Noah Barleywater Runs Away (3 page)

He looked down at his feet and was surprised to see that the crooked path had now disappeared entirely and he seemed to have wandered away from his original trail into a part of the forest that felt very different from everything that had come before. The trees were greener here, the air smelled slightly sweeter, the grass was thicker and more springy beneath his shoes. He could hear the sound of a running stream nearby, but when he looked around in surprise – for he knew that there was no water source anywhere near the forest – it became immediately silent again, as if it didn’t want to be found.

Noah stopped and stood very still for a moment, glancing back in the direction of the second village, but it was impossible to see anything that far away. In fact, it seemed to have disappeared altogether, leaving nothing in its place but rows and rows of trees, which appeared to crowd together and block his view of what stood behind them. Somewhere through there, he was sure, was the path that he had been following since leaving home that morning. He had only veered away from it once, and that was when he had to run behind one of the trees because he was bursting to go. He thought about it for a moment and remembered that when he was finished and had turned round again to resume his journey, he couldn’t remember whether he had approached the tree from the left- or the right-hand side, and so had simply chosen the direction that felt correct and continued on his way.

He wondered whether that had been a mistake. But there was nothing he could do now except keep walking, and within a few minutes he was relieved to see the trees begin to separate again in the distance and a third village appear before him. It was much smaller than the previous two and held only a small collection of peculiarly shaped buildings situated at irregular intervals along a single street. It was not quite what Noah was expecting to find, but he hoped that the people would be friendly there and that he might find something to eat at last before he passed out in a dead faint from hunger.

However, before he could take another step, his attention was taken by one curiously constructed building at the very end of the street, on the opposite side.

Noah knew one thing about houses: they were supposed to be built with straight walls all put together at right angles to each other, and with a roof sitting comfortably on top to stop the rain from making all the carpets soggy or the birds from doing their business on your head.

This building, however, was nothing like that.

He stared at it, astonished to see that every wall and window was entirely misshapen, parts coming out here, sections peeping out there, none of it making any sense at all. And while there was certainly a roof on top in roughly the correct place, it wasn’t made of slate or tiles – or even thatch like his friend Charlie Charlton’s house. In fact, it was made of wood. Noah blinked and looked at it again, cocking his head to the side a little and wondering whether it would look more normal if he looked at it askew.

But as curious as the building appeared to be, it was as nothing compared to the enormous tree that stood outside it, blocking his view of the sign above. Through the branches he could make out a few letters – a pair of Ns and an I in the first word, an O and a Y close together in the second, a final P in the third. He stared at it, trying to use his X-ray vision to see through the branches until he remembered
that he didn’t have X-ray vision – that was a boy in one of his books. But still, he wanted to read the sign and couldn’t take his eyes off the tree. Without being able to say why, he found that it had entirely captured his attention.

Yes, it was tall, but no taller than many of the other trees that he had seen over the course of his life. (He did live at the edge of a forest.) They’d all been around for hundreds of years, or so he’d been told; it was no wonder they grew to such sizes. Trees, after all, were the opposite of people; the older people became, the smaller they seemed to get. With trees, it worked the other way round.

And yes, the bark was a healthy shade of brown, more like a block of rich, delicious chocolate than regular bark, but still, it was nothing more than the bark of a good, healthy tree and hardly anything to get over-excited about.

And it was clear that the leaves that hung from the strong branches were a lustrous shade of green, but they were no greener than any of the other leaves that fluttered in the summer breeze on trees around the world; no different to the leaves he could see on the trees that stood outside his own bedroom window.

But there was something extraordinary about this tree that he just couldn’t put his finger on. Something hypnotic. Something that made his eyes grow wide and his mouth drop open as he forgot, for a moment or two, that he was
supposed to keep breathing.

‘You’ve heard the stories, I suppose?’ said a voice to his right, and he spun round quickly to see an elderly dachshund trotting towards him, a half-smile on his face, accompanied by a heavy-set donkey who was looking around the forest floor as if in search of something he had lost. ‘I can always tell when someone’s come to take a look at her. You’re not the first, young man. Won’t be the last either. WOOF!’ The dachshund let out a tremendous bark at the end of his remarks and looked away, raising his eyebrows haughtily with the air of a man who has just made a rude noise in a lift.

‘I don’t know anything about it, sir,’ said Noah, shaking his head. ‘I haven’t heard any stories. I’m not from here, you see. I was just passing through, that’s all, and I noticed the tree standing in front of that funny-shaped building and it grabbed my attention.’

‘You’ve been standing in the same place for almost an hour,’ said the dachshund, laughing a little. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘You haven’t seen a sandwich around here, have you?’ asked the donkey, looking up and fixing him with a stare. ‘I heard rumours that someone had lost a sandwich here. It contained meat of some description. And chutney,’ he added.

‘I haven’t, I’m afraid,’ said Noah, wishing he had.

‘I have a hankering for a sandwich,’ said the
donkey in an exhausted tone, shaking his head sadly. ‘Perhaps if I keep looking …’

‘Don’t mind him,’ said the dachshund. ‘He’s always hungry. It doesn’t matter how much you feed him, he still wants more.’

‘You’d be hungry too if you hadn’t eaten in more than twenty minutes,’ sniffed the donkey, sounding a little hurt.

‘Anyway, it’s true,’ continued the dachshund. ‘You were standing there when I went for my run earlier, and I’m just back – I go through the fields and out to the well every day; it keeps me supple, you see – and here you still are. Staring at it.’

‘Really?’ asked Noah, crinkling up his face in surprise. ‘Are you sure? I thought I’d just arrived.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said the dachshund. ‘People lose track of time when they start staring at that tree. It’s really the most interesting thing in our village. Apart from the statue, of course.’

‘What statue?’ asked Noah.

‘You mean you didn’t notice it? It’s right behind you.’

Noah turned round and, sure enough, a tall granite statue of a furious-looking young man wearing a pair of running shorts and a singlet stood behind him. His arms were raised in the air in triumph, and beneath his feet, carved into the stone, were the words, DMITRI CAPALDI: QUICK. It took Noah quite by surprise as he was sure it hadn’t been there a moment before.

‘Something sugary perhaps?’ asked the donkey, stepping forward now and poking his nose so suddenly into Noah’s pockets that he jumped back in surprise.

‘Leave the boy alone, Donkey,’ said the dachshund. ‘He doesn’t have anything sugary on him. Do you?’ he asked quickly, narrowing his eyes at Noah.

‘Nothing at all, sir,’ said Noah. ‘I’m quite hungry myself, as it happens.’

‘It’s very disappointing,’ remarked the donkey, shaking his head and looking as if he might cry. ‘Very disappointing indeed.’

‘You know, there are those,’ continued the dachshund, leaning forward a little now and lowering his voice, ‘and I would consider myself of their number, who think that the tree is far more interesting than the statue. Which is why people stare at it for so long. I tend not to look at it myself if I can possibly avoid it. I missed a friend’s birthday party once on account of it. Two years running.’

‘You missed an excellent cake,’ said the donkey slowly, allowing himself to smile at the memory of it, his large brown eyes welling up with tears. ‘On both occasions it had frosted icing around the top. In the shape of roses. One year the icing was green, the next year orange. I can barely sleep for wondering what it will be this year. Do you think it might be red? I think it might. Or possibly blue … There’s yellow too, of course,’ he added after a long pause.

‘Yes, yes, Donkey,’ said the dachshund. ‘There
are many, many colours in the world. We get it. Let’s not exhaust our new friend’s patience.’

‘You’re not hiding any pastries, by any chance?’ asked the donkey.

‘What’s so special about the tree anyway?’ asked Noah, ignoring the hungry donkey’s question and turning back to look at the tree. ‘I mean, there must be millions upon millions of trees in the world.’

‘Oh no,’ said the dachshund, shaking his head. ‘No, that’s a common mistake. There is in fact only one. They share a universal root, you see, at the very centre of the world, and they all spring from there, so strictly speaking, there’s just the one.’

Noah considered this for a moment before shaking his head. ‘That’s not true,’ he said, laughing a little at the absurdity of this statement, which led to the dachshund emitting a series of loud and prolonged barks, drooling and teeth-baring, which took several minutes to come to an end. The donkey merely looked away and sighed, investigating the grass beneath his nose for anything that might serve as a delicious snack.

‘I do apologize,’ said the dachshund, looking a little embarrassed when he had gained control of himself once again. ‘It’s just my nature, that’s all. I don’t like to be contradicted.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Noah. ‘Anyway, it seems like a very special tree, wherever it comes from.’

‘It is. And I don’t mind admitting it’s the only tree in the village that I’ve never …’ The dachshund
blushed a little and looked around, as if he was nervous of being overheard. ‘I mean, there are certain things a dog is encouraged to do
outdoors
that a boy is encouraged to do
indoors
.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Noah, giggling, not letting on that he himself had done it outdoors that very morning. ‘So you’ve never … ?’

‘Not once. Not in fifty-six years.’

‘You’re fifty-six years old?’ asked the boy, opening his mouth wide in delight. ‘Why, then we’re the same age.’

‘Really? You don’t look a day over eight.’

‘Well, that’s because I
am
eight,’ he replied. ‘But in dog years … I would be fifty-six.’

The dachshund snorted loudly and the smile left his face. ‘I call that a very rude remark,’ he said after a moment. ‘Why do you want to say such a thing? I’ve been friendly, haven’t I? I haven’t made any offensive remarks about your height.
Or lack thereof
,’ he added dramatically.

Noah stared at him, immediately regretting what he had said. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, surprised by how personally the dachshund had taken his words. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘WOOF!’ barked the dachshund, and then offered him a wide smile. ‘Well, it’s all forgotten now,’ he said. ‘And we are great friends again. But we were talking about the tree … Well, the interesting thing, of course, isn’t really the tree at all.’

‘It’s the shop that stands behind it,’ said the donkey.

Noah glanced beyond the trunk and looked at the misshapen building once again, which was now mostly hidden by the branches, as if they’d spread out in the intervening minutes to protect it from his inquisitive eyes.

‘What’s so interesting about that?’ asked Noah. ‘It looks just like a little run-down shop to me. Although I have to say I don’t think the builders did a very good job on it. It’s thrown together at sixes and sevens. I’m surprised a strong wind doesn’t blow it over.’

‘But that’s only because you’re not looking at it correctly,’ said the dachshund. ‘Look again.’

Noah stared across the road and breathed heavily through his nose, hoping that whatever his companion could see, he would see too.

‘That shop’s been here longer than I’ve been alive,’ said the dachshund, sounding deeply impressed by what he was looking at. ‘The elderly gentleman who lived there – he’s dead now, of course – but he planted the tree by the door many years ago, just to brighten the place up a bit, you know. But the shop itself is much older than that.’

‘Was he a friend of yours? The man who owned it, I mean.’

‘A great friend,’ replied the dachshund. ‘He always threw me a bone whenever I was passing and I never forget such kindnesses.’

‘You don’t still have it, by any chance, do you?’ asked the donkey.

‘Afraid not,’ said the dachshund. ‘It was decades ago.’

‘There can be good eating on bones,’ said the donkey with conviction, staring at Noah and sounding almost animated now. ‘Yes, some very good eating indeed.’