Un Lun Dun

“Home…? But you have things to do, Shwazzy.”

“Please don’t call me that. I’m Za

“We have to get back,” said Deeba. The little milk carton whined air at her miserable voice.

“If you say so…But I’m afraid I’ve no idea how to get you back to, to what’s it called, to Lo

Za

“Propheseers?” said Za

“Of course— we’re just waiting for Skool with the necessary information. Traveling across UnLondon— well, it’s quite a thing to take on.” He disappeared behind a screen and flung his paper-and-print clothes one by one over the top. “Moby-Dick,” he said. “Even with small print, I have to wear too many undershirts.” He emerged, in a new suit of the same cut, but adorned with visibly larger letters. “The Other Side of the Mountain.” He smiled, flashing his cuff. “Considerably shorter.”

“Za

“Mr. Fing, please,” Za

Obaday Fing looked miserable.

“I simply don’t know how,” he said at last. “I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know where you live. There are plenty of people who don’t believe in Lo

“Get started?” said Za

“With what?” said Deeba.

“The Propheseers’ll explain,” Obaday said.

“No,” shouted Za

“Well,” said Obaday hurriedly, “with everything. We have to get you out of here. There are those working against you. Working for your enemy.”

“My enemy?” said Za

Before Obaday could respond, the curtain was pulled back and there stood Skool, the figure in the diving suit, tapping its wrist urgently.

“Now?” Obaday said. “Already? Right, right, we’re coming, off we go.” He grabbed a few more things, hauled his bag over his shoulder, and ushered everyone out.

“Who?” Za

“What? Oh, honestly, Shwazzy, it’s really best you let those who know these things explain…”

“What enemy?” The two girls stared at Obaday, and he faltered, and was momentarily still.

“Smog,” he whispered. Then he cleared his throat and walked hurriedly on.

10. Perspective

“What did you mean smog, Obaday?” Za

The topic obviously made him very uncomfortable. Za

“They’ll explain,” she said. “Right.” She and Za

They passed people standing in front of walls, avidly reading graffiti.

“They’re checking the headlines,” Obaday said.

Most people looked human (if in an unusual range of colors), but a sizeable proportion did not. Deeba and Za

There were no cars, but there were plenty of other vehicles. Some were carts tugged by unlikely animals, and many were pedal-powered. Not bicycles, though: the travelers perched on jerkily walking stilts, or at the front of long carriages like tin centipedes. One goggled rider traveled by in a machine like a herd of nine wheels.

“Out of the way!” the driver yelled. “Noncycle coming through!”

They passed curbside cafés, and open-fronted rooms full of old and odd-looking equipment.

“There’s loads of empty houses,” said Za

“A few,” Obaday said. “Most aren’t empty, though: they’re emptish. Open access. For travelers, tribes, and mendicants. Temporary inhabitants. Now we’re in Varmin Way. This is Turpentine Road. This is Shatterjack Lane.” They were going too fast for Za

The streets were mostly red brick, like London terraces, but considerably more ramshackle, spindly and convoluted. Houses leaned into each other, and stories piled up at complicated angles. Slate roofs lurched in all directions.

Here and there where a house should be was something else instead.

There was a fat, low tree, with open-fronted bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens perched in its branches. People were clearly visible in each chamber, brushing their teeth or kicking back their covers. Obaday took them past a house-sized fist, carved out of stone, with windows in its knuckles; and then the shell of a huge turtle, with a door in the neck hole, and a chimney poking out of its mottled top.

Za

“Oh gosh,” said Deeba. “It’s junk.”

The entire three-floor building was mortared-together rubbish. There were fridges, a dishwasher or two, and hundreds of record players, old-fashioned cameras, telephones, and typewriters, with thick cement between them.

There were four round windows like a ship’s portholes. Someone inside threw one open: they were the fronts of washing machines, embedded in the facade.

“Shwazzy!” Obaday called. “Shwazzy…I mean, Za

“How long will it take to get there?” Za

“Is it dangerous? Hmm. Well, define ‘dangerous.’ Is a knife ‘dangerous’? Is Russian roulette ‘dangerous’? Is arsenic ‘dangerous’?” He did the little finger-thing to show quotation marks, tickling the air. “It depends on your perspective.”

The girls looked at each other in alarm.

“Uh…” said Za

“I don’t think it does depend on perspective,” said Deeba. “I think that’s all definitely dangerous. I don’t think you need none of this…” She did the quote motion.

“If we pla

He shivered, reached up absently, and touched his fingertips on the ends of his pins and needles. “But we’re not walking. We’re going to get there today. This is…well, a ‘special occasion’ doesn’t cover it, really, does it? We have to get you to the Propheseers one, as quickly as possible, and two, as safely as possible.”

They turned into a cul-de-sac of brick homes, houses on stilts, and a windmill made of a helicopter on its side. Skool pointed. He, or she, beckoned them to a shelter with a very familiar logo.

“Now,” said Obaday, “we have only to wait.”

Za

Za