Toby Alone

  What now, wondered Toby, What now?

  He knew the black box wasn’t there. What did his father expect him to do?

  He was standing opposite the little hollow branch. In front of him, under his feet, was the hole where he’d had his accident. This was the end of the garden. He couldn’t go any further.

  If he turned around, he would be reduced to a finely shredded pile at Losh’s and Venge’s feet. Equipped to smash anything, but with only one brain between the two of them, these crackpots weren’t renowned for being patient.

  Toby racked his brain one last time. His father had sent him to the only place that was previously out of bounds to him. It was here that Sim had caught Toby at the last moment, when he was very little. And his father had said to him: “I’ll be relieved when you’re a teenager. You’ll be too big to fit inside the hollow of this dead branch. But for now, don’t get too close to it.”

  Behind him, Venge and Losh were getting restless.

  “Well, kiddo?” said Venge.

  “This is it,” Toby answered flatly.

  “Issit?” asked Venge.

  And they laughed for a good minute or so, going, “Issit? Zit! Zit, zit, zit! Issit?”

  Such sophisticated humour could have kept them occupied for at least an hour. But when they tried to catch their breath, between hiccups, Toby was already in the branch’s hollow.

  They stopped dead and leaned over the hole.

  Toby hadn’t hesitated for a second. He was only just thirteen, so it was his last chance to pull off such a trick. He entered the forbidden branch. This was his father’s plan. No doubt about it.

  He could see his guards’ heads above him.

  “Wotchitkiddo,” Venge said again.

  But Toby had disappeared inside the little branch.

  Venge wanted to slide his head in but it wouldn’t fit. So he stuck in his hand and arm instead. His fingernails shredded the tunnel walls. As bad luck would have it, Toby was injured twice by Venge’s nails, once on each shoulder. He was bleeding. Venge looked at his colleague. Losh was stamping his feet. He elbowed Venge out of the way, stepped over the hole and positioned himself on the far side.

  Lying down on the branch, Losh started gnawing away at the edges of the hole with his teeth. Each snap of his jaw made chunks of wood go flying up.

  Rarely had so much energy been demonstrated by somebody sawing through the very branch he was lying on.

  Back on the side of the Main Trunk, a perplexed Venge was watching the scene and it reminded him of a joke. But which one?

  At the first cracking sound, he remembered which joke it was. Losh looked up. From the expression of terror on his face, he also appeared to be familiar with the joke about the idiot who—

  Crrrrrrrraaaaaaaaccccckkkkk!

  The branch had just broken off, making the most hideous noise. Clinging on for dear life, Losh headed for the unknown calling out, “Tooooo-o-beeeeeeyyyy…”

  Venge watched him fall, hitting branch after branch before he disappeared into the depths of the Tree.

  All he could say was, “Gosh, Losh…”

  It took Venge a while to realise that Toby had disappeared along with Losh. But he just kept on saying, “Gosh, Losh … Loooshhhh…” in a very distraught kind of way.

  A patrol sent out that same evening by Joe Mitch found Venge at the bottom of the garden at The Tufts, still standing at the point where the branch had broken off. Mitch’s men went up to him slowly, so as not to frighten him. When they questioned him about what had happened, he just kept saying “Loooshhh…” in the same way that the head of a decapitated person remembering the rest of its body. The men from the patrol took one more step towards him.

  “Loooshhh,” Venge croaked one last time.

  And he leapt into the void.

  But the name he called out as he fell, which echoed and reverberated into the distance, wasn’t Losh’s. Venge was shouting out, “Tooooo-o-obeeeeeeyyyy…”

  The soldiers leaned over, terrified. The noise mobilised the entire neighbourhood.

  A millimetre under the crowd’s feet, with a seat in one of the dress circle boxes to catch the show, someone whispered to himself, “Poor Venge…”

  It was Toby.

  When he had crept inside the hole in the branch, he had noticed that the tunnel of worm-eaten wood forked two ways. Instinctively, he had taken the healthier-looking fork, heading uphill. Here, he had twice come under attack from Venge’s claws. Then he had seen the branch snap off altogether with Losh’s body clinging to it. Poor Losh caught sight of Toby in mid-flight, and called out his name in despair.

  Toby clung on in his hole. With the terrifying abyss straight ahead, he had a tiny space in which to lie low and wipe the blood from his wounds.

  From there, he had heard Venge’s despair at the loss of his colleague, and then the sound of the patrol arriving. Finally, he had witnessed Venge’s swallow dive. Cruel chance determined that Venge would also notice Toby as he fell past him, but it was too late, he couldn’t do anything except cry out a harrowing, “Tooooo-o-beeeeeeyyyy…”

  Within a quarter of an hour, a crowd of onlookers was squeezed on to the branch. They held up flares and oil lamps. Luckily for Toby, they quickly erected a safety rope where the branch had broken off. But the crowd kept pressing forwards. Rumours were spreading. Accident or suicide? What had happened in the abandoned garden? They’d heard Venge’s final cry. Then nothing.

  Foiling all the security, a more daring boy ventured into the darkness at the end of the broken branch. He scrambled down between splinters of ripped wood, a flare in his hand. He looked younger than fifteen, with a tough expression, and his jaw was square and thickset. His deft movements didn’t make a single rustle.

  Toby saw him suddenly appear in his hiding place. He hesitated for a second.

  “Leo? Is that you, Leo?”

  The boy pulled back, and then, slowly, brought his flare near.

  “Toby?”

  The two friends stared at each another. After six whole years of separation, the best friends in the world had found each other again, by chance, at the end of a branch in the Heights. Tobyleo, joined at the hip.

  “Toby … you came back.”

  “Help me, Leo.”

  Leo raised his firebrand higher. Toby could see the changes in his face: as strong as ever, but there was something jagged about it too. Like shards of broken glass. Leo looked at the wounds Venge’s nails had made on Toby’s shoulders.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Yes, Leo. I’m in danger. Don’t ask me to explain. I just need to get back to the crowd.”

  A few years earlier, Leo wouldn’t have hesitated for a second as he did now.

  “Help me, quickly,” Toby asked again.

  “Follow me.”

  They clambered across the section of broken branch. When they reached the top, Leo blew out his flare. Some men were trying to keep back the more curious members of the public. Finally, the boys found a spot where the rope slackened. Toby and Leo easily blended with the crowd. They pushed their way into the swelling throng. Toby lowered his head.

  “You want to stay hidden?” asked Leo. “Why?”

  “Goodbye,” said Toby.

  He hugged his friend and disappeared.

  Leo stood stock-still in the bustle. He felt strangely uneasy, a deep-seated sense of guilt. For years, the wicked seed of doubt had been growing inside him.

  “Don’t trust anybody,” the Friendly Neighbour’s men always said. And Leo did as he was told.

  Above all, Leo Blue feared the threat of the Grass people. This fear, cultivated by Joe Mitch, added to the terror that, since childhood, he had associated with his father’s death. El Blue had been killed by the Grass people and no doubt their master plan was to ambush and finish off the rest of the Tree’s population.

  Leo had to be on his guard against everybody. What did he know about Toby Lolness anyway? Not much, not any more.

  A frien
d? This person he hadn’t seen for six years?

  Yes, that was it – he had just helped a stranger. A complete stranger. The weight of his mistake just got heavier.

  Joe Mitch arrived a few minutes later. He had entrusted the Lolness parents, back in Clarac’s sitting room, to a dozen maniac guards who never took their eyes off them. Mitch stepped on to the broken branch, flanked by Razor and Torn. The crowd parted to let him through. He sat on his folding chair for a long time, staring into the void.

  And then Joe Mitch had his idea. Voids always inspired him.

  He signalled to Razor and muttered something to him in gibberish. It looked as if he was sucking his ear. The crowd was packed in tight all around.

  Razor glowed with delight. The boss was brilliant. Primitive but brilliant. Razor coughed and asked for silence.

  “Fellow Tree-dwellers, the Friendly Neighbour has spoken! Listen to his message. A crime has just been committed against the Tree. The Lolness family, who have withheld Balina’s Secret from us, have chosen to abuse their exile by selling this secret to foreign powers! Dear Tree-dwellers and neighbours, consider the crime of the Lolness family. From now on, the vermin known as the Grass people will control Balina Power!”

  The crowd was silent for a moment before erupting with anger. In this furious madness, a fourteen-year-old lad remained quiet a few seconds longer… Then he raised his fist higher than anyone. It was Leo Blue.

  There was a fixed look of hatred in his eyes that set them ablaze.

  When Joe Mitch entered the sitting room once again, Zef and the Lolness parents were trembling. Mitch plonked himself down on the sofa, which made a noise like a balloon being deflated. There were some things greedy Mitch couldn’t resist saying himself: “He is deeeeeeaaaaaad…”

  Sim and his wife looked at each other.

  Toby.

  Dead.

  Their exhausted eyes searched for a last glimmer in the other’s gaze.

  But there was nothing left.

  Zef was crying. But his faint mewing didn’t even reach the ears of the Lolness parents.

  None of them saw the imposing figure of Pussykinska come back in, pushing Leo Blue ahead of her. Caught off guard, Mitch turned to face the newcomer, who said, through gritted teeth, “I saw him. He’s alive.”

  Sim and Maya Lolness felt their whole skin tingling with a warm feeling returning them to life.

  And so the long manhunt for Toby began.

  21

  Infernal Tumble

  It had been the worst winter for Elisha.

  She had set out for the cliff ten times, battling against the cold and snow. Ten times her mother had rescued her, racked with exhaustion, tears frozen around her eyes. The cave was halfway up the cliff of snow, which looked like an unassailable glacier.

  By February, everybody thought the thaw was on its way. There were a few fine days. The families in the Low Branches paid each other visits, but the lake and the cliff remained out of bounds.

  A week later it was snowing again and the Lees’ hopes were smothered under a white coat. March was icy cold and by the first day of April it was still impossible to reach Toby’s refuge.

  On 10 April, the sun shone again. A gentle warmth enveloped the whole Tree. The water trickled and dripped around the Lees’ house.

  Isha spoke softly to Elisha. They were both crouching on the threshold of the round door to their home, watching the rays reflected in the puddles and streams.

  “All you can do is hope…”

  There was nothing else for it, given that Toby had been imprisoned for four and a half months with just a meagre bag of food. Basic maths or a cold look at reality were all it took to realise he didn’t stand a chance. But hope glowed in Elisha’s heart, making her believe in the impossible.

  On 16 April, Elisha managed to plough a path as far as the lake, and from there on to the cliff. She was at the foot of a damp snow wall, looking for a way to climb up, when she heard a voice calling out. She was about to bellow “Toby!” when four dodgy characters suddenly rose up next to her. They were drenched in melted snow, from their hats to their boots.

  “We’ve been calling you for the last two hours, little girl. We followed your footprints in the snow.”

  It was one of Joe Mitch’s vile patrols, already back out on the hunt for Toby.

  “What are you doing here, kid?”

  “And you?” asked Elisha.

  “We’re looking for the Lolness boy. Answer the question! What are you doing here?”

  “I live nearby, with my mother. I wanted to see if the water fleas were back out on the lake.”

  It was the first excuse that came into her head. But it was easy enough to satisfy the lightweight brains in front of her.

  “If you find Toby for us, I’ll marry you,” said a hunchback, whose pimple-pocked nose nearly blocked his eyes.

  “Now there’s an incentive. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  She blew on her hands to warm them up again. A little cloud of white steam formed between her fingers.

  Big Nose walked up to her.

  “Can I give you a kiss while we’re waiting?”

  “I don’t deserve it yet – wait until I’ve found this Lolness boy for you, and then it can be my reward,” she said, pulling back.

  Big Nose was very pleased. Elisha pretended to turn for home. When she’d taken a few steps in the snow, she heard them saying something about the professor and his wife. The four men were talking very loudly. What they said nearly struck her down. She didn’t have the strength to carry on walking.

  But she made it back home in the end, and collapsed in her mother’s arms.

  The next day, at midday, Elisha stood in front of the mass of snow blocking the entrance to the cave. She chipped away at it all afternoon, keeping an eye on the shores of the lake. By six o’clock, Elisha’s tiny hand scraped its way through the last snow rampart. Her arm was on the other side. She stopped. No sound came from the interior.

  She dug furiously, crying out angrily, making the snow fly all around her. She wasn’t scared of anyone any more. Daylight sneaked its way into the cave, and Elisha followed it, on her hands and knees.

  The fire was still warm.

  Coming from the bright outdoors, Elisha couldn’t see anything. She called out feebly, “Toby…”

  No answer. Elisha didn’t know where she was putting her feet. Her eyes still hadn’t got used to the dark. She detected a bundle of wood in front of her. She took it in her hands, and walked back to the hearth with its hint of red. She threw the wood on to the glowing embers. Tall flames shot up at once. Elisha followed their journey with her eyes.

  That was when she saw the ceiling and walls sparkling with light. She had discovered Toby’s masterpiece. The huge painted fresco stretched out in red and black over every surface in the cave. Elisha couldn’t take her eyes off it. She felt as if she was inside Toby’s glowing heart.

  “Do you like it?” asked a weak voice.

  She rushed towards the sound.

  “Toby!”

  There was Toby, lying propped up against the wall. He was pale. His cheeks were hollow and his mouth dry, but deep in his eyes still glowed a steadfast comet.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  Toby had never seen Elisha cry before. She made up for lost time that day, as she pressed her forehead against Toby’s chest.

  “Stop it, stop it! What’s there to be sad about? Look, I’m fine.”

  He offered her a handkerchief splattered with red paint. Elisha couldn’t stop crying. Toby felt her wracking sobs as she clung to him. In the end, she buried herself in the handkerchief, re-emerging with reddened cheeks. Little by little she calmed down, and looked up towards the arched ceiling.

  “It was to keep me busy. Some people paint their tombs so they can lie down in them. But for four months, I painted windows so I could see the outside world.”

  Elisha stared, wide-eyed. Yes, it was like a window to t
he world. She walked over to the wall, with her paint-smeared face.

  “Elisha…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m a bit peckish.”

  Toby hadn’t eaten anything except mildew for seventeen days. Elisha disappeared outside immediately.

  Toby cried in despair, “Noooo! Don’t leave me! Come back!”

  Elisha rushed back inside, worried. Toby couldn’t bear to be left on his own for another second. She had just gone to get the food parcel she had brought with her.

  “I’m staying now, Toby. Don’t be frightened.”

  She unwrapped the paper, which was soaked in butter. At last, Toby smiled. There, in front of him, was the biggest pile of honey pancakes Toby had ever seen.

  It was three days before Toby could stand again. He had managed to exercise regularly during his four and a half months of imprisonment, to stop his body seizing up. So it wasn’t long before he was agile again.

  He spent some time being a moth on the shores of the lake, flapping his arms and hopping about. Elisha never left him now. Toby needed this shadow watching him run in the moonlight.

  Tucked on a ledge, above the cliff, they sat down at last. Toby could feel the springtime bubbling away underneath them, in the night. He breathed deeply to make up for lost time. Elisha told him about what had been happening over the winter.

  Over at the Asseldor household, Lola wasn’t doing at all well. From the moment Lex had set out in search of his parents she had insisted on lying down on a little mattress in the main room at Seldor and she hadn’t moved since. She ate almost nothing and stopped talking, so the whole family had found out about the secret bond between Lex and Lola.

  At first, her parents tried to shake her out of it.

  “It’s just a crush – there’s no need to make a big drama.”

  But after a week, they realised it was more than a crush. She was actually prepared to die for this boy who had gone away.

  They were immensely patient with Lola, and no doubt their patience helped prevent her flame from going out altogether.

  Lila, her sister, was never far away and slept by her bedside, holding her hand. She understood everything about her pain: she was living it too.