The Forbidden Window
(Hiding From Seagulls Book Two)
Copyright 2014 By John Wallis
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my small group of test readers. Without their invaluable support and honest advice this book would not have reached you.
They are Adrian Finney, Andrew Bunker, and Margaret Mumby (Nana)
Table of Contents
Prologue: A world rebooted
The Room with No Doors
Try Harder Rob
To put away Childish thing
The Reboot Shore
No Longer Alone
The Forbidden Window
I’m an Evil Magic Potion
A Cucumber and a Lemon
Count Douglass the brave... and his mother
The Man bear Returns
What time is it Mr. Wolf?
Damsels in Distress
One Shall Fall
End of Part One
Tommy's Intermission
Why was the bear man dancing?
Am I a Monster?
Tea with Mr. Huntington
Part Two – The Reboot
The bear Man's Boat
You’re lost then we're lost
The Third Man
Reunited
Carousel
We Got you Again
The Compare becomes the Fighter
The Battle
A World Repaired
Back Home
The Last Year of School
Prologue: A world rebooted
Yallery Brown watched a solitary seagull fly across the blackest sky his world had ever known. It navigated with ease across the sky using the noise of the night as its only guide. The seagull flew into a colorful area just off the shore. A high razor wire fence closed off the area. Inside were a few tall buildings. The place looked like a maximum-security prison, or perhaps an asylum. Although despite its intimidating structure, it was used for neither. Once over the huge security gate the seagull made straight for an intentionally open window knowing exactly where to go and who to look for.
The seagull was the last of the seagull army. A solitary survivor performing, Yallery suspected a final duty. The bird looked as sad as a seagull could look as he prepared to carry out the Duchess's final order. Slowly, he came to land on a windowsill on the top floor of the crumbling office block. The black paint around the window frame peeling away bit by bit, much like the world they were placed in. The floor was covered with an old carpet that had been soaked in dirt time and time again, and the room was deserted except for a single office desk and Yallery the lone figure sat at that desk. It was rare for a member of the seagull army to venture this far from the Duchess's sand castle. The emergency button must have truly been hit. This could mean what Yallery hoped it meant. If it did, then the sky turning black signaled that the seagull army was already on borrowed time. This was the end of an era and perhaps the beginning of a new one.
"Yallery Brown sir, I must speak with you on a matter of some urgency," the seagull squawked a little too fast.
At the opposite end of the long room, Yallery's hunched figure sat silently by the desk. He was a short man with skin of the colour of mustard. His scraggly white beard was badly unkempt and he wore a suit two sizes too big for his body. His eyes looked glazed and his expression was vague. Oddly, he was focussing more on the corner of the room. Yallery's eyes then moved to watch the seagull fly through the window but he did not react.
"I know," Yallery replied softly.
"I saw the black sky rolling in. The duchess has fallen, has she not?"
"She has," the seagull replied.
"Defeated at her own game and then left her castle and her post. Just abdicated, ran off with some bus driver. She always had the hots for him.”
Yallery tilted his head and half smiled.
“You see, he was a very miserable man and she was a very miserable woman. So together they make a very miserable couple," the seagull explained.
Despite the seagull’s sorrowed tone, Yallery could not hold back his excitement. A full smile emerged on his unwashed face, and he let out an excited squeak. Now he knew for sure what this meant. If the duchess was gone, the land, he and the seagull lived in was vanishing. Everything he knew would be gone in a matter of hours. Despite the danger of non-existence, all he could feel was excitement. He knew, that, now was his only chance to play the role he had always wanted to play. The compare to the crowning of a new ruler, the host to a new era- an era where Yallery would be transported from the bottom of the chain to an important figure right at the very top. It's the way it always worked. Once a ruler was gone, their land was wiped clean. The dark sky was the disinfectant and Yallery alone had the tools to rewrite the land. All his planning and research had led to today and the news he had just received this very moment. It was time to put all the theory into practice.
So, for the first time, in many years, the usually hunchbacked Yallery stood up straight with so much force that the chair behind him smashed against the wall. The seagull flapped back making sure to be well out of chair shot range. Yallery walked to the other side of the room and back again and for a while, the sound of the heavy rain outside and the sound of his footsteps provided the only noise.
"How much has gone?" Yallery demanded.
"There is only blackness south of the owl hotel," the seagull replied.
Yallery found himself smiling again. He paced around his desk finding the microphone.
"Could you all engage the firewall please, and start the reboot process. I assure you this is not a drill." Yallery gave the order cheerfully before turning his attention back to the Seagull.
"I had better get more information out of you then hadn't I? Tell me, who defeated the Duchess? If I am to reboot this place under a new ruler this information is important to me."
"A group of children Yallery," The seagull answered shaking his head and looking more sorrowful than before.
“Outsiders, you will likely never see them again.”
“Oh but I will, I must,” Yallery responded quickly.
He meant his words too. To be successful those children were needed. They were like an ingredient in a well-balanced recipe, vital to not only his success but also his survival.
Yallery began jumping up and down on the spot. It was something he did to aid this thought when he was too excited to think properly. As he had been seated for much of the past few years, it felt good. He suddenly felt so much energy running through his body. The thought of it, children defeated the Duchess. This was going to be easier than he could have ever imagined. He now lived in a land without a ruler. There were no rules, no order, just chaos. It could not stay that way. A new ruler would be crowned and if everything worked right, Yallery planned to cement his place in history.
"What of the new ruler?" Yallery asked.
"Count Douglass is on his way to meet us right now. As the designated new ruler he will wait here behind your firewall until such a time as the reboot is successful."
By the rules set by the Duchess brave Count Douglass would do battle with whoever defeated the old ruler. That would be the children the seagull spoke off. Because the children were outsiders, Douglass would feel he should be the new ruler automatically. The reboot wouldn't work that way, and besides Ya
llery had other plans. Plans he chose to keep to himself for now.
Yallery stroked his bearded chin. "The reboot yes," he mumbled.
"How do you plan on making it happen?" The seagull asked.
Yallery stopped jumping and once again began pacing the room; he was so excited he was unable to keep still.
There was a loud rumble of thunder from outside. Yallery waited for it to pass before he spoke.
“You know, I detect a little skepticism in your voice. You don't believe I can reboot everything to how it was?”
The seagull got no chance to argue.
“You won't be around long enough to see it but you have my assurances, my guarantee in fact it will happen. All I need to start with is an effective connection and that is happening right now. We, my feathered friend are being beamed into the head of those responsible for defeating the Duchess.”
Then Yallery got close to the Seagull, He exhaled twice and his breath made the Seagulls feathers move. The seagull waddled backwards.
“I never did like seagulls. Never saw the Duchess's reason in choosing you," Yallery told the bird.
"Now Yallery," the seagull scolded.
Then the seagull looked vacant. The bird stopped talking, in fact, as Yallery had expected the seagull would not talk ever again.
“Why will you never talk again?” Yallery asked aloud, and then answered his own question despite was no one around to hear him.
"Because seagulls don't talk." He said gleefully.
The seagulls purpose was to serve the ruler. With no ruler and no more orders to follow, the seagull was back to being a regular, normal, everyday seagull.
"To reboot I need the children that defeated the Duchess. It is after all a natural succession. The new ruler or at least contender to be the new ruler is the person that defeated the last ruler."
Yallery picked the seagull up and walked across to the window, then he let go and watched the bird fly away into the night sky. The seagull would have more adventures all right but none would involve the Duchess.
Yallery put his chair back into place and sat back into it enjoying the comfort. He shuffled a few papers about then looked towards a corner of the room with a vacant stare. He began talking to a seemingly invisible figure in the corner of the room.
"I know you are there. You have been listening to all of that haven't you?"
The black whiskers twitched around Yallery's nose and his slightly twisted smile returned as his eyes focused more intently on the corner of the room.
The speakers of the microphone he had given orders on earlier buzzed into life.
An alternated voice spoke “Connection has been established.”
"You were supposed to hear my chat with that seagull. That was my design. I know you can hear me Tommy. My name is Yallery Brown and I will be your host, your guide and your compare.”
He sat by the almost clear desk with his hands folded under his chin and his head tilted to the right, squinting as though trying to make something out in the distance.
“We will meet soon enough Tommy. But for now the connection is closing. That means it is time to wake up. Wake up Tommy. Did you hear me? It's time to wake up."
"Wake up Tommy," it was Tommy's mothers voice, always a sign he had slept over the alarm.
“I am up mum,” Tommy lied quickly picking up the notepad from his bedside table. By the time he had the pen in his hand, the dream had fragmented into a million broken pieces. Tommy vaguely remembered a man with a scraggly white beard, twitchy black whiskers and mustard yellow skin.
“You told me to wake you up a bit earlier because you are helping Mr. Huntington with his loft today remember?”
Tommy hadn't remembered but was heading to Geoff's anyway today so going earlier would not make the world of difference.
He was about to get up when he looked at the notebook. He had written one word.
Reboot
Now why would he have written that?
The Room with No Doors
Tommy had walked around the shops with Mr. Huntington, Geoff, as he knew him half in a daze trying to remember that morning's weird dream. He felt like his brain was being held back by something he could barely remember.
Tommy liked how Geoff was just Geoff. Older people usually stuck to formality. All the teachers at school, and most of his aunties and uncles were Mr this or Mrs that. Geoff was old, and not just fifty. Yet he was one of Tommy's best friends. He was the guy Tommy could say anything to. Today they had been shopping and now Geoff was rummaging through a box they had found in the attic. It was filled with stuff that had belonged to his son. Then Geoff asked a familiar question.
"So Tommy what is new then?"
It was time for Geoff's weekly update on Tommy's life.
Most people including Geoff called him Tommy. His name was Thomas and he couldn't really understand why people shortened it because Tommy isn't that much shorter.
Tommy believed in impossible things, and had since a bus ride he took last year. He thought that the bus journey had been a dream but it had seemed very real. So by saying he believes in impossible things and talking about them with Geoff he had been branded with an over active imagination. His parents worried sometimes about this overactive imagination.
Tommy's old friend Geoff was still searching through the cardboard box from the attic. Tommy felt the box was important. And it was, because it all began again right then with that question of Geoff's.
"So what is new?" Geoff repeated.
Tommy thought a little about school before replying.
"School seems fine, Dave is not too happy though. That snitch Simon got him a detention the other day."
Dave was Tommy's best friend. Well the best friend he had of his own age anyway. Sadly, he had not taken that bus journey, if indeed that bus journey had even happened.
"Well dear, if you boys did not break the rules, Simon wouldn't be able to get you into trouble," came, the reply- not from Geoff, but from Mrs. Huntington Geoff's wife. She was also Tommy's friend in her own way. She spent a lot of her time sewing and making cups of tea. She liked hearing about his school life as well. Sadly, she had met Simon the snitch and was under the illusion that he was as she put it, such a nice boy.
Geoff was with Tommy, he could see that the guy would sell his own grandmother for that smug little feeling of superiority and power. Simon was now not just a prefect he was form captain, year captain, school counsel, voluntary litter picker and they always asked him to hand the textbooks out. He had progressed to his own desk with a little nametag at the front. A nametag he has had to replace eight times already because his supporters keep chaining it to read... well, Tommy couldn't repeat what it read with Mrs. Huntington around. In the band that was, school boot licking Simon played lead guitar, was head singer and wrote the theme music.
Now the bus journey had been a dream Tommy was sure of that. But he and Geoff often spoke as though it had all been real. A few days after the dream, Tommy had attempted to approach Simon. He had wanted to ask him about the bus journey, as it had felt so real. He wondered if it could have been somehow shared. So he drew a Seagull on Simon's exercise book.
Simon the snitch had exploded into a tirade demanding to know who had drawn it. So much so, the snitch himself almost got his first detention.
"Simon can't remember the bus," Tommy told Geoff.
"No son," Geoff answered still rummaging through the box. He had put a few old cables to one side and now lifted out an old cassette tape player. Tommy looked puzzled. Geoff saw his quizzical look and explained as best as he could.
"It's like your music thing."
Tommy didn't correct him, and Geoff carried on looking through the box for whatever it was he wanted Tommy to see.
"I was thinking that often when I wake up I can't remember what was in my drea
m," Tommy continued.
"I don't think many of us do," Geoff said from deep inside the box.
"So what if somehow we did both have the same dream but I can remember my side of it. Maybe Simon slept a little longer so the dream faded for him."
"Could be he doesn't want to remember. Don't you think that was a pretty big reaction you got there just for drawing a seagull," Geoff replied.
Tommy had not thought of it that way. Geoff was not like Tommy's parents in that he said Tommy's imagination was healthy. According to Geoff, it is something that a lot of young ones have and not something to worry about too much.
One person that had remembered though was Rob. Rob is full of energy. In fact, he is over energized and enthusiastic all the time. He happened to have been there when the snitch saw the Seagull drawn on the book and he pushed Tommy's shoulder to get his attention and said he had never liked seagulls. Tommy told Rob the whole story and Rob had nodded, as though he remembered it all but he never recalled any of the details himself. It was always Tommy talking while Rob nodded enthusiastically.
The other member of the group Madeline was going through a phase whatever a phase was. A phase meant nothing to Tommy but seemed to explain everything in the adult world. It even worked with the teachers. Madeline had been withdrawn in class today, missed a lesson or only wears black now and it was always down to her phase. The phase was adult code not to ask any awkward questions. Whenever it was mentioned, it was met with exaggerated nods of acceptance among the school mother crowd. Because of this phase, she seemed a tiny bit unapproachable. So Tommy did what all guys of his age do and didn't approach her. He did not know whether she remembered the bus ride or not.
"I found it," Geoff cried cutting off Tommy's chain of thought.
"This was my son's computer."
Geoff knew Tommy liked video games and he had wanted to show him the computer his son had spent hours on as a boy. Tommy also saw that Geoff wanted him to sort the leads out and tune it into the television.
"All the leads are there. Now he used to type load, or press the J key or something like that."
"Why would the J key load the game?" Tommy asked.
"Well it would take forever to type the word load wouldn't it?"
Tommy liked that Geoff got the name of the music player wrong and the thing in front of him was supposed to be a computer yet Tommy was the unenlightened one in this conversation for not knowing that pressing J could load a tape.
"Let's leave Tommy to it," Mrs Huntington offered.
"I am going to put the kettle on and you are going to help me bring the tea up Geoff,"
Geoff looked like he had just been told he wasn't allowed to play as he made his way to the stairs.
"I will be back up in a few minutes Tommy, she isn't very good up and down the stairs."
It didn’t take long to get the computer hooked up to the television and the tape player leads slipped into the back of the odd looking computer. Tommy tried what Geoff had suggested and pressed J on the dusty old keys. Nothing, so he typed the word run and pressed enter.
Please insert cassette tape and type load ""
Came the computers reply. He sighed heavily and searched through the cardboard box for a tape. Right at the bottom was a cassette tape. The case was entirely white apart from some writing in blue ink directing Tommy to use with the computer. The tape itself read
The Forbidden Window side A.
Then there was a subtitle
One shall fall.
The forbidden window sounded as good as any game. Tommy wondered if the tape was an old bootleg or perhaps a game Geoff's son had made and recorded in his spare time. Either way it would pass the time looking at it. So he hit the keys.
Load ""
Please rewind the tape
He worked out how. Turns out cassettes are a bit like film disks only they actually take time to rewind. Quite a lot of time as it happened. So the tape rewound and he tried again.
Load""
Loading...
He waited, and by this point Tommy had to hand it to Geoff, he was interested to see what this old machine was going to give him.
Game found The Forbidden Window
The sides of the screen burst into stripes and colours as the tape wheels spun. There were more dots on the screen and he began to wonder if after all of this the old machine was broken anyway.
One Shall Fall
Showed again on the screen. Tommy assumed it had a few glitches but again and again, it repeated the same line of text. Then it did something unexpected.
The text read
“Where are you going?”
What an odd question for a computer game to ask. This was followed by something even more unexpected. The text read.
One shall fall... Tommy.
There it was, his name right there on the screen. Suddenly, the sides of his eyes seemed to continue with the coloured lines on the television screen. Turning away from the screen did not stop them. The tape made a horrendous ringing, screeching sound. Tommy couldn't stop the noise or the colours dancing in his eyes and worried he maybe ill so began heading for the top of the stairs to call for Geoff or Mrs. Huntington.
But the ground under his feet was not carpeted anymore. It was more like the coloured blocks you see in a video game and as he walked down the stairs each stair changed colour. They went from the dark blue of Geoff's carpet to a bright yellow.
Once at the bottom of the stairs he tried the door and found he was not in Geoff's house anymore. He was in a big cold stone room with no doors and what ’s more, he was not alone. Rob, Madeline, and Simon were there.
"No," Simon cried out.
"Not again, this can NOT be happening."
"We only just got here too," Madeline said as though being wherever here was could be a perfectly normal occurrence.
"This is not right, it's not happening. Now if you don't mind I want to go home," Simon demanded.
"Well your are here and we are here. Doesn't look like you’re going anywhere since this room has no doors. You’re stuck with us for a little while snitch," Rob replied.
He was right. The stairs Tommy had just walked down were not there now.
"I am no snitch I just follow the rules. I tell you this is not happening I am asleep and I know I am. Why am I even talking to you anyway?" Simon said already beginning to lose his patience.
"Well let’s just calm down and think about this," Madeline said calmly stepping between the two.
"We all got in this room somehow. So let's think back and recall how we got here and when."
"Who has been here longest?" Tommy asked
"That would be Simon and I. We have been here since school yesterday." Rob said.
"Great," Madeline responded, "how did you get here?"
Try Harder Rob
"I ended up here after detention. We both did," Rob declared.
"I was supervising," the snitch added. Unless any of us would dare think, he actually put a foot wrong and got himself a detention.
Rob felt the hatred rise inside him again as he told the others how he and Simon got there.
Yesterday seemed a long time ago. It had been a day filled with pressure.
Rob knew he was not the greatest at school. He knew this despite his parents’ best efforts at disguising the fact. Every time he brought a grade home, it was met with-
"Not bad for you eh lad," from his father.
His mother would request he knuckle down whatever that meant. It was easy enough to skip lessons when his father would not punish him. Missing school as Rob's father put it was down to Rob being a "typical lad."
Rob enjoyed playing this role, but with exams coming up, he was trying to do more of that knuckling down that his mother talked about so much. So far, that day however, the knuckle down plan was all going wr
ong. He had been late up, very late up. That had followed by being late into the bathroom, late for breakfast and almost late to school. If it had not been for sprinting the last part of the journey, he would have not made it. As it was, he approached the exam room with only two minutes to spare. His heart sank when he saw the snitch manning the door.
"Hold it there," Simon demanded, holding his hand out in a symbolic stop gesture. Rob wondered if Simon thought he didn't understand the spoken word or something?
Perhaps it was just a gesture so as others could see that he had stopped someone.
"You may only take a pen and pencil into the exam. Do you have them?"
Rob quickly took out the pen and pencil from his backpack and shoved the back pack to the corner of the cloak room and quickly went to the door but Simon again put his hand out in that annoying self important stop motion.
"They need to be in a clear plastic bag. Do you have a clear plastic bag?"
"Look I only have a pen and pencil on me," Rob argued knowing that his words would fall on snitches deaf ears.
"Exam rules state no pencil cases, just clear plastic bags."
"Well I am only taking these in and I don't have a clear bag for them," Rob said showing him the pen and pencil.
Simon smiled. A smile from Simon was both unusual and unnerving. He pulled a role of clear bags that looked like they belonged on the vegetable isle of a supermarket and handed one to Rob. Rob was a little taken back by this kindness shown from the snitch. He put the pen and pencil in the bag and walked towards the door. Again he was stopped by Simon's hand.
"You may want to..." Simon gestured towards Rob's shirt. It had come loose while he had been sprinting to school. He tucked the shirt in quickly and again made for the exam room.
Again, the snitches hand giving the annoying stop motion met him.
"Can I help you Rob?" Simon asked
"Yes," Rob cried more than a little frustrated, "I want to get in the exam room please."
"I can't let you do that I am afraid you’re late."
"Late," Rob shouted moving his arms around like an aggravated penguin. Simon put his finger over his lips as though he was gesturing to a small child as he pointed to a sign on the door. No admittance once the exam is in progress
"You’re not going to let me in now no matter what I say, are you?"
Simon shook his head.
"Thought not," Rob replied. At that moment, it is fair to say he didn't care too much. He would miss the exam. His mother would tell him he had to knuckle down and his father would say he was a typical lad.
Rob wouldn't admit this to anyone but he had actually been late up because he had revised until midnight the night before for the exam. Alas! The Snitch had stood in his way and Miss Arthur the deputy head known as thunder thighs was on her way over to greet them both. From experience, Rob knew this always worked out better for Simon than for him.
"Late again Rob?" She asked rhetorically.
"I was here on time just not ready. The exam only started thirty seconds ago...," before Rob got a chance to complete his appeal Simon butted in.
"Thirty seconds Rob is thirty seconds. The exam was scheduled for eight thirty sharp. It has always been eight thirty and in the letter, you got about midterm exams it clearly said eight thirty. In fact if my memory serves me well, it said to arrive early. Would Armstrong have made it to the moon if he had been thirty seconds late to the launch? Time is time whether you’re thirty seconds over, five minutes or indeed an hour."
Rob thought this was another prime example of Simon abusing what little power he had. He missed some of what Simon was saying through, well not missed more chose not to listen but he picked up the conversation as Simon continued.
"Don't you agree Miss Arthur?"
A slightly puzzled thunder thigh gave Simon a gentle nod.
"Look, you have missed this one Rob. The rules say I have to keep you in detention,"
Rob nodded.
"Perfectly reasonable I would say," the snitch added gleefully.
"Sadly I am busy right after school so I am going to make this an exception."
"I'm not busy after school," Simon offered quickly.
"Would you mind Simon? You are not supervising the detention. You only need to wait with Rob for five minutes or so then I will be back,” Miss Arthur said offering Simon a smile.
"I do not mind at all, Miss Arthur. Can I also say how great your class was?"
The snitch carried on but Rob didn't care too much for the rest of the conversation. He was staying after school now so guessed he may as well get his money’s worth. While the snitch was talking, he waggled his tongue about in what he thought was a boot licking motion. Miss Arthur's face was toward Simon so only the snitch could see, exactly what Rob wanted. If Rob didn't know any better he would think that the snitch had a little crush on thunder thighs. Sadly, while he was thinking this, Rob had not adjusted his face for the moment that thunder thighs turned around.
He expected to be sent to the head teacher. Instead, Miss Arthur let out a sigh and offered Rob a smile too.
"You’re better than this Rob. I know you’re trying, but try harder."
Her words were hard to take because they were true. Rob hadn't felt this frustrated in quite some time.
"Looks like it's you and me back here at the end of the day," Simon said with a smirk.
"Can't wait. It's good here isn't it?" Rob said sarcastically and headed off for some food before Simon could reply.
***
"He was late and that is all there is to it," Simon protested as the others stared disapprovingly.
"That still has not explained how you got here," Tommy replied
"Oh yeah," Rob continued, “I was getting to that."