tippian’s forehead and started dribbling down his grinning face.

  “Dear Gedin, Tipps,” said Seckry.

  “You tried to shake my hand with that thing!” shouted Tenk.

  “Cool, eh?”

  Other students were looking in their direction.

  “What was that noise?” someone shouted. Tippian quickly slid the glove into his pocket.

  “You better hope that thing doesn’t go off in there,” Tenk said.

  The following few weeks passed and Seckry and Eiya were so snowed under with homework that they had almost forgotten about Sanfarrow’s coded message to Kevan Kayne, until one afternoon, in a particularly taxing astronomy lesson, when their teacher, Mr Nebrio began explaining about constellations.

  “Here we have Caprima, Kelomos, and right over here we’ve got this very distant constellation which most people disregard, but some like to call Silversong.”

  Seckry and Eiya nearly jumped out of their seats.

  “Silversong?” Seckry blurted out.

  “Yes, mister Sevenstars. Silversong. The furthest of our constellations, and as I say, often forgotten or simply disregarded by many due to its distance from the earth. Its shape is like a musical note. Have you heard of this constellation?”

  “Yeah . . . somewhere,” Seckry said.

  “Really?” Nebrio said curiously. “I’m surprised, Mr Sevenstars. Pleasantly surprised, don’t get me wrong, but surprised nonetheless. I daresay you’ve been reading my selection of recommended texts?”

  “Uh . . . yeah, I’ve had a glance through,” Seckry lied. “Uh, sir, is the sign of Silversong ever visible in the sky?”

  Nebrio raised his eyebrows. “Of course. Like all of the constellations I’ve mentioned today, Silversong is, at some point, visible to us here on earth.”

  “At some point? Do you know when it will be visible next?”

  “Oh . . . I’d say in about two to three hundred years time.”

  “Oh,” Seckry said miserably, and he and Eiya exchanged sullen expressions.

  After that, Seckry and Eiya still had no idea what the letter meant when it said, ‘refuge under the sign of Silversong,’ and they were getting so much homework it was being pushed to the back of their minds.

  Early one morning during a double dose of electronics in the following week, Cutson stopped giving her usual bitter rant and narrowed her eyes. As she made her way through the tables, everyone turned to see what she was looking at.

  She stopped at Peanut’s cage and pulled open the door. There were a few gasps as everyone realised that Peanut was no longer inside. The only things that were in the cage were a few half chewed bits of lettuce and a square bit of paper. Cutson snatched the paper and stared at it before turning to the class.

  Seckry had never seen her look so u
tterly disgusted and livid, and neither had the rest of the class.

  “Whoever. Did this. Is going. To pay.”

  After the lesson, which had been even more excruciating due to Cutson’s anger, a crowd began gathering in the corridor.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Jemmy picked up Peanut’s note. Look what it says.”

  Seckry squeezed in to have a peak.

  In pink, fluffy handwriting, it read:

  GONE ON HOLIDAY!

  I’LL SEND A POSTCARD!

  A week and a half later it was Tenk’s birthday, and he had decided to have a sleepover, inviting Seckry and Eiya and the rest of the Eastern Eidolons Friction team apart from Lessana, which nobody objected to in the slightest.

  “Does she really think I need another pair of socks?” Tenk complained as he, Seckry and Eiya waited for the others by the rusty fountain in the square. “Why couldn’t my mum have got me a Friction gift card like you got on your birthday?”

  Seckry handed Tenk the present he had bought him, which was a new poster of Serra Simmony, Tenk’s favourite actress, and Tenk swooned as though he was going to faint from the beauty of her.

  “You know me well,” Tenk said, and took a deep breath to regain his composure.

  When the others arrived, Tenk led them into his place. Waving a quick ‘hey’ to his mum and dad, who were watching Skyfall’s most popular soap, Steelplank Street, Tenk led them all into his bedroom.

  Tenk’s room was full of clothes and all manner of junk, strewn across the floor and piled high in disorganised heaps. The most striking thing about the place, though, was that it was covered from wall to wall with posters of Serra Simmony, and Seckry even noticed a couple sticky tacked to the ceiling. If it hadn’t been so messy, it could have been mistaken for some kind of shrine.

  “Tenk, seriously . . .” Loca said, eyeing his room with a frown. “Do you really think you’re gonna get a girlfriend with all these posters up? You’ve really gotta take these down. It’s creepy.”

  “Just stay away from my posters of Serra, Loca. Anyone touches my Serra and there’ll be trouble.” Tenk turned to Seckry. “This is why I’ve never invited her over before!” he whispered.

  “And Seckry!” Loca said in disbelief. “I can’t believe you bought him another one. I mean, where’s it gonna go? There’s no room.”

  “There’s always room for one more,” said Tenk defiantly. “There’s a bit of space behind the TV, I think.”

  “I mean, seriously though, look at her,” Loca continued. “She’s so . . . unreal. You know they airbrush all these photos, don’t you? I bet in real life she’s full of spots and wrinkles and all sorts.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  Loca spat a crude laugh. “Jealous! Of that false–”

  She was cut off as Tenk’s older brother, Longo, came running into the room and dived on Tenk, wrestling him to the ground.

  Loca screamed in shock and Tenk yelled, “Aaaaaargh! Get off me!”

  “I haven’t given you your birthday beating!” Longo said.

  “Birthday beating? Since when has there ever been birthday beatings?”

  “Since I invented them this morning,” said Longo, digging Tenk with his elbows and knees.

  They rolled around on the floor in a flurry of fists and everyone had to dodge out of their way.

  “Boys!” shouted Mrs Binko from the living area. “What have I told you about fighting?”

  Longo got up to walk out, saying, ‘Nice to meet you all,’ to everyone, but Tenk grabbed his foot and pulled him back to the ground, shouting, “Is that all you’ve got?”

  After fifteen more minutes of fighting, they both finally looked exhausted and Longo disappeared into his own bedroom, leaving Tenk’s room looking even more like a scrap yard.

  Loca shook her head.

  “For Gedin’s sake, Tenk, is that all you do around here, fight?”

  “Pretty much,” said Tenk, peeling a pair of underpants off his t-shirt and shaking a couple of crisps out of his hair.

  After a few bouts on a new beat ‘em up game that Tenk had been given by his brother for his birthday, they were invited into the kitchen, where Tenk’s mum had made a platter of nibbles. Seckry helped himself to a couple of hog and heather twirls, which were crunchy and meaty, and a few dinglepaste dollops, which was some kind of gooey mixture blobbed onto salty crackers. He had quite fancied dipping one into the mullsquash dip but it got splattered over the floor when Tenk and his brother broke into their third fit of scrapping.

  Later that night, after Tenk’s parents had gone to bed, they watched a film called Attack of the Shrunken Heads in the living area, which was possibly the creepiest horror film Seckry had ever seen, and they stuffed their faces with crisps and pop until they all felt queasy and Kimmy had to run to the bathroom to be sick.

  It was around one in the morning, and everyone was wide awake from all the caffeine, when Tenk said, “I know! We should play the truth game.”

  Loca rolled her eyes. “Tenk, you’re fifteen, not five.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with the truth game,” Tenk said defensively. “It’s a timeless classic. It’s gotta be played on sleepovers.”

  “What’s the truth game?” Seckry asked, who’d never heard of it.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever played it, either,” Eiya added.

  “Well, someone picks either odd or even and then rolls a dice. If their number matches what they chose then they get to ask someone a personal question, if their number doesn’t match then they’ve got to pick someone to ask them a question.”

  “Sounds simple enough,” Seckry said.

  Tenk looked positively at Loca. “You ready to play?”

  “Sure, but be prepared for some serious probing, Binko,” Loca said, narrowing her eyes.

  Seckry, Eiya, Loca and Kimmy all huddled their blankets closer while Tippian made himself a little feast of crisps and sugar coated mice and Tenk disappeared to find a dice.

  “I think, being the oldest and all, Kimmy should go first,” said Tenk, sitting down and wrapping his puffy sleeping bag around his shoulders.

  Tentatively, Kimmy said, “Okay, I guess . . . even,” and rolled the dice. It landed on a two.

  Loca gave him a little clap. “Well done, Kim.”

  Kimmy looked around the group. “I really don’t want to ask anything too personal–”

  “Kim,” Tenk cut in. “Come on, we’re all playing the same game. You can ask anyone anything you want. That’s the fun of it.”

  “Okay,” Kimmy said. “I’ve got a question for Tippian. What’s your idea of a perfect date with a girl?”

  Tippian pondered for a moment. “We’d both get into a Friction pod and load up a level that was in the sunset or something, then we’d have a one on one duel. If she beat me, that’d be it, it’s over. I don’t want some macho tough woman. If I beat her, then who knows? Maybe the second date we could have in the real world.”

  Loca shook her head at Eiya as if to say, ‘Boys, eh?’ and Eiya giggled slightly.

  After that they all rolled a few times each, and it was revealed that Loca sometimes stored packets of gum under her many hats while she was wearing them, Tippian still slept with a teddy bear in his bed, Kimmy once ate a spider by accident, and Tenk sometimes kissed a particular poster of Serra Simmony before going to sleep. Seckry was asked what his most embarrassing moment was, to which he told them about the time when he accidentally pulled off his maths teacher’s wig with a ruler back in Marne.

  The only person that hadn’t been asked anything up until now was Eiya, so when Tenk rolled an even number, he said, “Okay . . . Eiya,” and looked at her expectantly. “The newest girl in the school. Has anyone caught your eye? If you know what I mean.”

  Eiya said nothing for a moment and Seckry saw her cheeks blush gently.

  “Yes, I . . . think they have,” she said nervously.

  Seckry felt a strange sensation course
through his body then. He’d never experienced it before and he wasn’t sure what it was. Eiya fancied someone at school?

  “Can we have a clue as to who it is?” Tenk asked.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t say any more,” Eiya said embarrassedly. “That’s all you’re getting on that subject.”

  At about two o’clock in the morning, only Seckry and Tenk still had their eyes open. The rest were scattered around the room in various positions, wrapped cosily in their sleeping bags.

  “Hey, Seck,” Tenk whispered. “You wanna know something?”

  “Sure,” Seckry said. He didn’t even feel tired.

  “You know I say that Serra Simmony would be my perfect girl? Well . . . there is someone else. Someone in the real world that I think I was destined to be with.”

  “You’re not gonna start rambling on about the Chip and Milk Girl, are you?” said Tippian from across the room, his eyes still closed.

  “I thought you were asleep,” said Tenk.

  “I am,” said Tippian.

  “Who’s the Chip and Milk Girl?” Seckry asked.

  “Well, it was at last year’s Friction Meltdown. We had lost to the Northern Nightmare, and I was feeling really angry, so I stormed off and went to get a milkshake without congratulating anyone. Whenever I need a quick fix, something to cheer me up, I get myself a bag of hot chips and a multiberry milkshake, and I dip the chips in it.”

  Seckry screwed up his face a bit.

  “Really?”

  The thought of salty chips soaked in sweet milk made his stomach churn a little.

  “Disgusting, ain’t it,” Tippian interjected.

  “Man, I’m telling you, it’s the ultimate comfort food. Anyway, I asked the lady behind the desk for my usual, and she said, ‘I think you’ve started a trend.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about to begin with, but she slowly pointed to the other side of the counter where there was this girl sitting by herself, soaking up the bottom of her megamilk with a big, juicy chip. Can you believe it?”

  “Wow,” said Seckry. “There’s two of you.”

  “Exactly! Who else in the world likes chips dipped in milkshake? No one. No one except for her. It’s like I was looking into the eyes of my soulmate.”

  “Did you talk to her?” Seckry asked.

  Tenk looked down miserably.

  “He chickened out,” Tippian said.

  “I didn’t chicken out!” Tenk said furiously. “I just . . . I thought I’d have time to finish my chips before going over to her. As I was scoffing them down, though, the Northern Nightmare gang arrived, all cheering and shouting and hugging each other, and I lost sight of her. I got up and looked around but she had gone.”

  “He wouldn’t leave the stadium afterwards,” Tippian said. “The place was empty and we had to drag him away. He was convinced she had to be there somewhere.”

  “I just don’t understand where she could have gone . . .” Tenk said despairingly.

  On the following Monday, they had electronics once more for first period, and as soon as they entered the classroom one of the girls squealed in delight.

  “Peanut’s back!” she shouted, running to the cage. Soon, a group of pupils had gathered around it.

  “Move away!” Cutson’s voice sliced through the excitement like a guillotine.

  The crowd dispersed sheepishly and Cutson approached the cage slowly.

  Now that Seckry had a clear view he could see that attached to Peanut’s cage was a magnet of a pineapple.

  “You stupid animal,” Cutson said with disgust.

  Peanut turned to look at her whilst chewing on a leaf and gave her an expression that seemed to say, “What did I do?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kolda Kod