Northwood

by Brian Falkner

  Even if they had a TV, there would be no time to watch it. Every day, except Sunday, everybody had to work.

  With only forty people (including Cecilia), it was a constant battle to get all the jobs done that were needed to provide food and shelter for the community. Today, Cecilia’s job was to pour the grains into a big brass funnel that was on the top of the stone mill. It was tall, so she had to stand on a wooden stool to reach it.

  There were two stones in the mill: a bottom one that didn’t move and a top one that rotated around. It was driven by some gears and a long wooden pole that went out through a hole in the wall to turn a water mill outside.

  Somehow the grains she was pouring were pulled through the two stones, getting ground into a fine powder, then sifted out into a big round dish. Jazz would scoop up the ground flour and put it into small cloth sacks.

  Cecilia watched Jazz working. She scraped out the flour from around the stone with quick, easy movements. Jazz was slender and willowy, with a slightly turned up nose and a hint of mystery in her eyes. Cecilia imagined that in Brookfield there would have been a bunch of young men hanging around her wherever she went.

  Jazz saw her looking and smiled. “You’re very brave,” she said, “standing up to the King like that.”

  “Brave?” Cecilia was surprised. “I really didn’t think I was being brave. Actually, I thought I was being kind of rude, but that was because I got a little angry.”

  “It was fun to watch.” Jazz’s smile turned into a huge grin. “Everyone else is terrified of the King, so we all enjoyed seeing him squirm because of a ten-year-old girl.”

  “A good king wouldn’t terrify his subjects. He would earn their respect,” Cecilia said.

  “You’re right,” Jazz said. “That is what a good king would do.”

  “To be honest I really didn’t like him very much,” Cecilia said. “But I don’t know him yet. I should give him a chance before I make up my mind about him.”

  Jazz laughed. “You’re a little ray of sunshine, you are.”

  “Why did you run away?” Cecilia asked, shoveling another load of grains, climbing up on the stool, and tipping it into the funnel.

  The laughter disappeared. Jazz folded down the top of another full sack of flour and looked at her.

  “It was nothing,” she said. “It was just stupid. I don’t even really remember what started the argument. I guess Father was under a lot of pressure, and I was just having a really bad day.”

  “But why did you come here?” Cecilia asked.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Jazz replied. “I just stormed out and said I was never coming back, and the next thing I knew, I was walking into the forest. I didn’t know what I was doing and I really didn’t care what happened to me. That was then. And now . . .”

  She stopped talking and gestured at the grindstone, then reached down to scoop up some more flour.

  Cecilia opened her mouth to ask another question, but closed it again, seeing the single tear that was making a small path through the fine layer of flour on Jazz’s cheek.

  A tiny streak of sunlight somehow snuck in through a gap in the misty tree canopy above and found its way into the mill room. The tear flashed for a moment before Jazz wiped it away with a dusty wrist.

  But that tiny flash made Cecilia’s heart go quiet and still.

  It made her think of all the things that Jazz was missing outside of the forest — all the things that the other girls her age were doing. Driving lessons and school graduations. Drooling over photos of favorite movie stars while listening to favorite bands. Giggling with her friends at parties.

  And it wasn’t just Jazz who would be missing out on those things.

  Unless her plan succeeded, so would Cecilia.

  ***

  Cecilia had started work at seven in the morning, right after breakfast, and finished at four in the afternoon. It was a long day and her arms ached at the end of it, but Jazz’s job was much harder than hers and she never once complained.

  Everyone else was involved in the harvest, even David Ovink, the usual grain-pourer, which was why Cecilia had been given that job.

  There were only a few jobs that had to go on every day, regardless of the harvest, and grinding the grain was one of them.

  When she finished, despite her exhaustion, she raced straight over to the twins’ house, but found them halfway there, lying on the riverbank with their toes in the water, arguing.

  “I hate picking crawling beans,” Evan was saying. “They go everywhere. I had three crawl up inside my shirt today. They give me the chills.”

  “Better than being up to your waist in mud, picking gobbage,” Avery said.

  Both of them were streaked with sweat and dust, and barely had the energy to raise their heads when Cecilia arrived.

  “Hi, Avery. Hi, Evan,” Cecilia said, plonking herself down beside them and taking off her shoes and socks so she could dangle her toes in the river also.

  The water was cold, but soothing for her poor feet, which had been working very hard to hold her up all day long.

  “Hi, Cecilia,” Avery said.

  “How was your day in the mill?” Evan asked.

  “It was okay,” Cecilia said. “Jazz is nice.”

  “She’s a snob,” Avery said. “She never talks to me.”

  “No she’s not,” Evan said. “She’s just shy.”

  “I think she’s mostly sad,” Cecilia said.

  Evan and Avery thought that over for a moment as the river strolled past, tickling their toes as it went.

  “I loved your idea about the balloons,” Evan said.

  “You didn’t even know what a balloon was,” Avery said. “You had to ask Mom.”

  “Neither did you.”

  “I did so!”

  “I’m really worried about it,” Cecilia said, interrupting them. “I’m afraid that they will have stopped searching in a week.”

  “But you said your father could afford to keep searching for weeks,” Avery said.

  “You told the King,” Evan said, agreeing with his sister for once.

  “I know what I said,” Cecilia said. “But what if I’m wrong? Then we could fly the balloons all day long and it wouldn’t do any good.”

  “You won’t be able to change his mind,” Avery said. “Not now that the harvest has started.”

  Evan said nothing. He was just looking at Cecilia and she had the distinct impression that he was reading her mind.

  “You don’t want to wait, do you?” he said. “You want to sneak out and try to do it by yourself.”

  A group of workers was making their way back up the river from the harvest, sacks full of something hoisted over their shoulders. Cecilia stopped talking as they came within earshot.

  The man at the front of the group was huge — even taller than the grizzly bear guard. His shoulders were wide like the stones in the mill, and his chest was a big barrel full of muscle.

  “Who’s that?” Cecilia asked.

  “That’s just Tony,” Evan said.

  “Tony Baloney,” Avery added. “He’s our tar man. He collects the tar that we burn for lights and cooking and everything.”

  “He used to be a bricklayer,” Evan said, “but we don’t have bricks here.”

  He must have laid a lot of bricks back in the real world, Cecilia thought, looking at those huge shoulders.

  “He helped us fix up our cottage,” Evan said. “He helped fix most of them.”

  All the others in the group were struggling under the weight of their heavy sacks, and could barely muster enough breath to say hello as they neared.

  Tony Baloney, however, had not one, but two sacks hoisted over his shoulder, and he carried them as if they were full of nothing but balloons.

  Every now and then as he walked he would beat his chest wit
h his free hand, and holler out to nobody, “Boomphah!”

  Cecilia and the twins watched the group approach.

  “Boomphah!”

  “Boomphah!”

  “Boomphah, boomphah, boomphah!”

  Tony gave Cecilia such a huge smile that she couldn’t help but grin back.

  He held out his free hand toward her, acting like King Harry asking for the royal hand kiss, then he shook his head with an expression of disgust and burst into laughter.

  “What are you going to do, throw me in a dungeon?” one of the others in the group said, and they all laughed.

  “You’re a legend around here already,” Avery said.

  “Nobody has ever dared stand up to the King like that,” Evan added.

  The group disappeared up toward the castle, still laughing.

  Tony Baloney looked back over his shoulder and shouted, “Boomphah!”

  Cecilia smiled and waved goodbye.

  Both of the twins were grinning too. There is something about Tony that makes you smile, Cecilia thought. She liked him right away.

  “What’s with the ‘Boomphah?’” she asked.

  Avery touched her ear and then her mouth, and shook her head. “He can’t hear or speak,” she said.

  “And he’s not the smartest rock in the river,” Evan said.

  “You don’t know that.” Avery punched her brother on the arm. “Don’t be mean. Just because he can’t speak doesn’t mean he’s stupid.”

  She turned back to Cecilia. “That whole hitting his chest thing and shouting — Mom says he can feel the vibrations and he likes the way his mouth feels when he yells it out. He does it when he’s happy.”

  “I like him,” Cecilia said.

  “Everybody does,” Evan said.

  “Anyway,” Avery said. “What’s this idea about sneaking out and trying to float the balloons?”

  Cecilia took a deep breath. “Well, if the King won’t help, then I’ll just have to do it myself.”

  “We’ll help you,” Avery said.

  “No we won’t,” Evan said.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Avery said. “We’ll help.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Evan said.

  “We’ll go at night — when the lions are sleeping,” Avery said.

  Cecilia was surprised. “Do the lions sleep at night?”

  Avery nodded.

  “But they wake up really fast if they hear you moving along the paths,” Evan said. “And at night you can’t see them coming, so they’re even more precarious.”

  “Oh.” Cecilia wasn’t sure it was a good idea after all.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Avery said, grinning. “We’ll just have to be really quiet, that’s all. Are you sure you can find the landing place?”

  “I’m sure we can find it,” Cecilia said, meaning her and Rocky, so it wasn’t a lie. “What about the rope?”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Avery said.

  “We’re not going,” Evan said.

  “Yes we are,” Avery said.

  In fights like this one, Cecilia had discovered, it was usually Avery who won.

  18

  THE EXPEDITION

  EVERY DAY THEY waited was a wasted day, Cecilia felt. So even though she was exhausted from the day’s work in the mill room, the expedition had to be that night right after dinner.

  Everyone in Northwood had dinner together in the big castle banquet hall. That night it was burgerberry burgers. They were delicious, Cecilia thought, and quite filling.

  They were made with bread rolls from the bakery, fresh sandyleaf salad, ordinary-looking tomatoes, and patties made from burgerberries, which turned out to be something like soybeans. The chefs mashed them up and added some other ingredients and fried them on the big stove tops.

  Afterward there was strawbubble shortcake for dessert.

  Yum!

  ***

  She met up with the Celestine twins again right after dinner. It was already dark and the rock walls of the castle flickered under the soft glow of the lanterns on the walls. Rocky trotted along beside them. He had spent the day with Mrs. Proctor, since he wasn’t allowed in the mill room for hygiene reasons.

  Avery had a long coil of rope over her shoulder. “There was plenty of rope in the storeroom,” she said, “and King Hairy was just being a liar when he said it would take a day to get it ready.”

  They found their way to the greeting room, being careful that nobody saw them — especially the four guards.

  The twins had names for all the guards, Cecilia discovered. The big, bearlike man was Grizzly. Then there was Wolf, Weasel, and Skunk.

  Evan called them King Harry’s private zoo.

  From the greeting room they surveyed the clearing to make sure there were no lions sleeping below.

  “How would we even know?” Cecilia asked. “It’s too dark to see anything.”

  “Just listen,” Evan said. “They snore.”

  “And if the snoring stops . . .” Avery added, “. . . run.”

  They listened intently, but all Cecilia could hear was the low throbbing hum of the underground river, or the ghost of King Danyon, or whatever it was.

  The twins also seemed satisfied, although Evan grumbled a couple of times about how dangerous it was.

  “What if one of the lions is awake?” Cecilia asked.

  “Yeah, an insomnomaniac lion,” Evan said.

  “They’ll be asleep,” Avery said firmly.

  The corridor with the big stone door was unlit, but Avery took a lantern off a hook on the wall and clicked something a couple of times until it produced a strong orange glow. They unlocked the door by lifting three heavy wooden braces off of some large hooks. Evan and Cecilia took one end of each brace and Avery took the other end all by herself. They stacked the braces by the door and Cecilia picked up the lantern while Avery and Evan heaved on the door to open it, swiveling it around on its central hinge. They pushed it shut again once they were through.

  “How will we get back in?” Cecilia asked, looking at the blank face of the cliff. When the door was shut it fitted so seamlessly into the rock face that it was completely invisible.

  “We just push on the other side of the door,” Avery said. “On the left side. Then it will swivel and open just like before.”

  “As long as nobody has replaced the braces,” Evan said.

  “Worrywart,” Avery said.

  “Daredevil,” Evan said.

  “I thought we were supposed to be quiet,” Cecilia said, which shut them both up quickly.

  They were alone in the clearing, with the cliff face towering above them and just a cool breeze whispering through the tarblood trees for company.

  It reminded Cecilia of her first day in the forest, and she shuddered.

  They crept forward under the stars, which were bright and clear above them. Unlike during the day, there was no mist.

  We are just like King Danyon sneaking out to set fire to the catapults, Cecilia thought, seeing it all in her imagination. The dark mounds of the sleeping soldiers littering the ground in front of her. The giant wooden war machines towering above the trees in the distance. Creeping along silently in the darkness, knowing that it would just take one alert soldier and you were dead. A curious thought occurred to her just at that moment, but she tucked it away for later. There was other business at hand.

  Rocky led them straight to the wide pathway and sniffed at it. He looked back at Cecilia and gave her a quiet woof to say there were no lions nearby, and that he would smell them if there were.

  She nodded to let him know she understood.

  Rocky put his nose to the ground and started walking, following their scent from a couple of days ago. Cecilia followed behind with the lantern, which cast slivers of burnt orange ligh
t out into the murky crevices of the forest.

  By day, the forest was dark and creepy. By night, it was a scene from a nightmare. The trees seemed to grow and shrink as the lantern moved past them. The muscular branches reached out for them, seeking their throats with spindly fingers, only to draw back at the last moment.

  At each path they came to, Rocky, with a quick sniff, knew exactly which way to go. Without him, Cecilia realized, they would have had no chance of finding the balloon.

  Each trail looked exactly the same to her, and so when Rocky suddenly came to a halt in the middle of a path, she could not understand why.

  “What’s happening, Rocky?” she asked. “Why did we stop? Is this the place?”

  Looking up in the trees around them, she could see no sign of the big attic balloon.

  “Lion,” Rocky woofed.

  “How close?” Cecilia whispered as quietly as she could.

  “I’m not sure,” Rocky said.

  “It’s like you’re talking to that dog,” Avery said.

  Cecilia laughed quickly and said, “I think there may be a lion nearby.”

  They listened for a moment, but heard nothing.

  “Let’s keep going, but be really quiet,” Cecilia said, more bravely than she felt.

  Another twenty feet down the trail, they heard it — a faint snoring sound. It grew louder with each step and so did the pounding of the blood in Cecilia’s ears.

  It wasn’t really a snoring sound at all, but she could see why they called it that. It was more like a loud, rhythmical purring, as the big cat breathed in and out in its sleep.

  A little farther and Rocky stopped again. The purring/snoring was loud here, and Cecilia knew the lion must be close.

  As long as it keeps snoring, we’re okay, she thought.

  Rocky was looking upward and pawing silently at the base of one of the trees. This is the tree we crashed into! Cecilia realized.

  She gestured to Evan to hold the light for a moment and clambered up onto a heavy root that looked like the leg of an ogre. She found a branch and pulled herself up, then reached back down for the lantern.

  Peering up, she could see nothing. She was just starting to wonder if this was the right tree after all when she noticed the little patch of green lying on one of the branches. It was flat and lifeless — a green balloon. One of the balloons from the attic. It was lying in the elbow of one of the branches of the tree and had obviously fallen out when they had opened the door.