Maddigan's Fantasia (26 page)

Maddie and Garland climbed into their van. Maddie jumped into the driver’s seat, sighing with relief, started the motor, then swung the van around and moved off down the road, moving, always moving, for, as they had reminded old Gabrielle, the Fantasia always had to move on.

Garland paused
, sitting back and looking at her page. It was true … that new map worked well … just having a map like that made you feel you were in control of life, which meant you were in control of yourself too. Taking a deep breath, Garland grinned at the world around her. ‘This way,’ she could hear Maddie saying. ‘Cross this field … this space … and we find a really good road. We’ve been making great progress over the last day or two. Just as well. The solstice is bearing down on us, but – Solis – here we come.’

‘And the converter with us,’ said Yves. ‘They should send out a city procession to welcome us in. They should pay us too.’

Garland, listening, found confusion creeping in on her. She longed for a Fantasia triumph. She loved to imagine the gates
of Solis swinging wide and people bursting out to mill around them, welcoming them in. She wanted that triumph, but she did not want the triumph to belong to Yves. Maddie must be the one who led the Fantasia into Solis and she herself – Garland – should be up there, too – riding Samala beside Maddie, waving to the crowd, blowing kisses and letting them flutter away from her like wild butterflies into the Solis air. She wanted that entry to be a true triumph of Maddigans.

The vans were moving steadily, but so slowly that she and Timon, Eden and Boomer were still able to stroll side by side, looking forward and sometimes back over their shoulders at the little line of vans crawling through the wilderness. When they were crossing open land they looked as lonely as if they were the only living creatures in an empty echoing world. ‘I hope we get there before the solstice,’ she said.

‘At this rate we will,’ said Timon with such certainty that Garland looked at him with surprise.

‘How can you tell?’ she asked curiously.

Timon named the number of miles to Solis and the number of miles they were making each day.

‘But how can you tell for
sure
?’ asked Garland again.

‘What’s really interesting is why
you
can’t tell,’ Timon said, half joking and half serious. ‘Look! We’re taking steps of a certain size, and those steps add up to the distance. And each time the wheels go round they move us on a certain distance. Add those little distances together and they make up a big distance … all the way from here to there.’ He looked sideways at her as if he were looking at her with someone else’s eyes. And then, as if he did not want her glimpsing the person looking out through him, he looked away and began to joke. ‘We are three million worm’s lengths from Solis … unless the worms are at full stretch of course. Then it’s probably – oh – say about two million and a half.’

Garland laughed, and laughter somehow lightened her.

‘Worms’ lengths,’ grumbled Boomer on her other side. ‘How could you get enough worms to measure a mile?’

‘You’d have to pay them,’ said Timon, and as he looked over at Boomer that strange glint was in his eyes once more. Garland could not see it, but Boomer, about to snap back with a smart answer, caught his breath, then fell silent.

‘Yves is taking all the credit,’ Garland grumbled. ‘But he didn’t find that map. We did.’

‘But really he’s the leader of the Fantasia now,’ said Boomer, bending forward a little so that he could speak around Timon.

‘He isn’t!’ cried Garland. ‘No way! A Maddigan has to be the one to lead Maddigan’s Fantasia. Maddie’s the leader, and Yves has to do what she tells him to do.’

‘Boom! Boom!’ muttered Boomer. ‘That’s drum language for Ha! Ha!’

Garland suddenly felt she just had to be on her own. She peeled herself away from the others, then made for her home van, irritated to see that Yves was now driving it, something he did from time to time.

‘Where’s Mum?’ she asked, swinging herself onto the running board.

‘She wanted to have a break. She’s been behind the wheel all morning,’ said Yves.

‘Well, who’s driving your van?’ asked Garland, and was cross with herself for sounding so grumpy.

‘Tane’s in charge of my bus,’ Yves said. ‘But, anyhow, while you’re here just let me ask you something.’

Garland waited. Yves was silent as if he were thinking out what to say next very carefully indeed.

‘Why are you always so bad-tempered with me?’ he asked at last. ‘I’m working my guts out to keep this show on the road … pushing, pulling, hauling, driving, performing … and all I get
from you are dark looks. Honestly, Garland, it wears me out. And it’s just not fair.’

‘But you’re taking over … bossing everything!’ cried Garland. ‘This is
Maddigan’s
Fantasia and you’re turning it into something else.’

Yves was silent for a moment.

‘Look,’ he said at last. ‘We lost Ferdy … that was a dreadful thing. Ferdy was ringmaster and he was the sort of man who could do anything. And believe it or not he was my best friend. You don’t ever think about that, do you? Losing him – it was a disaster. And I feel grief, just as you do. But it’s like Maddie says. We have to keep on. And though she can do most things, she just can’t do them all. She needs someone to move into Ferdy’s place …’

‘No one can move into Ferdy’s place!’ cried Garland quickly.

‘Maybe not – but we’ve kept going, haven’t we?’ Yves cried back. ‘We’ve done what he would have wanted … we’ve kept going. We won through to Newton. We’ve got that converter. We’ll get back to Solis – well, we’ll probably get back. Nothing’s certain, even now. Nothing’s ever certain. Your mother – believe me, she misses Ferdy every moment of the day. But she’s just too brave to sit around moaning about it.’

Garland and Yves rode on in silence, Garland balanced on the running board while Yves steered the van very carefully in and out of wild broom bushes, spiking upwards into the clear air. Rabbits leapt up and ran in front of them, vanishing into long grass, and the Fantasia dogs that were having a run set off after them, barking excitedly, glad to be simple dogs set free from performing. Ahead of them the scrub and tussock parted to reveal a road once more. Yves settled back into the seat and wriggled his shoulders.

‘You probably know this already, but I’ll tell you anyway,’ he said. ‘I really admire your mother. And you! I think you’re a
great girl. Bad-tempered and a great nuisance at times, always running off and holding us up, but for all that I think you’re a bit of a heroine. You’re like your mother in a lot of ways. Of course all you two can think of at present is grieving for Ferdy. But down the track a bit … I mean things could change … nothing stays still forever and …’

‘Don’t!’ cried Garland. She jumped away from the running board, not wanting to hear what Yves might be about to say, and dropped down into the tussock, falling flat on purpose and rolling over and over like a tumbleweed. Then she pulled herself into a sitting position and glared after the van. She suddenly felt she had driven and walked too much. She suddenly longed to be on her own, riding Samala once more, but as she half turned in the direction of the floats that carried the horses, someone spoke to her.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Timon, coming up beside her.

‘Him!’ said Garland. ‘It’s like I said. He’s planning to take everything over … the Fantasia …
and
my mother … and even me.’ She picked herself up, brushed herself down, and then began walking on, just a little unsteadily to begin with. Yet after a few steps the old familiar rhythm took over. Smoothness came back into the world. Timon walked beside her, saying nothing at first. Then he took a breath. ‘Perhaps you should find some way of getting rid of Yves,’ he said.

Garland was shocked … shocked in such a mixed-up way that, for a moment there, she could make no sense of anything, not even herself. She was shocked not only by what Timon had just suggested, but by the strange silky quality that had crept into his voice. Suddenly it had seemed like a stranger’s voice. And though, only a moment earlier, she had been thinking that she would happily get rid of Yves, hearing Timon actually suggesting it frightened her.

Timon laughed. ‘Just joking,’ he said. ‘Though anyone can tell Yves is out to take over anything he can get.’

‘Yes,’ mumbled Garland. ‘I mean I sort of hate him at times. But I don’t really want to – to hurt him or anything.’

‘Well, there we are then,’ said Timon cheerfully.

So they moved on towards Solis, sometimes walking and sometimes riding on into the late afternoon with their backs to the west. The day deepened and darkened, the setting sun pushing their long shadows out in front of them, and the road, battered but constant, finally led them in amongst trees and then into a full forest. They made camp in a clearing which Garland thought she recognized. Yes! They had certainly been there before. Food was cooked and shared. A few stories were told. Songs were sung and then the Fantasia, with Byrna and Nye setting themselves up as guards for the first part of the night, felt comfortable enough to make for bed. Wind sighed in the trees around them, and somewhere between the roots of the trees, crickets sang busily.

Worn out by capering and carping Garland hugged Maddie, then flopped into her own bunk and fell into dreamless sleep while Maddie worked on by lamplight, sitting at the table that folded out from the wall. After a while Yves looked in on her. ‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.

‘No thanks,’ Maddie said. ‘Just updating a few records. And then I’m off to bed like everyone else. I’m really tired, but we’ve got to be up and away in the morning. Before sunrise would be good.’

Yves paused, staring at her, tangled but still beautiful in the candlelight. Just for a moment he looked as if he might have something important to say, and Maddie looked up questioningly. ‘Anything wrong?’ she asked him, smiling and frowning at the same time.

‘No,’ said Yves. Maddie looked at him, sighed and then laughed.

‘How about a small drink?’ she said. ‘I think we’ve earned it.’

A short time after that, when Yves had gone to his own van, Maddie rolled herself into her bunk. And she did sleep well, breathing deeply … perhaps so deeply that the sound of her own breathing filled her sleeping ears and stopped her hearing anything else.

For, slowly, slowly the door handle edged down. Slowly the door opened, its small creaking sounding like yet another cricket in the night. Darkness filled the van, but the figure sliding in through the door and between the bunks was even darker. It moved slowly and very softly, holding a hand in front of it, fumbling just a little with something it held. Suddenly a thin, pale wand of light struck out into the midnight of the van, waved from left to right accidentally touching Garland’s face so that she mumbled and turned over in her bunk-bed. The light immediately vanished. If Garland had been aware of that light at all, it had simply seemed like part of her dreaming.

Silence. Like a pointing finger the light appeared once again, but neither Maddie nor Garland stirred as their visitor moved to the back of the van. That bright thin finger swung left and right, pointing out a few things to the shadowy shape behind it. The hand advanced to pick some of the things up … and then to replace them quickly and quietly. There at the back of the van the finger … ran left … ran right … and then went out again. Moving very slowly and carefully the black figure, almost indistinguishable from the blackness of the van, reached out ahead of itself.

Its fingers closed on something, struggled to pick it up, but did manage, at last, to hoist it silently off the ground, and then carefully … carefully … inched down the van with it. Still moving, very slowly and quickly, though weighed down on one
side by a heavy package, the figure edged towards the open door. The outside air breathed in, as the figure slid out, taking whatever it had stolen along with it.

Once again the silence took over … but, after all, the silence and the darkness had barely been disturbed.

And then!

And then, suddenly, something wild screamed in the night. Suddenly the whole Fantasia seemed to tremble with a series of thumps! Maddie sat upright in her bunk. Outside a figure, stooping and alert, had dropped out of the trees and onto the roof of the food van … another dropped beside it. Nye, the wakeful guard, swung around staring up into the night, while Byrna, the drowsing guard, jumped up and out, staggering and trying to work out in a jumbled way just where the sound was coming from.

‘Up there! Up there!’ shouted Nye, pointing. There on the roof of the food van someone – some
thing
– was standing … a huge bird, wings spread wide. Nye shouted wildly, and then, as he reached for his gun, the van shivered and began to roll forward … the lights came on and shone ahead of it. At the same time a motor began a soft but powerful purring, and the figure on the roof took off upwards. Nye fired his gun, Byrna his bow and arrow, without quite knowing just what they were shooting at. But the van moved faster and faster, racing past the campfires out of the camp and into the night.

The sound of the shouting and the gunfire had wakened the whole Fantasia. People tumbled out of their tents and vans, confused and alarmed, and came stumbling towards Byrna and Nye shouting. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘They’ve stolen the food van!’ shouted Byrna.

‘What? More Road Rats?’ yelled Tane, coming up to join them.

‘Not rats! Bats!’ Nye shouted back. ‘Great bats swooping out of the air.’

‘Bats?’ Tane said. ‘No way! Think of where we are. We’ve been set on by a gang of Birdboys.’

‘Birdboys?’ cried Yves, coming to a stop, and clapping his hands to his head. ‘Of course. There was that great thump on the roof of my van.’

‘Who are the Birdboys?’ Eden asked Garland.