Silver World by Cliff McNish

Author:Cliff McNish [McNish, Cliff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books
Published: 2015-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

bait

THOMAS

As we tramped across Coldharbour, this is what Walter carried in a great roomy bag roped to his back: warm coats, countless pairs of socks, underwear, shirts, bottled water, bedding, and enough food to feed a small army.

His visitors had even donated a couple of battered-looking toothbrushes.

When I suggested we wouldn’t have time to use those Walter just nudged me higher onto his arm. He was right to bring so much, I suppose. Who knew how long we’d have to wait before the two newborn attacked—if they ever did?

All afternoon we headed steadily west, mobbed by children. No surprises there—a couple of insect-girls and a giant passing through your territory are pretty hard to ignore! The younger kids did the usual tugging at Walter’s trousers to get noticed. Walter’s tactic for avoiding this was to crouch down and adopt a sort of blank, straight-ahead stare. It didn’t work. They clambered up him anyway. Walter’s left arm was like a constantly moving brush, gently sweeping them off his legs. Add to that all the screeching, whistles, warbles, and trills from the birds constantly flying over Jenny’s head and we were more like a traveling circus than anything else.

At least the newborn won’t have any trouble finding us, I thought.

The leaders of the child-families wanted to know what on earth was going on. I concocted a story that we were “searching for new building materials,” but I don’t think I fooled anyone.

Several of the child-families started following us. Before long we had dozens trailing in our wake. It was Freda who noticed that most of them were trailing behind me.

“Seen how many admirers you got?” she remarked. “Pretty ones and ugly ones, Toms. Not just girls, either. Interesting! They’ve got a strange way o’ looking at a boy … .”

She was right. It was the same odd glances I’d been getting for some time now, without knowing what they meant.

“Either you suddenly got a film-star face,” Emily said, pinching my cheek, “or they’re expecting a surprise from yer beauty.” She slipped her hand up against my heart, and whispered, “What’s happening in ’ere, eh? What’s yer beauty telling yer?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“You sure? Not even a twinge?”

“No.”

“C’mon, Toms, you’re not feeling nothing.”

What was I feeling? I wasn’t sure. A slight swirl of beauty? Maybe, but it wasn’t strong or active like it had been in the past. It wasn’t after a particular child. It just seemed attuned to them all in some way. I told Emily about the time I’d run around eastern Coldharbour, grabbing kids to get them to notice my beauty. “They weren’t interested then,” I said.

She squeezed my arm. “They are now!”

But whatever was rousing my beauty hid its secret, and soon there were other things to think about. Like how far from Milo we were getting. Gradually we left the protection of his wings, until only his feet were above us. I didn’t like that. I didn’t like not being able to see his face. I wondered what it was like for Milo as well, forced to watch Jenny disappear into the west.

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