Un Lun Dun

Five more animals emerged. One, when he said jealous, was a beautiful iridescent bat.

“SOLILOQUY!” Mr. Speaker said. His enormous lips stretched around sound that seemed to coagulate. The word thickened and tumbled out, taking on color and shape, rolling into his lap in a trembling ball.

It unfolded shyly and looked around. The word soliloquy was a long-necked sinuous quadruped. Mr. Speaker raised his eyebrow at it. The utterling scrambled off him, shook itself, reared on its hind legs, and grabbed hold of Hemi.

“Eeurgh…” Hemi said, then shut his mouth sharp as Mr. Speaker stared at him.

“UTTERLINGS,” Mr. Speaker said. “MY WORDS MADE FLESH.” More fleeting things left his mouth. “GUM!” he bellowed, and a slug-snake oozed out and around Deeba’s ankles.

“Good thing they don’t last forever,” the book whispered. “Or he’d take over UnLondon.”

“ARE YOU SPEAKING?” Utterlings tumbled from Mr. Speaker’s maw. “I GAVE NO PERMISSION! QUIET! CARTOGRAPHY!”

The last word was a thing like a bowler hat with several spidery legs and a fox’s tail. All through the hall, the utterlings trembled.

After a silence, Deeba raised her hand. Mr. Speaker sat back, obviously pleased that she had asked permission to speak. He nodded.

“Um…I’m sorry I didn’t know the rules and that…but…we really need to get out and find something. It’s really important. We’re in a hurry.”

“WHAT IS THE NATURE OF YOUR SEARCH?”

The utterlings the and search were tiny beakless birds. Deeba ignored them as they fluttered. Hemi nodded at her, and the book whispered, “Go on.”

“Well,” she said. “We’re looking for something to fight the Smog. Please let us go. For UnLondon’s sake.”

“THE SMOG? WHAT DO I CARE ABOUT THE SMOG?” The two utterlings for the word Smog were similar little monkeys, but each had a different skin color and number of limbs. Deeba supposed it must be to do with Mr. Speaker’s intonation.

“THE SMOG DOESN’T BOTHER ME, AND I WON’T BOTHER IT. WHAT DO I CARE IF IT RUNS UNLONDON? AWKWARD!” He spat out awkward, a two-headed chicken-bodied utterling. “YOU BROKE THE LAWS OF THE TALKLANDS. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH YOU?”

Deeba thought quickly. The utterlings were strong. And even if she could break free, Mr. Speaker would just say more words and they would be overpowered.

“I could pay a fine,” Deeba said. “I’ve got cash. (I know I said it was yours but I assume you’re not going to kick up a fuss?)” She whispered the last sentence to Hemi out of the side of her mouth.

“Just get us out of here,” he whispered back.

“NOW THAT,” said Mr. Speaker, “IS AN INTERESTING IDEA.”

“It’s in my pocket,” Deeba said. “I don’t know how much, but—”

“NOT MONEY.” A humpbacked lizard undulated down Mr. Speaker’s front. “YOU PAY ME IN DIFFERENT CURRENCY.”

“What is it you want?”

“WORDS.”

“What?” said Deeba.

“PAY IN WORDS. TELL ME NEW WORDS.” Deeba winced to see Mr. Speaker’s vast tongue lick his enormous lips. “GIVE ME GOOD PAYMENT, YOU CAN GO. PROMISE.

“AND NO INVENTING! A WORD’S NO GOOD IF YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE SAYING IT. I’LL KNOW IF YOU MAKE IT UP. SUCH!” Such was a football-sized mouthless beetle in blue.

“Well,” Deeba said, thinking carefully. “I might be able to. ’Cause I’m not from here. So I know some words you might not’ve heard.” She paused and thought about things she and her friends might say— or might once have said: she wasn’t going to give up anything too good or new.

“I like your crown,” she said. “It’s a nice bit of bling.”

Mr. Speaker gaped in absolute delight.

“BLING!” he said. A big silver-furred locust crawled out of his mouth.

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me, though. You’re getting lairy[11].”

“LAIRY!” Mr. Speaker crooned, emitting a baby-sized thing with one staring eye.

“Yeah. Don’t diss me.”

“DISS!” Diss was a six-legged brown bear cub. Mr. Speaker was almost crying with delight.

“So that’s enough, brer,” Deeba said. “Now you have to let us go.”

“BRER!” Mr. Speaker said, and sighed as a big bumblebee with human hands flew drunkenly from his throat. “LOVELY! LOVELY!”

“There,” said Deeba. “I’m sorry we spoke without permission. Now…would you let us go, please?”

“LET YOU GO?” said Mr. Speaker. “OH, I DON’T THINK SO. I HAVEN’T HEARD WORDS LIKE THAT IN MY LIFE. I CAN STILL TASTE THEM COMING OUT. LOOK AT THEM!”

It was true. The slang utterlings looked particularly healthy and energetic. Mr. Speaker stared at Deeba greedily.

“NO NO NO. NOT GIVING THAT UP. YOU’RE STAYING HERE. YOU GET TO TALK TO ME WITH THOSE LOVELY WORDS. TEACH ME ALL THE LANGUAGE YOU KNOW, FOREVER AND EVER.”

60. Insurgent Verbiage

“No way!” Hemi said. “That’s not on!”

“You promised!” the book said.

“I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT,” MR. Speaker said. “A PROMISE IS WORDS. I’M MR. SPEAKER! WORDS MEAN WHATEVER I WANT. WORDS DO WHAT I TELL THEM!”

His voice echoed in the enormous room, and the utterlings jumped up and down enthusiastically. Deeba looked around at the utterlings holding her, felt the strength of their grip. She thought quickly.

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.

Silence settled, and all the eyes in the room turned to Deeba.

“WHAT?” Mr. Speaker said.

“Well,” said Deeba. “I don’t think words do what anyone tells them all the time.”

Hemi was looking at her with at least as much bewilderment on his face as Mr. Speaker had.

“What are you on about?” Hemi said.

“YES, WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT?”

Deeba paused to admire about, an utterling like a living spiderweb.

“Words don’t always mean what we want them to,” she said. “None of us. Not even you.” The room was quiet. All the people and things in it were listening.

“Like…if someone shouts ‘Hey you!’ at someone in the street, but someone else turns around. The words misbehaved. They didn’t call the person they were meant to. Or if you see someone at a party and they’re wearing something mad, and you say ‘That’s some outfit!’ and they think you’re being rude, but you meant it really.

“Or like if someone says something’s bad and people think they mean bad bad and they mean good bad. Or…” Deeba giggled, remembering one of the Blyton books her mother had given her, saying she had enjoyed it when she was Deeba’s age. “Or like that old book with a girl’s name that just sounds rude now.”

The utterlings were twitching, and staring at her. Mr. Speaker was flinching. He looked sick.

“Or even,” Deeba said, “like some words that mean something but they’ve got like a feeling of something else, so if you say them, you might be saying something you don’t mean to. Like if I say someone’s really nice then I might mean it, but it sounds a little bit like they’re boring. You know?”

“Yeah,” said Hemi. “Yeah.”

“The thing is,” Deeba said, eyeing Mr. Speaker, “you could only make words do what you want if it was just you deciding what they mean. But it isn’t. It’s everyone else, too. Which means you might want to give them orders, but you aren’t in total control. No one is.”

“THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS NONSENSE!” Mr. Speaker spluttered, burping four confused creatures, but Deeba interrupted him.

“So, you might think all these words have to obey you. But they don’t.”

“NO MORE SPEAKING! UTTERLINGS, TAKE HER AWAY!”

The utterlings were staring at Deeba, absolutely still, their eyes enormous. None of them moved. Mr. Speaker’s face went dark purple with rage.

[11]

Lairy: Cheeky and aggressive.