The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer (17 page)

The loblolly boy followed him through another set of double doors into the auditorium, then down the centre aisle to the small stage. At this point the Sorcerer turned left and made for the side where there were steps leading up to the stage.

Once they were on the stage, the Sorcerer put down the bag and turned to the loblolly boy who was shrinking from the next awful step. He looked at the rows of empty seats and shivered, remembering even if the theatre had been packed, he would have been invisible to all.

He did have to Exchange.

Life as the loblolly boy was unendurable.

‘I see you have misgivings, little loblolly boy …’

He looked up at the Sorcerer and nodded. ‘I’m worried,’ he whispered.

‘I’m sure you don’t need to be,’ said the Sorcerer. He did not sound in the least worried. ‘It’s as I said. The bird is only an intermediary stage. You originally went from human to loblolly boy, didn’t you?’

The loblolly boy nodded.

‘Then, it’s only natural that you should pass back from loblolly boy to human?’

The loblolly boy nodded again, but it did not seem altogether convincing.

‘In any case,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘It’s your only chance left, isn’t it? Everything else has been tried.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the loblolly boy.

He looked up at the Sorcerer.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, in a small voice.

The Sorcerer carefully unzipped the bag and withdrew the cockatoo, holding it firmly so that it couldn’t flap its wings.

‘What should I hold?’ the loblolly boy asked. ‘A wing or a leg?’

‘I have no idea,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘This kind of thing is entirely new to me. The leg. It’s easier.’

The loblolly boy thought so too. Moreover the cockatoo’s feet were rather more like a hand than the tips of its wing feathers.

Benjy seemed to know what was happening for the bird began to struggle in the Sorcerer’s grip and to shriek wildly.

‘Here goes,’ thought the loblolly boy.

He reached for the flexing talon, squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the bird’s foot firmly.

For a moment there was nothing, and then there was a flash of blue that, for a microsecond, illuminated the whole auditorium. The Sorcerer suddenly found himself firmly
embracing the loblolly boy. He looked wildly around and saw that below him on the floor making plaintive little sounds was a dejected looking sulphur-crested cockatoo.

Quickly releasing the loblolly boy and then pushing him unceremoniously to one side, the Sorcerer bent down and snatched up the whimpering cockatoo. He hurried to the open bag and pushed the cockatoo in, zipping the bag up before he turned to deal with the loblolly boy.

‘You have been the cause of considerable strife!’ he said severely.

The loblolly boy looked at him fearfully, apparently lost for words.

‘I want to make it quite clear that any attempt to Exchange with this cockatoo …’ Here the Sorcerer turned around and pointed dramatically at the overnight bag, ‘… will be treated with the utmost severity. Do you understand?’

The loblolly boy nodded. Then he mumbled, ‘I don’t want to.’

‘I do hope you mean that?’

‘I do,’ insisted the loblolly boy. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Furthermore,’ the Sorcerer continued coldly, ‘I strongly recommend that you leave this city forthwith. Quite frankly, I can see no further point in your being here. To be brutally frank, you have been little more than a trouble and a pain.’

‘But …’

‘No buts. My final suggestion is that you take yourself directly to the good Captain Bass. I am sure he will have advice for you and I’m equally sure that you should take it.’

The loblolly boy looked shaken and shocked.

‘Understand?’

The loblolly boy nodded.

‘Good,’ said the Sorcerer with a thin smile. ‘Then I’ll see you to the door and I’ll see you on your way.’

He turned abruptly and, pausing only to gather up the overnight bag, strode off the stage, down the steps and down the aisle, followed by a very sombre loblolly boy.

Once the loblolly boy had flown off into the late morning sky, the Sorcerer locked the theatre doors once more.

He glanced down at his overnight bag, now sitting squat on the footpath. There was little movement inside to show that the bag held a rather large sulphur-crested cockatoo but it was still making bewildered croaking and whimpering sounds.

On an impulse the Sorcerer picked the bag up, held it at face level, and then whispered through the fabric.

‘I’m really, really sorry.’ He paused, and turned away as if trying to control conflicting emotions. ‘I really believed that after the Exchange you’d be a boy again. This must
be such a disappointment to you. Such a deep and bitter disappointment.’ He turned away again before whispering finally. ‘I’m sorry, I really, really am.’

His baritone voice was deeply tragic, but as the Sorcerer returned to the Citroën, there was a broad grin on his face.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

O
NLY A BIRD IN A BAMBOO CAGE

T
he following Wednesday evening the Sorcerer turned up as usual for his weekly draughts tournament at the Gadget Man’s place.

‘Come in, come in,’ said the Gadget Man, glancing curiously at the bulky overnight bag the Sorcerer was carrying.

Once they were in his lounge and he had poured their tea, he looked expectantly at his guest.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Did you manage it? Were you able to effect the Exchange?’

‘Oh, I did, I did,’ said the Sorcerer smiling. ‘And, if I may say so myself, it was a complete triumph.’

‘Oh, good … good …’ said the Gadget Man.

Detecting a slight lack of enthusiasm in his friend, the Sorcerer said. ‘Now, Daniel, I know you gave it your best shot; just as I gave it my best shot. The point is, however, that my best shot was better.’

‘I suppose so,’ said the Gadget Man.

‘To put it in a nutshell …’ said the Sorcerer.

‘You won.’

‘I won!’ said the Sorcerer, and then added. ‘Fair and square!’

‘I suppose you’d like me to congratulate you?’ asked the Gadget Man.

‘Oh, no, not at all,’ smiled the Sorcerer, ‘your discomfit is reward and congratulations enough. In fact,’ he added, ‘knowing how awful you’d no doubt be feeling, I’ve taken the liberty of bringing you a small present.’

‘A present? For me?’

The Sorcerer pointed to the overnight bag, which he’d placed on the settee beside him. As the Gadget Man looked closer he saw the bag was shifting and twitching a little as if something inside it were pushing slightly at the fabric. Moreover, he thought he could hear a slightly high-pitched complaining noise like cellophane being crumpled.

He was quite intrigued. He stared over his half-glasses at the Sorcerer. ‘What on earth is it? What have you brought me?’

‘I’ve often thought, as you’ve shown me through the shop and into the apartment, that the old birdcage you have hanging in the shop was a wasted opportunity.’

‘Birdcage?’

‘Yes, the large birdcage with the stuffed parrot.’

‘Oh, that birdcage.’

‘Yes. So I’ve brought you something to put in it.’

‘You have?’

In reply, the Sorcerer leaned over the bag and gently unzipped it. Then he gestured the Gadget Man across.

He saw, crouched there and looking very sorry for itself, a large white bird with a distinctive yellow crest on its head. The bird looked up at him soulfully and croaked. It was a sad croak, like the creak of a sad door that hadn’t been opened for a long, long time.

‘What is it?’

‘I believe,’ said the Sorcerer, ‘that it’s a sulphur-crested cockatoo.’

‘It doesn’t look very happy.’

‘That’s because it’s been stuck in the bag for too long. It’ll be miles happier once you put it in the cage.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Of course! Go and get it.’

The Gadget Man still looked a little doubtful, but nevertheless hurried out of his living room and into the shop. As soon as he was out of sight the Sorcerer slipped the telescope from his sleeve and quickly returned it, although not to the mantelpiece he had taken it from. Instead he placed it on the floor, on to the tiles at the base of the surround. By the time the Gadget Man had returned, lugging the large split-cane cage, the Sorcerer was sitting on the settee again as if he’d never budged.

‘Here it is,’ gasped the Gadget Man. ‘I’d forgotten it was so awkward and heavy.’

He deposited it so clumsily on the coffee table next to the draughts board that the draughtsmen rattled and there was a small cloud of dust. The stuffed parrot looked faded and moth-eaten. It was attached to the perch, but leaned at an unnatural angle.

‘I suppose, I should take the parrot out?’

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ said the Sorcerer easily. ‘It’ll be good company for Ben.’

‘Ben?’

‘That’s what I’ve called the cockatoo. After an old friend.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t name it Daniel,’ said the Gadget Man. ‘Two of us could be confusing.’

The Sorcerer was inspecting the cage critically. ‘I don’t suppose you have a small lock amongst all your things, do you?’ he asked. ‘This door doesn’t look very secure. Cockatoos are quite intelligent and even more resourceful. I suspect Ben could manoeuvre his way out of here. We wouldn’t want to lose him.’

‘I’m sure I have,’ said the Gadget Man, and once again he hurried from the room. In his absence, the Sorcerer once more unzipped the bag, but this time he reached in and gently withdrew the cockatoo, stroking its beating breast softly with the back of one finger. Then, holding the bird firmly with one hand only, he unfastened the door to the cage, and then carefully fed the bird in. By the time the Gadget Man came back with a small padlock, the sulphur-crested cockatoo was sitting on the floor of the cage, blinking in the light.

‘I think he likes his new home,’ said the Sorcerer.

‘Do you really think so?’ said the Gadget Man, quite unconvinced. He thought that the cockatoo, if anything, looked even more miserable than it had in the overnight bag.

‘He’s probably just hungry,’ suggested the Sorcerer, leaning over and securing the door with the padlock then passing the key to the Gadget Man.

‘Oh, there’s a thought,’ said the Gadget Man, suddenly worried. ‘What does he eat? I mean if he eats millet or birdseed or anything then I’m afraid …’

The Sorcerer laughed. ‘He’s not a canary, Daniel. No, cockatoos are very agreeable in terms of diet. They’re particularly fond of nuts and vegetables. If you haven’t any nuts, chop up a carrot and a head of broccoli. I believe they’re especially fond of broccoli.’

As they settled to their first game, the Gadget Man said, ‘A small mystery, Sorcerer, has been troubling me, and I fear I have been thinking ill of the loblolly boy and that small girl.’

‘Mystery?’

‘The telescope I usually keep on my mantelpiece …’

‘Yes?’

‘It seems to have disappeared.’

The Sorcerer looked at the Gadget Man with alarm.

‘Daniel! You don’t think …?’

The Gadget Man nodded. ‘I’m sure I noticed that it was missing some time after their last visit.’

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said the Sorcerer. ‘That loblolly boy was a flighty little creature and I considered the girl to be a little shifty.’

‘Oh, I don’t think they were as bad as that, but it’s a worry all the same.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘See for yourself.’

The Sorcerer looked over his shoulder. ‘Indeed’, he said, ‘not on the mantelpiece. Could you have put it anywhere else?’

The Gadget Man shook his head. ‘I hardly ever touch it, except when I dust occasionally.’

‘A mystery then.’ The Sorcerer gave a wry smile. ‘Perhaps it disappeared all by itself?’

‘How could it do that?’

‘It may have looked up itself.’

The Gadget Man stared at the Sorcerer. ‘You don’t really think so?’

The Sorcerer laughed. ‘No, it was a joke. But seriously, don’t you think that you’ve been so troubled by the prospect of losing in this little challenge that you’ve been out of sorts, possibly imagining things? You’ve undoubtedly shifted the thing or mislaid it. And while I have no doubt that the loblolly boy or the girl could well have been capable of stealing your telescope, you’re forgetting the practical difficulties they’d have getting it out of the place under your very nose?’

The Gadget Man nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

He stood up.

‘Where was the last place you saw it?’ asked the Sorcerer. ‘That’s always a good place to start.’

‘It was on the mantelpiece,’ said the Gadget Man testily. ‘You know that.’

‘Well?’

Obediently the Gadget Man crossed to the mantelpiece. ‘See. It’s not …’

And then he looked down.

‘Oh, my goodness!’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s here. The telescope’s here after all. It’s on the floor.’

The Sorcerer shrugged. ‘Perhaps one of those young ones, or perhaps it rolled off. Any earthquakes lately?’

‘I hope it’s not damaged,’ said the Gadget Man. Worriedly, he bent down and picked the telescope up, checking the cylinders and the lenses carefully.

‘Don’t look through it, mind.’

‘I’m not silly.’

‘Well, that’s that then,’ said the Sorcerer, clapping his hands. ‘What about this game then?’

The Gadget Man returned the telescope to the mantelpiece and rejoined the Sorcerer.

‘I’m so pleased I’ve found it,’ he said. ‘I have been worried. That little device could be dangerous in the wrong hands.’

Sitting disconsolately at the bottom of his cage, the sulphur-crested cockatoo had followed these exchanges with a deepening dejection. He cocked his head to look at the Sorcerer with bewilderment. The man was so callous, so completely beyond human feeling. And why was he surprised? He had been told to beware, he had been told to fear, and he had been told that the Sorcerer was the worst.

Catching the cockatoo’s eye the Sorcerer grinned and gave him a cheerful wink.

‘You know, I think Ben is going to be very happy here once he cheers up. You’re quite right, he does seem a little morose at the moment, even resentful. I’ve no idea why … You know, I think I’d keep him upstairs in the workshop. There’ll be more for him to see up there.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, and, of course, there’s another locked door. Remember, they are very resourceful birds.’

The next day, the sulphur-crested cockatoo was wakened into sudden daylight. Blinking in the brightness, he realised that the Gadget Man had just removed the heavy blanket that he had draped over his cage the night before.

He stretched out first one leg flexing his talons, and then the other. He tentatively lifted his wings a little, and then brought them back.

He looked around. Already the Gadget Man had turned his back and was making for his workbench. Clearly he did not intend to waste his time chatting to a cockatoo.

His cage was now sitting on a crowded table in the Gadget Man’s upstairs workroom. He remembered visiting the room briefly just a few days ago. He gave a little discontented squawk as he reflected that not even in his most ghastly nightmares could he have dreamed of being permanently transformed into a cockatoo and compelled to
spend the rest of his days caged in this place.

He glanced up. The faded stuffed parrot leaned in its eccentric way overhead. Once its feathers would have been brilliant: crimson, yellow and aquamarine. Now age and dust had rendered the crimson rusty, the yellow muddy, and the aquamarine into a tired ink stain.

A hideous thought occurred to him: one day perhaps he too would be stuffed and fixed to the perch, forever to squat beside the fading parrot.

His heart was heavy. Everything he’d tried to do to improve his situation had led him to something worse. And this surely was worst of all.

It was hugely unjust.

The more he thought of it the more unjust it seemed.

It was all the fault of the Sorcerer of course. He said whatever he felt you wanted to hear. Truth had nothing to do with it. He was all mischief, all trickery.

Still, he couldn’t understand why the Sorcerer had directed so much of his mischief towards him. What was the reason for this? Was it simply because he didn’t suffer fools gladly? He knew the Sorcerer had thought him a foolish little loblolly boy.

But where was the fun in making fools of fools?

How much more satisfying to make fools of clever people, like the Gadget Man.

And then the Sorcerer, not content with turning him into a cockatoo, had deliberately set out to make his life miserable as a cockatoo. He had given him to the Gadget Man, who clearly didn’t want him; he had put him in a cage
along with a horrible stuffed parrot; he had made sure there was a padlock on the cage; he told the Gadget Man to feed him broccoli; and he had suggested that he spend his days in this large, draughty, messy room filled with noisy tools and strange apparatus.

And then he had the gall to warn the Gadget Man that the cockatoo was a resourceful bird. Resourceful? What resources did he have now?

What weapons? He couldn’t even throw the loathsome broccoli through the bars of his cage at his reluctant owner.

It was so unfair. Unjust.

The biggest injustice was that final Exchange.

He
hadn’t looked through the telescope and turned into a sulphur-crested cockatoo. Oh, no. That was Benjy. That had been Benjy’s destined fate; Benjy’s destiny. Just as it had been Janice’s destiny to be transformed into a white rabbit.

Now, here he was, crouched in a split-cane cage surrounded by drying slivers of carrot and raw broccoli flowerets, living out Benjy’s destiny. And meanwhile, Benjy was winging south as the loblolly boy, riding the wind and sailing the skies.

It was totally unjust.

After some hours, the Gadget Man, who had been pottering at his bench without once coming to check the cockatoo,
took off his brown dustcoat, and threw it on the table next to the cage. This time he did come up to the bars to look at his new pet.