Wild Boy (26 page)

As he spoke, Sir Oswald crouched and unclipped the metal stilts from the tops of his legs. He laid them on the ground and sat again on the stumps of his thighs.

His voice cracked with emotion. “And what about you, Master Wild? Just because you happen to look different from other people, that will define your whole life. You will never be anything other than a freak. That was why I built the machine. For
us,
Master Wild. I built it for
us.
”

Wild Boy tried not to listen. He glimpsed Clarissa again through the half-open caravan door. He had to do
something.

“Did you not dream of it?” Sir Oswald said. “When you watched people around the fairground, did you not imagine living their lives? And when you saw the Gentlemen’s machine, when you knew that it was real . . . Did you not want it for yourself?”

Wild Boy shook his head. He had wanted to use the machine, but not anymore. “You’re wrong,” he said. “I ain’t just a freak and neither were you. You were my friend.”

“I still am, Master Wild.”

“Then let her go.”

Sir Oswald gave another sad smile. “No, I cannot. I have come too far now. The machine works, and I will hang if I do not use it. And for that, I am afraid I require Miss Everett. You see, I have made some more improvements to our old home. . . .”

He reached up and pulled away another of the banners, and then another, exposing the van’s extraordinary skeleton of machinery — a mesh of copper wires and twisting pipes that looked like the heart of the Gentlemen’s machine in the tower.

“This device operates in the same way as their machine,” Sir Oswald said. “The wheels generate the electricity, which is channeled into the crowns. I shall wear one crown, Miss Everett the other. Once we travel fast enough, this machine will come to life. My mind will be transferred into her body, and hers into mine.”

For the first time, Wild Boy realized that the van’s horses were harnessed and ready to ride. He had to get Clarissa out of there
now.

He burst for the door, but something hard crashed against the back of his skull and he collapsed to the ground. He tried to get up, but his head whirled and he slumped back. Through the rain and dizziness, he saw that he’d been struck by one of Sir Oswald’s metal legs.

Sir Oswald came closer, walking on his hands. Carefully, kindly, he raised Wild Boy’s head and slid his cloak beneath. “I am truly sorry, Master Wild,” he said. “I never wished to hurt you.”

He climbed up into the driver’s perch and fastened the other mechanical crown to his head. Wires trailed from the device into the caravan behind him — into his machine. “I hope we will meet again, old friend. And when we do, I will look very different.”

Sir Oswald lashed the horses, and the machine began to move.

“No . . .” Wild Boy groaned. “Please . . .”

He struggled up and staggered after them, but he was too slow. As the machine rumbled onto the street, it gathered pace. Its pipes and wires began to crackle and glow, turning white with heat and then blue with electrical fire.

“Clarissa!” Wild Boy yelled.

“Ya! Ya!” cried a voice.

Wild Boy dived aside as another carriage burst into the street. He was stunned to see that it was the Lord Mayor’s golden coach, and Marcus was driving it. The Gentleman slowed the carriage down as he waited for him to catch up. “Hurry!”

As soon as Wild Boy was inside, Marcus lashed the reins and they were away again, racing through the rain — after Sir Oswald, after Clarissa, after the machine.

“T
hat’s him! Go faster!”

Wild Boy tumbled back onto the seat as the Lord Mayor’s coach jolted over cracks in the road. Two wheels came off the ground and the carriage almost tipped over before slamming back to the broken surface.

Drunken crowds ran screaming from the street. A chestnut seller dived out of the way, only to see his tin stove crushed like paper beneath the coach’s wheels. Sparks flew, but Marcus wasn’t slowing down. The coach tore through a washing line, smashed down a shop sign, ripped through a pile of newspapers. Front pages flapped up into the rain, screaming
WILD BOY AND CLARISSA STILL AT LARGE!

“Ya! Ya!”

Rain whipped Wild Boy’s face as he leaned from the window. He could just see his old caravan, a hundred yards ahead. No, not a caravan — it was a machine on wheels. Electricity crackled along the pipes and wires that crisscrossed its wooden walls. The iron wheels scattered sparks in their path. Sir Oswald sat in the driver’s perch, connected to the machine by one of the mechanical crowns.

“The machine,” Marcus said. “It’s starting to work.”

Wild Boy felt useless, helpless. All he could do was watch as the machine grew even brighter, streaking blue light in its wake. What was happening to Clarissa in there?

“The bridge!” he cried. “He’s heading for the bridge!”

The narrow street widened into the broad thoroughfare of London Bridge. Workers downed tools and fled as the two vehicles clattered toward them. Sir Oswald’s machine hit a pickax, slowing it down for vital moments. Seizing his chance, Marcus urged his horses on until the carriages were racing side by side, separated by a line of builder’s blocks that ran along the middle of the bridge.

Wild Boy
had
to stop that van. And he could think of only one way.

He slid across the coach and pushed open the window. Orange blurs of gaslight streaked past as the carriage sped along the bridge. He didn’t let himself stop and think about what he was doing. In one quick move he pulled himself out through the window.

Wind and driving rain threatened to tear him off the side of the coach. But he clung tight to the golden frame and climbed up onto the roof.

“Marcus!” he shouted. “Get closer to the machine!”

Marcus pulled the reins, steering the Mayor’s coach even closer to the center of the bridge. Two wheels scraped the stone divide, spraying sparks. This was as near as they could get but they were still yards away.

Wild Boy glimpsed himself in the reflection of the machine’s pipes. He looked every bit as terrified as he felt. But he remembered the look in Clarissa’s eyes when he’d struck her in the Tower, and the promise he’d made to save her.

He jumped.

“AAAAGH!”

He landed hard on top of the machine. He tried to grasp one of the pipes, but the speed flipped him sideways. His head hit wood as he fell over the side. Only his foot, caught between the pipes as he fell, saved him from tumbling to the street. He swung across the side of the machine, so close to the grinding wheel that it shaved the hair on his cheek.

The machine glowed brighter. The pipes throbbed. The wires fizzed.

Wild Boy felt the heat burn his coat and scorch the hair on his back. The van door swung open and he saw Clarissa inside, her pale face shining blue in the machine’s electrical storm. She’d managed to shake off her gag but she remained tied to the wall, with the crown screwed to her head. She stopped struggling, surprised to see Wild Boy hanging upside down outside the door.

“Help me, then!” she screamed.

“I’m trying!” Wild Boy replied.

Struggling against the wind, he reached up and gripped one of the van’s wooden slats. His hand brushed a pipe, and a shock of electricity shot down his arm. But he fought away the pain and pulled himself back onto the roof.

Now that he was close to Sir Oswald, Wild Boy didn’t know what to do. Just a few days ago, this man had been his friend. Was it true what he’d said — that he had not meant to kill the Professor or Doctor Griffin?

It didn’t matter. He just had to stop this machine.

He leaned forward and took hold of the wires that trailed from Sir Oswald’s crown. And then he yanked. He hoped to tear them from the device, severing its connection to Clarissa. But Sir Oswald’s head swung back and caught the edge of the van roof, knocking him out cold. His hands slipped from the reins and he slumped forward.

“Get up!” Wild Boy yelled at him.

He reached past him and grabbed one of the reins. But the horses were too scared to slow down. They ran even faster, out of control.

Marcus tried to steer the Mayor’s coach closer, but couldn’t pass the stone barrier. “Get Miss Everett out of there!” he shouted.

Edging back, Wild Boy pulled open the hatch in the roof and slid through. He dropped straight down and landed inside the van.

“What are you doing?” Clarissa cried.

“It’s a rescue. . . .”

“
Rescue?
We’re going to crash! Why did you take so long?”

Wild Boy grunted — there was no pleasing some people. Dragging himself up, he began to unscrew the crown from around Clarrisa’s head. He lifted it away and untied the ropes that bound her to the wall. The van shook as its wheels crashed against the blocks in the road.

“Hurry!” Clarissa said.

“I
am
hurrying!”

“Hurry faster!”

The van jolted again, harder. “What was that?” Clarissa said as she pulled free of the ropes.

Wild Boy pushed the van door open and looked outside. “The horses! They’ve broken free!”

The animals had jumped the stone barrier that divided the bridge, but the machine hadn’t followed. Its wheels crashed against the blocks, and now it was on its own, trailing sparks through the rain. At any moment it could plunge from the bridge.

“We have to jump,” Clarissa said.

Marcus drove his coach as close as possible to the runaway machine. If Wild Boy and Clarissa were lucky, they could leap and cling on to its railings.

“Go!” Wild Boy yelled.

Clarissa jumped. Instinct guided her hands — she caught the golden frame of the Mayor’s coach, flung the door open, and swung inside. “Come on!” she called.

Wild Boy was about to follow, but he glanced back. The hatch to the driver’s perch was open, and he saw Sir Oswald unconscious in his seat. He couldn’t just leave him.

“No,” Clarissa said. “Wild Boy, don’t!”

But he was already back inside the van, reaching through the hatch for his old friend. “Sir Oswald!” he shouted. “Wake up!”

Too late. The van’s wheels hit the rubble where workers had been repairing the edge of the bridge. Wild Boy tumbled back as the machine flipped over and crashed onto its side in a burst of sparks. It skidded across the surface . . . and came to a shuddering halt half on and half off the bridge.

The pipes groaned, glowing paler as the electricity in the machine died out.

The van creaked, wobbled. Inside, Wild Boy lay at the wrong end of the see saw, staring up at the open caravan door. Rain poured through, hissing against hot metal. He didn’t dare move, terrified that whatever he did would send the van over the edge.

“Master Wild . . .”

The driver’s hatch hung open. Sir Oswald sat in his perch, held in by a strap over the stumps of his thighs. The machine’s crown had slipped on his head. He looked like a sad, broken king on his throne.

He stared down at the dark river. He knew that it was his weight that was tipping the van over the edge. His hands shook as he reached to unfasten the strap.

“I am sorry, Master Wild,” he said. “I am sorry for everything.”

“No, Sir Oswald. Don’t . . .”

“All I wanted was to help you. Just tell me you believe that.”

Wild Boy did, and he said so. Despite everything his friend had done, he didn’t want him to die. “Please, Sir Oswald. You don’t have to do this.”

Sir Oswald looked back through the hatch. Tears glistened in his eyes, but he managed one last smile for his old friend. “Poppycock,” he said.

He unfastened the strap, and fell.

Sir Oswald didn’t scream, didn’t make a sound other than the splash from hitting the water. The scream came from Wild Boy — a desperate, heartbroken cry that filled the van and shook its walls as he watched the river swallow his friend. But, at the same time, he’d never felt so strong. Sir Oswald had done that for him — so now, more than ever, he was determined to survive.

The caravan tipped back toward the bridge but still threatened to slide over the edge. The open door was right above him. He had to get through and leap to safety.

Now,
he urged himself.
Now!

He sprang up and reached for the door. He managed to grasp the edge, but now the caravan swung from the bridge. It slid over the side and plummeted down. . . .

Wild Boy cried out, but he didn’t fall with the van. Instead he remained hanging in the air. At first he didn’t understand what had happened. Then he looked up and yelled in delight.

A pale face smiled down at him, dotted with bright freckles. Clarissa dangled upside down from a rope, its other end held by Marcus on the bridge above. She’d jumped from the bridge, catching Wild Boy’s hand as the van fell.

Her grin spread wider. “
This
is a rescue,” she said.

Slowly Marcus hauled them up, until they both stood safely on the bridge. Wild Boy shook all over from his brush with death, the pain in his shoulder, and his grief that Sir Oswald was gone.

But he had kept his promise. Exhausted, he leaned against Clarissa, each propping the other up. Fiery red hairs tumbled over burnt brown ones.