The Song of Lewis Carmichael Read online

‘Exactly,’ said Lewis. ‘You learn fast.’

  Matthew wasn’t sure that was true.

  As the balloon rose in the sky, Matthew looked around the wicker basket. On one side sat a large wooden chest with Supplies printed across the lid.

  ‘Open it,’ said the bird.

  Matthew pulled open the heavy wooden lid and took a blue coat with a padded silver lining from the chest. ‘For me?’

  ‘Of course, for you! Who else? But you won’t need it until later.’

  The bird was right: Matthew didn’t need the coat. Being in the balloon’s wicker basket was like being in a room with a fire burning – except the walls were invisible, so Matthew could see every light in the city.

  ‘See what other supplies there are,’ said the bird.

  Matthew looked in the trunk. He found brown knee-length boots, lined with fur, and gloves made from the same padded, shiny material as the coat. There were boxes marked Food and Water. There was a small gas stove similar to the one he had seen at Cubs – Cubs had been his parents’ idea – in the same box as dishes and cutlery, a frying pan and two tin pots, and a daypack a little like his own schoolbag. There was a second cylinder of gas, an enormous padded silver blanket, and a small leather case.

  When Matthew opened the case, he found a pair of black binoculars inside, attached to a black leather strap. He pulled the strap over his head, put the binoculars to his eyes, and looked up to the sky. The stars were suddenly so close that he felt he might be able to reach out and hold one in his hand.

  ‘Dr Juliana Rossi,’ said the bird.

  ‘Dr Matthew Zajac, don’t you mean?’ Matthew said, turning to the bird, the binoculars still over his eyes. He saw a close-up of a long black feather, a bright round eye.

  ‘Ha! Yes, yes,’ said the bird, hopping around on the floor of the basket. ‘Yes. Ha.’ And he clacked his beak: clack clack clack. ‘Dr Matthew Zajac.’ Clack clack.

  ‘Do you want to see from up here?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘Oh, yes! Yes please.’

  Matthew crouched down and put out his arm, and Lewis Carmichael hopped up onto his shoulder. They stood together, looking out. Beneath them were the lights of the town, cars on the road, houses, buildings ...and above them, the night sky; the sky into which they were flying, higher and higher. How endless and deep it was, with its shining moon, not caught inside the silken balloon after all, but up there, high above them.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Lewis.

  ‘Very beautiful,’ Matthew answered. He felt calm. Perhaps it was the way the balloon floated gently through the quiet sky, carrying Matthew and Lewis within its pocket of warmth. Perhaps it was the shining silver moon. ‘How long will we be away?’ he asked dreamily.

  ‘We have enough provisions, including fuel, for three days in the Arctic. That includes seeing the forests and plains, and hopefully the North Pole itself, if we land close enough. But, Matthew, you understand time travels differently there, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ Matthew answered. He knew that the North Pole was the only latitude without a time zone. There was no time there at all. Because every longitudinal line begins from it, the North Pole has no time zone...

  ‘Time won’t pass in the same way for us as it will for those at home,’ said Lewis.

  Those at home. Matthew didn’t want to think about those at home. The noisy playground, the classroom, the teacher asking him questions. His parents talking about him downstairs, when they thought he was asleep.

  …He has to get out and make an effort. If he just had the confidence...

  If only he would try. Maybe more homework, extra tuition...

  At school, everyone else was faster, as if the answers in class were just sitting there, right at the top, waiting. It wasn’t like that for Matthew. He was too far away from the top. The answers flitted somewhere above him; it almost hurt to seek them.

  A brother would help, he was sure. Or a sister. Matthew’s parents didn’t speak about having another child, but he was certain they’d been hoping for one. And he hoped it for them. Someone who was more what they wanted.

  Matthew pressed the binoculars to his eyes again and saw a hazy band of stars, one impossible to tell from another. The Milky Way. He lowered the binoculars. He belonged here – in a balloon heading for the Arctic. Matthew knew that the best place to see the stars was from the Arctic. Maybe he’d be lucky enough to see the northern lights – green and pink and purple, swirling there on the solar winds. He couldn’t wait.

  He rested his back against the basket and leaned out, tilting his face to the sky. There was the balloon high above them, the moon making it glow: moon-pink and moon-orange and moon-purple. They were flying over the sea now, every ripple outlined in silver. That didn’t take long, thought Matthew.

  ‘The balloon can move fast,’ said Lewis. It was as if the bird could hear his thoughts. Matthew liked having him there; liked the feeling of Lewis’s claws through the fabric of his pyjamas. Hours could pass – Matthew didn’t need for anything more to happen. He could drift across the silent sky, warm in the basket over the sea, the bird on his shoulder, forever.

  ‘Time to check the dial!’ said the bird.

  ‘Oh ...yes.’ The dial. Matthew crossed the basket and looked at the disc behind the glass. The needle pointed to Boreas – they were riding the North Wind! He wondered why Lewis called it Boreas and not simply the North Wind.

  ‘Boreas was the God of the North,’ said Lewis. ‘According to the ancient Greeks.’

  ‘Oh. What did he do?’

  ‘He was the god of winter. It was believed in ancient times that he brought the icy wind with his breath.’

  ‘But at school we learned the energy that makes wind begins with the sun.’

  ‘Yes. And icy wind comes when the sun heats the earth unevenly.’

  ‘Isn’t that science?’ Matthew frowned.

  ‘Perhaps Boreas is one way of describing that science.’

  ‘Maybe both are true, then,’ said Matthew. ‘That the God of the North blows his icy breath, and that the sun heats the earth unevenly, to make him do it.’

  ‘You are clever, Matthew.’

  Clever? Matthew didn’t know about that. He looked through the binoculars and saw a star shooting from one end of the sky to the other.

  A great number of times during the night, Matthew released the gas into the throat of the balloon. He learned how far to stand from the heat. Learned to be prepared for it – the roar of the flame. Learned how to work the lever, how to use his hands. Came to anticipate the moment they would need more gas. Well done, Matthew, Lewis would say. Good flying. He would hop from Matthew’s shoulder onto the rim of the basket and back again. That’s the way.

  When Matthew began to yawn, Lewis told him to sleep. ‘Go on. Make a bed in the chest. There’s plenty of room. I’ll watch the dial and wake you when we need gas.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. Rest while you can.’

  ‘What about you? Won’t you need to sleep?’

  ‘All I need to do is close my eyes, really. I can sleep anywhere. Anywhere I know I won’t be eaten, that is.’ Lewis clacked his beak. ‘Go on, climb in. That blanket looks very inviting.’

  ‘All right, then.’ Matthew opened the chest, pushed aside the boxes and bottles, the second tank of gas, and climbed in. Lewis was right; there was plenty of room. And the insides of the box were made of padded leather, like the seats of a comfortable couch. Matthew snuggled into the blanket, soft beneath him, soft around him, and watched the stars.

  Soon Matthew closed his eyes. He knew he could have asked Lewis how he came to fly the balloon onto the roof of his house. How Lewis had known. But he hadn’t wanted to. If he asked, the dream might end. Matthew wasn’t ready to face that. If Lewis had arrived to take him to the Arctic in a balloon, then so be it. He would go.

  Chapter Five

  ‘MATTHEW, WAKE UP...’ It was the bird. ‘It’s the nautical dawn.’r />
  Matthew opened his eyes. The rising sun had turned the world to gold – the ocean and the land and the sky, all gold. He climbed out of the chest.

  ‘Isn’t it magical?’ said Lewis, from his shoulder.

  Matthew blinked as he took it in: the sun rising from the line of the horizon, radiating its golden warmth. He felt lucky to see something so ...magical, yes, Lewis had chosen the right word. But the sun rose every day. It was there for him to see every morning, if he chose – ordinary.

  ‘Breakfast,’ said the bird.

  ‘I’ll check the dial first,’ Matthew replied. The needle pointed to Falling, so he released three seconds of the gas, stepping back as the flame shot upwards.

  ‘Well done, Matthew. I might have missed that. All I can think of is my stomach!’

  Matthew felt quietly pleased as he opened one of the boxes of food from the chest. He found oats, a jar of honey, a pot of yoghurt, sunflower seeds and pine nuts, sultanas, pepitas and strawberries. In another bag he found cheese and ham, tuna and eggs, and butter and crackers. He pulled out the camp stove.

  ‘We need gas for this,’ he said to Lewis.

  ‘Hmmm ...but there’s no gas attached. What do you think we should do?’ the bird asked.

  When Matthew’s teacher asked him, What do you think, Matthew? he froze. Was that what was about to happen here with Lewis?

  ‘Matthew, any ideas?’ The bird hopped about the base of the chest. ‘I’m starving, and I want something warm.’

  Matthew closed his eyes and felt himself being rocked. The sea was beneath them, the sun above. He imagined himself travelling through a tunnel, twisting and turning, heading for a circle of light. ‘We could see if there is a way to attach the stove to the main tank.’

  ‘Oh ...oh yes, yes, good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?’ the bird said, hopping closer to the tank.

  Matthew took the stove over to the gas tank attached to the balloon and saw a small circular opening at the very bottom. He screwed the stove’s loose pipe into the opening and pushed a red button on the little stove’s base. The ring on the stove jumped with a blue-and-orange flame.

  ‘Lift-off,’ said Lewis.

  Matthew could hardly believe it. He had done it. He had turned on the stove.

  Matthew put oats and water into one of the tin pots and placed it onto the stove. At home, his mother made his breakfast; he never made it for himself. Oats, water. Wooden spoon. Matthew sat cross-legged on the basket’s wooden floor and stirred the bubbling oats. A little spilled onto the stove and he glanced at Lewis, but the bird wasn’t watching. Matthew kept going: stirring, watching the oats pop and spurt. Like lava, he thought to himself. I bet the God of the North would like this for his breakfast.

  When it seemed ready, Matthew turned off the stove and spooned the porridge into two bowls. Then he added strawberries and honey. Honey dripped down the outside of the bowls. Lewis didn’t mention it.

  ‘Seeds for me,’ said the bird.

  ‘Coming up,’ Matthew said, spreading sunflower seeds and pepitas over both bowls. The bird hopped down from his shoulder and pecked at his breakfast. Matthew ate too. The porridge tasted creamy and sweet.

  ‘What about tea?’ Lewis asked, when he had finished his bowl.

  ‘Tea?’ Wasn’t tea for adults?

  ‘Yes, tea,’ said Lewis. ‘Who was it that said tea lifts the drinker to the realms of the gods? I drink it from takeaway cups in the park. Leftovers. You know, the last drops in the cup. But if I could have my own cup – what a treat ...’

  Matthew found tea leaves in the box. He boiled water in the second tin pot and added the leaves. Then he poured the dark brew into two cups and placed one of the cups before Lewis.

  Matthew stood cradling his tea. His belly felt warm and full. There was the sun casting the ocean in gold. He looked up at the balloon – an enormous silent floating friend above them. What could be better than this? he thought.

  ‘We need to wash the dishes,’ said Lewis when his cup was empty.

  ‘Oh ...I suppose you’re right, but how?’

  ‘How? The same way dishes have been washed since the beginning of time. How do you think? A sponge. A little soap and warm water ...’

  Matthew heated more water in the pot, found a sponge and cleaned the dishes, the bird pecking at the fallen seeds, claws scratching at the wooden floor of the basket. When he was at home, Matthew helped his father dry the dishes; his parents wanted him to contribute. But this was different. There was nobody else to do the dishes except him. It was up to him.

  The first day on board the balloon passed quickly: organising the supplies, preparing food, flying the craft. Matthew came to know, without needing to see the dial, when Boreas, God of the North, was carrying the balloon; when they had fallen beneath him; and when they were riding above. Matthew released the gas as it was needed, for three seconds each time, and the balloon flew on.

  They were sitting on the supplies chest drinking tea when Lewis asked him, ‘Why the Arctic, Matthew?’

  Matthew shrugged.

  ‘Matthew?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you must have ideas about why.’ Lewis pecked at the pepita seeds Matthew had scattered for him over the lid of the chest.

  ‘No ...I don’t know.’

  ‘Matthew, we have six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-two nautical miles to cover. Please, tell me, why the Arctic? Please try to find the words. If I, a humble crow, can find words, then you, a clever schoolboy, surely can. Why the Arctic? You know it’s cold, right?’ He dipped his beak into his tea. ‘Seriously cold. And dangerous.’ He broke a seed into two. ‘Have you ever seen the tusk of a walrus? Those things grow to a hundred centimetres! And sharp!’

  ‘I think ...it’s ...there’s a lot of ...space ...in the Arctic,’ said Matthew. How pathetic his answer must sound.

  But Lewis didn’t seem to think it was a pathetic answer. ‘Oh, yes, yes, that I can understand. The need for space.’ He dipped his beak into his cup and drank. ‘So little of it in town. Yes. Well, the Arctic will give us plenty of space. There’s nobody at all in the North Pole. Uninhabitable, I hear. Except for the Arctic foxes. A crow’s nightmare.’

  ‘It’s...the Arctic is...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Wild.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I see.’

  ‘It’s ...secret.’

  ‘Oh really? How exciting.’

  Exciting. Matthew liked that. The Arctic: full of space; secret and wild. All his words. And exciting –Lewis’s word. He liked them all.

  ‘Have you told anyone about it?’ Lewis asked him.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The Arctic. Have your shared your interest?’

  Matthew shrugged again.

  ‘Matthew?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come on. You must know. Why?’

  Finding words for things was difficult. There were so many to choose from. All the possibilities. It was easier to keep quiet. But Lewis Carmichael wasn’t letting him do that. ‘Matthew?’

  ‘It’s ...it’s not part of ...of everything else. It’s separate.’

  ‘Oh, I see. I see, yes. Yours. Of course. How wonderful. The secret Arctic. Your very own.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Only, now you are sharing it.’

  Matthew frowned. ‘Who with?’

  Lewis clacked his beak. ‘Who with? Who with? With me, Matthew! Your friend, Lewis Carmichael!’

  Matthew laughed. ‘Oh, yes!’

  By lunchtime the sky was dark-grey, and it was growing colder. Matthew’s nose felt icy when he stood at the basket’s edge. If Lewis was on Matthew’s shoulder at the time, the tips of his feathers would turn white with ice. The four poles attaching the basket to the balloon were all covered in ice too, and when he looked over the side, Matthew saw grassy plains and forests between more and more patches of snow – it was almost winter he
re. Still, the basket itself remained cosy beneath the balloon. It was as if a spell had been cast: the whole world outside of the basket was turning to ice, while Matthew and Lewis remained protected within invisible walls.

  Chapter Six

  LATE IN THE afternoon, Matthew saw shapes moving through the sky. He put the binoculars to his eyes and saw a great flock of birds, wings outstretched, flying towards them. ‘Snow geese,’ said Matthew, recognising the birds from his books.

  Moments later, the white geese had encircled the balloon. Matthew felt the breeze from the beat of their wings across his face. They were flying so close he could have reached out and touched them.

  ‘Put me on the edge of the basket, Matthew,’ said Lewis.

  Matthew turned to his friend. ‘It’s not safe, Lewis...’

  ‘Put me on the edge, please.’

  ‘But what if you fell?’

  ‘I have taken care of myself a long time, Matthew. Please put me on the edge of the basket.’ Lewis’s tone had changed. It was serious. Cold. ‘Longer than you have been alive.’

  ‘But ...’

  ‘Matthew!’

  Matthew did as the bird asked.

  Lewis perched, quite still, on the edge of the basket, watching the geese. The flock circled the balloon for several minutes and then swept away, continuing in the opposite direction to the balloon, spread across the sky in a giant V-formation.

  Lewis remained on the rim of the basket, his feathers black against the pale sky, his back hunched. He didn’t speak to Matthew, or encourage him, or peck at the floor looking for stray seeds. He didn’t ask for more tea. He sat without moving, one wing extended, looking out.

  ‘Lewis?’

  ‘What?’ Lewis kept his gaze on the sky.

  ‘What happened to your wing?’

  ‘Oh ...that.’

  ‘Yes, what happened?’

  ‘Nothing much, really ...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I fell.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Not long after I hatched. I fell trying to fly. The first time, actually. The only time.’