Part 21 (2/2)

”I'll do your geometry tonight as well as your algebra,” Christopher said.

On this understanding, Oneir went down to the bookshop with Christopher in the s.p.a.ce between lessons and tea. There he almost immediately picked out The Arabian Nights (Unexpurgated). ”This one's good,” he said. He followed it with something called Little Tanya and the Fairies, which Christopher took one look at and put hastily back on the shelf. ”I know my sister's read that one,” Oneir said, rather injured. ”Who's the girl you want it for?”

”She's about the same age as us,” Christopher said and, since Oneir was looking at him for a further explanation and he was fairly sure Oneir was not going to believe in someone called the G.o.ddess, he added, ”I've got this cousin called Caroline.” This was quite true. Mama had once shown him a studio photo of his cousin, all lace and curls. Oneir was not to know that this had nothing whatsoever to do with the sentence that had gone before. ”Wait a sec then,” Oneir said, ”and I'll see if I can spot some of the real slush.” He wandered on along the shelf, leaving Christopher to flip through The Arabian Nights. It did look good, Christopher thought.

Unfortunately he could see from the pictures that it was all about somewhere very like the G.o.ddess's own Anywhere. He suspected the G.o.ddess would call it educational. ”Ah, here we are! This is sure-fire slus.h.!.+” Oneir called, pointing to a whole row of books. ”These Millie books. Our house is full of the things.”

Millie Goes to School, Christopher read, Millie of Lowood House, Millie Plays the Game. He picked up one called Millie's Finest Hour. It had some very brightly colored schoolgirls on the front and in small print: ”Another moral and uplifting story about your favorite schoolgirl. You will weep with Millie, rejoice with Millie, and meet all your friends from Lowood House School again ...”

”Does your sister really like these?” he asked incredulously.

”Wallows in them,” said Oneir. ”She reads them over and over again and cries every time.”

Though this seemed a funny way to enjoy a book, Christopher was sure Oneir knew best. The books were two and sixpence each. Christopher chose out the first five, up to Millie in the Upper Fourth, and bought The Arabian Nights for himself with the rest of the money. After all, it was his gold sovereign.

”Could you wrap the Millie books in something waterproof?” he asked the a.s.sistant. ”They have to go to a foreign country.” The a.s.sistant obligingly produced some sheets of waxed paper and, without being asked, made a handle for the parcel out of string.

That night Christopher hid the parcel in his bed. Oneir pinched a candle from the kitchens and read aloud from The Arabian Nights, which turned out to have been a remarkably good buy. ”Unex-purgated”

seemed to mean that all sorts of interestingly dirty bits had been put in. Christopher was so absorbed that he almost forgot to work out how he might get to The Place Between from the dormitory. It was probably important to go around a corner. He decided the best corner was the one beyond the washstands, just beside Fenning's bed, and then settled down to listen to Oneir until the candle burned out. After that, he would be on his way.

To his exasperation, nothing happened at all. Christopher lay and listened to the snores, the mutters, and the heavy breathing of the other boys for hours. At length he got up with the parcel and tiptoed across the cold floor to the corner beyond Fenning's bed. But he knew this was not right, even before he b.u.mped into the washstands. He went back to bed, where he lay for further hours, and nothing happened even when he went to sleep.

The next day was Thursday, the day he was supposed to meet Tacroy. Knowing he would be too busy to deliver the books that night, Christopher left them in his bedside locker and read aloud from The Arabian Nights himself, so that he could control the time when everyone went to sleep. And so he did.

All the other boys duly began to snore and mutter and puff as they always did, and Christopher was left lying awake alone, unable to get to The Place Between or to fall asleep either.

By this time he was seriously worried. Perhaps the only way to get to the Anywheres was from the night nursery of the house in London. Or perhaps it was an ability he had simply grown out of. He thought of Tacroy in a useless trance and the G.o.ddess vowing the vengeance of Asheth on him, and he heard the birds beginning to sing before he got to sleep that night.

7.

The next morning Matron noticed Christopher stumbling about, aching-eyed and scarcely awake. She pounced on him. ”Can't sleep, can you?” she said. ”I always watch the ones with tooth-braces. I don'tthink these dentists realize how uncomfortable they are. I'm going to come and take that away from you before lights-out tonight and you can come and fetch it in the morning. I make Mainwright Major do that too-it works wonders, you'll see.”

Christopher had absolutely no faith in this idea. Everyone knew this was one of the bees in Matron's bonnet. But, to his surprise, it worked. He found himself dropping asleep as soon as Fenning began reading The Arabian Nights. He had just presence of mind to fumble the parcel of books from his locker, before he was dead to the world. And here an even more surprising thing happened. He got out of bed, carrying the parcel, and walked across the dormitory without anyone appearing to notice him at all. He walked right beside Fenning, and Fenning just went on reading with the stolen candle balanced on his pillow. n.o.body seemed to realize when Christopher walked around the corner, out of the dormitory and onto the valley path.

His clothes were lying in the path and he put them on, hanging the parcel from his belt so that he would have both hands free for The Place Between. And there was The Place Between.

So much had happened since Christopher had last been here that he saw it as if this was the first time.

His eyes tried to make sense of the shapeless way the rocks slanted, and couldn't. The formlessness stirred a formless kind of fear in him, which the wind and the mist and the rain beating in the mist made worse. The utter emptiness was more frightening still. As Christopher set off climbing and sliding down to Series Ten, with the wind wailing around him and the fog drops making the rocks wet and slippery, he thought he had been right to think, when he was small, that this was the part left over when all the worlds were made. The Place Between was exactly that. There was no one here to help him if he slipped and broke a leg. When the parcel of books unbalanced him, and he did slip, and skidded twenty feet before he could stop, his heart was in his mouth. If he had not known that he had climbed across here a hundred times, he would have known he was mad to try.

It was quite a relief to clamber into the hot valley and walk down to the muddy-walled city. The old men were still charming snakes outside it.

Inside was the same hot clamor of smells and goats and people under umbrellas. And Christopher found he was still afraid, except that now he was afraid of someone pointing at him and shouting, ”There's the thief that stole the Temple cat!” He kept feeling that spear thudding into his chest. He began to get annoyed with himself. It was as if school had taught him how to be frightened.

When he got to the alley beside the Temple wall-where turnips had been thrown away this time-he was almost too scared to go on. He had to make himself push into the spiked wall by counting to a hundred and then telling himself he had to go. And when he was most of the way through, he stopped again, staring through the creepers at the cats in the blazing sun, and did not seem to be able to go on.

But the cats took no notice of him. No one was about. Christopher told himself that it was silly to come all this way just to stand in a wall. He pulled himself out of the creepers and tiptoed to the overgrown archway, with the parcel of books b.u.t.ting him heavily with every step.

The G.o.ddess was sitting on the ground in the middle of the shady yard, playing with a large family of kittens. Two of them were ginger, with a strong look of Throgmorten. When she saw Christopher, the G.o.ddess jumped to her feet with an energetic clash of jewelry, scattering kittens in all directions.

”You've brought the books!” she said. ”I never thought you would.”

”I always keep my word,” Christopher said, showing off a little.

The G.o.ddess watched him unhitch the parcel from his belt as if she could still scarcely believe it. Her hands trembled a little as she took the waxy parcel, and trembled even more as she knelt on the tiles andtore and ripped and pulled until the paper and string came off. The kittens seized on the string and the wrappings and did all sorts of acrobatics with them, but the G.o.ddess had eyes only for the books. She knelt and gazed. ”Ooh! Five of them!”

”Just like Christmas,” Christopher remarked.

”What's Christmas?” the G.o.ddess asked absently. She was absorbed in stroking the covers of the books. When she had done that, she opened each one, peeped inside, and then shut it hastily as if the sight was too much. ”Oh, I remember,” she said. ”Christmas is a Heathen festival, isn't it?”

”The other way around,” said Christopher. ”You're the Heathens.”

”No we're not. Asheth's true,” said the G.o.ddess, not really attending. ”Five,” she said. ”That should last me a week if I read slowly on purpose. Which is the best one to start with?”

”I brought you the first five,” Christopher said. ”Start with Millie Goes to School.”

”You mean there are more!” the G.o.ddess exclaimed. ”How many?”

”I didn't count-about five,” Christopher said.

”Five! You don't want another cat, do you?” said the G.o.ddess.

”No,” Christopher said firmly. ”One Throgmorten is quite enough, thanks.”

”But I've nothing else to swap!” said the G.o.ddess. ”I must have those other five books!” She jumped up with an impetuous clash of jewelry and began wrestling to unwind a snakelike bracelet from the top of her arm. ”Perhaps Mother Proudfoot won't notice if this is missing. There's a whole chest of bracelets in there.”

Christopher wondered what she thought he would do with the bracelet. Wear it? He knew what school would think of that. ”Hadn't you better read these books first? You might not like them,” he pointed out.

”I know they're perfect,” said the G.o.ddess, still wrestling.

”I'll bring you the other books as a present,” Christopher said hastily.

”But that means I'll have to do something for you. Asheth always pays her debts,” the G.o.ddess said. The bracelet came off with a tw.a.n.g. ”Here. I'll buy the books from you with this. Take it.” She pushed the bracelet into Christopher's hand.

The moment it touched him, Christopher found himself falling through everything that was there. The yard, the creepers, the kittens, all turned to mist-as did the G.o.ddess's round face, frozen in the middle of changing from eagerness to astonishment-and Christopher fell out of it, down and down, and landed violently on his bed in the dark dormitory. CRAs.h.!.+

”What was that?” said Fenning, quavering a little, and Oneir remarked, apparently in his sleep, ”Help, someone's fallen off the ceiling.”

”Shall I fetch Matron?” asked someone else.

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