by Mira Bartók
Finally, when the great cuckoo clock in the Grand Hall chimed midnight and its beak gobbled up the last mechanical bird of the day, Miss Carbunkle patted her new wig lovingly, as one would pat the hand of a dear friend, and placed it on its special shelf in the closet, next to the others. She then bid good night to the creature burrowed under the covers by her feet and promptly went to sleep.
In the morning, the creature known as Mardox was back inside Miss Carbunkle’s cane, its amber eyes dull and lifeless. And so, with a new orange wig atop her head, sausage curls and all, and a new white hat with a hawk feather proudly sticking out from the side, Miss Carbunkle began her day as usual — with one exception. She left instructions for Mr. Sneezeweed (who still had not come back from his mission). Upon his return, he was to lock up “the two miscreants” in the cellar, then bring “that rat groundling — the one that smells like a water closet” to her chambers, for she had “a business proposition to discuss.”
THE FIRST THING that struck Arthur about the Outside was the improbable light of spring. He had grown up in such a dim gray place that this other world seemed bathed in gold. The land actually shimmered, and the warmth of the sun, which he had barely felt in his short life thus far, surged through his body and gave him strength.
The second thing he noticed was the horizon. He had never seen one before, and at first glance, it was frightening. Everything in the distance — sheep on the hills, men and women in the fields — looked like tiny ants. The world seemed so incredibly vast that he had to close his eyes from time to time in order to adjust to its size.
Trinket flew and Arthur ran. They followed a road that cut through a lush valley dotted with small groves of trees to the top of a hill, where it met the main road northward to the Great White City. At least that’s where they hoped it led. For they had no map, and Trinket had been brought to the Home from far away. Their scant knowledge of the local terrain and their intended route was based solely on the hearsay of groundlings at the Home.
They had been on the run for over an hour, and Arthur needed to rest. He stopped to catch his breath while Trinket hovered nearby. They scanned the road for Miss Carbunkle or someone else from the Home, but they couldn’t see a soul.
Arthur was perplexed. Surely she would have sent someone to track them down. Sneezeweed or Bonegrubber. Why hadn’t she? Was she watching them now from her tower? Then again — how important could he and Trinket really be? She could replace them with two other slaves in a heartbeat.
Arthur could see the stone fortress of the orphanage in the valley below and felt a pang in his chest. From a distance, his former home, which held so many bad memories, now looked like a sad, crumbling place, abandoned centuries ago. But it wasn’t abandoned; the others were still trapped inside. And he couldn’t do a thing about it.
Above him, Trinket’s propeller hummed loudly like a swarm of angry bees. Arthur called out to her. “I think you should come down. Someone could hear you. And I can’t hear as well either.”
“How could I be so stupid!” said Trinket immediately. “And we should stay off the road. I’m not sure that groundlings are allowed to travel. I was too young to know all the rules back then.”
“You’re right,” said Arthur. “We don’t know anything.”
“We’ll stick to hedgerows and ditches once we get to the bottom of the hill. Coming down now.”
Trinket pressed the yellow button on her chest with her beak. Her propeller spun slower and slower until she puttered clumsily to the ground. She landed on top of a gorse bush. “Ouch!” she squawked. Arthur helped her to her feet. “I’ll keep my suit on for now, Arthur, just in case. You ready?”
“Just a minute,” he said.
Arthur tied his blanket to the end of a good strong stick, making a bindle. Next, he grasped the tag stamped with the number 13 around his neck and tugged at it. But try as he might, he couldn’t break it off the cord, so he pulled the whole thing over his head. He looked down at the small disk in his red furry hand. The number was nearly worn off. Who would he have become, he wondered, had he remained Number Thirteen and not escaped? “I have a real name,” he said under his breath. “My name is Arthur.”
He brushed away a tear and threw the medallion as far as he could over the hill. It landed somewhere in the vast green valley below. I hope some creature finds a use for it, he thought. Maybe a crow will take it to her nest.
He picked up Trinket and placed her on his shoulder so she could perch there for a while. Arthur was too tired to run, so he walked quickly instead. It was a bit prickly to have Trinket’s claws digging into his shoulder, but it wasn’t in his nature to complain.
Now that Trinket’s propeller had stopped, Arthur could hear birds singing and small creatures running about in the fields and other lovely sounds. He could also hear what sounded like a very large animal crashing through a field.
When they got to the bottom of the hill, he discovered what it was.
“Sneezeweed!” cried Arthur, pointing to the right.
Sneezeweed and his donkey cart were barreling through a field of tall grass, sending clumps of earth flying. They were less than a quarter of a mile away and gaining ground.
Arthur ran as fast as he could, with Trinket clinging to his shoulder. But Sneezeweed had spotted them and was now out of the field and on the road. He would surely catch up to them soon. Arthur noticed that up ahead, the road cut through a patch of wildflowers, blue and yellow blossoms swaying in the breeze. Seeing them gave him an idea.
“Trinket,” said Arthur, “hang on tight!”
Arthur hopped down off the road and ran straight into the flowers.
Sneezeweed, his eyes red and swollen, and his nose dripping uncontrollably, cracked his whip to make the donkey go faster. He had no free hand with which to blow his nose and was already miserable beyond belief. He held the reins with one hand and with the other tossed chunks of steak over his shoulder to Miss Carbunkle’s mastiffs inside the cart to keep them quiet. The dogs were tied to hooks, one on each side, and straining to get free.
“All right, you stupid mongrels,” he muttered to them, “you’ll get your dessert now. Just hold on.” With one hand on the reins, Sneezeweed drove the cart into the field of wildflowers, and with the other hand reached over to untie the dogs — not an easy task in a moving donkey cart. As he fumbled with the first dog’s rope, he began to feel a colossal sneeze coming on. The cart was deep in the wildflowers now, which was even worse than the tall grass he had just come through. Then, the worst possible thing happened. The donkey kicked a great cloud of pollen up into the air, and Sneezeweed exploded in a convulsion of sneezes.
The dogs, still tied to the cart, strained with all their might in opposite directions. They began barking like mad and pulling so hard that the sides of the cart started buckling. The donkey kicked and kicked and kicked, while Sneezeweed sneezed on.
That’s when he dropped the reins.
In an instant, the flimsy cart fell completely apart, the donkey took off, dragging the harness with it, and Sneezeweed tumbled to the ground. And the dogs, instead of attacking the two escapees, ran off into the field, barking wildly with glee.
Sneezeweed landed in a pile of boards and broken wheels upon a bed of flowers, where he would stay, drifting in and out of consciousness, until the next morning. There he would finally awaken — covered in dog fur, pollen, and dung — with a concussion, two sprained wrists, and a broken foot.
“Oh, Arthur, that was brilliant!” cried Trinket.
“Thanks!” Arthur grinned. “We better get out of here before he wakes up, though.”
“I don’t think he’ll be in any condition to chase us now,” said Trinket.
They burst into a fit of laughter — loud, wonderful, forbidden laughter — and continued on their way, their hearts lighter than before.
AS THE ROAD WIDENED, the two travelers found themselves walking through another valley — and a dazzling array of colors Arthur had never seen
before. Trinket told him the names of all the flowers they passed, so he would come to know them too — bluebell, cowslip, celandine, marigold, and lilac.
The air was thick with the perfume of spring. Arthur caught a whiff of the lilacs and plucked one. He dropped it into his pocket as a keepsake, on top of what Linette had placed there that morning: a tiny note wrapped around a gold coin, a gift he had no idea was there.
It was late in the afternoon when they left the second valley and entered farm country. Arthur inhaled the milky breath of baby goats and lambs, the pungent dung of cows, the sweet smell of hay. He wished they could stay there, just lying in the grass, resting, listening, dreaming. There had been no signs of anyone following them since Sneezeweed and the donkey cart debacle. But they knew they had to keep moving, just in case.
Along the way, Arthur saw all manner of wondrous creatures: a pair of hedgehogs scuttling behind a bush; broad-backed horses pulling plows, stomping through the rich, damp earth; a herd of cows behind a fence, chewing cud in sleepy rhythms. Arthur stared in fascination as the cows coiled their thick black tongues like snakes around tufts of grass, their moist black muzzles snorting in the breeze. He wondered if he would ever be able to understand the language of all these creatures, the way he could the little mice and rats.
The music of the land rose and fell around him as he walked — the tinkling of cowbells, shepherds calling “Away to me, away to me” to their dogs, the low bellowing of bulls, and the distant cries of something wild from the forest beyond.
He thought he heard a crow caw in the distance and imagined his medallion tucked nicely in her nest, a shiny gift for her mate. And he thought how lovely it was to have a friend.
“Arthur,” said Trinket, who was still perched on his shoulder. “I want to take this thing off. Can you help me?”
Trinket pressed a red button with her beak, and her flying suit sprang open from a hinged seam running down her back.
Arthur helped her wriggle out of it. “How did you make this thing, anyway?” he said as he placed Trinket’s suit inside his bindle.
“It’s all in the beak, Arthur. All in the beak.”
They looked at each other and started laughing again.
They decided that if Miss Carbunkle was going to send someone else after them, she would have done it already, so they stopped to rest in the shade of a hay bale.
“How did you make it, Trinket?” asked Arthur.
Trinket said that after teaching herself how to pick locks, she broke into the Widget Room late at night. There she found some scrap metal and spare parts. “I had help,” she said, explaining how the smaller orphans — the rabbity twins, Nesbit and Snook, in particular — had smuggled out leather scraps and odds and ends they found in one of the workrooms. “I hid everything under that mountain of broken beetles,” she said. “Bonegrubber only gets rid of that pile every other month or so.”
“What would I do without you?” said Arthur.
“I told you, it wasn’t just me,” said Trinket. “It was Nesbit and Snook, and some of the others helped too. And they all kept my secret. Our secret.”
Arthur didn’t know what to say.
“You’ve always had friends. You just didn’t know it. Now, come on,” she said, nudging Arthur with her beak. “Let’s get going.”
They started off again, sticking to the hedgerows and ditches.
The endless road lay before them, leading to mountains, cities, and the sea. And to their destiny, whatever that might be. They needed to head north to where the main road split in two, which was, to the best of their knowledge, two days’ journey by foot. At that point, Trinket would travel west toward the coast to search for her uncle, and Arthur would continue on to Lumentown, at least another two or three days by foot, although neither of them knew for sure. Then they would meet up in the City after Trinket visited with her uncle. At least that was the plan.
The two went on in silence. Arthur’s feet were beginning to feel terribly sore, and he was dying for something to eat. “Trinket,” he said, cocking his head to the right, where she was perched on his shoulder. “It feels like supper time to me.”
“Let’s see what time it is,” she replied.
“How can we tell time now without clocks?”
“Arthur, there are lots of ways to tell time.”
She explained to him about sundials, and then about dandelion clocks, and how one can tell the hour by how many breaths it takes to blow away all the seeds, and flower clocks, which tell you what time it is by what flowers open and close during the day.
And then one thought led to another, as it often does, and without warning, that dreadful place with its hundreds of clocks rose before him in his mind. Arthur thought of all the orphans he and Trinket had left behind. He imagined saving them — turning back and opening the big black gate, the heavy oak door, and letting everyone out. But he knew it was just a fantasy. And he knew, more than anything else, that he might not even be able to save himself from whatever dangers awaited him down the road. He just knew he had to keep on going.
Later, when the sun dipped low in the sky, Arthur could hear men and women calling their dogs and flocks in from the fields, and see farmers heading home for their evening meals, but still he and Trinket walked on. The birds of the day returned to their nests, making room in the sky for night birds and bats. A hush fell upon the land. It was twilight, and time to find shelter.
Arthur heard the sound of water trickling over stones. They followed a path off the main road that led them into a quiet, cool wood with a stream running through it. Arthur made Xs along the way with a stick so they could find their way back.
His mouth was so parched, he could barely speak. He knelt beside the stream and lapped the cool water like the wild thing he was — that is, the part of him that was still truly wild.
The two friends looked around for the perfect tree, carefully stepping over tiny spotted newts, thick mossy roots, and mushrooms. It was difficult to avoid squashing some of the mushrooms, and the cool fungi felt soothing to his sore feet.
Finally, they found shelter beneath a large ancient oak. Trinket unwrapped a tiny red handkerchief. “It’s all I could find,” she said. Inside were a few crumbs of bread and a button-size piece of cheese. Arthur offered up his collection of odds and ends: three small rubbery carrots, two pieces of stale bread, and half a boiled potato from the night before. They greedily tucked into their humble meal, which Arthur feared could be their last for a while.
They nestled among the tree’s thick tangled roots and found a soft mossy spot for a bed, which was, not surprisingly, softer than any bed at the Home except the ones in the infirmary. They snuggled close, for the air around them had cooled since the afternoon, and they had only Arthur’s thin blanket to share between them.
They lay on their backs, staring up at the stars through a round opening in the canopy above. It reminded Arthur of the window on the wall across from his bed at the Home, and how he had stared at the moon on so many nights, his heart filled with longing.
Arthur heard a haunting sound. It was the hoot of an owl. He and Trinket watched its silhouette flash by, wings spread across the indigo sky, then disappear.
“Miss Carbunkle gives them a bad name,” said Trinket. She motioned upward with her beak. “Owls, hawks, falcons, and such. Even Merlyn the magician had an owl as a friend.”
A gust of wind shuddered through the trees, and the two friends, a bit fearful, burrowed closer together beneath the old gray blanket. Comforted, they lay still, gazing up at the sparkling night wrapped around them.
All of a sudden, Trinket hopped out from under the blanket. “Arthur! Make a wish! Do it right now!”
“What?”
“Make a wish. It’s the perfect night for it. Come on!”
“No, not me!” said Arthur, shaking his head emphatically. “N-not a good idea. N-not at all.” He sat up and leaned against the tree. Trinket plopped down beside him.
She insis
ted that if he wanted something badly enough, he had to wish for it. This was a concept Arthur was unfamiliar with, and he pondered it for a while. He had wished for a friend, and the friend had eventually appeared. Maybe Trinket was right. But then, what should he wish for now? What did he really want?
He thought for a while until finally he said, “Okay. I think I have a wish. But . . . it’s probably stupid.”
“Don’t say that! Nothing you wish for could possibly be stupid. Just pick a star. Then make a wish. It’s simple. You don’t even have to say it out loud.”
Arthur and Trinket lay back down beneath the blanket and looked up through the canopy. There were so many stars, it was hard to choose. Finally Arthur settled on one, but he didn’t know the name of it, or to what constellation it belonged, for he had never learned about constellations at Miss Carbunkle’s Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures. He pointed to it and said, “That one, over there.”
“Well done, Arthur! You chose Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the heavens. Now make a wish with all your heart. Come on.”
“Oh, all right, then,” said Arthur. He swallowed hard and began, “I wish — I wish t-to know . . .”
He paused. There was so much he wished to know. And so much he hadn’t realized he wished for. Now that he knew where he was born, he wanted to know if he still had family somewhere. And he wanted to know why he had no name, and why he had only one ear. And who had sung that beautiful song when he was but a wee pup, and why he could hear things others couldn’t and why and why and why. There were just too many questions. But if he rolled them all into one, it was to know why he had ever been born.
Arthur took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. “I wish — and I will say it out loud, Trinket, for you are my best friend in the whole wide world — I wish —” He took another breath. “I wish to know why I’m here and what I’m supposed to do in the world — what is my destiny? There. I said it.”