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#5yrsago The Borribles [Book Excerpt]

Yesterday, we published

reminiscences from Aimée and Rose de Larabeitti

, the daughters of author Michael de Larabeitti. The stories their father told them stories would go on to publish as the anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and completely wonderful Borribles Trilogy of young adult books. Republished this month by Tor UK (here's

Cory's review!

) we're delighted to present the first chapter of

The Borribles

for your enjoyment. — Eds.

The swirling rain-clouds rushed on revealing the bright moon, and the two Borribles dodged behind the bushes and kept as quiet as they could. There was danger in the air and they could feel it. It would pay to be cautious.

‘Strewth,’ said Knocker, the chief lookout of the Battersea tribe, ‘what a bloody cheek, coming down here without so much as a by-your-leave.’

New ebook edition from Amazon (UK) • Current US edition

Lightfinger, Knocker’s companion, agreed. ‘Diabolical liberty I call it . . . nasty bit of work, covered in fur like nylon hearthrugs . . . snouts like traffic cones . . . like rats, aren’t they?’

‘There’s a big one, just getting into the motor, he’s shouting at the others, he’s the boss all right. Tough-looking, do you see?’

‘Yeah,’ answered Lightfinger, ‘they do what they’re told, don’t they? Look at them move.’

Presently the two Borribles saw the large car drive away in the moonlight, passing along the shining tarmac which led between the trees to the limits of Battersea Park. The car stopped for an instant at the gates and then turned left into Albert Bridge Road and disappeared on its way southwards into the quiet streets of the outer London suburbs.

The two Borribles stood up and looked around. They weren’t too happy in parks, being much more at ease in crowded streets and broken-down houses. It was only occasionally that the Borrible lookouts checked on the green spaces, just to see they were still there and that everything was as it should be.

When Knocker was sure they were alone he said, ‘We’d better see what they were up to over there. Something’s going on and I don’t like it.’

All at once the patch of ground at his feet began to tremble and clumps of grass began to pop up and away from their roots. There was a noise too, a scraping and a scrabbling, and a muffled voice swore and mumbled to itself. The carpet of grass rose and fell violently until a squat protruberance established itself between turf and top soil. The bump hesitated, as if it didn’t know whether to continue upwards or retreat downwards. It grunted, swore again and, as if undecided, took off on a horizontal course, forcing the turf up as it wriggled along.

At the first sign of trouble Knocker and Lightfinger had taken refuge behind a bush but as the bump moved away they came from cover and followed it.

‘It’s got to be . . .’ said Knocker. ‘It can’t be anything else, and down here in Battersea, it’s bad, double bad.’

The mound stopped and shook and struggled and became bigger, and as it grew more clods of grass fell from it. ‘Watch yourself,’ whispered Knocker. ‘It’s coming out. Get ready to jump it.’

Lightfinger and Knocker crouched, their minds racing. The turf rose higher and higher till it was as tall as the Borribles themselves, then it burst and the grass fell away like a discarded overcoat and revealed a dark and sinister shape of about their own size.

It looked like a giant rat, a huge mole or a deformed rabbit, but it was none of these for it stood on its hind legs and had a long snout and beady red eyes, like the things that had gone away in the car.

Knocker gave a shrill whistle and at the signal both he and Lightfinger leapt forward. Knocker got an armlock round the thing’s head and pulled it to the ground while Lightfinger fell onto the hairy legs and bent one over the other in a special hold that could dislocate a knee. The thing shouted so loudly that it would have woken the neighbourhood if there’d been one in Battersea Park. Knocker squeezed it round the neck and whispered, ‘Shuddup, you great fool, else I’ll smother yer.’ The creature shuddupped.

Knocker levered the prisoner into a sitting position and got behind it so he could tie its arms back with a length of rope he took from his waist. Lightfinger moved so that he was sitting on the thing’s legs, looking into the eyes, which were like marbles rolling around at the wide end of the snout.

‘All right,’ said Knocker when he was ready, ‘give it a duffing.’

Lightfinger grabbed the beast by the scruff of its fur and pulled its snout forward. ‘Name?’ he asked gruffly.

The snout moved a little and they heard a voice say in a distinguished tone, ‘Timbucktoo.’

‘Tim who?’ asked Lightfinger again, shaking the snout good and hard.

‘Timbucktoo.’

‘And where are you from, you moth-eaten overcoat?’ asked Knocker, in spite of the fact that he knew the answer.

Timbucktoo shook himself free of the two Borribles and, though his hands were bound, he got to his feet and glared haughtily down his snout, his red eyes blazing.

‘Why, I’m fwom Wumbledom of course, you dirty little tykes. You’d better welease me before you get into sewious twouble.’

‘I knew it,’ said Knocker turning to Lightfinger with excitement. ‘A Rumble from Rumbledom. Ain’t it strange as how they can’t pronounce their rs?’

‘So that’s a Rumble,’ said Lightfinger with interest. ‘I’ve often wondered what they looked like – bloody ugly.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve been this close to one,’ said Knocker, ‘but you can’t mistake them – nasty.’

‘You wevolting little stweet-awabs,’ the Rumble had lost his temper, ‘how dare you tweat me in this fashion?’

‘ ’Cos you’re on our manor, that’s how, you twat,’ said Knocker angrily. ‘I suppose you didn’t even know.’

‘I only know what you are,’ said Timbucktoo, ‘and what I am and that I’ll go where I like and do what I like without having to ask the permission of gwubby little ignawamuses like you. Untie me, Bowwible, and I’ll forget about this incident.’

‘He’s a real pain,’ said Lightfinger. ‘Let’s throw him in the river.’

The moon was clear of clouds again and glinted on the nearby Thames. In spite of himself the Rumble shivered. ‘That will do you no good. I can swim, you know, like an otter.’

‘So you should,’ said Knocker, ‘you look like one.’ And he cuffed the Rumble once more and told him to hold his tongue.

Knocker thought deeply, then he said, ‘I s’pose the river’s the best idea for getting him off our manor, but maybe we ought to take him back and find out more about him, what his mob are up to. I don’t like the look of it; suspicious this is, Rumbles down here in Battersea, it’s wrong. We ought to give Spiff a chance to give this thing the once over.’

‘You’re right,’ said Lightfinger, and they hauled the Rumble to its feet and pushed it towards the park gates.

When they reached the sleeping streets they kept to the dark shadows between the lamp posts and marched rapidly in the direction of Battersea High Street.

*

Borribles are generally skinny and have pointed ears which give them a slightly satanic appearance. They are pretty tough-looking and always scruffy, with their arses hanging out of their trousers. Apart from that they look just like normal children, although legions of them have been Borribles for more than a lifetime – as long as a Borrible remains at liberty he or she will never age.

Most of them have sharp faces with eyes that are burning-bright, noticing everything and missing nothing. They are proud of their quickness of wit. In fact it is impossible to be dull and a Borrible because a Borrible is bright by definition. Not that they know lots of useless facts; it’s just that their minds work well and they tend to dislike anyone who is a bit slow.

The only people likely to get close to Borribles are ordinary children, because Borribles mix with them to escape detection by ‘the authorities’ who are always trying to catch them. Any child may have sat next to a Borrible or even talked to one and never noticed the ears for the simple reason that Borribles wear hats, woollen ones, pulled down over their heads, and they sometimes grow their hair long, hanging to their shoulders.

Normal kids are turned into Borribles very slowly, almost without being aware of it; but one day they wake up and there it is. It doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they’ve had what is called a bad start. A child disappears and the word goes round that he was ‘unmanageable’; the chances are he’s off managing by himself. Sometimes it’s given out that a kid down the street has been put into care: the truth is that he’s been Borribled and is caring for himself someplace. One day a shout might be heard in a supermarket and a kid with the goods on him is hoisted out by a store detective. If that kid gets away he’ll become a Borrible and make sure he isn’t caught again. Being caught is the end of the free life for a Borrible: once in custody his ears are clipped by the police surgeon and he begins to grow into a malevolent and adventureless adulthood, like any ordinary child.

So Borribles are outcasts, but unlike most outcasts they enjoy themselves and wouldn’t be anything else. They delight in feeling independent and it is this feeling that is most important to them. Consequently they have no real leaders, though someone may rise into prominence from time to time, but on the whole they manage without authority and they get on well enough together, though like everybody, they quarrel.

They don’t get on with adults at all, or anyone who isn’t Borrible, and they see no reason why they should. Nobody has ever tried to get on with them, quite the contrary. They are ignored and that suits them down to the ground because that way they can do what they want to do in their own quiet and crafty way.

Knocker and Lightfinger had been on night patrol in Battersea Park when they’d stumbled across the Rumbles and the discovery had made them uneasy. Borribles like to make sure that no other Borrible tribe is encroaching on their territory, that’s bad enough. They live in fear of being driven away from their markets and houses, of seeing their independence destroyed; that is why scouting round the frontiers of their borough is a regular duty.

Unearthing a Rumble was a calamity. They are the real enemies of the Borribles and the Borribles hate them for their riches, their power, their haughtiness and their possessions. If the Rumbles were coming all the way down from Rumbledom to colonize the Park, what price Battersea High Street?

*

Knocker and Lightfinger harried Timbucktoo along in front of them. They went through Battersea Church Road, by St Mary’s down by the river, and then into the High Street. They saw no one and no one saw them, it being well into the early hours of the morning. They were making for an empty house standing opposite the end of Trott Street. It was tall and wide and the bottom windows were boarded up and a sheet of corrugated iron covered the main doorway. The facade of the building was painted over in grey, and in black letters was written, ‘Bunham’s Patent Locks Ltd. Locksmiths to the trade.’

It was a typical Borrible hideaway, derelict and decaying, and Knocker and Lightfinger lived there. Borribles live where they can in the streets of the big cities, but they like these abandoned houses best of all.

The two Borribles halted on the pavement and glanced up and down the street. Nobody. They opened a gate in the railings and Knocker pushed Timbucktoo down some stone steps that led to a basement. The two lookouts followed, opened a door and dragged the Rumble into the house by the neck. Once the door was closed Knocker switched on the light.

The Borribles had entered a large room furnished with orange boxes for use as chairs and tables. Two doors opened from it; one into an underground larder, which served as a storeroom, the other to some stairs which led to the rest of the house. The bay window was covered with scraps of old blanket to prevent light shining into the street and alerting the police that someone was squatting in a dwelling that was supposed to be empty.

‘What we gonna do with him, now we’ve got him here?’ wondered Lightfinger, and he pushed Timbucktoo down into a seat.

‘Yes,’ said the Rumble, looking up, his eyes glinting crimson, ‘you won’t get away with this you know, it’s iwwesponsible. You Bowwibles must be insane. I’ll see you get your ears clipped.’

‘Clip me ears, will yer?’ said Knocker tight-lipped, and he went into the store cupboard. A second later he was out again, carrying a roll of sticky tape. He went over to the Rumble, grasped its head and wound the tape round and round the animal’s snout so that it could no longer speak.

He stood back to admire his work. Lightfinger sat and cupped his face in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.

‘There,’ said Knocker, ‘that’s the way to deal with a talking mattress.’

‘I’m glad all animals can’t speak,’ said Lightfinger. ‘We’d have meningitis within the week, or run out of sticky tape.’

‘I’ll go and get Spiff,’ said Knocker. He ran up to the ground floor of the house and tapped on the door of a large room that overlooked the back garden, a back garden that Knocker knew was a wilderness of weeds; a dangerous dump of rusting oil drums and broken bicycles.

The door opened a crack and another Borrible appeared. He was perhaps an inch taller than Knocker and his ears were very pointed. He was dressed in a bright orange dressing gown made from new warm towelling. His carpet slippers were comfortable.

‘Who are you? Ah, Knocker, what do you want then?’

‘Sorry to wake you, Spiff,’ said Knocker, ‘but me and Lightfinger found something in the park and think you ought to have a look at it. It’s down in the basement.’

‘Oh Lor’,’ groaned Spiff, ‘can’t it wait till morning? You haven’t got the law on your trail, have you?’

‘No,’ said Knocker, ‘it’s nothing like that. What we’ve got is worse. It’s a Rumble! There was a whole lot of them in a posh car and we caught this one tunnelling. Cheek, ain’t it, coming down here without a by-yer-leave and digging?’

Spiff had become more and more intent on what Knocker had been saying until finally he seemed quite beside himself.

‘A bloody Rumble, in the park? You get back downstairs, me lad, and I’ll come right away. I’ll put me hat on.’

He closed the door and Knocker darted back down the uncarpeted stairs. He understood Spiff’s caution; no Borrible ever left his room without putting on a woollen hat to cover the tops of his ears. It wasn’t that they were ashamed of them, quite the contrary, but they liked to be prepared for an emergency. Any unforeseen circumstance could force them into the streets and it wouldn’t do to be spotted as a Borrible.

‘He’s coming,’ said Knocker as soon as he re-entered the room. ‘He’s a good bloke, you know . . . short-tempered sometimes, but they don’t come any craftier than Spiff.’

‘You can’t get anything past him and that’s a fact,’ said Lightfinger. ‘They say he’s pulled more strokes than the Oxford and Cambridge boat race put together. And they say that he won dozens of names in fights with the Rumbles, and we’re only s’posed to have one. Nobody knows how many names, nobody . . . He’s a mystery, but one thing’s for sure, he hates Rumbles.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Knocker. ‘There’s millions of stories about his names and some of them not very Borrible either, but I’d rather have him for me than against me.’ He sat down and looked at Timbucktoo and thought about names and the gaining of them, something that occupied his every waking hour.

A Borrible name has to be earned because that is the only way a Borrible can get one. He has to have an adventure of some sort, and the name comes out of that adventure – stealing, burglary, a journey or a trick played on someone. That was the rule and Knocker was against it; it made it difficult, if not impossible, for a Borrible to join an adventure once he was in possession of a name. The first chance was always given to those who were nameless and this infuriated Knocker for he had a secret ambition to collect more names and have more adventures than any other Borrible alive.

A noise on the stairs disturbed Knocker’s reflections. He stood up and at the same moment Spiff flung open the door and strode theatrically into the room. His head was adorned with a magnificent hat of scarlet wool and he clutched the orange dressing gown tightly to his chest. Spiff had the clear face of a twelve-year-old child but his eyes were dark with wisdom: the wisdom, so it was rumoured, of a hundred years of existence. His nose was prominent; the kind of nose that smelt out trickery with ease.

He stopped short as soon as he saw the Rumble and he pushed his breath out over his teeth and made a whisper of a whistle.

‘At last,’ he said, like he was praying, ‘at last. It’s been a long while since I had my hands on one of these stinking rodents.’ He turned and beamed at Knocker and Lightfinger. ‘You lads have done marvellous, you’ve captured one alive and well, though he won’t be for long, the little basket. Found him in the park, eh? With hundreds of others, digging holes! That’s how it starts. Down here on our manor, taking it all for granted, think they’re the lords of creation, don’t they? Go anywhere, do what they like, we don’t count.’ He prodded and screwed the Rumble with a rigid index finger as he spoke. He turned to Knocker. ‘You know what this is?’

‘A Rumble.’

‘Yeah, a Rumble.’ Spiff was bitter. ‘No better than you or me for all their la-di-da manners. Years of them I’ve seen, sneerin’ at us down their hoity-toity snouts . . . lords of creation, moving in on our space whenever they think they will.’

Knocker and Lightfinger looked at each other. They had never seen Spiff so angry.

‘Oh, come on, Spiff,’ said Lightfinger, ‘it can’t be that bad; the Rumbles have never done me any harm.’

Spiff jumped a foot from the floor. ‘You don’t know you’re born. You know nothing about the struggles and fights we had to win free. It weren’t easy to stay alive even.’

‘Oh, I know about it all right but that was your time, not mine.’ And Lightfinger leaned against the wall, crossed his ankles and shoved his hands into his pockets.

‘Don’t care was made to care,’ said Spiff sententiously, ‘and history repeats itself; in fact it don’t repeat itself, it just goes on being the same.’

‘Well anyway, what are we going to do with this rabbit?’ asked Knocker.

‘Shove it in the cupboard,’ said Spiff, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ll call a meeting tomorrow. You two can run down the street with the message right now, before you go to bed. I know Borribles don’t like meetings but this is an emergency, and we will have to act and think together for once!’

Spiff took one last look at the Rumble, then he pulled his Borrible hat further on to his head, spun on his heels and left the room. Knocker got the prisoner to his feet and locked him in the store cupboard, then he and Lightfinger left by the basement door and spent the next few hours informing all High Street Borribles what was afoot. Finally the two exhausted lookouts got to their own room at the top of Spiff’s house and climbed into a bundle of old blankets and sacks that formed their bed.

‘Argaah,’ yawned Knocker, ‘what a day.’

‘Goo’ night,’ said Lightfinger, and was immediately asleep.

*

A Borrible’s main business is to stay alive. This is an occupation that takes up most of his time; getting food from wherever he can discover it, finding things before they are lost, stealing his provisions from barrows and out of superstore warehouses: stealing because the fundamental Borrible rule, the rule that is primordial to the way they live, the mainspring and motivation of their very being – rule number one – is that they must never have dealings in money. They have been brought up without it, and they must never touch it. If they do, bad luck and loss of freedom will follow as sure as night the day. That is why Borribles steal, and why they prefer to live near shopping centres and street markets like Brixton and Petticoat Lane, where food is easy to come by.

So important is that aspect of their life that they have many sayings that deal with it and they are all gathered together in the Borrible Book of Proverbs. Some of these maxims are very ancient, like, ‘that which falls off a lorry belongs to him who follows the lorry,’ and ‘That which is found has never been lost.’ One of their favourites is, ‘It is impossible to lose that which does not belong to you,’ and Borribles use that one a lot to people who complain about their thieving.

By eight o’clock on the morning following the capture of Timbucktoo Rumble, Battersea High Street market was in full swing. There were barrows and stalls along each side of the road and so little space was left for traffic that not a car dared venture down there. The barrows had been shoved very close together and it was easy for a Borrible to crawl underneath them from one end of the street to the other, picking up fruit on the way. It was a good way to get breakfast.

The costermongers shouted at each other and at prospective customers, urging them to buy. There were barrows selling fruit, ironmongery, fish and large crabs; the shops had their doors wide open and people were drinking tea in Notarianni’s cafe, talking loudly, making wild gestures with their hands. Brown’s, the pie and eel shop, was doing a brisk business and the inhabitants of the buildings – Archer House, Eaton House and White House – were loafing on street corners and thinking about passing bets in Ernie Swash’s, the bookmaker’s. The noise was so great that it rose right up the side of the house where Knocker and Lightfinger were sleeping and woke them from a deep slumber.

Knocker rolled over and woke his companion. ‘Come on, breakfast.’

He stretched his arms above his head; he hadn’t slept enough. The two Borribles had been out so late the night before that the coster-mongers had been loading their barrows as they came home; finding breakfast had been no problem and it was there beside them: one grapefruit, an orange and two large doughnuts dripping with jam.

Lightfinger rubbed his eyes and the old sacks and blankets dropped from him. He reached for the orange, bit it open and sucked hard, making a lot of noise. The orange was wonderful, fresh-tasting, chilled to ice crystals by the lorry journeys to and from Covent Garden.

‘Ooaagh,’ he groaned with pleasure, ‘that’s lovely.’

‘We’d better hurry up,’ said Knocker, ‘or we’ll miss the meeting.’

Halfway down the High Street was a disused brick-built hall. It had last been occupied by a firm of photographers called Scots of London, but they had departed long since and now the shop fell within the province of the Borribles. It was here that Spiff had asked the members of the Battersea tribe to gather; decisions had to be made and everyone was allowed a say.

Inside the hall, on a kind of podium, stood Spiff in conversation with a score of his cronies. Other Borribles, ragged, dirty and inquisitive, slipped in through broken doorways, and, talking furiously, waited in groups to see what might happen.

The moment he thought enough people were present Spiff stepped to the front of the stage and held up both arms like a politician. He shouted several times and gradually the hubbub of voices became less and less until eventually a kind of excited silence hung on the air, then Spiff began to speak, relishing the occasion, for he took a delight in speechifying.

‘Brother and sister Borribles, I am pleased to see so many of you here, for today is a day of decision. Our way of life is in jeopardy and we must either act together or perish.’

The hall became quieter and the tension rose.

‘Not to beat about the bush, I’ll give you the facts, then anyone who wants a say can have a say. Right, the facts. Last night, our chief lookout and his assistant . . .’

All heads turned to Knocker and Lightfinger.

‘. . . while on a routine inspection of the Battersea area, discovered that we had been invaded by the Rumbles.’

The crowd drew in a deep breath and then let it out again in a long explosion and Spiff looked round for effect and more silence.

‘It seems that a large force came down here, all the way from Rumbledom, and occupied the park for several hours. They were digging! Now, in my opinion, this can only be a preparation for a takeover of Battersea, an attack on our freedom, a new and subtle kind of slavery and a clipping of ears. Things have been bearable as long as the Rumbles have stayed in Rumbledom, where they belong, but this is something else.’

Murmurs of assent came from the assembly but Spiff held up his hand and went on.

‘In my opinion there is only one answer, my friends, pre-emptive defence. We must attack before we are attacked. We must destroy the Rumbles at the heart of their organization. However—’

Spiff broke off for a second and admonished the ceiling with a grubby finger.

‘—to carry out this plan we shall need to search carefully among the ranks of the nameless. From those who have not yet had their first adventure we must select the bravest, the slyest, the craftiest and the most resourceful. It is not only the enemy we have to fear, but the enormous distance between us and him, dangerous terrain. The Rumble is confident in his stronghold, blinded by his own conceit, safe, so he thinks, in the security of his own riches and comfort, but that is where we shall strike, with a handful of chosen Borribles. We shall need dedicated volunteers, but remember, those who go may never return. Blood will be spilt.’

At this there was a terrific hush in the hall and the Borribles looked at each other with trepidation. An adventure was one thing, death another.

‘We feel,’ went on Spiff, ‘that Battersea should not bear this brunt alone. All London Borribles are threatened. To this end messages will be sent out over the city and certain tribes will be asked to send their likeliest un-named champions to us for training and instruction. Likewise, from among the ranks of the Battersea nameless, we shall choose one who shows the greatest promise. We intend to approach the following groups: the Totters of Tooting, the Wendles of Wandsworth, the Stumpers of Stepney, the Whitechapel Wallopers, the Peckham Punch-uppers, the Neasden Nudgers and the Hoxton Humpers. Details of the raid will be worked out when all the candidates have arrived.’

Spiff stopped for breath and the hall became alive and words buzzed like bees. Who, people wondered, would be chosen as the Battersea representative on the expedition? An honour, yes, but a danger too.

Knocker swore to himself. ‘Why do I have my name already? What an adventure it’s going to be.’

Spiff called for quiet again. Now he prepared for his moment of high drama. He made a sign to the side of the stage and the prisoner was brought on for all to see. There was silence. The Rumble was still taped round the snout but its beady eyes glowed a fearful red and it stood upright and unmoved.

‘This,’ shouted Spiff, ‘is the enemy, no braver than us, no more dangerous; but they are difficult of access, living underground as they do, well-protected in their burrows. They are rich and they are powerful, and think themselves superior to all Borribles by divine right. This is the enemy who wants to take Battersea into its grasp. Even now they may be digging under the streets to emerge in your very backyard, even now they may be undermining your way of life, silently; dirty and evil, moles of the underground.’

Spiff took a deep breath and shook his arms in front of his body as if he was emptying a sack of cement; the crowd stirred with emotion. Spiff raised his voice a further notch.

‘This is the enemy, and we all know that they must be stopped at all costs. Yes, but more than that, they must be eliminated, and who are the Borribles to do it? Why we are!’

An enormous cheer rose from the audience. ‘Throw it in the river,’ came a voice from the back of the hall, ‘with a bicycle round its neck.’

This suggestion was so popular that it was taken up on all sides.

‘Yeah,’ came the shout, ‘in the river, steal a bike someone.’

Spiff smiled indulgently. ‘I understand your feelings,’ he looked at the Rumble, ‘but I have a better plan. Let me explain. The one thing that these objects fear above all others,’ he touched the Rumble lightly with a disdainful finger, ‘is disclosure! They would hate to be unmasked and shown for what they really are. In their mythology the greatest possible disaster is what they call the Great Rumble Hunt – an attack on their citadel of power – and we, the Borribles of Battersea, will start that Rumble hunt. But,’ Spiff had to shout across the cheering, ‘this is also to be a war of nerves; we want them to know that something really nasty is on the way – us! And that is where this little rodent comes in. We propose to stick a notice on to the fur of this carpet bag, and send it back to Rumbledom, living proof that we mean business. The message will say, “The Great Rumble Hunt is on. Beware the Borribles!” All those in favour say “Aye”.’

Another enormous cheer rose from the assembly; Spiff’s oratory had done its work, that was what he wanted. Borribles clasped each other, jumped up and down and shouted, ‘We’ll show ’em, we’ll teach them rabbits to come down here.’

As the cheering died away Spiff and his cronies left the building with the prisoner, and the hall gradually emptied as the Borribles went back to their squats, eager to discuss the morning meeting and to wonder who would be chosen as the Battersea ‘no-name’ for the Great Rumble Hunt. Those who were not known for their bravery kept very quiet and decided not to call attention to themselves, for a few Borribles manage to pass through life without ever earning themselves a name. But most are of a different stamp, and they ran to the market without delay, stole paper and wrote directly to Spiff, begging for the position.

But Knocker was disconsolate. He returned home alone, thwarted. He knew there was no chance of him being considered for the expedition to Rumbledom. He went into the basement of the deserted house and made his way upstairs. As he passed Spiff’s door it was thrown open and the cunning face of the most cunning of Borribles appeared, beaming.

‘Right, lad,’ he said, ‘in here. Just the bloke I want, look lively . . . Want a word with you.’

Knocker stepped inside the room, and removed his woollen cap; he had good pointed ears, a sign of high intelligence and alertness. Spiff smiled and settled into an armchair that must have fallen from a very expensive furniture lorry.

‘Sit down, lad,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for your good work last night, champion that was, champion . . . but now I want to ask your advice. As you know, there are eight Rumbles in the Rumble High Command. I’m sure that if we can eliminate them, the rest of the Rumble set-up will fall to pieces, they’ll be too busy even to think of us any more. So that’s why I thought of sending eight Borribles only, one for each High Rumble. There will be one from Tooting, Hoxton, Wandsworth . . . You heard all that already. But, Knocker, who are we going to send from Battersea? The point is, you are out and about a lot, you see a lot of Borribles in action, who do you think would be a good choice?’

Knocker thought for a while. ‘It’s tricky,’ he said at length. ‘There’s quite a few who are good. There’s a bunch of bright lads down by the river, some others under the railway arches at Battersea Park station, but I think the brightest of the lot, out of the whole borough, is one who lives up on Lavender Hill, bright as a button and smart as paint.’

‘Whereabouts does he hang out?’ asked Spiff.

‘Underneath the nick,’ said Knocker.

‘Underneath the nick!’ cried Spiff. ‘He must be mad.’

Knocker laughed. ‘Oh, no. Bright. There’s a stack of rooms up there that are left empty every night. It’s centrally heated, blankets galore, constant electricity. You name it, he’s got it. In fact he’s very friendly with some of the coppers – the Woollies.’

‘Hmm,’ said Spiff, ‘and he’s a no-name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ Spiff went on, ‘that’s settled then. Send a runner up to Lavender Hill and get that wazzisname down here. As soon as the other seven come in from across London we shall have to begin a training session. As well as that, I want you to get some volunteers to do some spare-time thieving. We’re going to need lots of things for this expedition: grub, weatherproof clothing, high-quality catapults, watches, compasses, anything that might be useful . . . so get that organized. I know you’ve got your own thieving to do, and so have the others, but do what you can . . . We can’t afford to fail.’

Knocker nodded. His heart was bursting with pride, he was being involved in the Great Rumble Hunt, which was more than he had dared to hope.

‘Is there a chance of anything else, Spiff?’

‘What do you mean? You can’t go on the expedition, you know, that’s a rule.’

‘I know that. It’s, well, you said they would have to be trained. I’m a good Borrible lookout, well, I could train them . . . couldn’t I?’

Spiff gave Knocker a long look, a look that went right through him and saw everything. ‘Hmm,’ he said, smiling a secret smile, ‘you are keen, aren’t you? How many names have you got?’

‘Just the one,’ answered Knocker feeling uncomfortable.

Spiff chuckled. ‘You know what Knocker, you reminds me of me. You didn’t have to ask, I’d already thought of you . . . yes, you can train the team.’

Knocker got up to go, feeling proud of himself.

‘Here, take this envelope,’ said Spiff, ‘it’s instructions about the Rumble; he’s downstairs in the cupboard. Send him packing. Try not to let anyone see him, they might still chuck him in the river.’

Knocker ran downstairs and opened the cupboard. Sure enough the Rumble was there, his paws tied behind him and a notice glued on to his fur. Two other lookouts came into the room and leant against the wall to watch as Knocker read his instructions. When he had finished he removed the tape from the animal’s snout and sat it on a grape barrel.

‘You are being sent home, Rumble, alive. Take that message to your leaders and tell them what you have seen and heard.’

Knocker turned to the lookouts. ‘You two can escort him on the first stage of the journey. This envelope has instructions from Spiff. Take him to Clapham Junction and hand him over to the next Borrible tribe. Then he can be taken to the Honeywell Borribles, and they can take him up to the Wendles beyond Wandsworth Common; from there the Wendles will take him to Merton Road. This letter goes with him and explains what should be done at each stage. Finally, he should be released as near Rumbledom High Street as possible and allowed to find his way home. Any questions?’

The two lookouts shook their heads.

‘Right,’ said Knocker, ‘as soon as you’ve got rid of him report back to me. It is very important that he gets home in one piece, though it doesn’t matter what he looks like; the rougher the better. We’ve got to frighten the fur off every Rumble in existence.’

Timbucktoo jumped to his feet at this. ‘You don’t fwighten me, Bowwible, nor your fwiends. You don’t know what you’re taking on. We’ll be keeping a watch out for you; you’ll be skewered on our Wumble-sticks before you get a sight of Wumbledom Hill. You may be safe down here in your gwimy stweets and stinking back-alleys, but Wumbledom is a wilderness with twackless paths that only we can follow. This means war.’

Knocker swiped the Rumble round the ear, almost affectionately. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you old doormat, before I knock that snout of yours through the back of your bonce.’

At a sign from Knocker his two assistants hauled the Rumble from the room on the first stage of his long and perilous journey, a journey on which he would be passed from hand to hand like a registered packet in the London post.

The Borribles is being re-released by Tor UK with an introduction by China Mieville

New ebook from Amazon (UK) • Current US edition

https://boingboing.net/2014/01/18/the-borribles-book-excerpt.html

[johobi]

1-Year Anniversary

Word count: 7818

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader

Warnings: anal, ass-play, vanilla-y smut, copious fluff

Your 1-year anniversary is fast approaching and you’re determined to gift Namjoon the one thing he would never dare ask for. 

Namjoon had been halfway through his turkey sandwich when his phone pinged. Already using the device to browse his usual social media sites, he narrowed his eyes when a banner bearing the words ‘____ sent you a video.’ descended surreptitiously from the top of the screen and disappeared before he had even a chance to react.

He cast a furtive glance around the staff-room. Half-empty, with only a few of his colleagues milling about; most of them had preferred to take lunch outside while the weather was nice. The reason for his understandable caution, was the fact that your MMS’ were usually a toss-up between harmless, goofy videos; clips of you zooming the camera into your face as you pulled some ghastly expression and performing the latest viral dance. And then there were the other videos. The hot as fuck snippets you deigned to bestow upon him at his most worthy, usually when he had gone out of his way to do something for you at great personal cost to himself. 

Or when he had actually done the inverse; irritated you so much in such a way that you decided the most fitting punishment would be to send him some tantalising glimpse of what you were doing to yourself. The trick being, that you purposefully sent them to him while he was stuck at work, tying his figurative hands. And, Jesus, he’d needed physical bonds to prevent himself from opening the filth you sent him. It’d been an impossible feat.

The images, the sounds - they were forever burned into his retinas and scored into his ear drums. The only foreseeable solution, to rid him of his raging hard-on, had been to masturbate furiously in the staff toilets. And he knew that you knew he would have to resort to it. Of course, once he’d gotten home he’d immediately railed you, leaving you sore the day after, but still.

Worth it, you’d thought, wincing as you sat on a stool in your kitchen the next morning.

Sometimes, you didn’t even need an excuse to send those videos. You’d made it clear that if you got horny, you wanted to share it with him. Especially if he was unable to watch in person. If Namjoon was honest with himself, he could barely match your libido, as monstrous as it was. He’d had his fair share of women and sexual experiences in the past, and felt himself capable of keeping up with it all – with you, however, it was an ongoing challenge, one he prided himself on meeting every time. Not just when it came to the likes of stamina, either; you were adventurous, undeniably kinky, and always had your nose in some smutty book, harvesting ideas. Or even writing them yourself. 

That was something he'd had to acclimate to after his string of more demure lovers – your openness about the whole subject; your sheer enthusiasm. The previous women he'd encountered had considered it something kept to a dimly lit bedroom. You, however, had thrown open the curtains and beckoned him into the light; illuminated his fantasies and brought them to the fore when he’d previously been too coy to share them. Up until that revelatory conversation, though, he’d avoided the subject out of a desire to prevent your feeling pressured. Predictably, the honest drunk that he was, Namjoon had eventually spilled his dark wishes during a rather tipsy date night.

“Anal?” you'd smirked, tilting your head to consider him as though seeing him anew.

“Yes,” Namjoon sighed, his hands coming up to wave away the words that he'd said. “But it’s literally just a fantasy. I don’t expect you to find it appealing, or even entertain the thought of doing it with me, at all. So, please don’t panic.”

You snorted. “Who’s panicking? I’m glad that you told me, Namjoon,” your voice dropped low as you eyed him over your fifth glass of wine, and he gulped. He’d half expected you to burst out into a sinister cackle.

So, looking down at his phone now, he knew it was 50/50 as to whether the video he was about to open in the staff-room was explicit. You'd sent no accompanying message but for the party popper emoji, which alone made him nervous. Luckily, his earphones were already plugged in, so no risk there – he’d learnt that most valuable of lessons when previously opening one of your gifts in a public place. Namjoon would never forget the many faces of disgust that turned to glare at him during his very apparent, very accidental display of perversion.

He inhaled deeply before pressing ‘play’.

And probably held it for the next 30 seconds as the sinful contents of the clip rolled before his eyes.

Namjoon was beside himself. With excitement, with arousal, with a mourning for the staff toilets that he wouldn’t be able to make it to. Not with the impressive erection he was now toting. And yet, he remained glued to his seat, feverishly tapping the ‘play’ button once more, desperate to see if he had merely been a victim of his lustful imaginings, or if you had actually done that for him.

The video had started unassumingly on your face, your peaches and cream smile disarming his apprehension and sending his heart soaring. The tone quickly changed, however, when one side of your mouth dropped into a wicked smirk, making eye contact with your intended recipient. 

The camera’s view descended to graze the expanse of your underwear-clad form, your feet planted on the bedspread and knees already parted. You’d hastily propped the phone against something and sat back, treating Namjoon’s eyes to a feast as you whipped off your panties and flung them off-camera, your hand shooting out to retrieve a bottle of lube from the side-stand. He felt himself salivate in anticipation, fully expecting your slickened fingers to part your lips and allow him that most alluring view of your pink interior, but he should have known better than to expect the ordinary.

Indeed, you bypassed your pussy altogether, leaving him momentarily confused. And turned on. A certainly bespoke combination he had yet to experience until now. But all thought abandoned him, then, when you began to line your asshole - that tight ring of muscle he’d fantasised about fucking in the darkest, dampest of his dreams - with lube. Such a lascivious vision had him gasping. 

Once, twice, you slathered the puckered orifice with the substance on your fingers before pushing one experimentally inside. You’d inserted it only halfway, but thrown your head back, then, arching into the meagre penetration. Namjoon knew you were putting on a show for him, riling him up. 

And it was working beautifully. 

He watched, transfixed and slack of jaw as you traced shapes inside of yourself, stretching the unyielding hole out for something bigger. He wondered, then and there - despite how seasoned he was in matters of sex - if it were possible for him to cum in his pants like a teenager watching his first porn video.  It seemed a certainty when he resorted to palming himself under the table, like some rabid sexual deviant. But the pressure, it was too fucking much.

“Mmmm,” you’d moaned softly, a second finger sliding into slight resistance as it entered you. “Namjoon-ah. I’m prepping myself for you. Are you looking forward to the thirteenth?”

Too overwhelmed to have ascertained the meaning of your words on his first watch, Namjoon began to sweat when he realised that you were referring to your upcoming 1-year anniversary.

Inferring what you could possibly have meant would prove fatal. Or, it would be, if Namjoon was anything more than lobotomised when faced with the vision of you, spread-eagle and loosening yourself up. Your index and middle finger pulling, simultaneously, the most obscene and divine sounds from your body that he had ever heard. The only thing that came close were the times you’d somehow coaxed his barely responsive cock into a round three, and by that point your pussy was so flooded with your joint bodily expulsions that the squelching became as pivotal in getting him off as your taste, touch and voice.

Schluck. Schluck. Schluck.

Namjoon nearly bit through his lip trying to stifle the grunts of approval he was itching to release.

With a sigh, you’d withdrawn your fingers and pulled something from the draw in your side-table before flopping onto your stomach in front of your phone. You waved the object back and forth before the camera, your chin propped up in one hand. How the fuck did you manage to look so cute, so innocent despite having just fingered your asshole on film? And, now, taunting him with what appeared to be an intimidatingly large butt plug?

“I’m working up to this, Namjoon-ah, because you’re a big boy. But I’ll be ready for the thirteenth. Will you?” you’d grinned, then stopped the recording with a wink.

No, I won’t be fucking ready, Namjoon thought, his head spinning. He briefly wondered if his light-headedness was a physical attestation to all the blood in his body rushing to his excruciatingly engorged dick.

Glancing around with all the agitation of a fugitive on the run from the authorities, he clamped the lid on his lunchbox, tossing away the leftovers of his sandwich in the direction of the bin. Then, with some trouble, he clambered to his feet, pressing his vexingly small lunchbox to the outcropping in his pants and forcing himself into a half-convincing walk of nonchalance. He shouted a brief see you later to his colleagues who had no time to react before he was already gone and dashing - as well as a man could with such a cumbersome protruberance - to the toilets.

Namjoon had spent the next two weeks caught between excitement and trepidation. You hadn’t mentioned the video or its contents since, and when he’d brought it up you’d feigned ignorance with a knowing twinkle in your eye. When your bedroom activities continued as normal – well, as normal as it gets when you’re with someone as avant garde as you when it came to sex – Namjoon decided not to press the issue, and that whatever prep you were subjecting yourself to during his working week was to remain a tantalising mystery until your anniversary. 

Which, somehow, was today. 

It’d felt like one prolonged, harrowing slog to reach this point. Namjoon had actually resorted to leaving his phone at home. Because one day, as he left for work, he realised that he couldn’t trust himself not to wank to the often-worshipped material stored on his phone. Not even during school hours. It had become a twice, thrice-daily necessity.

You appeared to monitor his suffering gleefully. Though neither of you spoke a word of it - even in the throes of the ecstasy you found in each others’ arms each night - Namjoon knew you could tell nothing else would occupy his mind. You’d taken to wearing decidedly clingy skirts and pants that accentuated your ass in a way that set him on a simmer. Now, like most humans, Namjoon spent a decent portion of his daily life entertaining filthy thoughts, and yet, somehow, you’d managed to crank up this relatively benign behaviour into something that disrupted his ability to sleep, communicate with other people and otherwise maintain his focus on something other than the delectability of your asscheeks and the treasure waiting for him between.

But, today was the day.

In fact, it was more than the day.

It was already the evening, and he'd cleared away the dishes from the three-course meal he insisted on preparing. The meal that you had balked at given its size, and your obvious plans for dessert. You’d blushed, then, apologising profusely, gearing up to explain just why you wouldn’t be able to eat all of it. 

And that was when it had clicked for him.

What a fucking idiot I am, he’d despaired inwardly. Namjoon had done his utmost to ensure that he had in no way, shape or form pressured you or outwardly let on how eager he was to partake in your proffered after-dinner activity. And yet, there he had been, laying before you a huge fucking bowl of minestrone, spaghetti - bread sides and all - and a black forest gateau. The expression on your face would have almost been comical had he not been cursing himself for being so inconsiderate.

In the end, he ate most of it, and quickly stashed the rest away in the refrigerator.

“Let’s skip the gateau,” you suggested, an impish smile playing on your lips. “So we can get to business.”

“And what business would that be?” Namjoon played along, his back to you as he washed up the remnants of your meal.

Without looking, he could tell you were stifling a laugh. “You want to explore my black forest, right?”

“Oh my God,” he bent over the counter, soap suds soaking the front of his shirt, though doubled-over in cringe as he was, it went unnoticed.

“I’m sorry,” you giggled. “I’ve had to bite my tongue over so many joke opportunities the last few weeks, I couldn’t deny myself that one.”

“That’s fair,” Namjoon croaked, when he finally recovered his breath. “And, I daresay, a little humour will help loosen me up a little.”

You opened your mouth to shoot back what he was sure you considered an absolutely genius response, but Namjoon was on the ball now and raised his eyebrows at you in a way that had you shutting your mouth with a guilty pout. You were quick, he had to give you that.

“Are you done yet?” you mumbled as you walked up behind him, looping your arms around his waist. Namjoon cast an adoring smile down at your small hands; soft and warm, perfectly made to fit into his. He had so many fond memories of holding those hands. Fluffy, oversized sweater sleeves that had begun to pill towards the ends obscured them somewhat. It was like receiving a hug from a small, demanding sheep. 

And, to be honest, it’d been wholly unexpected that you hadn’t been waiting for him on the bed, already naked and with a rose between your teeth, cheesy quip at the ready, when he got home from work. In fact, today was the only day out of the last two weeks that you had draped yourself in such modest clothing; an old, holey sweater and some baggy sweats of Namjoon’s that you seemed overly attached to. Was this also part of your plan?

When he didn’t answer, so caught up in his head as he was, your hand burned a deliberate trail from his stomach to the front of his pants. He felt you grin against his back when he froze under your touch. “Hmm?”

“Y-Yes, I’m nearly finished,” he cleared his throat, the croak belying how much he was anticipating what was to come.

You didn’t free him from your pointed groping, however. Instead, you began to smooth the flat of your hand against his previously inert – and, now, rapidly stiffening – penis, the movement causing the most minute of frictions. Surely, it was more an affectionate touch, intimate and almost polite, as though you were introducing yourself to the appendage that would be spearing you deeper than you’ve ever felt before. But Namjoon found you irresistible in every way – that even just the scent of your clothes, your hair, your gentle petting – was enough to bring him fully to attention. Soon enough, he was rocking into your open palm, his eyes closing with the soothe of your strokes. The few dishes he hadn’t yet cleaned tumbled from his grasp into the water so he could brace himself against the sink when you gripped him suddenly, fully encircling his girth with your fingers.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hmm?” you questioned coyly, pulling the collar of his shirt down to press a long, deliberate kiss to the back of his neck.

“Don’t hmm me,” Namjoon squirmed, your lips sending a thrill as fresh as the first day he kissed you through him.

“Turn around,” you ordered seductively, and he was helpless but to comply under the spell you had cast over him.

When he acquiesced to your command, he almost felt his soul depart when his eyes met with the blown-out, black pools that confronted him. Namjoon was entranced when you descended to your knees, your hands already agilely working at the strings of his sweat pants. He'd indignantly defended himself when you accused him, one day, of being one of those mystifying people who actually tied them.

Unwrapping him like a present, you slid the soft material down his legs, casting an appreciative glance over the stretch of his gloriously long, toned legs as they revealed themselves to you. Clad only in his boxers, now, you held his gaze as you nuzzled your face against his straining bulge, mouthing at his balls.

“Nngh,” Namjoon grunted, large hands reaching down entangle themselves in your hair. “Baby, you’re going to kill me tonight. Don’t be surprised if I don’t last far into the main event.”

You pouted without an ounce of sincerity. Namjoon envisioned that, internally, you were grinning like a Cheshire cat and steepling your fingers.

“I’ll just hurry this along, then,” you shrugged, carefully peeling down his underwear and taking him into your hand, giving him a few encouraging pumps. Then, without warning, you opened your mouth wide and took the entirety of his length into it, the angry, red head of his cock nudging your tonsils as he came to rest against your tongue. Namjoon almost collapsed at the sudden shock of pleasure panging its way along the stretch of his dick and setting his abdomen alight.  Involuntarily, a guttural groan tore itself from his lungs.

“Oh my—fuck, baby,” he keened, his fingers digging far more harshly into your scalp than he probably realised.

“Mmm?” you moaned around his length, gaining a similarly throaty response from him.

Aware that you wouldn’t be able to tease him for too long, you dragged him from the honeyed recesses of your sweet mouth. Your lips, instead, encompassed the tip of his quivering cock, greedily lapping at the pre-ejaculate seeping from its slit. With his saltiness coating your tongue, you sealed your lips around him as you coaxed him back into your mouth, working the underside of his member with an adept tongue.

“Baby, I can’t—“ Namjoon warned, and you dislodged him with a lewd ‘pop’ and a smack of your lips.

You raised your eyebrows up at him from your kneeling position. “Wow, have I gotten you that worked up already?”

Namjoon glared at you. “There has been a certain mental warfare going on these past few weeks, and deep-throating me as soon as you get my pants off is not fair.”

You acknowleged his accusation with a lip bite that had him pulling you up to his height and crushing his lips to yours; a kiss so fierce and raw with need that his insides churned in excitement. He wasn’t one to enjoy the taste of himself, usually, but tonight, upon your sultry tongue, it only enticed him further. His hand wrapped around the back of your neck to pull you flush to him, but you pressed a hand to his chest to stop him. When he drew back, dizzy and confused, you gestured between your woolly sweater and his glossy cock, and neither of you could hold back a chuckle when you envisioned what a terrific mess he would make of it.

Sweeping the oversized garment over your head in one, fluid motion, Namjoon was nearly winded when he drunk in the sight of what you had been hiding beneath. And when you took off the sweats…

There had, indeed, been a plan.

Your underwear was black, sheer and left nothing to the imagination; you weren’t normally the type to splash out on lingerie, as you were both in agreement that luxuries had to be kept to a minimum on your tight budget. And yet, you had spent your own, limited monthly allowance on something to please him. It made his heart and dick pulse in tandem.

What made him throb more than anything, however, was  the lower half of your lingerie choice.

Crotchless. Panties.

If it were physically possible at this stage, Namjoon felt himself grow exponentially more aroused. When you twirled to give him the full view – indeed, the back was also open – he began to fist his cock in a desperate attempt to alleviate some of the strain, but you were quick to slap away his hand.

“Uh-uh. What are you doing?”

“If I don’t fuck you, and soon, I am going to die. Literally, I am going to die,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “So hot-foot it to the bedroom. Now,” he ordered, advancing on you. He could tell by the tremble of your bottom lip that you were having a hard time maintaining your unaffected facade. You loved it when he switched roles.

“Make me,” you huffed churlishly, and Namjoon narrowed his eyes on you. You were well aware misbehaviour would land you in deep trouble.

“Oh, I will,” he growled, throwing you over his shoulder with minimal effort, taking delight in your squeal of surprise. As he stalked toward the bedroom you wiggled your legs in the air, a petulant behaviour he halted immediately with a swift smack to your exposed backside.

“Fuck!” you squeaked, quieting in his hold.

Namjoon smirked.

Once over the threshold, you were unceremoniously dumped onto the bedspread in a fit of giggles. You dragged him with you, the momentum of your falling body pulling him conveniently to your chest where he began to paint a cluster of feverish kisses. His teeth tugged the scant material of your bra aside to expose one of your breasts. Target successfully located, your breath hitched when he latched his lips to your pebbled nipple, his teeth grazing the sensitive nub between reverent kisses and exultations of your sexiness.

“You are so,” a kiss, “fucking,” another, “beautiful,” he panted against your skin, now dusted pink under his ministrations.

One not being enough for him, Namjoon kneaded your other breast with a soft but covetous hand, and despite your writhing, your other nipple was not exempt from being teased. Pinching it between his index and middle finger, he had you mewling beneath him, pliant and willing. Your pussy pulsed with the heat of what felt like a thousand suns, and yet you were the opposite of dry; you could feel your excitement coating your outer lips and dribbling toward tonight’s intended destination - your diligently trained asshole.

“Namjoon-ah,” your voice was a strained whimper. “Fuck me, please.”

His nose was brushing your navel as you said those words, and he halted his deliberate advance to your pussy.  “You want to skip this?”

You nodded your head breathlessly. “I’m a madwoman, but yes. You’re not the only one barely hanging on. I need you in me.”

If he couldn’t tease you in the way that his tongue longed to, he would make do with the alternative. “Tell me what you want from me, baby.”

You turned full brat, jutting out your bottom lip and scowling at him under heavy-lidded eyes. “I just told you.”

“You need to be more specific than that, baby,” Namjoon cooed, kneeling between your spread legs and running a feather-touch of a finger along the expanse of your oozing slit. He drew your juices onto his fingertip and raised it to his mouth, wrapping his lips around the delicacy and sucking the digit clean, pinning you in place with a heated gaze as he did so.

You knew this was torturing him, too.

You decided to play dirty.

Hoisting yourself up onto your elbows so that your faces hovered but inches apart, you held him there, captivated, as the following words spilled sinfully from your lips. “I want your cock so deep inside me it’s painful. I want you to stretch out my tight little virgin ass.”

Namjoon’s lip curled almost imperceptibly as your filthy demands met his ears. The desire, the hunger he had for you was so great he felt almost feral. Like an animal that was responding to a primal call to rut his bitch into oblivion. He groaned low in his throat and went to close the gap between you, but you stopped him for the second time that evening and held him there as you edged him, mentally, further.

“Come so deep in me that there isn’t even a trickl—ungh!”

Your head collided with the mattress as he forced you onto your back again, your vision swimming when he consumed you in another breath-stealing kiss, his lips worshipping yours in a frenzied plea for entrance; one you eagerly granted him. Tongues clashing in a battle for dominance, he won when you felt the unmistakable entrance of one of his fingers into your sopping mess of a pussy, the two of you moaning as one for very different reasons.

Namjoon pulled back to gasp his disbelief. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t need to warm you up much at all. Do you want me in your ass that much?”

“Yes, yes,” you whined. Just one of his slender fingers granted only the most maddening  relief; you had what you desired, but it was nowhere near enough. “More,” you begged, pawing at his arm. “More, please.”

“As you asked so nicely,” Namjoon purred, his middle finger sinking into place beside the other. Feeling that tantalising stretch, and the distant, but familiar build of an orgasm in your belly, you began to undulate into his languid penetration, arching your spine as though pulled toward the centre of your mounting pleasure.

Half-amused and half turned on beyond belief as he watched the flickering of expressions over your face, Namjoon began to tease you again. “I thought you wanted to get straight to it, baby?”

“Shhh,” you hissed, your eyes scrunched shut. “I—I think it would be best if I came first, get me to relax more, don’t you think?”

Forever a willing accomplice and abettor in your illicit quests for pleasure, Namjoon grinned. “I definitely think that’s best.”

He turned his attention back to your gyrating hips, and lowered his face level with your mound. The view from here never failed to enrapture him; the swell of your breasts as they heaved over laboured breaths, the way you would thrash your head from side to side as though possessed. Everything about you drove him to the brink of insanity. Namjoon watched it all assiduously as he sunk his mouth to the parting of your folds, his pulse skyrocketing when you began to wail his name. Your swollen clit secured delicately between his plush lips, he sucked against the charged bundle of nerves, the force with which he applied himself greatly determining the loudness of your barely coherent sobbing. When he sensed you getting close, he released you from his agonizing seal, only to attack you with the exacting lashes of his expert tongue. Your toes began to curl, your entire body trembling under the tension of your impending orgasm. “O-Oh fuck, N-Namjoon, please, I—“

“Tell me, baby. What do you need?” he would draw this out for as long as he could, as recompense for the past two weeks of torture.

“Let me come. Oh, God, please, let me just—“

The pacifist was gone. You decided to take what you were being denied. Your hands, previously snarled in the mess of sweaty bed sheets, flew to the platinum blonde locks atop his head. With a dire insistence, you pressed his face harder to your pussy, and although logistically you knew it would not help your cause to suffocate him between your legs, you just needed the weight of him there.

His breath fanned against your twitching orifice in a muffled chuckle. But he relented, seeing fit to put you out of your misery. Adding a third finger to the fray, Namjoon upped the tempo of his thrusts and re-adhered himself to your painfully engorged clit, swirling his tempered tongue around it to stimulate you past the edge.

It did not take long.

“F-Fuck, I’m coming, Namjoon, don’t stop, please,” you howled, your voice hoarse from your frequent exhortations.

As though he were symbiotically experiencing your descent to the peak, Namjoon could not help but grind his neglected cock against the mattress in his excitement. 

He curled the fingers embedded inside of you to rub your most pivotal spot. And, almost as if he'd sent a bolt of lightning through you, you immediately became rigid but for the hoarse, gasping groans that he stole from your straining lungs. Waves following waves following waves of unbridled pleasure racked you, your pussy pulsating against his fingers – so intensely you thought you might crush them –  until you were nothing but a limp, spasming ragdoll, glistening under a layer of perspiration. 

Extracting himself from your clenching orifice, Namjoon’s breath hitched when he saw your asshole winking sordidly at him as you rode out the remainder of your orgasm.

That’s where he would be going next.

“All good?” he asked thickly, nursing his erection with a few loose, teasing strokes, enough to keep him at his most turgid.

“More than good,” the words whooshed out of you as you exhaled, dragging the oxygen into your lungs with rapid breaths. God knows how long you’d stopped breathing for during the apex of your orgasm. You’d come so hard that your hearing was comfortably muffled. A quiet, monotonous tone rang through your ears.

Still, no rest for the wicked.

Despite being suitably sated, your desire to satisfy your boyfriend sparked a different kind of hunger within you. Kneeling up on the bed, he spread his arms to allow you to unbutton and rid him of his shirt, unsure how it had even made it to this point still on his person. Fully nude, you let your hands wander over his lithe, bronzed torso, occasionally raking your nails against his flesh. 

Namjoon’s muscles tensed under your cursory touches, before he was pulling you up by your chin to behold the sheer lust in his eyes. “I need you,” he murmured. 

That was all he had to say. You were ready.

With a nod and a smile, you placed a chaste kiss upon his lips before turning away and fishing out the bottle of lube Namjoon had come to know so well from the video. You were still sopping wet, and you daresay that might be just enough to lubricate you, but from your past few weeks’ experiences, you'd come to enjoy the silky feel of the substance, and you knew that more was always better.

“Would you like to do it, or shall I?” you offered, gauging his reaction. He no longer seemed nervous about the proposition, and it must have had a lot to do with how laid-back you were being about the whole thing. The orgasm certainly helped.

Namjoon was only half-present, his mind flitting back to the way you had so boldly penetrated yourself in the video. He wanted - no, needed - it to be his fingers. “Can I?”

“I was hoping you would ask that,” you grinned, your tongue swiping your top teeth. “Be my guest.”

You handed over the pump-operated bottle and lay back on your elbows again, legs wide and inviting. Dispensing a generous amount onto his palm and warming the lube between his hands, Namjoon’s eyes roved hungrily over the way you presented yourself to him. His cock twitched impatiently. “Let me know, at any stage, if you want to stop. Okay?”

“You know I will,” you dismissed him casually, though his consideration was always gratefully noted. “I’ll let you know what feels good.”

Nodding his approval, Namjoon gestured to you to prop yourself on a pillow, which you hastily did. The position wasn’t uncomforable, but a little strange - like you were about to receive a gynaecological exam. 

The sheer difference in diameter between your tense, furrowed asshole and your other, more seasoned orifice made him swallow thickly. Just imagining cramming himself into such a tight fit, God, it was almost enough for him to combust.

“Try and relax,” he soothed, when his fingers made first contact with it.

Although you were trying your best not to tense up, the lube was still a little cool, and in your enthusiasm you were becoming as taut as a bowstring. “Sorry,” you whimpered, your cheeks brushed with rubies. “I’m excited.”

“Excitement comes later. For now, just chill, baby,” Namjoon ordered.

As gently as he possibly could, Namjoon began to ease his index finger into your ass. The first thing that hit him was how much warmer it was than your pussy. He'd never even experimented with his own ass in the past, so he had no idea what it felt like inside. And now he was taking his first, tantalising glimpse into that world, and he was already trembling with untold anticipation.

“Fuck, it’s so tight, I can barely move,” he whispered, eyes alight with awe.

“I know,” you grunted; one finger wasn’t too much trouble for you after your recent trials, and indeed the only thing causing you discomfort was your impatience for him to stretch your – physical and mental – limits further. “That’s fine, that feels good. Move it around a little, like you saw me do in the video, and add another finger.”

Both happy to see you so eager and keen to comply, Namjoon very tentatively slipped the tip of his next finger into you, and immediately felt the ring of muscle tense around him. He looked up, trepidation marring his beautiful, broad features. “____?”

“I’m fine, it’s always just a little weird at first,” you smiled to reassure him, and he nodded, waiting for you to adjust. When you began to push your pelvis toward him, he took that as a signal to continue, gradually easing his lube-slicked digits through the drag of your almost suffocatingly restrictive asshole, teasing gentle circles all the while.

The deeper he got, the louder you became. You wanted so badly to play with yourself as he entered you, but you knew he would want you to save it for when it was him in the place of his fingers. “Oh, yes, that’s starting to feel really good.”

“Yeah?” Namjoon asked, mouth agape and spellbound by the way your face crumpled deep in concentration, as though you were chasing a glimpse of euphoria.

“Mmmm,” was the only response you could muster, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as it was.

After a few minutes of enduring the provocation the wet sounds of your asshole were causing, Namjoon - whose dick had begun to soften while the promise of fucking was still elusive - had once again become rigid under the hastening of his arm’s thrusts. You’d become so malleable so quickly, he was floored. Ass-play seemed like it was quickly going to become a regular in the bedroom for the two of you. “How does it feel now, baby?”

“So fucking good,” you almost crooned, as exhilarated as you were. “I—I don’t think I even need the plug. I’m so ready for you.”

Your words both incited and stymied him. “We don’t need to rush.”

“I’m not rushing, I—I genuinely feel ready, Namjoon-ah, honey. Please, I’m so fucking horny,” you implored needily.

Namjoon groaned. The first thing he wanted to do was pound you into the floor, and the last thing he wanted to do was reject you. But he had to make sure. “Not that I’m insinuating that you’re insulting my dick size, but I’m a lot bigger than the plug. Let’s consider—“

“No,” you were firm, and your eyes were resolute despite your sexual intoxication. “I don’t need it. I need you. Fuck me, Namjoon, please.”

No sane man on earth could spurn that.

Letting out a shuddering breath, he nodded. “Okay, baby, let’s do this. Show me how you want it.”

Clearly having thought-out the flow of this evening to its completion, you immediately flipped onto your stomach, presenting your ass to him in the most indecent, salacious manner. The panties, of course, covered nothing of your asshole, and yet just above it, embroidered into the strip of cloth hugging your hips was a black, satin bow. You really were a fucking gift, and all for his taking.

“It’ll feel really deep like this,” Namjoon warned, but your only response was to wiggle your posterior in his face, goading him. He smirked. “Alright, then.”

After dispensing himself a second helping of lube and allowing it to take to his body temperature, he slathered his length with the velvety, viscous fluid, his eyes closing momentarily at the  first taste of relief his unresolved erection had received this evening beyond your brief torment of a blow-job.

“Don’t get carried away,” you warned, waggling your eyebrows at him over your shoulder.

“How couldn’t I,” he grinned, his free hand leaving streaks of lube over your backside as he palmed it hungrily. “When I have this magnificent view in front of me?”

“I can’t argue with that,” you quipped, throwing him a smirk. He grinned in avid agreement, and you felt your cheeks heat up under his gaze of adoration. Clearing your throat, you reached back to smack his thigh. “Now get the fuck in me, boy.”

Grasping his length level with your sufficiently loosened ass, Namjoon almost paled as he observed the magnitude your tight little hole would have to stretch to accommodate even the head of his cock. Which, by this point, was once again profusely leaking precum. As though sensing his hesitation, you spoke up again, and this time your voice was lower, coaxing. “I’m ready, I promise.”

Namjoon baptized you with the drippings of his lust, before pressing himself, gently but firmly, against your seemingly unyielding asshole. Within a couple of seconds, however, it began to stretch to accommodate him, and as he progressed further – the entirety of his time spent closely scrutinising your reaction – he felt the near unbearable heat and resistance of your ass begin to engulf the tip of him. “F-Fuck,” he muttered, his voice trembling along with his limbs. “How is it?”

You couldn’t reply however, because you had turned to submerge your face deep into a pillow. As soon as he saw that, Namjoon halted his passage immediately. He was about to pull out, but your hand flew back to catch his wrist. A very muffled order came from the pillow. “Just give me a moment.”

“____,” he began, but you dropped his wrist to waggle your finger blindly before his face, shushing him.

After a few long moments, you raised your head, your hair askew and face tomato red from lack of oxygen. “Okay, keep going, but very slowly.”

With one hand resting on the small of your back and the other continuing to guide his member, you let out a whoosh of breath when the head of his cock became entirely entrenched in you. From that point on, you seemed to relax more, and inch by excruciating inch, Namjoon buried himself within you.

Not wanting to emit any noise in case it were to cover up any vocalisations of discomfort, Namjoon had been stewing internally and was coming rapidly to a boil over just how fucking tight it was. It was almost uncomfortably so, like all the blood in his cock could be squeezed back out of it and back to his brain, which had come to a standstill under the assault of sensation he was currently weathering.

Halfway in, you began to move your hips again in circular motions, the movements encouraging your asshole to suck him in further. This was the feeling you had been looking forward to, that apparently insatiable, moreish longing to be filled to the brim, to be stretched to the brink of pain. What burning you had been experiencing up until this point was rapidly extinguishing, and the only thing that took its place was that same wanton hunger you had come to crave during your experimental sessions.

“Yes, Namjoon, this is it, God, you’re starting to feel so fucking good inside me. Keep going.”

Allowing the tension to flow free from his body, Namjoon grunted at your encouragement, gliding himself deeper into your scorching heat. Five inches, then six, and before he knew it, he had bottomed out entirely, the curve of your asscheeks flush with his twitching abdomen. Feeling himself ensconced entirely within you, so compact and so taut, he groaned your name as though pained, doubling over you to rain a shower of ardent kisses down your spine. “Baby, God, you feel so fucking good around me. I won’t last long.”

You whined into your pillow, your skin springing goosebumps at the touch of his butterfly lips. “That doesn’t matter. Namjoon, start moving. I need you to start—oh,” you gasped as he began to drag himself from the clenching of your puckered hole. The sensation of having him, the man you loved more than anything you had ever known, being so tender, so tentative to your needs, and filling you in such an alien, but pleasurable way, it had you fisting the bedcovers again and moaning like a debauched whore.

Namjoon began to build a steady but restrained pace. The slip of your walls around him, the delicious drag of effort it required to extract himself from your depths only to bury himself, right to the hilt, into your Siren’s call of an ass; it was swiftly hurtling him towards an unavoidable, earth-shattering orgasm. He was almost afraid of the sheer violence with which it was brewing within him, and his balls were already beginning to tighten dangerously, drawing themselves up in preparation for the hardest, he believed, he would ever come. “I can’t hold it much longer,” he panted, a joint groan ripping itself from the both of you when he hit particularly deep.

“I want to come with you,” you declared, just as breathless. Holding yourself up under his fastidiously aimed pounding was getting to become something of a challenge.

You could have said literally any combination of words at that moment and Namjoon would have been reeling from how fucking sexy, beautiful¸and perfect you were, as he proclaimed, loud and often, in between his harried thrusting.

Using his wrists to maintain leverage as his cock continued to impale you repeatedly, he grazed his hands over your stomach and swiftly found your dripping cunt, his already slippery hands becoming further lubcricated with your excretions. Knowing that he was already teetering on the precipice of his climax, he was far more unforgiving with your pussy than he was with your ass. 

If they had had minds and personalities of their own, you wouldn’t begrudge your poor, frequently battered pussy for feeling persecuted. As it was, in this moment you were sorely grateful for his rough handling.

Namjoon promptly delved two fingers into your hungry cunt, the orifice suckling loudly and eagerly on the extended digits. His other hand was quick to work on your clit, clasping it resolutely between his fore and middle fingers and, with the aid of a quick wrist, rubbed you between an inch of your life. Before you knew it, you were screaming. Your cheeks streamed with tears; your mind lost its capacity to form all rational thought. And, with it, your vision; a blinding light assaulted your peripheral, as though some higher being deemed you worthy to glimpse nirvana.

“I—I’m coming, Namjoon, f-fuck, don’t stop, I’m so, so, so, close—“

The utter fullness, the wholeness you felt as he occupied what seemed like your entire being, it was incomparable to anything you had ever experienced. You’d never felt more physically or emotionally close to him in that moment, and though you were overcome by the ecstasy of it all, and blinded by it so, you were so aware of him; the strength in his arms, the way they held you as you began to crumble. The deep tones of his voice, though distant, anchoring you to the mortal plane. And what brought you back was the animalistic groan he expelled with one last thrust of his hips as your ass convulsed around him, his cock erupting, ostensibly, with endless streams of cum that coated your walls like eggshell white, until the two of you were a boneless, shivering heap. The room was awash with the sounds of aftershock – delayed grunts and whimpers, and the desperate intake of oxygen, as though you had risked death itself to prove your love to one another.

Following what seemed like an eternity of basking in the glow of your messy aftermath, Namjoon raised his head from your shoulder to brush away the damp, limpid locks of hair from your face. You were still lying prone beneath him, barely noticing the weight of him on your back, your eyes glassy and with whatever remnant of thought was left, distant. You didn’t even register when he slipped his softening cock from you, lying to the side of you and propping himself up on his elbows to see you more clearly.

“Baby,” he called, guiding you back to him. You turned your head enough to look at him. “I love you. So, so much. I really don’t deserve you. Thank you for this.”

You smiled, barely, having hardly enough energy to muster even such a simple expression. “I love you too. And, don’t thank me. I enjoyed it too, as you can tell.”

Namjoon snorted, pulling you against him. You allowed him to mold your exhausted body to his, your skin tacky and almost adherent upon contact. “What next, then?”

“What next?” you scoffed, though it came out more akin to a weak cough. “I don’t know about you, but I’m thoroughly fucked. We can think about that another day.”

“I must have really done a number on you, in that case,” Namjoon was smug. “It’s not like you to be so subdued afterwards. And here I was, about to suggest pegging. I guess you’re not interested.”

Your ears perked up like a dog hearing their owner preparing a bowl of food. “Pegging? Really? You’d let me?”

His resultant chuckle rumbled in his chest, tickling your face. “I knew that might get your attention. I don’t know, I’m thinking about it, especially after seeing how much this kind of thing affected you. Maybe for Christmas.”

“So I get to peg Santa?” you snickered, and Namjoon blanched.

“Only if you haven’t been naughty this year,” he reasoned, and you pouted into his neck, burying yourself into the comfort of his musky, post-sex scent.

“That’s definitely not going to happen, then.”

[carrmodo]

Female Setae Ents (Based on Ent Wives)

Female Setae Ents left the Setae forests and they then cared for other protruberances on geckos. These protuberances on geckos can actually be antibacterial. The female Setae Ents gave these protuberances their antibacterial resin which was sticky and not repelled like how water on geckos can be repelled. Some Female setae Ents branches face downwards. Some of the Female Setae Ents weren’t happy with the gender roles but were discouraged from working in the setae forests of the adhesive toe pads and so they set up their own adhesive pads on the tails of geckos and that’s why some geckos can actually have adhesive tail pads.

This assumes adhesive toe pads are a prerequisite for adhesive tail pads. Geckos can actually have adhesive tail pads.

Thanks for looking/ reading. I hope you enjoy/enjoyed.

[labete-du-gevaudan]

Charles Wetzel saw a strange creature on the night of November 8th, 1958. He was driving home on North Main Street and came across where it crosses the Santa Ana River only to find it flooded. Wetzel claimed “It had a round, scarecrowish head like something out of Halloween. It wasn't human. It had longer arms than anything I'd ever seen. When it saw me in the car it reached all the way back to the windshield and began clawing me. It didn’t have any ears. The face was all round. The eyes were shining like something fluorescent, and it had a protruberant mouth.” He also described it as having skin like scales. 

After running over the monster with his car, he quickly sped to the Riverside, California, police station where officers took a look at his vehicle. They noted claw marks on the hood and windshield of the car but the bloodhounds that searched it found nothing unusual. At least one other person claimed to have a run in with the Riverside Bridge Monster.

[readbookywooks]

Jonathan Harker's Journal Continued

5 May. - I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in th e dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins. The horses started forward,and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor, for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful, and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of morning. Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back. Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without a chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation. "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue,as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed cold as ice, more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said. "Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking. So to make sure, I said interrogatively, "Count Dracula?" He bowed in a courtly was as he replied, "I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest."As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage. He had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested, but he insisted. "Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself."He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight. For here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire, also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh, which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door. "You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared." The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger. So making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room. I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said, "I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will I trust, excuse me that I do not join you, but I have dined already, and I do not sup." I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely. Then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure. "I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come. But I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters." The count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many question as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced. By this time I had finished my supper,and by my host's desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back. And with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protruberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while, and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything. But as I listened, I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said. "Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!" Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added, "Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter." Then he rose and said. "But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and tomorrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon, so sleep well and dream well!" With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom. I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt. I fear. I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! 7 May. - It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written - "I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me. D." I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished, but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my meal, I do not know whether to call it breakfast of dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had it, I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials, so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found locked. In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the center was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kind, history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law, all relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and it somehow gladdened my heart to see it, the Law List. Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good night's rest. Then he went on. "I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companions," and he laid his hand on some of the books, "have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England, and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! As yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak." "But, Count," I said, "You know and speak English thoroughly!" He bowed gravely. "I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them. "Indeed," I said, "You speak excellently." "Not so," he answered. "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble. I am a Boyar. The common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he sees me, or pauses in his speaking if he hears my words, `Ha, ha! A stranger!' I have been so long master that I would be master still, or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me a while, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation. And I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long today, but you will, I know forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand." Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered, "Yes, certainly," and added. "You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand." I said I was sure of this, and then he went on. "We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be." This led to much conversation, and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand, but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year, last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway, a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. "That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt. For it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In the old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them, men and women, the aged and the children too, and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil." "But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look? "The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely. He answered. "Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night, and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?" "There you are right," I said. "I know no more than the dead where even to look for them." Then we drifted into other matters. "Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me." With an apology for my remissness, I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, and English Bradshaw's Guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table, and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighborhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered. "Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan, nay, pardon me. I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first, my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!" We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here. "At Purfleet, on a byroad, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It was surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. "The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my Kodak views of it from various points. The house had been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds." When I had finished, he said, "I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day, and after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young, and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken. The shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may." Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine. Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to pull my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally to England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated. The other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. "Aha!" he said. "Still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come! I am informed that your supper is ready." He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me, but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to dawn or at the turn of the tide. Anyone who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of the cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air. Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said, "Why there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us," and with a courtly bow, he quickly left me. I went into my room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice. My window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day. 8 May. - I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse. But now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that this strange night existence is telling on me, but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he - I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaiac so far as facts can be. It will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand, or seem to. I only slept a few hours when I went to bed,and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good morning." I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed, but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near. But at the instant I saw the the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. "Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous that you think in this country." Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on, "And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" And opening the window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving pot, which is fortunately of metal. When I went into the dining room, breakfast was prepared, but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrific precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further. Doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!

[viralhottopics]

The charisma droids: today’s robots and the artists who foresaw them

RoboThespian and the worlds first automaton newsreader are the stars of the Science Museums Robots show. But did Da Vinci and Michelangelo beat them to it?

An android toddler lies on a pallet, its doll-like face staring at the ceiling. On a shelf rests a much more grisly creation that mixes imitation human bones and muscles, with wires instead of arteries and microchips in place of organs. It has no lower body, and a single Cyclopean eye. This store room is an eerie place, then it gets more creepy, as I glimpse behind the anatomical robot a hulking thing staring at me with glowing red eyes. Its plastic skin has been burned off to reveal a metal skeleton with pistons and plates of merciless strength. It is the Terminator, sent back in time by the machines who will rule the future to ensure humanitys doom.

Backstage at the Science Museum, London, where these real experiments and a full-scale model from the Terminator films are gathered to be installed in the exhibition Robots, it occurs to me that our fascination with mechanical replacements for ourselves is so intense that science struggles to match it. We think of robots as artificial humans that can not only walk and talk but possess digital personalities, even a moral code. In short we accord them agency. Today, the real age of robots is coming, and yet even as these machines promise to transform work or make it obsolete, few possess anything like the charisma of the androids of our dreams and nightmares.

Thats why, although the robotic toddler sleeping in the store room is an impressive piece of tech, my heart leaps in another way at the sight of the Terminator. For this is a bad robot, a scary robot, a robot of remorseless malevolence. It has character, in other words. Its programmed persona (which in later films becomes much more helpful and supportive) is just one of those frightening, funny or touching personalities that science fiction has imagined for robots.

Remorseless malevolence Terminator Salvation (2009). Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros

When Douglas Adams unleashed Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on Radio 4 in 1978, the idea of a robot with a human-like personality was already enough of a cliche for Adams to have fun subverting it. Instead of being either loyal servant or sinister would-be overlord, Marvin shares our unenviable human capacity for self-pity and despair. Brain the size of a planet and you want me to clean this spaceship.

Would we really want to replicate melancholy in a machine? Perhaps we would, if robots are ever to genuinely relate to human beings. Just before Marvin came along, the original Star Wars in 1977 had imagined two kinds of robot a mobile computer, R2-D2, and his much more humanoid interpreter C-3PO whose attitude shares some of Marvins wounded passive aggression. More recently, Matt Groenings sc-fi cartoon Futurama featured Bender, a robot who smokes and drinks, is a liar, an egomaniac and a thief. In the latest Star Wars episode Rogue One, K-2SO is a converted Imperial droid who is constantly behaving insensitively and apparently selfishly in short an electronic jerk.

Can the real life well, real simulated life robots in the Science Museums new exhibition live up to these characters? The most impressively interactive robot in the show will be RoboThespian, who acts as compere for its final gallery displaying the latest advances in robotics. He stands at human height, with a white plastic face and metal arms and legs, and can answer questions about the value of pi and the nature of free will. Im a very clever robot, RoboThespian claims, plausibly, if a little obnoxiously.

Im very clever RoboThespian humanoid robot. Photograph: Reuters/Thomas

Except not quite as clever as all that. A human operator at a computer screen connected with Robothespian by wifi is looking through its video camera eyes and speaking with its digital voice. The result is huge fun the droid moves in very lifelike ways as it speaks, and its interactions dont need a live operator as they can be preprogrammed. But a freethinking, free-acting robot with a mind and personality of its own, Robothespian is not.

Are todays robots any closer to true agency than the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing automaton that amazed 18th- and early 19th-century Europe? This lifelike early robot beat all-comers at chess, apparently by the power of a clockwork brain. It was a hoax. In reality a chess grandmaster was hidden inside the machine controlling its every move. Robothespian is no hoax. It is a state-of-the-art robot, with complex movements and interactive responses but it can not think for itself. Robotics is a long way from creating anything with as much personhood as Marvin the Paranoid Android.

A 16th-century automaton monk from Spain, who beat his chest as he prayed. The clockwork mechanism was hidden beneath his habit. Photograph: Science Museum

That is not for want of trying. Robots reveals that human beings have been obsessed with automating ourselves for at least 500 years. Early automata in this exhibition include a Spanish 16th-century painted wooden statue of a monk that can move by clockwork. This attempt to give a statue the illusion of living movement fits well with other art of the age when it was created. Religious art from the 16th and 17th centuries includes gorily realistic sculptures of the dead Christ covered with blood and faces of the Virgin apparently shedding wet tears: to animate such statues was just another way to awe and move the Catholic pious.

Our fascination with synthetic humans goes back to the human urge to recreate life itself to reproduce the mystery of our origins. Artists have aspired to simulate human life since ancient times. The ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion, who made a statue so beautiful he fell in love with it and prayed for it to come to life, is a mythic version of Greek artists such as Pheidias and Praxiteles whose statues, with their superb imitation of muscles and movement, seem vividly alive. The sculptures of centaurs carved for the Parthenon in Athens still possess that uncanny lifelike power.

Most of the finest Greek statues were bronze, and mythology tells of metal robots that sound very much like statues come to life, including the bronze giant Talos, who was to become one of cinemas greatest robotic monsters thanks to the special effects genius of Ray Harryhausen in Jason and the Argonauts.

The smile of Mona Lisa reflects Da Vincis research on the mechanics of the muscles called lips. Photograph: BBC/Illuminations

Renaissance art took the quest to simulate life to new heights, with awed admirers of Michelangelos David claiming it even seemed to breathe (as it really does almost appear to when soft daylight casts mobile shadow on superbly sculpted ribs). So it is oddly inevitable that one of the first recorded inventors of robots was Leonardo da Vinci, consummate artist and pioneering engineer. Leonardo apparently made, or at least designed, a robot knight to amuse the court of Milan. It worked with pulleys and was capable of simple movements. Documents of this invention are frustratingly sparse, but there is a reliable eyewitness account of another of Leonardos automata. In 1515 he delighted Francois I, king of France, with a robot lion that walked forward towards the monarch, then released a bunch of lilies, the royal flower, from a panel that opened in its back.

Leonardo da Vincis robots were more than gimmicks. They reflect the way he thought about nature. In his anatomical drawings, many of which record his own careful dissections of corpses, he sees the human body as a complex and marvellous machine. On the same sheet as his famous drawing of a foetus in the womb, for instance, he shows the wall of the womb connected by protruberances like the teeth of gear wheels. This vision of tiny cogs working in the human body reveals how he saw us not as angelic wonders the religious orthodoxy of his time but as contraptions, our ligaments pulleys, our eyes cameras. His greatest simulcra still exists. She is called the Mona Lisa.

Da Vinci applied the same science that inspired his automata to his most famous portrait. The smile of Mona Lisa reflects his research on the mechanics of the muscles called lips. Her lifelike eyes embody his understanding of optics. Contemporaries responded to the Mona Lisa as a hypnotic imitation of life: Giorgio Vasari writing in 1550 goes into ecstasies over her illusory life.

One of the most uncanny androids in the Science Museum show is from Japan, a freakily lifelike female robot called Kodomoroid, the worlds first robot newscaster. With her modest downcast gaze and fine artificial complexion, she has the same fetishised femininity you might see in a Manga comic and appears to reflect a specific social construction of gender. Whether you read that as vulnerability or subservience, presumably the idea is to make us feel we are encountering a robot with real personhood. Here is a robot that combines engineering and art just as Da Vinci dreamed it has the mechanical genius of his knight and the synthetic humanity of his perfect portrait.

Art and science come together in the dream of the robot. To replicate humanity is a feat of artistic illusion as much as an engineering challenge. In the 21st century, robots with mask-like faces, plastic anatomies and friendly handshakes can, and do, draw on the ways artists have tried to reproduce the look and feel of human life for centuries. Yet the dream of the robot that shares human emotions is still, for now, a fantasy.

Robots is at the Science Museum, London SW7, from 8 February until 3 September.

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from The charisma droids: today’s robots and the artists who foresaw them

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#5yrsago The Borribles [Book Excerpt]

Yesterday, we published reminiscences from Aimée and Rose de Larabeitti , the daughters of author Michael de Larabeitti. The stories their father told them stories would go on to publish as the anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and completely wonderful Borribles Trilogy of young adult books. Republished this month by Tor UK (here's Cory's review! ) we're delighted to present the first chapter of The Borribles for your enjoyment. — Eds.

The swirling rain-clouds rushed on revealing the bright moon, and the two Borribles dodged behind the bushes and kept as quiet as they could. There was danger in the air and they could feel it. It would pay to be cautious.

‘Strewth,’ said Knocker, the chief lookout of the Battersea tribe, ‘what a bloody cheek, coming down here without so much as a by-your-leave.’

New ebook edition from Amazon (UK) • Current US edition

Lightfinger, Knocker’s companion, agreed. ‘Diabolical liberty I call it . . . nasty bit of work, covered in fur like nylon hearthrugs . . . snouts like traffic cones . . . like rats, aren’t they?’

‘There’s a big one, just getting into the motor, he’s shouting at the others, he’s the boss all right. Tough-looking, do you see?’

‘Yeah,’ answered Lightfinger, ‘they do what they’re told, don’t they? Look at them move.’

Presently the two Borribles saw the large car drive away in the moonlight, passing along the shining tarmac which led between the trees to the limits of Battersea Park. The car stopped for an instant at the gates and then turned left into Albert Bridge Road and disappeared on its way southwards into the quiet streets of the outer London suburbs.

The two Borribles stood up and looked around. They weren’t too happy in parks, being much more at ease in crowded streets and broken-down houses. It was only occasionally that the Borrible lookouts checked on the green spaces, just to see they were still there and that everything was as it should be.

When Knocker was sure they were alone he said, ‘We’d better see what they were up to over there. Something’s going on and I don’t like it.’

All at once the patch of ground at his feet began to tremble and clumps of grass began to pop up and away from their roots. There was a noise too, a scraping and a scrabbling, and a muffled voice swore and mumbled to itself. The carpet of grass rose and fell violently until a squat protruberance established itself between turf and top soil. The bump hesitated, as if it didn’t know whether to continue upwards or retreat downwards. It grunted, swore again and, as if undecided, took off on a horizontal course, forcing the turf up as it wriggled along.

At the first sign of trouble Knocker and Lightfinger had taken refuge behind a bush but as the bump moved away they came from cover and followed it.

‘It’s got to be . . .’ said Knocker. ‘It can’t be anything else, and down here in Battersea, it’s bad, double bad.’

The mound stopped and shook and struggled and became bigger, and as it grew more clods of grass fell from it. ‘Watch yourself,’ whispered Knocker. ‘It’s coming out. Get ready to jump it.’

Lightfinger and Knocker crouched, their minds racing. The turf rose higher and higher till it was as tall as the Borribles themselves, then it burst and the grass fell away like a discarded overcoat and revealed a dark and sinister shape of about their own size.

It looked like a giant rat, a huge mole or a deformed rabbit, but it was none of these for it stood on its hind legs and had a long snout and beady red eyes, like the things that had gone away in the car.

Knocker gave a shrill whistle and at the signal both he and Lightfinger leapt forward. Knocker got an armlock round the thing’s head and pulled it to the ground while Lightfinger fell onto the hairy legs and bent one over the other in a special hold that could dislocate a knee. The thing shouted so loudly that it would have woken the neighbourhood if there’d been one in Battersea Park. Knocker squeezed it round the neck and whispered, ‘Shuddup, you great fool, else I’ll smother yer.’ The creature shuddupped.

Knocker levered the prisoner into a sitting position and got behind it so he could tie its arms back with a length of rope he took from his waist. Lightfinger moved so that he was sitting on the thing’s legs, looking into the eyes, which were like marbles rolling around at the wide end of the snout.

‘All right,’ said Knocker when he was ready, ‘give it a duffing.’

Lightfinger grabbed the beast by the scruff of its fur and pulled its snout forward. ‘Name?’ he asked gruffly.

The snout moved a little and they heard a voice say in a distinguished tone, ‘Timbucktoo.’

‘Tim who?’ asked Lightfinger again, shaking the snout good and hard.

‘Timbucktoo.’

‘And where are you from, you moth-eaten overcoat?’ asked Knocker, in spite of the fact that he knew the answer.

Timbucktoo shook himself free of the two Borribles and, though his hands were bound, he got to his feet and glared haughtily down his snout, his red eyes blazing.

‘Why, I’m fwom Wumbledom of course, you dirty little tykes. You’d better welease me before you get into sewious twouble.’

‘I knew it,’ said Knocker turning to Lightfinger with excitement. ‘A Rumble from Rumbledom. Ain’t it strange as how they can’t pronounce their rs?’

‘So that’s a Rumble,’ said Lightfinger with interest. ‘I’ve often wondered what they looked like – bloody ugly.’

‘It’s the first time I’ve been this close to one,’ said Knocker, ‘but you can’t mistake them – nasty.’

‘You wevolting little stweet-awabs,’ the Rumble had lost his temper, ‘how dare you tweat me in this fashion?’

‘ ’Cos you’re on our manor, that’s how, you twat,’ said Knocker angrily. ‘I suppose you didn’t even know.’

‘I only know what you are,’ said Timbucktoo, ‘and what I am and that I’ll go where I like and do what I like without having to ask the permission of gwubby little ignawamuses like you. Untie me, Bowwible, and I’ll forget about this incident.’

‘He’s a real pain,’ said Lightfinger. ‘Let’s throw him in the river.’

The moon was clear of clouds again and glinted on the nearby Thames. In spite of himself the Rumble shivered. ‘That will do you no good. I can swim, you know, like an otter.’

‘So you should,’ said Knocker, ‘you look like one.’ And he cuffed the Rumble once more and told him to hold his tongue.

Knocker thought deeply, then he said, ‘I s’pose the river’s the best idea for getting him off our manor, but maybe we ought to take him back and find out more about him, what his mob are up to. I don’t like the look of it; suspicious this is, Rumbles down here in Battersea, it’s wrong. We ought to give Spiff a chance to give this thing the once over.’

‘You’re right,’ said Lightfinger, and they hauled the Rumble to its feet and pushed it towards the park gates.

When they reached the sleeping streets they kept to the dark shadows between the lamp posts and marched rapidly in the direction of Battersea High Street.

*

Borribles are generally skinny and have pointed ears which give them a slightly satanic appearance. They are pretty tough-looking and always scruffy, with their arses hanging out of their trousers. Apart from that they look just like normal children, although legions of them have been Borribles for more than a lifetime – as long as a Borrible remains at liberty he or she will never age.

Most of them have sharp faces with eyes that are burning-bright, noticing everything and missing nothing. They are proud of their quickness of wit. In fact it is impossible to be dull and a Borrible because a Borrible is bright by definition. Not that they know lots of useless facts; it’s just that their minds work well and they tend to dislike anyone who is a bit slow.

The only people likely to get close to Borribles are ordinary children, because Borribles mix with them to escape detection by ‘the authorities’ who are always trying to catch them. Any child may have sat next to a Borrible or even talked to one and never noticed the ears for the simple reason that Borribles wear hats, woollen ones, pulled down over their heads, and they sometimes grow their hair long, hanging to their shoulders.

Normal kids are turned into Borribles very slowly, almost without being aware of it; but one day they wake up and there it is. It doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they’ve had what is called a bad start. A child disappears and the word goes round that he was ‘unmanageable’; the chances are he’s off managing by himself. Sometimes it’s given out that a kid down the street has been put into care: the truth is that he’s been Borribled and is caring for himself someplace. One day a shout might be heard in a supermarket and a kid with the goods on him is hoisted out by a store detective. If that kid gets away he’ll become a Borrible and make sure he isn’t caught again. Being caught is the end of the free life for a Borrible: once in custody his ears are clipped by the police surgeon and he begins to grow into a malevolent and adventureless adulthood, like any ordinary child.

So Borribles are outcasts, but unlike most outcasts they enjoy themselves and wouldn’t be anything else. They delight in feeling independent and it is this feeling that is most important to them. Consequently they have no real leaders, though someone may rise into prominence from time to time, but on the whole they manage without authority and they get on well enough together, though like everybody, they quarrel.

They don’t get on with adults at all, or anyone who isn’t Borrible, and they see no reason why they should. Nobody has ever tried to get on with them, quite the contrary. They are ignored and that suits them down to the ground because that way they can do what they want to do in their own quiet and crafty way.

Knocker and Lightfinger had been on night patrol in Battersea Park when they’d stumbled across the Rumbles and the discovery had made them uneasy. Borribles like to make sure that no other Borrible tribe is encroaching on their territory, that’s bad enough. They live in fear of being driven away from their markets and houses, of seeing their independence destroyed; that is why scouting round the frontiers of their borough is a regular duty.

Unearthing a Rumble was a calamity. They are the real enemies of the Borribles and the Borribles hate them for their riches, their power, their haughtiness and their possessions. If the Rumbles were coming all the way down from Rumbledom to colonize the Park, what price Battersea High Street?

*

Knocker and Lightfinger harried Timbucktoo along in front of them. They went through Battersea Church Road, by St Mary’s down by the river, and then into the High Street. They saw no one and no one saw them, it being well into the early hours of the morning. They were making for an empty house standing opposite the end of Trott Street. It was tall and wide and the bottom windows were boarded up and a sheet of corrugated iron covered the main doorway. The facade of the building was painted over in grey, and in black letters was written, ‘Bunham’s Patent Locks Ltd. Locksmiths to the trade.’

It was a typical Borrible hideaway, derelict and decaying, and Knocker and Lightfinger lived there. Borribles live where they can in the streets of the big cities, but they like these abandoned houses best of all.

The two Borribles halted on the pavement and glanced up and down the street. Nobody. They opened a gate in the railings and Knocker pushed Timbucktoo down some stone steps that led to a basement. The two lookouts followed, opened a door and dragged the Rumble into the house by the neck. Once the door was closed Knocker switched on the light.

The Borribles had entered a large room furnished with orange boxes for use as chairs and tables. Two doors opened from it; one into an underground larder, which served as a storeroom, the other to some stairs which led to the rest of the house. The bay window was covered with scraps of old blanket to prevent light shining into the street and alerting the police that someone was squatting in a dwelling that was supposed to be empty.

‘What we gonna do with him, now we’ve got him here?’ wondered Lightfinger, and he pushed Timbucktoo down into a seat.

‘Yes,’ said the Rumble, looking up, his eyes glinting crimson, ‘you won’t get away with this you know, it’s iwwesponsible. You Bowwibles must be insane. I’ll see you get your ears clipped.’

‘Clip me ears, will yer?’ said Knocker tight-lipped, and he went into the store cupboard. A second later he was out again, carrying a roll of sticky tape. He went over to the Rumble, grasped its head and wound the tape round and round the animal’s snout so that it could no longer speak.

He stood back to admire his work. Lightfinger sat and cupped his face in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.

‘There,’ said Knocker, ‘that’s the way to deal with a talking mattress.’

‘I’m glad all animals can’t speak,’ said Lightfinger. ‘We’d have meningitis within the week, or run out of sticky tape.’

‘I’ll go and get Spiff,’ said Knocker. He ran up to the ground floor of the house and tapped on the door of a large room that overlooked the back garden, a back garden that Knocker knew was a wilderness of weeds; a dangerous dump of rusting oil drums and broken bicycles.

The door opened a crack and another Borrible appeared. He was perhaps an inch taller than Knocker and his ears were very pointed. He was dressed in a bright orange dressing gown made from new warm towelling. His carpet slippers were comfortable.

‘Who are you? Ah, Knocker, what do you want then?’

‘Sorry to wake you, Spiff,’ said Knocker, ‘but me and Lightfinger found something in the park and think you ought to have a look at it. It’s down in the basement.’

‘Oh Lor’,’ groaned Spiff, ‘can’t it wait till morning? You haven’t got the law on your trail, have you?’

‘No,’ said Knocker, ‘it’s nothing like that. What we’ve got is worse. It’s a Rumble! There was a whole lot of them in a posh car and we caught this one tunnelling. Cheek, ain’t it, coming down here without a by-yer-leave and digging?’

Spiff had become more and more intent on what Knocker had been saying until finally he seemed quite beside himself.

‘A bloody Rumble, in the park? You get back downstairs, me lad, and I’ll come right away. I’ll put me hat on.’

He closed the door and Knocker darted back down the uncarpeted stairs. He understood Spiff’s caution; no Borrible ever left his room without putting on a woollen hat to cover the tops of his ears. It wasn’t that they were ashamed of them, quite the contrary, but they liked to be prepared for an emergency. Any unforeseen circumstance could force them into the streets and it wouldn’t do to be spotted as a Borrible.

‘He’s coming,’ said Knocker as soon as he re-entered the room. ‘He’s a good bloke, you know . . . short-tempered sometimes, but they don’t come any craftier than Spiff.’

‘You can’t get anything past him and that’s a fact,’ said Lightfinger. ‘They say he’s pulled more strokes than the Oxford and Cambridge boat race put together. And they say that he won dozens of names in fights with the Rumbles, and we’re only s’posed to have one. Nobody knows how many names, nobody . . . He’s a mystery, but one thing’s for sure, he hates Rumbles.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Knocker. ‘There’s millions of stories about his names and some of them not very Borrible either, but I’d rather have him for me than against me.’ He sat down and looked at Timbucktoo and thought about names and the gaining of them, something that occupied his every waking hour.

A Borrible name has to be earned because that is the only way a Borrible can get one. He has to have an adventure of some sort, and the name comes out of that adventure – stealing, burglary, a journey or a trick played on someone. That was the rule and Knocker was against it; it made it difficult, if not impossible, for a Borrible to join an adventure once he was in possession of a name. The first chance was always given to those who were nameless and this infuriated Knocker for he had a secret ambition to collect more names and have more adventures than any other Borrible alive.

A noise on the stairs disturbed Knocker’s reflections. He stood up and at the same moment Spiff flung open the door and strode theatrically into the room. His head was adorned with a magnificent hat of scarlet wool and he clutched the orange dressing gown tightly to his chest. Spiff had the clear face of a twelve-year-old child but his eyes were dark with wisdom: the wisdom, so it was rumoured, of a hundred years of existence. His nose was prominent; the kind of nose that smelt out trickery with ease.

He stopped short as soon as he saw the Rumble and he pushed his breath out over his teeth and made a whisper of a whistle.

‘At last,’ he said, like he was praying, ‘at last. It’s been a long while since I had my hands on one of these stinking rodents.’ He turned and beamed at Knocker and Lightfinger. ‘You lads have done marvellous, you’ve captured one alive and well, though he won’t be for long, the little basket. Found him in the park, eh? With hundreds of others, digging holes! That’s how it starts. Down here on our manor, taking it all for granted, think they’re the lords of creation, don’t they? Go anywhere, do what they like, we don’t count.’ He prodded and screwed the Rumble with a rigid index finger as he spoke. He turned to Knocker. ‘You know what this is?’

‘A Rumble.’

‘Yeah, a Rumble.’ Spiff was bitter. ‘No better than you or me for all their la-di-da manners. Years of them I’ve seen, sneerin’ at us down their hoity-toity snouts . . . lords of creation, moving in on our space whenever they think they will.’

Knocker and Lightfinger looked at each other. They had never seen Spiff so angry.

‘Oh, come on, Spiff,’ said Lightfinger, ‘it can’t be that bad; the Rumbles have never done me any harm.’

Spiff jumped a foot from the floor. ‘You don’t know you’re born. You know nothing about the struggles and fights we had to win free. It weren’t easy to stay alive even.’

‘Oh, I know about it all right but that was your time, not mine.’ And Lightfinger leaned against the wall, crossed his ankles and shoved his hands into his pockets.

‘Don’t care was made to care,’ said Spiff sententiously, ‘and history repeats itself; in fact it don’t repeat itself, it just goes on being the same.’

‘Well anyway, what are we going to do with this rabbit?’ asked Knocker.

‘Shove it in the cupboard,’ said Spiff, rubbing his chin. ‘I’ll call a meeting tomorrow. You two can run down the street with the message right now, before you go to bed. I know Borribles don’t like meetings but this is an emergency, and we will have to act and think together for once!’

Spiff took one last look at the Rumble, then he pulled his Borrible hat further on to his head, spun on his heels and left the room. Knocker got the prisoner to his feet and locked him in the store cupboard, then he and Lightfinger left by the basement door and spent the next few hours informing all High Street Borribles what was afoot. Finally the two exhausted lookouts got to their own room at the top of Spiff’s house and climbed into a bundle of old blankets and sacks that formed their bed.

‘Argaah,’ yawned Knocker, ‘what a day.’

‘Goo’ night,’ said Lightfinger, and was immediately asleep.

*

A Borrible’s main business is to stay alive. This is an occupation that takes up most of his time; getting food from wherever he can discover it, finding things before they are lost, stealing his provisions from barrows and out of superstore warehouses: stealing because the fundamental Borrible rule, the rule that is primordial to the way they live, the mainspring and motivation of their very being – rule number one – is that they must never have dealings in money. They have been brought up without it, and they must never touch it. If they do, bad luck and loss of freedom will follow as sure as night the day. That is why Borribles steal, and why they prefer to live near shopping centres and street markets like Brixton and Petticoat Lane, where food is easy to come by.

So important is that aspect of their life that they have many sayings that deal with it and they are all gathered together in the Borrible Book of Proverbs. Some of these maxims are very ancient, like, ‘that which falls off a lorry belongs to him who follows the lorry,’ and ‘That which is found has never been lost.’ One of their favourites is, ‘It is impossible to lose that which does not belong to you,’ and Borribles use that one a lot to people who complain about their thieving.

By eight o’clock on the morning following the capture of Timbucktoo Rumble, Battersea High Street market was in full swing. There were barrows and stalls along each side of the road and so little space was left for traffic that not a car dared venture down there. The barrows had been shoved very close together and it was easy for a Borrible to crawl underneath them from one end of the street to the other, picking up fruit on the way. It was a good way to get breakfast.

The costermongers shouted at each other and at prospective customers, urging them to buy. There were barrows selling fruit, ironmongery, fish and large crabs; the shops had their doors wide open and people were drinking tea in Notarianni’s cafe, talking loudly, making wild gestures with their hands. Brown’s, the pie and eel shop, was doing a brisk business and the inhabitants of the buildings – Archer House, Eaton House and White House – were loafing on street corners and thinking about passing bets in Ernie Swash’s, the bookmaker’s. The noise was so great that it rose right up the side of the house where Knocker and Lightfinger were sleeping and woke them from a deep slumber.

Knocker rolled over and woke his companion. ‘Come on, breakfast.’

He stretched his arms above his head; he hadn’t slept enough. The two Borribles had been out so late the night before that the coster-mongers had been loading their barrows as they came home; finding breakfast had been no problem and it was there beside them: one grapefruit, an orange and two large doughnuts dripping with jam.

Lightfinger rubbed his eyes and the old sacks and blankets dropped from him. He reached for the orange, bit it open and sucked hard, making a lot of noise. The orange was wonderful, fresh-tasting, chilled to ice crystals by the lorry journeys to and from Covent Garden.

‘Ooaagh,’ he groaned with pleasure, ‘that’s lovely.’

‘We’d better hurry up,’ said Knocker, ‘or we’ll miss the meeting.’

Halfway down the High Street was a disused brick-built hall. It had last been occupied by a firm of photographers called Scots of London, but they had departed long since and now the shop fell within the province of the Borribles. It was here that Spiff had asked the members of the Battersea tribe to gather; decisions had to be made and everyone was allowed a say.

Inside the hall, on a kind of podium, stood Spiff in conversation with a score of his cronies. Other Borribles, ragged, dirty and inquisitive, slipped in through broken doorways, and, talking furiously, waited in groups to see what might happen.

The moment he thought enough people were present Spiff stepped to the front of the stage and held up both arms like a politician. He shouted several times and gradually the hubbub of voices became less and less until eventually a kind of excited silence hung on the air, then Spiff began to speak, relishing the occasion, for he took a delight in speechifying.

‘Brother and sister Borribles, I am pleased to see so many of you here, for today is a day of decision. Our way of life is in jeopardy and we must either act together or perish.’

The hall became quieter and the tension rose.

‘Not to beat about the bush, I’ll give you the facts, then anyone who wants a say can have a say. Right, the facts. Last night, our chief lookout and his assistant . . .’

All heads turned to Knocker and Lightfinger.

‘. . . while on a routine inspection of the Battersea area, discovered that we had been invaded by the Rumbles.’

The crowd drew in a deep breath and then let it out again in a long explosion and Spiff looked round for effect and more silence.

‘It seems that a large force came down here, all the way from Rumbledom, and occupied the park for several hours. They were digging! Now, in my opinion, this can only be a preparation for a takeover of Battersea, an attack on our freedom, a new and subtle kind of slavery and a clipping of ears. Things have been bearable as long as the Rumbles have stayed in Rumbledom, where they belong, but this is something else.’

Murmurs of assent came from the assembly but Spiff held up his hand and went on.

‘In my opinion there is only one answer, my friends, pre-emptive defence. We must attack before we are attacked. We must destroy the Rumbles at the heart of their organization. However—’

Spiff broke off for a second and admonished the ceiling with a grubby finger.

‘—to carry out this plan we shall need to search carefully among the ranks of the nameless. From those who have not yet had their first adventure we must select the bravest, the slyest, the craftiest and the most resourceful. It is not only the enemy we have to fear, but the enormous distance between us and him, dangerous terrain. The Rumble is confident in his stronghold, blinded by his own conceit, safe, so he thinks, in the security of his own riches and comfort, but that is where we shall strike, with a handful of chosen Borribles. We shall need dedicated volunteers, but remember, those who go may never return. Blood will be spilt.’

At this there was a terrific hush in the hall and the Borribles looked at each other with trepidation. An adventure was one thing, death another.

‘We feel,’ went on Spiff, ‘that Battersea should not bear this brunt alone. All London Borribles are threatened. To this end messages will be sent out over the city and certain tribes will be asked to send their likeliest un-named champions to us for training and instruction. Likewise, from among the ranks of the Battersea nameless, we shall choose one who shows the greatest promise. We intend to approach the following groups: the Totters of Tooting, the Wendles of Wandsworth, the Stumpers of Stepney, the Whitechapel Wallopers, the Peckham Punch-uppers, the Neasden Nudgers and the Hoxton Humpers. Details of the raid will be worked out when all the candidates have arrived.’

Spiff stopped for breath and the hall became alive and words buzzed like bees. Who, people wondered, would be chosen as the Battersea representative on the expedition? An honour, yes, but a danger too.

Knocker swore to himself. ‘Why do I have my name already? What an adventure it’s going to be.’

Spiff called for quiet again. Now he prepared for his moment of high drama. He made a sign to the side of the stage and the prisoner was brought on for all to see. There was silence. The Rumble was still taped round the snout but its beady eyes glowed a fearful red and it stood upright and unmoved.

‘This,’ shouted Spiff, ‘is the enemy, no braver than us, no more dangerous; but they are difficult of access, living underground as they do, well-protected in their burrows. They are rich and they are powerful, and think themselves superior to all Borribles by divine right. This is the enemy who wants to take Battersea into its grasp. Even now they may be digging under the streets to emerge in your very backyard, even now they may be undermining your way of life, silently; dirty and evil, moles of the underground.’

Spiff took a deep breath and shook his arms in front of his body as if he was emptying a sack of cement; the crowd stirred with emotion. Spiff raised his voice a further notch.

‘This is the enemy, and we all know that they must be stopped at all costs. Yes, but more than that, they must be eliminated, and who are the Borribles to do it? Why we are!’

An enormous cheer rose from the audience. ‘Throw it in the river,’ came a voice from the back of the hall, ‘with a bicycle round its neck.’

This suggestion was so popular that it was taken up on all sides.

‘Yeah,’ came the shout, ‘in the river, steal a bike someone.’

Spiff smiled indulgently. ‘I understand your feelings,’ he looked at the Rumble, ‘but I have a better plan. Let me explain. The one thing that these objects fear above all others,’ he touched the Rumble lightly with a disdainful finger, ‘is disclosure! They would hate to be unmasked and shown for what they really are. In their mythology the greatest possible disaster is what they call the Great Rumble Hunt – an attack on their citadel of power – and we, the Borribles of Battersea, will start that Rumble hunt. But,’ Spiff had to shout across the cheering, ‘this is also to be a war of nerves; we want them to know that something really nasty is on the way – us! And that is where this little rodent comes in. We propose to stick a notice on to the fur of this carpet bag, and send it back to Rumbledom, living proof that we mean business. The message will say, “The Great Rumble Hunt is on. Beware the Borribles!” All those in favour say “Aye”.’

Another enormous cheer rose from the assembly; Spiff’s oratory had done its work, that was what he wanted. Borribles clasped each other, jumped up and down and shouted, ‘We’ll show ’em, we’ll teach them rabbits to come down here.’

As the cheering died away Spiff and his cronies left the building with the prisoner, and the hall gradually emptied as the Borribles went back to their squats, eager to discuss the morning meeting and to wonder who would be chosen as the Battersea ‘no-name’ for the Great Rumble Hunt. Those who were not known for their bravery kept very quiet and decided not to call attention to themselves, for a few Borribles manage to pass through life without ever earning themselves a name. But most are of a different stamp, and they ran to the market without delay, stole paper and wrote directly to Spiff, begging for the position.

But Knocker was disconsolate. He returned home alone, thwarted. He knew there was no chance of him being considered for the expedition to Rumbledom. He went into the basement of the deserted house and made his way upstairs. As he passed Spiff’s door it was thrown open and the cunning face of the most cunning of Borribles appeared, beaming.

‘Right, lad,’ he said, ‘in here. Just the bloke I want, look lively . . . Want a word with you.’

Knocker stepped inside the room, and removed his woollen cap; he had good pointed ears, a sign of high intelligence and alertness. Spiff smiled and settled into an armchair that must have fallen from a very expensive furniture lorry.

‘Sit down, lad,’ he said. ‘I wanted to thank you for your good work last night, champion that was, champion . . . but now I want to ask your advice. As you know, there are eight Rumbles in the Rumble High Command. I’m sure that if we can eliminate them, the rest of the Rumble set-up will fall to pieces, they’ll be too busy even to think of us any more. So that’s why I thought of sending eight Borribles only, one for each High Rumble. There will be one from Tooting, Hoxton, Wandsworth . . . You heard all that already. But, Knocker, who are we going to send from Battersea? The point is, you are out and about a lot, you see a lot of Borribles in action, who do you think would be a good choice?’

Knocker thought for a while. ‘It’s tricky,’ he said at length. ‘There’s quite a few who are good. There’s a bunch of bright lads down by the river, some others under the railway arches at Battersea Park station, but I think the brightest of the lot, out of the whole borough, is one who lives up on Lavender Hill, bright as a button and smart as paint.’

‘Whereabouts does he hang out?’ asked Spiff.

‘Underneath the nick,’ said Knocker.

‘Underneath the nick!’ cried Spiff. ‘He must be mad.’

Knocker laughed. ‘Oh, no. Bright. There’s a stack of rooms up there that are left empty every night. It’s centrally heated, blankets galore, constant electricity. You name it, he’s got it. In fact he’s very friendly with some of the coppers – the Woollies.’

‘Hmm,’ said Spiff, ‘and he’s a no-name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ Spiff went on, ‘that’s settled then. Send a runner up to Lavender Hill and get that wazzisname down here. As soon as the other seven come in from across London we shall have to begin a training session. As well as that, I want you to get some volunteers to do some spare-time thieving. We’re going to need lots of things for this expedition: grub, weatherproof clothing, high-quality catapults, watches, compasses, anything that might be useful . . . so get that organized. I know you’ve got your own thieving to do, and so have the others, but do what you can . . . We can’t afford to fail.’

Knocker nodded. His heart was bursting with pride, he was being involved in the Great Rumble Hunt, which was more than he had dared to hope.

‘Is there a chance of anything else, Spiff?’

‘What do you mean? You can’t go on the expedition, you know, that’s a rule.’

‘I know that. It’s, well, you said they would have to be trained. I’m a good Borrible lookout, well, I could train them . . . couldn’t I?’

Spiff gave Knocker a long look, a look that went right through him and saw everything. ‘Hmm,’ he said, smiling a secret smile, ‘you are keen, aren’t you? How many names have you got?’

‘Just the one,’ answered Knocker feeling uncomfortable.

Spiff chuckled. ‘You know what Knocker, you reminds me of me. You didn’t have to ask, I’d already thought of you . . . yes, you can train the team.’

Knocker got up to go, feeling proud of himself.

‘Here, take this envelope,’ said Spiff, ‘it’s instructions about the Rumble; he’s downstairs in the cupboard. Send him packing. Try not to let anyone see him, they might still chuck him in the river.’

Knocker ran downstairs and opened the cupboard. Sure enough the Rumble was there, his paws tied behind him and a notice glued on to his fur. Two other lookouts came into the room and leant against the wall to watch as Knocker read his instructions. When he had finished he removed the tape from the animal’s snout and sat it on a grape barrel.

‘You are being sent home, Rumble, alive. Take that message to your leaders and tell them what you have seen and heard.’

Knocker turned to the lookouts. ‘You two can escort him on the first stage of the journey. This envelope has instructions from Spiff. Take him to Clapham Junction and hand him over to the next Borrible tribe. Then he can be taken to the Honeywell Borribles, and they can take him up to the Wendles beyond Wandsworth Common; from there the Wendles will take him to Merton Road. This letter goes with him and explains what should be done at each stage. Finally, he should be released as near Rumbledom High Street as possible and allowed to find his way home. Any questions?’

The two lookouts shook their heads.

‘Right,’ said Knocker, ‘as soon as you’ve got rid of him report back to me. It is very important that he gets home in one piece, though it doesn’t matter what he looks like; the rougher the better. We’ve got to frighten the fur off every Rumble in existence.’

Timbucktoo jumped to his feet at this. ‘You don’t fwighten me, Bowwible, nor your fwiends. You don’t know what you’re taking on. We’ll be keeping a watch out for you; you’ll be skewered on our Wumble-sticks before you get a sight of Wumbledom Hill. You may be safe down here in your gwimy stweets and stinking back-alleys, but Wumbledom is a wilderness with twackless paths that only we can follow. This means war.’

Knocker swiped the Rumble round the ear, almost affectionately. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘you old doormat, before I knock that snout of yours through the back of your bonce.’

At a sign from Knocker his two assistants hauled the Rumble from the room on the first stage of his long and perilous journey, a journey on which he would be passed from hand to hand like a registered packet in the London post.

https://boingboing.net/2014/01/18/the-borribles-book-excerpt.html