Mister Monday

Chapter Six

Black smoke rolled across the ceiling. A fire alarm began to clang and clatter outside, followed a second later by the whoop-whoop of the evacuation siren. The Fetchers came into the library with the sound, all in a rush, barking with excitement at being invited past the door.

Noon pointed at the shelves and the Fetchers bounded forward, many of them bent over so they could sniff at the floor, their tongues lolling and flat noses twitching. Sniffing for their prey. Arthur.

But Arthur hadn't waited. He was already at the back door. It was locked, but there was a release button inside a glass box, plastered with warning signs about alarms and only being used in the event of fire.

There was a fire. Arthur swung his backpack at the box and smashed the glass. It broke into tiny clumps rather than shattering. He reached in with his left hand and punched the button, because he didn't want to let go of the Key he held tightly in his right hand. Somehow it helped him breathe, and he really needed to breathe properly right now. He could hear the Fetchers behind him, growling and grunting as they raced along the corridors made by the shelves, pausing at each intersection of the Dewey Decimal system to sniff out his path.

Nothing happened after he pressed the button. Arthur's hand trembled as he punched it again. The button pressed in easily enough, but the door didn't open. Arthur kicked the door, but it wouldn't budge. As he kicked it again, a red flame ran around the door frame. The same rich, deep red of Noon's fiery sword.

"The back door, my Fetchers! Ar-tor attempts the back door!"

Noon's voice carried through the fire alarm, the siren, and the Fetchers' barks. Arthur immediately knew that Noon had used his powers to seal the door. But Arthur had his own magic. Or at least he had something that had power, even if he didn't know what it really was or how to use it.

The Key.

Arthur touched the door with the point of the minute hand and shouted, "Open!" There was a flash of white light, a sudden heat upon his face, then the twin leaves of the door flung open and a new alarm joined the cacophonous wail. Arthur ran out onto the fire stairs and jumped down the first two steps. Then he suddenly stopped, whirled, and jumped back. He had to close the doors behind him or the Fetchers would catch him for sure. But he had wasted a precious second ... could he do it in time?

He threw himself at the doors and slammed them shut, just as two Fetchers leaped at the gap. Arthur was thrown backwards and the doors started to open again, the Fetchers yowling and growling as they tried to grab him. Fingers ripped at his shirt, buttons went flying, but he slashed with the Key and the Fetchers let go, screaming horrible high-pitched screams.

Arthur slammed the doors again and made a wild cut across them with the Key, shouting out, "Shut! Lock! Close!"

Whether it was the cut or the words, the doors stayed shut, though Arthur could hear the thuds as the Fetchers threw themselves against the exit. But he didn't hang around. Arthur knew that no doors would stop Noon.

He'd only made it to the narrow hall between the library and the school refectory when there was an explosion above him. He crouched down and looked back as flames jetted out in all directions, and the doors flew over his head, whistling towards the science block a quarter mile away. Noon strolled out onto the fire stairs, black smoke rolling out in coils above his head, with the Fetchers crouched around him. They looked less like men now and more like half-human dogs, their black suits in rags and their bowler hats lost somewhere in the burning library.

Arthur turned to run again. But he had only gone a few yards when he heard the whoosh and beat of giant wings above him. A cold shadow passed over his head, and Noon landed right in front of him. His wings were spread wide, his flaming sword had appeared in his hand once more, and it was pointed right at Arthur's throat.

"Give me the Key," instructed Noon calmly.

"No," whispered Arthur. "It was given to me."

"It was a mistake, you foolish boy," said Noon. He looked through a window at the sun and frowned. "Hand it over, circle end first. I haven't got all day."

Something about the frown and the way he said those last words sparked an idea in Arthur's mind. He looked down, pretending that he was thinking about handing over the Key. But he was actually looking at his watch. It was one minute short of one o'clock.

"I don't know," mumbled Arthur. Desperately he looked around. He could hear the Fetchers coming up from behind, and the flaming sword was close enough for him to wince at the heat. Sweat was dripping down his face, stinging his eyes. But at least he could breathe, though he was pretty certain that would stop as soon as he let go of the Key.

"Give me the Key!"

"Come and get it!" shouted Arthur. He spun like a discus thrower and hurled the Key across the hall at the nearest door and threw himself after it.

The very tip of the flaming sword caught him on the left arm as he ran, burning a line of intense pain from his shoulder to his elbow. Noon shouted something, but the boy didn't hear. His lungs had frozen as he let go of the Key, and suddenly he didn't have any breath at all, perhaps not even enough to last a few steps.

He'd expected the Key to bounce off the door for him to pick up, but the clock hand had flown like a thrown dagger straight through the paper-thin gap between the door and the wall. So Arthur crashed into the door instead, and once again his expectations were confounded. It should have been locked, but instead of bouncing off and back into the path of Noon's flaming sword he went slam-bang through it and rolled onto the floor beyond. His open hand fell on the Key and his fingers closed on it as tightly as they could. With the Key in his grasp he felt blessed breath come back and the burn on his arm fade into a dull ache.

"There is really no point to your ridiculous acrobatics," said Noon as he stepped through the doorway. "Give me the Key and I shall allow you to crawl away. Otherwise I shall cut off your hand and take it."

Arthur looked at his watch. The second hand was sweeping towards the twelve. It was almost one o'clock. His watch was very accurate, and he had set it only a week or so ago.

Slowly, he began to loosen his grip on the Key, as if he were obeying Noon's instructions. As he let go, he felt his lungs tighten again, and the burn on his arm began to return.

"Hurry up!" shouted Noon. He raised his sword and the flames upon it roared into brighter, hotter life.

The second hand was on eleven. Arthur gulped as he realized that he was about to bet his hand ... his life ... on a guess. A guess that Noon could only be here in Arthur's world for the single hour between noon and one.

"No!" shouted Arthur. He snatched the Key back and recoiled, shutting his eyes. The last thing he saw was Noon's eyes reflecting red and the flaming sword hurtling down towards his hand.

But no pain came. Arthur opened his eyes. The second hand of his watch was past the twelve, the hour hand and minute hand on one o'clock. There was no sign of Monday's Noon, and the Fetchers were silent, though slavering, just beyond the door. There was a smoldering line of ash along the floor, an inch from Arthur's fingers. He stared at it and wondered how Noon could have missed.

The fire alarm was still ringing, and the siren still sounded its steady whoop. In the distance, Arthur could hear other sirens growing louder as fire engines converged upon the school.

Arthur slowly got up and looked around. He was in the back of the refectory, in fact in the staff and delivery entrance for the kitchen. There was no one around, though it was clear from all the partly made meals, readied ingredients, still-steaming pots, and rotating microwave platters that the kitchen staff had only just left, responding to the evacuation alarm.

He looked back at the Fetchers through the open door. They were silent now, standing in ranks. Somehow they had gotten their bowler hats back, and their black suits were restored. Once again they looked more like very ugly men and less like dogs.

One of them stepped forward and opened its mouth, showing large canine teeth. Then it made a curious repetitive grunting noise. It took a moment for Arthur to realize it was meant to be a laugh. But what reason could this Fetcher have to laugh?

Then he saw what it was holding in its stubby-fingered, long-nailed hand. The Atlas! Arthur's own hand flashed to his shirt pocket and came away holding a strip of cloth. The pocket had been torn off, back when they'd almost gotten hold of him at the library. His chest was scratched as well, though he hadn't noticed it at the time. Now it hurt. But not as much as losing the Atlas.

The Fetchers all started to laugh now, if you could call a rising-falling series of grunts a laugh. Arthur recoiled as their stinking, sickening breath gusted out with each grunt. They obviously thought they'd captured something very important and won a victory.

Glumly, Arthur had to recognize they had. If he was ever to make any sense of what was going on, he needed the Atlas. So he had to get it back. What had the Atlas said about the Fetchers? They couldn't cross thresholds and ...

Salt! Arthur turned to the kitchen shelves. There had to be salt here, and probably lots of it. It was a commercial kitchen. He ran along the shelves, the Key held fast in one hand while he turned bags around and shifted containers with the other. Sugar, four different sorts of flour, spices of all kinds, other grains, dried fruit... salt! There it was, a big tub of regular salt and a small sack of rock salt.

Arthur hesitated, then slipped the Key through his belt like a dagger. As soon as he let go, he felt his asthma returning. The deep breaths of a moment ago were lost to him. But he still felt some ease from the Key. Perhaps having it close was better than nothing.

He put the rock salt in his backpack, slipped it on again, then picked up the tub of salt and threw away the lid. The tub was two-thirds full of fine white salt. Arthur held the tub by its handle in his left hand and took a fistful of salt in his right.

Then he marched back to the door, wheezing and panting a little, but prepared for battle. If he could surprise them, he thought, throw the salt across the front rank, he might be able to dash out and grab the Atlas when they... well, when whatever the salt did to them happened.

At the back of his mind, a doubting question immediately popped up. What if the salt just annoyed them, and as soon as he jumped out they grabbed him and bit him and scratched him to pieces?

Arthur didn't answer that question. He forced himself to focus on one thing ... getting the Atlas back. Once he had that, he could ask some more questions.

These thoughts were racing through his mind as he came to the end of the shelves. Arthur gulped, took as deep a breath as he could, and jumped out in front of the door, screaming and throwing salt.

"Yahhhhh!"