Archer's Goon

  “Where’s Torquil put Fifi?” Erskine asked doggedly.

  “Ask Torquil. Don’t bother me now,” said Shine, and vanished.

  “Get me Torquil!” shouted Erskine.

  “Better tell Archer first,” Venturus suggested, and reached around him to press the top button. This proved to be a mistake. The wall lit up, but it lit in a storm of blue sparks, which came raining and spitting out of the wall into Erskine’s face. Erskine backed away, with his leather jacket smoking. Venturus had forgotten what Archer’s rages were like. He put his arm over his face and tried to turn Archer off. His hair sizzled and his skin stung, and the control button, when he reached it, was too hot to touch. He was wrapping his sleeve over his hand to try again when there was a run of blue sparks along the entire communications console, followed by a tremendous bang. The whole thing went dead, in a thick smell of burning.

  “Bad rage,” Erskine remarked. “Have to see Archer.” He set off in great strides, out of the domed room, through the antechamber, and down the hall. He was halfway along it before Venturus caught up.

  “Erskine! I can’t go! I’ll be a baby the moment I go outside!”

  “Carry you,” said Erskine, striding on.

  “Erskine!” shouted Venturus, setting the echoes ringing. “Honestly, you really are a Goon sometimes! Do you want to spend another thirteen years in the sewers?”

  This made Erskine stop. He pondered. “Go with me. Be Howard. Thirteen.”

  “I only wish I could!” said Venturus.

  “Seventh child,” said Erskine. “Might—”

  The glass door thumped. Someone else began fighting his way up the four marble steps. They could not see who it was at first because the lower two steps were so misty. Erskine’s round eyes turned to Venturus to know who it might be. Venturus shook his head. All he could see was that the person was quite small to start with. Then, as the figure put a foot onto the third step and heaved up to it, he saw it was Awful—Awful in the act of growing. What she was doing here, he had no idea, except that she was surely looking for Howard. And with that instinct that makes younger ones unerringly follow elder ones, particularly where they are not wanted, Awful had come into the unfinished building, too.

  Awful grew as he watched. By the time she was on the third step she was a large, fat schoolgirl in a maroon uniform, with a sudden strong look of Shine. In fact, she was completely a fair-haired version of Shine. She heaved up onto the fourth step. There she was suddenly skinny and Awful again, but nearly six feet tall, with a scornful grown-up look. Then she came up on to the marble floor and became a student about Fifi’s age, but much better-looking.

  Venturus gaped. He had no idea that Awful would grow up that pretty. Beside him, Erskine’s eyes popped, and a great admiring grin spread over his little face.

  Awful looked at them both accusingly. “What’s happened?” she said. “What have you done to Howard?” Then she looked down at herself. She looked horrified. She gave the well-known earsplitting Awful scream and ran away down the steps again, lunging from one to the other with her arms out and dwindling as she went. Her small, misty shape crashed out of the door and vanished, mistily sobbing.

  “Marvelous!” said Erskine. “Chip off the old block!”

  “Oh, shut up!” Venturus snarled over his shoulder. He was already racing after Awful. Awful had not recognized him. That made him feel worse even than discovering he was Venturus. He came to the marble steps and tried to bound down them as if they were ordinary steps. But it was even harder going down than it had been coming up. He had to lunge with his hands out, like Awful. And because he was thinking of nothing but getting to Awful at once and proving to her that Erskine had not eaten him—or whatever it was she thought—he made the right strange adjustment in his mind, not even noticing that he did it. He threw himself out through the half-built doorway as Howard again, and his left boot went spuff on the mud as he went.

  “Howard!” Awful shrieked joyfully. She was sheltering between two of the diggers with Ginger Hind. Howard saw why. He had to put one arm up again. It was raining slightly, and Archer was using the wet air to express his rage most spectacularly. It was like coming out into a fireworks display. The lights in the Poly were flashing on and off. Sparks were pouring from all the outside lights, spitting blue and orange. And all the overhead wires were streams of running fire.

  “Keep clear of the metal!” Howard called anxiously.

  “What do you take me for?” Ginger called back. He slapped the big black tire he and Awful were leaning against.

  Howard ducked and dodged. A seeming bolt of lightning lashed from the girders and sizzled in a puddle beside him. Archer was not supposed to hurt him, but Howard ran to shelter beside Ginger and Awful all the same. He remembered Archer and his rages now. “What are you doing here?” he said. “You said you’d take them to your house.”

  “I did. But they worried about you,” said Ginger. “We all came back to look for you.”

  Erskine came out through the unfinished door. He must have made the strange adjustment, too. His leather jacket looked slightly newer, and it was not singed anymore. Ginger backed away. Awful screamed all the rudest words she could think of. Erskine simply stood, surveying Archer’s fireworks. “Better get to Archer,” he said to Howard. “Remember still.”

  “Yes,” said Howard. “Be quiet, Awful. It’s OK, Ginger. But how can we? The banks are shut.”

  “Show you,” said Erskine. “Borrow this digger? Come under you really.”

  “Of course,” said Howard. He looked up at the monster yellow machine towering over them and felt rather strange about it.

  Erskine swung into the cab of the digger in one ape stride. As Howard swung up after him, Awful clung to the big tire and called up righteously, “Ginger and me have to come, too! Mum told you not to leave me.” Erskine grinned.

  Well, Howard thought, since Archer was not allowed to hurt him, the digger was probably the safest place in town at the moment. “All right,” he called. And without thinking, he leaned around Erskine and started the digger. Its engine coughed and began trembling with mighty chugging.

  “Ahem!” Erskine shouted through the noise. “Powers coming on?”

  They were, too, Howard realized. As Awful and Ginger crammed into the cab beside him, and Erskine cocked up the scoop of the digger and sent it grumbling at top speed to the main gate of the Poly, Howard sat investigating the strange feelings unfolding inside him. It was not just the memory of the things he could do as Venturus. These feelings were new and growing, a little blurred and crumpled still, as if they were not quite sure of their final form, but they were strong. Howard was surprised how strong. No wonder the whole family just stretched out and took things if they wanted them. Beside those feelings, ordinary people just seemed feeble.

  The metal of the gate flashed sparks as the digger chugged through. Erskine turned into the street, which was drenched in raining blue sparks, and then, with an expert twist of the wheel, swerved into the park. They chugged straight across the park, in Erskine’s usual way, through hedges and across beds of orderly tulips. There were a lot of people in the park, who all hurried out of the digger’s way. They were surprisingly cheerful about it, and some of them even cheered. Howard understood why when Erskine deftly wove them out into the streets near the cathedral, under spitting, worming sparks from wires and lights again, and they could see out over the town. The whole town was a fireworks display, covered in a loom of bluish light, jetting and jerking spurts of white and yellow fire from every aerial. There were balls of yellow flame running down the cathedral spire. People had come to the park to be safe. And since the digger belonged to the Council, everyone thought it was on its way to mend the electrical fault. Well, in a way it was.

  As they went downhill beyond the cathedral, there was a big explosion somewhere. They heard it even above the chugging of the digger. Erskine jerked. “Gas main,” he said. “Blew a water main with it. Now I am annoyed.”
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  So was Howard. People could be getting hurt or killed while Archer expressed his feelings. He was glad when he heard, faintly through the digger’s noise, the sirens of fire engines. “Who farms the fire brigade?” he asked.

  “Share it with Dillian,” said Erskine, twitching the wheel to send the digger swerving through somebody’s private parking lot. “Dillian does a careful job.”

  Though Erskine said this grudgingly, Howard knew he was right. Dillian was very conscientious. That was the trouble with her. Any country Dillian got to rule would have no chance to do anything Dillian did not want. She would think of everything. Now his powers were coming on, she might be doing just that by next week. By next week Shine, Archer, and Torquil would be trying to grab their shares. I shall have to be a baby again, Howard thought. And what’s Erskine going to be doing?

  The parking lot was almost empty. As Erskine rumbled the digger among the few cars there, Howard noticed that one of them was Archer’s Rolls. Ahead was a huge blank-ended building, and that was surely the back end of Archer’s workshop. Erskine lined the digger up with the blank wall. He lowered the scoop halfway. “Emergency entrance,” he said. “Keep down.” He put the digger into lowest gear and crept at the wall, roaring and shaking like an earthquake on wheels. There was an almighty crunching, cracking, and shrieking of metal. Erskine spread his great hands across his head and leaned sideways, squashing Howard, Awful, and Ginger down on the seat. None of them saw what happened. Everything for a few seconds went judder, judder, roar, roar. The digger stood still and shook.

  Erskine sat up again. “That fetched him,” he said with satisfaction. He ducked in a hurry. Fire and sparks exploded around the digger in clouds.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The fire cleared just as they all were quite sure they were going to be roasted. They sat up, sweating, and looked through rolls of smoke to find the yellow paint of the digger was brown and blistered. Its scoop was shoved some of the way through the wall of the building. But the wall was no longer blank. There was now a door where there had been no door before. Archer came out through it.

  “How dare you knock down my house!” he shouted. He jumped onto the scoop of the digger and came running up the metal to the cab. He was so angry that his face did not look like a face. It was more like a white mask with blue eyeholes. “Oh, it’s you!” he said to Erskine. His voice grated through the cab. “I thought you were Venturus. What do you think you’re doing in this thing?”

  “Use them, too,” said Erskine. “Dig drains. Talk to you.”

  “Go away!” Archer shouted, putting his face to the glass opposite Erskine’s. “I’m not talking to anyone!”

  “Have to,” said Erskine. “Blew a water main. Want satisfaction. People hurt.”

  “Who cares!” shouted Archer.

  “Me,” said Erskine. They glared at each other through the glass.

  Howard put a hand to his head, as if he had just had an idea, and swept his fringe back. “Archer!” he called out. “We could get Fifi back for you.” Archer turned to Howard. He looked at him, but he did not recognize him. He was too absorbed in his rage. “We’ll get her back,” Howard called. “But you have to stop all your fireworks first.”

  “What for?” shouted Archer.

  “Won’t get her without,” said Erskine. “Distracting.”

  Archer folded his arms and balanced where he was, scowling. “If I stop”—his voice grated—“how do I know you’ll get Fifi?”

  “We promise,” Howard called. “Keep your screen open. We’ll get back to you as soon as we’ve found her.”

  Archer considered. He seemed to think Howard was honest. He nodded. “All right,” he said, as if it were a big favor. It did not seem to occur to him that Howard was speaking like someone with inside knowledge, but it could have been that Erskine did not give him time to consider anymore. The moment Archer nodded, Erskine began swinging the digger around. Its scoop wrenched out of the wall. It turned so quickly that Archer barely had time to jump down. In fact, Howard had a feeling that Erskine actually tipped Archer off.

  “Where are we going now?” Awful shouted as the digger rattled back across the parking lot.

  “Torquil,” said Erskine. “Before Shine gets to know.”

  As Erskine turned out into the road again, there were signs that Archer was already trying to control his rage. There was not quite such a shower of sparks spraying from the streetlights, and the fires worming along the overhead wires were traveling more slowly. “Won’t Shine notice?” Howard called.

  “I’ll go take her mind off it,” Ginger shouted. “On conditions.”

  They all turned and looked at him. He seemed very determined about something, and he had gone very white. Several hundred freckles, which Howard had not noticed before, showed up bright yellow-brown all over Ginger’s face, even mixed up with the purple of his black eye. Erskine glanced up at the wires. The fires there were now traveling in bursts, like fiery beads on a string. He stopped the digger by the curb. It gave giant rattling sobs, like Awful in a temper, and they still had to shout rather.

  “What conditions?” said Howard.

  “That Archer,” said Ginger. “He scares me. Awful here says he wants to run the world. Right?”

  “Do it better than Hitler,” said Erskine. “Only like this in a temper. Have to keep him happy.”

  “He flies off like this when he’s happy sometimes,” Howard said. “You know he does, Erskine.”

  “Bound to,” said Ginger. “He’s that type, like my old man. And Shine’s another. She’s after the world, too. How many more of them are there?”

  “Dillian,” said Howard. “Torquil.”

  “And him,” Ginger said, nodding his freckled chin at Erskine. “He’s one of them, too, isn’t he?”

  “Only want to stop living in sewers,” Erskine said earnestly. “Swear it. Want to travel. Might write a book. Want your dad to teach me how.” While Howard was trying not to smile at this idea, Erskine said to Ginger, “Howard’s one, too. Knew that, did you?”

  “Erskine!” Howard shouted. “I don’t want to farm anything!”

  Ginger nodded. “I wondered if you were. Now here’s the conditions.” He swung himself half out of the cab and hung there invitingly. “You stop Archer and the rest, and I’ll keep Shine busy. If you don’t, I’ll set her on you instead.”

  Howard wanted to protest that no one could stop Archer, let alone the others. But he knew there was a way. He took a deep regretful breath, thinking of twenty-six years of work, elegant technology, superb engineering, stars in the viewscreens, planets circling the stars—all gone. “All right, we’d better get them on my spaceship somehow and send them packing into space.”

  “Spaceship!” said Ginger. He hung on to the side of the digger and stared at Howard. There was a gleam in the wide good eye and the half-closed bad one that told Howard he was looking at a fellow spaceship addict.

  “I’ll show it to you,” he said.

  “I think I believe you,” said Ginger. “Many wouldn’t. Make that a bargain, and I’ll be off to Shine now. See you.” He dropped to the ground and went racing off downhill, under the dying showers of sparks.

  Erskine started the digger again and drove top speed toward the cathedral. Howard stared sadly ahead. Two days ago Ginger Hind had been out to get him. And now Ginger had, even though he had not meant to. Howard could have cried at losing his spaceship a second time. He barely noticed that the scoop of the digger had come loose after the attack on Archer’s workshop. It gave out a loud clanking and made the digger weave from side to side. Howard was irritated to hear great Goon guffaws coming through the noise. Erskine was laughing and pounding the steering wheel with a great fist.

  “Made it!” Erskine shouted. “Made you say it! Been working you around to it all along!” He glanced around at Howard. “Now going to make you do it.”

  Howard lost his temper. He unwisely called Erskine a gorilla and tried to hit him. Ersk
ine stuck out the elbow nearest Howard and held him off with no trouble at all. He swung his other arm around, causing the digger to waltz about in the road, and brought that hand up against Howard’s ear. Erskine probably thought of it as a light pat. Howard saw stars. His head rang. Dizzily he saw the stone gateway to the cathedral court coming up at them. Howard would have said that there was barely room for a digger to get through that arch if it was traveling in the normal way, let alone with a loose scoop that was wagging from side to side. But somehow Erskine scraped them through it. There were clangs, and sparks flew that were neither Archer’s doing nor in Howard’s head. Awful laughed. She was loving this.

  As they bounced and clanged across the cobbles in front of the cathedral, there were more sparks, spraying out of the floodlights and hissing in the puddles, but the balls of fire traveling down the spire had stopped. Erskine stopped the digger with a croak outside the west door. He hopped down. Howard slid down after Awful, holding his hot right ear. It was all very well, he thought, but Erskine had not had to be a child three times over, in order to get that spaceship.

  “You were Venturus when we both were grown-up, weren’t you?” Awful whispered to him as they climbed the steps. “You’ll have to do what I say now, or I’ll tell Mum and Dad.”

  Oddly enough, this made Howard feel better, because Awful had recognized him after all. “You try,” he said. “Venturus can do things to you.”

  The cathedral door was locked because of vandals. But this did not bother Erskine. His knife came out, and there was a loud click. The door came open, and he strode in. A small verger in a black robe hurried up to them.

  “Emergency,” Erskine said to the verger. “Electric. Shorting all over town.” And he strode on. The verger looked as if he might have protested if Erskine had been a size or so smaller. Howard felt the heat from his ear spread over his face. It was the Town Hall all over again. He followed Erskine up between rows of chairs, past some ladies arranging flowers below the pulpit. The ladies looked as if they had wanted to stop Erskine, too. But when they saw the size of him, they suddenly became very busy admiring a lily one of them was holding. Erskine strode on.