Peter and the Shadow Thieves (26 page)

Fly out!
repeated Tink.

Fly out!
said one of the canaries, final y understanding, flitting to the cage door. The others picked up the cry:
Fly out! Fly out!

The canary flew up against the cage door; it swung open, and the canary darted out, fol owed quickly by the others. By the time Wren saw what was happening and lunged toward the cage, he was too late: the canaries—seventeen in al —were now loose in the room. Wren lunged about, trying unsuccessful y to grab them, as Pondle watched the scene with alarm while Edgar leaped up and down on his shoulder, screeching loudly.

Fly to me!
cal ed Tink.
Fly to me! Peck the man! Peck the man!

Peck the man!
chorused the canaries.
Peck the man!

Suddenly Pondle was surrounded by a swirling swarm of yel ow.

“Ow!” he shouted, as the first sharp beak sunk into a rol of pink flesh on his neck. “OWWWW!” Edgar screeched and leaped from Pondle’s shoulder in an effort to escape the canaries; his weight yanked Pondle’s left hand free from Tinker Bel just as he had released her with his right to swat at the attacking birds.

Tink was free.

It took her a second to get her bearings. Spying the open door, she shot toward it.

WHAM!

The door slammed just before she reached it. Wren, having seen Tink escape Pondle’s grasp and anticipating her escape attempt, got there first. He almost grabbed Tink as wel , his lunging hand missing her by an inch as she veered sharply away.

The den was chaos now: Pondle, his head stil in a swarm of attacking canaries, was running blindly in circles, bel owing and waving his arms, flinging the hapless Edgar around like a rag dol .

Wren, meanwhile, had eyes only for Tink. He stalked her, occasional y leaping at her; but as quick as he was, she was quicker, managing each time to elude him. He pursued her as she flew around the den, looking desperately for an exit, but the door was shut tight and there were no windows. After several circuits, Tink landed on a stuffed moose head just out of Wren’s reach. She perched on the moose’s massive antlers, panting, watching Wren the way a bird watches a cat, while he stood below, also panting, watching her the way a cat watches a bird.

They remained that way for several seconds, focused on each other, ignoring the bleats of Pondle, who was now bleeding from numerous smal but painful peck wounds. Then Wren had an idea. Bypassing Pondle, he crossed to the butterfly wal , grabbed the butterfly net, and yanked it free from its mounting bracket. Holding it in both hands, he moved back across the floor toward Tink, who watched him coming closer and…

SWOOSH!

…Tink shot away from the antlers only an instant before the net got there. Wren cursed as he yanked the handle, pul ing the moose head off the wal and sending it crashing to the floor. He whirled and set off after Tink.

SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

Twice more he swung the net at her; the second time he very nearly got her, the wire striking her leg and sending her spinning through the air. Wren smiled grimly; she would tire, and he would have her soon.

Tink was thinking the same thing as she looked frantical y around the room for a way to escape, or at least a place to rest for a moment.

And then she heard it.

Hot!
said the voice.
Hot!
Out!

Tink, shooting across the room to escape another swing of the net, looked around for the source of the voice. Suddenly she realized who was cal ing to her.

Edgar.

The monkey, between jerks on the silver chain attaching his col ar to Pondle’s wrist, was chattering and hooting at her. She wasn’t getting everything he said; he spoke a different dialect from the monkeys back on Mol usk Island. But two words—“hot” and “out”—came through clearly and repeatedly. He was also gesturing frantical y toward the fireplace.

There were fires on Mol usk Island, but no fireplaces; Tink did not know how a chimney worked. But she knew that if she didn’t do something soon, the man with the net would get her.

Tink swooped across the room, directly at the glowing coals. She felt a
SWOOSH
just miss her from behind as she shot into the fireplace, gasping as the fiercely hot air hit her face. Instinctively, she turned up and away from it, into the smoky darkness of the chimney. Up and up and up she went, holding her breath to keep out the foul fumes, almost losing consciousness just as she felt the blessed coolness of the dank, foggy London air, and found herself soaring free in the night.

From the chimney behind her, she heard faint sounds: the wails of Lord Pondle, famed col ector, batting helplessly at fierce, tiny, yel ow birds; the sound of her savior, Edgar, hooting in delight; and—loudest of al —the curses of Isaac Wren, bird sel er, who had just seen his glorious, happy, wealthy future vanish up the flue.

P
ETER ACHED ALL OVER. He ached in his jaw and bely, where the bird seler had hit him; he ached in his legs, from standing in tense readiness against the wal of the cel, braced for an attack by Rafe. And he ached in his arms and hands from holding the heavy, disgusting toilet bucket, its fumes so foul that several times he had gagged uncontrol ably. Once, Peter set the bucket down, but Rafe was on his feet in an instant, ready to pounce, and Peter had to quickly pick it back up again, slopping some of its repulsive contents onto his bare feet.

He knew he could not stand this much longer. Rafe knew it, too. The stocky bul y sat comfortably on the far side of the cel , watching Peter with a contemptuous smirk.

“Smel s good, don’t it?” he asked. “You’l be wearing that bucket on your head soon enough.” This was the fourth time he’d made that joke, but the other boys hooted with laughter as though they’d never heard it before.

Their raucous reaction was silenced by the appearance at the cel door of two uniformed men. These were the jailer, a mutton-chopped man named Humdrake, and his nervous young assistant, a boy of fifteen named Kremp, al gawky limbs and Adam’s apple. In one hand, Humdrake lugged a heavy, coiled chain; in the other, he held a metal key ring with a half dozen keys. He inserted one of these into the cel door, opened it, stepped inside with Kremp, then relocked the door. He faced the prisoners.

“ALL RIGHT, YOU WORTHLESS SCUM,” he bel owed—while on official duty, Humdrake never spoke below a bel ow—“LINE UP ACCORDING TO HEIGHT.” To emphasize the command, he gave the boy nearest to him a kick. The boys began scrambling into line.

“KREMP,” Humdrake bel owed to his assistant. “WAKE UP THAT SCUM OVER THERE.” He pointed to the snoring drunks. As Kremp went over and began prodding them, Humdrake’s eyes fel on Peter, stil standing against the wal , holding the toilet bucket.

“YOU!” bel owed Humdrake. “WHAT D’YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH THAT?”

“I…I…” stammered Peter. “I was—”

“DO YOU INTEND TO STEAL THAT BUCKET?” bel owed Humdrake, who was not one to tolerate toilet-bucket thieves.

“No, sir,” said Peter. “I was—”

“THEN PUT IT DOWN.”

“Yes, sir,” said Peter, setting down the bucket, glad to be relieved of its weight and stink.

“NOW GET INTO LINE,” bel owed Humdrake, grabbing Peter by the shoulder and shoving him toward the others. Peter, avoiding a punch thrown by Rafe, got into line according to size, smal est to largest, toward the front, fourth in line. Kremp herded the drunks to the end of the line. One of them, stumbling and confused, said, “What’s happening?

Where are we going?”

“YOU ARE GOING TO BE TAKEN BEFORE THE MAGISTRATE,” bel owed Humdrake. He had bel owed these same words many times before; it was rote bel owing. “YOU

WILL HAVE A PROPER HEARING TO DETERMINE YOUR GUILT OR INNOCENCE. YOU WILL THEN BE TAKEN TO NEWGATE TO ROT.” At those words, the boy in front of Peter, who was perhaps nine years old, perhaps eight, began to cry.

“What’s Newgate?” Peter whispered to him.

“A prison,” sniffed the boy. “A ’orrible, ’orrible prison. Me dad died there.”

Peter turned toward Humdrake, gulped, and spoke.

“Sir!” he said.

“WHAT IS IT?”

“What if…” said Peter, screwing up his courage, “what if we haven’t done anything wrong?”

The larger boys behind Peter snorted. Humdrake turned a purplish shade of red.

“KREMP!” he bel owed. “CLOUT THAT BOY ON THE EAR!”

Kremp scuttled over and clouted Peter on the ear. Fortunately for Peter, Kremp was an inexperienced clouter, and it was not too painful.

“IF YOU DIDN’T DO NOTHING,” said Humdrake, explaining the fine points of English law, “THEN YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE, NOW WOULD YOU?” Peter saw that his only way out of this predicament would be to fly. He knew he’d be seen, but he had no choice. He’d do it quickly, he decided, the instant they were outside.

Then he—

Peter’s thoughts were interrupted by the clinking of chain links. He looked to the back of the line.

Oh, no.

Humdrake was chaining the prisoners together. He moved down the line, squatting next to the prisoners one by one, snapping shackles around their right ankles; the shackles were firmly attached to the chain. As Humdrake closed each shackle, he locked it with a smal , shiny brass key on his key ring. As he approached the front of the line, Peter looked around desperately but hopelessly: the cel door was locked; there was no way out. He felt a hol owness in his stomach as Humdrake snapped the cold iron ring around his own filthy ankle.

His flying ability was useless now. He was trapped.

T
INKER BELL WAS NOT a city girl. She’d come into being on a tropical island that she could see in its entirety from aloft, which meant that navigation was a simple matter of looking down and finding a familiar cove, rock, hil , or jungle clearing.

But now, having escaped the birdcage man and the horrid col ector with the sweaty palms, Tink found herself flying over a different, and far more confusing, kind of jungle.

Below her lay a vast clutter of soot-blackened rooftops, hundreds and thousands of them, stretching into the gray formless murk in every direction. Peter was somewhere down there, but Tink had no idea where.

She decided it would be best to fly toward the ship, since that was where she and Peter had started; her hope was that, in retracing their route, her path might cross with Peter’s. The problem was that she didn’t know which way the ship was, or where she was, as she’d been carried to the col ector’s house in a canvas-shrouded cage.

She flew randomly for a while, seeing no change in the rooftop terrain. Final y, growing weary, she landed on the apex of a steeply peaked roof, next to a smoking chimney.

Seconds later, a pigeon alit next to her.

Food? said the pigeon.

No,
said Tink.
No food. Do you know where the ships are
?

Food
? said the pigeon.
Food
?

No,
said Tink.
Ship
?

Food
? said the pigeon.
Food
?
Food
?
Food
?
Food
?

NO!
snapped Tink, and the startled pigeon, in an explosion of feathers, flapped off.

Stupid bird,
thought Tink, as she wearily launched herself into the dank London air, on a hopeless quest to find one smal ish boy in a city of four mil ion people.