Toby Alone

  “Things don’t change without a reason,” he kept saying.

  That phrase was his golden rule.

  He explained the change by way of the holes in the outer layer of the leaves at the top of the Tree. Even at dozens of metres below, Sim Lolness could deduce the changes happening in the Treetop.

  Face down in the mud, Toby stirred from his daydreams. He wanted to start crawling again, and make his way around the Crater, but it felt as if he was pinned to the ground, unable to move. He kept on trying, thinking it must be cramp. Still on his front, he ran his hand over the backs of his legs to massage them and get them working again.

  That was when he felt something hard bearing directly down on him. Something hard, smooth, rounded…

  He managed to turn his head a fraction and saw a boot. A boot that was squashing him into the mud. With a sweep of his arm, Toby tried to push the boot out of the way, but it wasn’t on its own. There was another boot. Toby’s face went splat.

  When you find yourself confronted by two boots in the muck, and you hear a stupid sniggering, you can be pretty sure there is someone in the boots.

  After the boots and the laughter, Toby heard a voice. A voice he recognised. It was Pinhead, that revolting character in charge of the operation to get the weevil back into the enclosure.

  “So, brat. Paying a little visit, are we?”

  This time, Toby knew it was all over.

  For a split-second, he wondered about letting himself be suffocated in the mud, to escape Joe Mitch’s men.

  10

  A Messenger

  The powerful might of Joe Mitch and his men had continued to spread during the years the Lolness family were in exile. But Toby and his parents didn’t hear anything about it. In the Low Branches, it was impossible to find out what was going on in the rest of the Tree.

  Not a single letter had arrived for them in that period, nor a single newspaper. The only news they could get hold of came from the Asseldor family.

  The Asseldors had lived in the Low Branches for a very long time. While the few people who populated that region tended to be relative newcomers, the Asseldors had been living there for several generations. Father Asseldor had even been born in the Low Branches. His wife came from higher up, but their three sons and two daughters had grown up on Seldor Farm, which was a place that fascinated Toby.

  The farm marked the beginning of the Low Branches. It was an old house, dug out in the old-fashioned way, with big rooms and vaulted ceilings. Grandfather Asseldor had built it with his own hands. He had arrived with a New Branch dream: living together, united for a better life. He had created Seldor, a little paradise in a hostile world.

  Their grandfather was long since dead, but now father, mother and five children made the dream of a New Branch live on. It was a splendid farm. The family managed to produce everything it needed to survive. Never any more. The aim of the Asseldors was to not depend on anyone else. They sold nothing and bought nothing. But, luckily, they knew how to share.

  Toby could turn up after five or six hours of walking, without giving the Asseldors any advance warning, and he always felt that they had been expecting him. There was his place, laid at the big table along with the seven others. There was a remarkable atmosphere at those meal times. Everyone sang, and joked, and drank as much as they liked. The boys, who were in their twenties, had hearty appetites. The two girls, a bit younger, weren’t far behind. They dressed up for each meal as if it were a party or a wedding. They were ten years older than Toby, but he thought they were incredibly beautiful, intelligent and witty. He talked about them to Elisha, who didn’t seem all that keen on the conversation.

  For an only child like Toby, the Asseldors became an adoptive family. So it felt as if his own brother was leaving when the third son, Mano, decided to go away.

  Mano had always been different from the other Asseldor children. Even physically, he seemed less robust than his two brothers, less fresh-faced and hearty than his sisters. He was less talkative at the table; he laughed less, and he ate without much enthusiasm.

  Worse, he didn’t play a musical instrument.

  That was like someone without a shell being born into a family of snails. Music was one half of the Asseldors’ life. They all sang and played superbly. Except for Mano, who could barely tap his knees in time to the rhythm.

  They had tried every instrument with him, from the bango to the extraordion, but finally he’d dug his heels in and refused to give it another go. In the evenings, Toby often saw Mano discreetly leave the room while his sisters were singing like a choir of angels, and the others were creating an entire orchestra with their mouths. Even Toby had been co-opted to play the marbles. He’d become the best marble player in Seldor. All you had to do was rub two marbles together to create a sound. But Mano couldn’t even play the marbles properly.

  One evening, Toby had seen Father Asseldor follow Mano to the front of the house.

  “Where are you going?” the father asked.

  “Don’t know.”

  “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you want to be like the others?”

  “No,” said Mano.

  “What is it, Mano? Take a look at your brothers and sisters. Don’t they look happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, just do what they’re doing!”

  Mano flew into a temper. “We’re here because our grandfather decided not to do what everyone was doing, but to come and create Seldor instead. And now you’re asking me to be like everyone else?”

  Toby stayed hidden so he could listen.

  “You don’t talk like an Asseldor, Mano. You don’t do anything like an Asseldor.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m leaving, Dad.”

  Mano’s father didn’t say anything. He assumed his son wanted a few minutes outside to get some fresh air.

  “Don’t be long, we’ve got the honey to harvest tomorrow.”

  Mano didn’t turn round. Father Asseldor noticed Toby.

  “He just needs to get some air,” he explained.

  “Yes,” said Toby.

  When Toby went back to visit the Asseldors a month later, there was a very different atmosphere at the table. Toby turned up in the middle of supper, on a June evening. Lola, the second daughter, got up to give him a plate. Her jolliness was a bit forced.

  “Mr Lolness, I hadn’t laid you a plate.”

  Lola always called Toby “Mr Lolness”, even though he was barely ten years old at the time. It made the little boy’s heart swell up.

  “Miss Lola, you’re forgiven because you’ve done your hair the way I like it, with plaited buns,” Toby said.

  The men let out a few half-hearted whistles.

  Normally, one of the boys would have jumped on the table ready to challenge Toby to a duel for making advances towards his sister. Toby would grab a stick to defend himself, and it would all end in laughter.

  But there was no duel that evening, and no scene of jealousy from the other sister, Lila, despite her talent for pretending to burst into tears.

  The first time she did it, Toby fell for it completely and whispered into the ear of the young lady who was over twice his age, “Don’t worry, I’m very fond of you too, Miss Lila.”

  Everybody got the giggles after that. It was the only time Toby had felt nervous in the house at Seldor.

  On this particular June evening, however, it wasn’t Toby who was feeling ill at ease, but the others. Something rang hollow in the silence around the Asselsdors’ table. Toby soon saw what was wrong as he glanced around at the assembled family.

  The hole was Mano.

  He wasn’t there.

  That was why they hadn’t laid the extra plate for a passing guest. An empty plate would have been a bitter reminder of Mano’s absence. Father Asseldor watched Toby who didn’t even pick up his fork.

  “Mano’s gone. He went up to the Treetop. He says he wants to try his luck there.”

  “I think he’ll stand a better c
hance of succeeding up there,” Mrs Asseldor added. “He wasn’t made to live in Seldor. I just hope he’ll write to us.”

  Lila and Lola were unapologetically red-eyed. Both brothers stared down at their food. Toby realised it would be difficult for them to forgive Mano for leaving them like that.

  Mrs Asseldor’s wish came true. After two months, they received a letter. It was full of hope. Mano told them he had found a job in sales, that he was his boss’s favourite employee, and that he was hoping for a promotion.

  The whole family read and reread this letter from the Treetop as if it were a message from the sky. The men didn’t want to soften too quickly, but the women were instantly delighted.

  “I told you so. Each to his own path…” Mrs Asseldor kept saying.

  And so Mano’s letters became special moments in the life of Seldor Farm. The family would gather around the table. Mrs Asseldor would perch her reading glasses on the end of her nose. With each letter, her hands trembled less, her voice grew clearer. For the letters told a tale of dazzling progress. The boss, who was getting old, had entrusted Mano with running his business. Mano had also set up a subsidiary business, which would soon outstrip the first. He was now the director of two sales companies. Mano said that he would come back to see them soon, that he was just waiting for the right time – and that he had a wardrobe with fifty-seven ties. The Asseldor family weren’t too sure what sales meant, or what you would use even one tie for, let alone fifty-seven, but they all kept telling themselves, “Each to his own path.”

  Toby would often tell his parents about Mano’s adventures. It was the only news that reached them from the Treetop. Like everybody else, Maya Lolness was very impressed by the success of the Asseldor boy.

  But Toby’s father always adopted a rather stern tone. “I’m puzzled by what you tell me. Doesn’t your friend Mano ever talk about anything else? About life in the Heights, and what things are like for the people living there?”

  “He says that the people who want to succeed have plenty of opportunities. He says everything happens very quickly.”

  Professor Lolness didn’t like things that happened quickly, so his grumpy expression didn’t change.

  “I can’t help thinking that, apart from the young Asseldor boy and one or two others, there are fewer and fewer people who are happy in the Treetop. I don’t have any information to back that up, but it’s the impression I get,” he muttered to Toby.

  “Sim!” exclaimed Maya. “Your son has just given you good news from the Treetop and you’re still sulking. Why don’t you celebrate something for once?”

  “I’d like to very much,” agreed Sim, returning back to his study.

  The news from Mano was the only information that reached the Low Branches, so it was quite a surprise when a letter arrived from the Grand Tree Council.

  The letter reached the Lolness home in Onessa at the beginning of August. The messenger had a toothless smile, a face yellow as pollen, and a very small head. It was the first time Toby and his friends had seen the hat, coat and boots of one of Joe Mitch’s men. Pinhead held out the letter.

  “I’ll wait over there for your answer, Grandaddy-o.”

  The man was talking to Sim Lolness. He had just called him “Grandaddy-o”. He grabbed the professor’s little bottle of walnut liqueur from the table.

  Toby’s father had arrived with that bottle six years earlier. He drank a single drop from it after supper every night, while staring at the fire.

  Walnut liqueur was very rare. It was made from a few walnuts that squirrels had left behind in holes in the Tree. Sim had of course written a book, Where do Walnuts Come From? – a poetic essay on the possibility of life beyond the Tree. He had imagined another Tree somewhere that produced walnuts. His exasperated colleagues had asked Sim to choose between poetry and science.

  The professor didn’t dare say he had already made his choice.

  So, the three Lolnesses saw Pinhead wander off with the walnut alcohol. He sat down a bit further away and started sipping.

  “That’s your bottle, Dad,” said Toby.

  “Let him be, my son. It doesn’t matter. He’s walked a long way…”

  It was years since the Lolnesses had opened a letter, and the professor turned it over for a long time in his hands, as if he was trying to decide which angle to attack it from.

  “Come on, Toby,” said Maya, leading her son outside.

  “No, you can both stay.”

  Sim sat down, with his back to the window, and started to read out loud:

  “Your Excellence, Professor,

  In the spirit of a scientific revival, we would be most honoured to reinstate you at our Council. Time has passed on your former mistakes; the moment has come for science in the Tree to find its inspiration again. Your home at The Tufts awaits you, as does our worthy Council.”

  Sim Lolness stopped. His wife and son were staring at him. They were trying to read a reaction in his expression, but Sim’s face was inscrutable. So many contradictory ideas and feelings were fighting, it was like a book left out in the rain, with the ink running from one page to another. Scenes of joy, anger, sadness, anguish, hope, revolt, shame, love and hate were being projected on to a dark puddle.

  What Toby and Maya felt first was pride. They wanted to leap into Sim’s arms.

  But Sim carried on reading:

  “To consolidate this fresh start, you will consent, for one year only, to be observed by the Neighbourhood Committees, under the supreme direction of the Friendly Neighbour, Joe Mitch.”

  This last sentence prompted another downpour of contradictory messages on the professor’s face. Another shower which swept all the rest away and left only one expression glinting in Sim’s eyes: fury.

  He started seething, ranting and raving, cursing. Neither Toby nor his parents knew what these Neighbourhood Committees were, but Toby saw his father leap to his feet.

  Joe Mitch! Just the name drove the professor wild.

  Sim scrunched the letter into a tight ball. He headed towards the door, which he kicked open before striding towards Joe Mitch’s messenger, who was standing, half drunk, in front of the house. With blurred vision, Pinhead saw Sim draw near. He had taken his hat off and his head looked very tiny indeed. He was holding the bottle and smiling as he swayed from foot to foot.

  “Well, Grandaddy-o, are we heading on up, as in ‘hitting the branch’ with yer old lady and the brat? You’ve made up your mind?”

  Pinhead’s mouth was wide open and he was sniggering like a simpleton.

  Toby saw his father deftly throw the crumpled ball of paper so that it landed in the horrible man’s mouth. By the time Pinhead had realised what had happened, his mouth was already shut.

  His eyes were bulging, and he was shaken by a series of jolts and hiccups. From pollen yellow, Joe Mitch’s man turned pale green, before going lots of colours never before seen in the Tree. He ended up white as a fluffy cloud when he realised he had just swallowed his message.

  Sim Lolness watched him pick up his hat. Sim was bigger than he was. The man didn’t dare answer him back, especially since the ball was starting to play havoc with his stomach.

  “A long time ago,” said the professor, “there used to be a primitive practice. People would open up the stomachs of animals to find the answers to their questions. They called them omens. Tell that to your boss. You’ve got the answer in your belly…”

  Between belches, Pinhead managed to say, “I’ll get my revenge.”

  And he staggered out of sight.

  Toby and his parents stayed in front of the house for some time. Sim took off his glasses and wiped his face. Toby went to pick up the bottle. He held it out to his father.

  “It’s empty.”

  “That’s just as well,” said Sim. “It was bad for my heart.”

  He sat down in front of the door. They heard the sound of something snapping. He had just sat on his glasses.

  For the first time, Toby realised th
at his father would turn into an old man one day. He was only fifty-six, but that guy had called him “Grandaddy-o”, and now, sitting on the threshold, Sim looked exhausted. Maya Lolness hugged her husband and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Sim, darling, I told you not to get into a fight with your classmates,” she said gently.

  Sim Lolness hid his face in his wife’s neck and muttered, like a child, “He started it.”

  Toby headed off to give his parents some time alone. As he walked along a rip in the bark, a bit further off on the branch, he thought about the letter-bearer’s last words: “I’ll get my revenge.”

  Which explains why, just a few weeks later, Toby would rather have been anywhere than under Pinhead’s hard and frosty boot. His mouth and nostrils were starting to fill up with mud.

  11

  W. C. Rolok

  The pressure from the man’s foot eased off slightly and Toby raised his head for a second. But Pinhead retaliated by pushing him straight back down into the mud again.

  When his captor let him go for a second time, Toby sensed he wanted to say something.

  “What your dad did to me … I found it a bit hard to swallow.”

  “Swallow … a ball of paper?” Toby asked cheekily.

  Pinhead shoved his face back into the mud.

  This time he left him down there for nearly a minute. But Toby guessed that Pinhead wouldn’t let him die without inflicting extra punishments. Strange as it may sound, these punishments were Toby’s chance to play for time. His only hope was for Pinhead to be even more cruel.

  And that is exactly what happened.

  Pinhead dragged Toby over to a bark hill that loomed over the Crater. He tied him up tightly so Toby’s feet and hands were trapped. The weevils began to draw near, in groups of two or three. Pinhead produced a long whip, which he cracked to keep the beasts at bay. Toby watched as Pinhead’s beaming face was made even uglier by the pleasure of causing pain.