Landfill staggered on the spot. By the time he’d wiped his face, Babagoo had crossed the Gully and was running for the Nook. Landfill tried to shout Babagoo’s name but choked on tears. He dropped to all fours and pursued the scavenger as quickly as he could.
When he got to the building’s double door it wouldn’t budge. He pounded it with his fists, then moved around the building to try the Nook’s windows. Babagoo had fastened them all, and while Landfill thumped the panes he glanced regularly backwards to check the sky. “Babagoo!” he screamed. “Babagoo, I’m sorry! I blundered! I was wrong! Let me in! Please please pleeeaaase!”
He could just make out the scavenger’s outline behind the panes, pacing the Den and waving its arms.
“Fat chance!” barked Babagoo. “You think I’m going to let you in here so you can knife me in the back! So you can slit my throat while I slumber! So you can spit your venom into my water!” He made a sound that was either a laugh or an agonized howl. “No no no, my little let-down. No place for you here now. You’re not what I thought you were. Far from it. Easy pickings for the Outsiders, boy – that’s all you are now. You’re already dead.”
Landfill banged the window with his forehead. “Babagoo! Pleeeeaaase…”
The outline shot towards the window. Landfill saw eyes flashing through the grime, heard clacking teeth. “GO! AWAY!”
Landfill gaped at the shadowy face, felt its horror reflected in his own. Staggering backwards, he lost his footing and fell to the ground. When he sat up, he licked his wrist and swiped it through his hair. He knew Babagoo wasn’t going to change his mind, and that he needed somewhere to hide. After checking the sky again, he got to his feet and – with bleats accompanying every step – sprinted through Hinterland until he reached Muttbrough.
Some of the dogs stirred and watched Landfill dart into Woolf’s toppled cart. Once under its cover, he took the glass blade from his shorts, curled up with his back against the cart’s base and set his teary eyes on the opening.
The husky raised her head from her pups. She sniffed Landfill’s hair and licked his cheek. But the boy felt nothing. Every ounce of his concentration was fixed on the opening. His shuddering blade was the only thing that moved as he lay listening, watching, waiting…
Landfill whimpered in his sleep. He shifted a little, and sucked some drool from his lip.
The moment something touched his hair he was up and snarling. He crouched with his back against the cart’s rear, slashing with one arm, only dimly aware of the pup held in the other.
A silhouette recoiled, narrowly dodging the nip of yellow fingernails.
“Easy, lad. It’s me. Settle down now. Easy, eh?”
Landfill gradually recognized Babagoo, who was kneeling at the cart’s opening with Kafka by his side. The boy shook his head, slumped against the cart’s base and trembled with tears he couldn’t contain.
The scavenger nodded. “That’s it, my lad. Calm down. Everything’s okay. As far as I can tell, at least.” He leaned back to check the sky, which blushed with dawn’s fading colours. When his gaze dropped, he clocked a shadow that had settled on his boots, shuddered, and shuffled aside.
He returned his attention to the boy. “All’s fine. The wall’s still up. I’m still here. Kafka’s still here. You’re still here. We’re all here. So you can settle down. Okay?”
The pup squeaked while Landfill held it against his chest. “But the Eye,” he began. “Last night… Outsiders…”
Babagoo’s lips drooped. “I know! Don’t ask me.” He shrugged. “A miracle, perhaps. Or, more likely, you weren’t spotted in the dark. That’s why I’m guessing the Eye missed you. You’re a fluky gremlin, if ever I knew one.” He glanced at the old goat. “Eh, Kafka? A fluky streak of bum gruel, that’s what he is!”
Landfill was rubbing his forehead and looking at Woolf.
“And talking of fluky, guess what the Spit Pit offered this morning…” Babagoo moved away to reach into a bin bag, and returned with a bird in each hand. “Not one, but two herons! Your favourite! Quite apt for celebrating you giving Hunger’s Eye the slip after –” Babagoo’s lips twisted momentarily, and he released a shuddering breath before continuing – “after such an ill-advised stunt. Breakfast awaits. There’s enough heron for lunch too! So come along, lad. Give that little woofling back to its mother. Got a routine to get back to. Routine routine routine.”
“What’s a mother?”
Babagoo slapped a hand over his mouth. He looked up and tutted. “A tricky one to explain, Landfill. Another time. For now, just give the muttling to Woolf.”
Landfill had slipped into his thoughts, but was roused when Babagoo crouched into the cart to shake his shoulder. “These herons won’t pluck and gut themselves, you know. Although what a sight that’d be.” He grinned abruptly and chuckled, and watched Landfill shuffle forward with the pup still in his hand. “New friend there, eh?”
“It can’t move like the others.” Landfill blinked in sunlight and held the dog up to Babagoo. “Bad hind legs. Will you name it?”
Babagoo squinted at the runt. “Hmm. Sincere-looking little thing. Gangly too. Looks like an…Orwell to me. What do you think?”
Landfill tested the word in his mouth. “Orwell… Or. Well.” He smiled for the first time that morning. “Yes. Orwell.” He turned to place the pup gently among the rest of Woolf’s litter, and paused briefly to look at the fresh scar between its hind legs. “Oh. You’ve seen to this one already?”
“That I have. Some other wooflings too. Orwell wasn’t the only one with poorly parts.”
“So Orwell’s a he.”
“He certainly is.”
“Hmm.” Landfill was watching Woolf nuzzle and lick her pups. “It’s so nice.”
“What is?”
“How she licks. Have you seen how she cares for them?”
“Snap out of it, lad. Take these birds and move along. But don’t go forgetting your knife. Dropped it while you were slumbering. Rule sixteen.” A loud tut. “Now come on. You had no dinner last night and it’s way past breakfast.”
The boy nodded and they started walking, followed closely by the click of Kafka’s hooves. Landfill had a heron’s neck in each hand, and the limp bodies slid across weeds and concrete behind him. “My stomach hurts. Can’t remember the last time it hurt like this.” He winced and grimaced. “And the hunger’s a million times worse?”
Babagoo closed his eyes. “Even more than that. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Best to be quiet now and focus on getting to the Den. The sooner we’re there, the sooner you’ll have meat in your belly.”
Landfill continued to walk, but slowed when a large Alsatian hobbled behind them.
“Come, Landfill. Enough distraction now.”
Landfill frowned. “But he’s in pain.” He released the herons’ necks and turned around. “What’s wrong, Vonnegut?” Dropping to his knees, he took the dog’s huge head in both hands.
Babagoo grunted behind him. “Vonnegut’s hunkadory, Landfill. Never a wilier rascal. So keep moving. You want to dawdledally with wooflers all day, or do you want to fill your belly?”
Landfill didn’t reply. After leaning into Vonnegut and listening closely to his panting, he pulled away and lifted the dog’s paw. “There it is.” He angled the paw’s underside in the light, and screwed up his eyes to examine the thorn stuck between two pads. After pulling the paw to his mouth and sucking, he pinched the thorn between his fingers, pulled it out and showed it to the dog. “Better now?” Vonnegut nuzzled Landfill’s lap and padded away.
The boy turned around to see Babagoo watching him. The scavenger was stroking Kafka’s chin, a faint smile touching his lips. “Done now?”
He reached out to ruffle Landfill’s hair. Landfill ducked his head and continued walking. The scavenger kept up, chortling quietly. “Want me to take one of those herons?”
“Why?”
“You’ll need a free hand for this.” Babagoo rummaged in one of his coat
pockets, and extracted a small chocolate bar in soiled but lively packaging.
“Sugar grubbins!”
“Your favourite. A rare and precious treat, as you very well know. Was going to save it for a special occasion, but you’d better have it now, before your stomach starts eating you from the inside.”
Landfill’s grin flashed in the sun. “Really?”
“Really. Now take it before I change my mind. And don’t get used to such things. You know it’s filth, don’t you? Might as well eat a plastic bag. And you’d better brush those gnashers twice as long tonight.”
Landfill had already swapped a heron for the chocolate bar, and was cramming gooey sweetness into his face while they walked. When he was done, he wiped the chocolate from his lips and licked his sticky fingers. He was beaming with ecstasy.
“Edible?” asked Babagoo.
“Very.” Landfill shook his head and took the heron back from Babagoo. “I don’t understand, though.”
“Understand what?”
“Why is the stuff that tastes so good always bad for you?”
Babagoo chuckled sourly. “Because life hates us, my boy. Then again, perhaps not you. You’ve been under Hunger’s Eye and lived to tell the tale.” His eyes flitted skywards. “By the looks of it, at least. So perhaps life likes you. You’d be the only one. But you know, it should like you – if it has any fairness left in its bones. As you well know, Landfill – you’re the only good thing left.”
The scavenger scratched beneath his hat and took a deep breath. His gaze was fixed ahead. “Landfill. I’m sorry about last night – about suspecting the worst. But I was so frightened. I was so scared of what’d happen to you.”
The boy’s face darkened. “Then why’d you lock me out of the Nook?”
“You know why. You broke rule twelve – went above the wall, into plain sight. Under Hunger’s Eye too! You put all of Hinterland at risk. Can’t you see what that looks like? Betrayal – that’s what. I was so…disappointed. Heartbroken and angry.”
The scavenger shook his head.
“Still am. But only because you mean so much to me, Landfill. You have to love someone very much to be able to hate so much too. Can you understand that?”
Landfill didn’t answer, but tipped his head in what might have been a nod.
“So out with it. What were you doing up there? You know the rules.”
Landfill sucked a finger, deep in thought.
“Jabber up, boy. Don’t test me.”
“Didn’t realize how high I was.”
“Is that right?” The scavenger huffed. “Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me that you were up there after our little chat last night. You can see why I’d—”
“Skrill.”
“Eh?”
“I couldn’t slumber and went out. Started playing chase with a skrill. It went up the conveyor. Didn’t see how high I was.”
Babagoo scrunched up his lips. He was quiet for some time before he spoke. “Either way, it was mindless games or perilous neglect. You’re not being wary enough, boy. You need to respect your fear. Rule five. And I saw that fear in you last night, when you were begging and crying. You were lily-livered, and rightly so!”
Landfill nodded with his eyes to the ground. They passed the complex of drums and chutes, and Landfill listened to the chirping parakeets before looking up. “Babagoo?”
“What?”
“Do I cry because I came from a seed?”
A loud snort. “How’d you mean?”
“I mean… You came from a bigger you, and I’ve never seen you cry. Never seen the amnals cry either.”
“Ha!” Babagoo slapped Landfill’s back. “I cry alright. At least, I used to. I’m done crying, lad. Was all cried out a long time ago.” He began to slow a little, and gazed gloomily at the ground.
Landfill fell quiet before speaking. “So you ran out of tears.”
“Guess I did.” Babagoo coughed drily and thumped himself on the chest. “Nothing but dust in here now.”
“Will I run out of tears one day?”
“Let’s hope not. Anyway, enough jabber about tears. Today is about lessons learned, okay? No more mischief. And no skulking out of the Den at night. That’s a new rule – number twenty-two. Thought we were past making rules, but it seems not.”
Babagoo checked the sky and peered over his shoulder. “We may not be in the clear. Even if the Eye missed you, you might’ve been seen over the wall. No sign can be a sure sign. So get your act together. Remember the very first rule – the most important rule – and stick to it.”
“Rule number one – follow the rules.”
“That’s right. So you’ll be a careful, obedient, respectful boy now, yes?”
Landfill nodded.
“Say it.”
“I will.”
The next morning, Babagoo skimmed the mattress with his hands before sitting up suddenly. “Landfill!”
The boy was sitting by a window that was pink with dawn. “Here, Babagoo.”
Babagoo rubbed his eyes and winced at him, then released a sharp sigh. “What are you gawking at? What’s out there?”
“Nothing. Just gandering the colours.”
Babagoo grunted and put on his trapper hat. “Something’s up. You’re looking sheepish. Or fiendish. Can’t tell.”
Landfill laughed. “Nothing’s up. Shall we start the day? My belly wants breakfast.”
Babagoo fanned a palm at him. “Okay, okay. I’ll see what the Spit Pit has to offer. Just let me use the stinkbucket first, alright?”
Landfill listened while Babagoo used the bucket in the hallway. His eyebrows rose when he heard the scavenger hiss.
Upon returning to the Den, Babagoo buttoned his corduroys and addressed the boy. “Fresh squirts in the bucket for draining. There’s some scats in there too. You can bag them up for the Pit before I go. Might want to pinch your nose while you’re at it, though. Must have had some dodgy grubbins.” He patted his stomach with one hand and wafted the air with the other.
Landfill grinned and raised a finger. “Got just the thing. Saw it the other day.” He searched around the consoles until he found a dirty wooden peg, which he clipped onto his nose with a flourish. “Problem solved,” he honked.
Babagoo returned the boy’s grin. “Crafty goblin!”
He began to chuckle, and as Landfill’s nasal giggles escalated, the scavenger pinched his nose and laughed too. The Den’s animals stirred, watching with curiosity while boy and scavenger honked and spluttered.
“Okay, okay. That’ll do.” Babagoo wiped his eyes, took a deep breath and massaged his cheeks. “Deal with those scats ’n’ squirts, boyling. We’re both hungry and those gulls need getting.”
Landfill nodded, whipped a plastic bag from the floor and went to the hallway. He lifted the stinkbucket and headed through the double door, on his way to the space behind the Nook where urine was drained. But when he stepped into daylight, something caught his eye. He peered closely into the bucket and frowned. There was no doubt about it: a cloud of red was blossoming in the yellow pool.
After watching it for some moments, Landfill put the bucket down carefully, re-entered the Nook and popped his head into the Den. He removed the peg from his nose. “Babagoo?”
The scavenger was chuckling to himself and donning his dross cape. “Yes, my lad?”
“There’s blood in the stinkbucket. Looks fresh. I think it’s from your squirts.”
Babagoo’s smile fell away. “Blood?”
“Too dark to see in the hallway. But it’s there.”
“Oh…” The colour was draining rapidly from Babagoo’s face, as if the blood there had gone to the bucket too.
“Why’s there blood?” asked Landfill. “Never seen that before.”
Babagoo’s arms fell limply to his side. He turned his head slowly and gazed abstractly at a windowpane. The boy saw his lips move, but could barely make out what he was saying: “…seasons…”
Landfill stepped into the room. “Seasons?”
“…getting shorter…”
“What do you mean?” Landfill’s voice broke, and he was startled by a sudden wetness in his eyes. “Babagoo… What do you mean?”
His anxious tone seemed to snap Babagoo from his daze. The scavenger blinked forcefully and adjusted his hat. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” He moved his features stiffly, attempting what Landfill assumed was supposed to be a smile.
“But the blood…”
“That’s what I mean, my lad. It’s nothing. Happens sometimes, when you’re older.”
“Oh.” Landfill frowned and looked at his shorts. “So it’ll happen to me when I’m older too?”
Babagoo’s sham of a smile dissolved. Without warning, he swept across the Den and embraced the boy. He held him so tightly against his coat that Landfill found it difficult to speak.
“You…okay…Babagoo?”
“Hunkadory.” The scavenger’s voice hardened a little. He released his grip on the boy. “Now go strain those scats so I can get going.”
“But the—”
“Don’t…you worry. I said it’s nothing. What’s rule number three?”
“Babagoo’s always right.”
“Indeed he is.” Babagoo pulled gradually away, took the peg and fastened it tenderly onto Landfill’s nose. “So off you go.”
Landfill had soon bagged up the stinkbucket’s slops and given them to Babagoo, who added them to the traps and other bags hanging from his waist. Waving goodbye, the boy watched Babagoo climb into the hollowed metal cabinet and descend a little down its secret stairway. As soon as Babagoo closed the cabinet door behind him, Landfill sprinted to the wall to start the day’s inspection.
He moved briskly along Hinterland’s perimeter, and stopped when he reached the second set of train tracks, which started at the wall and disappeared into the Rippletop. He eyed the enormous warehouse, and spotted lizards basking on the slopes of its hot, glinting roof. After checking the sky and his surroundings, Landfill followed the tracks and entered between the huge warehouse doors.
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