Nymphomation(106)

‘Look, Celia. I brought your feather back.’

‘Ooh! Was it lucky for you?’

‘You betcha.’

‘Urgh! It’s all sticky. Jaz! What’s this stuff all over it? Where have you been putting this?’

‘I dropped it in a barrel of lucky juice.’

‘Lucky juice! What’s that?’

‘Just don’t lose it, kid. OK?’

‘Yeah! Lucky juice! Well done, Whippoorwill!’

Well, there are some things a kid of eight just doesn’t need to know, don’t you think?

‘Is he all right?’ asked Joe, pointing at Max.

‘Max is fine. Aren’t you, Max?’

The professor nodded.

I left Celia and Joe to their wasted celebrations, and took Max through into the library. This wasn’t going to be easy, and I was shaking suddenly, as the force of adventure left my body cold and uncovered. We talked a little about what had happened to us, but eventually I had to make my point.

‘You know what you’ve got to do, Max. Finish it.’

He nodded.

‘You want help?’

He shook his head. I left him to it, by whatever means, then went in search of Daisy. I found her in the cellar, arguing with her father. It looked like a family affair, so I went back upstairs. When she was ready, she would come for me. And I was thinking about my own father anyway, and the whole family business…

What day was it? I was still having trouble with the time.

Of course, still Friday. I looked at my watch, but the hands were moving backwards and forwards at speed. I still wasn’t down yet, perhaps I never would be. Anyway, I rang my dad at the restaurant and told him I was coming home. He shouted and raved, but I was cool about it, I kept my tongue curled and put down the phone at the earliest.

Back in the living room, Joe was saying he was going to collect the prize right now, and Celia had better give him the bone. Celia was saying that it wasn’t his, that she’d thrown his away. No way, he was saying, I paid good money for that bone and give it here right now, squirt.

‘Give it to him, Celia,’ I said. ‘Go on…’

‘No. It’s mine.’

‘Trust me…’

She did. She did, and it felt good.

‘Open all channels,’ said Joe, as he left the room. ‘Connect to everything.’

Yeah, I suppose so. That’s the last we saw of him.

Daisy came up from the cellar a few minutes later. She was white in the face, like a ghost had set up house inside her eyes. I asked what was wrong.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said.

‘Sure thing. What about your dad?’

‘No.’

I gathered together what we needed, and then led Daisy and Celia out of the front door. People were in the streets by now, and a million dances had turned to outrage and shock and then despair and then anger, and finally resignation. The streets, as we walked them, were already covered with a rich, useless carpet of winning bones; all dancing forever in the glorious double-six.

‘This means that nobody gets to be Mister Million,’ I told Celia. ‘Do you understand?’

‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘It means that everybody does! Everybody everywhere, we’re all Mister Million now!’

Maybe she’s right. I’m still waiting for the feeling.

We were walking down Burton Road, and the people were turning their joint winnings into a reason for celebration; God had played a joke on the city, and they might as well laugh it off. Already some of the discarded bones had started to hatch, a new swarm of blurbflies getting ready for flight. I had this intense desire to follow them, to spread my wings and take off, maybe to London, maybe elsewhere, maybe just as far as my family’s house. In the end Celia persuaded me to take the bus. The bus was strangely empty, as though nobody had anywhere to go, even on a Friday night.

We sat upstairs, and Daisy started to talk at last. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘I’ve just realized. Why Benny was so desperate to get my DNA. It was for Hackle. He wanted to test me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘My father… he told me everything…’