Un Lun Dun

61. Hired Help

“So you know where the forest-in-a-house is?” Deeba said.

“I do,” the book said. “It’s written in me. And I’ve no reason to think that’s wrong. But we’re stopping off somewhere else first.”

Deeba could not help being self-conscious at the head of such a peculiar group, but no one they passed paid them any particular attention. People were too busy keeping an eye on the skies for Smog attack, their unbrellas at the ready.

“Why?” Deeba said. “We should hurry.”

“How much money do you have?” the book said.

Deeba sifted through the few out-of-date pounds, dollars, a little pack of marks and francs and pesetas from before Europe got the euro, and many dog-eared rupees. As she gathered it, Hemi hesitated, then pulled out the notes she’d given him and added them to her pile.

“You can owe me that,” he said. “If it’ll help to have a bit extra now. Pay me back later, alright?”

“Right, cheers,” she said, carefully not looking at him. “That’s what we’ve got. Why?”

“Perfect,” the book said. “Because where we’re going, we’ll need some help. We’re going to hire someone.”

“When we get into the forest-in-a-house,” it said, “we’re looking for a bird. A particular bird. Its name’s Parakeetus Claviger. We need something it has.”

“The featherkey,” said Deeba.

“Exactly. And it’s going to be nigh-on impossible to get it. The chapter in me about the Shwazzy getting hold of the featherkey makes a point of telling lots of stories about how many people’ve failed because they can’t find Claviger, or understand it, and so on.”

“And hiring someone’ll help?”

“Just wait,” the book said. “It’ll be indispensable.”

It led them to an area of old wooden buildings, interspersed with the reconstituted junk of moil tech.

“So who is this bloke?” said Deeba.

“There’s no shortage of hireable bravos in UnLondon,” the book said. “And I was wondering who we should approach, when I remembered one in particular. He doesn’t live far. His name’s Yorick Cavea. He has all sorts of the usual qualities necessary for endeavors like this: once he fought off an entire horde of giraffes armed only with a corset-stay, believe it or not.” The book let that sink in. “He also fancies himself a bit of an explorer, which combined with the money’s why we’ll probably be able to entice him. Let me do the talking. Here we are.” They stood by a front door.

“Have we got time for this?” Deeba said to Hemi. “Do we need him?”

“Yeah, and are we going to have to go up against giraffes?” said Hemi.

“How’s this Cavea going to help with Claviger?” Deeba said. Then the door opened, and she said, “Ah.”

Yorick Cavea was a tall man. He wore a silk dressing gown and held a glass of whiskey or something. But on his human shoulders, Cavea’s head was an old-fashioned bell-shaped birdcage. Inside it was a mirror, a cuttlefish bone, and a small pretty bird gripping a little swing.

The bird chirped.

“Ah, Yorick,” the book said. “Nice to see you again too.” Cavea shook Deeba’s hand, Hemi’s, and Cauldron’s with its human arm. The bird whistled.

“Always straight to the point, eh, Yorick?” the book said. “Well, this young lady has an offer she’d like to make you. Deeba?”

Deeba fanned out a chunk of her money. The bird stared at it. “Tweet,” it said, and Cavea’s man-hands steepled together.

“Well of course,” the book said. “I wouldn’t expect you to be swayed merely by something so vulgar as money. But there’s more at stake. You wouldn’t expect me to go into detail here— one never knows who’s listening. But suffice to say…it’s going to be quite the expedition.”

Cavea pondered. The bird twittered.

“Dangerous, certainly,” the book said. “And suited to your unique capabilities.”

Another whistle.

“Yes, of course we’ll wait.”

Yorick Cavea disappeared for a minute in his house, emerging in an old-fashioned khaki safari suit and swinging an unbrella.

“Wait,” said Deeba. “You can’t bring that.”

The bird sang a few questioning notes.

“Sorry old chap, rules of this particular engagement,” the book said. Cavea stood still for a moment. In the cage-head, the little bird sang on its swing. “It’d take too long to explain, but she’s right, it’s for the best.”

Cavea threw the unbrella back in the house and closed the door, complaining in vociferous avian tones.

“Don’t worry,” the book said. “We’ll keep watch for Smog. Half up front. That’s only fair.”

Deeba tucked a wad of the cash into Cavea’s inside pocket. They followed the book’s directions into the UnLondon afternoon, through different landscapes of the abcity, at last into a warren of narrow streets.

Deeba tried to make conversation with Cavea, but while it was obvious that the bird in the cage could understand her polite questions, she didn’t understand any of its whistled answers. Mr. Cavea took the book under his arm. The bird plumped its plumage and warbled.

At some points the streets were crowded: at other times they were the only people they could see, and Cavea’s lovely singsong was all they could hear, apart perhaps from the tiniest whisper of houses. Hemi and Deeba walked side by side.

“What you looking for?” said Deeba. Hemi was examining chalk- and scratch-marks on some of the houses they passed.

“Just seeing who’s who and what’s what round here,” Hemi murmured.

“What you on about?”

“There are signs only a few of us know how to read,” he said. “For stashes, caches, emptish houses, that sort of thing.”

“Signs for who? Ghosts?”

“No, for…” He scratched his chin. “Alternative shoppers.”

“Thieves?!”

“Right then,” the book interrupted.

They were by an anonymous brick terrace. The houses were three stories high, in conventional red brick with black slate roofs. Shoppers milled where the road met others, and people leaned at several of the front doors, chatting to neighbors. If it weren’t for the eccentric look of some of the inhabitants, it could almost have passed for a residential street in London. Almost.

“We’re here,” said the book.

“We never are,” murmured Hemi.

One house was bursting with leaves. They pressed up against the glass of every window from the inside, blocking off any view within. They squeezed out from below the panes, and through the gaps at the top and bottom of the front door. A little plume of ivy poked from the chimney.

The caged bird on top of Mr. Cavea’s body began singing fervently, the book interjecting.

“Come come,” the book said. “I’m not denying it’s dangerous. That’s ridiculous. There were no false pretenses. Well then there’s no problem— just walk away. Of course. But then there’s no payment. And you won’t be part of the expedition that gets deep into the forest.” Mr. Cavea hesitated, the bird fluttering in agitation.

“No one’s asking you to do anything much,” the book said. “Honestly? All we want you to do is engage someone in conversation. Aha. That’s right, you’ve got it.”

The bird stared at the money, its head cocked on one side.

“You’re not heading in, are you?” The speaker was an elderly man, sitting on the doorstep opposite. He was dressed in a skirt of animal tails. He scratched his beard and sipped a hot drink and shook his head wisely.

“I’d not,” he said. “See them there?” He pointed at a rope stub emerging from behind the front door. “That was where the last lot of explorers set off. That’s where they set up a base camp, they did, but never saw ’em again. Heard rumors though. Heard noises at night. It’s a rum[18] place, the forest, full of noises. No one knows its paths. I’ve lived here near on fifty years, and I’ve never been in nor never would. No, if I was you—”

Cavea squawked an interruption.

“I agree,” muttered the book. Mr. Cavea’s human body yanked open the front door. “He says he’d go in even if we weren’t paying him anything. Just to get away from that bloke.”

Deeba followed them. The utterlings and Hemi went with her. The old man opposite was left watching openmouthed as they hurried into the dark interior of the house, and into the forest.