by Sean Cullen
Hammerface recovered his voice. “It’s just that the children … since this new kid arrived … We’re worried that they might start enjoying themselves … and that won’t be no good.”
“Is that it? That’s why you’ve disturbed me?” Viggo’s eyebrows rose like a thundercloud.
“That … and some cheese is missing,” Hammerface blurted out.
He waited under Viggo’s terrible glare to be verbally flayed. When Viggo finally broke the silence, however, he didn’t shout. In fact, he seemed almost reasonable.
“Perhaps I have been neglecting the mental state of the children in my charge,” he said. He sat down in his swivel chair. “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. I have many responsibilities. Inspiring fear and loathing in one hundred and one children is a challenge. It requires dedication, imagination, and creativity.”
“You’re a constant source of inspiration for us all,” said Hammerface.
“I appreciate that. It’s a lonely job, being hated, but someone has to do it. I haven’t managed to accumulate great wealth and prestige in the world of dairy science by being a nice guy.”
“You certainly haven’t, Master Viggo.”
Viggo glared at him.
“But you aren’t without your nice qualities, Master Viggo,” Hammerface backtracked and was rewarded with a softening of the glare.
“Indeed,” Viggo said suddenly, “I will address the problem of morale at the evening meal. And the issue of the missing cheese. Now, go back to your duties.”
Hammerface gratefully backed out of the room, bowing and wringing his hat in his scarred hands. Unfortunately, backing out of Viggo’s office is ill-advised, situated as it is at the top of a steep staircase. He stepped backwards, missed his footing, and bounced end over end down the seventy-two steps to the factory floor.41 Pianoface and Tubaface hurried to help their fallen comrade.
Viggo closed the door and gazed out the window over the leaning rooftops of Windcity. Somewhere out there, a gang of Cheese Pirates waited to pounce. He shivered in his cozily heated office then turned his gaze to the factory floor below, seeking out Hamish X. The boy was carving the flabby curds, a bright smile on his face. While Viggo watched, the lad turned and looked up at him and winked.
“Everything was going fine until you came along, Hamish X.” Viggo smiled a nasty smile. “I think it’s time I put you in your place.”
Chapter 10
The children stood waiting in the cafeteria, shuffling their feet nervously. In hushed voices they discussed the reason for the assembly. No one could remember a meeting where both work details were present at the same time. “What’s goin’ on?” Mimi asked as they joined the crowd. The shift had just ended when the guards had come through the dormitory demanding that everyone from both shifts assemble.
“I’m completely baffled, I assure you,” Parveen shrugged.
“Who knows?” Hamish X said. “Maybe we’re going to get a day off?”
“In your dreams,” Mimi scoffed. They took their place in the back row.
And there they stood for almost half an hour before Viggo appeared. He stalked in from the factory floor through the big double doors, elbowed his way through the waiting children, and climbed onto a chair, held steady by Pianoface and Tubaface. (Hammerface was in bed recovering from several fractures.) Viggo turned and faced his orphan workforce.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve called this meeting,” he began, running a hand absently through his hair and making it stand up on end even more strangely than usual. “It certainly isn’t to praise your work habits, which are slovenly and inefficient. Rather, it is a matter of security. Not that I think any of you could ever escape …” He glared meaningfully at Hamish X. “Escape is impossible. Escape is IMPOSSIBLE. Let me reiterate that phrase: ESCAPE IS IMPOSSIBLE!”
Hamish X raised his hand.
“What is it?” Viggo barked.
“I was just wondering … Is escape possible?”
“NO!” Viggo shrieked at Hamish X. Hamish X smiled back. Viggo regained his composure with effort.
“Over the past few months, the world cheese community has been the subject of an ongoing campaign of terror perpetrated by a dastardly group of lawless brigands. According to eyewitness accounts, these ‘Cheese Pirates,’ as they style themselves, have attacked cheese-making facilities all over the world. They strike in the dead of night! They steal and burn and loot. They take all the valuable cheese and disappear before the authorities can arrive to deal with them.
“The World Dairy Organization has instructed me to be on high alert for the appearance of these marauders. I have assured the Organization that I will be vigilant. If these criminals arrive at our doorstep they will be dealt with in the harshest manner.”
Viggo paused for effect, looking at the little faces all around him.
“How does this affect you? Obviously, anything that threatens this facility threatens your continued health and welfare. Although I make all the profits from the cheese factory, you receive food and shelter, and so the continued well-being of the factory is essential to your continued well-being. On a very real level, I don’t care about you as children or human beings but I do care about the cheese your labour produces. Therefore, I have taken measures to ensure the safety of the facility. This would be an excellent time for grateful applause …”
The children dutifully slapped their hands together. For sheer lethargy, the sound rivalled an exhausted golf crowd on the Sahara in August at noon. Viggo stood, head bowed, receiving his false praise. He raised a hand for silence.
“I have undertaken to double the contingent of guards. New recruits will arrive within three days. A second electric fence is to be constructed around the one that already exists and a radar warning system installed. These changes will occur over the next few weeks.
“Also, to ensure your safety, all exercise in the yard shall be suspended indefinitely.”
A little girl put up her hand. “There is no yard,” she said.
“Then you won’t miss it, will you? Work details will be increased in duration by one hour per day. It’s easier to protect you while you are asleep or at work. Sadly, the money for these measures has to come from somewhere. I’m afraid I am forced to cut your food ration in half to raise the money for the increased security.”
A groan went up from the children. The guards laughed cruelly. Mrs. Francis, who stood watching in her kitchen window, gasped in disbelief. Eventually, the children fell silent.
“Believe me, it breaks my heart,” Viggo sighed with feigned anguish. “I know you will do your best under these new circumstances because … you have no choice.
“Finally, it has come to my attention that someone has been pilfering cheese from the vault.” He paused and glared right at Hamish X. The boy didn’t flinch. Viggo gestured to Pianoface. “I’m sure no one would own up to such a dastardly deed, so I have decided that random punishment would be the most cruel and the most satisfying.” Pianoface handed Viggo a book. Hamish X’s eyes went wide. It was Great Plumbers.
“I am confiscating this book until the perpetrator of the deed is willing to own up.”
“That’s my property!” Hamish X shouted. Mimi held his arm to prevent him from lunging through the crowd at Viggo.
“Tut! Tut!” Viggo tucked the large book under his arm. “I’m merely holding it for safekeeping until someone owns up to the crime. It will be safe in my office for the time being. Maybe if some people respected my authority and stopped cheering people up around here these measures wouldn’t be necessary. That is all. You may applaud now.”
Viggo hopped down from his perch and strode across the room amid desultory clapping. Then, escorted by Pianoface and Tubaface, he swiped his keycard and left through the security door as the clapping turned into ominous grumbling. Pianoface and Tubaface stayed behind to disperse the children.
“Half rations,” Mimi spat. “We’re barely survivin’ as it is!”
; “He stole my book.” Hamish X’s face was ghostly pale. The whites of his eyes were visible all around his golden irises. He looked as though he might faint. “I’ve got to have my book.”
Mimi handed him a food bowl. “Are y’all right, Hamish X? It’s just a book, after all.”
Hamish X spun and glared at her with desperate eyes. “I have to have that book. My mother gave it to me. I have to have it.”
“What can we do? Viggo has it,” Parveen shrugged. He grabbed a bowl and made to join the food line. Hamish X grabbed his arm and Mimi’s, pulling them to one side out of earshot of the nearest guard.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” he whispered. “I’m getting it back. Tonight. Then we’ll escape. Tonight.”
Hamish X turned and joined the porridge line. Mimi and Parveen nervously followed.
Chapter 11
Mimi must have dozed off because Hamish X’s face was directly over hers as he shook her.
“Wake up, Mimi,” he hissed.
“I’m up,” she hissed back. His face disappeared. She heard the soft click of his boots as he padded away.
She sat up and looked around her. The dorm room was in darkness. Soft snoring sounds emanated from the cots all around. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw Hamish X standing in the doorway to the common room, his rucksack slung over his back. He raised a hand and beckoned to her. Behind him a faint light glowed.
Mimi rolled out of bed as silent as a cat. She threaded her way through the cots of the sleeping children, their pale faces glowing in the darkness. When she reached the doorway, Hamish X ushered her through and closed it. Parveen was squatting on the floor. He had disassembled all the chairs and the table, laying them in a pile around him. In his hand, Hamish X’s pocketknife was open to a chisel tool. Parveen was drilling holes in a table leg, working by the light of a small flashlight taped to his head. When Mimi entered he paused and turned his head so that the light shone briefly into her eyes.
“So,” he said, “you’re finally up.”
“Why didn’t anyone wake me?” Mimi whispered angrily.
“You weren’t needed,” Hamish X said softly. “So we let you sleep. No need to be angry.”
“I can’t believe ya kept all this a secret from me, Parv. What ya makin’, anyway?”
Hamish X grinned. “Well, remember when we were up on the roof? His ingenious little kite bowls? I thought, what if we made some big enough to carry us out over the electric fence, or maybe even farther? That would be one way of escaping from this place.”
Mimi thought for a moment.
“But then what?” she asked. “We’d be flung all the heck and gone over the tundra. We’d probly freeze to death before the wind saw fit to let us land anywheres.”
“Great minds think alike,” Hamish X smiled. “But Viggo might think we were desperate enough to escape that way. Help me with these.”
He pointed to a stack of rags piled beside some old overalls. He took one of the overalls and started stuffing the rags into it. Mimi watched, her excitement growing.
“Decoys,” she said.
“I knew you were more than just a pretty face,” Hamish X said. She blushed and punched him in the arm. He winced theatrically and pointed at the next set of overalls. Mimi picked them up and started stuffing. Soon, all three were filled with rags.
Parveen finished his preparations at roughly the same time. He had made the dismantled chairs into kite frames that folded up into a long narrow bundle. He wrapped the three folded frames in some bed sheets, then strapped the three rag dummies to the bundle of poles. When everything was ready he gestured to Mimi. The two of them hoisted the bundle on their shoulders and turned expectantly to Hamish X.
He pressed his ear to the cafeteria door, then gently pushed it open a crack. He peered into the darkened room beyond.
“Stay close,” he whispered.
He held the door open to allow Parveen and Mimi through. The cafeteria was dark, and for once the three children were glad of Viggo’s stinginess. They padded across the linoleum floor between the empty tables to the security door. There, Hamish X reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the security card, and swiped it. The lock clicked. He pushed the door open and stepped through, Parveen and Mimi right behind.
They were in a dimly lit hallway. Mimi and Hamish knew from the day of their dangling that the stairs to the roof were on the left. The passage on the right led towards the kitchen, Viggo’s apartments, Mrs. Francis’s room, and, the front door. Muffled voices drifted from the direction of the roof stairs. The way they had to go.
The trio walked stealthily down the corridor until they came to an open door on one wall. The voices were louder. Hamish raised a hand to signal a stop and peered around the doorframe. Three guards sat watching a hockey game on a huge television. Pianoface and Tubaface were drinking cans of beer. Hammerface was lying on a gurney in a body cast. The commentator’s voice was a steady drone …
“Fedetenkorenko rifles it into the corner and they go after it! Salmingborgensteen comes up with the puck and rips it off the glass but not out …”
The guards were sitting on a couch with their backs to the doorway. Hamish watched them for a moment to make sure they were concentrating on the game, then turned to Mimi and Parveen. He mimed pulling on a guard’s peaked cap, raised three fingers to indicate the number of opposition, and raised a finger to his lips. Mimi and Parveen nodded.
The commentator’s voice rose to a frenzied pitch.
“Krushnick beats the defender and steps out from the corner. He passes it back to the blueline …” The guards were leaning forward in their seats, riveted to the screen as Hamish silently nipped across the open space. Mimi and Parveen started across after him. “Magnusson winds up and drives a shot … HE SCORES!”
“YEAH!” the guards shouted, leaping to their feet. Hammerface swayed gently from side to side.
Parveen jerked in surprise and his end of the bundle slipped from his grasp, falling towards the floor. In that split second they were almost undone, but Hamish X dropped to the floor and caught the bundle on his chest before it hit the ground. He quickly wriggled out of the doorway, Parveen scrambling after him and Mimi, lugging her end of the bundle, bringing up the rear.
They scurried around the corner and found themselves at the foot of the stairs that led to the roof. There they paused for a moment to let their racing hearts slow down.
“That was close,” Mimi whispered.
“A little excitement adds to the fun,” Hamish X answered. Parveen rolled his eyes.
After a moment, they picked up the bundle and carried it up the stairs. Hamish X opened the metal door at the top and they stepped out onto the roof.
Mimi and Parveen bumped into Hamish, who had stopped dead just outside the door. Standing in front of him, a cigarette dangling from his open mouth, a guard stared at them in shock. Hamish X had never seen him before, but it had to be Forkliftface—for, indeed, his face looked as though someone had driven into it with a fork-lift.42 He must have come up from the harbour to watch the hockey game.
His sudden chuckle sounded like rocks turning over in a tumble dryer. “What have we here?” he said. Hamish X wasted no time. He leapt at the man and kicked him hard in the belly with one big black boot. Forkliftface doubled over, the cigarette casting a shower of sparks on the wind as it flew from his mouth. Mimi dropped her end of the bundle and drove her fist into his temple. He fell on his side like a sack of potatoes and lay still.
Hamish X pointed at the door, and Parveen closed it. Hamish X reached down and laid two fingers on the exposed flesh of the Forkliftface’s neck.
“He’s out,” Hamish X pronounced.
“He saw us!” Mimi groaned. She was flapping her hand in pain. “He’s got a hard head.”
“That’s fantastic,” Hamish smiled. “It only helps the plan.”
“I can’t see how,” Mimi grumbled.
“You will. Let’s get these kites up.�
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Parveen took over. In the lee of the doorway, out of the wind, they assembled the three kites, screwing the frames together according to Parveen’s instructions. The hardest part was stretching the bed sheets over the frames in the swirling gusts. Finally, the rag-filled overalls were strapped into the harnesses.
When the work was done, the three children hauled the kites to the edge of the roof.
“On three,” Hamish X shouted. “One. Two …” Just then Parveen, by far the lightest of the three, began to rise off the surface of the roof.
“Parveen!” Mimi shouted, letting go of her kite and grabbing one of Parveen’s dangling feet before the wind ripped him out and away. “Let go!”
Parveen did as he was told and loosed his kite.
“I said to wait for three,” Hamish X laughed and let his own kite fly. Parveen and Mimi fell in a heap on the roof.
“Thank you,” Parveen said.
“Don’t mention it,” Mimi said, pulling him to his feet.
“Look!” They followed Hamish X’s pointed finger and saw that the kites had already soared high into the night. “Perfect,” he shouted, clapping his hands. “Phase one is complete. On to phase two! Let’s go.” They ran to the door and headed back down the stairs.
IN THE NORTH WATCHTOWER, at the far end of the factory grounds, two guards were playing Fish. Cards were the only defence against the incredible boredom of the night watch.
“Do you have any … Jacks?” Bowlingballface asked Fridgeface hopefully.
“Go fish,” Fridgeface answered. Grumbling, Bowling-ballface reached to take a card off the deck when a shape whipped by the window. The astonished man stood up suddenly, overturning the card table and spilling cards onto the floor of the glass booth.