Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero

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Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero Page 14

by Francesca Armour-Chelu


  He’d never been under so long before, and the pain of something heavy was balling up in his chest. He knew he had to concentrate on containing that ball of pain. He had to control it; it would be so easy to give in, to breathe in.

  At the very second he thought the ball was going to burst inside him and he’d have to breathe, just as his willpower, along with his lungs, was about to cave in, he saw a faint glow ahead. A soft yellow light was streaming through a hole he knew had to be there. It gave him enough hope, and with that, enough strength to wrap his lungs one more time around the airless pain throbbing in his chest and thrust himself towards the light. Thrashing wildly he squeezed his skinny body through the tiny puncture in the ship’s side, gashing his arms and legs, but the pain was nothing compared to the agony of no breath. With the last dregs of his energy he clawed his way up the side of the boat, shooting up to the surface.

  He came up with a gasp directly under the ship’s stern. The propeller was inches above his head, its four round blades like the leaves of an enormous rusted clover. He hoped it would bring them all good luck. Then he saw Tikki, waiting for him as though he had known the exact spot Fenn would come up. If Fenn wasn’t still so scared, and had enough breath, he’d have laughed. Instead, bobbing in the water, he clung to the rivets in the side of the ship with his fingertips, snatching in air, checking the coast was clear. Apart from Tikki he was alone, and aside from the glugging water and distant yelps of the Malmuts, he couldn’t hear a thing. He grabbed hold of the anchor chain and hung there for a few seconds more, trying to steady his convulsing breaths. Far from the pain in his chest stopping, it felt like his lungs were being whipped as the air started finding its way back into every black, airless gap. For a little while it was hard to breathe – even out of water – but he had to save his friends.

  “Good boy, Tikki!” he managed at last, and Tikki ran around in a little circle of joy at hearing his voice.

  He climbed the anchor chain like a rope swing, but by the time he’d hauled himself up onto the deck, the drifter was all but underwater. Tikki raced from one piece of rigging to another until he could watch from a safe place, well out of the water. Fenn waded down the deck to the cabin where Fathom and Gulper were still trapped. They were screaming and hammering frantically on the submerged door. Plunging his arms in the water, Fenn reached around until his hands hit a sail beam. It had fallen across the doorway and jammed behind the ladder running up the side of the cabin, like a bolt across a portcullis.

  His teeth were chattering so hard in his head it hurt his jaw, and he was bent double with the pains in his chest shooting out like knives. He held his breath and ducked down under the water once more, sliding his shoulder under the beam. As he pushed upwards he couldn’t feel a thing, but it took all his remaining strength to lift the beam free, and it was only as it clattered over the side of the deck that he felt a sharp, stinging pain in his neck. He wrenched at the door and it suddenly gave way; a vast rush of water surged over his head and he grabbed hold of the ladder to stop himself being swept overboard. Fathom and Gulper were carried out on the waves and crashed into him; Fathom grabbed Fenn’s leg, and with his free arm caught hold of Gulper’s coat before he was swept over the rails. The drifter shifted again: this time it was going down for good. Tikki ran down the rail, jumping to safety on the jetty.

  As the initial rush of water rolled away towards the stern, they swam away. Fenn was too weak to swim so Fathom and Gulper dragged him onto the rotting boards of the jetty. They lay on their backs gasping for breath. From behind them came a deep sigh of rushing water inside the drifter as a final, huge wave belched up from the lower decks. The ship slithered from sight into the ocean, pulling down the barge it was resting on. For a few seconds the barge hovered in the water, then that too rolled over onto its side and, with a gurgling sound, the sea swallowed everything whole. All that was left of the two boats were the bubbles popping on the surface of the inky waves.

  Gulper staggered to his feet, wiping the water out of his eyes.

  “C’mon. They might come back!” He pulled Fathom to his feet, but Fenn didn’t move. Just then the searchlights swept across the jetty again. Fathom and Gulper ducked down, dragging Fenn out of sight into the curtain of shadow beneath an old houseboat. They tried to prop him up, but he lolled sideways, his eyes rolling back in his head.

  Fenn could vaguely hear his friends trying to help him, but it was like they were in another room and he couldn’t answer. He suddenly felt so weak that he couldn’t even lift his arm to pull himself up. Something warm and wet started tickling his neck. He was wondering what it could be, when everything went black.

  Bright red blood was oozing out from Fenn’s neck. Fathom quickly tore his shirt off and clamped it down hard on the wound, pressing his fist against the cloth.

  “He’s stopped breathing!” Fathom cried.

  16

  Fenn was barely conscious as Fathom and Gulper dragged him back through the alleys, but he could still hear the despairing cries of the survivors and families looking for their sons.

  Chilstone had put out the order for the Terras to be as brutal as they wanted in their hunt for Fenn. Barges had been set on fire to flush people out who were then beaten or taken onto the waiting patrol ships. Even the Mercy-Ship had been set alight, the lookout mast ripped down and the siren destroyed. Once the fire had been brought under control, Ancient had tended to the wounded; but the cabins were full to bursting that night and he’d had to turn Fenn away. Instead, Fathom had made a bung of cloth and wedged it against Fenn’s neck to try and stall the bleeding. Together he and Gulper had made a sling with their arms locked together and carried Fenn back to the fort. Amber and Mrs Leach helped winch him up to safety.

  Amber didn’t leave Fenn’s bedside for nearly a week after the raid. She barely slept or ate. Even when Nile said there was no room for freeloaders in the fort and threatened to kick her out if she didn’t go back to work, she stood her ground; they all did. With so few young men left on the Shanties after the Sweep, Nile needed them as much as they needed his fort, and knowing that gave them confidence to challenge him. Fathom threatened to leave if Amber was forced out, and even Gulper said Fenn needed someone to nurse him. Not only had Fenn got the bends from coming up from the dive too quickly, the cut in his neck had nicked an artery. If they had been five minutes longer carrying him back to the fort, if Amber had not been so swift stitching him up, Fenn wouldn’t be here now, quarrelling with her about whether or not he was ready to go out rat-catching.

  “What use will you be anyway?” she said, examining the jagged wound on his neck. She had a bowl of hot water in her lap, and was squeezing out a clump of seaweed for a poultice. As she looked down, Fenn noticed something glinting brightly behind her scarf: she’d been touching the little brass clover so much that it gleamed like gold.

  “If a ship comes, I’ll never see it stuck in here,” Fenn said in frustration. He felt suffocated by her attention. He struggled up, knocking the bowl onto the floor, and Tikki jumped up from where he’d been sleeping on Fenn’s legs. Amber sighed wearily and picked it up, shooing Tikki away from drinking the contents.

  “You need to rest,” she whispered. Nile had overheard Fenn talking this way already and didn’t like it. She glanced over to see if he was paying any attention but he was busy giving himself a pedicure, his foot up by his chin, biting his toenails and spitting them onto the floor. Fenn lowered his voice.

  “You mean wait here to be rounded up, like Milk?”

  Amber involuntarily flinched. Milk had never returned but it was an unspoken rule that they didn’t talk about anyone who went missing.

  “I’m sorry but it’s true,” Fenn said, seeing her chin jut out the way it always did when she was determined not to cry. He felt under his hammock for his boots, frowning when he couldn’t find them. “We’ve got to get off here.”

  “How?” she replied witheringly. Fenn pushed the blankets away and tried to get up.


  “I’ll find a way,” he said.

  “Even if by some miracle you did, then what?”

  “I’ll go back to East Marsh. Join the Resistance.”

  “The Resistance is dead,” Amber said rattily. She’d heard enough of Fenn’s ramblings when he’d been delirious.

  “And you know that for sure,” Fenn said.

  Amber sighed angrily and slapped the poultice roughly on his neck, then wound a piece of clean rag tightly around it and tied a knot. She had been so gentle over the past week but now her fingers were sharp and business like. She might as well have been trussing up a piece of meat for roasting.

  “All I know is you need to keep this clean.”

  Amber stood up and clumped over to the box under her hammock where she kept her precious books safe. She opened it and pulled out Fenn’s boots. It was the only thing she’d been able to think of doing to stop him going out, but she’d learnt he was even more stubborn than her. She threw them over.

  The boots were odd; one was the replacement for the one he lost in the rigging escaping from the Roustabouts, the other had been Halflin’s boot before, stitched over with a patchwork of pigskin a dozen times and painted with tar to waterproof it – something Halflin always did this time of year, before the rains came. As he pulled them on, Fenn thought of Halflin, a knot of fear in his throat. If Chilstone was raiding the Shanties in his desperation to find him, Halflin was in more danger than he’d realised. His stomach twisted thinking of Halflin coming to more harm. He had to do something. Today.

  Fenn stumbled out of bed, feeling light-headed and dizzy, then hitched his coat on, wincing at the dull ache in his neck. A sharp breeze ruffled the packaging around the walls as Fathom came down from the orchard.

  “You’re up?” he said, pleased but surprised. “Going straight out to look for a boat?” he teased.

  “What’s that about a boat?” Nile frowned, strolling over to the stove, lifting up the tin can and sniffing the contents. Fathom quickly grabbed his catch bags and nets. He knew when Nile was looking for a fight.

  “It’s all very well dreaming of escape, Fenn, but meanwhile we have to live,” Nile said, grimacing as he poured out some coffee. It was a pale yellow; they’d reused the grains too many times for them to have any flavour left now. “Gulper’s been out since dawn. Earning his keep.” He finished with a loaded look at Amber.

  “No one’s got anything to trade,” she muttered, but still pulled her coat on and grabbed a spool of rats Comfort had prepared, looping it around her neck. She set off down the ladder.

  Nile gestured to Comfort and she picked up the knife to cut him some rice bread. As she did, Nile adjusted the knife so that she cut a thicker slice and then from his pocket took out a date he’d managed to steal from somewhere. He pulled it apart and pressed the sticky layer onto the bread, like toffee jam.

  Comfort dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter; she was afraid of Nile and it made her clumsy. She looked up at him with large worried eyes but Nile simply patted her on the head. Fenn frowned; in all the time he’d been there, he’d never seen Nile be nice to anyone unless he wanted something in return.

  “Be careful what you wish for, dear,” Nile said coldly. “Resistance fighters have a short life.”

  A flash of anger sparked in Fenn’s chest.

  “At least it’s a life!” Fenn retorted sourly. “Not a slow death here!”

  “Quite the little hero, aren’t we?” Nile smirked as he watched Fenn angrily stuff his traps and leather gauntlets into his rucksack and whistle for Tikki. Tikki scampered across the room and bounced onto Fenn’s shoulder. Fenn heaved the spiked poles and buckets onto his back. He felt dizzy and the pain was bad but he wasn’t going to show it – not if Nile was watching.

  As Fenn clambered down the ladder after Fathom, Nile peered down, lazily slurping the last dregs of his coffee. Comfort came and stood by his side, ready to refill his cup.

  “Careful how you go, Fenn.”

  Fenn ignored him and Nile looked momentarily crestfallen, like a disappointed parent. He shook his head sadly. “They never listen do they, Comfort?” He nudged her to draw the ladder back up and kicked the hatch door back in place.

  It didn’t take them long to get to the Sticks, the labyrinth Fenn had sheltered in on his first night. Hunting had proved slightly better here since the Terra raid and there were fewer people around, as they stayed inside, trying to keep warm. They met Gulper shuffling down a deserted alley, peering intently at the filth on the ground, his stick poised.

  Suddenly the litter rustled and Gulper cocked his head. He stood stock still and stabbed his stick deep into the rubbish. There was a high-pitched squealing and he pulled out a skinny grey rat, squirming in pain on the end of the prongs. Tikki came out from under Fenn’s jacket, sniffing the air inquisitively, and squeaked. Gulper heard it and grinned, flashing his mouthful of rotting teeth.

  “First one I caught in a while!” He quickly put the rat out of its misery with the fat little club he kept on his belt. Grimacing, he prodded it with the end of his fingernail. “Even the rats are getting scraggy,” he said, stuffing it deep in a pocket.

  They spent the whole day hunting, but the rain had made the rats shelter in places they couldn’t reach. Catching rats Gulper’s way was useless; they were hiding on the barges keeping warm.

  “Let’s check the traps,” said Fathom, shivering.

  Every night they set the rat and gull traps, but there were normally slim pickings as they were often looted by someone else. On a day like today the Sticks would be especially slippery and dangerous. Gulper looked up glumly.

  “You two get back,” he said. Something about his look of dejection reminded Fenn of the way Halflin sometimes looked when he had to go and destroy another boat; tired and beaten.

  “I’ll go,” Fenn offered. “Tikki will catch a couple up there.” Gulper and Fathom looked doubtful.

  “I’m fine,” Fenn cut in. “Go and check on Amber. I’ll meet you back at the fort.”

  The girders were so slimy and wet that every time he climbed up he slipped back, wrenching his neck. He could feel the scar throbbing but he kept going. The higher he climbed the windier it got, and the rain made it hard to see. He had to concentrate hard; one slip and he would plunge into the freezing, rolling sea and that would be that. The traps were set under the walkways between the forts, where the gulls liked to roost when they returned at nightfall. Fenn shuddered, remembering the Roustabouts, but he figured he had an hour or so before dusk fell and they left their lair.

  There were just two gulls in the trap, one dead, one on its way out, exhausted from the battle with the line but still feebly flapping its large, oil-speckled wings. Its eyes were greying over the way they did when they were dying. Fenn carefully took a hessian square out of his pocket to wrap around the gull’s head to stop it pecking him and pulled the drawstring tight. It was something he’d made to ease the next bit. Then he loosened the knot around its leg so it stopped panicking and gently held the gull’s head in his left hand, before bringing its neck back sharply over his forearm. This wasn’t the first gull he’d killed, but he still closed his eyes. He wondered how Halflin had ever managed to kill a pig he had raised and even given a name to.

  He was putting the gulls in his catch bag when something far out at sea caught his eye. His heart skipped a beat. Out on the frothy horizon a ship was battling its way through the heavy waves, heading towards the Shanties. It was an ancient sailing barge, its tatty red sails glistening in the sleeting rain.

  17

  Fenn couldn’t believe his luck; for once in his life he was in the right place at the right time.

  He clambered back down to sea level. The barge was making for the far side of the Bilge on the northern side of the Shanties. It was a sodden evening; hardly anyone was about and those who were had their heads down against the downpour. Even more perfect timing: he might be the only one to have seen the boat.

  Fen
n didn’t know of any mooring space in that part of the Shanties; as far as he knew it was just a slag heap of decaying boats, like the drifter they had escaped from. Hurrying down the alleyways, Fenn reached a crossroads and found himself facing the huge hulk of an old Venetian wreck, forgotten and decomposing in the water, smothered with a soft green mould-like moss. Its bow rail was all that remained above the waterline now, with gold letters picking out its name: the Gloriana.

  There seemed to be no way past until he realised there was a rip in the boat where the wooden cladding had crumpled together, leaving a jagged, dark hole in the side of the main cabin. As Fenn crept inside the pitch-black hull he could see dozens of rats’ eyes glimmering. Tikki was squirming excitedly in his pocket; Fenn quickly buttoned the pocket down so he stayed put. He stepped through another hole into the main cabin. The rats watched him carefully without fear until he pulled his jar and candle from his rucksack and lit it with one of Halflin’s matches, then they scurried into their nests, squealing.

  The cabin’s interior had once been beautiful. Although the paint was blistering away, Fenn could still make out intricate murals of sea monsters and mythical creatures on the walls. Gold and red scrolls adorned the four panels that made up the ceiling, and on them were strange words, decorated with illuminated letters, which Fenn wished he could understand. All that remained by way of furnishing was the iron staircase leading to the upper decks, which must have been too heavy to move, and to one side of that a thick curtain still drooped, with deep vents in it where rain and sea spray had washed the fabric away. Through these tendrils, daylight was shining into the cabin in misty shafts, and Fenn realised there had to be another opening behind them. He picked his way cautiously across the rotting joists.

  Crawling through a hole on the opposite side of the Gloriana’s bow, he dropped down onto a tiny, dank jetty, which was completely hidden from view and between another long line of broken-up boats. The water was channelled here and it was particularly choppy, slopping hard against the rotting vessels that surrounded it, slowly breaking them to pieces. He paused, getting his bearings and wondering why any ship would moor in such an inaccessible and secret place. The Panimengro had openly arrived at the Shanties and Amber had pointed out several places to Fenn to keep an eye on; places where ships had once often docked, always where the water was much calmer.

 

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