Toby and the Secrets of the Tree Read online

  The Crater was crisscrossed with this terrible spiked barricade. If you tried to get over it, you risked being impaled on the oversize pins. No contact was possible between the old scholars and the Grass people.

  And yet for several days now, Mika, Moon Boy, and the others had been taking turns to go and lose themselves, one by one, right in the middle of the barricade, like a single straw in a mass of needles.

  They wanted to speak with the old man.

  The old man with the round disks in front of his eyes.

  The old man with the pancake on top of his head.

  Moon Boy was the first to mention it. And all of them remembered seeing him when they arrived at the Crater. An old man, with disks in front of his eyes and a black pancake on top of his head. This was how they saw Sim Lolness’s glasses and beret. An old man who seemed kind and clever and who might be able to help them. They also knew that this man had spoken to Moon Boy about Little Tree’s emblem, which he wore around his neck.

  The Grass people, who have a tradition of weaving their tufts together at the beginning of winter, know the importance of counting on others. On the other side of the barricade were more prisoners, who might be ready to link their poor destinies to those of the Grass people’s.

  “I saw Old Trees with white hair who were digging all day just like we do,” Jalam had said. “I only saw them briefly, but in the middle was the old man with the pancake on his head.”

  Some of the Grass people didn’t want to believe they could count on anybody in the Tree.

  “Trust nobody,” they said.

  But Jalam and the others replied, “Remember Little Tree. . . . You’d have trusted him with your own daughter’s linen belt, wouldn’t you?”

  This question was met with a favorable buzz. Even those who were the most worried had to admit that the example set by Little Tree proved that all was not rotten in the Kingdom of Branches.

  So, one after the other, they spent their nights in the barricade, trying to see the old man passing by.

  Mika suddenly remembered that Liev was waiting for him. The old man wouldn’t pass by again tonight. He turned around, ripping his brown pajamas on a spike. The Grass people had been outfitted in convicts’ uniforms, which suited them about as well as suspenders would a lizard.

  The moment when their linen tunics were taken away and they were made to wear the regulatory uniform resulted in scenes of general hilarity. It was perhaps the only episode in a long time that had made the Grass people laugh out loud. Bent double from laughing so hard, they kept looking and pointing at each other. They definitely found trousers the funniest. The idea of these two tubes, linked at the waist, was highly comical to them. Why not put covers over your ears?

  The guards were exasperated by so much giggling during what was meant to be a humiliating exercise. In fact, the Grass people never ceased to surprise and irritate their guards. It wasn’t that they were insubordinate, on the contrary, but there was something insulting about their good humor, patience, and solidarity, as far as the officials who wore themselves out persecuting them were concerned.

  Not being able to see or hear, Liev didn’t know where exactly he’d been for the last six months, but he did understand the rules of the game.

  A prison. Good guys. Bad guys. Work to be done.

  Having to stay standing.

  In the beginning, Joe Mitch’s men had taken him for an idiot. Liev didn’t answer questions; he just smiled, and his dark eyes remained unfocused. Mitch’s men had wanted to eliminate this useless simpleton or use him as a target for darts practice. But Mika had demonstrated that Liev was capable of carrying loads all by himself. With five canvas buckets full of wood shavings strapped to his waist and two on his shoulders, Liev could climb up and down the Crater following a rope. He was in shape enough to do the work of four men.

  So he had been given a second chance while they waited for him to wear himself out or break an arm. When the day came, they would settle his account for him.

  Liev felt a distant vibration. Someone was coming. He recognized the soft-footed tread of a Grass person, then Mika’s hand took his.

  They went to lie down for the night near the others, and Moon Boy sat up in the dark, leaning on his elbows.

  “Is that you two?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see the old man?”

  “No.”

  “Good night, Mika. Good night, Liev.”

  “Good night, Moon Boy,” answered Mika.

  Liev was already asleep. At night he found again in his dreams the supplies of sounds and images, gathered by the basket-load, from when he was very small, before he got sick. His nights were filled with colors, sunsets, faces, gentle voices, songs, and the sounds of rippling streams in the Grass. . . .

  At the same time, on the other side of the barricade, a meeting was taking place in Sim Lolness’s dormitory. The thirty elderly scholars were sitting up in their bunk beds, looking like they were awaiting the signal for a pillow fight to begin.

  Actually, they were waiting for Sim’s verdict as he did his clever calculations with his eyes closed.

  “Three months. It’ll take us three more months.”

  There were weary sighs and even splashed tears on wrinkled cheeks. A few hours earlier, they had thought they were at the end of the tunnel. Three months!

  Every day counts when you’re old and tired.

  A little earlier in the evening, Zef Clarac, lying in the tunnel, had given the wood a few last shaves, raised a floor slat, and poked an eye outside. He had gone back into the tunnel in a great hurry. Old Lou Tann, who was with him, whispered, “Well?”

  The way he was grimacing, Zef’s hideous face looked even uglier than usual. The result was abominable.

  “It smells horrible.”

  Lou Tann pushed Zef out of the way and stuck his own head out.

  He retracted it just as quickly, pinching his nose.

  “What a stench!”

  “The sweet perfume of freedom.” Zef chuckled. “What shall we do?”

  They heard some strange rumbling noises followed by explosions.

  “I’m going back. I want to try and figure this one out.”

  This time Zef stuck his head out to neck level. He discovered two big shoes, which hadn’t been there a minute earlier. It was impossible to breathe. He understood everything when he recognized the smell of old cigarette butts mixed in with the rest. He closed the floor slat back over his head and turned toward Lou Tann.

  “The toilets . . .” he stammered. “Joe Mitch’s lavatories!”

  Lou Tann banged his head against the wall.

  “Mighty mites! We got it wrong.”

  That night in the dormitory, they explained their discovery to the others and Sim Lolness had done the math. Three more months! But rather than looking dejected, Sim Lolness looked elated. He was in a frenzy of excitement.

  “That’s the best piece of news I’ve ever had,” he said.

  Even at one hundred and two years old, Councillor Rolden could happily have punched his friend in the face.

  “Why don’t you just admit you made a mistake, you old fart?” he challenged Sim Lolness.

  “I’m telling you, Rolden, this is good news.”

  “You think dying here is good news?”

  They were about to come to blows. Maya glanced anxiously at her husband.

  “You should learn how to count,” someone mumbled at the back.

  Sim clenched his teeth. “Who said that?”

  Nobody moved. Sim took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He took a deep breath and turned toward Albert Rolden.

  “Quite so, young man, I have made a lamentable mistake. I was counting correctly, but I wasn’t counting on it.”

  “On what?”

  “It. The thing that carries us, feeds us, dresses us. . . . It!”

  Sim gestured by waving his arms around. Nobody understood a thing. The professor repeated himself vehemently three time
s: “It’s fighting back! It’s fighting back! It’s fighting back!”

  “Who?”

  “What?”

  “What’s he saying?”

  The detainees were looking at Sim Lolness as if he were a complete nutcase.

  “The Tree, I’m telling you! The Tree is fighting back! The Tree is defending itself against us! The Tree is resisting! It’s moving. It’s putting on its armor. All my calculations were right, but I was forgetting that the huge hole of that Crater is like a scar. The bark is trying to heal its wound. It’s creeping to the edges of the hole. That’s why we made a mistake. The bark is moving. The Tree is fighting!”

  Sim caught his breath. He turned toward his wife and told her, “I’ve been shouting this in the branches for fifty years now: The Tree is alive!”

  Councillor Rolden had gone to sit on his bed. The small dormitory was focused on this big news. But Zef Clarac dared to ask, “What about us? What are we going to do?”

  Sim smiled at him.

  “We’ll dig,” he answered.

  So there were three more months of work ahead. They would have to extend the tunnel by fifteen centimeters. They would block up the exit to the lavatories carefully, to avoid dying of asphyxiation.

  Rolden refused to speak for several days.

  Sim intended to take advantage of these extra months to find the little Grass boy who had been wearing the emblem of the Lolness family.

  The boy surely knew something about Toby. He needed to find a way of talking to him.

  That’s when he thought of Pussykinska.

  Pussykinska was the only female guard in the Crater. She was twice as wide and tall as the most heavyset of her colleagues. Pussykinska was in charge of Maya Lolness, the only female detained in this part of the Crater. They had already come face-to-face a long time ago, in the most painful circumstances, just a few seconds before Toby had disappeared forever.

  Because of this memory, and for many other reasons, Maya liked Pussykinska. She had quickly realized that this mountain had a heart. Their relationship was bolstered when Mrs. Lolness had asked the guard about her childhood.

  Pussykinska hadn’t answered, maintaining her silence for several weeks, but after a month she had conceded, “I didn’t exactly have a pampered childhood. . . .”

  As the days went by, Maya discovered that Pussykinska had spent most of her childhood in a cage, at the back of a pantry. It was from there that she got her sturdy appetite, plus a few things that were off-kilter in her head.

  The day after the intrusion into Joe Mitch’s lavatories, Sim Lolness asked to see Pussykinska.

  “I’ve got a little favor to ask you, dear lady,” said Sim.

  He’d been rubbing his eyes to make them red. And he kept blowing his nose.

  Pussykinska bent down to listen. Despite being nearly two millimeters tall, the professor suddenly felt like a dwarf. She was all ears. This colossal woman could be incredibly well-mannered, and Sim was sorry he had to lie to her.

  “I’ve lost something,” he explained. “A little carved pendant. It’s a souvenir. My son gave it to my wife, who asked me to look after it for her. I’ve lost it, but I don’t want to tell Maya about it yet. It was all she had, the only thing left from our son. . . .”

  He showed her a drawing of the Lolness emblem.

  “If you find it, tell me. Someone might have taken it. . . . I would be eternally grateful, dear lady.”

  Pussykinska listened to every word of this last sentence. She didn’t even know that kind of language existed.

  “Eternally grateful, dear lady . . .”

  These four words were a pleasure to hear.

  “Yeah, all right, yeah,” she said, embarrassed that she could only use her own poor language to respond to a real poet.

  Pussykinska grabbed the piece of paper between her fingers, which were as fat as a bundle of logs, and headed off.

  The next day, she appeared before the professor, looking very embarrassed. She had found the person who was wearing the emblem.

  “But . . . he doesn’t want to.”

  “What?” asked Sim.

  “He doesn’t want to give it back.”

  Sim took a few seconds to think this over. Why was Pussykinska obeying the wishes of that small Grass boy? The woman wasn’t merely a mountain but a mystery as well. But Sim had just had an idea.

  “Well, explain to him that I am the father of the person who made that medal. Ask him where he found it.”

  “Yeah,” said Pussykinska.

  She left Sim feeling astonished by this long-distance exchange that had been struck up with such an odd correspondent. That very evening, the miracle developed further.

  “He doesn’t want to say where he found it. But he does want to talk to you.”

  “Where?” Sim inquired.

  “He can come here tomorrow.”

  “Here?” he repeated.

  It was all turning into a fairy tale. Sim was at last going to find out.

  That evening, Sim gave a lecture on the subject of insects. It was the shortest, simplest, and most brilliant lecture of his career. Good lectures are the ones that make you want to do your own research, verify, ask questions. Good lectures open people’s eyes to see the simplest reality.

  Basically, lectures are like jokes and illnesses: the shorter the better.

  Here is the complete text of the lecture given during the first days of January by Sim Lolness, which bore the following title: “Insects.”

  “Insects have six legs.”

  That was it.

  After uttering these four words, the professor started tidying up his papers. The lecture was over. His public was in turmoil.

  “Any questions?” he asked, distractedly.

  Everyone’s hand shot up. Plok Tornett had a grin as wide as his ears. He admired his teacher’s daring. Sim gave short answers to those who dared ask questions.

  “But spiders have eight legs!” Zef called out.

  “So they’re not insects, Mr. Clarac! They’re arachnids.”

  “And ants?”

  “Six legs, so they’re insects.”

  “Centipedes, Professor. Don’t tell me that centipedes aren’t insects.”

  “I believe I’ve been clear. Insects have six legs, not one less, and not nine hundred and ninety-four more. Insects are the only animals in the world to have six legs. The only ones, you understand? And that’s all I have to say. Piece of cake!”

  Nobody had ever given such a clear, obvious definition of an insect. Others had tortured their minds by differentiating between insects and other species according to their diets, their antennae, their body size, or their eggs.

  But, as usual, Sim had cut straight to the point.

  He also had to admit to being impatient to get to sleep so that he could meet the young Grass boy the following morning.

  “That was a splendid lecture, darling,” Maya told him on her arrival in the dormitory.

  “When I’m really grown-up,” said the professor, “I’ll give a lecture with a single word.”

  Above them, in the bunk bed overhead, a little voice was reviewing all the kinds of insects: “Bees, for instance, bees have six legs. Butterflies, six legs. Beetles . . .”

  It was Lou Tann, the shoemaker. He was talking to himself. Sim and Maya laughed softly. Amazed by Sim’s revelation, Lou Tann spent the whole night thinking about it.

  “Flies, six legs. Ladybugs, six. Crickets . . .”

  Poor Rolden, who was digging the tunnel that night, emerged at midnight via the trapdoor in the desk. The class had long been empty. The lesson had finished two hours ahead of time. He was locked in. He knocked hard against the classroom door, and two of Joe Mitch’s men came to open it for him; they sniggered inanely.

  “Hey, Grand-daddy-o, did you fall asleep at school? A bit slow on the uptake . . . You’ve got to remember to take your vitamins. . . .”

  The centenarian just shrugged. Who would have believed that this
man had just spent four hours digging an escape tunnel? He wasn’t the slowest of these three.

  Sim was waiting for the famous meeting. He bided his time in the minuscule closet he’d been given as his office and laboratory. The door opened. Pussykinska stuck her head around.

  “He’s here.”

  Sim came out. He felt his legs go weak.

  He appeared outside, blinded by the light. Wood dust was floating in the air. His companions had been at work in the Crater since dawn.

  But it wasn’t a Grass person standing before him. It was a soldier with a twisted smile. A hefty soldier with a poisonous stare, playing with his harpoon like a scorpion in the sun.

  “He’s called Tiger,” said Pussykinska.

  Tiger was wearing the Lolness emblem around his neck. He had grabbed it from Moon Boy on one of the first days. Which meant that Sim had been communicating with this man for a while. Without realizing it, he had been providing him with valuable information.

  “This is all very interesting. . . .” said the soldier. “We’re discovering new things about you, Professor.”

  “That’s my job,” said Sim calmly.

  Tiger licked his upper lip and touched the little piece of wood that was hanging from his neck.

  “How did that Grass boy find this, if it belonged to your son?”

  “My wife lost it. She was wearing it in the Crater. The boy must have picked it up.”

  “Everybody thinks that Toby Lolness is gone for good. . . .”

  “Yes,” said Sim.

  “But what if I was to start thinking the opposite? Perhaps he’s still roaming around. . . . I know somebody who would be more than happy to get that kind of information.”

  “Yes,” said Sim. “I know somebody too: his name’s Sim Lolness. Nothing would make him happier.”

  “No,” said the soldier. “I’m thinking of a certain Joe Mitch.”

  In reality, Tiger didn’t intend to reveal his suspicions to Mitch yet; there was too much profit at stake here. If he could find Toby, public enemy number one on the famous Green List, and prove the link between the Lolness family and the Grass people, it would be a double victory. . . . And, most important of all, that would mean twice the reward.