Gideon the Cutpurse (3 page)

* * *

Back in Dr. Dyer's office Peter asked the researcher if he was interested in antigravity too.
"Only indirectly," replied Dr. Dyer. "Dark matter is more my line."
"Dark matter--"
"Dad," interrupted Kate, "please don't give him a lecture! You said we could do our party piece!"
Dr. Dyer gave Kate a severe look and continued. Kate sighed.
"People who spend a lot of time looking at space are no longer in any doubt that the stars and the galaxies just don't move in the way we'd expect. We suspect that something we can't see and don't understand is having an effect on the movement of the stars.
"Imagine, for instance, that it's the January sales in Oxford Street and you're walking through huge crowds of people. There's no way you could walk in a straight line, is there? You'd get pushed and shoved and you'd have to weave in and out to avoid bumping into everyone else. Now, just suppose that everyone else suddenly became
invisible
. The heaving masses would still be there, walking along and jostling you, but you couldn't
see
them. Now imagine that there were some people watching you from the top of a double-decker bus. What would they think?"
"That I was mad--or drunk, I guess," said Peter.
"I agree, but if the people on the bus observed you very closely, and they decided that you were neither mad nor drunk, how would they explain it? Can you see that they could conclude that you were moving in that peculiar way because of some invisible force? In other words they could guess at the existence of the crowd because of the way
you
were reacting to it. Does that make sense?"
"I think so."
"Well, we now believe that, just as the crowds in Oxford Street would alter how you moved, an invisible, mysterious force is having an effect on the movement of the stars. We think it makes up over ninety percent of our universe, and astronomers call it 'dark matter.'"
"Wow," said Peter. "What do you think it is? Is it here all around us?" he asked, grabbing fistfuls of air and staring at his empty hands.
"I wish I knew!" laughed Dr. Dyer. "But, believe me, this is the most exciting time to be alive in the history of science. By the time you and Kate are old and wrinkly, we will have discovered truly amazing things. Who knows, you might be part of it!"
A whirring, clicking sound made Peter turn to look at Kate. She was cranking, for all she was worth, a handle attached to a shiny metal dome. She paused to catch her breath.
"Do you think that's enough, Dad?"
"Okay, okay, Kate, let's do the Van de Graaff thing. Peter, see what happens when you put your hands on the metal dome."
Peter walked over and did what he was told. Gingerly he put his hands on the shiny dome. A moment later he felt a bizarre prickling sensation in his scalp and he heard Kate screaming with laughter. He reached up to pat his normally floppy brown hair--it was standing on end! Kate was making so much noise that Molly got up on her hind legs and rested her jaw on the window to see what all the fuss was about.
"My turn!" cried Kate. Dr. Dyer took her place, and Kate put her palms on the dome. Kate's bright red hair, which reached almost down to her waist, started to float gently upward. Now Dr. Dyer increased his speed. He cranked the handle round so fast that his hands were one big blur. And as the static electricity flowed into her, Kate's hair rose half a yard above her head until it was perfectly vertical. It was as if she had been hung upside down--except that she was the right way up. Kate made her eyes roll upward to complete the effect, and Peter and her father doubled up with laughter. Molly, on the other hand, did not think this was remotely amusing. She was baring her teeth and growling menacingly. Suddenly she leaped through the open window. In one bound she was in front of the Van de Graaff generator, ready to attack. Kate immediately took one hand off the dome.
"It's all right, Molly, I'm okay." With one hand still on the generator, she reached toward the golden Labrador.
"Don't touch her!" cried Dr. Dyer, just too late. The static electricity flowing from the Van de Graaff generator through Kate's fingers set every hair on Molly's golden coat on end. The poor animal whimpered in fright and she shot like a bullet out of the laboratory door into the corridor before anyone could grab hold of her.
"Quick! Don't let her get away," shouted Dr. Dyer. "Heaven knows what mischief she could find to do in this place."
He raced toward the door and in his haste tripped over a box of printer paper. He fell badly and clutched at his knee, wincing in pain. Peter and Kate rushed to help him.
"Don't worry about me--get that dog!"

* * *

They tore after Molly, hearing the clatter of her claws as she skidded on the gray linoleum. As he ran, Peter watched Kate's red hair in front of him, swishing from side to side as if in slow motion, and every so often he caught a glimpse of Molly's solid form accelerating in front of them. He was dimly aware of hurtling along the long corridor and then down the basement stairs and through a half-open door, aware of just trying to keep up with Kate until, from one second to the next, the course of his life changed, and he charged slap bang into...nothing. The world dissolved for Peter. All sensation ceased. No pain. No noise. No heat. No great light. None of the things you might think would accompany such a momentous event--just an instantaneous, inexplicable, cavernous NOTHING.
A TERRIBLE DREAD CAME OVER ME AS I LAY CONCEALED WITHIN THE BUSH. ALTHOUGH I WAS WELL HIDDEN, TO BE SO CLOSE TO THIS FOUL CREATURE WHO HAD BEEN ON MY TRAIL FOR SO MANY DAYS WAS A TORMENT. I WATCHED THE TAR MAN EXAMINING HIS NEWFOUND TREASURE, HIS FAMILIAR GREASY HAT PERCHED ON HIS CROOKED HEAD. I DO NOT DENY THAT I WAS SORELY TEMPTED TO ESCAPE WHILE THE TAR MAN WAS THUS OCCUPIED WITH HIS UNEXPECTED BOOTY. YET I SAT BACK DOWN IN MY PRICKLY HAWTHORN BUSH, RESOLVED TO FOLLOW MY CONSCIENCE AND STAY WITH THE CHILDREN UNTIL THEY WERE OUT OF DANGER--FOR I KNEW WHAT IT WAS TO FEEL REMORSE. I HAD LEARNED THAT LESSON LONG AGO.

--THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GIDEON SEYMOUR,
CUTPURSE AND GENTLEMAN,
1792

THREE
The Three-Cornered Hat
In which Peter finds himself in a puzzling and precarious predicament

As he was either asleep or unconscious, Peter had no idea of the danger he was in. In his dream he was being sucked down a great, dark tunnel that had no end and no beginning. Spirals of light floated through him, and his whole body tingled as if he were being dissolved in sherbet. It was like a fairground ride, and he did not want it to stop.
He did not notice when the black-and-white cow with the long horns came over and licked the salt from his eyes with her meaty, pink tongue. Streaks of saliva dripped down his cheeks. Peter brushed the longhorn away in his sleep. The sudden movement startled her, and she moved away, giving him sidelong glances now and then.
Nor did Peter notice a menacing figure some five yards behind him, although there was someone else who did: a young, blond-haired man was crouching, fearful, in a thicket of hawthorn bushes some little way away. The frightening individual, whose every movement the young man closely observed, was a tall, powerfully built man who wore a vast, ragged coat and a black hat in the shape of a triangle. He carried his head at a curious angle, and his square shoulders were hunched over the end of a wooden cart to which was tethered a piebald horse. The man was cursing and blowing as he heaved a large, heavy object into position on the cart and attempted to secure it with some oddments of rope. The object appeared to be some kind of device or machine. All of a sudden the man leaped backward away from the cart as if he had received an electric shock. He then stood rooted to the spot for several minutes, clearly too terrified to move. At last he found the courage to approach the object once more.
It was easy to see why he had taken fright: All down the right-hand side, the ropes were sinking into the base of the machine as though into thick mud. And again, on this side but not on the other, the machine itself was becoming transparent, like dark glass. The man took out a fierce-looking knife and, with a trembling hand, struck the solid side of the object, which produced a sharp, ringing sound. Then he struck the transparent side. This time the blade sank instantly and silently into the object and then stuck there as if it were set in stone. The man pulled with all his might, then tried to jerk it out, but to no avail. Frustrated, he let go of the handle and stood scratching his head in bewilderment. As he watched, the knife blade started to slide smoothly out of its own accord as if repelled by the very substance from which the machine had been made.

* * *

Meanwhile Peter was beginning to emerge from his dream world and became aware of a terrible pain throbbing inside his head. It felt as though his brain had grown too large for his skull and was pressing up against the inside of his forehead. He lay quietly, unable to move, gradually becoming conscious of sunshine on his face and a cool breeze that ruffled his hair. He struggled to shift to one side of what felt like a large stone digging into his ribs. Things weren't making sense, but Peter was too dazed and confused to let that bother him. He listened to birds twittering and bees buzzing and crickets chirruping. When he heard a kind of snorting noise, he tried to take a look, but his eyelids refused to obey orders and remained firmly closed. Then he noticed that his legs felt really weird too--almost as if they weren't there. And he longed for something to drink.
Some Coca-Cola would be nice. Oh yes, some ice-cold Coca-Cola would be perfect.
He licked his parched lips and decided to go down to the kitchen to see what he could find.
As Peter concentrated all his efforts on opening his eyelids, a sharp, tweaking pain made him realize that he couldn't open them because his eyelashes were firmly stuck together, crusted over with some dried-up gooey stuff. He tried to work up some spittle in his poor dry mouth, and spat into the palms of his hands. Then he rubbed his eyes furiously. The world, in a blinding flash of sunlight, came into view. He opened and closed his eyes until they stopped watering and he could focus properly again. His eyes widened. This wasn't his home, this wasn't London, this wasn't what he'd been expecting. No, this was most definitely
not
what he'd been expecting.
The cow stood in front of him, tearing up great chunks of grass and snorting through her nose as she chewed. She flicked her tail and twitched her muscles in an effort to shoo away a cloud of flies that hovered around her. Beyond the animal a beautiful valley stretched as far as the eye could see. The grass was long and had turned to hay; dandelion seeds and thistledown floated through the air. Still too woozy to be seriously frightened, Peter reasoned that he was dreaming. The sun seemed terribly bright, and he rested his arm over his eyes to shade them.
And then, so abruptly that he did not have time to react, two gnarled, filthy hands landed on his chest and started to prod and press him through his padded anorak, as if he were a suspect being searched by the police. The hands worked their way from neck to toe, their cunning fingers sliding into every pocket, checking every crease. Peter felt his woollen scarf being pulled from his neck and heard the jingle of coins as his pocket money was removed from his trouser pocket. It was only his sense of self-preservation that kept Peter from screaming. He froze. He had the sense to close his eyes and go limp when he felt his arm being lifted away from his face. The owner of those black fingernails scrutinized him and pinched his cheek. Peter managed not to flinch, held his breath, played dead. A pungent smell of tobacco smoke and ale and stale sweat made him want to retch, but he fought the urge. He could feel those unseen eyes burning into him. By now his heart was thumping so hard he felt certain the man must be able to hear it, but a second later Peter's arm was allowed to flop back down over his eyes.
He let his breath out as slowly and silently as he could manage and cautiously opened his eyelids a crack. Now it was Peter's turn to scrutinize his attacker from under his arm. The man was crouching next to him alternately inspecting the pound coins he had stolen and biting them between his back teeth. Then he turned his attention to Peter's sneakers, stroking the material, examining the soles, pulling at the laces. Peter's heart started to beat even harder--what was so interesting about his sneakers? Was this man a thief, or was he just crazy? The man had a strong, angular nose and black hair that escaped in rats' tails from under a strange triangular hat. The thing that caught Peter's attention above all was a terrible scar, a startling white against his dark weather-beaten skin. The scar snaked down into the man's face in the shape of a crescent moon that started above his right eyebrow and reached down to below his jaw. There was something not quite right about his neck, too, for he held his head constantly tipped to one side.
Now the man stood up and stepped over Peter's legs, but not before giving him a sharp kick to his shins. To Peter's alarm, he could scarcely feel the impact of the kick. A terrible thought flashed into his mind.
Have I been in an accident? Can I walk?
"Never try to hoodwink a hoodwinker," a slow, rasping voice calmly announced. "I know that you are awake." The stranger leaned over and pulled Peter's arm from his face. The sun was low in the sky and when Peter opened his eyes, he was dazzled. He squinted at his assailant, who now knelt at Peter's feet, examining a handful of long bright-red hair. Peter heaved himself up on his elbows as well as he could to see where the hair had come from, and he saw that the body of a girl was draped over his ankles. He all but cried out in shock. Who was she? The man tugged on the hair, pulling up the girl's head from its grassy resting place. He examined her face dispassionately and then lowered the hair, letting the head drop back down into the mud. Peter watched in horror as the man drew out a long knife and pulled on the long red hair once more.
"No! No!" shouted Peter. "Please don't!"
The man turned to look at him, and as Peter stared into that terrible face, he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this was a man capable of anything.
"Life is not kind, young master. Nor fair neither. Haven't you learned that yet? Don't go expecting kindness from one who has been shown none."
Then the man laughed and pinched Peter's cheek again. This time Peter pushed his hand away. The man laughed again and picked up a few strands of the silky red hair and rubbed them between finger and thumb. He cut them and let them float to the ground.
"I could dine handsomely for a month on hair of this quality." He paused and then continued. "You have no cause to fear me--not so long as you're free with your information. If I'd wanted you dead, you'd already be at Saint Peter's gate. But tell me this, if you please: What manner of contraption is it that spews out children more dead than alive onto this desolate place?"