The Luna Laboratorium, page 2
We were all in love with him.
‘Bone,’ Pin says sadly, again.
‘We know, we know,’ we murmur.
‘Great fun.’
‘Jolly good company.’
‘Better climber than you, Bert.’
‘Excuse me, I don’t think so.’
‘Bone.’ Pin again, in a voice like he’s under some spell here. The three of us look nervously at each other. He must really, really be in shock.
‘Boooooooooone.’
‘Maybe Pin thinks he’s died and is in heaven with him?’ Bert whispers.
I sigh. Stand up. Weary, bone weary. At all of this. Fighting and freezingness and butler headaches and darkness at four p.m. I go to our little man and gently put my arm around his shoulder and squeeze him tight. ‘Come and spin the huge globe for me. And wherever your finger stops is where we’ll go next. In Basti’s plane. I promise.’
‘Booooooooo-oooooooooooone.’
Pin is unmoving. Just staring out the window with a faraway smile. I gaze out with him at the big blowsy drops swirling to the ground. Stare a little closer. Step forward. Squint. What?
My heart starts to pound.
I fling open the window, letting in a solid rush of cold that swirls straight under our clothes. Brrrrrrr. It hurts. Bert and Scruff yell in protest.
Don’t care here because I’m almost falling out the window, leaning as far as I can.
You see, there is a boy.
A boy. His shock of sticky-up hair is as luminously pale as his skin. In the middle of the empty garden square. Standing under a tall, witchy tree. As still as a statue. Staring straight up at the Kensington Reptilarium.
At us.
And I tell you, he is the oddest boy you have ever seen. A real, live, staring child – not a statue, but he seems dangerously close to one. Pale. Unearthly. Glowing in a ghostly way, like he’s never known outside. Dressed in old clothes that seem to have entirely missed the war; the last thirty or forty years, in fact. A thin, quizzical face tilts slowly sideways as he looks at Pin and me in wonder. Huge eyes with big black circles around them gaze straight at us. It’s as if the boy has never slept, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. That he’s here. In London. With us.
Goosebumps race across my back.
The boy suddenly widens his eyes and pokes out his tongue in a very Scruff way. I splutter a laugh.
‘Booooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnne!’ I yell.
Everyone crowds to the window – What? What? – laughing and calling and squealing and cheering. How did he get here? How did he find us? Is he staying? What’s going on?
What a champion scamp of the universe, but then again, why would we expect anything else?
The doorbell rings.
Bone stays stock-still, staring up at us.
Eh?
‘Bone.’ Pin giggles, smugly, in a told-you-so way.
The doorbell shrieks again, insistent. Most unusual in the Kensington Reptilarium. But if it’s not Bone, who is it?
‘Lord Bone, High Commander of Company T, we are coming to rescue you!’
The Scruffter here can’t resist. He’s yelling out the window to the whole of Campden Hill Square, despite being dressed in clothes entirely unsuitable for this freezing January day (Bermuda shorts, an oversized army shirt, a belt with a coiled leather whip on it and a dagger for croc and goanna hunting – because you can take the boy out of the desert, but you can’t take the desert out of the boy).
The four of us thunder out of the library in a delirium of excitement and scramble like monkeys down the ladders.
‘Me first!’
‘Quick!’
‘Get out of the way!’
We race to the front door – almost knocking Charlie Boo over in the process – and fling it open.
Stop. In shock.
No Bone.
It’s Silent Mountain Man. Extremely mountainous, as always. Extremely silent, as always. Monstrously tall, like a granite cliff face of unknow-ability, as always. He was the butler at the great house called the Icicle Illuminarium we were trapped in several weeks ago, which burned down, and we escaped, and it was all very dramatic. And this man is also Bone’s guardian. He never spoke back then, and it looks as if not much has changed. Which is a problem, because we need to know what he’s doing here. With his beloved boy. We crane behind his back.
Nope. The Bone Boy has vanished. Oooooooooh, how typically, infuriatingly him! The garden square is now empty. The tree he was standing under, lonely. A criss cross of footprints is in the snow, but who knows who they belong to. How very Bone. Slippery and wily and sneaky and magnificent, frustrating and cheeky and glorious – all at once. And doing everything completely on his own terms.
‘He’ll appear on a tree branch in a moment,’ Bert says.
She thinks she’s got a special bond of knowability with her Bone. I don’t think so, girl. Plus, she goes kind of gooey about him. I’m deeply unimpressed.
Charlie Boo clears his throat and in his weariest butler voice intones, ‘Yeeeees?’
Silent Mountain Man – otherwise known as Mr Squeedly – straightens his back but says nothing in response. Of course. Mr Boo also straightens his back. It’s butler to butler. A butler standoff!
Four Caddys are enthralled. It’s too puffery for words. Who’s going to win this?
Scruff’s finger is hovering. I can read his mind – he wants to poke someone in the chest, deflate everything; doesn’t know who to choose. Oh, too enticing! Who will get him into trouble the least? And where is Bone in all this? Surely he hasn’t come this far to disappear on us at this point?
Just as Scruff’s (very grubby finger – ewww) is about to make contact with Mr Squeedly’s stomach, there’s a piercing cry from inside the Reptilarium.
‘Attack, attack, we’re under attack!’
It’s Uncle Basti!
We all race inside, Mr Squeedly included.
Basti is holding his Perdita high in his arms like a shield against impending doom and disaster. They’re both staring up at the dome in horror.
Lord Bone on high! Literally, high.
For there Bone is, a picture of magnificence, as if he is the one and only rightful heir of this glorious establishment. He is entwined upside down on the flying chair, his legs hooked cannily and precariously on its chains. But he’s never fallen off anything yet and none of us Caddys expect him to now. He is swinging the chair crazily while grinning from ear to ear, as though this is the most natural thing to do. He crossed his arms for effect, I just know it. Can read him like a book. Bert sighs. Oh please. I kick her, she kicks back.
‘Steady on, ladies, stop your fluttering.’ Scruff giggles in a voice just like Dad’s.
How did that little scamp of a Bone get there? He slipped past the lot of us. As he does.
I look across at my uncle, a bundle of nerves that his beautiful, secret jewel of a building has been infiltrated by a stranger. A most impertinent stranger, at that. I put my arm around our uncle. ‘It’s okay, we know him. He’s harmless.’
‘Why did I ever let you lot in my life?’ Basti wails in response.
‘Company T,’ Bone yells out, ‘you said the Kensington Reptilarium was amazing, but I didn’t know it was this amazing.’ As if he plans to move in, pronto. He swings wildly like a circus trapeze artist from one end of the space to the other, doing aerial twists and handstands and somersaults in the chains.
Four Caddys cheer at the amazing spectacle. Basti most resolutely does not. Nor does Silent Mountain Man, who seems to be holding his breath with terror.
‘Get down at once, you ruffian!’ Charlie Boo yells, in his boomiest grandpa voice. He has considerably more experience with children than Uncle Basti – his disciplinary skills when it comes to kids have been honed by twenty-seven grandchildren, and he has not yet met his match.
He may be about to.
Scruff, in fact, is rubbing his hands in anticipation.
But it’s not to be. Bone expertly controls the levers and, most surprisingly, glides the contraction to a beautiful stop. ‘Look and learn, mister,’ I whisper to Scruff. He pokes out his tongue at me. Bone steers to a crisp halt right in front of Basti, who has not yet lowered Perdita from above his head. This is a sign of an uncle under siege. And a Bone in supreme command.
‘I’m finding it rather hard to remove myself from this chair.’ Our boy grins. He is doing a perfectly still handstand, his arms entwined in the chains. Bert is smiling like a loony and silently clapping her hands in glee. I roll my eyes. Do not offer to help, girl, do not.
‘Do you need any help, Bone?’ Bert trills.
Yep, there she goes. Right on cue. I groan. So does Scruff. Pin looks bewildered. Bone looks chuffed. Charlie Boo, on the other hand, flings out his cane and pushes the chair’s lever, making the contraption convulse like it’s received an electric shock (we all know who’s really in charge here). Bone tumbles to the ground. Bert, of course, rushes forward to pick him up.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ Charlie Boo booms. ‘You have infiltrated a house you were not invited into, young man. That is called trespass in my book. And none of this flimflammery is doing my headache any favours.’
‘Flimjimmery! Flamjimmery! Kick, write that down.’ Pin is under the impression that some exotic new swear words have just been uttered. He collects swear words in a Very Important little red notebook. (Especially when they come from my mouth. Which is more often than anyone else. And he’s got just about everyone, except Charlie Boo.)
‘The party is over, my friends. And I am deeply sorry. Sometimes I just get carried away.’ Bone dusts himself off and bows in deepest respect to Uncle Basti.
This is new. This is something the Bone boy never does. What’s going on here? I step back, suspicious.
Bone announces that he is here with some urgent news. He turns to Silent Mountain Man, who nods gravely. Back to us Caddys. ‘I have discovered something that needs to be told immediately to my friends,’ Bone continues. He winks at Basti. ‘In other words, these barbarians from the Or-stralian bush. Or as I know them, Company T. Crackest of crack companies that has ever existed.’ He winks at Pin, who salutes crisply back with the widest of grins. ‘And this news could not wait a second longer.’
We Caddys rush forward. Charlie Boo looks sternly at the general cacophony. We stop. Just.
Basti groans. He’s shaking his head, shooing everyone away. ‘Young man, you did not announce to me you were coming. And now you ruffle up my nieces and nephews in a way that makes me think no good will come of it. Please leave immediately. My heart cannot cope with it. Put your request in writing at some point if you must. Addressed to me …’
Basti’s hands splay like a rake over his head, as if he’s trying to squeeze out the hurt in his head. Charlie Boo is on to it, ushering out our visitors without another second’s delay, with all the briskness that he’s learnt in Rangoon.
‘But, but I …’ Bone splutters. ‘It’ll be Company T’s greatest expedition yet!’ He’s not used to being told no.
‘I do not want to lose my family just as I’ve found them!’ Basti yells to him in anguish.
Bone has met his match in our uncle, who had lived a life of extreme reclusiveness for three decades, until we came along, in fact. Basti doesn’t like people very much. And hasn’t had a lot of practice with them. And gets quite panicky around them. And prefers to be completely alone most of the time. So he can be in control. With everything known, in its place, intact. And right now, it’s certainly not.
‘Out. OUT!’ Basti yells. We Caddy kids jump. We’ve never heard our uncle bark as viciously as this. Gosh.
Charlie Boo shoos our two visitors out, cross that he has allowed the situation to unravel so spectacularly and on his watch, to boot.
‘But, but, the news,’ Scruff and Pin protest.
Mr Boo silences them with a single, steely glare.
Bone goes to say something, but his guardian holds up his hand swiftly in a stop sign, like a traffic policeman. Wow, it works. (I make a note: how to silence the unsilenceable who never stops his chitter chat.) Mr Squeedly ushers his son out the door as we clamber behind Mr Boo’s outstretched arms, yelling ‘Noooooooo,’ ‘Come on,’ ‘This is so unfair.’
‘Your uncle has spoken, and that is the end of it,’ Charlie Boo says. It’s like Basti and he just know that nothing good can come of having Bone near us, that the fragile and vulnerable Kensington Reptilarium is not ready for any of this.
As Mr Squeedly and Bone step onto the pavement, our friend turns back desperately. Looks me straight in the eye. Holds out his hand and I stretch mine to his. (And I secretly hope Bert is catching this, of course.)
‘It’s about your mother,’ Bone says. ‘There’s news.’
It’s like an electric current zips straight through us.
Basti included.
Uncle Basti shuts his eyes. In pain. Like he really doesn’t want to hear this.
We all wait, scarcely breathing.
‘Sir?’ Charlie Boo enquires gently.
Our uncle finally nods, defeated. ‘The Lumen Room.’
Wild Caddy cheers. It’s one of our favourite rooms. Illuminated by thousands of glow worms that have to be stirred into shining their honey light.
‘Boney Bone, you’ll love it,’ Bert squeals.
Boney Bone? I’m sorry, but is she serious?
‘I already do.’ And he’s looking majorly chuffed. The world is back in order – he’s the centre of attention – and that’s just how Bone likes it.
I slip my hand quietly into Basti’s. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper. Because this is a huge deal for him: two strangers, in his precious sanctuary of a house, in his favourite room no less, whose black-painted walls are filled with hundreds and hundreds of worms, all softly, magically glowing.
Bone’s quicksilver energy is blanketed by the solemn atmosphere of the Lumen Room; it’s like a tiny chapel. Our friend from the north turns oddly serious once he’s inside, its mood contagious. He sits on a golden chair and speaks in whispers, like he’s on a top-secret mission and not even the walls must hear the importance of what he has to say:
‘The abandoned army training village next to my house wasn’t exactly what it appeared to be.’
‘Really?’ I say. We remember it well, our afternoon playing in it.
‘It was a base for army intelligence. The highest levels of intelligence. And your mum had been there. Secretly. Top-secretly. And …’ He bites his lip. Looks at Mr Squeedly. Hesitates, stringing us along.
‘What?’
‘Tell us!’
We’re all yelling here.
Because our beautiful flame-haired mother has been missing for three years. Since the night she left us and never came back. And we desperately want some news. Me, especially. Because I’ve been a pretend-mum for too long to this crazy lot, and I’ve always had the awful feeling that maybe Mum left because of me, how horrible I was to her sometimes, that she just gave up. She found being a mum to the four of us really hard, harder than her scientific work that had been her previous life. Which she missed, because she’d told me. ‘I wish I’d just stayed in the lab!’ she’d shouted at me once, after I’d stormed off and slammed my bedroom door, flinging to the world that I hated her. Because she wouldn’t let me get my hair cut short or something as silly as that, can’t even remember.
I gave her such a hard time. Yelling and cussing, running into the dunes and not coming back, just to give her a fright. ‘I love you, Kick,’ she’d always say on my return like a dog with its tail between its legs, all stopped up and quiet. She was just relieved I was back, safe.
And I never told her I love her. Just yelled that it wasn’t fair, she got me to do everything, loved the others better, never approved of what I did or how I was. ‘Would you like me to go away from your life? I could just disappear, you know.’ That’s what she flung at me the day she went. And I’ve felt tormented by guilt ever since. So now there’s a huge gaping hole in my heart, like a cavern of loneliness. We all thought she was dead. So many questions, so many blanks.
‘Is she alive?’ I yell now at Bone with such fury that the walls pulse with a panicky, brighter glow.
Silence so taut you could snap it. I lick my lips. Bone’s hand clutches his neck. As if he can’t bear to say what’s next. Bert snaps it. Of course she does.
‘Bone, if you don’t say everything you know right now, I’ll kiss you. Right on the lips.’
Wow, impressive girl.
Bone’s loving it, I can tell. Calling all the shots. He thinks about Bert’s offer. Winks at her. Stands up on the golden chair. Clasps his hands like a preacher at an altar (I do believe Mr Squeedly is rolling his eyes at this point). ‘My dear guardian slipped me some information last night,’ Bone announces. ‘About where your mother, Flora Caddy, might be.’ He looks straight at me. ‘I came immediately.’
I blush. Twist my jumper. ‘She’s alive,’ but barely a sound comes out. My mouth hardly moves; it’s not used to that word, that wondrous word. Because we don’t know anything anymore. About the war, about what happened, with our beautiful, glamorous, mysterious, fragile mother. I became mum to the crazy ragtag lot of us because Dad wasn’t around much either. War does that to people.
There were roses in the garden of our desert home that became our symbol of her. The four of us would visit them every Sunday and have a little chat. About how we’d been good and, er, not so good (Scruff had the most to talk about in that department, also about how hungry he always was because my cooking wasn’t up to scratch). Pin would list the swear words he’d caught that week (a lot). Bert would complain about her know-it-all big sister who thinks she’s boss. And I would whinge about them all, how hard it was being forced to grow up here with no help.
Bert is the key to this. She was the last to see Mum alive. Late one night she looked out her window and saw our mother being led away by a strange man, with no goodbyes. Our darling dad can never talk about it because he’s so filled up with grief, or … or what? He’s in Bath now, in a hospital getting fixed because he’s had a long, hard war. So we’re on our own. With Bone to help. We’ve never been quite sure whose side he’s on. Just have to trust him with this one.
