Un Lun Dun

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 sidekick.”