Gideon the Cutpurse (4 page)

* * *

Behind them an unseen hand from within a large hawthorn bush aimed a stone at the flank of the piebald horse. The stone found its target, and the old mare whinnied in pain and shock. She strained to shift the heavy cart up the slope and was soon disappearing at a fast canter over the brow of the hill. The curious machine lurched precariously on the back of the cart.
The man looked from Peter to the escaping animal and back again, undecided what to do. Then he sprang up and set off in hot pursuit of his horse and cart. He was a powerful and surprisingly elegant runner. Peter had the feeling that, despite his wrecked face, this was still quite a young man. He turned at the top of the slope and shouted down to Peter so that his voice echoed all around the valley, "I have other, pressing matters to attend to. Find me at the Black Lion Tavern in Covent Garden if you want to see your infernal machine again--and if you have any sense, don't come empty-handed. Ask for Blueskin, though many do call me the Tar Man."

* * *

The Tar Man was now lost to view in the next valley, and Peter listened to the distant rumble of the cart growing fainter and fainter. He let his head sink back onto a clump of buttercups. He felt sick and faint, and the pain in his head throbbed unbearably. The Tar Man--what kind of a name was that? What infernal machine? He stared up at a hawk hovering above him in the pale blue sky and thought of nothing at all. The limp body of the girl was still bundled across his ankles, her bright hair trailing in the mud next to his feet. Soon Peter slipped out of the real world and lost consciousness once more. This time he dreamt that he was a spider caught at the bottom of a glass, and each time he started to climb out, he found himself sliding back to the bottom.

* * *

By the time Dr. Dyer had picked himself up off the floor and got down to the basement, there was no sign of the children. Molly soon reappeared, although she was trembling with fright. "Kate! Peter!" called Dr. Dyer at the top of his voice. There was an eerie silence. Dr. Dyer had the feeling in the pit of his stomach that something terrible had occurred. He looked round at Tim's laboratory, and his feeling of dread increased. The antigravity machine was gone! For a moment, where the machine should have been, Dr. Dyer had the strange sensation that he was seeing the blade of a knife, point down, floating in midair. He shook his head and looked again. It was gone. "Kate! Peter!" he shouted. "Molly's here. Where are you? Lunch will be getting cold!"

FOUR
The Howl of a Wolf
In which the police and Kate come to some conclusions about their predicament and the children spend the night in a birch wood

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"
Peter was instantly awake again. He propped himself up on his elbows and gawped at the strange girl who was silhouetted against the crimson sky as the last rays of the sun lit up the valley that stretched out before him. Her screams echoed all around, bouncing off one slope after another until each one repeated itself, deafeningly, three or four times. Peter watched the girl staring in horror at a handful of hair that she held in front of her. The sight of the red hair reminded him of something...a memory flickered tantalizingly on the surface of his mind, then vanished just as quickly. Peter's head throbbed even more sitting like this, and he slumped back down into the long grass.

* * *

As frightened as she had ever been in her life, Kate looked wildly around her, quite incapable of making any sense of what had happened to her. Where on earth was she? And what kind of creepy person would cut off a chunk of her hair? And where was that person now? She let go of the clump of hair, and the breeze carried it toward a giant thistle, where the long red strands got caught up in its spiky leaves, like horsehair on barbed wire. The sight of it was strangely upsetting. She screamed again.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"
Peter put his hands over his ears. His head hurt far too much to cope with this.
Kate didn't particularly want to stop screaming, because when she did she was going to have to decide what else to do--and frankly that was going to be difficult. Where was her dad? Where was Molly? What--
"Shut up!" shouted Peter over the racket.
Kate's mouth remained open, but no more noise came out as she looked down at the skinny boy who sat gaping up at her. His dark hair was sticking up on end, and buttercup petals were sticking to his cheek. He looked as horrified as she felt.
"Oh no, it's you!" she exclaimed. Bits of straw and dry mud were now stuck to her matted hair.
"I don't know you!" cried Peter. "Who are you? What have you done to me?"
Kate walked unsteadily over to Peter. She sank down onto her knees next to him and tore the hair away from her face, showing a mass of golden freckles over pale cheeks, and frightened gray eyes. All the screaming had made her voice husky.
"What do you mean, you don't know me? I've only been forced to spend half the morning with you...except then it was winter and now it's summer, and then we were with my dad and now we're...in this place. I knew you were going to be trouble as soon as I saw you."
Peter looked at her in silent astonishment. He was so confused, he could not tell whether this was dream or reality. The girl looked familiar, but he really couldn't remember who she was.
"Are you all right?" Kate asked. "You're ever so pale. Did you know you've got a massive bruise on your forehead?" She touched him where a large purple bruise was blossoming on his temple, and Peter winced.
"And I've lost Molly! Oh, Molly, Molly, where are you?"
Kate was on the verge of crying again and quickly turned away from Peter and reached into her pocket for a handkerchief. She blew her nose noisily and sat quietly for a minute to compose herself.
There has to be a logical explanation for all this! I just can't see it right now.... And it must be because Peter's been hit on the head that he can't remember who I am.
Peter turned to watch Kate get to her feet purposefully. She sprinted up the slope behind him, shading her eyes and scanning the horizon for signs of life. Then she whistled through her teeth like the farmers do at sheepdog trials. "Molly, come!" she shouted. "Molly, come!"
Peter lay watching this scene play out like a film at the cinema. It began to seem like this was happening to someone else, when, suddenly, an excruciating tingling pain started to run up and down Peter's legs like an electric current. He writhed in agony, rolling backward and forward in the long grass and clutching at the calves of his legs. It was Peter's turn to let out a piercing shriek that ricocheted across the peaceful landscape. He tried to stand up and immediately fell over. As his shoulder blades hit the ground, there was a suspicious squelching sound. Peter was in too much pain to take any notice for the moment.
"Help me! Somebody help me! Ow, ow, owwww..."
Kate was at his side in a moment. "Now what am I supposed to do?" she cried. She stood looking down at his squirming body, her jaw clenched and her lips pursed together. Despite Peter's continued moans she began to look more cheerful.
"I know what's wrong with you," she said. "I woke up lying over your ankles. You've just got pins and needles." And Kate began to rub his legs vigorously like she did when she helped her mother dry Milly and Sean after a paddle at the seaside. "Stamp your feet," she suggested. "By the way, do you know that you're lying in a cowpat?"
It was several minutes before Peter could bear to put any weight on his feet. Kate was now squatting in the long grass, staring into space. It was clear that she was thinking hard. Peter stood up and wiped his anorak on some long grass, taking a long sideways look at the unfamiliar girl as he did so. She noticed him and her face went into a lopsided sort of frown with one eyebrow higher than the other. Peter instantly knew who she was. It was as though someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over his head--he recognized the girl and could remember her father and all her brothers and sisters, and the Van de Graaff generator, and Kate and himself chasing Molly down a long white corridor. What he couldn't remember, or begin to understand, was
how
he and the girl found themselves here in this beautiful, deserted valley.

* * *

"You're Kate," he said.
"Yes, I know that," said Kate. "Why don't you tell me something I don't know, like how we got here?"
"But I don't know," replied Peter. "I can't remember."
"Well, try," said Kate. "Think back. Try and picture everything that happened between this morning and the last thing you do remember, and look for clues. That's what I'm trying to do. Something very weird has happened to us today. One of us has got to work out what."

* * *

Molly could not be persuaded to leave Tim's laboratory. When Dr. Dyer tried to pull her away, she bared her teeth and snarled at him as if he were a stranger. Alarmed and fearful, he left her there and ran out into the icy sunshine.
"Kate! Peter!" he cried over and over again until he grew hoarse. But the only sound was the wind in the pine trees. He rushed back to Tim's laboratory, where Molly was now howling in a way that Dr. Dyer had never heard before--the animal's unearthly cries chilled him more than the wind. What could possibly have happened to provoke Molly's heartrending howls of despair?
After half an hour Dr. Dyer decided that he had better call his wife. He did his best to disguise the growing panic that he felt, but Mrs. Dyer picked up on it immediately. When she arrived at the laboratory barely ten minutes later and saw the look on her husband's face, her blood turned to ice.
"Oh, no," she said in a small, thin voice. "Oh, no."
After another fruitless search the security guards contacted the police. Kate's parents sat side by side in the guards' room with more sickening fear in the pit of their stomachs than they would have believed possible to bear. And what could they say to Peter's father? The boy had been in their care.... They did not speak and they could not cry. Every time a pager bleeped or a telephone rang, they both leaped to their feet only to sink back down again when it was a false alarm.

* * *

It took the police two hours to track down Peter's father. It took another few minutes for what they were telling him to sink in, and then he got straight into his car and drove from central London to Derbyshire without stopping. He told himself that Peter would be there, safe and sound, when he reached the Dyers' farm. But what if he wasn't? How he wished he had taken Peter on his birthday treat instead of going to that useless meeting. How he wished Peter's last words to him that morning hadn't been "I hate you!"

* * *

The police arrived in force at the NCRDM laboratories at a quarter to three. Flashing orange lights illuminated fat flakes of snow before the flakes settled on the roofs of a line of police cars. Six uniformed police officers made a thorough search of the laboratories and grounds and questioned all the staff, but they found no trace of Peter or Kate and no clue as to where they might be.
When Mr. Schock arrived at half past five and was informed that Peter had not yet been found, he telephoned his wife in California, where she was still sleeping, and broke the awful news to her. She wanted to catch the first plane back, but her husband stopped her--after all, it was quite likely that as soon as he put the receiver down, Peter would turn up, right as rain.... She agreed to delay returning for three hours but no longer.
Meanwhile a policewoman had driven Mrs. Dyer back to the farm, and Dr. Dyer was taken to the police station at Bakewell, where he remained for the next three hours. The national and local media were alerted, and by six o'clock a senior police officer had been assigned to the case.
Detective Inspector Wheeler was a Scotsman by birth and was now close to retirement. He had been in charge of numerous high-profile investigations in his time, including several cases of missing persons, all of which he had seen through to their happy or tragic conclusions. He was well respected. He was also notorious for his bad temper, his dogged obstinacy, and his dedication to the job.
When Dr. Tim Williamson confirmed that the prototype for an antigravity machine that he was designing as part of a NASA-funded project had gone missing, it was suggested that the children might have been abducted when they came across thieves attempting to steal the equipment. Dr. Williamson argued that his machine was worthless--why would anyone want to steal a device that was barely at the testing stage? Detective Inspector Wheeler secretly formed the opinion that there was more to this machine than Dr. Williamson was prepared to admit. All his instincts told him that this was not going to be a straightforward case--but then, if there was one thing Inspector Wheeler relished, it was a challenge.

* * *

"Did you see what happened to my hair?" asked Kate.
"So I didn't dream it!" exclaimed Peter, whose muzzy head was finally beginning to clear. He told Kate as much as he could remember about the Tar Man and their conversation.
"He was going to
sell
my hair?" she repeated incredulously. "And what did this machine contraption thingy look like, then?"
"I didn't get a good look at it. I only saw it on the back of the cart when the horse was galloping away. Could have been anything. Sort of cube-shaped. Well, a cube that's taller than it is wide."
"A cuboid, you mean," said Kate.
Peter shrugged his shoulders. "If you say so."
"Could it have been Tim's antigravity machine?"
"Maybe..."
"What's the last thing you can remember before waking up here?" Kate asked.
"Chasing your dog down the corridor. You were in front of me. I guess someone must have hit me on the head. What do you remember?"
"Chasing after Molly, like you. She was headed for Tim's lab. And I've got a picture of spirals, floating spirals of light. Perhaps I was hit on the head too." She felt her head, searching for lumps.
Peter and Kate fell silent and stood in the ever darkening valley, lost in their own thoughts, trying to understand their puzzling predicament. Both were tired and shaky and in need of food, especially Peter, whose face was gray with exhaustion. Yet they could not bring themselves to sit down, because both of them were waiting. Waiting to jump up and down and wave their arms about when the rescue helicopter or the police car arrived. After all, it was just a matter of time, wasn't it?
Kate stooped to pick a silky red poppy and a blue cornflower. Just how can it have been nearly Christmas at lunchtime and midsummer by late afternoon? And what godforsaken place was this? She was used to living in the countryside but had never been anywhere this isolated: no distant rumble of traffic, no electricity pylons, no roads, not even a hint of a vapor trail left in the sky by an airplane. And why, infuriatingly, could she not remember what had happened whilst chasing Molly down the corridor? Why, when she tried to recall what had happened next, did these shapes keep forming in her mind--long, loose, luminous spirals that seemed to pass right through her? And who precisely was this Tar Man person?
She looked over at Peter, who was kicking clods of earth high into the air. He had plunged his hands deep into his trouser pockets, and his head was drooping miserably.
I wonder how much help bean sprout over there is going to be,
Kate thought.
"You know what I think?" said Kate.
"What?"
"I think we must have both been hit over the head by thieves. The machine--I think they must have stolen it from the laboratory and had to take us with them because we were witnesses. I think we've been taken to Australia."
"Australia! You're not serious!"
"Or maybe New Zealand...Well, you explain why it's suddenly summer, then. Do you think it's more likely that we've been unconscious for six months?"
Peter scratched his head. "Mmm...but if they stole the machine, why did they dump it here for the Tar Man to find?"
"Well, I don't know," replied Kate. "Perhaps they couldn't carry everything. Or they were disturbed."
"And why bring us all the way here just to dump us? If they knocked us over the head, why didn't they just leave us at your dad's lab?" asked Peter.
"All right. I don't know. But I do think we're in Australia. And I definitely think we should stay here until they come to rescue us. They'll be searching everywhere for us."
Peter nodded. "They'd better be.... You don't have anything to drink, do you?"
"Don't you think I would have offered you some if I had? What sort of person do you think I am?"
Peter did not reply.
They both fell silent again.
"Maybe we should shout for help," suggested Kate after a while. "After all, the Tar Man must be long gone by now. There might be someone close by..."
Peter shrugged. "Okay. It's worth a try."
"Help!" shrieked Kate.
"You really do have a loud voice," said Peter, wincing.
"Good," Kate replied. "Aren't you going to join in?"
"Hee-eelp!" they both shouted. "Help!"
Whenever they stopped, the silence seemed even deeper. Discouraged, Peter started to yodel instead.
"Yo-del-ay-ee-o! Yo-del-ay-ee-o! Yo-del-ay-ee yo-del-ay-ee yo-del-ay-ee-o!" Kate grinned for the first time since waking up in this strange land. She added her voice to the din. They yodeled faster and faster until their throats hurt too much to continue. Then Peter just shouted out whatever came into his head: "Tottenham Hotspur! Lightning Conductor! Diplodocus!" Each phrase came diving back to him like a boomerang.
Kate answered, "Manchester United! Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious!"