Un Lun Dun

90. Stitch

“Sir?” she heard Lectern say anxiously. “Do you have to? Couldn’t you…send her home or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Now, I have to have words with my colleague.”

But as Deeba ached and fought to get air into her lungs, the Smog wisps around her thickened. It regarded her, with globs of smoke like eyes on stalks. She heard a scraping voice.

“Brokkenbroll,” it said. “Stop. The girl…is intriguing. I want to breathe her. And I want her breathing while I do.”

“Ah,” said Brokkenbroll, uncomfortably. “Good.” He was looking at the fumes about him. “Have you been listening, then?”

Deeba’s ears were starting to sing.

“The girl,” said the voice.

Brokkenbroll snapped his fingers, and the unbrella released her neck. Deeba wheezed and gasped. The unbrella leapt down and hooked her ankles together instead. Another unbrella did the same to her wrists.

“Fine, there, it’s done,” Brokkenbroll said. “Now, I need to talk to you about what’s going on.”

He glanced irritably at Deeba. She was immobilized, unbrellas shackling her ankles and wrists.

“Bring the weapon,” the voice said. “I want to see what’s so special about it. I don’t like having something so…threatening floating around. I’ll breathe it later. Then I’ll learn it. All the prophecies are…unclear.”

“What do you mean you’ll breathe it?” It was another voice coming from behind the door. A tremulous old man’s. Deeba recognized it. “Who are you talking to, Unstible?” It was Mortar.

“Hush,” the Unstible-Smog said. “Quiet. Brokkenbroll…come.”

Brokkenbroll entered the laboratory, and with a last miserable look at Deeba, Lectern followed him. The Smog in the air around Deeba withdrew like a film of a fire run backwards, sucking back through the doorway, leaving the air cold, thin, and clean.

“Unstible,” Deeba heard Brokkenbroll say. “Things aren’t going according to the plan we made. What’s happening? That awful girl was making all sorts of accusations—”

“Lectern…?” Mortar said. “You’ve come to join us? And is that you, book? So…are we winning? Against the Smog?”

“Oh Mortar,” Deeba heard Lectern say sadly. “Smell the air.”

Deeba struggled.

The unbrellas’ grip was unrelenting. She could shift her arms a little one way and the other, but she could not pull them, or her ankles, apart, or free.

There was a snuffling at her feet.

“Curdle,” she whispered. The little milk carton crept through the immobile unbrellas and rolled into her lap, wheezing air in and out happily. “Oh, Curdle.”

Deeba struggled again, but the unbrellas were too strong. Deeba sighed. She bit her lip.

“Put the UnGun down,” the grating voice said.

“There’s only one bullet left, apparently,” she heard Brokkenbroll say.

“Where did you get that?” Mortar said, in a heartbreakingly feeble voice. “Might we be able to use it?”

“Brokkenbroll, UnLondoners are getting uppity. Things are going wrong. Hence change of plan. Need some more help. We’re not ready yet. Take the elevator— find Murgatroyd. Or Rawley. Take the woman and go.”

“You think?” said the Unbrellissimo. “I doubt Murgatroyd or his boss’ll be willing to part with any more police, or come down themselves. They were doing us a favor in the first place.”

“Worth a try.” The Unstible-thing’s voice was loud and angry, and Brokkenbroll was silent. “Put the UnGun down, put the book down, and go.”

“Very well,” Brokkenbroll said. “Of course. It’s a good idea…I’ll…go and ask…”

“And leave an unbrella to help me.”

There was a pause.

“I will not,” said Brokkenbroll nervously. “I think you forget we’re partners. The unbrellas are my servants.”

Deeba heard the clank of metal, a gate slid into place. There was a receding mechanical grind.

“Oh well,” the voice muttered. “Never thought I’d get rid of him.”

“Oh my lord…” muttered Mortar. “What have I done?”

“Sleep.” There was a whoosh like wind, and Mortar’s voice petered out to nothing.

I need to get these things off me, Deeba thought, and wriggled her wrists again. Curdle grabbed the unbrella with its cardboard spout. Deeba heard the book.

“Brokkenbroll’ll realize you’re double-crossing him,” it said. “Probably does already.”

“Silly unbrella man,” Unstible-Smog said. “It’s too late for him now.”

“When he realizes and joins us, you know—”

“Book.” The voice was heavy. “I am very busy. Last experiments. Chemistry. Working on this a long time. Breathed a lot of books. Very helpful, those librarians. Provided me a lot of fuel. Now I need to focus. I would rather not deal with you or ’Broll or the stupid old Propheseer. But make me pay attention to you and I will. In fact,” it said with sudden greed, “not got any chemistry chapters in you…?”

“No,” said the book hurriedly. “Nothing but geography. And half of that’s wrong. Shtum, me.”

There was the sound of tearing, and a quick cry.

Deeba strained again, but it was hopeless. She slumped and closed her eyes.

It’s no good, she thought. I’ve come so far, I got so near what we had to do, and it’s going to finish like this. I can’t get out. Brokkenbroll controls the broken umbrellas completely.

“Wait,” she said aloud. Her eyes snapped open. The broken ones…

She examined her old umbrella. Its shaft and folded-up canopy lay flat beneath her, its crook around her legs. She examined the long gash in the canopy, which tore straight through several of the lizards.

Deeba frowned. There was an idea swimming somewhere in her head, and she strained to catch it.

“Curdle,” she whispered. “I need you to fetch something. In my bag. See? The pouch! Fetch!”

The little carton followed her frantic nods eagerly. One by one, it began to drag things out of the bag.

“No,” she said, “not the socks. Not the notebook. Not the…not my keys, no. The little black thing. No. No. No. Yes!”

With her hands gripped together, it wasn’t easy to open her sewing kit, but eventually Deeba did so, and drew out a needle and thread. It was even harder to bend down to the unbrella holding her feet, with the other one around her wrists, but slowly and carefully Deeba managed it. She used one of the needles that Obaday had given her, and she would have sworn it seemed to help her, dipping and stitching with simple metal enthusiasm. Curdle hopped excitedly around her.

With crude, ugly loops of thread, all she could manage with her two hands working together, Deeba began to repair her umbrella. She listened to the murmurs of the Unstible-thing behind the door, trying to work out what it was doing. And as she did so, she clumsily sewed up the split that had ruined her umbrella’s canopy.

The instant Deeba had put the last stitch into the unbrella, and closed the tear, it quivered. It trembled, and something changed.

The red-and-lizard thing shook itself like an animal waking up. Deeba held her breath. It moved fitfully, then slowly unhooked from her ankles and turned on its handle, opening and stretching its fabric in what could have been a yawn.

It turned, and the eyes of the biggest lizard faced Deeba.

“Yes,” whispered Deeba. “I did it!” She bit her lip to stop herself shouting in delight. She watched what had once been her umbrella hopping around the corridor, bending to examine things around it.

“Hey,” she whispered, and it turned to her. “Do you remember me? From a long time ago.”

It paused for several seconds, then nodded its tip uncertainly up and down.

“Do you remember a minute ago you were gripping me?”

It nodded. Vehemently.

“But you don’t want to hold my legs?” She gesticulated at her ankles. The unbrella bent to look at them. It raised its canopy a tiny bit and lowered it again. An umbrella-shrug. Then it shook it no.

“You had to. You were ordered. And now you don’t have to obey.”

It nodded and jumped and spun, and cartwheeled, and bounced from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. It opened and closed and flew in little jerks.

It’s free! It doesn’t have to do what Brokkenbroll says! Deeba thought.

It’s not an unbrella at all, anymore. It’s something else. When it was an umbrella, it was completely for one thing. When it was broken, it didn’t do that anymore, so it was something else, and that’s when it was Brokkenbroll’s. His slave.

But if it’s fixed…It’s not unbroken— then it would be an umbrella, just a dumb tool again. But now it’s not broken either, so it’s not his anymore.

It’s something new. It’s not an umbrella, and it’s not an unbrella. It’s…

“What are you?” muttered Deeba. “A rebrella?” Whatever it is, she thought, it’s its own thing, now.

“You like being free,” she said. The rebrella nodded enthusiastically. “In return…would you help me?”

The floor was littered with glass, and splintered wood from the window frames. There were little metal rods, too, a few inches long, that had secured the windows closed.

Curdle and the rebrella picked up random broken bits and brought them each to Deeba.

“No, not the glass,” she said. “The rod. Yeah, that’s it.”

The unbrella that held her wrists was bent in the middle of its shaft. It took a lot of effort, but with the help of the rebrella— and the enthusiastic unhelpful participation of Curdle— Deeba held it firmly. The rebrella forced it open, and Deeba held a rod flush with the unbrella’s shaft. Between them they managed to unbend it and wrap sticking-tape around and around her captor and the metal rod, binding them together, bracing the unbrella straight.

And suddenly, fixed like that, it wasn’t an unbrella at all. It sprang away from Deeba’s hands and did a dance of delight, like the first rebrella had.

With her hands and legs free, Deeba was able to get hold of the remaining unbrellas in turn. They didn’t fight— their orders had been to hold still.

Two were so broken Deeba couldn’t fix them. The others she patched up quickly. None of them looked good, but very soon Deeba was surrounded by four delighted rebrellas, jumping with the pleasure of no longer being Brokkenbroll’s to control. They were like animals playing.

Her mind raced. She was painfully conscious of how time was passing, that her friends were waiting, and that she had only one last chance to stop the Smog.

“Will you help me?” she said. She had to say it a few times before the rebrellas lined up, seemingly eager. The exception was the red-and-lizard rebrella, which was quicker. Perhaps because it was mine for ages, she thought, it understands me.

“Here’s what I need you to do,” she said. “When I say ‘Attack!’ do this.” She made exaggerated hitting motions.

She knew the Unstible-thing was very strong, but the rebrellas had been un- brellas, all treated with the chemical goo that rendered them invulnerable to the Smog’s attacks. There was poetic justice, she thought— the props the Smog had made to help it take over the city with Brokkenbroll would now be turned against it.

There was a blue rebrella she had sewed up, a yellow one the shaft of which she had straightened, and a black one that had been the easiest to fix: it had just been inverted, and she had snapped it back the right way around.

“There’s no way we’ll be able to sneak in. There’s one chance. I need you to help me,” she said to the red rebrella.

For a moment, she remembered playing with it in the yards of her estate, twirling it like a sword. She wondered what those memories were like for it— for it, two whole lives ago. Perhaps they were like dreams.

“While these three are attacking,” she said, “I need you to fetch something.”

When she had done explaining, Deeba hesitated. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, she knew things were coming to an end.