The Goon’s mouth opened. Everyone else stared. Awful suddenly exclaimed, “Oh. Boring. Fifi’s in love with Archer. Boring, boring, boring!”
“What if I am?” Fifi said defiantly. “I’m doing no harm.” Her voice wobbled a little. “I know he’ll never look at me.”
Quentin staggered to the table and sat down with his head in his hands. “This was all I needed!” he proclaimed. “Fifi on the other side! We now have a fifth column in our midst!”
“The Goon’s that, too,” Howard pointed out.
“The Goon is sold by the meter and doesn’t argue,” said his father.
“Fifi,” said Catriona, “help me make him see sense.”
So began Phase Three of the row, which was more of a passionate argument than a row. Fifi and Catriona combined against Quentin at first. But Howard was slowly drawn in on Quentin’s side. At first he joined in only to make the sides even, but as time went on, he was convinced by Quentin’s arguments. It did make sense to stop Archer or one of the others from farming the whole world, if you happened to have a way to do it. And though Mum and Fifi kept saying that Quentin had no right to make the rest of them suffer, Howard began to agree with Quentin more and more that you had to do a thing you knew was right, even if people did suffer. It seemed worth a sacrifice.
Meanwhile, Awful and the Goon formed an alliance, too. They tiptoed to the stove and tried to make something to eat. There were a lot of things neither of them knew. Awful kept pulling Howard’s arm and whispering things like “The Goon says you have to break eggs before you fry them. Is that right?” or “If I put a slice of bread under the grill with an egg on it, does it end up as scrambled eggs on toast? Or not?”
Howard was so busy with the argument that he was rather impatient with these questions. So when the Goon pulled at his sleeve sometime later, looking woebegone, Howard did not feel very sympathetic.
“What have you done now?” he said. “Burned some water?”
“No,” the Goon said dolefully. “Want Fifi. Archer gets everything.”
Chapter Seven
The sacrifice began the next morning. Howard was awakened by the Goon standing dismally beside his bed.
“Archer’s on the telly,” said the Goon. “Wants your father.”
As Howard got up and went to his parents’ bedroom to start the tricky and dangerous task of waking Quentin at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning, he was nearly knocked flying by Fifi racing downstairs to look at Archer. Fifi had got it bad, Howard thought, if she could hear Archer all the way from the ground floor when she was in the attic. He went in and shook Quentin’s shoulder and was rewarded with an unshaven growl.
“Archer,” said Howard. “On the telly.”
“Ellimerroterell!” went Quentin.
But Catriona leaped up and became Howard’s ally. “Howard, get his dressing gown. Quentin, I insist you speak to Archer.”
Quentin growled more fiercely than ever, but they got him up and marched him to the stairs. “Tea!” wailed Quentin, turning pathetic. “You can’t expect me to talk to Archer without a cup of tea first!”
The Goon had thought of that. He met them on the landing with a fistful of steaming mugs, one for each of them and one for Awful, who was up, too, by this time.
“You know,” said Quentin as he shambled downstairs, sipping from his mug, “this Goon of ours is getting quite housetrained. If he goes on this way, I might consider hiring him myself as a bodyguard.”
“Hurry up!” said Catriona.
They reached the hall. As they passed the set of drums, Torquil’s voice came booming out from them. “Mrs. Sykes! Mrs. Sykes, don’t forget my two thousand words!”
Quentin whirled around. The Goon hastily picked up the drums and bundled them, bumping and booming, into the cupboard under the stairs. But he was too late. While he was doing it, Quentin shouted, “I am not writing any words! Not for you or anyone else!” And it was clear Torquil had heard. His voice was yelling threats from the cupboard as they all trooped into the front room.
There Fifi was sitting, in the striped clown suit she wore for pajamas, gazing yearningly at the television. In the screen Archer looked up as they came in. He was eating a toasted sandwich, and to judge from glimpses of creamy leather all around him, he was sitting in his scoop.
Quentin opened his mouth to speak. Archer held up the toasted sandwich to stop him. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t say anything you might regret. I heard all you said last night. Very eloquent you were, too. But you’ve slept on it now. You must see you were making a great fuss about a very small thing. Just a few pages of writing and an hour or so of your time. That’s all I need.”
“No,” said Quentin.
Archer smiled, in his wry, winning way. “Oh, come on. Sykes. Where’s the harm in it?”
Fifi said, “Mr. Sykes, surely you can see he’d rule the world really well.”
“She’s right, you know,” said Archer. “I’m very fair, and I’m not cruel. I’d do it well. And that’s not a thing you can say for any of the rest of my family. One of them will rule the world if I don’t. Why don’t you help me do it?”
“No,” said Quentin. “Not for you, not for anyone. I object to being bullied, I object to being spied on, and I object even more to being ruled. No!”
Archer looked at him with the sandwich halfway to his mouth. “You’ll regret that. I warned you. Do you want to reconsider?”
“No,” said Quentin.
“All right then,” said Archer. “Prepare to regret it.” The television screen went blank.
They went back through the hall. Torquil’s voice yelled some kind of threat as they passed the cupboard. In the kitchen they discovered that the electricity and gas had been cut off. The Goon had obviously been expecting this. While they had been watching Archer, he had made the biggest teapot full of tea and a large jug of coffee for Catriona. He had done it for Fifi really. Howard saw the Goon’s eyes slide wistfully to Fifi, hoping she was noticing his thoughtfulness. But it was Catriona who thanked the Goon. Fifi was busy trying to persuade Quentin not to make Archer too angry. And Quentin’s mind seemed to be taken up entirely by the fact that the Goon had forgotten to make any toast.
“Look at this!” he said, flopping a piece of sliced bread back and forth. “Limp white stuff. It doesn’t taste of anything even if I put marmalade on both sides of it.” At least that is probably what he said, but no one heard the last part of it. Everything was drowned in a sudden bedlam of music. The radio on the windowsill burst into violent organ music, pealing and thundering a toccata and fugue sufficient to make the windows rattle.
Catriona gave a shriek and covered her sensitive ears. Howard picked up the radio and tried to stop the noise. But it was not switched on, and there was no way of even turning the noise down. Howard carried the pealing, thundering radio out into the hall. There the drums were thumping away in the cupboard, and he could hear the strings of his violin twanging faintly in there, too. From Quentin’s study, Quentin’s tape deck was roaring out the “Ride of the Valkyries,” and there was an even worse noise from the front room. The television was playing music full blast, treacly, sentimental music, with lots of swooping and occasional massed choirs. The piano was also playing, probably something very impassioned. Howard could see the notes going up and down by themselves, but most of it was drowned by the television and by awful pipings from the several pieces of a clarinet that Catriona had left on top of the piano.
Torquil, Howard thought. I hope Archer’s getting an earful, too.
Fifi and Awful came to help him, and they managed to reduce the din a little. They threw the radio, the tape deck, and the pieces of clarinet into the cupboard with the drums and threw the sofa cushions on top to deaden the sound. Then they draped the Goon’s blankets over the television. At this point the piano really made itself heard. It was playing “Chopsticks.” Howard shut the lid down. It did not stop the “Chopsticks,” but it stopped them seeing the creepy way
the notes went up and down by themselves. At least they could hear one another now, if they shouted.
For five minutes it was almost peaceful. Then a brass band arrived and began marching up and down the street outside.
“And look,” said Awful, pointing across the street over the heads of the marching band. Awful was the only one whose voice was sure to be heard.
Howard looked. He had been too optimistic about Hind’s gang. They were standing on the other side of the road, all twenty of them. Most of them were lounging with their hands in their pockets, listening to the band, but the ginger boy was industriously writing “ARCHER” with spray paint on every empty piece of wall. Fifi stared indignantly. Then she seized a note pad and wrote, “Those boys are victimizing Archer!!!” She took the pad into the kitchen, where Quentin, Catriona, and the Goon were sitting with tissues stuffed into their ears, and showed it to Quentin.
Quentin hurled the pad across the room. “Women!” he bawled. It was almost quiet in there by contrast. “Oh, my heart bleeds for Archer! What about us?”
A heavy knocking on the front door interrupted the things Fifi was trying to shout in reply.
“Go see what that is, Howard,” Catriona said, looking strained and desperate.
Howard went and opened the front door. He stared. The very polite-looking man outside was dressed in a quilted robe with hanging sleeves. As Howard opened the door, the man took the flat, squashy hat off his head and bowed, so that the feather in this hat swept the toes of his wide-fronted slippers. He said something, but it was drowned in the music inside the house and by “Land of Hope and Glory” marching past outside.
A new idea of Torquil’s, I suppose, Howard thought. “You’d better come in!” he shouted.
The man nodded and stepped into the hall. Howard shut the front door, which shut out “Land of Hope and Glory” at least, and realized that the music indoors had stopped. Torquil wanted them to hear this.
In the ringing silence the polite man said, “Young master, I bear a letter to your father and am enjoined to wait for an answer.”
He had a very strange accent. Eh? thought Howard. “Dad!” he shouted.
Quentin came out of the kitchen with his dressing gown looped around his paunch and tissue sticking out of both ears. When he saw the polite man—who was obviously trying hard not to stare—Quentin looked resigned. He cautiously took the tissue out of one ear. “Now what do you want?” he said.
The man bowed and swept his toes with his hat again. “Master Quentin Sykes?” he asked. Quentin nodded suspiciously. “Master Sykes,” said the man, “I am to give you a letter from Hathaway, my patron, and wait with you for your answer.”
Awful’s face and Fifi’s and Catriona’s at once appeared around the kitchen door, and the Goon’s face wedged itself in above them, all goggling. The hall remained silent. Torquil must have been listening, too.
Quentin sighed. “Let’s have it then.”
The messenger carefully felt in a pouch hung from his belt and brought out a long, folded yellowish letter, with a large red wax seal to hold it together. He handed it to Quentin with another bow.
Quentin turned it over to the place where there was square black writing. “‘Maftr. Quentin Fykes,’” he read. “Parchment, too. Very amusing.” With another suspicious look at the polite man, he turned the letter over again and cracked the red wax that held it together. He spread it out with a leathery rattle. The square black writing inside was obviously hard to read. Quentin held the letter up and frowned at it. “‘Inafmuchas,’” he murmured. “Oh, this is the best yet! Listen to this, all of you!” And he read:
Inafmuchas we have heard that others do much beleaguer you by threats and promifes, we do this fubmit you fo that you may here learn and be apprifed wherein lies your true duty and allegiance. It is to Hathaway and always has been and formerly was. To Hathaway, once quarterly, have you long fent two thoufand words in writing, and this you muft continue in, as by cuftom you ever did. This we fend you by our own meffenger, enjoining and adjuring you to place in his hand and none other the faid writings and by that one Act confirm the Bond between yourfelf and your
Betrayed but lenient
HATHAWAY
“Eh?” said the Goon.
“Translation,” said Quentin, “for those not burdened with brains. Hathaway says it’s him I always send the words to and to go on doing it. But isn’t there an ‘or else’?” he asked the polite messenger.
The man bowed again. “My patron does not make threats, sir. But I am enjoined to press the matter on you by observing that the forbearance you have hitherto known will not extend beyond today.”
“That is, give it to him today, or watch out,” Quentin translated to the Goon.
Outside, the brass band finished with “Land of Hope and Glory” and switched to “Amazing Grace.” This, for some reason, was the last straw for Quentin. He tore the tissue out of his other ear and jumped on it.
“This is too much!” he roared. “I have now had enough! I have passed the bounds of sanity. This!” He held the letter up and rattled it in the messenger’s face. “Know what I’m going to do with this lunatic object?” The messenger backed nervously against the front door and shook his head. “You’ll see!” shouted Quentin. “So will the others. Torquil!” he roared. “Are you listening? Archer! Can you see?”
He ran to the hall stand and wrenched open the drawer in it. This drawer was known as the Everything-But drawer because there was always everything in it but the thing you were looking for. Things—string, the insides of watches, hair grips, paper clips, and a button badge saying “I Love Milton Keynes”—flew across the hall as Quentin rummaged feverishly in it, but finally he came up, red-faced and panting, with three bent drawing pins, a carpet tack, and a hammer.
Everyone, including the messenger, followed Quentin, mystified, as he marched into the front room, flapping the letter. There Quentin hurled the blankets off the now-silent television and proceeded to nail the letter to the front of it, across the screen. There was silence while he did it, broken only by banging, a yelp from Quentin when he hammered his thumb, and “Amazing Grace” from outside the window. “Now we don’t have to look at Archer,” he said. “There. This is now on public exhibition. Everyone who enters this house is to be shown this. Its precise meaning is to be explained in detail whether people want to know or not. Do you know what it means?” he demanded, rounding on the messenger.
The messenger clutched his hat and backed away. “Sir, it is a letter from Hathaway—”
“No, it is not!” Quentin howled. “It is the public death certificate of Quentin Sykes, the writer! Know what I’m going to do now?”
They all shook their heads.
“Come with me,” said Quentin. Everyone obediently followed him to the hall and watched him rummage in the Everything-But drawer again. This time he found the padlock and chain that had gone with Awful’s bike before it was stolen. He set off with them to his study. Once more everyone followed.
“Watch, Archer!” he shouted. “Listen, Torquil! See, all the rest of you! I am about to padlock my typewriter.” He wove the chain in and out of the typewriter keys and snapped the padlock shut around the space bar. “There,” he said to the messenger. “Is Hathaway expecting a written reply?”
“Sir, there are to be two thousand words written …” the messenger began.
“Then you’ll have to give him this instead,” said Quentin. “I shall never, ever put another word on paper.” He picked up the chained typewriter and dumped it in the messenger’s arms. “There you are,” he said. “Take this to Hathaway. Tell him to write two thousand words on it himself. If there’s any magic in it, he can find it that way. Now get out of my house!”
As Howard let the shaken-looking messenger out through the front door, the brass band finished “Amazing Grace” and started on “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends.”
“Wasn’t that a bit extreme, Quentin?” Catriona said.
/> “No, it was not,” said Quentin. “Now perhaps they’ll all see that I’m in earnest.” He folded his arms on his paunch and looked nastily at the Goon. “There’s no need for you to stay here any longer.”
The Goon shook his head. He gave the usual grin. “Stay and face the music,” he said. Howard and Awful stared. It really did seem as if the Goon had made a joke.
The music came back in bursts for the rest of the day. They never knew when it was going to come or for how long. Torquil varied the kind of music artfully, too. Sometimes it was pop music, which neither Howard nor Awful minded much; sometimes it was opera, which they did. Sometimes it was Gilbert and Sullivan, which only the Goon seemed to appreciate. Sometimes it was religious chanting mixed with Viennese waltzes. Quite often it was every kind mixed. You never knew what you were going to have to hear next.
Archer similarly kept everyone guessing about whether the gas or the electricity was going to be on or off. Howard, Awful, and the Goon got very good at rushing to the stove as soon as the kitchen light came on. If Archer had turned the gas on, too, and if they were very quick and had everything ready, there was sometimes just time to fry an egg before the gas went off again.
In the middle of the day the brass band marched away to have lunch, but it was replaced almost at once by the Salvation Army. By this time the house was very cold as well as noisy. The heating boiler had been on and off so often that it began making strange sounds and smelling of burning. Quentin and Howard turned it out to be on the safe side. They all put on extra sweaters, except the Goon, who had no other clothes. The Goon helped himself to Quentin’s Tramp’s Coat and went about with a foot or so of arm sticking out beyond its little red and black checked sleeves.
Hind’s gang still lurked on the other side of the Upper Park Street. Some of them probably went away for lunch, too, but there were always at least ten of them standing there. This meant that neither Howard nor Awful could get out of the house. Howard began to wonder if they were another idea of Torquil’s. But they did not seem Torquil’s kind of thing.