The Wonderling

by Mira Bartók

  What did Gaffer mean when he said no one goes back? Arthur had to figure something out fast. He had to find Trinket. But in the meantime, he was exhausted, and there were only two hours before dawn — a dawn devoid of light.

  Arthur remembered what Gaffer had said about the night crows and sat up straight, his ear tuned to the dark world around him. He hoped the Badger was lying. Instead of monstrous birds, however, he heard what sounded like the lapping tides of a river hidden behind the rock. He listened to sounds he had never heard before and didn’t understand: the whistle of the Night Train shuttling fortunate humans — factory owners, High Hats, and D.O.G.C. officers — back and forth to a station above in Lumentown. He heard what he would soon learn was the rumble of scavenger carts, borne along by large mole groundlings, blind but sure-footed in this strange subterranean world. The Moles searched for clinkered refuse, objects discarded or forgotten in rubbish dumps or outside crookeries and factory walls.

  And Arthur could hear life above in Lumentown.

  He strained to listen through the thick rock and earth separating the two worlds. He could just barely hear the pattering rain upon the streets, rain he couldn’t feel below, only the drip, drip, drip of sewage waste. In the City below the City, there was no gentle snow, no warm, golden sun, not even a thunderstorm like at the Home.

  In the netherworld of Gloomintown, there was no weather at all.

  ARTHUR AWOKE the following Sunday thinking of 17 Tintagel Road — the musical sound of the name, the number that (thank goodness) was not thirteen, and the complete muddle he had made of his search, not to mention everything else. He had slept poorly that night, as he had every night since he’d arrived. The crookeries were like dovecotes, only stained with soot and sweating with dampness. They were so cold and miserable to sleep in that some of the smaller groundlings abandoned their crookeries altogether and sought out holes in factory chimneys to keep warm.

  How could anyone sleep in a dark, damp hole with no privacy, barely big enough to lie down in? And he still didn’t know if that Badger had been telling the truth about the night crows. Just in case, he kept his ear alert for the sound of large flapping wings.

  He looked out of his hole at the vast, murky world before him: the perpetual sameness, everyone breathing the same gloomy, unmoving air, trudging toward bellowing factories and coal pits. The air felt old and full of sorrow, as if it had inherited centuries of grief. Arthur could smell the subterranean fog. It smelled like rotten eggs. The voluminous smoke from the factories had nowhere to go, so it hovered at the top of Gloomintown and drifted up a handful of vents into the Great White City above.

  Was this to be his life now? His destiny?

  He had to get a message to Trinket. He was sure she had made a plan by now. She was Trinket, after all. But how in the world was he going to reach her if he was stuck in this hellish place?

  Arthur sat cross-legged on the floor of his crookery hole and took a bite of his morning’s ration of bread. A mechanical monkey like the one on Stinkbottom Bridge delivered the bread, climbing up and down the wall and pelting the inhabitants with their rations twice a day. This clockwork monkey was even meaner than the one above.

  “Yuck!” said Arthur, spitting out a mouthful of bread. The crust was green with mold. He tossed it out of his hole; it fell far below, making a soft splashing sound in a shallow pool of black water.

  Soon he’d have to trudge with the others to the mine. His job had to be one of the worst in Gloomintown. As a Trap-Rat, he operated the trapdoors of the mines, controlling the ventilation for the miners. He’d heard about other jobs — glue makers and bone grinders, stone breakers and grave diggers, hatmakers, fat boilers, dung scrapers, and so on. And for the lucky few, there were jobs at seedy establishments along a certain nefarious passageway called Black Slug Lane. These places were set up entirely for groundling foremen and ones like Gaffer or the Mole guard who collected tolls on the bridge. Even though they were stuck there forever in Gloomintown just like all the other groundlings, they received special perks for their higher status. They had exclusive access to the rat-fighting clubs, the freak shows, and the only groundling pub, appropriately named the Dung & Shovel.

  After work, groundlings like Arthur, who had no special privileges, huddled in crookery holes, sharing their misery and morsels of food, beneath the lurid glow of smoky grease lamps or sputtering candles bartered for at the Night Market.

  After only a few days, Arthur could tell which groundlings had been there a long time. They could barely breathe, and their eyes had grown larger through the years in order to adjust to the lack of light. They had a haunted, empty look about them, and rarely spoke. They reminded Arthur of the Grumblers at the Home, the older groundlings who had clearly accepted their sad lot in life.

  Arthur remembered how, on his very first day in Lumentown, he had heard a thudding sound from deep below the earth. He realized now that that deep below was exactly where he was, and where he might stay for the rest of his life if he couldn’t figure out how to escape.

  But Arthur hadn’t forgotten Trinket’s words — Be brave! And never, ever lose hope! And still, nestled in his heart, was that song from long ago, and the lilting voice that floated in the stars above, her voice, whoever she was. . . .

  And whenever he could, he strained to hear signs of life in the light-filled world above. When he listened very, very hard, he swore he could hear the sounds of children playing.

  Arthur had awoken early that morning so as to have a few moments to sit beside the black shallow pool below. He climbed down a rope ladder to the nearest platform and tugged on a lever, and the pulleys clinked into action, carrying him all the way down.

  He had only a few minutes, but at least he had that, so he closed his eyes and pretended that he was back with Trinket, on the road to Lumentown, sitting beside a clear, sunlit stream. He conjured the green hills and the wildflowers and the cows and sheep dotting the landscape. He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that it took him a while to notice the creature sitting on a pile of black rubble nearby. It was a frog, watching a school of tiny silver fish wheeling near the surface of the water. Every once in a while, its tongue would zap one and slurp it up.

  Arthur nodded his head politely and said, “Hello there, frog.”

  The frog fixed its gaze on him and croaked. It seemed to stare at Arthur with a most disapproving look.

  “Hello,” he said again, but the frog just stared.

  “Well, what are you staring at, anyway?” said Arthur, suddenly feeling cranky and sorry for himself.

  The frog blinked, then spoke. “No need to get testy! Never saw a fox person down here before, did I?” The frog croaked again and, in one nimble leap, was gone.

  Great, said Arthur to himself, staring as the ripples began to settle into stillness once again on the black face of the pool. I finally meet someone who might be able to tell me how to get out of here and I ruin it. That’s just great.

  As he got up, he heard someone whisper to him from behind the wall. “Psst. You there.” Arthur looked around but couldn’t see a soul. “Psst!” the voice said again. “Yes, you. Don’t listen to frogs, Foxy. They’re not to be trusted. If you really want to know what goes on around here, ask the mice.”

  Arthur looked around again, but all he saw was the wall of solid stone. The whistle sounded the start of his shift, and he hurried off to the mines.

  THAT NIGHT, just as Arthur was falling asleep, he heard a soft rustling sound from behind the wall. He looked up and there, peering out at him from a tiny opening in the corner of his crookery hole was a small gray mouse with pink ears. It had a friendly, inquisitive face, with long white whiskers and a pale-pink nose.

  “Hello, there!” said Arthur. “Come. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  The mouse crept out of its hole and drew nearer. It twitched its nose and blinked.

  “Poor mouse. You must be hungry,” whispered Arthur.

  The mouse inched closer.
Arthur noticed that it had a rather unusual tail. The end looked bent and flattened, as if someone had stepped on it.

  Arthur searched his pockets and found a handful of breadcrumbs, and placed them before the mouse. “There you go. Tuck in. I wish I had something better to give you, but I don’t.”

  The mouse stood up on its hind legs, looked over its shoulder, and clutched its whiskers nervously. It seemed to be making sure no one was going to snatch the crumbs. Then it vigorously rubbed its paws together for a moment, looked left and right, and commenced eating. After its meal, it twitched its nose several times and let out a dainty burp. It began to groom itself, rubbing its paws over its face and the rest of its body and finally its long gray tail.

  Arthur sighed. “I wish you could understand me. I’m quite fond of mice. And I could use a friend.”

  The mouse cocked its head, looked him in the eye, and after a moment said in a slightly condescending voice, “Well, the question is: Can you understand me? But of course you can’t. They never can.”

  Arthur sat straight up. “But I can!” he exclaimed. “Plain as day!”

  The mouse’s eyes opened wide. “Excuse me? You can understand me?”

  “Yes, I can understand you just fine! What’s your name? How did you get here? What — oh, bother, just tell me about yourself!”

  “Why, my name is Peevil! What’s yours?”

  “My name is Arthur!”

  “Arthur? Like . . . like the Arthur, the Once and Future Mouse King?” said Peevil, his eyes widening further. “And his Mouse Knights of the Round Table? This is a great honor, to be sure! Please — do excuse my haughtiness from before. I had no idea.”

  The mouse bowed graciously before Arthur. Arthur stood up and bowed to the mouse.

  “It is truly a pleasure to meet you, Peevil,” he said. “A pleasure indeed.”

  The two talked long into the night.

  Peevil explained to Arthur how in the Days of Yore (although he didn’t specify when that was), mice were knights and fought for honor and glory instead of cheese. He made it a point to add, “Not that I have anything against cheese, of course.”

  Arthur told him how he used to listen to the mice and rats talking behind the walls of the Home, how their conversations gave him solace before his friend Trinket arrived.

  “I know how you feel,” said Peevil. “All alone, even when you’re surrounded by so many others. It’s how I’ve felt every day down here since I arrived.”

  He told Arthur his long sad story, how he had come from a wonderful and loving family, twenty siblings in all. “Very sophisticated and cultured family, mind you.” He had been separated from them several months before by an awful turn of luck. They’d been on an outing at Lumentown Market, when a delicious smell distracted him. “It was Brie. I suppose you could say that cheese was my downfall.”

  He fell into an open manhole and got sucked right down into the sewers. “That’s how I broke my tail,” said Peevil. He held up the end of his tail. “Nearly drowned too.” He shuddered and pulled on a whisker.

  “I know what that feels like,” said Arthur. “Not the tail bit. I don’t have one. But I know how it feels to be lost and alone.”

  “Now I don’t know how to get back home to my family.” Peevil let out a mousy sigh. “Anyway, how is it that you can understand me? No offense, but that’s not normal for a groundling or a human. Can you understand other animals as well, or just mice?”

  “I can’t understand all creatures,” said Arthur. “And I definitely don’t understand cats. Not yet, at least.”

  “Cats!” squeaked Peevil. His whiskers drooped. “What’s to understand? They’re rude, arrogant, vicious killers, and —”

  “Oh, my, don’t say that,” said Arthur. “I’m sure there are some good ones. And anyway, if I can understand them someday, I’ll find out more about them, and maybe talk to them, and then they won’t hiss at me when I walk by.”

  He offered Peevil more crumbs, but the mouse said he was quite full, thank you. “Peevil,” said Arthur, “you seem to be such an . . . an experienced, worldly sort of mouse. Do you have any idea why I’m the way I am?”

  “The way you are?”

  “I mean — why I can hear things like I do. And why I can understand at least some of the animals, ones like you.”

  “Well,” said Peevil, “I can’t say I know the answer, but there must be a reason for it.”

  “I wish I knew what it was,” said Arthur. “Peevil . . . I know you said it’s not normal, but do you think there are others who can understand you when you talk? And if so, does that make you a groundling too?”

  “First of all,” said Peevil, “the world is more complicated than you think. There are creatures below and above that operate by different rules altogether. Second, we animals aren’t what the High Hats think we are; that is to say, stupid. We can talk, at least among ourselves, anyway. Or most of us can. And some of us” — Peevil’s eyes lit up — “mice to be specific — can not only talk, but recite poetry as well. But until you came along, I never met a groundling or human who could understand a word I said.”

  “I see!” said Arthur. “Well. This is all very interesting indeed, I must say.”

  The two sat together for a while, listening to Gloomintown’s nocturnal sounds — bats swooping through tunnels, Sewer Hunters trudging through black waters full of refuse and dead things, trying to scavenge what they could. Arthur could hear the fluttering of wings near the ceiling of the underworld. He never saw any birds, only felt their presence somewhere high above the great rock wall, where strange lights flickered and glowed like stars.

  “Can I ask you another question?” said Arthur.

  “Ask away!” Peevil was sitting up on his haunches now, fussing with his tail again, cleaning it and smoothing it down.

  Arthur thought that Peevil spent an awful lot of time grooming himself, but to each his own. He asked, “How do you get by in Gloomintown? I mean — do groundlings give you food or must you steal food down here?”

  “Steal? What kind of a question is that?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” said Arthur. “I meant no harm. It’s just that . . . well, how do you get on down here?”

  “No harm done,” said Peevil. He patted Arthur’s hand with his tiny paw. “To answer your question — I provide a very important service to the night crows.”

  “The night crows? A Badger said those crows might come back to look for their babies, and that if they find a groundling in their crookery, they’ll eat him. I didn’t know if I should believe him. Still . . .”

  “That’s a lie! They never come back once their babies have flown. They don’t care about groundlings either, at least the ones I know. Their job is to guard the dead. See those lights up there?” Peevil pointed up to the ceiling of the world. “Those are their eyes. From far away, they look like stars.”

  Arthur looked up. For a moment, he felt as though he were outside, on the road again with Trinket. “What do you do for them?” he asked.

  “I clean their tail feathers. They give me food in exchange. Their feathers get awfully full of soot and, well, other things, as you can imagine. It’s a nasty business, but it keeps me honest and alive until I can figure a way out of here. Kind of like mucking out a horse stable in exchange for bread, if you know what I mean.”

  “Uh, not really . . . but I get the picture. Aren’t you afraid of them, Peevil? I mean — won’t they try to eat you? Don’t crows eat mice?”

  “Oh, heavens, no! Not down here at least.”

  “Can’t you just, well, you know — sneak into crookery holes and take little bits of food?”

  “I told you, Arthur. I’m not a thief! I’m a — well, if you really want to know, I’m a thespian. Or a poet. A knight with a poet’s soul. Or vice versa. Can’t make up my mind, really.”

  Arthur smiled at the mouse and yawned. He was getting very tired, but he wanted to stay up as long as he could and talk to his new friend.
r />   “Shall I recite a poem for you before you go to bed?” asked Peevil.

  “Oh, yes! I’d like that very much!”

  “It’s called The Once and Future Mouse King, but I should warn you: it’s quite long. Actually, it takes about five years to finish the whole thing, if one recites approximately three hours every day.”

  “I see,” said Arthur. “Mightn’t you have a shorter poem? I’m worried that if it’s too long, I’ll fall asleep and miss the best parts.”

  “Oh, they all fall asleep, even mice,” said Peevil, sighing. “I’m used to it. But don’t worry. I’ll just pick up tomorrow where I leave off today. By the way,” he added, “all great poetry must be sung, you understand.”

  Arthur nestled into a corner of his cold, damp hole as best he could. The mouse began to beat a steady rhythm with his tail in the dark. Arthur closed his eyes to listen as Peevil began to sing his epic tale:

  “Once there were mice so happy and gay,

  Singing and dancing and making their way

  Around the green hedges, around the great trees.

  Then came the darkness that forced them to flee.

  Where is the Mouse King to sing their souls free?

  Where is the Mouse King to sing their souls free?”

  From the cracks in the rocks, from the crookeries and tunnel walls, Arthur heard a chorus of mice. Their high, pure voices rose up into the subterranean sky. The air was full of their song, and Arthur listened with wonder until he finally fell into a deep, bone-weary sleep.

  And yet the song of The Once and Future Mouse King lingered in his mind long after he awoke.

  DEEP IN THE HEART of Gloomintown, Arthur began to sing in his sleep once again. He sang Peevil’s epic tale, which the mouse continued to recite to him each night before he went to bed. Some groundlings, like the Wombat next door, stayed up late just to listen. The song grew inside Arthur and sparked a glimmer of hope in him and in the others who heard it. The song caught on, and every morning, groundlings marching to factories and mines hummed its melody. Arthur’s song had reached them in their own crookery holes, and their steps were much lighter for the gift he gave unawares.