As far as the governor of Tumble was concerned, you were either above or below him. Commander or commanded. Joe Mitch above. Everyone else below. With the possible exception of his daughter, because although she should have been below, she often climbed above.
After thinking it over, he reached the conclusion that, personally, he didn’t have any friends.
“The only perthon Bernie can rethpect ith a fwend,” Clot insisted.
Gus was still perplexed.
“Where can we buy one?”
Clot came over all mysterious and explained that, with Mr Alzan’s permission, he would bring a friend with him the following day. Gus nearly choked. If Bernie’s future friend was neither above nor below her, it meant she would be like Bernie. Which doubled the size of the problem. If there were two Bernies in Tumble, the prison would explode!
Clot immediately tried to reassure him. The young person in question was a shining example of somebody who was firm but polite. The perfect friend for Bernie. She was thirteen years old. Clot had met this friend last year. She had taught him everything. By an extraordinary coincidence, he had just met her again at the gates to Tumble.
Gus refused point-blank. No surprises there. It was unthinkable to let a stranger inside the prison. And especially not now.
If something happened, Joe Mitch would squash him. And when Joe Mitch squashed somebody, there was nothing left, except a bit of blood around the edges.
“Well, I’ll leave you then, Mither Governor,” Clot said sadly.
He shook the dust from his hat and left the room. He was already through the door when Gus grabbed hold of him. The governor kept Clot in silent suspense while he thought back to some of Bernie’s worst exploits. He had changed his mind.
“If your little girl doesn’t do the trick, I’ll throw you to the birds.”
Clot left again with a strange kind of feeling. The fact was that it wasn’t his idea. He had run into that girl from the Low Branches again, and had ended up confiding in her about the situation with Bernie. She had offered her services. Clot trusted her, but he couldn’t help thinking about the threat of the birds.
His life was in the hands of … what was she called? Bubble. Yes, that was it.
Bubble.
Bubble entered the prison at midday on 24 April. She was searched sixteen times before being led by nine guards with crossbows. Bubble was a little girl who looked straight ahead, wore black clothing and had two plaits that formed question marks at the back of her head. Her face was strange and rather flat-shaped.
She was ushered into Bernie’s playroom, where the doors closed behind her. The guards were positioned all around the Alzan household.
That evening, at seven o’clock, Bubble was brought out. The guards were expecting to find her sliced up, or reduced to mincemeat.
But not a hair was out of place.
Gus met with Bubble in his office. He felt extremely intimidated by this girl with her piercing eyes.
“I… Good… Well… So…” he said.
“I won’t come tomorrow,” explained Bubble. “I’ll be here the day after.”
“Good… Well… I… All right…”
She walked over to the office door, before turning back to face Gus again.
“I should stress one very important point. While I’m away, Bernie mustn’t hit anybody. Not a single bump. Or it will all be over.”
Before leaving by the narrow exit at the top of the mistletoe ball, Bubble was searched eleven times. The only thing they found on her was a little wooden figure the size of a thumb. They let her keep it.
Bernie spent the whole of the next day in bed crying despondently, her tears forming a puddle around her. Gus went to console her, splashing through her tears in his boots. She didn’t ask for any prisoners to knock unconscious, she just asked for her friend. At seven o’clock that evening, she threw a tantrum. She ripped up her mattress and swallowed the foam inside it, but she still didn’t hit anybody. Five men were sent out to find Bubble, but with no success.
The following day, Gus Alzan got up before dawn to wait for Bubble. At midday, she showed up at the gates to Tumble. She was searched sixteen times again. In her pocket, there was still the little figurine roughly carved from a splinter of wood. Nine guards escorted her through the prison. She didn’t even glance at the hundreds of prisoners who were groaning behind the bars of their tiny cells. This girl was as tough as seasoned wood.
“You… I… You didn’t come yesterday…” ventured Gus.
“Isn’t that how I said it would be?”
“I… Yes, yes … but—”
“If you’d rather,” Bubble threatened in a cold voice, “I can leave.”
Gus humbly apologised for the first time in his life (with the exception of Bernie’s naming ceremony, when he had accidentally trodden on Joe Mitch’s cigarette stub).
Bubble stayed with Bernie until seven o’clock and then left. Gus wanted to have a few words with her, but she said she didn’t have time.
“I won’t come tomorrow. I’ll be here the day after.”
Gus didn’t dare comment.
When she was searched at the exit, nobody noticed that the little wooden figure was no longer in her pocket.
Two days later, the whole process was repeated, except that on her way out in the evening, Bubble summoned Gus.
She stared at him long enough for him to lower his gaze, and then she said, “You know what I’m going to say to you.”
“Yes. I mean … you won’t be coming tomorrow, but you’ll come the day after.”
“No. Not tomorrow, or the day after, or ever again.”
Gus didn’t bat an eyelid. If you’d got right up close to him, you might have been able to see his lip quivering ever so slightly and, in the white of his eye, the reflection of a tear. The last hope he was clinging to had just disappeared.
He would never see the Bernie of his dreams break free from her ghastly chrysalis to become a princess in a pale dress who would run towards him on an isolated branch, calling out, “Dad! Dad! It’s me, Bernie!” He would never gaze at her beneath her bridal veil, with a young man in her arms, waltzing on a starry floor. Angry Bernie is what she would stay, barbarian Bernie, who would marry a bald old man, if she was lucky, just so she could make bumps on his head. A Bernie who would eat her bridesmaids and pageboys and suffocate her mother-in-law by crushing her in the wedding cake.
“You know why,” said Bubble.
“No,” groaned Gus Alzan, “you can’t just let me down like this. Bernie is already getting better.”
“Molmess.”
“What?”
“Molmess or Molness. Does that mean anything to you?”
Gus looked up, terrified.
“No…”
“Bernie has admitted that yesterday while I was away she hit somebody called Molness.”
Gus stared at Bubble.
“That’s impossible. She didn’t leave her bedroom.”
“But there is somebody called Molness?”
“No…”
The way Bubble stared at him made Gus’s head hurt, so he revised his answer, “Maybe a name like that … but it’s impossible.”
“I don’t think you fully understand…” Bubble said.
“She can’t know him. She doesn’t know the names of any of the prisoners.”
Bubble got up out of her chair, dark-eyed.
“You’re telling me I’m lying.”
“No. Never…”
“So you’re saying that your daughter is lying.”
“No…”
His answer was a bit less certain.
“Come with me,” ordered Bubble.
She took him into Bernie’s bedroom.
“Bernie-wernie,” called Gus as he went over to the bed, “Bernie-wernie, my little petal…”
Bernie was on her bed, surrounded by a cloud of foam that she had pulled out of her new mattress. Gus tried to catch her eye.
“Your frie
nd tells me you gave somebody a few bumpy-wumpies yesterday?”
She didn’t answer.
Gus persisted, “Did my little Bernie-wernie give somebody a bumpy-wumpy or two?”
The answer rose up from under the foam, “Lolness!”
Bubble and Gus looked at each other and walked out of the room. Gus had no idea what was going on. It was impossible. Totally and utterly impossible. Snivelling, he tried one last time to convince Bubble. But she wouldn’t budge. She had laid down the rules from day one.
“And what if—” he started.
He cut himself short. Bubble pretended she hadn’t heard him.
“Goodbye,” she said.
Gus shook her hand. She went over to the door. He followed her. He seemed to be wavering.
“And what if there aren’t any bumps on the prisoners’ heads?”
“Which prisoners?”
“The Lolnesses.”
“I thought that name didn’t mean anything to you,” queried a surprised Bubble, still walking.
“There’s a couple with that name in the high-security zone.”
Bubble immediately came to a halt.
“If there’s no bump on these Molmess people’s heads,” she said, “then that changes everything.”
She turned around slowly. The governor detected a glimmer of hope.
“I’ll go and find out! And then I’ll let you know.”
And off he trotted. Bubble called him back.
“I’ll only believe you when I’ve checked the Losnells’s heads for myself.”
“Lolness…”
“What?”
“It’s out of the question.”
“Fine. Goodbye.”
She set off again. Gus couldn’t bear it any more.
“Wait!”
“Too late. I don’t want to check anyone’s head now. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“Wait!”
“No. Too bad. Good luck with your daughter.”
“Pleeeease. You can see for yourself. I’ll take you to the Lolness’s dungeon.”
An hour later, night had fallen. After being searched several more times, Gus and Bubble entered the high-security zone. It was at the bottom of the mistletoe ball and was a much quieter area.
After various crossroads, they arrived in front of cell number 001.
“Here we are,” said Gus.
The governor couldn’t find his key, so a guard lent him his. The name Lolness was written on a small sign. Gus entered the tiny room, looking very pale.
Bubble walked in behind him. She surprised him with an encouraging little pat on the back. She knew she was prohibited from saying a single word.
Gus Alzan was fully alert. These two prisoners were more precious than all the rest of the nine hundred and ninety-eight prisoners put together. Gus had learned not to trust anybody once he entered a cell. So he never took his eyes off Bubble.
He would have done better to have been on his guard earlier. If he had, Bubble wouldn’t have the key in her pocket to cell number 001 that she’d just stolen from him.
But instead, he had taken the time to warn her that no communication whatsoever was possible with the two prisoners. He was adamant – she was to check their two heads in silence and then leave.
Which is exactly what she did.
A couple was sitting on the bench. Bubble went over to them, never looking away from their terrified gaze. She placed her small hands on their heads, and stroked them very slowly. She shook her head at Gus Alzan. His expression lit up – no bumps. He made Bubble walk in front of him and turned his back on the prisoners.
On the governor’s back, and in spite of the gloom, the captive couple could make out a fine silk banner, with the words, Cheer up. Your son will help you. When she’d entered the cell, Bubble had hung the banner from the only place Gus couldn’t keep an eye on – his own back. She removed it discreetly as soon as they were through the door.
“Good,” she said, patting his back. “I feel reassured. We’ll be able to move on to the next stage now. The picnic.”
Gus looked satisfied. He had no idea what a picnic was. He assumed it was some kind of modern teaching technique. Bubble explained to him.
“I won’t come tomorrow. I’ll be here the day after. And I’ll take Bernie on a picnic.”
23
The Mummy
When Bubble explained what a picnic was, Gus panicked. On the one hand, he didn’t see how he could give his daughter permission to leave the confines of the prison. On the other, he didn’t want to interfere with Bubble’s approach, which had proved effective so far.
“I’ll find you a nice empty cell. You’ll be able to have your picnic in the warm.”
“No,” said Bubble. “I’m taking Bernie outdoors. Normal friends have picnics outdoors.”
It was out of the question. Gus couldn’t let Bernie go off with a thirteen-year-old girl he had only met a week ago. The picnic was due to take place in two days’ time – one day before the execution of Sim and Maya Lolness, which Joe Mitch would be attending. Gus couldn’t take that kind of risk at such a crucial moment.
Bubble gave nothing away as she waited for his answer. She didn’t take her eyes off the governor. She could read him like an open book. She could tell he doubted her. She could even see that doubt spreading.
Gus suddenly wondered how he had come to place so much trust in this little girl. What did he know about Bubble? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was still time to put a stop to everything.
Bubble realised she was on the verge of being fired. She had to act quickly. So she had an abominable idea.
There was a prisoner waxing the parquet floor of the governor’s office. Exhausted and down on all fours, he was polishing near to where Bubble was standing. His knees were chafed raw from dragging himself across the floor. He was a sad-looking man; yet another prisoner who never understood how he had ended up there. They all had the same story: they were just going about minding their own business and then suddenly, with no notice, they would be taken away and thrown into a cell. If the prisoners dared to ask what they had done wrong, the only answer they got was, “State secret.”
Bubble made a show of backing away from Gus, but she was actually edging towards the prisoner, her oh-so-innocent steps bringing her nearer to him. Gus was keeping an eye on her. Yes, this girl unnerved him. What was she up to?
With a violent kick of her heel, Bubble crushed the prisoner’s hand as he was waxing the parquet. This simple act of cruelty warmed the governor’s heart. So Bubble was on their side after all. A girl who behaved like that couldn’t be all bad. He roared with approving laughter, and sent the prisoner whimpering back to his cell.
Bubble didn’t move. There was just a faint red rim round her eyes. As if the prisoner’s pain had ripped her apart, deep inside. Bubble thought she was going to faint.
“All right,” said Gus.
Bubble tried to stop her voice from betraying her as she asked for the picnic hamper to be prepared. She specified the contents: butterfly pâté, honey éclairs and, of course, a red and white checked tablecloth to cover the basket.
“If anything’s missing, it won’t be a real picnic,” she threatened, as she walked out of the door for the last time.
Bubble arrived at ten o’clock in the morning, on 30 April. Little Bernie was waiting for her in front of the entrance to Tumble, with her basket, her lace dress and her regulation straw hat. Behind her were nine bodyguards with exactly the same basket – even the same straw hat.
Bubble didn’t get angry. She called Gus over and asked what all those strange men were doing there.
“They won’t bother you. It’s for security reasons.”
After considerable negotiations, Bubble managed to get the team down to two guards. She was even allowed to choose which ones.
Bubble didn’t go for the most alert candidates. One of them had hair that flopped over his eyes like a curtain. He was called Mince.
The other was called Pulp, whose mouth was stretchy as a tentacle or an insect’s sucker, and his eyes were all scrunched up like a fly’s bum.
Gus Alzan watched all four of them leave. Bernie was holding her friend’s hand. A few days ago, Bernie wouldn’t have touched that hand without crushing it or extracting a few nails. Now, with her straw hat and parasol, the little girl looked as if she had stepped out of an old engraving. Gus gazed on fondly as his young princess disappeared into the distance.
But this idyllic scene wouldn’t last long. At six o’clock that afternoon, he was informed that someone wanted to speak with him. Pulp had been sent on ahead. He was on his own, dead tired, and his big sucker of a mouth was all slack.
“There’s been a bit of a problem…”
“Bernie!” Gus cried out.
“She’s hurt herself a little bit. Just a bit.”
Gus wanted to slam Pulp like a nail into the bark. But the blood drained out of him.
All he could say was, “Bernie! Bernie!”
“She’s being put back together again,” said Pulp.
Gus Alzan couldn’t breathe now.
“She’s being … what?”
“Put back together again. She hurt herself a little bit.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
Pulp couldn’t have listed everything Bernie had broken if he’d tried.
“BUT WHERE IS SHE NOW?” Gus bellowed, shouting himself hoarse.
“Near a lake.”
Pulp was wary of telling him what had happened, so he pretended to faint. Gus generously dished out slaps to bring him round, but Pulp just let himself be manhandled, his sucker-shaped mouth gaping left and right. He preferred these blows to what he would have been in for if the governor ever found out what he had just done to his daughter.
They had reached the lake at around one o’clock. Bernie had collapsed with exhaustion. Having never left Tumble, her very short legs were not used to walking. In three hours, her feet had puffed up like soufflés. Her toes looked like grub sausages bursting out of her shoes.
While Bernie slept on the beach, Bubble and the two guards scoffed the picnic. Pulp and Mince had appetites like weevils. They were discovering the art of the picnic. For pudding, they munched on the wicker baskets as if they were pretzels, and once they’d blown their noses on the checked tablecloth, they started yawning.