I think he must have clicked his fingers. Whatever he has done, the leather boots that belong to the leather-coat man have vanished.
Still, I don’t trust that he has gone altogether. I am as jumpy as a bedbug.
“The president, sir,” says a Greenfly, who has come over to where the pigwig stands. He hands him a telephone that is connected to a long wire.
The pigwig takes the phone, stands to attention, and gives the salute of the Motherland. He doesn’t say a word. Just the salute and then he hands the phone back to the guard.
“It’s an order from the president,” he announces. “The flag must wave in the breeze.”
The wind machine is pulled into position, everyone is on standby. The countdown begins.
For the first time I am aware that Hector is near me.
“Don’t worry, Standish,” he says softly. “We will do this together like we always did.”
“But what if they catch you here?” I say.
He smiles. “They won’t.”
I know that.
How the fricking hell am I going to unclip the invisible wire while the guard and the man in the brown overalls have their beady eyes on me?
“Stand by,” shouts the director from his position on the crane.
The eyes of the world are tuned in to us. On a TV set, a very crackly picture of the surface of the moon comes into view.
The landing craft makes a perfect touchdown, scattering the silver sand. The puffs of air are more powerful than before, strong enough to make a miniature sandstorm. The man in brown overalls is riveted by the sight.
The landing craft doors slide open, and there is the astronaut. He floats down the steps. The only mistake is that he lands a centimeter off the footprint, but not enough for anyone to notice.
When both feet are on the ground, he says, “This is to prove to the enemies of the Motherland that we will rule for all eternity.”
Now begins the much-practiced moon walk. I can do this, I know I can. I have been thinking of nothing else since . . . since Hector’s ghost came to stand beside me.
The astronaut is half jumping, half walking. I am bobbing up-down, up-down, landing on each of my markers.
Maybe it is this that makes both the Greenfly and the man in brown overalls take their eyes off me. They are glued to the TV.
The astronaut is unfolding the flag. One more leap, then he is in the right position.
Hector says, “Now, Standish, now.”
That’s when I unclip the wire. That’s when I make my move.
The astronaut, who has been enjoying the false sense of weightlessness, tumbles, stumbles, falls, drops the flag. I reckon I have than less than thirty seconds before I am caught. I scramble up the steps, out of the trench. I have the belt in my hand.
Hector is with me. I stand in front of the camera and stretch the belt out so that Gramps’s words can be seen. Maybe even he can see them. I hope so.
It starts with one weak voice.
“And did those feet in ancient time . . .”
Then other voices join in. The voices of all the workers fill this slaughterhouse.
“Walk upon England’s mountains green . . .”
For a moment the Greenflies, the leather-coat man, and the pigwigs stand speechless. This is my moment. Not even one minute, just a moment. But maybe all it needs is a moment to change the course of history. I am on the moon. I am the stone. The plug is pulled on the maggot moon.
The machine guns begin to fire, the shells rain around me like shooting stars. I just hope the world saw me. I just hope I’ve thrown myself hard enough into the nightmare that is the Motherland. People are running in every direction inside that atrocity of a building. Hector is waving to me — I know he has found the way out. Mr. Lush is coming towards me.
“Can you see him?” I ask. “He’s over there.”
“Who?” he says.
“Hector.”
We weave in and out of the panicking crowd, until Hector shows me the door. I push the bar down and we are out into the dawn of a new day. Before us Zone Seven is rising from the mist.
Mr. Lush has hold of me, unsure what to do.
“Follow Hector,” I say, and point down the hill. We run away, roll away, throw ourselves onto the grass. Only now do I see the blood. It is coming from me.
“I did it, I fricking did it, didn’t I?”
“You did, Standish, you did it,” says Mr. Lush. “Just hold on.”
I know I’m in trouble. And I think I have held on long enough.
“Stay with me, Standish, you will be all right.”
Mr. Lush’s voice seems to be from a distant planet.
It is Hector who pulls me to my feet. He has found a car, a huge, ice-cream-colored Cadillac. I can smell the leather. Bright blue, sky blue, leather seats blue. Hector sits in the back. Me with my arm resting on the chrome of the wound-down window, my hand on the wheel. I am driving us home to Mrs. Lush in her shiny kitchen with a checked tablecloth in a house where the grass looks as if it’s been Hoovered.
You see, only in the land of Croca-Colas does the sun shine in Technicolor. Life lived at the end of the rainbow.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2012 by Sally Gardner
Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Julian Crouch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2013
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012947247
ISBN 978-0-7636-6553-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6573-9 (electronic)
The illustrations were created digitally.
Candlewick Press
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visit us at www.candlewick.com
Sally Gardner, Maggot Moon
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