Tip Of The Tongue

by Patrick Ness

  But seeing her now, seeing her wipe away more tears that she was hoping he didn’t notice, he suddenly felt he’d very much like to take the wrench and bash the brains out of Mr Acklin himself, just for making Nettie look like that.

  ‘Nettie –’ he started.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ she said, sitting up.

  He looked down the street. It was a group of girls, the group of girls, led by Annabelle Acklin. And there was Virginia Watson and Edith Magee. And, of course, Marisa Channing, looking like the moonlight was made just to illuminate her fresh, clear skin. They were in deep, fractured discussion, with Annabelle smiling that dangerous smile back at Virginia and Edith, who seemed to be both arguing and crying at the same time.

  None of them were wearing their Truth Tellers.

  ‘Now’s your chance,’ Nettie said.

  Jonny started a little. For a second, he’d forgotten Nettie was there. He looked at her. Her eyes were a little defiant now, and maybe not in a nice way any more. ‘Chance for what?’ he said.

  ‘Chance to impress your Marisa,’ she said. She stood up from the bench, soda bottle still in her hand.

  He looked at her for a moment more, then back at the girls still approaching up the street, obviously heading to Annabelle’s house. ‘You think?’ he asked.

  Nettie’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head at him. He didn’t like the look on her face at all now. ‘Idiot,’ he heard her whisper.

  ‘Why –?’

  ‘Just put it on,’ she said. ‘Let’s finally see what happens when Marisa Channing hears you tell her the truth. Come on, let’s see how that goes, shall we?’

  ‘Nettie, I don’t under–’

  ‘Because you really think it’s just a matter of truth, do you? She’ll see that you can afford one of those awful things and that you’re not afraid to say rude and horrible stuff to everyone else, but when you look at her all your truth is about how pretty her skin is and how wavy her hair is and how the world stops smelling like farts when she walks by.’

  Jonny blinked at her, blushing. Most of this was pretty accurate, though he wouldn’t have thought of the farts thing –

  ‘Honestly,’ Nettie said, shaking her head again. ‘The lies people tell themselves and call it the truth. Well, go ahead. What are you waiting for?’

  The girls were almost directly across the street now. In a second, they’d turn into Annabelle’s house and he’d have missed his chance. His stomach was pulling with how angry Nettie seemed, and it was only just now dawning on him what might be going on and what he might himself think about that. But there was also the other voice in him, the one that had looked at Marisa Channing for so long with a yearning he couldn’t really describe, and she was just about to turn up the path into the Acklin house –

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Truth Teller. He ignored the look on Nettie’s face as he fitted the prongs under his tongue and draped it down his chin. He pulled himself up to his not particularly impressive height, took a deep breath and stepped forward to cross the street.

  Which was when the Acklin house exploded.

  It wasn’t just the windows blowing out or one room or a door or anything like that. The whole thing exploded, all three storeys of it, including the roof, outwards and upwards in a flash of fire and light. The four girls standing in front of it and Jonny and Nettie all screamed as the blast wave flung itself at them.

  Jonny didn’t even think. He threw himself in front of Nettie as the whoosh of flames and smoke rolled towards them and they fell together into the bus stop. The fire swept over them, but it didn’t burn and was gone in an instant. Protecting Nettie as much as he could – she was several inches taller than him so he had a fleeting moment to wonder what good he was doing – Jonny kept expecting to be pelted with rubble and bricks –

  But there was nothing.

  ‘Get off me,’ Nettie finally said, pushing him away. Across the street, the four girls were bundled together in a heap on the sidewalk, but looked as uninjured and confused as Jonny and Nettie.

  The Acklin house was gone. Not even burning rubble.

  Just … gone.

  ‘What just happened?’ Jonny said.

  ‘They build their houses out of a kind of secreted polymer,’ said an accented female voice behind them. ‘It’s remarkably similar to your sugar, actually, which is curious.’ A woman with curly brown hair and trousers was reaching down a hand to help them up. ‘Might actually be where some of the candy houses come from in your folk tales.’

  Stunned, Jonny took her hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. Nettie did the same.

  ‘Either way,’ the woman continued, ‘it only looked like a house. But when the polymer is fired upon with their own weapons, it more or less vaporizes, burning quickly at a very low temperature and leaving little residue.’

  Jonny and Nettie stared at her.

  ‘Huh?’ Jonny finally said.

  ‘Are you British?’ Nettie said, as if this was the most surprising part of the whole thing.

  The woman simply smiled at them and then reached forward to touch a gentle finger to the Truth Teller Jonny was still wearing.

  ‘I am terribly confused,’ it said.

  ‘I’ll bet you are,’ the woman said. ‘But we’ve spent the day gathering up your brothers and sisters.’

  ‘Nyssa!’ a voice called from across the street. A man was emerging from the strange blank place where the Acklin house used to stand.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  There was a small gasping sound as Virginia Watson fainted dead away. Everyone else just stood and stared, mouths agape.

  The man was leading what looked a little bit like two very tall upright sheep, but sheep that had the faces of some kind of giant fish. But also mixed with a squirrel. And a pumpkin.

  The pumpkin squirrel sheep fish didn’t look happy at all. They both had their front feet/flippers bound, looking for all the world as if they were under arrest.

  ‘I’ve put them under arrest!’ the man called, leading them down the remains of the front path. ‘I can do that, can’t I?’

  Edith Magee screamed as they approached and fled down the street, screaming all the way. Annabelle and Marisa stayed watching, frozen, with wide-open eyes.

  The British woman started across the street towards the man. She beckoned to Jonny and Nettie. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’

  Stunned, Jonny found himself following her. He looked back. Nettie was following too, her face as shocked as his. She was still clutching the soda bottle.

  ‘And there’s the last one,’ the man said, looking at Jonny’s chin as they neared him. The sheepfish made angry-sounding cries, but they went quiet again as the man looked at them sternly.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Nettie asked, taking in Marisa and a wide-eyed Annabelle. ‘Who are you?’

  But before the man could answer, Jonny’s Truth Teller spoke up.

  ‘You are the Doctor,’ it said.

  ‘The who?’ Jonny said.

  ‘The what?’ Nettie asked.

  But the Doctor was talking to the Truth Teller. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘And you, my little friend, are safe.’

  ‘I am safe,’ said the Truth Teller, and Jonny noticed that, for the very first time, it didn’t sound sorrowful.

  ‘Are those your parents?’ a voice said. They all turned when they realized it was Marisa. Annabelle was still standing next to her, looking both furious and terrified.

  ‘Mom?’ said Annabelle. ‘Dad?’

  There was a pause as everyone realized she was talking to the sheepfish.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to come with us, too, Annabelle,’ the Doctor said.

  The sheepfish made a snorkelling sound.

  ‘But I like it here,’ Annabelle said. ‘Everyone obeys me.’

  The two sheepfish made further snorkelling sounds that seemed to indicate they’d liked that part, too, but what were you going to do?

  �
�I heard about the time-fracture accident,’ the man said to Annabelle. ‘Your parents explained it.’ He looked back at the hole where the house used to be. ‘Eventually. You got thrown here by accident, a hundred years before the natural timeline. And that will go some way to mitigating the sentences you’ll be receiving.’

  ‘Sentences?!’ Annabelle said.

  ‘Slavery is illegal,’ the man said, suddenly more stern and, it must be said, a bit scary, too. ‘In this solar system and every neighbouring system between here and the Dipthodat homeworld. And even worse for you –’ he leaned down towards Annabelle – ‘I don’t like it.’

  Annabelle looked as if she was going to argue back, but the sheepfish made extensive snorkelling sounds and Annabelle, though still looking peeved, finally said, ‘Oh, all right.’ She sighed and shuffled off the coney-collared jacket she was wearing, and before their eyes she …

  Changed into one of the sheepfish things. She made an annoyed snorkelling sound at the man.

  ‘No, I won’t put you in chains,’ the man said, ‘as long as you behave.’

  Sheepfish Annabelle went over to her sheepfish parents and a low, snorkelling argument commenced between them.

  ‘Can someone please explain what’s going on?’ Nettie said, and Jonny saw she was holding her soda bottle as a potential weapon, against sheepfish or mysterious Doctors in white sweaters or British women wearing trousers.

  ‘Brave heart, Nettie,’ the Doctor said. ‘The danger has passed. Shame I had to destroy their lodgings, but the Dipthodat can be quite a tiresome species.’

  ‘Diptho-what?’ Jonny said, his tongue still tripping a little over his Truth Teller.

  The Doctor gestured to the sheepfish. ‘Dipthodat. A xenophobic race.’

  ‘Xeno-what?’ Jonny said.

  ‘They don’t like anyone who’s not them,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘You can say that again,’ Nettie said, glaring at the sheepfish, who glared back.

  ‘They go to planets,’ the Doctor said, ‘stir up unrest among the locals, and feed off the negative energy. That’s what they eat. Their whole diet. All the stuff of strife and anger and hate.’ The Doctor bent down to Jonny’s height and looked at the Truth Teller again. ‘These marvellous little creatures help that task enormously.’ He glanced up into Jonny’s eyes. ‘You convince people that hurling the worst, most painful “truths” at each other is a good idea, and you’ll have enough negative energy to run the world.’

  ‘They work best on the young,’ Nyssa said. ‘Good people like yourselves. So much seeming truth that feels so painful. The supply is almost endless. It’s heartbreaking in a way.’

  ‘We thought they were toys,’ Jonny said.

  ‘Not toys,’ the Doctor said. ‘Slaves. They’re called the Veritans. Psychic little wonderlings who can seek out what everyone else thinks is the truth. Conquered centuries ago by the Dipthodat and forced into work. Mourning their homeworld, no pay, no comfort, no hope of escape.’ He frowned once more at the sheepfish. ‘Which is something that makes me very unhappy indeed.’

  The sheepfish looked sheepish.

  ‘They aren’t supposed to be reaching your planet for another hundred years when, happily, you’ll be equipped to deal with them yourselves. These three got stuck here by accident. Took a couple of years to get themselves disguised and established, and then they tapped into a passing black-market slave-trader to find some Veritans.’

  ‘I am safe now,’ the Truth Teller said again.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ the Doctor said. ‘And you’re going home.’

  ‘I am going home,’ the Truth Teller said, and to Jonny, the happiness in its voice was almost heartbreaking.

  ‘OK,’ Nettie said. ‘Forgive me if I’m being slow here. The Acklins were from outer space all along?’

  ‘Is that a relief?’ the Doctor asked.

  ‘No,’ Nettie said, angrily. ‘They seemed human enough. In all the wrong ways.’ The sheepfish snorkelled at her. She raised her soda bottle, but this time her face had no fear on it at all.

  The Doctor nodded. ‘I’m guessing that the Truth Tellers weren’t the only mischief they caused.’

  ‘Mischief?’ Nettie said, annoyed at the word.

  ‘Well, they’ll be gone soon,’ the Doctor said. ‘Will that perhaps help things around here?’

  Nettie nodded, defiant. ‘That will help, yes.’

  There was a sudden agitated snorkelling from the Annabelle sheepfish. She contorted halfway back into a human shape and yelled, ‘You put that down! That’s mine!’

  The Doctor held her back as she tried to lunge at Marisa who, they could now all see, had picked up Annabelle’s coney-collar coat and was wrapping it around her shoulders.

  ‘Really?’ Marisa said. ‘I think it probably looks better on me now.’

  She swung from side to side, twirling the coat behind her, rubbing her face against the fur. She snapped the collar together under her chin and straightened out the fabric. She looked at Jonny. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You …’ Jonny said, watching her closely now, watching how she seemed to be in love with the coat, watching how her eyebrows were raised in expectation of praise, a look he’d never seen before on her.

  Or at least a look he’d never noticed.

  ‘You look just like Annabelle,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t look anything like that,’ Marisa said, nodding at the Annabelle half-sheepfish.

  ‘No, but …’ Jonny said but faltered.

  ‘I am suddenly no longer interested in you,’ his Truth Teller said, ‘though I am unclear of the reasons why, exactly.’

  ‘You’ll figure them out,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘You were interested in me?’ Marisa said, a look on her face of what could only be described as horror.

  Jonny heard a sound from Nettie, but when he turned to her, she was innocently whistling into the empty soda bottle.

  The sound of sirens rose faintly in the distance. The fire trucks were coming.

  ‘Quite late after an explosion this big,’ Nettie said.

  ‘Oh, we have ways of arranging a delay,’ the Doctor said. Then he got a sad look on his face. ‘Mr Heftklammern – fantastic name by the way, don’t ever change it – and Miss Washington. The decent people of this town speak highly of you and the indecent –’ he nodded at the sheepfish – ‘speak very badly indeed, which counts for just as much.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve lost two friends recently. One who died bravely, the other who went back to her own life. Nyssa is a wonderful companion, but I do like to have a big group around me.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose either of you would be interested in travelling?’

  ‘Doctor,’ Nyssa said, a warning tone in her voice.

  ‘There’s a war on,’ Jonny said. ‘Travel is dangerous.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Nettie said, at almost the same time. ‘My mother depends on me.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ Jonny said.

  ‘But of course,’ the Doctor said. ‘Of course that’s true.’ The sirens were getting closer. ‘Take the Dipthodat to the TARDIS, Nyssa.’ He turned back to Jonny and Nettie. ‘Tell the police you heard an explosion and that’s all you know.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d believe any of the rest of this anyway,’ Jonny said.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe it,’ Nettie said, ‘and I saw it with my own two eyes.’

  ‘Are all the Veritans on board?’ the Doctor asked Nyssa.

  ‘All but one,’ Nyssa said, leading the sheepfish away, the Annabelle one snorkelling loudly at Marisa, who paid her no mind at all.

  ‘All but one,’ the Doctor repeated and leaned back down to Jonny. ‘It’s time to go,’ he said to the Truth Teller.

  ‘Freedom,’ it said.

  ‘Freedom indeed.’

  ‘I have one more truth to say,’ it said.

  ‘I’ll bet you do,’ the Doctor said, but he gently held out his hand before the Truth Teller could speak again. It uncurled itself from Jonny’s chin, walked th
e two prongs out of his mouth, and twined itself happily on the Doctor’s open palm. The Doctor looked up at Jonny and then over to Nettie. ‘But I suspect that’s a truth our young friend here is better off saying himself.’

  A kind of haunted grinding sound filled the inside of the TARDIS as it revved its engines to leave.

  ‘First drop the Dipthodat off to the appropriate authorities, Doctor?’ Nyssa asked.

  ‘Indeed,’ the Doctor said, watching the boy and the girl on the screen in front of him.

  ‘And then where?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ he said, as the boy and the girl – not holding hands, not kissing, not anything ridiculous like that – walked off together after giving whatever explanation sufficed to the firemen. But they walked off together in a companionable way, a way that hinted, maybe, just maybe, of futures to come. ‘We’ve got the whole of time and space ahead of us. And behind us, for that matter. And beneath and above …’

  ‘Doctor …’ Nyssa said, smiling over the basket of sleeping Truth Tellers, who had wound themselves together in a warm, snoozing ball, murmuring to each other that they were free.

  ‘All I’m saying, Nyssa,’ the Doctor said, switching off the screen and standing with a flourish, ‘is that, as ever, anything is possible.’

  He hit a button, sending the TARDIS flying off into the vast eternity of space and time.

  ‘Which in the end,’ he said, ‘is all the truth you ever really need.’

  To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, eleven ebook short stories will be available to download and collect throughout 2013.

  ELEVEN DOCTORS.

  ELEVEN MONTHS.

  ELEVEN AUTHORS.

  ELEVEN STORIES.

  FIFTY SPECTACULAR YEARS.

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