Haroun and the Sea of Stories Page 7

  ‘What’s that you say?’ shouted Bolo, leaping to his feet and striking a dashing and slightly foolish pose. ‘Why have you waited so long to tell us? Zounds! Proceed; for pity’s sake, proceed.’ (When Bolo spoke like this, the other Dignitaries all looked vaguely embarrassed and averted their eyes.)

  ‘I was struggling through the tangles of thorn-bushes towards the Ocean’s rim,’ Rashid continued, ‘when a swan-boat of silver and gold approached. In it was a young woman with long, long hair, wearing a circlet of gold, and singing, please excuse, the ugliest sounding song I have ever heard. In addition, her teeth, her nose … ’

  ‘You needn’t go on,’ the Speaker of the Chatterbox interrupted. ‘That was Batcheat all right.’

  ‘Batcheat, Batcheat!’ lamented Bolo. ‘Shall I never hear your sweet sweet voice, or gaze upon your delicate face again?’

  ‘What was she doing there?’ the Walrus demanded. ‘Those are dangerous parts.’

  Here Iff, the Water Genie, cleared his throat. ‘Sirs,’ he said, ‘maybe you don’t know it but the young people of Gup do go into the Twilight Strip just occasionally, that is to say sometimes, that is to say most frequently. Living in the sunlight all the time, they wish to see the stars, the Earth, the Other Moon shining in the sky. It is a daredevil thing to do. And always there was, they thought, Chattergy’s Wall to protect them. Dark, my sirs, has its fascinations: mystery, strangeness, romance …’

  ‘Romance?’ Prince Bolo cried, drawing his sword. ‘Foul Water Genie! Shall I run you through? You dare to suggest that my Batcheat went there … for love?’

  ‘No, no,’ Iff cried in panic. ‘A thousand apologies, I take it back, no offence.’

  ‘No need to worry on that score,’ Rashid quickly reassured Prince Bolo, who slowly, slowly, replaced his sword in its scabbard. ‘She was with her handmaidens and no one else. They were giggling about Chattergy’s Wall, about wanting to go up to it and touch it. “I want to know what it’s like, this famous and invisible thing,” I heard her say. “If the eye can’t see it, maybe the finger can feel, maybe the tongue can taste.” Just then a Chupwala party, which, unknown to Batcheat or myself, had been watching the Princess from the thorn-bushes, having plainly come through a hole in the Wall, seized the ladies and carried them off, kicking and shrieking, towards the tents of Chup.’

  ‘And what kind of man are you,’ sneered Prince Bolo rudely, ‘that you stayed hidden and did nothing to save them from such a fate?’

  The Walrus, the Speaker and the General looked pained at this latest remark of the Prince’s, and Haroun got red in the face with rage. ‘That Prince—how dare he,’ he whispered fiercely to Iff. ‘If it weren’t for that sword, I’d … I’d …’

  ‘I know,’ the Water Genie whispered back. ‘Princes can get like that. But don’t worry. We don’t really let him do anything important around here.’

  ‘What would you have preferred?’ Rashid answered Bolo with great dignity. ‘That I, unarmed, dressed in a nightshirt and half-dead with cold, should have leapt like a romantic fool from my hiding-place, and got myself captured or killed? Then who would have brought you the news—who would be able, now, to show you the way to the Chupwala encampment? You be a hero if you wish, Prince Bolo; some people prefer good sense to heroism.’

  ‘You should apologize, Bolo,’ the Speaker murmured and, with much swaggering and scowling, the Prince finally did so. ‘I was too sharp,’ he said. ‘Truly, we are grateful for your news.’

  ‘There’s one thing more,’ Rashid said. ‘As the Chupwala soldiers hauled the Princess away, I heard them say a terrible thing.’

  ‘What thing?’ Bolo shouted, leaping about. ‘If they insulted her …’

  “ ‘The Great Feast of Bezaban is coming soon,” one of them said,’ answered Rashid. “ ‘Why not, on the day, offer our Idol this Guppee Princess as a sacrifice? We’ll stitch up her lips, and rename her the Dumb Princess—the Princess Khamosh.” Then they laughed.’

  A hush fell over the Throne Room. And of course it was Bolo who spoke first. ‘Now there is not a second to lose! Assemble the armed forces—all the Pages, every Chapter, every Volume! —To war, to war! For Batcheat, only Batcheat!’

  ‘For Batcheat and the Ocean,’ the Walrus reminded him.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Prince Bolo huffily said. ‘The Ocean also; naturally, of course, very well.’

  ‘If you wish,’ Rashid the storyteller said, ‘I will lead you to the Chupwala tents.’

  ‘Good man,’ Bolo shouted, thumping him on the back again. ‘I did you wrong; you’re a champion.’

  ‘If you’re going,’ Haroun said to his father, ‘don’t think you can leave me behind.’

  ~ ~ ~

  Although the Endless Daylight of Gup gave Haroun the strange feeling that time was standing still, he realized he was exhausted. He found that he could not resist the slow drooping of his eyelids; and then his body was possessed by so magnificent a yawn that it attracted the attention of everyone in that august Throne Room. Rashid Khalifa asked if Haroun might be given a bed for the night; and so, in spite of his protestations (‘I’m not in the least sleepy—really, I’m not’), Haroun was packed off for the night. The Page, Blabbermouth, was told to lead him to his room.

  Blabbermouth led Haroun along corridors, up staircases, down staircases, along more corridors, through doorways, around corners, into courtyards, out of courtyards, on to balconies, and down corridors again. While they walked, the Page (who seemed not to be able to contain the words a moment longer) unleashed an anti-Batcheat tirade. ‘Fool of a girl,’ Blabbermouth said. ‘Now if my fiancée got herself kidnapped because she was crazy enough to go into the Twilight Strip just to go gooey over stars in the sky and, even worse, to touch the stupid Wall, for goodness’ sake, then don’t imagine I’d start a war to get her back; I’d say good riddance, especially with her nose, her teeth, but no need to go into all that, and I haven’t even mentioned her singing, you wouldn’t believe how horrible, and instead of letting her rot we’re all going to go in after her and probably get ourselves killed because we won’t be able to see properly in the dark … ’

  ‘Are we getting to my bedroom soon?’ Haroun inquired. ‘Because I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.’

  ‘And these uniforms, you wanted-to know about the uniforms,’ Blabbermouth continued, ignoring him, and continuing briskly on through halls, down spiral stairways, and along passageways. ‘Well, whose idea do you think those were? Hers, obviously, Batcheat’s, and she decided to “take the wardrobe of the Pages of the Royal Household in hand” to make us into walking love letters, that was her first idea, and after an eternity of having to wear kissy-poo and cuddly-bunny and vomitous texts like that she changed her mind and had all the greatest stories in the world rewritten as if her Bolo was the hero or something. So now instead of Aladdin and Ali Baba and Sindbad it’s Bolo, Bolo, Bolo, can you imagine, people in Gup City laugh at us to our faces, to say nothing of behind our backs.’

  Then, with a triumphant grin, Blabbermouth stopped outside an extremely imposing doorway and announced, ‘Your bedroom’; at which the doors burst open, and guards seized both of them by the ears and told them to be on their way before they were thrown into the deepest dungeon in the palace, because they had arrived at the bedchamber of King Chattergy himself.

  ‘We’re lost, aren’t we?’ Haroun said.

  ‘So it’s a complicated palace and we’re a little lost,’ Blabbermouth admitted. ‘But aren’t we having a nice chat?’

  This remark so exasperated Haroun that in his exhaustion he swung an arm loosely at Blabbermouth’s head, catching the Page by surprise and knocking off the maroon velvet cap on his head …on her head, that is to say, because as the cap fell to the ground a great torrent of shiny black hair cascaded down over Blabbermouth’s shoulders. ‘What did you do that for?’ wailed the Page. ‘Now you’ve spoilt everything.’

  ‘You’re a girl,’ Haroun said, a little obviously.

>   ‘Shhh,’ hissed Blabbermouth, stuffing her hair back under her cap. ‘You want to get me the sack or what?’ She dragged Haroun into a little alcove and drew a curtain to screen them from view. ‘You think it’s easy for a girl to get a job like this? Don’t you know girls have to fool people every day of their lives if they want to get anywhere? You probably had your whole life handed to you on a plate, probably got a whole mouth full of silver spoons, but some of us have to fight.’

  ‘You mean that just because you’re a girl you aren’t allowed to be a Page?’ Haroun asked, sleepily.

  ‘I suppose you only do what you’re told,’ Blabbermouth hotly rejoined. ‘I suppose you always eat up all the food on your plate, even the cauliflower. I suppose you …’

  ‘At least I could do something perfectly simple like showing someone where their bedroom is,’ Haroun butted in. Blabbermouth suddenly gave a broad, wicked grin. ‘I suppose you always go to bed when you’re told to,’ she said. ‘And you wouldn’t be at all interested in going up on to the palace roof through this secret passageway right here.’

  And so, after Blabbermouth had pushed the button hidden in an elaborately carved wooden panel on one of the alcove’s curved walls, and after they had climbed the staircase that came into view when the panel slid away, Haroun sat on the flat roof of the palace in what was of course still dazzling sunshine, and gazed out at the view of the Land of Gup, and of the Pleasure Garden in which preparations for war were being made, and of the Lagoon in which a great flotilla of mechanical birds was assembling, and out across the endangered Ocean of the Streams of Story. Haroun realized, quite suddenly, that he had never felt more completely alive in his life, even if he was ready to drop with fatigue. And at that exact moment, without a word, Blabbermouth took three soft balls made of golden silk from one of her pockets, tossed them in the air so that they caught the sunlight, and began to juggle.

  She juggled behind her back, over and under her leg, with her eyes closed, and lying down, until Haroun was speechless with admiration; and every so often she’d throw all the balls high into the air, reach into her pockets, and produce more of the soft golden spheres, until she was juggling nine balls, then ten, then eleven. And every time Haroun thought, ‘She can’t possibly keep them all up’, she’d add even more balls to her whirling galaxy of soft, silken suns.

  It occurred to Haroun that Blabbermouth’s juggling reminded him of the greatest performances given by his father, Rashid Khalifa, the Shah of Blah. ‘I always thought storytelling was like juggling,’ he finally found the voice to say. ‘You keep a lot of different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any. So maybe juggling is a kind of storytelling, too.’

  Blabbermouth shrugged, caught up all her golden balls, and tucked them away in her pockets. ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she said. ‘I just wanted you to know who you were dealing with here.’

  ~ ~ ~

  Haroun woke up many hours later in a darkened room (they had finally found his bedroom, after asking another Page for help, and he had fallen asleep five seconds after Blabbermouth drew the heavy curtains and said goodnight).

  Someone was sitting on his chest; someone’s hands were around his throat, squeezing it tightly.

  It was Blabbermouth. ‘Rise and shine,’ she whispered menacingly. ‘And if you tell anyone about me, then the next time you’re asleep I won’t stop squeezing; you may be a good boy but I can be a very bad girl indeed.’

  ‘I won’t tell, I promise,’ Haroun gasped, and Blabbermouth released her grip, and grinned. ‘You’re okay, Haroun Khalifa,’ she said. ‘Now get out of bed before I have to drag you out. Time to report for duty. There’s an army in the Pleasure Garden, getting ready to march.’

  Chapter 7

  Into the Twilight Strip

  ‘Here’s another Princess Rescue Story I’m getting mixed up in,’ thought Haroun, yawning sleepily. ‘I wonder if this one will go wrong, too.’ He didn’t have to wonder for long. ‘By the way,’ Blabbermouth said casually. ‘I took the little liberty, at a certain Water Genie’s express request, of removing, from under your pillow, the Disconnecting Tool which you stole without so much as a by-your-leave.’

  Haroun, aghast, searched frantically through his bedclothes; but the Disconnector was gone, and with it the means of getting an interview with the Walrus in order to get Rashid’s Story Water subscription renewed … ‘I thought you were my friend,’ he said accusingly. Blabbermouth shrugged. ‘Your plan’s totally out of date, anyway,’ she replied. ‘Iff told me all about it; but your father’s here himself now, he can sort out his own problem.’

  ‘You don’t get it,’ Haroun sadly said. ‘I wanted to do it for him.’

  There was a fanfare of trumpets from the Pleasure Garden. Haroun jumped out of bed and ran to the window. Down below him in the Garden was a great commotion, or rustling, of Pages. Hundreds upon hundreds of extremely thin persons in rectangular uniforms that did, in fact, rustle exactly like paper (only much more loudly) were rushing about the Garden in a most disorderly fashion, arguing about the precise order in which they should line up, crying, ‘I’m before you!’ —‘Don’t be ridiculous, that wouldn’t make sense, it’s plain that I must stand ahead of you …’

  All the Pages were numbered, Haroun noted, so it should have been a simple matter to decide upon their sequence. He put this to Blabbermouth, who answered, ‘Things aren’t quite as simple as that in the real world, mister. There are plenty of Pages with the same numbers; so they have to work out which ‘Chapter’ they belong in, in which ‘Volume’, and so forth. Also quite often there are errors in the uniforms, so they’ve got on completely the wrong number anyway.’

  Haroun watched the Pages jostling and arguing and shaking their fists in the air and tripping each other up, just to be awkward, and remarked: ‘It doesn’t seem like a very disciplined army to me.’

  ‘You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,’ snapped Blabbermouth, after which (evidently a little put out) she announced she couldn’t wait for Haroun any longer, as she was already late; and of course Haroun had to race after her, still in his red nightshirt with the purple patches, without even brushing his teeth or hair, and without having had time to point out a number of flaws in her arguments. As they ran along corridors, up staircases, down staircases, through galleries, into courtyards, out of courtyards, along yet more corridors, Haroun panted, ‘In the first place, I wasn’t “judging the book by the cover”, as you suggested, because I could see all the Pages—and, in the second place, this isn’t the “real world”, not at all.’

  ‘Oh, isn’t it?’ Blabbermouth shot back. ‘That’s the trouble with you sad city types: you think a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it’s real.’

  ‘Would you do me a favour?’ Haroun panted. ‘Would you ask somebody the way?’

  ~ ~ ~

  By the time they reached the Garden, the Guppee Army—or ‘Library’—had completed the process of ‘Pagination and Collation’—that is to say, arranging itself in an orderly fashion—which Haroun had observed from his bedroom window. ‘See you later,’ gasped Blabbermouth, and fled in the direction of the Royal Pages in their maroon velvet caps who were standing neatly beside Prince Bolo as he capered and pranced dashingly (but a little foolishly) on his mechanical flying horse.

  Haroun spotted Rashid without difficulty. His father had evidently overslept, too, and was, like Haroun, still tousle-headed and wearing nothing but a somewhat crumpled and dirty blue nightshirt.

  Standing with Rashid Khalifa in a small pavilion full of playing fountains—and now waving cheerfully at Haroun, with the Disconnecting Tool in his hand—was the blue-bearded Water Genie, Iff.

  Haroun put on a burst of speed, and reached them only just in time. ‘ … a great honour to meet you,’ Iff was saying. ‘Especially as it is no longer required to call you the Father of a Little Thief.’ Rashid frowned in puzzlement as Haroun arriv
ed and said hurriedly, ‘I’ll explain later,’ and gave Iff a glare that reduced even him to silence. To change the subject, Haroun added, ‘Dad, wouldn’t you like to meet my other new friends—the really interesting ones, I mean?’

  ~ ~ ~

  ‘For Batcheat and the Ocean!’

  The Guppee forces were ready to depart. The Pages had climbed into the long Barge-Birds waiting for them in the Lagoon; Floating Gardeners and Plentimaw Fishes were likewise at the ready; Water Genies astride their various flying machines stroked their whiskers impatiently. Rashid Khalifa climbed aboard Butt the Hoopoe behind Iff and Haroun. Mali, Goopy and Bagha were by their side. Haroun introduced them to his father; then, with a great cry, they were off.

  ‘How stupid we were not to dress more sensibly!’ Rashid lamented. ‘In these nightshirts, we’ll freeze solid in a few hours.’

  ‘Fortunately,’ said the Water Genie, ‘I brought along a supply of Laminations. Say please and thank you nicely and I might let you have some.’

  ‘Please and thank you nicely,’ Haroun said quickly.

  Laminations turned out to be thin, transparent garments as shiny as dragonfly wings. Haroun and Rashid pulled long shirts of this material over their nightshirts, and drew on long leggings, too. To their amazement the Laminations stuck so tightly to their nightshirts and legs that they seemed to have vanished altogether. All Haroun could make out was a faint gleamy sheen on his clothes and skin that hadn’t been there before.