Whichwood(51)

But Oliver wanted more.

He missed Whichwood—and one young lady in particular—with a painful kind of longing, and Oliver Newbanks, who had not the faintest idea how to get back to it or her (the underwater elevator being accessible only by Town Elders), had never, not in his whole life, ever been in such a foul temper.*





Home was such a funny word.

Oliver’s had never felt like much, but there it was, waiting for him in the distance. He trudged on with a sigh. Not moments after entering the quiet abode and waving hello to the parents who sat calmly in the kitchen, sipping raspberry teas and reading the local newspaper—

The headline read LOCAL COW TRAPPED IN OWN MANURE

—Oliver locked himself in his bedroom, flung himself onto his bed, and pressed the heels of his shaking hands against his eyes.

He felt angry and ill; he felt strange all over. He felt—he felt—what was it? This sensation?

He had never been so upset, so frustrated, so powerless in all his life. He hated the limitations of his young body, of his dependence upon his parents and the system designed to hold him. He felt like he might explode out of his own skin, like he contained galaxies no one would ever see, like he’d been made privy to one of life’s greatest secrets and he would keep that secret, carry it inside of him forever. What was this, this tenderness in his bones? This earthquake breaking open his chest to make room for his newer, larger heart? Oliver did not know that what he felt now was the beginning of something greater than himself. All he knew, with sudden, piercing clarity, was that he would never be the same.

What was happening to him?

Oliver had no way of knowing this then—if he had, I wonder whether he would consider a revision—but the poor boy would ask himself this exact question no fewer than a thousand times over the course of the next four years. This is how long it would take him to get Laylee Layla Fenjoon to take a single, serious step in his direction. It would be four years before she looked at him like he wanted her to, four years before she smiled and said, without speaking, that she loved him.

He would wait four years for a moment that lasted no longer than five seconds; a moment that would change the course of his entire life.

But for now, he was only fourteen years old.

And right now, there was a bird knocking at his window.

It was the same large bird that had tried to sit on his shoulder—the one who’d ripped Oliver’s shirt on his walk home. He recognized its iridescent purple feathers and long white beak, but just because he recognized the bird did not mean he wasn’t wary of it. He had no idea why a bird would be knocking at his window—as far as Oliver was aware, this wasn’t a common practice of Ferenwoodian birds—but his curiosity got the better of him.

Reluctantly, he inched his way toward the single large window in his bedroom, and pressed his hands against the glass.

“What do you want?” he said.

The bird would only knock.

“What is it?” he shout-whispered.

Again, the bird pecked at the glass.

Frustrated, Oliver shoved open his window, ready to shoo it away by hand, when he was accosted, all at once, by a swarm of spiders. What happens next will go down in history as one of the single most terrifying experiences of Oliver’s life—and this he does not deny. In the time it took Oliver to prepare to scream (“I wasn’t going to scream,” he said to me), a hundred spiders had already spun a series of webs around his head, gagging his mouth shut. Oliver thought he might die of fright. He tried to call for help, all to no avail. He flung his arms around to try and knock the spiders off, but there were too many to fight. And now that he’d been safely rendered speechless, the rest of the arachnids felt free to work on binding his arms and legs. Only once his limbs had been thoroughly secured did the spiders then lift Oliver’s body onto their backs and shuttle him out the window, where the violet-feathered bird snatched him up in her talons and set off to sea.





To be clear: It was simply not true that Alice Alexis Queensmeadow had spent the forty-eight hours of their trip home weeping hysterically. Oliver, Alice assured me, had grossly exaggerated the facts. She had wept, it was true—but she had not lost control of her faculties. The very opposite, in fact.

Alice had been thinking.

Surely, those readers who remember Alice’s adventures in Furthermore would agree that she is not a girl easily cowed into submission. Certainly not. Alice had a heart of silk and a spine of steel; her tears did not render her incapable of kicking a person in the teeth if need be. And now, more upset and more determined than ever, she knew she had to find a way to set things right for Laylee. She had to get back to Whichwood—but how?

It was still only morning, but her parents had sent her directly to her room and forbade her from coming out except for mealtimes and visits to the toilet. She was to sit here, in the small room she shared with her three younger brothers (who were currently at school), and think about what she’d done.

Well, she’d already done that. And Alice was growing impatient.

Alice’s home, much like Benyamin’s, was decidedly small—so small, in fact, that she worried any unexpected sound might travel through to the adjoining room and alert her parents of her intentions to be obstinate—and so these last several minutes she’d been engaged in a herculean effort to sit uncommonly still. She counted seconds under her breath, sitting on her hands as she mouthed the numbers, holding steady just long enough to lull her mother and father into a false sense of security. Only after a suitable period of silence had passed did she then, carefully—very carefully—tiptoe to her bedroom door and place her ear against the wood, listening for her parents’ voices. Once she was sure they were far enough away, she reached into her pocket and extracted the wriggling stowaway hidden therein.