Un Lun Dun

58. Touching Base

“Dad?”

“Deeba?”

The phone had accepted the coins in various currencies that Deeba had fed it. It wasn’t a good line, and Deeba’s voice and her father’s were separated by long pauses, and heavily distorted, but they could hear each other.

Hemi, Curdle, and the book waited outside the phone box, looking into the rapidly encroaching night.

“Dad, can you hear me? I’m so glad to talk to you!”

“What are you up to, darling?” he said after another long pause. Even knowing about the phlegm effect, Deeba could not help being shocked by how calm he sounded. She had not been home for so long.

“I’m okay, Dad, I just wanted to say I’ll see you soon. And to tell you I love you and…and don’t forget about me.”

As she spoke, Deeba was astonished to see through the glass a dense clot of wasps emerge from the phone outside the box and tear off into the night. They flew close together, extraordinarily fast, disappearing in an instant.

After a moment, they, or another group, zoomed back down out of the sky and into the phone again. They buzzed together, and through the receiver, Deeba heard her father’s voice.

“Forget about you?” he laughed. “What are you talking about, mad girl?” She laughed back, a little hysterical with happiness.

“Get Mum, will you?” she said, and watched the insects zip off again to buzz her voice down the phone to her father. But only half of them came back, and when she heard her father’s response, it was broken up and faint.

“…can’t…not…gone out…” he said.

“Say that again, Dad, I can’t hear you.” Deeba sent the wasps skywards. “Tell her I said hello! Tell her I called!” Make her think about me, Deeba thought. Hemi knocked on the phone box. Deeba didn’t even look at him, just made an irritated motion.

Her father said something else in an even more fragmented voice, and Hemi knocked again. The book muttered her name.

“Will you shut up, you two?” she said with her hand over the receiver.

“Deeba,” said the book. “Get out here now.”

When Deeba turned, what she saw through the glass made her hang up in the middle of the static that was all she could hear. She stepped back outside to join her companions.

Dark figures were bearing down on them.

They moved furtively, and fast.

“What are they?” Deeba said. She saw a quickly scuttling thing moving like a crab, something dark red and simian, a stiff-legged man the size of her little brother. They and others came towards the travelers, with no sound.

They approached with slow and threatening motions, in an amazing variety of shapes and colors and spikes and limbs. None of them had mouths.

“They’re Mr. Speaker’s court,” the book whispered. “They’re going to take us back to him. We’ve been done for unauthorized speaking in the Talklands.”

“Maybe I can explain,” Deeba said.

“Explain? You’ve done enough talking. Just keep your mouth shut from now on.”

One of the skulking little figures stamped its foot in obvious anger. It was a little potbellied man with yellow skin, on four scrawny legs, waving four thin arms at them to shut up. He had at least five or six eyes, blinking rapidly and glowering. He made a shhhh motion, with his forefinger in front of where his mouth should be.

His companions grabbed Deeba and Hemi roughly by their arms. A big mouthless squirrel with wings and something like the cross of an armadillo and a centipede squabbled silently over the book, until the squirrel-thing bore it away.

“Careful!” Deeba heard the book say. “You’ll scratch my cover!” She struggled but could not break free.

“Deeba,” Hemi muttered. “D’you think you could have a plan that doesn’t involve me being attacked?”

“Leave us alone,” she shouted. Each word seemed to make her captors more angry. “I just wanted to talk to my mum and dad. I wasn’t causing trouble. I have to go!”

But Deeba, Hemi, Curdle, and the book were swept away, out of the Blabyrinth and through the streets. For the first time since entering the borough Deeba heard noises. The night rang with extraordinary cries, single words spoken with an amazing, resounding voice.

“KETTLE!” she heard, and “MAGNANIMOUS! SEPTIC! GULLY!”

These and other words emanated from an enormous building shaped like a drum, towards which the silent figures dragged them.