Read Un Lun Dun for Free Online Page B

paper-and-print clothes one by one over the top.
“Moby-Dick,”
he said. “Even with small print, I have to wear too many undershirts.” He emerged, in a new suit of the same cut, but adorned with visibly larger letters.
“The Other Side of the Mountain.”
He smiled, flashing his cuff. “Considerably shorter.”
    “Zann,” said Deeba urgently. “I want to go
home.
”
    “Mr. Fing, please,” Zanna said. “You really have to help us get out of here.”
    Obaday Fing looked miserable.
    “I simply don’t know how,” he said at last. “I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know where you live. There are plenty of people who don’t believe in Lonn Donn at all. I’m truly sorry, Shwazzy…Zanna. All I can do is take you to those who can help. As fast as we can. Believe me,
I
want you to…get started ASAP.”
    “Get started?” said Zanna.
    “With what?” said Deeba.
    “The Propheseers’ll explain,” Obaday said.
    “No,”
shouted Zanna. “Get started with
what
?”
    “Well,” said Obaday hurriedly, “with everything. We have to get you out of here. There are those working against you. Working for your enemy.”
    “My enemy?” said Zanna. “Who’s my enemy?”
             
    Before Obaday could respond, the curtain was pulled back and there stood Skool, the figure in the diving suit, tapping its wrist urgently.
    “Now?” Obaday said. “Already? Right, right, we’re coming, off we go.” He grabbed a few more things, hauled his bag over his shoulder, and ushered everyone out.
    “Who?” Zanna said.
    “What? Oh, honestly, Shwazzy, it’s really best you let those who know these things explain…”
    “What enemy?” The two girls stared at Obaday, and he faltered, and was momentarily still.
    “Smog,” he whispered. Then he cleared his throat and walked hurriedly on.

10
    Perspective
    “What did you mean
smog,
Obaday?” Zanna said.
    The topic obviously made him very uncomfortable. Zanna and Deeba could make very little sense of what he said. “Hold your breath,” he said, and, “We shouldn’t talk about it,” and, “You got it once before, you can help us get it again.” “The Propheseers…” he said, and Deeba finished for him.
    “They’ll explain,” she said. “Right.” She and Zanna exchanged exasperated glances. It was obvious they would get nothing useful from Obaday, nor from the silent Skool.
    They passed people standing in front of walls, avidly reading graffiti.
    “They’re checking the headlines,” Obaday said.
    Most people looked human (if in an unusual range of colors), but a sizeable proportion did not. Deeba and Zanna saw bubble-eyes, and gills, and several different kinds of tails. The two girls stared when a bramble-bush walked past, squeezed into a suit, a tangle of blackberries, thorns, and leaves bursting out of its collar.
    There were no cars, but there were plenty of other vehicles. Some were carts tugged by unlikely animals, and many were pedal-powered. Not bicycles, though: the travelers perched on jerkily walking stilts, or at the front of long carriages like tin centipedes. One goggled rider traveled by in a machine like a herd of nine wheels.
    “Out of the way!” the driver yelled. “Noncycle coming through!”
    They passed curbside cafés, and open-fronted rooms full of old and odd-looking equipment.
    “There’s loads of empty houses,” said Zanna.
    “A few,” Obaday said. “Most aren’t empty, though: they’re
emptish.
Open access. For travelers, tribes, and mendicants. Temporary inhabitants. Now we’re in Varmin Way. This is Turpentine Road. This is Shatterjack Lane.” They were going too fast for Zanna and Deeba to do more than gain a few impressions.
    The streets were mostly red brick, like London terraces, but considerably more ramshackle, spindly and convoluted. Houses leaned into each other, and stories piled up at complicated angles. Slate roofs lurched in all directions.
    Here and there where a house should be was