Haroun and the Sea of Stories (5 page)

‘It’s no use—I won’t be able to do it—I’m finished, finished for good!’

Haroun tiptoed to the connecting door and very carefully opened it, just a crack; and peeped. He saw the Shah of Blah in a plain blue nightshirt without any purple patches at all, pacing miserably around his peacock bed, muttering to himself while the floorboards creaked and moaned. ‘ “Only praising tales” indeed. I am the Ocean of Notions, not some office-boy for them to boss about! —But no, what am I saying? —I’ll get up on stage and find nothing in my mouth but
arks
. —Then they’ll slice me in pieces, it’ll be all up with me, finito,
khattam-shud
! —Much better to stop fooling myself, give it all up, go into retirement, cancel my subscription. —Because the magic’s gone, gone for ever, ever since she left.’

Then he turned to stare at the connecting door and called loudly, ‘Who’s there?’ So there was nothing for it; Haroun had to say, ‘It’s me. I couldn’t sleep. I think it’s the turtle,’ he added. ‘It’s just too weird.’

Rashid nodded gravely. ‘It’s a funny thing, but I’ve been having trouble with this peacock, myself. For me a turtle would be better. How do you feel about the bird?’

‘Definitely better,’ Haroun admitted. ‘A bird sounds okay.’

So Haroun and Rashid exchanged bedrooms; and that was why the Water Genie who visited
Arabian Nights Plus One
that night and crept into the Peacock Room found an unsleeping boy of about his own size staring him in the face.

~ ~ ~

To be precise: Haroun had just dozed off when he was woken by a creaking and a rumbling and a groaning and a mumbling; so his first thought was that his father hadn’t found the turtle any easier to sleep on than the peacock. Then he realized that the noise wasn’t coming from the Turtle Room, but from his own bathroom. The bathroom door was open and the light was on, and as Haroun watched he saw, silhouetted in the open doorway, a figure almost too astonishing for words.

It had an outsize onion for a head and outsize aubergines for legs, and it was holding a toolbox in one hand and what looked like a monkey wrench in the other. A burglar!

Haroun tiptoed towards the bathroom. The being inside was talking non-stop in a mumbling, grumbling way.

‘Put it in, take it out. The fellow comes up here, so I have to come and install it, rush job, never mind my workload. —Then, wham, bam, he cancels his subscription, and guess who has to come back and take the equipment out, right away, pronto, you’d think there was a fire. —Now where did I put the blasted thing? —Has somebody been meddling? —Can’t trust anybody any more. —Okay, okay, okay, let’s be methodical. —Hot tap, cold tap, go halfway in between, go up in the air six inches, and there should be your Story Tap. —So where’s it gone? Who’s pinched it? —Whoops, what’s this? —Oho, aha, is that where you are? Thought you could hide from me but I’ve got you now. Okay. Time to Disconnect.’

While this remarkable monologue was being delivered, Haroun Khalifa moved his head very, very slowly, until half an eye was looking around the door-jamb into the bathroom: where he saw a small, ancient-looking man, no bigger than himself, wearing a huge purple turban on his head (that was the ‘onion’) and baggy silk pajamas gathered at the ankles (those were the ‘aubergines’). This little fellow sported an impressive full set of whiskers, of a most unusual colour: the palest, most delicate shade of sky blue.

Haroun had never seen blue hair before, and leant forward a little in curiosity; whereupon, to his horror, the floorboard on which he stood emitted a loud, unarguable creak. The blue-beard whirled about, spun all the way round three times, and disappeared; but in his haste he let the monkey wrench fall from his hand. Haroun dashed into the bathroom, grabbed it and held it close.

Slowly and in what seemed like a most disgruntled fashion (though it was hard for Haroun to be sure of this, as he’d never seen anyone materializing before), the little blue-beard reappeared in the bathroom. ‘No kidding, enough’s enough, party’s over, fair’s fair,’ he snapped. ‘Give it back.’

‘No,’ replied Haroun.

‘The Disconnector,’ the other pointed. ‘Hand it over, return to sender, restore to rightful owner; give up, yield, surrender.’

Now Haroun noticed that the tool he held was no more like a monkey wrench than the blue-beard’s head was like an onion: in other words, it had the general outline of a wrench, but it was somehow more fluid than solid, and was made up of thousands of little veins flowing with differently coloured liquids, all held together by some unbelievable, invisible force. It was beautiful.

‘You’re not getting it back,’ Haroun said firmly, ‘until you tell me what you’re doing here. Are you a burglar? Shall I call the cops?’

‘Mission impossible to divulge,’ the little man sulked. ‘Top secret, classified, eyes-only info; certainly not to be revealed to smarty-pants boys in red nightshirts with purple patches who snatch what isn’t theirs and then accuse other people of being thieves.’

‘Very well,’ Haroun said. ‘Then I’ll wake my father.’

‘No,’ said the blue-beard sharply. ‘No adults. Rules and regulations, totally forbidden, more than my job’s worth. O, I knew this would be a terrible day.’

‘I’m waiting,’ said Haroun severely.

The little fellow drew himself up to his full height. ‘I am the Water Genie, Iff,’ he said crossly, ‘from the Ocean of the Streams of Story.’

Haroun’s heart thumped. ‘Are you trying to claim you’re really one of those Genies my father told me about?’

‘Supplier of Story Water from the Great Story Sea,’ the other bowed. ‘Precisely; the same; none other; it is I. However, I regret to report, the gentleman no longer requires the service; has discontinued narrative activities, thrown in the towel, packed it in. He has cancelled his subscription. Hence my presence, for purposes of Disconnection. To which end, please to return my Tool.’

‘Not so fast,’ said Haroun, whose head was spinning, not only at the discovery that there really were Water Genies, that the Great Story Sea wasn’t
only a story
, but also at the revelation that Rashid had quit, given up, buttoned his lip. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said to the Genie Iff. ‘How did he send the message? I’ve been right with him almost all the time.’

‘He sent it by the usual means,’ Iff shrugged. ‘A P2C2E.’

‘And what is that?’

‘Obvious,’ said the Water Genie with a wicked grin. ‘It’s a Process Too Complicated To Explain.’ Then he saw how upset Haroun was, and added: ‘In this case, it involves Thought Beams. We tune in and listen to his thoughts. It’s an advanced technology.’

‘Advanced or not,’ Haroun retorted, ‘you’ve made a mistake this time, you’re up the spout, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’ He heard himself beginning to sound like the Water Genie, and shook his head to clear it. ‘My father has definitely not given up. You can’t cut off his Story Water supply.’

‘Orders,’ said Iff. ‘All queries to be taken up with the Grand Comptroller.’

‘Grand Comptroller of what?’ Haroun wanted to know.

‘Of the Processes Too Complicated To Explain, of course. At P2C2E House, Gup City, Kahani. All letters to be addressed to the Walrus.’

‘Who’s the Walrus?’

‘You don’t concentrate, do you?’ Iff replied. ‘At P2C2E House in Gup City there are many brilliant persons employed, but there is only one Grand Comptroller. They are the Eggheads. He is the Walrus. Got it now? Understood?’

Haroun absorbed all this information. ‘And how does the letter get there?’ he asked. The Water Genie giggled softly. ‘It doesn’t,’ he answered. ‘You see the beauty of the scheme.’

‘I certainly don’t,’ Haroun retorted. ‘And anyway, even if you do turn off your Story Water, my father will still be able to tell stories.’

‘Anybody can tell stories,’ Iff replied. ‘Liars, and cheats, and crooks, for example. But for stories with that Extra Ingredient, ah, for those, even the best storytellers need the Story Waters. Storytelling needs fuel, just like a car; and if you don’t have the Water, you just run out of Steam.’

‘Why should I believe a word you say,’ Haroun argued, ‘when I can’t see anything in this bathroom except for a perfectly ordinary bath, toilet, basin, and some perfectly ordinary taps marked Cold and Hot?’

‘Feel here,’ said the Water Genie, pointing to a patch of empty air six inches above the basin. ‘Take the Disconnecting Tool, and just tap it against this space where you imagine nothing to be.’ Dubiously, suspecting a trick, and only after instructing the Water Genie to stand well back, Haroun did as he was told.
Ding
went the Disconnecting Tool as it struck something extremely solid and extremely invisible.

‘There she blows,’ cried the Water Genie, grinning widely. ‘The Story Tap: voilà.’

‘I still don’t get it,’ Haroun frowned. ‘Where
is
this Ocean of yours? And how does the Story Water get into this invisible Tap? How does the plumbing work?’ He saw the wicked glint in Iff’s eye and answered his own question with a sigh: ‘Don’t tell me, I know. By a Process Too Complicated To Explain.’

‘Bull’s-eye,’ said the Water Genie. ‘Got it in one, ten out often, spot on.’

Now Haroun Khalifa made a decision that would prove to be the most important decision of his life. ‘Mr Iff,’ he said politely but firmly, ‘you must take me to Gup City to see the Walrus, so that I can get this stupid blunder about my father’s Water supply reversed before it’s too late.’

Iff shook his head and spread his arms wide. ‘Impossible,’ he said. ‘No can do, it’s off the menu, don’t even dream about it. Access to Gup City in Kahani, by the shores of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, is strictly restricted, completely forbidden, one hundred per cent banned, except to accredited personnel; like, for instance, me. But you? No chance, not in a million years, no way, José.’

‘In which case,’ Haroun said sweetly, ‘you’ll just have to go back without this’—and here he waved the Disconnecting Tool in the blue-beard’s face—‘and see how They like
that
.’

There was a long silence.

‘Okay,’ said the Water Genie. ‘You’ve got me bang to rights, it’s a done deal. Let’s make tracks, scram, vamoose. I mean: if we’re going, let’s
go
.’

Haroun’s heart sank rapidly towards his toes. ‘You mean,’ he stammered, ‘
now
?’

‘Now,’ said Iff. Haroun took a slow, deep breath.

‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Now.’

Chapter 4

An Iff and a Butt

‘So pick a bird,’ the Water Genie commanded. ‘Any bird.’ This was puzzling. ‘The only bird around here is a wooden peacock,’ Haroun pointed out, reasonably enough. Iff gave a snort of disgust. ‘A person may choose what he cannot see,’ he said, as if explaining something very obvious to a very foolish individual. ‘A person may mention a bird’s name even if the creature is not present and correct: crow, quail, hummingbird, bulbul, mynah, parrot, kite. A person may even select a flying creature of his own invention, for example winged horse, flying turtle, airborne whale, space serpent, aeromouse. To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it—well, that’s a way of bringing the said thing into being. Or, in this case, the said bird or Imaginary Flying Organism.’

‘That may be true where you come from,’ Haroun argued. ‘But in these parts stricter rules apply.’

‘In these parts,’ rejoined blue-bearded Iff, ‘I am having my time wasted by a Disconnector Thief who will not trust in what he can’t see. How much have you seen, eh, Thieflet? Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there? And submarines? Huh? Also hailstones, baseballs, pagodas? Goldmines? Kangaroos, Mount Fujiyama, the North Pole? And the past, did it happen? And the future, will it come? Believe in your own eyes and you’ll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.’

With that he plunged his hand into a pocket of his auberginey pajamas, and when he brought it forth again it was bunched into a fist. ‘So take a look, or I should say a
gander
, at the enclosed.’ He opened his hand; and Haroun’s yes almost fell out of his head.

Tiny birds were walking about on the Water Genie’s palm; and pecking at it; and flapping their miniature wings to hover just above it. And as well as birds there were fabulous winged creatures out of legends: an Assyrian lion with the head of a bearded man and a pair of large hairy wings growing out of its flanks; and winged monkeys, flying saucers, tiny angels, levitating (and apparently air-breathing) fish. ‘What’s your pleasure, select, choose,’ Iff urged. And although it seemed obvious to Haroun that these magical creatures were so small that they couldn’t possibly have carried so much as a bitten-off fingernail, he decided not to argue and pointed at a tiny crested bird that was giving him a sidelong look through one highly intelligent eye.

‘So i’s the Hoopoe for us,’ the Water Genie said, sounding almost impressed. ‘Perhaps you know, Disconnector Thief, that in the old stories the Hoopoe is the bird that leads all other birds through many dangerous places to their ultimate goal. Well, well. Who knows, young Thieflet, who you may turn out to be. But no time for speculation now,’ he concluded, and with that rushed to the window and hurled the tiny Hoopoe out into the night.