Un Lun Dun

60. Insurgent Verbiage

“No way!” Hemi said. “That’s not on!”

“You promised!” the book said.

“I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT,” MR. Speaker said. “A PROMISE IS WORDS. I’M MR. SPEAKER! WORDS MEAN WHATEVER I WANT. WORDS DO WHAT I TELL THEM!”

His voice echoed in the enormous room, and the utterlings jumped up and down enthusiastically. Deeba looked around at the utterlings holding her, felt the strength of their grip. She thought quickly.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.

Silence settled, and all the eyes in the room turned to Deeba.

“WHAT?” Mr. Speaker said.

“Well,” said Deeba. “I don’t think words do what anyone tells them all the time.”

Hemi was looking at her with at least as much bewilderment on his face as Mr. Speaker had.

“What are you on about?” Hemi said.

“YES, WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT?”

Deeba paused to admire about, an utterling like a living spiderweb.

“Words don’t always mean what we want them to,” she said. “None of us. Not even you.” The room was quiet. All the people and things in it were listening.

“Like…if someone shouts ‘Hey you!’ at someone in the street, but someone else turns around. The words misbehaved. They didn’t call the person they were meant to. Or if you see someone at a party and they’re wearing something mad, and you say ‘That’s some outfit!’ and they think you’re being rude, but you meant it really.

“Or like if someone says something’s bad and people think they mean bad bad and they mean good bad. Or…” Deeba giggled, remembering one of the Blyton books her mother had given her, saying she had enjoyed it when she was Deeba’s age. “Or like that old book with a girl’s name that just sounds rude now.”

The utterlings were twitching, and staring at her. Mr. Speaker was flinching. He looked sick.

“Or even,” Deeba said, “like some words that mean something but they’ve got like a feeling of something else, so if you say them, you might be saying something you don’t mean to. Like if I say someone’s really nice then I might mean it, but it sounds a little bit like they’re boring. You know?”

“Yeah,” said Hemi. “Yeah.”

“The thing is,” Deeba said, eyeing Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.”

“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS NONSENSE!” Mr. Speaker spluttered, burping four confused creatures, but Deeba interrupted him.

“So, you might think all these words have to obey you. But they don’t.”

“NO MORE SPEAKING! UTTERLINGS, TAKE HER AWAY!”

The utterlings were staring at Deeba, absolutely still, their eyes enormous. None of them moved. Mr. Speaker’s face went dark purple with rage.

“UTTERLINGS!” he shrieked.

“Even your words don’t always do what you want,” Deeba said. She wasn’t looking at Mr. Speaker, though. She was looking at the utterlings, and she raised her eyebrows.

“TAKE HER AWAY!”

Some of the utterlings tightened their grips, but others were loosening them. Standing in a little group nearby, looking at Deeba uncertainly, were the silver locust, the many-legged bear, the bee, and the staring thing: the utterlings of London slang.

“I bet you could shut him up,” Deeba said to them. “I bet you don’t really have to do what he says.”

Hesitantly, the four utterlings turned and looked at Mr. Speaker. They moved towards him.

For a moment it was only those four, but very quickly, others joined them. The four-legged four-armed little man who had captured Deeba was one of a crew bearing down on Mr. Speaker, who was so apoplectic with rage he wasn’t even saying words— just screeching.

Other utterlings stood protectively before him, and the two groups began to struggle. But it didn’t last long. The loyal utterlings were confused. The others, the rebellious words, started in a minority, but grew in numbers quickly. Deeba felt the hands gripping her let go one by one.

“STOP!” shouted Mr. Speaker, and spat out one last enormous utterling, a bewildered three-legged blob, but then the renegade words swarmed him. They clambered over Mr. Speaker’s body, and he flailed his weak arms and legs, trying and failing to bat them away.

Something like a long saggy hat wrapped a tentacle around his mouth, and others held him down. Mr. Speaker squashed down in his throne, and struggled and mmmmmed and tried to look fierce with only his eyes.

It was no good. His obedient utterlings had scattered. His words had revolted.

“What d’you reckon they’ll do?” Hemi said.

“Dunno,” Deeba said.

It was dawn. Awhile after the utterlings had subdued their speaker, they had ceremoniously ushered Deeba and her companions to sleeping quarters and given them supper, all with immense exaggerated bows. The travelers had slept, and woken refreshed, and Deeba was eager to get going.

They were escorted by a gaggle of the silently squabbling utterlings that were attempting to organize things. The utterlings showed them out with pomp and politeness.

“Might not last,” the book muttered. “The smaller ones’ll ebb and disappear before long. Mr. Speaker’ll be trying to whisper new ones all the time, and he’ll try to talk more loyal ones into existence. And there must be some who want to get back to obeying him, waiting for the right moment…”

“God, don’t you ever stop moaning?” snapped Deeba. “Miserable git[9].” She could see Mr. Speaker, still trapped and gagged in his chair. “Give them a chance.”

The utterlings made Where? motions.

“Where are we going?” said Deeba, stroking Curdle.

“That way,” Hemi said, pointing into the streets.

“We’re looking for a forest,” Deeba said. “We have to find something. Quickly. In fact…” She looked at the utterlings. They were small, but strong, and inquisitive. “In fact, do any of you want to come with us?”

“What?” said the book.

“Why not? The more the better.”

The utterlings looked at her and at each other. After a few seconds, the majority, with ostentatious mimes of Thanks and Regret for not being able to accompany you, went back to the rest of their silently squabbling kind. But three came to stand with the travelers.

One was the silver-furred locust; one was the bear with a pair of legs too many; and one was the four-armed four-legged several-eyed little man. They looked at Deeba and Hemi shyly.

“That’s brilliant!” said Deeba. “Cool. Let me see if I remember…” She pointed at the bear. “You’re Diss,” she said. It nodded and reared on its hind four legs. It had no mouth, but Deeba knew it was smiling.

“And you…” She pointed at the locust. “You’re Bling.” The arm-sized insect fluffed up its silver coat.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are,” she said to the many-limbed man. “You got spoke before I got here. What are you?” The man sketched shapes in the air.

Deeba shook her head. “What is it…? Paraffin? Paintbrush? Purpose?”

The utterling shook its mouthless head.

“Redcurrant?” said Hemi. “Blackjack?” No, it mimed.

“Quiddity?” said the book. “Sesquipedalian? Oh this is ridiculous. We’re never going to guess like this. Out of all the words in the whole language, how—”

“Cauldron,” Deeba said, looking at the utterling with her head on one side. It jumped up and down and nodded and threw up its four arms and spun in a jig.

Hemi stared at Deeba in openmouthed delight.

“How could you possibly tell?” the book said.

“I dunno.” Deeba shrugged airily. “Doesn’t it look like the word cauldron to you?”

They set off under the early light of the UnSun, leaving the utterlings to bicker and bargain with each other and chaotically start to make decisions. Deeba, Hemi, Curdle, and the book walked out of the Talklands to look for a forest in a house, accompanied by the words Cauldron, Diss, and Bling.