by John Barlow
The car creaked, moving slightly in the air as he pulled himself with infinite care up above the door frame, his feet on the passenger seat, his hands slithering across the smooth, rounded surface of the car’s roof. Silver’s stomach fluttered as she watched his legs disappear. She heard him crawl over the big rounded top of the car, slowly, slowly...
The car rocked upright a good bit. Worse had made it. He was standing on the bumper at the back.
Next it was Bad’s turn. Ben and Coby had now realized what was going on. They stayed where they were, helpless, and could do nothing except listen as Bad hoisted himself up onto the roof of the car, slithering cautiously back to join his brother on the bumper. With each movement, the car tilted up a fraction more, and by the time Bad joined his brother at the back, it was more or less horizontal.
All five of them knew that the difficult part was still to come, because those still inside the car were not much good at climbing. And that was putting it mildly.
“Right,” Silver said, Ugly in her arms, looking down at Ben and Coby. “Why don’t you two slide back up onto the seat, as gently as you can?”
Suddenly the car tipped forward.
“Carefully!!!” Silver hissed.
Too late. The car started to rock forwards, then backwards, then forwards again, like a boat in a swelling tide. Ben and Coby scrambled up onto the seat and looked out. Their mouths fell open, so wide that it looked as if their bottom jaws had become dislocated and were hanging loose.
Meanwhile, on the bumper, Bad an’ Worse went up and down like yo-yos, as the to-ing and fro-ing of the car gained momentum. Nothing was going to stop it from toppling down into the valley, they could see that now. They stayed right where they were, though, trying as hard as they could to stop the rocking, using all their weight to bear down on the bumper.
It was no use, and the three of them (plus pig) inside the car saw it too. The car was now swinging so wildly that they didn’t have time to climb out, even if the could have. They wouldn’t make it. They were about to plunge to their deaths.
At that moment Ugly Pig’s ears twitched. His whole body stiffened, and he stuck his head up and stared with mad eyes out of the back window. He began to growl, looking at the trees and bushes behind the twins. His eyes scanned the undergrowth as if he’d lost sight of something, his head snapping left and right...
A nine-foot emu shot out from the bushes and sprinted away, bounding off on its beefy, feathered legs.
Ugly Pig squealed, his trotters scuttling madly beneath him. Pushing off against Silver’s chest, he lunged at the back window with his bony head, the window disintegrating instantly under the terrific force of it. Off he raced, in pursuit of the huge bird.
Without Ugly Pig’s weight, the car rocked forwards even more, its movement now unstoppable. The twins couldn’t keep it balanced now.
“Quick!” Ben shouted, clambering up on the seat and getting the top half of his body out through the smashed window. With his free hand he dragged Silver up as well. Silver in turn dragged her brother up (he didn’t need much encouragement). The car nosed down towards the abyss for the last time, as Bad an’ Worse grabbed arms and necks and collars and whatever else they could, enough bits of Ben, Silver and Coby to yank them out through the window.
They tumbled onto the ground as the car, with one final creak and a sudden rush of air, plunged downwards. There was a huge metallic groan as it flipped right over, gaining speed, its dirty undercarriage on show, then the roof again, then the undercarriage... pirouetting again and again, crashing through trees and bushes all the way to the bottom of the valley.
They watched it fall. Then, when it had hit the bottom with a distant rumble of buckling metal, they turned to see where Ugly Pig had gone, and whether there really was a nine-foot emu on the loose.
Chapter Fourteen
“Oye!” Bad shouted, suddenly.
There was a shuffling of feet. Ben looked up. Bad an’ Worse had begun to shake and struggle.
The fat men in overalls were back. Two of them had got hold of Bad, one on each arm. Another two were holding Worse. They had him in a head-lock whilst another two grabbed his arms. Worse was fighting like a madman to break free, but it was useless; they had him good and tight.
Then Ben felt a slab of sweaty flesh cover his face. Another of the men had seized him from behind, wrapping a hand around his head, and was now dragging him backwards. From between the man’s fat yellow fingers, Ben saw that yet another man had seized both Silver and Coby, one of them under each arm.
All five of them were being hauled through the bushes and back up the field towards the road. Bad an’ Worse put up a desperate fight, kicking and swiping out furiously, bawling as they went, promising such violent, disgusting revenge that Ben shuddered to imagine what might happen if they did manage to break free.
Coby had turned silent, lifeless with fear, pulled like a rag doll across the ground, his feet bumping against the uneven grass. His frightened eyes sought out Ben’s, but even his friend couldn’t pretend that there was anything they could do now.
Meanwhile, the great flabby hand was still clasped over his face. He looked up, and he recognized the fat man who was dragging him. It was the same one who had said sorry earlier on the road. For a second the man’s big, sad eyes met Ben’s, begging him silently for forgiveness.
“Why?” Ben whispered, as low as he could. “Why?”
The man looked around to make sure no one else could hear him.
“Nothing I can do,” he said as quietly as he could.
The man dragging Silver and Coby, though, was in no mood for apologies. He seemed to take pleasure in throwing her around as he walked.
“You pathetic bully!” she screamed, and would have carried on, only he yanked her about so hard she could hardly catch her breath. She bit into his horrible salty skin, almost vomiting at the rancid taste of his flesh. He pulled his hand away.
“You little witch!” he cried, and shook her harder still.
Coby now jerked violently, his legs pedaling in the air as he strained to break free and help his sister. He tried to get his billy can off his belt to use as a weapon. But he couldn’t. He could hardly move. The man was now laughing.
Then, as he struggled to hold onto the two of them, something caught the man’s eye. He stopped. At the same instant all the other fat men fell silent, stopping dead in their tracks in the middle of the field.
Ugly Pig stood there, head down, snarling. Behind him, partially hidden in the undergrowth, was a pack of enormous emus.
Emus they were, definitely, just like in the nature documentaries they’d seen back on the Island. Enormous ones, nine feet tall at least, each one covered in ragged, light-brown feathers. But they weren’t simply huge emus, thought Ben, as he squinted to make out exactly what he was looking at.
Could it be? He looked harder. Yes. On the first giant bird sat a small, ginger-haired man in... in a kilt, his knobbly knees dangling down. On each of the other emus sat another small, kilted man, all with long, wild hair and the most outrageous beards.
“Get ’em!” the gingery one yelled in a strange, warbling voice, cackling with delight as he gripped the long, upright neck of his bird. Digging his little feet into the bird’s feathery flanks, he charged forwards. The others followed, their straggly hair flying out in the wind, their small, elfin faces grinning, and their mouths jabbering crazily beneath bushy beards. The thunderous sound of giant emu feet filled the air.
In a second, the fat men had been surrounded, along with Ben and the others, who were right in the middle of it all. The emus galloped in a circle, their riders whooping and crying.
“Fight!” the little men shouted as they rode, laughing and shrieking with joy, as if this was the most hilarious thing in the world. “Heeeee! Fighty! Fighty!” the screamed, pointing at the fat men as they went.
Then the chief emu-rider pulled in closer to the group, guiding his bird right up to them.
“Hey-up!” he shouted to the fat men.
He jerked his emu’s neck a fraction. With that the big bird launched one of its enormous, muscle-packed legs at the nearest fat man. The blow cracked into the man’s gut. He moaned, struggled for breath, and dropped Worse’s arm as he staggered away, wincing with pain.
Then the attack began in earnest. Emu-kicks rained down into the soft, puddingy flab of the fat men, who swiveled and twisted this way and that trying to avoid the blows, and also trying not to let go of their captives. The emus were worked up into a frenzy by their mad, skirt-wearing riders, circling the group faster and faster, the air a blur of kicking emu legs, catching the men on their arms, legs, chests...
At the center of the madness, Ben and the others slowly extricated themselves from the grasp of the men, who one by one were doubling up in pain, and trying to protect themselves from a severe kicking.
“Keep still!” Ben shouted, and the others did as he said, because it was obvious that they, unlike the fat men, were not being attacked.
Meanwhile, at a safe distance, pacing slowly up and down like a sergeant-major, Ugly Pig watched events carefully, his tail sticking out behind him like an antenna.
Some of the fat men had by now collapsed to the ground, holding their mashed, shaking limbs and crying for mercy. One played dead, and another had taken his chance and was waddling up the field as fast as he could, not daring to look behind him. Meanwhile, the ex-prisoners cowered together at the very center of the action, completely unharmed, but wondering just who had freed them. And why.
Then the emus stopped.
“Now!” one of the riders shouted, maneuvering his bird so that it pointed towards the center of the group.
“Oh, no!” Bad growled, and got ready to fight off a pack of giant birds.
An emu raced suddenly forwards. The next instant Silver was whipped up onto the emu’s back. Whoosh. The bird sprinted away so fast that although Silver screamed, the sound of her voice fell away to nothing as she was whisked away by an emu and the little bearded man who drove it.
Whoosh. Coby had no time to react. Off he went, slung across another emu’s back, his legs kicking. Ben and the twins watched, and almost immediately they felt themselves rising up, hoisted onto their own birds, to be carried off toward the forest at immense speed, the wind rushing through their hair.
Chapter Fifteen
Emus are tricky to ride, especially at first. The fear of falling, the uneven, bounding strides... You sit on the bird’s big, soft back and just hang on. But once you get used to it, it’s a neat way to travel.
Mile after mile they went. It was easily the fastest any of them had ever travelled, charging at break-neck speed through dense woodland, up and down lush green hills covered in thick, glossy-green vegetation, and splashing across streams. It was also the furthest they had ever gone, further than anything possible on the Island. A lot further. An emu odyssey into this big, overgrown mainland.
Ugly Pig scampered along beside the posse, letting out snaffling, grunty cries of wild, animal joy. In the end, Bad an’ Worse joined in, whooping and hollering, creased up with laughter and thinking the whole thing was a massive joke.
By the time they stopped, the sun was well advanced in the western sky, and the emus were clearly in need of food and water.
They made their way down the side of a shallow, secluded valley with a stream at the bottom and what looked like a small wooden cabin. Smoke rose gently from a campfire in front of the cabin.
Leaving the birds to drink at the stream, they continued on foot as far as the cabin, which seemed to be a food store, a sort of stop-off point. More of the little men in kilts were already there. They pointed and giggled at the sight of their new guests, which Silver thought was bad manners, and which Bad an’ Worse would have taken offence at, had they not been so hungry.
These little men were called emu-lators. Several of them now fussed around, taking orders from the one with the ginger beard. A huge block of cheese was brought out, then baskets of massive strawberries and bottles of cider. Potatoes were already roasting in the campfire.
The chief emu-lator, with the ginger hair, now introduced himself formally. He was called Tah. He was just a little taller than the rest. He had a long, messy ginger beard to go with his ginger hair, and a kilt of a red and green tartan. So as not to overdo it, his shirt a murky gray, as if it hadn’t been washed since long before the war, and his waistcoat was, it appeared, a patchwork of fine, glossy animal furs.
One by one, Tah now pointed out the other emu-lators. They were quite short, five feet at most, with bandy little legs and oversized heads. Their arms and shoulders were strong and burly, which made the kilts they wore look rather strange, somehow. He recited their names, pointing at each emu-lator in turn: Sah, Pah, Fah, Shah, Abah, Stah... So many ‘ah’s that it was impossible to remember them all.
The emu-lators seemed harmless enough, though, giggling and chortling wherever they went. From time to time one of them would stop what he was doing, peer down at a stick or a clump of grass on the ground, and burst out laughing, calling the others over to see it. Then, a second later, they would all shuffle off, shaking their heads with glee.
Tah sat around the fire with the others and ate hot potatoes. Indeed, he appeared to be the only emu-lator capable of sitting for any length of time without jumping suddenly to his feet and laughing at something or other that had caught his eye.
“Don’t forget the cheese,” he said, as he retrieved more hot potatoes from the fire with a stick.
Worse didn’t need to be asked twice. In fact, he didn’t need to be asked once, Ben thought, as he watched him hack off yet another chunk, slit open the piping hot potato with Silver’s penknife, and pop the cheese inside to melt. It was his fifth potato already. Bad was pretty greedy, too. But as far as eating was concerned, there was no contest: Worse could eat like a horse. He could probably eat more than most horses.
Gradually, as their hunger receded, they began to talk to Tah. They gazed into the soothing orange glow of the campfire, and asked the inevitable question...
“Melted men,” Tah said, all matter-of-fact.
“Melted men?” said Worse, snatching another baked potato from the campfire, juggling with it until the skin was cool enough to handle.
“Exactly,” said Tah. “They’re not bad souls, really. Poor things! That’s why we didn’t let you two at them!” he said to Bad and Worse. “You’d’ve torn ’em limb from limb!”
“Too right,” said Worse, fragments of potato dropping from his greedy mouth as he spoke. “We’d’ve...”
“Exactly!” said Tah.
“Why are they... like that?” Ben asked, shuddering at the very thought of their revolting skin, and the great wobbling sacks of fat that hung from every part of the men’s bodies.
“The war,” Tah said, huffing. “Before you kids were born. Got it bad, they did. Disease. Inside ’em, right into their flesh. Their bodies are growing, expanding, sagging, deteriorating... it’s awful for them.” He scowled with an immense sadness. “They were infected with something or other. And now... now they’re like that. Poor things... Anyway!” he said, eager to change the subject. “What were you lot doing out so far east?”
Ben glanced at Silver. “We were lost,” he said.
Bad an’ Worse stuffed their mouths with potato on purpose. Cooking up alibis was not their strong point, and they knew when to keep quiet. Coby stared down at the ground, his mouth tightly closed. Even Silver was now dithering, waiting for Ben to continue.
“Ha!” Tah said, making it seem as if none of this was of any concern of his. But Ben saw something in his beady eyes, a flash of curiosity, as if he was weighing them up from behind that big bush of gingery chin-fuzz.
“Be careful!” Tah said, quietly, almost to himself, before kicking the cold embers at the edge of the fire with his boot.
“Why do we need to be careful?” Ben said, very politely.
“Why? W
hy!” said Tah, his face screwed up in a nervous smile so you couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Because, young man, the best thing you can do in this god-forsaken country is to stay right where you are, and don’t move!”
“But you move!” Ben said.
Tah sighed. “We live out here, in the woods. And we’ve got the emus. Nothing faster! Those stupid electric bubble cars? Useless. And they don’t have much else. But you? You don’t want to be travelling too far... too far towards... well, hi hi, you know... not unless you wanted to get...” He coughed, running a small, hairy hand across his forehead. “Wait on a minute! You’re not going... You weren’t... on the road... weren’t going... where were you going? No... eh hem, you’re not thinking of going west... are you, further inland?”
His voice had dropped almost to nothing. He looked as miserable as anyone possibly could look.
Silver’s forehead had started to wrinkle, which meant she was thinking hard. Coby noticed, and feared the worst.
“Why? What’s there?” Silver said. “And, by the way, who are they?”
“What she means...” Ben said, trying to smooth over Silver’s rude, impatient tone, “... is that we are trying to go further inland.”
“Oh no, no, no...!” Tah cried. “I don’t think so, oh no, no!”
They all leaned forwards, mouths open, and waited to hear what he was going to say next. But instead he pointed at the campfire.
“Look at that flame!” he cried. “My word, it looks like a dancing fairy, so it does, so it does!”
But Silver was not going to be put off with his lame diversionary tactics.
“There?” she said, glaring at him, pinning him with her eyes.
“There,” Tah said, now resigned to answering, “is a place you don’t want to go. But don’t ask me any more about it,” he said, wagging a finger, “because I won’t tell!” He nodded his head, as if to put an end to it. “And they,” he added, “they are the police. Those fat men you got into trouble with? The melted men? They’re policemen. You stole a police car and wrecked it. And now you’re in trouble. All I can say is, good thing you’ve got protection!”