Boy in the Tower Read online

  ‘You keep it,’ says Dory, and I put it carefully into my pocket. I’ll stick it into my book later.

  ‘Here, Ade. For your mum. You’ll tell her we say hi, won’t you?’

  Dory gives me a plate of steaming food. It smells good. I thank her and I get up to go.

  Obi opens the door for me. I can’t do it because I’m holding the plate.

  I stop for a moment.

  I want to come back to Dory’s flat later but I don’t know how to ask. I want to see them again soon and not feel lonely in the flat any more while Mum is sleeping.

  It’s as if they are reading my mind because Dory says, ‘Come back any time and I certainly want to see you for dinner, young man.’

  And then Obi says, ‘I’ll bring you some more water later.’

  And as I carefully walk up the stairs trying not to spill any of Mum’s lunch, I feel happier than I have in a long time.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘We’ll put this one up here and one in the bathroom and here’s your torch.’

  Obi gives me a pink torch and shows me how to pull out the handle and wind it up. He’s brought us a couple of lanterns for our flat and a torch each for me and Mum.

  He doesn’t ask to see Mum but gives me her torch to give to her. It’s yellow.

  ‘You show your mum how to wind it up, OK, kid?’ he says.

  I know he’s going to go soon. He’s just walked up with me to bring the lantern and torches after we had dinner with Dory. I had to carry Mum’s plate again.

  We had a pie tonight and Dory put this funny little china blackbird in the middle of it, so you could just see its head and beak poking out of the top of the pie.

  She said, ‘We have Obi to thank for the pastry.’

  I didn’t know what she meant so I said to him, ‘Did you make it?’

  He gave a small chuckle then and said, ‘No, Dory just means I found the ingredients.’

  ‘Right, I’ll be off now. See you in the morning, kid.’

  I say, ‘Good night, Obi, and thanks for the torches.’

  And he’s gone.

  Mum’s sleeping, with her back turned towards me. It’s hard to do it without making any noise but I try to put Mum’s plate on her bedside table as quietly as I can and take away the one I brought up at lunchtime that’s empty now. I wish she was awake so I could tell her about Obi and Dory. I want to tell her that I’m all right, that there’s someone looking after me. It feels important that she knows. But I don’t wake her. I leave her a torch and tiptoe out. I’ll have to show her how to wind it up later.

  They’re really good torches because they’ll never run out of batteries. You just have to turn the handle a few times and the light comes on. I decide to wind mine up lots and lots, so it won’t run out for a really long time.

  I take a bit of time drawing Dory and Obi into my scrapbook. I think I get Dory right but I find Obi hard to draw. It’s difficult to draw someone who is cross and kind at the same time.

  Then I switch the lantern off and play with my torch, lying on the sofa. I don’t mind the dark as much now that I have it. I make the beam move all over the room, so I can see every little part of it. I see things that I wouldn’t normally see if the lights were on. I see a little crack in the ceiling that goes all the way from one wall to the other, and I find a thin, floaty spider’s web that hangs in one corner of the room. I make shadow animals out of my hands and they dance on the ceiling and march to the window.

  And that’s when I see it. Another light.

  A torch from the block opposite mine.

  From Gaia’s block.

  I flash my torch on and off, on and off from my window and I wait.

  The torch in Gaia’s block blinks on and off, on and off back at me.

  The next time I switch it off quickly three times, so it flashes, and then leave it on for a moment at the end before I turn it off. I look out at the tower and see the same pattern being repeated back.

  I have heard of a code that people use with torches going on and off again, but I don’t know it and I get the feeling the other person doesn’t either. We just keep copying each other’s torch light patterns over and over. We are not able to make words but I think what we are saying to each other is more important than that. We are saying, I’m here, you’re here and I can see you.

  Our torch signalling goes on into the night until the other person leaves their beam on and waves it from side to side and then switches it off.

  I think they are waving goodbye. Saying good night.

  I try to sleep but I can’t stop thinking about the light I just saw from the other block. It looked like it could have come from the same floor as me. The seventeenth floor. It didn’t seem to be any higher or lower than my flat.

  I can’t help but wonder if it was Gaia who was signalling to me.

  And what if she wasn’t signalling me just to tell me she was there? What if she was trying to tell me that she needed help?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The next morning when I wake up, the very first thing I do is look out of the window at Gaia’s tower.

  From where I am I can see that the Bluchers have completely surrounded the block. Even from so high up, I can see their glistening blue bodies entangled with one another, and, terrifyingly, I see that they are moving. Are they swaying in the wind or raging towards Gaia’s tower, reaching forward to their next meal? The ground all around the tower is thick with them. A mass of blue.

  And I can see, with deadly certainty, that they have started to feed. It is the same with all the other blocks that are still standing. I can almost sense the Bluchers’ hunger in the way they have gathered around the bottom of each building, their silvery-blue colour pulsing as they push forward. Like how sometimes you can see your heartbeat on your wrist. It’s not a big movement but it doesn’t stop. One pulse follows another and then another and then another. And it won’t stop until that building has gone.

  Whatever it is they are doing, it won’t be too long before they eat away so much at the bottom that the blocks will all just collapse. I can see that the lower parts of the buildings are already a little thinner. They won’t last long.

  I count up seventeen windows to find Gaia’s flat. I try to look really hard to see if anyone is moving inside but it’s too far away. But I know there is someone there and that if I don’t do something, I will watch the tower fall knowing that there is a person trapped inside. And the part that I don’t want to say out loud to myself is that the person might be Gaia.

  I have to find Obi.

  He will know what to do.

  I run downstairs to find him. I stop at Dory’s flat first because I think she might know where Obi is.

  Dory opens the door straight away and says, ‘Good timing, Ade, I’ve just put some porridge on,’ but she stops talking when she sees my face.

  Dory sends me downstairs to the basement to find Obi. She doesn’t ask me what’s wrong or tell me to calm down, she just looks at my face and says, ‘Try the basement, Ade.’

  I hardly ever come down here. There are big thick pipes that run along the ceiling and only very small rectangular windows, so without the lights on, it’s hard to see where you are walking. Part of me feels afraid, an old fear that you could get lost in these corridors and never get out, as if it was a maze or a labyrinth rather than just a bunch of rooms and hallways. I put the thought out of my mind and start walking, shouting out Obi’s name as I go.

  ‘You scared me, kid,’ Obi says when he pokes his head out of a doorway.

  That’s a joke, I think. How could I scare anyone?

  I tell Obi about the torch signals, how I think it might be my friend Gaia and how the Bluchers have surrounded the other buildings.

  Obi doesn’t say anything as I speak. He frowns and rubs his face quite a lot but he doesn’t speak until I’ve finished.

  I’ve been so worried about Gaia and so glad to see Obi that I’ve barely noticed the room we are in. You know when
you are feeling and thinking about two things at exactly the same time and they take up all the space in your brain? When I finish talking, I look around me and take in where we are.

  I guess I must be in Obi’s flat but it’s tiny, just one room, really, and quite a small one at that. There’s a single bed that has a red and green blanket on it, neatly tucked in, and a little chest of drawers, but not much else.

  It almost looks like it could belong to anyone, but there are lots and lots of framed photographs on Obi’s chest of drawers. I can see Obi in one of them standing next to a lady, but he’s smiling from ear to ear, so it might not be him. Perhaps it’s his identical twin.

  I open my mouth to ask him who it is but then I remember, in a rushing flood, why I came to find Obi. I think of Gaia, trapped in the tower, the blue swarm of Bluchers hungrily feasting at the foundations of her building.

  ‘Please help,’ I say instead.

  When Obi talks, it’s so slow and quiet that I have to strain my ears to hear him.

  ‘We must try to rescue them,’ he says.

  ‘But what about the spores?’

  ‘We must try,’ he says again.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Over the next hour, I learn more and more about Obi’s job as a caretaker. I find out that he has a bunch of keys that can open every door in the tower. Imagine: he could go into anyone’s flat at any time.

  ‘Only if I need to fix things, Ade,’ Obi tells me as I stare open-mouthed at the set of shiny brass keys. ‘Not just because I fancy it.’

  ‘But you can open any door in this building?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Even the door to my flat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you ever had to do that?’ I ask, looking at Obi out of the corner of my eye.

  ‘Your mum’s let me in in the past, so I haven’t had to.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said.

  ‘How is your mum doing?’ Obi says, quietly and quickly.

  ‘She’s all right,’ I say. ‘She . . . she . . .’

  ‘It’s OK, Ade. As long as she’s all right.’

  ‘I don’t think she knows what’s going on,’ I continue.

  ‘Ah,’ says Obi. ‘That must be difficult.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, not wanting to say yes or no.

  ‘It’s hard not to talk through things with someone you love.’

  ‘Who do you talk to?’ I ask.

  Obi chuckles a bit, although I don’t know why. ‘Me?’ He scratches his beard thoughtfully. ‘Well, I guess I talk to Dory.’

  ‘Do you love Dory, then?’

  ‘Well, Dory’s a splendid woman. Maybe I do love her in some ways, but . . .’ Obi goes quiet then and I start thinking about the woman in the photo. I wonder if that’s the person Obi loves.

  ‘But?’ I say.

  ‘Well, things change, don’t they?’

  ‘Is this the woman you love?’ I ask, and I point to the framed photograph sitting on the chest of drawers.

  Obi picks it up and stares at it thoughtfully.

  ‘Cicely,’ he says. ‘Cicely was a wonderful woman.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  Obi looks at me sharply and puts the frame back onto the chest so violently that it falls over on its face. He has to pick it up and stand it back up again properly.

  ‘She left,’ he says simply. He stands up. The conversation is over.

  ‘Now, let’s go and help your Gaia. Before those Bluchers get any further.’

  Obi walks out of the tiny room and I spend a moment more looking at those smiling faces. Cicely’s bright, friendly smile. And I know now who the other person is. It isn’t Obi’s twin. It’s Obi, when he was very happy.

  I run to catch up with Obi, who’s already disappearing down the corridor.

  I soon learn that Obi knows about everyone living in the tower. He doesn’t just know about my mum. He knows about Michael’s mum and that she’s good at cooking. He knows about the man on the second floor who never used to leave his flat. He wasn’t like Mum, though; it was because he was too old. He had someone come round to bring him meals every day and when the buildings started falling, his daughter came and took him away.

  He knows about the family with the mum who always made nice cakes. He knows about the woman who owned a cat that had kittens. He knows about everyone.

  He takes me to a flat on one of the lower floors.

  It has a funny, medicine smell about it. A bit like the stuff that people pour onto a cut and they say it won’t hurt, but it does. Everything in the flat is brown, the chairs, the sofa, even the walls and the lampshades.

  Obi picks up two tall silver bottles which have thin clear plastic wires with a mask attached to them from behind one of the chairs. Then we go to a flat a few floors up.

  It’s full of large photographs of jungles and deserts and things like that. There’s a large vase of flowers that have died on a table in the sitting room, and lots and lots of books too. But unlike Dory’s books, which look like they’ve been read about ten times, these ones are shiny and big, glossy and new-looking.

  Obi comes out of the bedroom with one of those really big rucksacks that look so huge you can’t imagine how one person can carry it on their back. He gives it to me to carry. Although it’s so big, with nothing in it, it’s quite light. Then we go back down to Obi’s room in the basement, Obi carrying the oxygen tanks and me, the rucksack.

  Obi hands me a roll of white tape. ‘You’ve got to stick this over the mask, kid, when I tell you. No holes, OK?’

  He has put the silver bottles into the bag and fiddled with the top of one of the bottle, so we hear a little hissing sound. Then he puts the rucksack on his back and sits on the bed. He puts the mask on and tells me to cover it.

  I try my best, I really do, but I’m worried. The woman on the TV said the spores are tiny and I’m sure they could get through the tape. When I’m done, Obi takes a scarf out of his drawer and wraps that over his face as well, so you can just about see his eyes but that is all. Then he pulls out a pair of swimming goggles and puts those on too.

  He looks mad but he says, ‘You can’t be too careful,’ and I agree.

  ‘Wait in Dory’s flat for me. Don’t come downstairs, whatever you do. Promise me, Ade. I might let spores into the tower when I go out, so you must wait with Dory.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Good luck.’

  But it doesn’t seem enough to just say that.

  Because what I’m thinking is, Please, please be all right, please, please come back, please, please save Gaia.

  And I’m thinking that Obi is the bravest man I have ever met.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It’s been about two hours since Obi left the tower.

  Dory went white when I told her where he’d gone but she sort of shook her head quickly and said, ‘He’ll be back soon,’ and now she’s teaching me how to play Gin Rummy.

  I haven’t played cards before, properly. I like the ones with the faces that are called the jack and the king and the queen. I tell Dory that and she says, ‘Why don’t we give them all faces?’ So we do just that. We both draw silly little eyes and smiles on each one. Dory’s good at drawing. She even makes one of them look a bit like me. Even I can see it’s got my fuzzy hair and my little smile that doesn’t look like it’s fully finished. It’s the two of diamonds.

  Gin Rummy is fun. It’s miles better than any of the games I play by myself. Even the animal game. It goes on for quite a long time, too.

  Dory tells me the rules. She gives us each seven cards and says that I need to collect three of one thing and four of another. Either the same number card, so three jacks or four sevens, or what Dory calls a run. That’s when you have the numbers going up like three, four, five. It’s hard to get a run though, because they have to all be in the same suit, clubs or hearts or whatever.

  I thought I’d won ages ago and shouted out, ‘Rummy!’ like Dory told me to, but my run wasn’t in the same suit
, so we had to keep going.

  I’m collecting cards with the same number now. It’s easier. I just need one more card, the five of spades, and I’ve won.

  We don’t talk as we play but Dory grins at me from over the top of her cards a lot. I think she’s enjoying playing.

  ‘Rummy!’ Dory shouts and she slaps her cards on the table so hard that it shakes.

  We play a few more times. Dory wins twice and I win once. Then it’s lunchtime.

  ‘Do you want to go see your mum while I get lunch together, Ade?’ she asks me.

  ‘Can I just wait with you until Obi comes back?’ I say.

  ‘Of course,’ says Dory. ‘You can give me a hand with lunch.’

  She asks me if I know how to chop an onion and when I say I think so, she gives me a couple that have sprouted green shoots from the top and a little knife and a chopping board.

  I’m not very good at it, as it turns out, so Dory shows me what to do. You make a sort of a bridge with one hand to hold the onion steady and then you cut it in half. Then you take off the top bit that’s got the green coming out of it and peel off the brown, papery skin. And only after you’ve done all that can you start chopping.

  ‘We need the pieces to be quite small,’ Dory says, so it takes quite a while to slice them into little bits.

  My eyes begin to sting, and even though I don’t mean to, I find that I’m crying. Tears are running down my face and dripping over the onions.

  ‘Why am I crying, Dory?’ I ask. ‘Is it the onions or is it about Obi?’

  Or is it about Gaia? I think to myself.

  ‘It’s the onions, Ade. They make everyone cry. I like them for it. It’s good to have a good cry sometimes.’

  I’m not sure I agree. I have to keep stopping and wiping my eyes because the tears blur my vision and I can’t see what I’m doing. But finally I finish chopping and Dory fries them up over a little flame that comes out of a small blue canister. Dory says that people use them for camping and that Obi had found quite a few in the tower.

  The large copper pan is so much bigger than the little cooker, it looks like it might fall off, but Dory keeps one hand wrapped in a tea towel around the handle.