chapter 19
Voyage over the Great Water Tank
The bortrekker and the board-comber helped Alex build the raft out of plastic bottles, wood and cord. When it was finished it looked like a jumble of junk, but it was serviceable. It floated well, bore his weight easily and sported a mast with a square sail made out of a bed sheet. All three boat builders were pretty pleased with themselves. They held a celebratory dinner before Alex set sail. The two young Attican pioneers gave the sailor some provisions before he set out, for which he was most grateful.
‘Stay clear of the Removal Firm,’ said the bortrekker, shaking his hand for the last time. ‘They’re ugly brutes, they are.’
‘And if you do happen to see …’ began the board-comber.
‘… any Inuit soapstone carvings,’ finished Alex with a smile, ‘yes, I’ll gather them up and leave them here, on this spot for you. Oh, that reminds me, of course, this is for you. I pinched it from my sister’s backpack. I doubt she even remembers she had it.’
Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the soapstone walrus, handing it to the board-comber. The board-comber’s eyes widened under his mask. He took the carving reverently and stroked it. Then it disappeared into the folds of his many-coloured, many-layered clothes.
‘Thank you,’ replied the bundle of rags before him, ‘and the bat says thank you, too.’
The last thing the two attic-dwellers did was give Alex a bag full of beautiful paperweights, to trade with any creature he might come across.
Alex set sail at about the same time as Chloe and Jordy were climbing up the ladder of the tank, hauling their hang-glider behind them. He too managed to miss the Removal Firm by a very short time. They stood on the shore and shook their fists at him. Alex replied with a rather crude gesture which he knew would have shocked his mother. However, any shame he felt was crowded out by a feeling of triumph. He had beaten the Removal Firm and what was more had drawn them away from the bortrekker and board-comber, to allow those worthies to escape back into untrammelled regions, where they would be safe from these human ejectors.
Then there was the final shock of seeing Chloe and Jordy, flying high above him. He thought at first it was an attempt to get him back, but then Alex realised they were not after him. They were simply using the warm air above the water to carry them high up into the attic’s atmosphere. He watched them sweep through dusty shafts of light, waved when he realised that Chloe had seen him, then adjusted his sail and sped on. There was a heavy swell on the surface of the tank and very soon he had sailed down into a trough of water and the hang-glider was lost to his sight.
‘Bye, sis!’ he called, wondering if she could hear him. ‘Bye, Jordy!’
Then his craft called for all his attention, as he started to climb up out of the trough and on to the heights of the swell. He soon dispensed with his heavy coat and hat, and took off his boots. It was much more comfortable to sail in his shorts and bare feet only. He piled his clothes in the little cabin they had built in the middle of the raft, which kept his food dry. There was a bed in there, a canvas camping cot they had found, and several other home comforts. From the map Jordy had shown him it appeared to be several days’ sailing to the far side of the tank. Comforts would be needed.
Though the bortrekker had never made the voyage he had spoken with others who had, and had given Alex instructions.
‘You follow this star pattern, as the skylights appear over the horizon one by one, bearing in mind that this constellation here must always remain on your right shoulder, and this one here on your left. If you sail between those two groups of skylights, you can’t go wrong. Then there’s the swell, which always comes from the near left corner of the tank. It will carry you naturally to your destination, but beware of a maelstrom …’
‘Maelstrom?’ Alex had repeated.
‘Um – a whirlpool. A huge whirlpool, somewhere in the centre of the tank. It’s a drain hole that serves the pipes which lead to all the smaller tanks of the attic. It’s about a mile wide and if you get sucked in, you’ve had it, so keep a sharp look-out. Watch out, too, for obstructions – hidden underwater reefs and shoals you can’t see when you’re level with the surface. The way to spot them is to study the dust clouds above the lake. They’ll reflect what’s below them, to a degree. So you’ll expect to see dark shadows on the dust clouds, in among the golden specks.’
‘What are these reefs and shoals?’
‘Oh, clusters of pipes, mostly, and there’ll be moving stuff – flotsam and jetsam – junk thrown in by irresponsible vandals. Just keep your eyes open and you should be all right.’
Alex said, ‘Thanks,’ and, feeling slightly facetious asked, ‘No giant squids or submarines?’
‘Ah, as to those, if you run into one, pray like mad.’
Alex’s face fell.
The bortrekker’s own face creased as if someone had screwed it up like a piece of paper. ‘Got you,’ he said. ‘No, no squids or submarines but – but there is a monster of a kind in there, now that you mention it.’
‘Ah, you won’t get me a second time!’ said Alex, wagging his finger.
‘No, this is serious. There’s a sort of blanket creature – huge, bigger than a football pitch, it’s the only way I can describe it – which rises up with large waves and falls on to unsuspecting craft, enveloping them. I don’t know how to tell you to avoid it. Again just keep your eyes open. It enfolds ships whole and sinks with them to the bottom of the tank.’
‘Oh heck – what is it then? A live thing?’
‘It looks like green blanket-weed but it’s not a vegetable. It’s wholly animal. It’s developed an instinct, a killer’s mind. With a sharklike predator’s intellect, but a thinking mind nonetheless. It floats, imitating the water’s surface, and strikes along with the rearing waves which crash over the sailing vessels. The good news is there’s only one of them. Any new blanket-weed creatures which come about are quickly swallowed by this monster and become part of it. That’s why it’s so big.’
A lump formed in Alex’s throat.
‘Where’s it come from? I mean, how did it come about?’
‘It’s an ancient prehistoric beast, which has grown from live organisms in the tank. Minute one-celled creatures which have sought each other out and locked together for defence against larger eaters and have themselves become a feared predator. That’s all any of us are, after all – a mass of single cells – tiger, cobra, man, whatever. Any live being. This amorphous mass, which we in the attic call the Loving Flounder, will enfold you in its winglike form and drag you down, there to digest you whole.’
Alex had swallowed hard after this warning.
‘Loving Flounder – that’s a strange thing to call a horrible beast.’
‘It loves you to death.’
So, there was much to think about while he steered his makeshift craft over the surface of the tank’s water. Navigation, monsters, gales. On the first night he witnessed one of those electrical dust storms they had seen when on dry Attican boards. Entrancing, but also dangerous. Lightning flashed down around Alex and the waves were roused to turmoil by the atmospheric disturbances. If the Loving Flounder came now, he thought, I could do little to save myself, for the waves were rearing high and crashing down on the deck, draining away through the gaps in the bottles and planks.
The storm lasted all night. A howling draught accompanied it, which blew as if it had come from the pursed lips of gargantuan demons, almost stripping the raft of its sail. Alex managed to reef in the bed sheet before it was ripped to shreds in the terrible draught which whipped up the waters. The raft held up well under such a battering. The reason was it was very flexible, having been built in a loose fashion, the pliable ropes tied with firm knots. Had it been of a more rigid construction, the vessel would surely have perished in the blast, for it was a night of white blinding spray, of deep, seemingly bottomless, watery hollows, and terrible sudden squalls which spun the raft like a top while Alex clung on to the decks with all four limbs.
In the morning he was drenched, fatigued, but whole. Lightning had zig-zagged about his head, lighting up the attic sky for brief brilliant moments, but had not burned him to a crisp. Mountainous seas had all but engulfed him but had fortunately passed over, leaving him battered and breathless. Screaming draughts from the mouths of heaven and hell had nearly wrenched him from his handholds and flung him into the maw of monstrous waves, but had not managed to prise him from his grip.
There had been the thought that the Loving Flounder – such a pretty name for such an ugly monster – might enfold him, but it hadn’t. Here he was still, now sailing gently on a freshwater ocean which looked for all the world as if it were dressed in its Sunday best and off to church. It was calm. It was peaceful. It was a day for drying out in the pillars of the sun, among the warm motes of dust, while contemplating the vagaries of nature.
A white-painted sign with black lettering floated past the raft at about noon. Written on it were the words:
NOTICE
No Dreaming.
No Wishing.
No Swimming.
‘Weird,’ muttered Alex. ‘Totally weird.’
Next he saw two other craft, sailing together, passing him within hailing distance. One was an upturned table, the legs used as masts, the other was a bookcase on its back, the mariners aboard using shovels as oars. They waved to him and smiled. They were obviously sea-Atticans, small brown people with quick, light, graceful movements, not at all like land-Atticans. The latter were lumpy awkward creatures, used to manual labour in a heavy environment. These people were like the fresh draughts, nimble creatures with bright eyes and ready grins which flashed greetings even to strangers. Alex waved back and cried, ‘What are you doing out here?’
One of the sailors held up a battered fishing rod and a child’s seaside crabbing net as if they understood.
‘Fishing?’ questioned Alex.
That was plain enough. But on board the sea-Atticans also had goods, presumably to trade with. There were feather boas and other such items on the decks. Alex hove alongside one of the vessels and indicated he would like to trade one or two of his exotic paperweights. He had onyx pyramids, glass hemispheres with rainbows locked inside, mythical brass animals. The sea-going Atticans seemed delighted. They gave him a thick quilt coat in exchange for two of his treasures, happy with the bounty.
Alex had not really wanted the coat, but he had enjoyed meeting with other beings. He realised at this point that he actually needed company sometimes. That was all right, he thought, because there was company to be had. He didn’t have to deteriorate into a complete hermit in his quest to become a bortrekker.
After waving goodbye to the Attican water tank farers he set sail again on a day when the sky was reasonably clear of dust clouds and the many skylights lit up his seapath like searchlights. The mariners had given him a fishing line, which he now proceeded to employ, using bits of weed as bait. However, either the bait was no good, or the fisherman was no good, for he caught nothing. Fishing in the deep sea, Alex decided, was a difficult occupation.
He suddenly remembered he did have a companion and spent an hour or two chatting with Makishi, who was willing enough to talk, but because of his limited experience of life did not have a great deal to say. He knew about jungles, rainforests and tropical storms, but he’d already talked a lot with Alex about these and tended to get repetitive. After a while the conversation petered out and a silence fell between the pair once more.
In the afternoon Alex slept. He lashed his tiller to the mast so that the raft kept a straight course, checked his bearings with all those visual aids he had been given by the bortrekker, then dropped off into a deep and dreamless sleep. The long night of the storms had kept him awake and he was always a boy who liked his bed.
It was the tiller banging against his knee which woke him. He sat up abruptly, startled to find his tiller had worked itself free and his rudder was finding its own course. All too late it seemed he was caught on the edge of a great swirling body of water which was, at the moment, spinning the craft gently round in wide circles.
‘The maelstrom!’ he yelled, grabbing the tiller.
It was indeed the central whirlpool. Somewhere deep below him was a drain hole which was sucking water down by the thousand-gallon. If he did not free himself of its power he would taken down too and used as a plug. Not only would he drown and rot in the weeds below, but with his corpse stopping up the exit hole the tank would overflow and flood the attic, perhaps drowning many others in the process. Naturally, at the moment, he was more concerned with his own life than those of others, but if he failed to save himself he would leave behind a terrible legacy, of death and destruction.
‘Oh heck.’
He grabbed the tiller in a panic and tried to steer the raft out of the current. It was of no use. The raft simply spun in the current and continued to follow the ever-decreasing circles it was drawing.
Next he fixed the tiller again then tried to paddle out, using one of the light shovels which served as his oars. He made a little progress this time, but not enough. The raft neither moved out of the current nor went further in. Stalemate. But soon his arms began to ache and tire, he weakened, and he knew he could not keep it up.
‘Help me!’ he yelled, thoroughly frightened now. ‘Somebody, please? Anyone around? Help me.’
The waters around were bare of boats or any sign of life.
‘I’m going to drown if no one helps me,’ called Alex to the attic in general. ‘Is that what you want? Eh? Get rid of the unwanted newcomers. Well, you’ve got your wish.’
He slumped back on the floor of the raft, staring up at the roof-sky, a bitterness filling his heart with black bile.
‘I hate you. I hate everyone!’
He was going to die. It didn’t seem possible. It wasn’t fair. He was only doing this to help Mr Grantham. The raft was going faster and faster now, spinning, turning, heading towards a slope of water that went down into a hole. In the centre of the mighty whirlpool was a hole where there was nothing but air. He would probably drop all the way without even touching the sides. Without even getting wet. Once his body hit the bottom though, the water would come gushing in around him and suffocate him, filling his lungs to bursting. His brain would explode in bright lights. He knew what it was like to hold his breath – most kids had tried it – and it hurt like hell. It was a horrible death. Any death was horrible.
A huge fat crinkled worm flew over the raft.
Red, green and gold.
With whiskers.
It was there and gone in a second.
Alex sat up quickly and stared.
What was that? Was he seeing things?
No, there it was, heading towards the horizon.
It was a worm. At least it looked like a worm from where he stood.
‘Hi! Don’t go,’ he yelled in panic. ‘Come back here.’
He stood there waving and yelled again, this time angrily.
‘Get back here, you rotten bugger!’
This time the worm-thing seemed to take notice. It flew through the air with wavelike movements, flowing up and down like a serpent. When it turned back – and it did turn back – Alex could see it was an oriental dragon, the kind that Chinese people used for celebrations. It was long and tubular, with the usual mythical head and huge eyes. It flowed through the air like a kite and returned to the raft, its eyes blinking. There were long tapes dangling from its body and as it flew over Alex grabbed the end of one of these ribbons, expecting to pull the creature to a halt. However, it didn’t jerk to a halt, but almost pulled Alex off his feet. Alex quickly tied the end of the ribbon to his mast and stepped back, hoping for the best.
The flying dragon, roaring to bolster its strength, pulled hard. Gradually the raft began to leave the swirling waters of the vortex into which it was being dragged. With Alex encouraging his saviour, the raft was eventually pulled clear of the whirlpool’s clutches and out of danger. Until now most of the animated objects of the attic had been hostile. But here was one, like Punch and Judy, which seemed only too glad to help. The attic, like anywhere else, had good and bad about it. Alex was growing fonder of the place all the time.
Once he was clear he released the dragon’s tapes and the creature continued on its journey to an unknown destination.
‘I must not fall asleep again so soundly,’ Alex told himself. ‘I was lucky that time. Next time I may not be. I have to remain alert.’
The trouble was, he was alone, and had to sleep sometimes.
Over the next day or so, Alex met with more of the brown fisherfolk he had encountered earlier. They were almost always cheerful, waving to him, shouting greetings. Once or twice he traded with them for food, his store of paperweights standing him in good stead. There was one time when a sullen one passed by his craft, rowing a canoe fashioned from half a car roof-rack pod, who refused to acknowledge him, but this was a rare occurrence. For the most part they were a delightful race of people, who seemed only too eager to make contact and help if at all possible.
Alex did of course fall asleep again – he had to rest – but nothing untoward happened to him.
One evening he was enjoying what appeared to be an aurora borealis, the northern lights of the attic. They seemed to have been produced by the moonlight shining through the bevelled edges of skylight windows. The cut glass acted like a prism, splitting the white light into its natural colours, which in turn were sent in ribbons into the atmosphere of the attic. Outside, the wind was blowing, rattling the windows, thus making the bands of colours ripple, twist and wave, producing movement. The northern lights of the attic were almost as wonderful and mystical as the real aurora borealis.
It was as he was watching that he felt a slight movement beneath his feet. He looked down at his raft. It had not been a wave or the swell. Something had touched the craft underneath. He glanced over the side and his eyes widened. There, passing below his vessel, was the largest snake – or eel – he had ever seen. It was a monster, but he was relieved to see that it wasn’t the Loving Flounder. This creature was as thick as the belly of a jumbo jet and moving silently and effortlessly through the water. At the front end it had huge jaws, partly open, which revealed a thousand sharp white teeth. At the other end – well, Alex couldn’t even see the other end – but he could see enough to know it was finned.
It took an age for the serpent to pass under him and when it was gone Alex was still standing there, watching where it had been, long and green like a deep-sea current made manifest. The episode sent a chill through him. There were monsters in these waters he had not been told about, yet perhaps very few knew of them. The bortrekker and board-comber might never have come across them. And even the fisherfolk might have only legendary tales instead of actual experiences to go on. Maybe he was privileged to be one of the only humans to have witnessed such a monster?
‘I wonder why I don’t feel privileged,’ he said out loud.
‘I would, if I were you,’ interrupted Makishi. ‘It was an amazing sight.’
Makishi was perched on top of the mast. Alex had put him there after the incident with the maelstrom, to act as a lookout. So far he had seen nothing and could not be blamed for not warning of undersea monsters since his job was to watch for any potential problems on the horizon. His occasional remarks, such as the one he had just uttered, were somehow comforting to Alex, whose yearning for society had increased.
‘Thank you, Makishi. In that case, I shall.’
Later they was passing between archipelagos and atolls decorated with bird cages and bamboo umbrella stands. At one lonely island he found a shivering little Attican boy, whom he rescued and took aboard. It seemed from some drawings the child made in the dust that he had been marooned by pirates. Pirates? Why had no one warned him about pirates?
On a later island where the bird cages were draped in feathers he found inhabitants, more of the fisherfolk, who used cricket bats to paddle their island canoes and floating light bulbs to moor them in the bay. The child seemed to know them so Alex passed the boy on to them.
Alex spent the night with them and enjoyed an evening of dancing and creaky singing beneath paper lanterns that glowed with a faint light and were found by him to contain fireflies. It was here the dragon returned and swooped down to swallow a long line of the lanterns. This brought the inhabitants out of their huts. They spent the next hour throwing marbles at the dragon, trying to drive it away. Alex pretended to join them. No one noticed that he wasn’t trying very hard to hit the target.
The dragon, on seeing him, gave him a hurt look and Alex, knowing he owed this creature his life and breath, felt a little ashamed.
After the dragon had been chased away the grumbling Atticans unveiled some strange contraptions. It seemed they had forgotten to wheel out their dragon-scarers to guard their lanterns while they enjoyed their festivities. The dragon-scarers were made of bicycle parts, bits of vacuum cleaners, old radios, lawn mowers, kitchen utensils, gardening tools and electric fans. These were fashioned into giant mobiles which moved in the slightest draught. Wheels spun and worked arms and levers and ratchets, which had the giant dragon-scarers swinging their arms and rolling their heads, as if they were live creatures.
On yet another archipelago was a forest of artificial Christmas trees decorated with tinsel and paper chains. This brought a lump to his throat as it reminded him of his family, now far away. It was on the beach of an island such as this that he was attacked by what he thought were scarecrows, but turned out to be Guy Fawkes dummies. Christmas tree angels saved him by flying in like a swarm of sparrows and hampering the efforts of the guys until Alex had launched his raft and set out to sea again.
One morning he woke to find calmer waters than usual and there on the horizon was a thin black line. He knew then that he was coming to the end of his voyage. That black line was the lip of the other side of the Great Water Tank. In the space beyond were the vague shapes of objects of a far place.
It was on these inland waters, which the bortrekker had called the Farside Roads, that Alex encountered another craft. It was very similar to his own makeshift vessel and was sailing the other way. Those on board were not Atticans, but a boy a little older than himself and a girl about his age. They had obviously entered into the spirit of seafaring, being dressed in naval attire, the boy with a white peaked cap with an anchor badge on it, and the girl in a blue-and-white striped jersey and navy-blue knee-length trousers.
‘Ahoy there!’ called the boy. ‘You a real person?’
‘Yes,’ cried Alex. ‘You?’
‘Yes. We’re lost.’
‘So am I – or I was.’
‘Weird place, ain’t it?’
The girl called, ‘We’re looking for our old attic.’
Alex didn’t know what to say to that. Naturally he didn’t know where their personal trapdoor might lie.
As they passed by one another, Alex said, ‘You should find a bortrekker or a board-comber. They’ll help you.’
‘Thanks,’ the boy replied. ‘A bortrekker, eh?’
‘Yes – like me.’
‘We met an attic boy who called himself a rafter king,’ called the girl, ‘who was climbing up there.’ Her eyes swept the roof space. ‘He said he was once human, but he wasn’t much help in the end. Apparently there’s quite a few of them, up in the roof space. He said he’d lived up in the rafters too long and had a little hut up there. He told us he’d become a rafter king to stay out of the way of the Removal Firm. Do you know them?’
‘Yep – large Atticans in khaki dustcoats. Stay out of their way if you can.’
The boy leaned forward, hanging on to the mast.
‘Atticans?’
‘Villagers.’
The girl’s expression brightened. ‘Hey, you want to come with us?’
Alex shook his head. ‘No, sorry.’
They both seemed disappointed.
‘OK, good luck.’
‘You too. Try and find a map. There must be more than one, I’m sure. You’ll get home then.’
‘Thanks.’
They watched each other’s vessel for a long time until they both became specks in each other’s eyes.
‘Nice people,’ said Makishi, afterwards.
Alex thought the idea of being a rafter king sounded exciting. Board-comber, bortrekker or rafter king? How many others were there, in this wooden world of the attic? Beam-walkers? Roof-rangers? Maybe even tank-voyagers? Nah, he’d made his choice. Bortrekker.
Over the rest of the morning Alex sailed towards the edge of the sea and finally hove in with a slight bump against the side of the tank. He moored his craft, not knowing whether he was going to use it again. Dressing once more in his bortrekker gear, he was ready to go ashore.
He disembarked and began walking along the wooden rim. His legs felt wobbly and it seemed as if the solid ground beneath his feet were moving. That was just an illusion though, after days on a rolling vessel. He was here on dry land once again and close to the end of this quest.
Descending the ladder on the side of the tank he found himself among huge dunes of hearth tools – coal scuttles, tongs, brushes, shovels – which he climbed over with no difficulty. Beyond these dunes was a solid wall of upright pianos. These looked so much like fortifications that Alex wondered if he’d wandered into hostile country. Were these defences here because someone or something lurked behind them? A creature so insecure and unsavoury that it needed walls to keep out its enemies? Or perhaps the piano walls had been built to keep something in? Like a giant ape or a people so savage the attic would be devastated by their release?
‘Tread softly here, Alex,’ he told himself.
He climbed up on one of the pianos, to peer at the land beyond.