Un Lun Dun Read online

  Deeba could hardly breathe, thinking of it. She struggled to think the situation through. Panic welled up in her, but she fought it down. Stop, she thought. You’ve got to be clever here. You’ve got to think hard.

  “Okay,” she muttered. “It’s all down to the Smog, and Brokkenbroll. I have to get out of here soon, but I can’t while everyone’s looking for me like I’m the trouble. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be safe with the Smog after me, ’cause it’s come for me and Zann. And I can’t persuade the Propheseers to go against it: they think they already are. So…” There was a long silence. “We have to stop it ourselves.”

  “What are you talking about?” the book said. “Who’s ‘we’? What do you think you can do?”

  “Leave her alone,” said Hemi. “We’re all in a mess here. She’s smart, though.” The area they were in was no longer deserted. Going about their business, a variety of figures had appeared. Many were carrying unbrellas. Deeba saw a robot made of glass, and a figure with a vegetable face, and men and women and other things in rags and elegant gowns, in tuxedos made of plastic and suits of armor made of china, and several in the strangely simple uniforms that London trades had copied.

  Some of the UnLondoners were walking their way, and were looking at Deeba and Hemi with curiosity.

  “Oh, I just want to get out of here and go home,” Hemi moaned.

  “Yeah but they’re looking for you, too,” Deeba said. “We’re both being hunted.”

  “We have to be careful,” Hemi said. “We don’t know who’s on what side. And now the Propheseers…”

  “He’s right,” the book said. “They’ll put out word. People will start looking for us.”

  “Shut up and listen,” Deeba said. “Something has to stop the Smog, or I can’t go, and I…we’re the only ones that can.” She waited, but neither Hemi nor, this time, the book raised any objections to her plural. “And there’s nothing in London I could use against it. But there must be stuff here. That’s why it didn’t want Zanna here. So. Book, we know you got it wrong about the Shwazzy. That prophecy went wrong, right? But you still must have all the details of what it was she was supposed to do, right? To stop UnLondon’s enemies, right?

  “Okay then. The destiny didn’t work with the Chosen One. So I’ll do it instead.”

  55

  Insulting Classification

  “You’ll what?” the book said after a flabbergasted silence.

  “I’ll do it,” Deeba said. “Whatever it is that needs doing.”

  “Can we please talk about this privately?” said Hemi, ushering them into an alley.

  “There’s no choice,” Deeba said to the book. “Why’s it a bad idea? You might not be wrong about what needs doing. Just about who. I bet there’s some choice stuff in you about what’ll knock out the Smog.”

  “Well…Certainly there are references to a weapon that the Smog’s afraid of, the implication that it might be for UnLondon what the Klinneract was for London…” The book sounded thoughtful.

  “Not that there was a Klinneract,” Deeba whispered.

  “What?” whispered Hemi. “Don’t tell it that; you can see how it hates being wrong.”

  “But you’re forgetting two things,” the book went on. “One, I have no idea what’s right and what’s not, anymore. Might be nothing in these stupid things—” Its pages riffled. “—is any use at all. And two, you’re not the Shwazzy! You can’t do this.”

  “How do you know?” Deeba said. “You don’t know nothing about me. Except…wait a minute. You said I was mentioned, didn’t you? You said there was something about me in there somewhere. So what does it say? What do you know?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the book said. “That’s not important. Let’s just—”

  “Yes, it is important,” Deeba interrupted. She yanked open the book’s cover and started turning over pages.

  It was the first time she’d seen what was inside. It was chaotic and confusing, different page to page, an extraordinary patchwork of columns, pictures, and writing, in all sizes and colors and countless scripts, including English. Deeba could hardly imagine how anyone would learn to make sense of it.

  “Stop it!” the book said. “Get your hands off me!”

  Deeba turned to the back and found a very long index. She scanned through all the entries, running her finger down the columns.

  “You’re tickling,” the book said. “Stop.” But Deeba kept reading.

  The list of entries went straight from “Regal Garb” to “Restitution”—there was no “Resham.” She flicked over some pages and looked for “Deeba,” but the list went straight from “Decalcomania” to “Defcon Scale.”

  “There’s nothing,” she said.

  “Good,” the book said. “So close me and let’s talk.” But Deeba thought of one more thing.

  She looked up “Shwazzy.” There it was, with hundreds of pages listed. Underneath, slightly indented, was a long list of subheadings. Deeba skimmed the story of what Zanna had been supposed to do, chopped up out of sequence and laid out in alphabetically ordered episodes.

  “‘Shwazzy…Bramble-Dogs Attack the,’” she murmured, reading entries out loud. “‘Enters the Bathysphere’…‘In the Court of Vegetables’…‘Laments and Tasks’…” Deeba stopped. Read and reread.

  “What is it?” Hemi said, seeing her face.

  “‘Sidekicks’?” Deeba said.

  There it was, in the index. “Shwazzy, Sidekicks of the.” Below that were sub-subheadings, each with a single page reference. “Clever One,” she read. “Funny One.”

  “Look…” the book said. “It’s just terminology. Sometimes these old prophecies are written in, you know, unfortunate ways…”

  “Was it Kath who was supposed to be the clever one?” Deeba said. She thought about how she and Zanna had become friends. “So…I’m the funny one? I’m the funny sidekick?”

  “But, but, but,” the book said, flustered. “What about Digby? What about Ron and Robin? There’s no shame in—”

  Deeba dropped the book and walked away. It yelped as it hit the pavement.

  “Deeba?” said Hemi eventually. “What d’you think we should do?”

  She said nothing. She stood by the junction with the main road and watched the strange crowds of UnLondoners go by. After all the stress and fear of the Smog and the Propheseers and the running away, that little insult in the book’s index was one thing too many for Deeba to bear. She shook her head.

  “We can’t just wait,” Hemi said. “The Propheseers’ll be looking for us. With Brokkenbroll. And if they catch us…You got me into this,” he shouted at last. “Now what we going to do?”

  She still refused to speak. Curdle whiffled and wound round and round her feet. Deeba didn’t stroke it.

  “Deeba.” It was the book. Hemi carried it closer. “I want to apologize. I didn’t write me. I’ve no idea who did. But we already know he or she was a moron.” Deeba refused to smile. “They didn’t know what they were on about. I’d probably be more use if I were a phone book. Even if my idiot authors didn’t know it, I know you’re not a sidekick—”

  “No one is!” Deeba shouted. “That’s no way to talk about anyone! To say they’re just hangers-on to someone more important.”

  “I know,” said the book. “You’re right.”

  “Come on,” Hemi said. “We’re being hunted. Brokkenbroll might even persuade them to attack Wraithtown or something. We have to do something.”

  “Please,” the book said.

  Deeba watched them for a long moment.

  “Alright then,” she said at last. “I’ve told you what we have to do. I can’t think of anything else. We can’t go back to the bridge, book. UnLondon needs us, even if it don’t know it. And Zanna does, and I do, and maybe London does, too. The Propheseers are working for the Smog now, even if they don’t know it.

  “The Smog’ll expect us to hide. So it probably won’t expect us to…to attack.”

&nbs
p; “Book,” she said, raising her voice over the volume’s objections. “Book, if you don’t shut up I’ll just leave you here. Answer some questions.” Hemi stared at her with admiration.

  Deeba began to flick through the book, referring to the index and checking various pages.

  “How’s this organized?” she said. “It’s all over the place. There’s no order.”

  “There is,” the book said. “Just not a very obvious one. What is it you want to know?”

  “Zanna the Shwazzy, in the end…she was meant to save UnLondon, right? How? What was she supposed to do? In what order? Because that obviously worried the Smog.”

  “Well…” the book said. “It was sort of a standard Chosen One deal. Seven tasks, and with each one she’d collect one of UnLondon’s ancient treasures. Finally she’d get the most powerful weapon in all the abcity—as powerful as the Klinneract. The Smog’s afraid of nothing but it. With it she was meant to face it and defeat it.”

  “I wouldn’t get too excited about the Klinneract if I were you,” Deeba said. “What was she supposed to collect?”

  “The seven jewels of UnLondon,” the book whispered. “What they call the Heptical Collection. A featherkey; a squidbeak clipper; a cup of bone tea; teeth-dice; an iron snail; the crown of the black-or-white king; and the most powerful weapon in the history of the abcity…the UnGun.”

  “The UnGun?” Hemi said. “Cor. I thought that was just a story.”

  “It’s a story too,” the book said grandly. “But it’s also…the Shwazzy’s weapon.” There was a pause. “Well…I thought so, anyway,” it added.

  Deeba counted off the seven items.

  “The Smog doesn’t want us to get hold of them,” she said. “So that’s what we’re going to do. Hemi…will you help?”

  “Are you mad?” he said. “What else am I going to do? I’ve gone from being chased by the stall holders to being hunted by Brokkenbroll and the Prophebleedingseers. Can’t run from them the rest of my life. This lunatic plan of yours is all we got. Besides,” he added grudgingly. “Like I’m going to let you get the UnGun on your own.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She smiled at him till he blushed.

  “Well come on then,” he snapped. “Let’s get started.”

  “Curdle? You coming?” The carton jumped up and down. “Alright then,” Deeba said. “You don’t have any choice, I’m afraid, Book. You have to tell me what to do. And…one more thing.” She swallowed.

  “Look. No one’s really said, but there’s hints…if you stay too long in UnLondon, the phlegm effect gets stronger, doesn’t it? When I came back, before, I saw the way people looked when they saw me. Book, be straight with me. If you stay too long, people can forget you. Right?” There was a silence. “Right?”

  “Well…” said the book uncomfortably. “Theoretically…”

  “How long?” Deeba said.

  “You have to understand,” the book said. “Most people who cross have no intention of going back, so it makes no odds. There are techniques to avoid it, they say, ways of making lists and mnemonics and so on, if you want to make sure to remember particular abnauts, but…”

  “How long?” Deeba said. “’Cause my mum and dad don’t know any of those ways. So how long’ve I got?”

  “Well…it’s speculative. But there is a theoretical danger of acute abnaut-related memory deficit disorder affecting Londoners after about…nine days.”

  “Nine days?” said Deeba. “Is that all?”

  “It might be possible to do the quest in that,” the book said doubtfully. “It’s not quite clear what happens after, but the Shwazzy must’ve been meant to go home afterwards. Surely…But then…she was…” She was the Shwazzy, Deeba thought as the book stopped itself. “Even so. It’s…a little tight.”

  Deeba’s heart was speeding up.

  “Well then,” she said. “We have to get started. What was the first one? Let’s go and get the featherkey.”

  56

  Incommunicado

  “The featherkey’s in a forest,” the book said.

  “A forest? In UnLondon?” said Deeba. “Where?”

  “Where most things are in cities and abcities,” the book said. “It’s in a house.”

  “If you say so,” Deeba said. “How do we get there?”

  “I know where the house is,” the book said. “But we don’t even know where we are.”

  “Actually…” said Hemi. He was standing by the alley entrance. “Listen.”

  Deeba strained. She could make out a noise like a constant grinding, a sliding and slamming like very heavy machines.

  “What is that?” she said.

  “You know where we are?” Hemi said to the book. “It’s Puzzleborough.”

  “Of course,” the book said. “That would make sense.”

  “What?” Deeba said.

  “It’s like one of those games,” Hemi said. “In crackers. A square with a picture in it chopped into nine or sixteen little squares, and one of them taken out, then they’re all slid and mixed up, moving them one at a time into the empty space. And you have to try to make the picture again? In Puzzleborough, the houses are like that.”

  “A house was taken out, years ago,” the book said. “And the rest of the buildings got moved around, and now there’s a load of streets where none of the houses is in the place it should be.

  “Every few minutes they all shift around. One of the ones next to the empty lot slides into it, and behind it another slots into the space it left, and it goes all through the borough. But there aren’t nine or sixteen or twenty-five houses, there are hundreds. That means thousands of possible arrangements. You never know where any house is going to be. Everything’s jumbled up.

  “Maybe the only people in UnLondon as intrepid as the Wordhoard Pit librarians are the Puzzleborough postal workers. They’re still trying to deliver the mail from decades ago. But the house numbers keep moving. Some of those posties have been tracking a particular house for years, now. Everyone’s waiting for the day the houses land back in the right order.”

  “Anyway the point is…” Hemi interrupted with ostentatious yawning motions. “Point is we know where we are.”

  “So how do we get to this forest?” Deeba said.

  “Well, if we were going direct,” the book said, “we’d cut this way south, but that would take us through the Talklands of Mr. Speaker, and you never know with him, so instead we should go round—”

  “Hold on,” Deeba said, and clicked her fingers. “Mr. Speaker? I’ve heard of him. Doesn’t he have working telephones?”

  “I think so,” said the book. “He’s interested in everything to do with talking. But so what?”

  “I can use it to buy some time. I can call home. Talk to my family,” Deeba said. “To stop them forgetting.”

  Hemi looked at the book and then at her.

  “It would be pretty risky,” Hemi said.

  “Why? Is this Mr. Speaker on the Smog’s side?” she said.

  “No,” said the book. “But he’s on no one’s side.”

  “Don’t tangle with Mr. Speaker,” said Hemi.

  “If we go through his yard it’ll be quicker and I’ll get to use his phone.”

  “It’ll only be quicker if he doesn’t…do something to you,” said the book.

  “You know,” said Deeba, “for someone who doesn’t want to be here and thinks we should go back to the bridge, you care a lot about this.”

  “I…I…” the book spluttered. Hemi tried to hide a smile.

  “Come on, then,” Deeba said. “We haven’t got time to waste. You’re not the ones who are going to get forgot in a few days’ time if you don’t phone home. We’re going to go straight through this Mr. Speaker’s place, and I’m going to call my family on the way. You said yourself nine days wasn’t very long. But if I communicate with them, the countdown starts again. And if we have any trouble, I’ll just have to amuse him, won’t I? After all, I’m the funny sideki
ck.”

  57

  The Quiet Talklands

  There were several maps of the abcity in the book, but Deeba couldn’t make much sense of them. Their scale seemed to change from one section to the next, and the angles of their projections, and their orientations. Deeba simply followed the book’s directions.

  They hiked through the streets, avoiding crowds and the pedaled vehicles of UnLondon. They crept into empty and emptish buildings when suspicious balloons or helicopter-style things with blades like huge flat corkscrews flew overhead, in case they were Propheseer spy vehicles. Deeba eyed the unbrellas in the hands of many of the people they passed.

  “No one knows who we are yet,” Hemi said. “When the Propheseers get word out we’ll be in more trouble.”

  When Deeba mentioned that she was hungry, Hemi disappeared and reappeared almost instantly with food from a street vendor.

  “Figured we should stay out of sight,” he said as they ate. “So that was half-ghost shopping.”

  As they walked, she told him about London—he didn’t ask, but she wanted to talk about it. She told him about her family, and it made her miss them, but feel good too, even though it was a sad kind of good. She tried to learn more about his life in Wraithtown, and he grunted monosyllabic answers.

  By late afternoon they reached the river, and crossed by the BatSee Bridge. Deeba was captivated by the sight of the utterly straight river Smeath running like a ruler through the abcity. She felt exposed on the bridge, under the big sky, but Deeba couldn’t help stopping in the center for a moment and staring along the river, to where the two iron crocodile snouts formed Towering Bridge.

  The enormous half-submerged heads stared at each other, blinking occasionally, each wearing a crown as tall as a tower, connected by a walkway at the top. As Deeba watched, the two huge mouths opened slowly, showing enormous riveted fangs, and closed again.

  Hemi pulled Deeba on, past brown towers on the other side of the river. They were a little like London’s Parliament if it had been made by giant termites.