The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer

P
ROLOGUE

H
ad you been there at the time, you would have seen nothing untoward, nothing strange at all.

You would have seen a tall, rather forbidding building, possibly a school, a concrete playground with a number of boys kicking a ball about. They would have been dressed in baggy red overalls, a kind of uniform perhaps.

But then, to the side, you would have noticed one boy in identical overalls keeping his distance from the others. Something, in addition to his bright red hair, would have attracted your attention. He was standing by a spreading tree, apparently quite alone, yet by the way he was standing, by the way he moved his head at times, but most of all by the way he seemed to be murmuring to himself — all this suggested an outsider, a loner. You might have decided that not only was he unhappy, but he was also, perhaps, a little unusual.

Then you would have noticed that the boy was being approached by two red-haired girls, just a little younger.
Following them was a woman, and following the woman was a man in a dark suit.

Had you been especially observant you might have just at this point noticed an almost imperceptible flash of blue. Some electrical discharge, perhaps?

The boy would have looked up briefly, and then turned to look at the party approaching him. The two girls had already broken into a run and the boy seemed changed somehow. As the girls reached him he grinned.

But if you had been a Sensitive, the little scene would have appeared astonishingly, amazingly different. You would have seen that the boy was not alone. He was not talking to himself. Standing beside him in urgent conversation was a strange figure: a smallish boy in filmy green garments.

As the two talked, they glanced from time to time at the small party approaching them. And then, just as the two girls broke into their run, a decision appeared to have been made. The two boys reached towards each other and seized hands.

You may have noticed the small blueish flash. If you were able to perceive in microseconds, you might then have apprehended something amazing: the two boys, one in green and one in red Exchange. You would have gasped in wonder as the boy in the filmy green leapt into the air, stretching
his great green feathery wings, lifting them back and forth, soaring higher, ever higher until he was above the tree tops, above the great building, and arcing towards the clouds themselves.

‘It’s a bird!’ cried Suzy.

‘No, it’s a plane!’ cried Meg.

‘Don’t be silly girls,’ scolded their mother, but all the same, she looked up. As she half-expected, there was nothing to see apart from a fluffy skein of white cloud.

‘Tell her, Michael,’ cried Suzy.

Their brother grinned at them. ‘Tell her what?’

‘That it’s …’

‘What?’

Michael, too, was gazing at the sky, where the
ever-diminishing
green-winged figure was flying towards the horizon.

‘… the loblolly boy!’ the sisters shouted in chorus.

‘A bob lolly what?’ asked their mother, once more scanning what was, to her, the empty sky. ‘What are they on about, Michael?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Michael, winking at the girls. Then he turned his attention to the sky once more in order to catch one last glimpse of the loblolly boy before he disappeared forever. There. He was gone.

‘Take no notice,’ he said, reaching for his mother’s hand. ‘They’re just teasing you.’

His mother shook her head crossly, and squeezed his hand. ‘Well, I just hope you don’t pick up their silly habits. Impossible!’ She shook her head again in mock-exasperation.

But Michael wasn’t listening.

Thank you,
he said silently.
And whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope you find it.

He looked back to find that the others were already moving away.

‘Hurry up, Michael,’ said Suzy. ‘Let’s get out of this bloody place. It’s starting to give me the creeps!’

CHAPTER ONE

T
HE CAPTAIN'S SONG

T
he loblolly boy rode the currents of air with
remembered
ease. He lifted himself on the updrafts and then, by adjusting the angle of his wings, allowed himself to drop. In this way, he flew away from the Great House in a series of dipping swoops and curving climbs. He had almost forgotten how exhilarating flying was. Now, riding the air once more, he recalled the first thrill of it, and how it made being a loblolly boy the most wonderful thing imaginable. It was only later that he had come to recognise the terrible cost that had to be paid for such a wonder. How a loblolly boy was only a shadow of a real person, how a loblolly boy was cut off from the human world, the world of feeling and companionship, and how a loblolly boy despite his amazing abilities had to negotiate the terrifying dangers that could threaten at any time.

Far, far below he could see the small group. There was the boy with red hair, the two girls, the woman who was probably their mother, and a grey-haired man in a black suit. This was the superintendent. He knew the superintendent only too well. The loblolly boy had a momentary urge to swoop down and grab at the thick grey hair.

It was a common belief among the boys in the Great House that the superintendent's odd-looking thatch of hair was in fact a hair-piece or some kind of wig. It would have been a satisfying final gesture to find out if that rumour were true. However, the loblolly boy found he didn't care any more, he didn't care about the superintendent and his hair, didn't care about the Great House.

All he cared about at that moment was the
beautifully-fashioned
Hornby locomotive he had just been given by the boy, Michael, the one with the red hair, the boy who had been the loblolly boy and the one whose identity he had stolen. Now, that he was the loblolly boy once more, this locomotive was his only link with his former life. Somehow, he would bring the little engine home. However awful that home had been, he had learnt that life in the Great House, or life as a loblolly boy, was far, far worse. He had discovered that it was important you lived your own life. A stolen life is a painful fraud. What was the old line? Out of the frying pan; into the fire.

So, it was out of the fire and back to the frying pan.
He now had to find the boy who had stolen
his
life and Exchange with him once more.

Exchanging, he guessed, should not be a problem. His stepmother was so horribly awful she would surely have made the boy's life a non-stop misery.

The difficulty would be finding them. Only minutes after he had been suckered into the first Exchange that turned him into the loblolly boy, his father and Janice would have left the city to shift north. The boy who had stolen his life would have gone with them. They would not have known that their son Ben had been usurped and there was an imposter in his place. Now, they could be anywhere.

The loblolly boy made one final circle above the playing field. Surrounding the playing field, in fact surrounding the whole estate, were the tall trees he'd often sought to escape to when things had been really tough. Shining among them like a small mirror was the small lake near where he'd first managed to convince the boy named Michael to Exchange with him all those weeks ago. Beyond the lake and the tall trees was the high brick wall that closed off the world outside and all of its dangers and all of its pleasures.

Before long the loblolly boy left the red brick pile that was the Great House, the House of discarded boys and lost souls. His time there had been unutterably awful. What
had possessed him to Exchange with the boy Michael? He shook his head at the stupidity of it. It was probably because Michael was the first Sensitive he'd come across, and the need to Exchange with him was greater than the need to do his homework and find out what he would be letting himself in for. At that point, escaping from being a loblolly boy was the only thing on his mind.

Discovering that Michael was a Sensitive had been like finding a light in the darkness. He had been told of the Sensitives by the Captain. Sensitives were those who could actually see the loblolly boy and talk to him. Almost everyone else, especially if they were grown up, could not see him at all. He was invisible, soundless, not there. But Sensitives could see him in three dimensions — could see his green wings, could hear his voice, could talk to him. And, although they rarely knew it, Sensitives could Exchange. In other words, they could become the loblolly boy themselves — and the one who had been the loblolly boy could take over their body and their life. In this way the loblolly boy had stolen his life, as he in turn had stolen Michael's. Michael had been smart enough to find him and Exchange back. Now finding himself once again the loblolly boy, he had been granted another bite of the cherry and he must do the same: find the one who had stolen his life, Exchange again and become the Ben he once was.

At the thought of the Captain he realised with a sinking feeling that sooner rather than later he would need to talk to him. Probably, right away. Truth to tell, the Captain frightened him. Captain Bass was always a little gruff in a
surface-friendly way, but it wasn't the gruffness that scared him. No, when the Captain looked at him with those
ocean-blue
eyes of his, they seemed to stare right into his very being. He could hide nothing from the Captain. In fact, the Captain seemed to know things about him he didn't know himself. And that was frightening.

Captain Bass stood at the door of his ramshackle cabin and squinted up into the sky. It was a fine morning and the sea was blue and speckled with whitecaps. A salty breeze was sharp enough to tickle the Captain's nostrils and he fought off a sneeze.

‘I think it is,' he muttered to himself. Then he raised a large hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

Sure enough, he was soon able to make out the small flying object he suspected was the loblolly boy.

But which loblolly boy?

Ah, well, he would know soon enough — for by now it was abundantly clear that the small flying object had emerald wings and, moreover, was growing larger by the second.

Very shortly afterwards with a nervous little wave the loblolly boy landed in the soft black sand. He looked towards the Captain somewhat unsurely. In his hands he cradled the oil-cloth parcel the Captain knew contained the beautiful Hornby engine.

‘Hello,' he said.

‘So you're back then,' said the captain flatly.

The loblolly boy trembled. He knew the Captain's bark was worse than his bite, but at the same time, the Captain's bark could be terrifying.

He nodded.

The Captain grunted and then set off along the rocky path from his doorway to the beach where the loblolly boy still stood. He needed to inspect his visitor more closely. The Captain was a large shambling man with a
weather-beaten
face and a full beard of whiskers the colour of
sand-speckled
salt. He walked, in his rocking sailor's gait, right up to the loblolly boy until he towered over him. All this time the loblolly boy neither moved nor took his apprehensive eyes off the Captain.

For a long period the Captain gravely studied the small figure before him, and then he grunted once more, although this time there was a faint note of satisfaction in the grunt.

‘So you did Exchange …' he said. It was more of a statement than a question.

The loblolly boy nodded once more.

‘Why? Would you rather be a loblolly boy than a real live flesh and blood boy?'

This time, the loblolly boy shook his head.

‘Well?'

‘I want to be me again …' the loblolly boy said.

The Captain pretended to be puzzled. Then he raised one eyebrow and said, ‘But you are you! Who else are you but the loblolly boy?'

The loblolly boy knew he was being teased but there was not a lot he could do about it. The last thing he could afford to do was get angry and upset the Captain. He had to play along with the Captain's silly little games. The Captain was his only hope really.

‘I want to be who I was,' he said, and added a little defiantly: ‘Me!'

The Captain pondered this reply before saying, ‘I see. You'd like to Exchange again?'

The loblolly boy nodded. He then dared to glance up at the Captain's sea-blue eyes hoping they would be twinkling with playful humour. He was disappointed. The Captain's eyes were bleak. There was little good humour there, only the promise of bad weather to come.

‘You'd like to be the boy you were?'

‘Yes!'

‘Even though?'

The boy knew exactly what the old man meant and nodded.

‘Do you have any reason to believe that will be easy? Or even possible?'

The loblolly boy found himself shrinking.

‘You know the old saying, what's done is done and can't be undone?'

The loblolly boy shook his head.

‘What about not putting the toothpaste back in the tube?'

The loblolly boy felt an increasing alarm. ‘I Exchanged back with the red-haired boy,' he protested.

‘Ah, so you did. So you did,' said the Captain. And then he added: ‘The more fool you.'

This was brutal, and the Captain seeing the suddenly forlorn figure before him, softened. ‘Well, you'd better come along inside then,' he said. ‘I'm hungry even if you're not able to be, and I feel a fry-up coming on.'

Watching him finish his meal, the loblolly boy was reminded of what a sloppy eater the Captain was. In an old black iron pan he'd spooned a couple of tablespoons of old fat and heated it until it spat and sputtered. Into this bubbling puddle he'd dropped several kidneys, half a dozen greasy rashers of bacon, and two or three halved tomatoes. To this in turn he'd added two or three slices of bread. After the meat and tomatoes had been fried to a reddish mess, the Captain had not bothered to spoon it onto a plate; instead he'd devoured the meal directly from the frying pan. Now, he cut another couple of thick slices of bread and began to mop up the greasy juices left in the pan. There were speckles of tomato and gravy all over the table and juice stains spattered down the Captain's blue shirt. Oil shone in his beard. With a large belch of satisfaction, he mopped up the last of the fat and juice, then pushed the bread into his mouth. After this he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand smearing fat over his moustache, cheeks and beard.

‘That was so good,' he said.

He let loose another belch. ‘You know little loblolly boy,
you're the perfect guest. You don't eat, you don't drink, and you hardly say a word.'

The loblolly boy nodded, and didn't say a word. He really had nothing to say, being plunged into disappointment by new fears. Astonished as he was by the Captain's eating habits, he did hope that the vast quantity of greasy food the Captain had put away would put him in a better frame of mind than the grumpy Captain who had greeted him on the beach.

‘In fact, you hardly need any entertaining at all!'

The loblolly boy waited.

The Captain treated him to a big grin, too big to be pleasant. ‘Nevertheless, I have a treat for you, a wonderful treat …'

The loblolly boy did not say a word. This sounded ominous.

The Captain stood up. Then he shambled across the room to an ancient wooden dresser. Reaching up, he brought down from its top, a battered-looking old banjo. The Captain struck a silly pose with bowed legs and then announced, ‘I'm going to sing to you!'

The loblolly boy's eyes widened. This was unexpected. He dared not betray his feelings. He allowed himself a small smile suggesting his pleasure at the forthcoming
wonderful
treat
. Inwardly, he hoped desperately that the Captain's singing would be better than his eating, although he had grave doubts.

‘I'm going to sing an old shanty, a favourite of mine. Perhaps you know it. Join in, if you do, on the chorus. It's
called
The Jugglers, the Sorcerer and the Gadget Man
.'

The loblolly boy shook his head. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know it.'

‘No matter,' grinned the Captain. ‘You'll be all the better for listening to it then.'

The doubts the loblolly boy had about the Captain's playing and singing were realised as soon as he began to strike at the banjo's strings. The jangling sound suggested that the instrument had not been tuned for years, and the Captain's large fingers, despite his rhythmical strumming, fashioned chords quite unknown to musical harmony.

However, as bad as the Captain's banjo playing was, his singing was worse. Much worse. It was more akin to braying; the low notes were reduced to gravel and on the higher notes his voice wobbled between a screeching falsetto and a strangled yell.