Noah Barleywater Runs Away (2 page)

Well, that’s enough nonsense for this time of the morning
, Noah decided, throwing himself against the tree, which immediately froze as he wrapped his arms around it and plucked three apples – one, two, three – off the branches before jumping away again, popping one in his left-hand pocket, one in his right, and taking a great bite out of the third in triumph.

The tree wasn’t moving at all now; if anything, it seemed to be drooping a little.

‘Well, I was hungry!’ he cried aloud, as if he had to explain himself to the tree. ‘What was I to do?’

The tree didn’t respond, and Noah shrugged his shoulders and walked away, feeling a little guilty as he did so but shaking his head quickly as if he could throw those emotions out of his ears and leave them behind, bouncing up and down on the pebbled streets of the first village.

But just at that moment a voice called out from behind him – ‘Hey, you!’ – and he turned to see a man marching quickly in his direction. ‘I saw you!’ the man cried, stabbing a gnarly finger in the air over and over. ‘What do you think you’re doing, eh?’

Noah froze for a moment, then turned on his heel and started running. He couldn’t be caught this quickly. He couldn’t allow himself to be sent back. And so, without a moment’s hesitation, he ran away from the man as fast as he could, leaving behind him a trail of dust that gathered up into a dark cloud and rained down on the first village for the rest of the morning, covering the gardens and freshly bedded spring plants, making the villagers cough and splutter for hours on end – a trail of destruction for which Noah didn’t even realize he was responsible.

In fact, it wasn’t until he was sure he was no longer being chased that he slowed down, and this
was when he realized that the apple in his left-hand pocket had fallen out while he was running.

Never mind
, he thought,
I still have the one in my right.

But no, that was gone too, and he hadn’t even heard it fall.

Annoying!
he thought.
But at least I have the one in my hand—

But no, somewhere along the way that had vanished too, and he hadn’t even noticed.

How extraordinary!
he thought, continuing on his way, a little more disheartened now, trying not to think about how hungry he still was. One bite of an apple, after all, is hardly a satisfying breakfast for an eight-year-old boy, especially one who’s on his way to see the world and have a great adventure.

It took much longer to reach the second village than it had to reach the first.

After what felt like a very long walk, in the distance Noah saw a large house with a bright orange roof, and it reminded him of a surprise day trip that his mother had taken him on a few weeks before, when they’d stopped for a cup of tea and a custard slice in a small café with roof tiles of the same startling colour. To his great delight, there was a pinball machine in the corner of that café and he’d scored 4,500,000 points on his first attempt, topping the leader board and sending the machine into a delirium of whistles and bells.

That was another achievement
, he thought, remembering how happy he had felt at his triumph and how impressed his mother had been with him, particularly when she had a go herself and couldn’t get past 300,000 points.

‘Have you seen this?’ she had asked the man who was standing behind the counter, wiping his
glasses with a dirty cloth. ‘My son just scored four and a half million points at pinball.’

‘So?’ said the man, as if anyone could do that.

‘What do you mean “so”?’ she asked, laughing a little and looking around in astonishment. ‘He might become the world champion one day and then you’ll be boasting to people about how he got his start right here in your café.’

‘I don’t think there is a world championship for pinball,’ said the man, who looked like he hadn’t smiled, or had anything to smile about, in a very long time indeed. ‘It’s not a proper sport.’

‘Neither is the twenty-kilometre walk,’ said Noah’s mother. ‘But they give medals for that at the Olympic Games.’

Noah had giggled at the time because he liked seeing his mother get so excited about something that he’d done, but he was surprised that it seemed to matter so much to her. (In fact, everything that day seemed to be very important to her. ‘We can’t waste a minute,’ she told him when they left the café, looking around for more excitement. ‘What can we do next?’)

The second village was a lot busier than the first, as the sun had come up by now and the grown-ups were all going off to work, with that expression on their faces that said they’d much rather stay in bed for another hour and not have to go out at all. Most of them rushed right past Noah, carrying their briefcases under their arms, umbrellas in their
hands because they always feared the worst, but one or two of them looked at him suspiciously, knowing that he didn’t belong there. Fortunately it was still early enough that nobody was sufficiently interested to challenge him.

He looked up and down the street, wondering whether there might be a café there too – then perhaps he could play another game of pinball, and if he could achieve a high score that topped the leader list, maybe the owner would offer him a cooked breakfast to congratulate him on his magnificent achievement. He couldn’t afford to buy one himself, of course, having decided not to steal any money from his father’s wallet or borrow any loose change from his mother’s purse before leaving home. Noah knew that it might have made things easier for him on his adventures, but he didn’t want his parents’ final memory of him to be as a thief.

He looked around but couldn’t see anywhere offering the possibility of a free breakfast, and he felt a sudden rush of exhaustion sweep through his body on account of how early he had woken up and how far he had walked already. Without even considering how rude it might appear to anyone watching him, he stretched his arms out wide and allowed himself the luxury of a tremendous yawn. His eyes closed, his hands clenched into fists, and without meaning to, he punched a very short gentleman who happened to be passing by in the eye.

‘Ow!’ cried the very short gentleman, stopping
in his tracks and rubbing his injured face with his hand as he glared furiously at his attacker.

‘Goodness!’ said Noah quickly. ‘I’m very sorry, sir. I didn’t see you there.’

‘Not only do you assault me, but you insult me too?’ asked the man, his face growing red with indignation. ‘I may be short but I’m not invisible, you know!’ He really was the most extraordinary-looking fellow and not even as tall as Noah, who everyone said was a little small for his age but not to worry because that would all change one day soon. He wore what appeared to be a black wig on his head, but this had fallen on the ground at his feet, and when he retrieved it, he put it on his head back to front, making him look like someone who was walking away rather than getting closer. Before him, he was pushing a wheelbarrow containing a large grey cat, who opened his eyes for a moment, stared at Noah with an expression suggesting that boys like him were two a penny and hardly worth the bother, before promptly falling back to sleep.

‘I didn’t mean it,’ said Noah, taken aback by the man’s anger. ‘Either the punch or the insult.’

‘And yet you achieved both and have now delayed me. What time is it anyway?’ Noah looked at his watch, but before he could reply the man let out a tremendous wail. ‘Oh, tell me it’s not that time,’ he cried, his voice filled with fury. ‘Oh my stars, we had an appointment at the vet’s and he never treats late-comers. He kicks them right out onto the street
instead. And if that happens, my cat is sure to die. And it will be all your fault. You really are a monstrous little boy.’ His voice grew deep and loud as he said these last three words and his face turned the colour of an overripe turnip.

‘I said I was sorry,’ said Noah, a little surprised, for if the man was going to be late for his appointment, then he could hardly be blamed for it. He’d only stopped him for a moment, after all. And if the cat was going to die … well, cats died, and that was the end of it. His own cat had died a few months before and they’d given her a funeral and felt very sad about it but got on with their lives afterwards. His mother had even written a song on her guitar about the cat and played it as they covered the grave back over. She was good at doing things like that, Noah thought, smiling to himself. Not allowing sad things to ruin a day.

‘Who are you anyway?’ asked the man, leaning forward and sniffing the boy carefully, as if he was a bowl of whipped cream that had been left on the sideboard for too long and might have gone off. ‘I don’t know you, do I? What business have you got here? We don’t like strangers in our village, you know. Go back to where you came from, why don’t you, and leave us all in peace!’

‘I’m Noah Barleywater,’ said Noah, ‘and I was only passing through because—’

‘Not interested!’ snapped the man, taking a firm hold of his wheelbarrow again and hurrying on
his way, complaining loudly as he went.

The people don’t seem very friendly here
, thought Noah as he watched the man scurry away.
And I really thought this might be the right place for me to start over.

But the incident left a sour taste in his mouth and from then on, as he walked through the village, he became convinced that everyone was staring at him and preparing to lift him clean off the ground and throw him in jail. And just then he caught sight of another man, of regular height, sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and shaking his head sadly, as if the continuing business of the world was a source of great disappointment to him.

‘Heavens above!’ cried the man suddenly, crumpling the edges of the newspaper in his fist as he stared in disbelief at the article he was reading. ‘Oh my giddy aunt!’

Noah stared at him, and hesitated for only a moment before walking over and sitting down beside him, wondering what the man found so astonishing.

‘That’s shocking,’ said the man then, shaking his head. ‘Absolutely shocking.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Noah.

‘It says here that a quantity of apples was stolen from a tree in —’ Here he named the first village that Noah had passed through that morning. ‘
The tree
,’ read the man, ‘
was taking up its regular morning position when a young ruffian appeared out of nowhere
and threw himself upon it, stealing three apples and causing a fourth to fall off a branch and become bruised upon the ground. Both tree and apples are being taken into hospital while their injuries are assessed. Doctors say the next twenty-four hours will be crucial
.’

Noah frowned. Although this news report bore a curious resemblance to his own adventure earlier in the morning, that had taken place no more than a couple of hours before, so it could hardly be possible that it was already being reported in the papers. And was it even news? His father said they printed nothing in those rags anyway, just a lot of pointless gossip about a bunch of people nobody really cared about.

‘Is that today’s paper?’ asked Noah suspiciously.

‘Yes, of course,’ said the man. ‘Well, it’s the evening edition but I got an early copy.’

‘But it’s only morning time,’ said Noah.

‘Which is what makes it an early copy,’ said the man testily, turning his head to look at the boy, before putting his glasses on for a moment and then taking them off again. ‘Good heavens!’ he gasped, his voice catching in fright.

Noah stared at him, unsure what had made him appear so frightened, but as he did so he caught sight of a drawing that was placed beneath the story of the apple thief. An eight-year-old boy, short for his age but with a fine head of hair. Taking a great bite out of an apple.
But how?
he wondered. There hadn’t been anyone around to see him. A large
block of text was printed in a bold font under the picture:

I’ve been called worse
, thought Noah, but the man beside him was having none of it because he let out a great cry at the top of his voice.

‘It’s him!’ he cried. ‘Stop him, someone. He’s a thief!’

Noah leaped off the bench at that and looked around, sure that he would be apprehended at any moment, but fortunately for him, no one seemed particularly bothered.

‘Stop him, someone!’ the man shouted again as he ran away. ‘Stop him! He’s getting away with it.’

And that was the end of the second village, as far as Noah was concerned. He ran and ran until it had turned into nothing more than a great clump of buildings fading away in the distance behind him, and then it disappeared altogether and he couldn’t remember what all the fuss had been about in the first place.

Things became a little more muddled after the second village. The path seemed to grow uncertain and the trees merged in front of him, then parted. The light finally broke through to allow him to see his way, then grew dim again and forced him to narrow his eyes to make sure he was walking in the right direction.